MY RAGE SPIRALED to an all-time high as I stomped through campus. Had Richard devised some elaborate plot to bring me here? Had he somehow summoned the demonic energy that had caused all the hauntings? Was he the one responsible for fucking Morgan’s shit up?
If any of this was even a little bit true, I was going to fuck his shit up.
But first I needed to find him.
The most likely place was probably his office, located in Morgan Hall. Even though Pippa had noted that office hours were over, I knew that whenever Richard wasn’t teaching class or making endless tea in his cottage, he liked to putter around and revel in the fact that he had one of the nicest corner offices in the building.
I adjusted my stomping trajectory, aiming myself toward Morgan Hall.
My heels were still sinking into the grass, but now they felt powerful again, enhancing my anger and propelling me with every step. The night air was freezing cold, but my rage kept me warm.
The front door to Morgan Hall was open, so I didn’t have to burn off my third doorknob of the night.
I stomped up the stairs, gaining strength from their now familiar creak. Richard’s office was on the fourth floor, at the end of the hall to the right. I still remembered. I reached the door and knocked hard, yelling out his name for good measure.
No answer.
I tested the doorknob. Also open.
I let myself in, still yelling his name.
My yelling only bounced off the walls of an empty room, though—there was no one here. Just eerie silence, which made my angry voice seem even louder.
My gaze went to Richard’s desk, piled high with books, his laptop, and various pretentious-looking fountain pens. The tree branches outside whispered against the window, as if trying to tell me all their secrets.
I crossed the room, brushing aside the shiver that wanted to run up my spine, trying not to let the whispering branches unnerve me, and opened his laptop. I clicked around, not sure of what I was looking for—maybe a handy note that just said I DID IT, I SUMMONED THE GHOSTS? Given the completely bananas shrine I’d just witnessed, it didn’t seem entirely out of the question. I pulled up his email and scrolled through his inbox, his sent messages . . . and there, right in the middle of the scroll, was a message that had been sent to both Team Tanaka/Jupiter’s official address and my own personal email. My heart was beating very fast as I opened the message—I swore I could hear it thrumming through my entire body, echoing in my eardrums, drowning out all other sound.
Greetings, esteemed alum, from Morgan College! We are ever so pleased to invite you to your class reunion, taking place this coming weekend. Activities include . . .
I frowned at the message, trying to make sense of it all. It looked like Richard had disguised his email address with a generic-sounding Morgan College email, but there was no mistaking what had happened here. I flashed back to the red-haired woman greeting Aveda and me, how she’d been happy I was there, but also very confused as to why I was there. I remembered how I’d found the invite so odd and last minute . . .
The college hadn’t invited me to the reunion—Richard had.
I clicked around some more, opening up an email that appeared to be from Provost Glennon.
Take care of this, the subject line warned.
There was no text in the message, just an attachment. I opened it.
Complaint filed by: Julie Vũ, junior
Complaint subject: Professor Richard Covington
Details: It is my belief that Professor Covington’s teaching methods are not merely lacking in educational value, but that they are actually harmful to the student body of Morgan College—young people who are finding their voices and learning to express themselves. Numerous times in class, Professor Covington has belittled students’ opinions, calling their readings of the text superficial or, on one particularly egregious occasion, “girly” in a way that was clearly meant as derogatory—
“Well, Evelyn, I see you’re learning all my secrets. Find anything good on that laptop?”
My head snapped up to see Richard leaning in the doorframe, smug smile firmly in place. His blue eyes glittered with satisfaction.
“You’re going to tell me everything,” I commanded. I stood and drew myself up tall, trying to give him my most intimidating superheroine look. Trying to find all that strength I’d felt earlier, when I’d hurled the plate while my friends cheered me on. “What’s going on? What did you do to Julie Vũ? And why do you have a freaking shrine to me on your bedroom wall?!”
He chuckled and pushed off from the doorframe, sauntering across the room to meet me. He looked so unbothered. Which only served to stoke my rage even more.
“Oh, Evelyn,” he said, reaching out to brush my hair off my face. I slapped his hand away. I felt my face getting hot again, that explosive anger beating against my chest. “You always had so much potential. And you were so feisty when I pushed you.”
“Answer me,” I hissed. “Are you so desperate for attention that you lured me here under the pretense of a class reunion and then haunted the college so I’d chase after the mystery and hang out here longer and then, I don’t know, end up falling in love with you?”
“I have missed you so,” he said, gazing at me fondly. “And yes, many of the ghostly encounters have been engineered to appeal to you specifically. I mean, a girl crying over taking care of her sister? A young woman of color who felt overwhelmed by all her responsibilities? Another who felt like she never quite fit in?” He laughed heartily, throwing his head back so all his snow-white teeth showed.
“Engineered by who?” I pressed. “Just you or—”
“Ah-ah,” he said, shaking a professorial finger at me. “That’s by whom.”
“Fuck you very much.” I batted his finger out of my face. “Tell me what happened.”
“I did want to get you back here,” he said, his gaze softening. “I thought if I could get you to return, maybe you could finally fulfill all that potential I saw in you so long ago. That you could finally become great.”
