ZOYA SCREAMS AS darkness engulfs us. “Don’t move!” Veronica shouts. “Don’t break the circle!”
My heart hammers in my chest. Veronica’s lighter rasps, and a thin flame appears in her hand. It barely illuminates anything.
It’s enough to see the figure crouched in front of me.
Zoya screams again—and this time Ruth does, too, throwing herself back away from the circle.
I don’t move. Maeve’s face is eighteen inches from mine. She’s crouching down with her elbows on her knees, hands dangling casually. Her head is cocked to the side, her hair plastered in dripping strands across her sallow cheeks. It’s then I realize that her leg isn’t twisted anymore. Neither are her fingers. Her eye is still scarlet, but clearer, and the water that runs from the corners of her mouth is only a slow, steady trickle.
She’s getting better, I think. She’s getting stronger.
“Eden,” she says. Her voice has a gurgle to it, but it’s clear enough to understand. “You’re hurt.” Her fingers stretch out—but they don’t go beyond the edge of the pooling water.
“You hurt her,” Veronica says.
Maeve’s face swings in her direction, but she seems disinterested. She looks back toward me as Zoya, muttering what might be a prayer, creeps over to Veronica to relight her candle.
“We thought we could talk to you safely this way,” I say. Even though it’s out, I clutch my candle tightly in my hand.
“You told me you would help me find her,” Maeve says, a hint of a question in the garbled words. “Did you change your mind?”
“No,” I say. “I’m going to help you. We’re going to help you. But we don’t know where Grace is, Maeve. You have to tell us what happened that night. Where she might have gone.”
“That night,” Maeve says. Her eyes grow unfocused. She draws in a strained breath, then coughs, filthy water gushing over her lips.
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” Ruth is chanting. “This can’t be real. This cannot be real.”
“Maeve. The night you died. Where was Grace?” I ask, tuning Ruth out.
“Grace. She was—they wouldn’t let me see her,” Maeve says. Her fingers crawl up into her hair, digging painfully at her scalp. “Said I was bad. Said I was wicked. Said I made her do things, that she’d been good before she met me, and she was. She was so good, and she never stopped. So sweet, so serious. Such a solemn little thing, you know—didn’t know how to laugh properly until I taught her.”
With every word, her voice grows clearer. The bright star of blood in her eye recedes to a small point of scarlet.
“We said we were going to be together forever. But they tried to get rid of me. It didn’t work. We were going to run away together,” she says, her voice turned bright and hopeful. Slowly, across the circle, Ruth and Zoya steal back to their places. Zoya’s eyes are wide. Ruth’s jaw is clenched so hard, it flares.
“You came to the school. To the woods, to meet Grace,” I prompt.
“It was dark and she wasn’t there,” Maeve says. Her voice trembles. She gags on water. “Grace wasn’t there, she—it’s dark—the water—I can’t hold on, I—don’t let go, don’t let go, foreverforeverforever—” Her stream of words cuts off. She jerks backward, blood blooming in the air behind her as if through water. Her feet lift off the ground, her spine bending backward, her hands lifting as if drifting in a current. We’re losing her.
Before I can register what I’m doing, I’m on my feet. Veronica screams at me to stop, but I’ve already stepped across the line of chalk, my foot splashing into the puddle of cold water. I reach out, grab her arm. She isn’t moving, yet I can feel a force tearing her away from me, an unstoppable current.
“Maeve!” I yell. “Look at me!”
I pull hard.
The river relinquishes its hold. I stumble back as she falls toward me, and now I’m the one falling—but her hand turns, catches my arm, each of us holding the other tight.
There is no pain. Not this time. Our breaths are ragged, and they seem to fill the dark around us.
“Look,” Maeve whispers.
Another sound emerges—the rush and babble of water. We aren’t in the room anymore, but wrapped in darkness pricked by the light of a swollen moon. Beside us glides the thin silver tongue of the Narrow—no, beside me and me alone, because Maeve is gone.
My body isn’t my own. I wear a familiar blue blouse and jeans, and dark hair tumbles over my shoulders.
A branch cracks behind me. I turn. A shadowed figure approaches from among the trees. For a moment my heart leaps—Grace—but the figure is too tall and too broad. Anger burns away my fleeting happiness.
“You can’t keep her from me,” I say. “I love her, and she loves me.”
“You shouldn’t have come,” says a voice that I recognize immediately, despite being decades younger than when I last heard it. “Go home, Maeve.”
“She is my home,” I say, the words sandpaper in my throat. “At least let me see her. Let me talk to her.”
