WE GET THROUGH the usual welcome speeches and hearty if unimaginative food, and by the end of the meal, things seem almost normal. Curfew is early and strict the night before classes, breaking everyone out of the bad habits formed over the past week. Still, it stings that no one suggests I come back to Westmore as we get up from the table and filter outside.
“I’d better head off,” I say.
Zoya nods, and Ruth gives me a jaunty wave, her other hand fitted neatly in Diego’s. I try not to be jealous about it. Ruth and I dated for about ten seconds sophomore year, and it wasn’t my idea to break up. We’ve mostly moved past it, but I still find unexpected raw places now and then. Veronica doesn’t look at me at all.
“See you, then,” I say, throat tight, fighting the sensation that I’m losing them somehow.
“Catch you later,” Remi offers in that bass voice that always makes me imagine him tipping a Stetson.
I swing around and start off, and no one stops me. Is it really that quick? I’m not rooming with them anymore, so I’m out of the girl squad? I tell myself I’m overreacting. That they’re tired, like me, and just want to get back to their rooms, like me, and get ready for the first day of classes. Atwood doesn’t take things easy its first day. The teachers like to toss you in the deep end.
I’ve gotten about fifty feet away when I hear footsteps hustling up behind me.
“Eden, wait,” Veronica says.
“What is it, Veronica?” I ask as I turn, speaking more snappishly than I mean to. My arm hurts like hell, and I’m drowning in the sensation that I’ve made a huge mistake agreeing to Oster’s plan.
“Why did you really say you’d do it?” Veronica asks.
I set my jaw. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. What we saw . . .” She bites her lip.
“We don’t know what we saw.”
“Yes, we do,” she whispers. “It was real. It was her. We both know it.”
“She couldn’t have fallen in the Narrow and gotten back out like nothing happened,” I say, but it’s less a denial, more a plea for reassurance.
“Yeah. So, how did she?” Veronica asks. She steps toward me, dropping her voice as a trio of freshmen flit by, giving us awestruck looks. “Something happened.”
“She’s just a sick girl,” I tell her. What we saw was impossible, and so it didn’t happen. It’s as simple as that.
I have learned to lie to myself just as well as I lie to my friends.
“Sometimes I consider your lack of imagination and whimsy a personal failing of mine,” Veronica says with a sigh. “I’m scared, okay? I’m scared for you. And I really need you, Eden, because it’s senior year and you’re my best friend and I need someone to talk to about stuff.”
“Stuff? Like a certain Texan gentleman?” I ask. “You two look pretty happy.”
“I know. That’s the problem. Everything is going great and he’s so nice. So nice. I’m worried I’m going to ruin him,” Veronica says.
“You don’t want to seduce him over to the side of sarcasm and cynicism?” I ask teasingly.
“No! He’s so sweet! And I feel like I’m suddenly in charge of protecting this, like, tiny fluffy baby bird from the big bad world or something. I need you to be around to snark at dating shows and indulge in pessimism or I’m going to actually lose my mind,” she says, and I laugh.
“You know I’m here for it,” I say. “And you don’t need to worry about me, Veronica. Delphine isn’t dangerous. She’s actually . . .” I have no idea how to end that sentence. Fascinating. Unexpected. Magnetic.
She is a mystery that has haunted me for years, and I cannot turn away now.
“At least take this, okay?” Veronica unclasps one of her necklaces, a silver pentacle, and settles it around my neck. I bite the inside of my cheek so I won’t flinch away. A hug is one thing, but this sustained close contact, her face so near mine—I don’t want to think about what happened the last time someone was this close to me. But Veronica’s breath smells of the mint she popped after dinner, not weed and stale beer, and her touch is light and feathery as she settles the chain into place around my neck.
“You know I’m not into all this witchy stuff,” I tell her fondly.
“It’s for protection,” she says. “Please keep it, Eden.”
I fold my good hand over it. The metal is still warm from her skin, and even if I don’t believe it holds any special magical properties, I like the idea of having it with me. Because it’s Veronica’s, and we’re supposed to stick together. “Thank you,” I say, and tears prick my eyes.
She gives me an odd look. “Are you going to cry, White? You never cry.”
