“Who has threatened you? Who are they?” Bertilla asked.
But her aunt was already pulling a gun out of a cupboard and carrying it with a box of cartridges into the classroom.
Bertilla had put the shutters over the windows after she had cleaned the rooms, not that she had thought at the time to keep people out, but to prevent the insects with which the forest abounded from coming in.
There were not only moths and beetles but also bats and small birds that could fly all over the place unless kept out.
Her aunt was still talking to herself,
“They will get more than they bargained for. I will teach them a lesson they will not forget. Barbarians! Savages! Murderers! If I kill two or three of them they will soon learn who is the Master!”
Bertilla watched her in perplexity as she knelt down