“I can’t do that. You need to leave. If you don’t, I will do whatever is necessary to make sure you’re kept away from her.”
“You have no right,” I bite out.
The figure steps out from the trees, and the moonlight casts a pale wash of light over Geoffrey Oster’s face. He’s younger—much younger. But the hardness of his eyes and the stern line of his mouth haven’t changed. “Don’t test me, Maeve.”
Rage tears through me, my anger snapping free. “You heartless bastard!” I shout at him. “How can you do this to us? You’ll never keep me away from her!” I scream, and all I want to do in that moment is leap on him, gouge his eyes with my nails, bite and claw and tear. I wheel away, turning my back on him, hands balled into fists.
And then—
There’s a strange sensation, like hurtling through the dark. Then, strangely, a smile creeps over my face. The rain pelts down. My clothes are soaked through, clinging to my skin, and I shiver with cold, but all I can feel is inexplicable elation. I can’t seem to see properly; everything is blurred from the rain in my eyes.
“I—” I begin to say.
Something shoves me hard in the back, and I pitch forward. Toward the silver ribbon of water. I twist as I fall, and my flailing hands grab hold of an arm I can’t see, fingernails digging into flesh, but I keep falling.
I don’t hit the water. I come to screaming instead, someone’s arms wrapped tight around me, my head against someone’s chest.
“Shh, shh,” that person is saying, stroking my hair. “Hush. It’s okay. Be quiet.”
A hammering knock sounds. I grope about in my confusion, trying to understand what’s happening. I’m not Maeve anymore. I’m back in Westmore and Veronica is holding me, Zoya crouched nearby.
“Shut her up,” Ruth hisses, and then strides over to the door.
I clamp my mouth closed with a whimper. The chalk circle remains, three of the candles burning steadily and the water spilled inside the circle, but Maeve is gone. I ache all over, but I don’t think my arm has rebroken, and there’s none of the nausea or dizziness that comes with the head injury.
“Yeah, what?” Ruth says, yanking the door open a few inches. A muffled voice comes from the hall. “That’s because we’re murdering someone in here! You think you can murder someone without screaming? Jesus Christ, it’s not even midnight, what are you complaining about?” Over her shoulder, she shouts, “Use an ice pick, finish her off! These people are trying to watch porn in peace! There, that should cover it. We good? Great.”
She slams the door on whatever poor neighbor had the misfortune to come check on us and stalks back over.
“Are you back?” she asks.
“Back,” I say weakly.
“Good.” Ruth turns on the lights. It’s only then I realize how soggy everyone is—Ruth’s left sleeve is soaked, and Zoya’s shirt is splattered with water. I’m completely drenched, and consequently so is Veronica, since she’s holding me.
“What happened?” I ask, dazed.
“You grabbed Maeve,” Veronica says. “She vanished and you sort of—your eyes rolled back in your head and you collapsed, and then there was water everywhere, and then suddenly you started screaming and woke up. It was only a few seconds.”
“Oh,” I say inadequately. I look around. “But everyone’s okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. Just traumatized for life,” Ruth says, arms crossed. “Plus, I am extremely pissed that I now have to believe in the supernatural like some kind of fucking hippie-witch dipshit. No offense, Veronica.”
“Fuck you, too; no offense taken,” Veronica says, flashing a peace sign.
Zoya groans and collapses onto the couch, face buried in her hands.
“So I’m guessing that whatever you wanted to happen, that wasn’t it,” Ruth says. She sits down beside Zoya and grabs her hand, the two of them clinging to each other as if for dear life. I don’t blame them.
“Actually, I think it was progress,” I say. I drag my soaked hair back behind my shoulders, shivering with the fading adrenaline. Veronica makes a little noise and grabs a blanket, which she wraps around my shoulders. “I saw what happened that night. Part of it, at least—the part Maeve saw.”
“You saw her die?” Veronica asks, fascinated and horrified in equal measure.
“Not quite. Thankfully, I woke up before I hit the water,” I say. Those are not sensations I want to share. “It was all so real. Like it was me. She was waiting for Grace, but someone else showed up. Oster.”
“Dean Oster?” Zoya asks, brows knitted.
“He was a teacher back then. He tried to break them up. That night he was there. He threatened Maeve, but she told him she’d never give up, and then . . .” It felt so real, but the details of it are fading as quickly as a dream. “She didn’t fall. She was pushed. By Oster.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Veronica says. “He’s the dean. He’s friends with my parents.”