“It’s never too late to pick up a new hobby,” I say.
“The sisterhood’s still in screaming distance if anything tries to go bump in the night over there,” she reminds me. “You let us know if anything’s wrong. Anything at all.”
“I will,” I say. I give her a quick, one-armed hug.
We part at last, and I walk back to Abigail House alone.
I go through the ritual of entering Abigail House once again: stripping my clothes off, changing into the sweats. I open my door expecting to find my luggage waiting, but the room is empty. I groan. I’ll have to ask Mrs. Clarke where it is, but she won’t be in her office this time of night. I’ll have to deal with it in the morning.
I get myself a glass of water from the tap. It’s odd, drinking water so flat and flavorless. I’m used to the slightly metallic mineral taste of the water on campus.
I sit at the table, idly flipping through the binder between sips of water. No outside food or drink unless prepared and sealed off campus. Normal rules regarding visitors and sleepovers apply. All guests must follow Abigail House procedures. No guests are allowed upstairs without permission from Ms. Fournier or senior staff. I glance at the procedures for going upstairs but don’t read them in depth. Just a more extreme version of the airlock system at the entrance, it looks like.
This won’t be hard. Delphine Fournier is probably a perfectly lovely girl. I’ll miss my friends, but it’s not like we won’t see each other every day.
There’s a small, relieved part of me that thinks it will be easier this way. I don’t have to worry about friends noticing I’m sleeping with carefully piled pillows to hold my arm, or that getting dressed has turned into a series of slow contortions to try to avoid the pain. It’s just a bad strain. It will be better soon enough.
The nightmares might not go away so easily.
I check my phone. Nothing from Mom and Dad. Not that it’s a surprise. I don’t even know what time it is where they are, and they never check in while they’re on vacation. They need “grown-up time.”
I’d need time to myself, too, if my whole existence was wrapped around keeping a child like Luke from self-destructing. But at some point, I think bitterly, you have to cut your losses.
For a moment, my chest constricts. I feel that knee on my back again, the hand on my wrist wrenching my arm behind me. I hear Dylan’s voice echo in my mind. You’ve got a foul mouth, Princess.
I shake off the memory. It’s over. I am never going to see Dylan again, and Luke is at home, far from here.
Looking for a distraction, I open up AtChat, the Atwood School social network. I search for Aubrey, but her profile is disabled. All outside social media is blocked on the school Wi-Fi, so I can’t check Facebook or anything. I’ll have to find another way to cyberstalk her if I want to find out how she’s doing.
They lie, Delphine had said. But why would Oster lie about Aubrey’s accident? Unless Delphine was wrong about where it had happened—but Oster’s story didn’t make sense. To get to the pool, she would have needed to unlock the gate. And why would she be in there in the first place? Besides which, Aubrey was a good swimmer. I remembered seeing her doing laps, freckled shoulders breaking the water.
Footsteps creak above me. Delphine again. The promised rain patters against the window, and I realize that I’m exhausted.
I check the drawers in the bathroom. I find a normal teenage assortment of toiletries. Hair products and moisturizer, a foundation one shade lighter than my own. I’m hoping for a fresh toothbrush still in the package, but I strike out. I put the toothpaste on my finger instead.
It’s weird brushing my teeth alone, without Veronica and Ruth and Zoya popping in with one last thing they wanted to say, asking me questions with my mouth full of foam, shoving a phone in front of me to show me some funny screenshot.
One of my lower front teeth shifts under the gentle pressure of my finger. I pinch it gingerly, testing it. A slight wiggle. I’m lucky I didn’t lose it or any other teeth. A fist to the mouth can do a lot more damage than a split lip.
Lucky, lucky, lucky.
In bed, burrowed under the covers, I reach over for the light. The bedside table is set awkwardly far away, and I have to lean out to reach the switch. My hand on the ridged plastic knob, I pause, staring down. Then I get out of the bed and walk slowly around it.
The hardwood floor is blotchy, mottled with darkness. But only around the bed.
A ring of water damage. As if a flood spilled around the bed and seeped into the wood. I bend and press a palm to the floor.
It’s dry as a bone.