Lennon drove through the night, stopping only to get gas, change her clothes (she kept a gym bag in the back seat of the car), and pee at a run-down rest stop in the red deserts of Wyoming. Through the course of her journey, she made a point to avoid using the rearview mirrors (for fear of what she’d see if she did), only briefly glancing at them when she was forced to. It helped that the highway was mostly empty, with only a few semis sharing the road with her. It was nearing dawn by the time she crossed into Utah. After driving for hours, she arrived in Ogden, stiff from sitting for so long. Strangely, she wasn’t tired.

As she approached Ogden, she kept replaying the congratulatory phone call from Drayton in her head and she realized that at first, the voice on the line hadn’t been gendered. It had sounded almost automated in its neutrality, and she couldn’t place it as male or female or anything in between…until it had become hers. Which begged the question, how had it become hers? And how had it (she?) known about Wyatt’s infidelity? How had it known that she was there to receive the call at all? She felt like she was living the loose logic of dreams and wondered for a moment if this was a dream—the thing that appeared in the bathroom mirror, Wyatt’s affair with Sophia, the phone call, her own voice warbling over the line. Or if it wasn’t a dream, then perhaps it was a delusion as vivid and convincing as it was tragic…and pathetically grandiose. She wondered if perhaps this was some sort of manic episode like the ones she’d suffered in the past. But those episodes had always been characterized by an unwavering sense of conviction—in herself and the forces that fueled her delusions, be they genius or the mechanisms of fate. But as her hands tightened, white-knuckled, around the steering wheel, she felt only small and helpless, adrift on a dark tide that carried her to what, she didn’t know.

Lennon kept driving, following the directions on her GPS. She entered a small historic district in the shadow of a mountain, used for skiing in the wintertime. There, the streets were narrow, canopied by the lush branches of the trees that grew on either side. She found her destination at the curve of a large cul-de-sac: an imposing redbrick mansion set far off the street, half-shrouded by a copse of overgrown hawthorns. Its roof was low-slung over the second-story windows, and it made the house look like an old man frowning at her approach.

She parked in the empty driveway and checked her phone. Seven missed calls (three from Wyatt and four from her mother) and twelve text messages (one from Wyatt, five from her mother, six from her older sister, Carly). Lennon left everything unanswered—the text messages, the voicemails, and the countless questions she’d asked herself through the duration of her drive—got out of the car to rifle through the contents of the trunk, until she found the grease-blackened crowbar resting below the spare tire. She weighed it in both hands, nodded to herself as if to summon what little courage she had to muster, and then slammed the trunk shut.

The yard was large and covered in a dense carpet of grass. The hedges that lined the house were round and well shaped. Lennon tramped through the plush lawn, crowbar in hand, and stepped up onto the porch. The front door was set with a small window of stained glass that distorted the glimpse of the foyer behind it. Hanging on the wall beside the door was a large plaque that detailed the extensive history of the house (apparently it had been owned by some oil baron millionaire from the 1800s).

Lennon knocked three times, hard and in quick succession. A brief pause then footsteps. The door creaked open. A man stood in the threshold, barefoot in a loose linen shirt and pants to match. He was only a little taller than Lennon, maybe six feet even, with lively blue eyes that wrinkled at the edges when he smiled, with all the warmth and fondness you’d expect from a friend who hadn’t seen you for some time. He looked to be in his late forties, and Lennon found him to be almost excessively good-looking.

“Well,” he said, still smiling at her, his teeth so straight and white they looked like a set of dentures, “you must be Lennon.” He glanced down at her crowbar. “Can I take that off your hands?”

Lennon handed over the crowbar with some reluctance. In retrospect, she wasn’t sure why she did it. She didn’t know or trust this man. She wasn’t sure if he was the only one in the house. But when he’d asked that question, and made to reach for the crowbar, her resolve had abruptly softened…and a calm had washed over her, as though she’d taken a Valium.

He stooped slightly, leaning her crowbar against the wall. “I’m Benedict. Just like the breakfast dish,” he said, straightening, and ushered her inside with a flourish of his hand. He closed the door behind her but didn’t lock it.

The walls of the foyer were paneled in the same dark mahogany as the floors, and the house smelled of polish and potpourri. There was an ornate birdcage elevator to the left of the door, just beside the stairs. Benedict led Lennon past the elevator and down a narrow hall. As they walked, the floors groaned beneath their feet, in what seemed like a begrudging welcome.

