I tried to imagine a scenario where a Pemberly Brown student would actually try to win the first challenge because the way I saw it, I had just landed in my own personal version of hell. The cabin was spacious and had absolutely no characteristics of an actual cabin (thank God). The marble bidet was only trumped by the constant questions from my dad about how I was feeling and the awkward staring from Siegfried. It was like being under house arrest, only instead of a DUI and an ankle bracelet, I had a slightly suspect mental history and a yellow backpack.
“Young lady,” Siegfried said for the millionth time. I’m not sure if he really couldn’t remember my name or if he was trying to make me uncomfortable. If I was a betting woman, I’d probably say both. “You are in a very good position. Very good. Throughout your stay in this cabin, I will give you tips and advice to secure your standing as number one.”
My dad raised his eyebrows at me and smirked. I scratched my eye using my middle finger and shot him a meaningful look, a move that probably would have gotten me grounded at home, but my dad just laughed. Turns out Camp Dad had a decent sense of humor.
“You also have the opportunity to spend your daily free time with me as your mentor.”
“Oh…um…wow. Neat.” “Neat” was about two steps removed from “groovy” when it came to outdated jargon. What the hell was happening to me? I had to get out of there. “It’s just that, Ms. D., our headmistress, she made it a point to remind me to spend time with my classmates. Especially during free time. You know, to build relationships?”
I backed toward the door, clutching my bathing suit and towel as though I was inching away from a pack of wild animals. Every chaperone appeared amused except for Siegfried. He looked hurt, but not hurt enough to guilt me into hanging around. My butt hit the swinging door and I pulled a Seth, sprinting as fast as I could across the grounds to the red team’s cabin.
The thump of bass pumped through every crack in the cabin, out cracked windows, and beneath the door. The red team’s chaperone, some bored-looking housewife, sat outside on a step texting on her phone. It was worlds away from Casa Siegfried across the way, the full-fat caramel macchiato to my stale police-station coffee.
Housewife shifted on her butt to make room for me to walk up the steps and offered a sympathetic smile at my sorry state of affairs over in the golden cabin. Before I could even open the door, Naomi came spilling out laughing and grabbed my arm to yank me in.
“Kate!” she screamed, her golden skin shimmering beneath a gauzy cover-up. The entire space smelled like coconuts and fun. “We were just going to come and find you. We’re going in the lake!”
I wanted to love her for thinking of me, for her bubbly personality and the magnetism that radiated off her in waves. You couldn’t not like Naomi Farrow. It was an impossibility. But then I caught sight of Liam, his eyes locked on Porter who was splayed out on his bunk, face turned toward the wall. Alistair had been caught in the crossfire just like Grace. Porter had lost a brother, Bradley a friend, and all for nothing. Alistair’s death didn’t stop anything. It wasn’t a call to arms, didn’t spur a new set of rules. It was a domino effect. Clayton Dorian was still in the hospital.
Anyone could be next. And Naomi Farrow was the problem, not the solution. We were like two poles on the same magnet, pushing against each other without even knowing it. Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing.
“The dressing room’s open. Go change!” she said, her white teeth flashing in the sun that streamed through the open windows. I held on to her eyes a bit longer than normal, wishing I would see something there, some glimmer of truth, but she flushed and looked down before anything became clear.
“Right. I’ll just be a second.” As I adjusted my bikini behind the closed door, I gazed at the lake sparkling under the late-afternoon sun. Even though it was unseasonably warm for April, the water would still be frigid. But no Ohio girl would ever pass up an opportunity to get some sun on an actual beach. This should have been fun. My biggest concern should have been figuring out how to convincingly lose Siegfried’s lame challenges. But the beach, the forest, the charming cabins were all laced with a bitterness that burned my throat and left my stomach raw.
A sense of foreboding gurgled and twisted inside, and even the sight of the pebbled sand and the surprisingly blue lake water couldn’t calm me. Laughter erupted behind the closed door, and I realized my time was up. I’d just have to shadow Naomi as we’d planned, and maybe everything would be okay.
All of us trekked to the beach, even Porter and Bradley. I couldn’t help but notice the circles that ringed Bradley’s eyes. Having Porter around was hard on him, a constant reminder, but his smile shook less than it had in days, and he was laughing his real laugh, so maybe things were getting easier. Maybe this trip really was helping him work through some of his grief.
Maybe it was helping all of us.
“We’re lucky, you know?” Naomi cradled her head in her hand and turned on her towel toward me. “Pemberly Brown can be totally messed up sometimes and I hate that my brother is hurting and that you…” she hesitated. “Well…you know, but we’re still lucky. I mean, we’re here.”
Maddie squealed as Seth splashed her with the cold water, and Liam played Frisbee with a bunch of the guys. Bradley had passed out a few towels down, and the beach was dotted with students and chaperones. Bethany and Taylor gossiped quietly on a beach blanket. Even Siegfried had come to play. (He’d left his bow tie at the hut.)
I wanted to believe that Naomi was right. That it was luck that we’d been selected for this trip. Luck that we were here while our friends were dead and buried. Luck that I had been the one to lose a best friend, the one whose life was divided forever by death.
But there was nothing lucky about it.
I re-tied my straps and propped myself up on bent arms. “Sometimes I think we make our own luck. Or someone makes it for us.”
I waited to see if Naomi would bite, but her eyes remained trained on the water. We sat there in silence, watching the birds swoop overhead. Later, we shrugged back into our cover-ups and began preparations for the nightly bonfire.
Siegfried and the chaperones spoke vaguely about the morning challenge and our responsibilities to set goals. Because of my golden pack status, I led the three parts of Reflectere—Venimus, “We have come;” Lusimus, “We have played;” and Vicimus, “We have won.”
The fire died down to a sputter and someone yawned, setting off a yawn chain around the circle. If we wanted to perform well tomorrow, Siegfried suggested we sleep. In that case, I wondered if I should pull an all-nighter.
“Are we cool?” Liam asked, elbowing me lightly.
I had no idea how to respond to that question. He’d barely said two words to me over the past few days. I’d seen actual photographic evidence of him making out with Bethany, and he was currently spending all of his free time with another girl in hopes of catching her doing something shady. There was absolutely nothing cool about any of it. And yet, what could I really say? I was the one who told him we were over. I was the one who kissed Bradley. I was the reason he was spending all of this time with Naomi. This was all my fault.
“Yeah. We’re cool.” I glanced behind me and lowered my voice. “You’ll watch her, right?”
“I’m on it,” he replied, rolling up his towel.
Liam. He had resisted and fought me and pushed any involvement away, and now, as he walked back to the cabin only a beat behind Naomi, I wondered what had changed his mind. It couldn’t have had anything to do with me. But that didn’t stop a flicker of hope from melting just a little of the ice that surrounded my heart like a cage.