“And back then, he was desperately trying to keep a couple of queer girls from being together,” I snap. “You should have heard the things he was saying. He was treating Maeve like she had some kind of communicable disease. Like Grace caught the gay from her and if they got rid of Maeve, she’d be cured.”
“I buy Oster being a douche, but murder?” Ruth asks.
“It is hard to imagine,” Zoya says. I start to protest, but she raises a hand to stop me. “But it was a long time ago. We barely know him now. We don’t know what he was like or what he believed. Or what he might have done. You saw him kill her?”
“Yes,” I say. Then, “I mean, I didn’t see him, but that was because Maeve’s back was turned. He was the only one there.” It had to be him. Geoffrey Oster, the man supposedly in charge of our safety and well-being.
“That doesn’t answer the questions of what happened to Grace and where she is,” Zoya says.
“So we ask Oster,” I say. The others look at me with varying levels of surprise and discomfort, but I bare my teeth. “He’s been dodging all of my questions, but now I know he was there that night. He was the last one to see Maeve alive. We confront him, and we make him tell us everything he knows. We make him tell us what he did.”
I doubt if any of us get much sleep that night. I manage to convince everyone that we need to talk to Oster, but we disagree about how and when and who should do it. It isn’t like he’s some random person, or even a teacher. He’s the dean. He could make trouble for any of us if he wanted.
I sleep in the bed that should have been mine, snatching a few fitful minutes of rest. I dream, but not of Maeve or the water, and when I wake, I can’t tell if I’m relieved or disappointed.
All I told Del was that “it” worked and I’d talk to her soon. We didn’t want to say anything more over the school networks. Now, with the sun up, I dress quickly, eager to get back and update her. I throw my things into my bag, grabbing my keys from the table in the living room. The half-crushed water bottle I used to carry the river water is still there, half an inch of silty water in the bottom. The last evidence of last night’s activities. The chalk has been cleaned from the floor, the water sopped up, the broken bowl disposed of. But there it is: unglamorous proof of what we’ve done.
Of what we now know.
Only Zoya is awake. She emerges from her room as I get ready to go, looking puffy-eyed and tired.
“I need to update Del,” I tell her.
“You and her are really getting along, aren’t you?” she asks.
I feel the heat crawling up my neck. “Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“No, of course not,” Zoya says. “But you don’t make things easy on yourself, do you?”
“That might be an understatement.”
She laughs her soft, smoky laugh. “I’ve missed you, Eden,” she says, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe.
“I haven’t gone anywhere.” I set my weight back on my heels, fingers wrapped tight around the strap of my messenger bag.
“Yes, you have. And I understand. I just wanted you to know that you’re missed. I miss having someone who understands the need to be quiet. And I love Ruth and Veronica to death, but they are terrible listeners.”
“Sometimes . . .” I hesitate. But I tell myself I’m done lying to my friends. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t understand why I’m part of . . . of us. I’m not special. I don’t have some amazing talent or plan for my life. I’m just kind of . . . here.”
“We’re not a prize you win for being special enough. We’re your friends, and you’re ours,” Zoya says. “What, like we should drop you because you aren’t a math genius or a music prodigy? Do you really think that poorly of us?”
I shift uncomfortably, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
“I’m always kind of terrified you’re only hanging out with me because you feel sorry for me,” I admit. “I know it’s not true. Or I do when I’m thinking clearly, at least.”
“I think we all feel that way sometimes. Well. Maybe not Veronica.” She lets out a little sigh. “Eden, do you remember sophomore year, when you and Ruth broke up? You weren’t even talking, but I found you making her this big bouquet of paper flowers from used copies of her favorite books. I didn’t understand why you’d do that for someone you weren’t even speaking to. But you said something like, ‘Later, when we aren’t mad at each other anymore, we’re going to be friends again. I’m making this for my friend, even if she doesn’t show up for a while.’ ”
“I forgot about that,” I say. I wanted to do the project, and I knew Ruth would like it. It didn’t occur to me not to make it for her.
“You’re literally the first person we all go to when we need a shoulder to cry on, because you listen and you always understand because you pay attention. You knew I was feeling weird about my photos before I said a single thing, and you got Ruth to completely spill her guts after about thirty seconds. And I’m sure you’ve noticed, because you notice everything, she doesn’t really do ‘vulnerable.’ ”
I make an amused sound of agreement, looking down at the floor. Ruth is blunt, which some people mistake for being open, but she tends to lay things out as a way of not talking about the squishy feelings behind the facts.
