“WAKEY, WAKEY.”
Stevie opened her eyes, but she was still in the dark. There was a hand shaking her shoulder. It took her a moment to process that the hand and the voice belonged to David. Stevie had dozed off leaning against the closet wall in her stack of pillows, And Then There Were None open in her hand. She shook her head hard and tried to seem alert and together, though she strongly suspected she had been drooling and snoring. There was a stiff crustiness to her whole body, the kind you get from wearing the same clothes for a few days because you’ve been preoccupied, then spending a winter’s day inside a pool closet with a bunch of chemicals.
“Up and at ’em,” David said. “Time to go home.”
“Home?”
“No point in hiding now,” he said. “That just makes them look for us and cause trouble.”
Stevie stepped out of the closet into the pool room. The glass ceiling was heavy with snow. Nate was looking up at it worriedly.
“I know it’s probably built for this weather,” he said. “But that is a lot of snow. Not to be a big baby or anything, but I don’t want to die in a shower of glass shards.”
The first thing they found was that they could no longer open the door; a foot of snow had already blocked it. They left through the window they had used to come in. The snow was pouring down. It was so heavy that Stevie couldn’t see the other buildings, just outlines in a white and night-pink world. The view was a bit magical—the Great House framed against the sky, with a white blanket set all around it. A few lights were on, glowing against the fierce, weird weather. The rest of Ellingham was dark. Nothing stirred in the library or the classrooms or the houses. Neptune was slowly being buried in his fountain, consumed by another form of water, which had slipped out of his control. The snow muffled everything. That was maybe the strangest part. Stevie realized that even though it was quiet up here, there was always a low, gentle current of noise—trees rustling in the wind, creaking wood, animals. Tonight, nothing but the operatic whistle of the wind. Their voices were flattened by the thick coating all around them, making each word stand out.
Not that they could say much. Walking was hard. Each step demanded that she pull her leg out of the almost knee-deep accumulation, lift up the other foot, and plunge it down through the snow. It was heavy and aerobic. She sweated from the effort of the walk, and the sweat created a halo of cold all over her body. It wasn’t long before her feet began to burn and go numb. By the time they had gotten back on the path to Minerva House, Stevie would have faced anything or anyone to get inside.
Minerva was deliciously warm when they trudged back in. There was a cheerful fire going, tended to by Hunter, who poked at it threateningly, in case it decided to get out of hand. He was wearing the fleece and slippers she had picked out for him. Pix was next to him, on the beaten-down sofa, wrapped in her massive brown fuzzy robe. Though she was dressed like a teddy bear, she had the look of a much more frightening creature on her face as she stood up.
“Everyone get changed so you don’t freeze to death,” she said. “Then you come right back here so I can yell at you. Because I am pissed.”
Stevie stumbled into her room, which was darker than normal as the snow had piled on her windowsill and blocked the window halfway. She knocked on the light switch with a raw, burning hand and peeled off her wet clothes. Everything hurt as her body came back up to temperature. Instinctively, she grabbed her robe and staggered across the hall to the shower. Even the hottest water felt cold against her skin. She huddled in the corner against the tiles until something approaching warmth took over again. Her feet were the last to come back online. She went out, numbly pushed her way back into her room, and grabbed at whatever clothes were closest and softest and warmest. Then she put on more—more socks, another sweatshirt on top of the first, then a blanket around her shoulders. Finally, covered in so many layers she had to shuffle, she went back to the common room. Janelle was there, in her fuzzy cat-face pajamas. Vi was wearing another borrowed pair covered in rainbows. David must have had one spare set of clothes in his big bag—the sloppy old Yale sweatpants that used to be his dad’s. He had been wearing them on the night they first kissed.
“Okay,” Pix said once everyone was seated. “I’m going to be really, really clear about some things. Everyone is under house arrest. Nobody leaves here until the snow clears. The school may be closed, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no way to enforce this. You want good recommendations at your home schools? Do you want any chance of coming back if we ever reopen? Do you want to go to college? You stay put until I say otherwise. Except you, Hunter. You can do whatever you like.”
“I can’t go anywhere either,” he said. “The snow is nuts.”
“No. But I have to say that you’re free to do whatever.”
“Fine,” David said, kicking back and putting his feet by the fire. “Nowhere to go anyway.”
“We’re not even going to get into where you’ve been,” Pix said. “Only because it’s probably not even relevant anymore.”
“I went on a quest,” he said.
Nate shot him a look that seemed to say, “Don’t joke about quests, jackass.”
“All of you,” Pix said. “Have you called home yet?”
“I don’t have a signal,” Vi said.
“Yeah, me either,” Nate said.
Stevie pulled out her phone. No signal.
“I have a landline upstairs,” Pix said. “We’ll take it in turns. Who wants to start?”
No one wanted to start, so somehow Stevie ended up going first. In all the time she had been at Ellingham, she had not been in Pix’s private apartment, which took up the space above the common room and kitchen, and also the area down the hallway opposite the upstairs rooms. She had painted the walls a clay color. There were beautiful Middle Eastern and African objects—brass teapots with long spouts; low, hexagonal tables topped in azure and white tiles; delicately carved wooden animals; tin and brass hanging lanterns with colored insets. There were reproduction hieroglyphics printed on vellum hanging alongside Pix’s other passion: her 90s music. She had at least a dozen original concert posters from bands like Nirvana. Nirvana was the only one Stevie recognized.
