ABIGAIL HOUSE SITS by itself among the trees. It was a girls’ dormitory at one point, then used to house staff with families, and when I started at Atwood it was an unassuming two-story house with peeling white paint that visiting parents occasionally stayed in. Ms. Fournier’s money and determination have remade it. The architectural style has been preserved, but the paint and siding are fresh, the windows top of the line. A huge water tank has been installed out back. The house has been completely disconnected from the well-water supply that the rest of the campus uses.
Mrs. Clarke opens the front door with a combination plugged into a keypad over the lock. “I’ll make sure to write the code down for you,” she notes. A camera mounted above the doorway points a single black eye down at us. I stare at my dark reflection in the convex glass.
Immediately inside the door is a large entryway and another door with another keypad. To the left and right are standing screens, and next to the inner door is a bank of cubbies. From one of these, Mrs. Clarke fetches a set of maroon sweats and a sweatshirt and hands them to me.
“No clothes that have been worn outside can pass through the inner door,” she explains. “Put whatever you’re wearing into the blue hamper—that one’s just for you—or fold it for when you leave and place it in your cubby. You can wear these for now, until your luggage arrives.”
I nod as if I understand, though the strangeness of this is starting to hit me.
“One of the perks of Abigail House is that you don’t have to do any of your own laundry, at least,” Mrs. Clarke says. “It’s collected Monday and Thursday and returned the next day.”
“Neat,” I say, because it seems like I should say something.
Mrs. Clarke raises one shoulder in an almost-shrug, a what-can-you-do gesture, like she knows exactly how disorienting this all must be.
I take the offered clothes and go behind one of the screens. I discover that it also conceals a small shower. I glance over my shoulder to make sure that Mrs. Clarke can’t see me before I carefully shrug out of my shirt and pants, taking care not to jostle my arm any more than it already has been. There’s no mirror for me to check the bruising on my back, but I take a paranoid survey of my arms and ribs. Nothing visible, though my ribs still hurt when I twist the wrong way.
I can still feel that weight on my back. The knee grinding down beside my spine, squeezing the breath out of me until lights popped in my vision.
You’ve got a foul mouth, Princess.
It could have been worse. Every girl in the world knows what kind of worse it could have been. There was nothing sexual about what happened to me—Dylan’s interest in me had been so bluntly nonsexual, so devoid of attraction or innuendo that it was strangely dehumanizing. I might have been a dog or a piece of furniture, as far as he was concerned. Now I try to feel grateful for that, to tell myself it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It’s cold comfort.
I pull on the spare outfit quickly and fold up my clothes. I carry them back out and put them in one of the empty cubbies just as Mrs. Clarke emerges from behind the other screen to do the same. In the Atwood sweats instead of her starched white button-up, she looks younger. It turns her harsh lines soft and seems to shrink her.
“It starts to be routine faster than you think,” she says, and puts in the code for the inner door.
A single hallway splits the house down the middle. There’s one door to either side, left and right, with a second on the left down near the end of the hall. At the far end is a door with a glass upper panel, beyond which I can see a set of stairs. Every door but one has its own keypad. It makes me think of a laboratory in a zombie movie, set up to contain the outbreak of a monstrous virus.
“Those are Ms. Fournier’s rooms,” Mrs. Clarke says, indicating the right-hand side. “She spends about half the year abroad or in New York and half here. I’m sure you’ll get the chance to meet her soon.”
“Doesn’t she want to talk to me first?” I say, the thought occurring to me belatedly. “Before she agrees to pay my tuition?”
“We made sure that she was on board before we approached you,” Mrs. Clarke assures me. “She’s very clear that she doesn’t want Delphine to be alone, and Aubrey’s departure being so sudden, she understands the constraints.”
“When did it happen? Aubrey’s accident?” I ask.
“Last week.” That means Aubrey must have arrived early for fall term. Another way that Abigail House has its own rules, I suppose. “I’ve been staying here since,” Mrs. Clarke adds.