Zoya rubs the side of her neck, looking at me with sad eyes. “You’re a really good friend, Eden, and that doesn’t change because you’re going through stuff, and you need to lean on other people for once, instead of being the one we all vent to.”
“Promise?” I ask, my voice weak.
“Yes, I promise we’re not going to ditch you because you’re having a hard year and you’re depressed and being haunted by a moist murder victim,” Zoya says, rolling her eyes.
I snort.
“We deserve better than you telling yourself a story where we’ve abandoned you. So do you.”
“Yeah,” I say. It’s all I can manage.
“Check back in soon,” she says. “And stay dry.”
“I’ll try,” I say.
She gives me a look.
“I will,” I amend, and she waves a hand to let me go.
All the way across campus, my mind wanders back through weeks and months and years, snagging briefly on moments—Veronica’s birthday last year when we filled her whole room with balloons so she couldn’t even find her bed; when Ruth won gold at the state championships and we screamed so loudly for her that I lost my voice for a week; the quiet nights when Zoya and I sat up together, painting each other’s toenails while she taught me how to thank her grandmother for the cookies in only slightly butchered Russian.
Maybe I don’t have their talent and poise and ambition, but Zoya’s right. They’ve never given me a single reason to think I’m not really their friend. They’ve never suggested I have to achieve some milestone to earn my place. I’ve been there for them, and they’ve been there for me—when I let them.
I don’t know how to make that be enough. I don’t know how to believe what I know to be true, when my mind keeps insisting that I am alone. That I should be alone.
Zoya said it so casually: You’re depressed. Is that the name for this feeling? This endless drowning deep?
As I approach Abigail House, I slow. Madelyn Fournier’s car is parked outside. Madelyn herself is standing in front of the house, face creased with something like worry.
She is talking to Dean Oster.
She looks up and spots me. Her face goes still for a moment, and then she says something to Oster and turns away, stepping briskly up the stairs and into Abigail House.
Oster looks my way. I approach with leaden steps. He is forty years older now, but there’s no mistaking that he’s the same man who stood by the Narrow and told Maeve that she and Grace couldn’t be together.
Those wrinkled, liver-spotted hands were strong and youthful when they shoved her hard in the back. Did he really think he was protecting Grace? Does he realize now what a monster he was?
I set my jaw as I approach. “Dean Oster,” I say, perfectly polite. “Excuse me.”
“Miss White,” Oster says. “We need to talk.”
I’m well out of reach and it’s the middle of the day, but I still feel a kick of fear being this close to him. It was him it was him it was him, my thudding heart seems to say.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Ms. Fournier and I have been talking,” Oster says. “We feel it’s time you return to your original housing arrangement. You don’t need to worry about the tuition; we’ve gotten things sorted out with your parents.”
“You talked to my parents?”
“We were able to arrange a payment plan,” Oster says.
“But why does that mean I have to leave?” I ask.
“It’s what’s best for everyone involved.”
“The best for who, exactly? Delphine? Or you?” I ask. I feel knocked off balance, rage and fear swirling through me. “I know what happened to Maeve. I know what you did.”
“I did nothing to Maeve Fairchild,” Oster says. His face is shuttered. “I do not know what this obsession with Maeve is, Miss White, but it certainly has nothing to do with the present situation. Your things will be brought to Westmore. You should head back there now.”
“You can’t stop me from at least talking to Delphine,” I say, and now my panic is growing.
“Of course you can talk to her. But right now, you need to go back to your friends,” Oster says. He’s still standing between me and the door.
“You can’t,” I say, and stop. I feel like I’m going to vomit. My hands curl into futile fists. “This is exactly what you did before. You’re keeping me away from Delphine just like you kept Maeve away from Grace.”
“This is nothing like that,” Oster barks, and the anger in his voice makes me snap. “Maeve was a deeply troubled young woman.”
“Like me, apparently,” I say. “Where is Grace Carpenter, Dean Oster? What happened to her?”
“Go back to Westmore,” he orders.
I dodge past him. Forty years on, he’s slower than he used to be. I’m at the door before he even turns around, putting in the code—but the light flashes red. I try again, with the same result.
He stands half turned, his shoulder to me, his head bowed. His hands are in his pockets. “This is for the best, Eden. Go back to your friends. You’re done with Abigail House.”
“Why?” I demand, turning on him. “Just tell me why.”
But he can’t. He won’t. He walks away without another word.
I sink down on the steps and wait. For what, I’m not sure. For Madelyn Fournier to come out and explain herself to me, or to tell me there’s been a mistake.
Finally I get up. With one last glance behind me, I walk back to Westmore.