Benedict led her past the kitchen and through the parlor to a little study off the back of the house, with a wall of windows and French doors opening out onto a small, sun-washed solarium. The study was covered in a grid of shadows cast from the window stiles and bars. Benedict gestured to a large oak desk. There were two chairs drawn up on either side. Benedict sat in one and Lennon sat in the other.

“I suppose I should tell you about Drayton,” said Benedict, and his eyes took on the faraway look of someone moved by memory. “I graduated years ago. You might’ve been just a fluttering in your mother’s womb back then. Maybe less than that, even. Little more than an egg and an idea.”

Benedict’s eyes came back into focus, and he blinked quickly, like he was only just remembering that Lennon was sitting there. “Tell me, what do you know of Drayton?”

“Nothing. I’ve never heard of it. I didn’t even apply.”

“Of course you did. Everyone’s applied, whether they know it or not.”

“But how is that possible? Don’t I need to present a portfolio or take some sort of exam?”

“You’re already taking it. The first phase of testing begins at birth.”

“And the second?” Lennon asked, pressing for more.

“This interview.”

“And the third?”

“The entry exam, but you shouldn’t worry about that,” said Benedict, looking mildly irritated. “Candidates always have so many questions when they come here, but most don’t make it past the interview. Besides, there’s little I can say to ease your curiosity. Drayton is to be experienced not explained. All I can tell you is that Drayton is an institution devoted to the study of the human condition. At least, that’s what they put on the pamphlets they passed out at my orientation. Perhaps its ethos has changed since then. It’s been many years.” Benedict stood up, one of his knees popping loudly. “Before we begin, let me make you something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“And yet you must eat,” he said, waving her off. “You can’t interview on an empty stomach. Besides, you’ll need it for the pain.”

“I’m not in any pain.”

“It’ll come,” said Benedict, and a sharp chill slit down her spine like the blade of a razor. Lennon wondered, shifting uncomfortably in her chair, if she was entirely safe in this strange house with this strange man who was supposed to be from Drayton. What if this was all some elaborate sex-trafficking scheme wherein the targets were “gifted and talented” kids who’d never received their magic school acceptance letters and grew up to become depressed, praise-starved, thoroughly gullible adults.

Benedict disappeared down the hall and into the kitchen. There was the clattering of pots and pans, water running and later boiling. Unsure of what to do, Lennon turned her attention to the strange portrait hanging over Benedict’s desk. The lower half of the painting was rendered in hyperrealistic detail, depicting a man dressed in a flesh-colored tweed blazer, and a crisp white shirt buttoned up to the throat. But the upper half of the image was distorted, as if the artist had—in a moment of great frustration—taken up a wet washcloth and viciously smeared the thick layers of oil paint, as if to wipe the canvas clean. There were stretched and gaping eye sockets, a ruined mouth, the twisted contour of what might have been a nose, but it was hard for Lennon to say.

“A former student painted it for me,” said Benedict. He stood in the doorway, holding a breakfast tray. On it: a delicately folded cloth napkin, a bowl of pasta, a glass of wine, and a small dish stacked with pale cookies.

Glancing at the spread he’d prepared, Lennon realized she must’ve been gazing at that painting longer than she’d realized. “It’s…compelling.”

“Quite,” said Benedict, and he set the tray down in front of her, taking a seat in the chair beneath the portrait. He nodded to the food. “Go on, then.”

Lennon ate. The pasta was herbaceous and a little too lemony.

“How do you like it?” Benedict inquired.

“It’s very good,” said Lennon, chewing mechanically. She hated eating in front of people, and strangers especially, but she didn’t want to appear rude.

“You grew up in Brunswick, Georgia,” said Benedict, watching her eat. His eyes were wide and grave. “Yours was the only Black family within your neighborhood, a half-built subdivision that went under in the last recession. The movers you hired warned your parents—as a kindness—that families like yours didn’t move into neighborhoods like that. Your father was a high school history teacher. He and your mother were both avid bird-watchers. Do you hold these facts to be true?”

Lennon faltered with the fork raised halfway to her mouth. “How did you know all of this? I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand the mechanics of how a person on one side of the world can take a call from someone on the other. But you trust your own ears and you know that it’s true. This is no different. You don’t understand the mechanics of how you came to be here, but it is real, and it is happening, so all you need to do is trust that someone, or something, more informed than you must have made this happen.”

“So you’re saying this is all some type of magic?”