“I am great,” I hissed at him. “I’m a fucking superhero. And even if I wasn’t, I certainly don’t need your validation. My life is perfect. It’s everything I want. It’s full of adventure and love and I’m going to have a baby, a family—”
“Ah, yes.” He smirked at me. “Poor Evie. That’s what you always wanted, isn’t it? People to love you unconditionally—god knows your parents didn’t. Otherwise, why would they have left you alone to raise that out-of-control brat of a sister?”
“My mom died of cancer, asshole,” I spat out. “And Bea has grown into an amazing person—”
“But it’s no thanks to you, is it? She had to find her own way, after you ruined her beyond fixing.” His smug smile widened as he leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Have you ever told her about that night—when you made that decision? When her behavior forced you to make that decision, I should say.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice shook a little, my hands fisting at my sides. This conversation had very quickly gotten out of my control and I felt like I was scrambling around in the dark, trying to figure out how to get it back on track. This had always been one of the most infuriating things about Richard—no matter how obviously he was at fault, he had a knack for turning things around so you were on the defensive. And I hadn’t been able to see that so clearly until now.
“Oh, you know,” he said, his smug smile never wavering. “You forget, Evelyn—before your hulking brute of a husband came into the picture, I knew you better than anyone. And frankly . . .” He cocked an eyebrow, his eyes scanning my face. “I think I still do.”
“I can assure you that is most definitely not true,” I snarled.
“Then why do I know what you refuse to admit—even to yourself?” he said.
“What’s that?” I snapped. I was trying like mad to keep the shake out of my voice, the tremble out of my body. I tried to just feel that rage again . . .
His smile widened again and he leaned in so close I could smell his flowery cologne. “You were always going to quit. You never had what it takes. You were weak, and at the first sign of any trouble, you crumbled. And you left.”
“I left because . . .” I stopped abruptly.
Because you made me so mad and then I caught you fucking someone else and accidentally burned down the library and I couldn’t deal with the idea that I was two seconds away from destroying everything else around me.
But I couldn’t say that part out loud.
“I decided this wasn’t what I wanted for myself,” I said.
“Ah, you don’t remember, then,” he said, gloating. “You confided in me one night after a particularly passionate lovemaking session. You told me you were so tired, you just couldn’t do it anymore. That you had to take care of that brat sister of yours, because your love for her was more important than fulfilling your potential, than being truly great. Of course I tried to convince you otherwise, but you would not be swayed. You told me some garbled story about peanut butter, of all things. How that’s what decided it for you.”
I shook my head, frantically digging back through my memory. What was he talking about? I remembered that night with Bea and the peanut butter . . . I remembered how I’d barely turned in my paper on time the next morning, and how I’d gone to Richard’s place after and passed out in his bed. How we’d had sex later, and then . . .
I frowned. What had happened after that?
We’d talked for a while, but I barely remembered it. I’d been so sleep-deprived and full-body exhausted after staying up with Bea all night, and I’d been rambling . . .
“And then you left without so much as a good-bye,” Richard said, putting on a faux-mournful face. “That’s when I knew you’d actually followed through with it—you’d chosen the brat.”
“Whatever I chose,” I said, trying to draw myself up tall again, “I’m happy with it. I’m happy with my life.”
“You can’t lie to me,” Richard said. “Maybe you can lie to your himbo husband, but I know you better than that. If you were truly happy with your life, you wouldn’t be here, would you? Chasing ghosts and spending so much time with your ex.”
“I’m doing my job—” I sputtered.
“Are you?” he retorted. “Because you seem to be failing on that front as well. Honestly, Evelyn, if you were going to choose the brat over your future . . . well, you should have at least made it worth it. But from what I can see, she’s an out-of-control freakshow—”
“Do not talk about Bea,” I growled.
“—and you can’t even perform your superheroine duties in an adequate manner,” he continued, ignoring me. “What have you done since you’ve been here? Gotten drunk off of dorm party punch, run around campus trying to chase down ghosts with your friend, and utterly failed at protecting the young Morgan students you’re supposed to be saving from harm.”
“That’s not—”
“Not what?” he said, his eyes glinting with triumph. “Shelby’s still withdrawn and sad, Pippa’s been through a horrible kidnapping ordeal, Tess has been kicked out of the ghost-hunting society, and Julie Vũ’s in the hospital.” He leaned in, relishing the way tears were starting to prick my eyeballs, the way my face was flushing with frustration. “How do you expect to save these children when you can’t even save yourself? And how do you expect to bring a child into this world . . .” He smirked at my abdomen. “. . . when you’ve done such a piss-poor job at accomplishing anything in your sad little life?”
“Stop,” I hissed, my tears spilling over. “Just . . . stop.”
“I still love you, Evelyn,” he said, reaching over again to brush my hair off my face. Now I was trembling too badly to stop him—I couldn’t tell if it was from rage, from frustration, from sadness . . . maybe from all of the above. “Come to me when you want to be great. When you’re ready to be great.”
“Richard . . .”
Tears were streaming freely down my cheeks now and my throat was so tight, I could barely gasp the words out.
I reached up to push his hand away.
And my hand passed right through him.
“What . . .” I looked at my hand, then back at him.
His smile was so smug now, it looked like his face was about to break in half.
“Farewell, Evelyn,” he said.
Then he vanished into thin air.