“What was she doing by the pool?” I ask. The pool is fenced in. It isn’t like it’s a normal place to go for a stroll.
“That I don’t know,” Mrs. Clarke says briskly. There is something she isn’t telling me. An uneasy feeling scuttles over my skin. “In any case, the door at the end of the hall to the left is the utility room. The stairs lead up to Delphine’s rooms. The door at the bottom of the stairs must be closed at all times. Especially at night. And it must be locked.”
She says it as if it makes perfect, rational sense. As if it’s entirely logical that the night would hold hidden threats to a sick girl.
“And these are your rooms,” she finishes.
I make a little sound of half-disbelieving amusement. The suite is huge—at least compared to our usual rooms. Atwood has grown randomly in fits and starts over the decades, with new buildings being added without any real theme or consistency. That means that some buildings have small college dorm–style doubles, while my friends and I claimed the ground floor of Westmore, with four singleton bedrooms sharing a common room, three-quarter bathroom, and kitchenette.
This is more like a one-bedroom apartment, and a spacious one at that. A full galley kitchen sits at one end. A white binder sits on the kitchen table, bristling with tabs.
“Everything you need to know about Abigail House and Delphine’s care is in that binder. Most of it won’t be relevant to you. You’ll want to look at the blue and purple tabs, mostly,” Mrs. Clarke says. “Can I leave you to settle in? Your luggage should be here by the end of dinner.”
I’ve already crossed to the binder and opened it. The laminated sheet at the front reads Rules and Procedures. When I process Mrs. Clarke’s words, I look up in surprise. “Aren’t I going to meet Delphine?”
“There are additional decontamination procedures necessary before going upstairs,” Mrs. Clarke says. “And it’s almost dinner. I’ll be back in the morning to make the introductions, don’t worry.”
“Can I—” I pause. “What’s wrong with her? Delphine. I’ve heard she’s allergic to water?”
Mrs. Clarke makes a little gesture with her hand, almost helpless. “I believe the official description is an idiopathic aquagenic disorder. Which means they have no idea why or exactly how it’s happening, but exposure to water causes a life-threatening physical reaction. It doesn’t happen with distilled, filtered water, but anything with impurities . . . Well. It’s been a long time since she had an episode. But that’s why we have to be so careful with what we bring inside the house. Especially if it’s raining or muddy. That’s what the showers are for. The whole system uses distilled water shipped in, to avoid any chance of contamination.”
“Can I ask . . .” I stop again, realizing my question is probably impossibly rude, but Mrs. Clarke looks at me expectantly. “Wouldn’t it be easier for her to live somewhere else? I mean, she can’t even attend classes here.”
“Ms. Fournier believes that an Atwood education is still the best thing for her,” Mrs. Clarke says.
But when she says it, she doesn’t quite look at me. She looks at my left earlobe. It’s a trick I learned myself, for when it’s hard to look a person in the eye. Most people won’t even notice you aren’t looking at them directly.
It makes it easier to lie.
“You will pick up on the way things are done. It’s a lot of details, but nothing too difficult,” Mrs. Clarke says. “But there are a few unbreakable rules. And the most important is this: the door at the bottom of the stairs must stay locked after dark.”
“You mentioned,” I say.
Her eyes fix on mine. “No matter what you hear or what you see. No matter what happens. You stay in your room and you leave the door locked. Do you understand?”
I stare at her. “Why?”
“Stay in your room and don’t let the water in, and you’ll do fine,” Mrs. Clarke says, and nothing more.
She leaves. I listen as the doors close in sequence: one, two, and then, after a pause long enough for her to get changed again, three. I stand barefoot in the empty suite, unsure of what I’m supposed to do.
Above me, the floor creaks as footsteps pass overhead. Delphine. I stare up at the ceiling. Does she know I’m here?
Does she remember what happened six years ago?
The night that Veronica and I made our first leap and found Atwood’s magic waiting for us.
The night that Delphine Fournier fell into the Narrow and lived.