“May I remind you that I’m the interviewer,” said Benedict, not unkindly, though his tone was rather firm. “I ask the questions for now.”

Lennon fell silent.

“When you were young, you would often wake in the morning to see your father standing on the back porch of the house, peering into a pair of binoculars, bird-watching. One day, he spotted a nest of starlings in the branches of an oak tree. What did your father teach you to do to the starlings?”

“I don’t see how these questions relate to my admission.”

“You’re not meant to. Just answer them as best you can. What did he teach you to do to the starlings, Lennon?”

“Crush their eggs,” she whispered tonelessly, her cheeks flushed from the shame of it.

“And what about the starlings that had already hatched—the little ones huddled in their nests among a graveyard of cracked eggs? What did he teach you to do to them?”

“He told me to take their heads between thumb and pointer finger, and twist them, fast and hard, the way you’d turn a bottle cap.”

“And why did your father tell you to do this?”

“Because…because the starlings were a menace to other birds. They drove them away, stole their nests, and spread disease. He called them vermin and told me that it was imperative to sacrifice a few to save many.”

Benedict smiled, and it was an entirely different expression than the one he had welcomed her with at the door. So different, in fact, that Lennon considered the idea that this was the first moment he had been truly genuine. “You walk down a narrow lane. Someone walks toward you from the opposite direction. The path isn’t wide enough to accommodate both of you, standing shoulder to shoulder. Are you the one that steps aside?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“This is a yes-or-no question. Are you the one that steps aside, Lennon?”

“Yes.”

Benedict appeared appeased. He nodded to her engagement ring, an heirloom that had belonged to the dead great-aunt of someone significant on Wyatt’s father’s side of the family. The center stone was nearly two carats, and the band was encrusted with other smaller stones that glittered brilliantly when the sunlight struck them. The first time she’d slipped it on her hand, it felt heavy. “You’re married?”

“Not yet,” or likely ever—on account of the fact that her fiancé was fucking one of her supposed friends—but she didn’t say that last bit out loud. “I got engaged over the winter.”

“To Wyatt Banks?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me more.”

“About Wyatt?”

Benedict appeared, for a moment, disgusted. He waved her off with a flap of his hands. “We don’t need to waste any more time on that man. I know enough of the sob story—pretty little girl leaves her dreams and aspirations to become a bauble, an accessory to the life of a man she, wrongly, believes is more significant than she is. Does that about sum it up?”

Lennon felt like she’d been backhanded across the face. “W-well, I wouldn’t say I was an accessory. I mean, Wyatt and I are engaged—well, we were engaged.”

“What happened?”

“I found him with someone else. Just before coming here.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

It seemed like a stupid question. How would anyone feel when they watched the life they’d built for themselves unravel before their eyes? Lennon answered anyway. “I mean…I wanted to die. In fact, I planned to.”

“Was that the first time you’ve wanted to end your life?”

She shook her head. “I’ve had my…struggles before.”

Benedict nodded, knowingly, and with sympathy that seemed neither forced nor pitying. He produced a box of tissues and passed it to her across the desk. Lennon stared at them, confused for a moment, then realized she was crying. She never cried in front of strangers. Ever. The humiliation alone was enough to keep the tears from flowing. She hadn’t even cried when she’d discovered Wyatt with Sophia in the bathroom. But Benedict had…dismantled something deep within her; he’d given her the license to release—grieve, even.

“I want to let you know that you’re free to leave if this is too painful for you,” said Benedict, as Lennon hastily wiped her eyes. “This is an emotionally harrowing experience, and a painful one at that. Few make it this far, and most who do won’t graduate to the final step of the admissions process. If you choose to leave now, you’ll follow in the footsteps of many others. But I’ll warn you that the questions I ask you today are the same questions you’ll ask yourself tomorrow, and the day after, and decades later, in the twilight years of your life. You’ll never escape them, which is not to say you’ll find answers for them either. But I’m of a mind that the difficult questions should always be asked, whether they can be answered or not. Do you agree?”

“Yes. At least I want to.”

The left edge of Benedict’s mouth twitched twice. “Then I’m happy to say you’ve passed the interview and may now proceed to the final step of your admissions process, the entry exam. Take the elevator in the foyer up to the eighth floor.”

“But this is a two-story house.”

“I’m well aware.”

Lennon stared at him blankly. Benedict stared back. “You’d better be on your way,” he said. “Drayton waits for no one.”