Of course, there were bones too. There were Pix’s precious teeth in the little craft organizer. Her mantel was decorated with some bones that were probably fake—a femur, a skull, a knee joint mounted on a little board. The rest of the place was filled with books—books in all directions, piled into bookcases and into stacks along the walls. Books next to her little sofa, books by the hallway and books on the table.
Pix handed her a landline phone. Stevie braced herself against Pix’s treadmill and dialed. Her mom answered.
“Hey,” Stevie said. “I’m sorry. I missed the coach. It all happened really fast, and . . .”
“You’re all right! Oh, Stevie, are you okay? Are you warm?”
To her utter amazement, her mom did not seem angry. The school had to have said something mild, that she had missed the coach or something—not that she had run and hidden in a pool until nightfall. This seemed like Call Me Charles’s work; it was his job to smooth the rough and make it seem like Ellingham wasn’t a total death trap. In his defense, he had done a pretty good job. All the bounciness and platitudes had some good effect.
“You stay in,” her mom said. “Stay safe, stay warm. As soon as the snow clears, you’ll come home.”
“Sure,” Stevie said, unsure of how to feel. When her parents were understanding about things, it always made her feel like a toad, like she was misjudging them.
“We love you,” her mom added.
What was this love stuff? It wasn’t something her parents and she did. They all felt it, but they didn’t go around saying it.
“I, um . . . yeah. We’re fine. We have lots of food, and, like, popcorn and stuff. And blankets and firewood.”
What was she saying? She must have been trying to build some mental picture of what a cozy weekend indoors in a cabin was like. Which, to be fair, was a pretty accurate picture. They did have food and popcorn and blankets and firewood. It would be cozy.
When she was done with the call, she handed Pix the phone.
“You seem confused,” Pix said.
“I thought they’d kill me,” Stevie replied.
“Surprise, Stevie. Your parents just want you to be safe.”
Pix put the phone back on the charging base and leaned against the wall.
“You guys are morons, you know that?” she said. “Out of all the houses, I got the most boneheaded. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy you’re all still here. Now come on. Let’s get all the calls out of the way and then we can eat. I raided the dining hall when I realized all of you were still here.”
The mood in the room lifted a bit as everyone made their calls and then the food started coming out of the kitchen. Pix had come back with a solid haul—trays of mac and cheese, plastic bowls of salad and fruit, lasagna, chicken, roasted potatoes, grilled tofu . . . whatever had been prepared for the day’s lunch, plus milk and juice and all kinds of drinks. There was too much of it to fit in the fridge, so Pix had put some of it outside, under the kitchen window. Nature had provided the refrigeration. There were plenty of the normal things like hot chocolate and popcorn and cereal. Really, they had all the makings of an amazing weekend in. One great last hurrah together. They all dug into the food enthusiastically.
“Who else stayed?” Janelle said. “Not just you, right?”
“You mean aside from you maniacs?” Pix said. “Mark from maintenance. Dr. Scott and Dr. Quinn. Vi, I’ll make up the upstairs room for you.” The upstairs room was Hayes’s room, but no one was going to say that. “You two”—she indicated both Janelle and Vi—“separate rooms.”
Vi and Janelle passed a silent look. Even Pix picked up on it.
“It’s nice to be back,” David said. “I’m going to go to my room, read. Enjoy the snow. See you all in the morning.”
“I think I’ll do the same,” Vi said. “I’m pretty tired.”
“It’s so weird not to be the first person who wants to go to bed and read,” Nate said, when those two had gone to their respective rooms. “Anyone want to play a board game or something?”
“I’m not really in the mood for a game,” Janelle said. “Night, everyone.”
Pix looked at the rapidly dwindling group at the table.
“Okay . . . ,” Nate said. “Well, the game I had in mind is better with a bigger group, so maybe I’ll call it a night too. Work on my book or something.”
Things had gotten dire. Now it was Stevie, Hunter, and Pix. Stevie knew that the right thing to do was sit and talk to Hunter. But she heard the footsteps overhead—David was once again in the house. After this storm, they would all be blown in different directions across the map. She would not be able to talk or focus. The best idea was to go the way of the others and try to go to sleep.
After an awkward good-night, she shuffled back to her room. She climbed into bed and stared at the wall, unable to turn out the light. It was unlikely any message would appear there, but she had an uneasy feeling that someone was watching, someone not in the house. This was impossible. The snow was driving down hard and the school was empty. She got up anyway and went to the window. It took a bit of effort to open; the cold had half frozen it shut. Once she did, arctic air and a blast of snow shot into her face. She picked up her heavy-duty flashlight and shone it out.
They were alone. Deeply, unnaturally alone, in a rugged, very serious way.
Stevie fought the wind to pull the window shut, then shivered and brushed the snow off herself. She climbed back into her bed.
She did not see the figure that reemerged from the shadow of a tree just outside.