Evernight

  "I think I'll take a stroll over that way," I suggested. "Just going for a walk. Not doing anything in particular."

  "Ohhhh, riiiiiiiight," Vic said, nodding his head, like I'd actually said something really sly. "You got it."

  He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I decided as I casually wandered in the general direction of the carriage house. Despite that, Vic seemed like a nice guy. Not the Evernight type at all, thank God. Nobody noticed me as I slipped farther away from the rest of the students. I guessed that was the one good thing about being beneath attention: You could get away with a lot more.

  There was no forest here to shelter me, just softly rolling grounds, thick with clover, and a few trees at regular intervals, probably planted long ago to provide shade. In the underbrush I saw a small dead squirrel, a shriveled scrap of its former self. The wind ruffled its tail forlornly. I wrinkled my nose and tried to ignore it, concentrating instead on my search. I walked slower and more quietly, hoping to hear Lucas.

  The carriage house was long and white, only one story high. No point in having a second floor if you're building for horses, I guess. More tall trees surrounded it, shadowing everything so deeply that it was almost dark, and only a few wavering ribbons of sunlight touched the ground. Tiptoeing toward the back, I leaned around the corner and saw Lucas dropping out of Mrs. Bethany's window. He landed easily and carefully shut the window behind him.

  Then he turned and saw me. For a long second, we simply stared at each other. It felt like he was the one who had caught me doing something wrong, rather than the other way around.

  "Hey," I blurted out.

  Instead of offering an excuse for his behavior, Lucas smiled. "Hey. Why aren't you at lunch?"

  As he strolled to my side, I realized that he was going to pretend nothing was wrong, that I hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. Or was I the one who had done that by saying hello instead of asking him what he'd been up to? "I guess I'm not that hungry."

  "Not like you to avoid the subject."

  "The subject of lunch?"

  "I was thinking more how you're not asking me why I broke into Mrs. Bethany's office."

  I breathed out a sigh of relief, and we both started to laugh. "Okay, if you're willing to tell me, it must not be anything too bad."

  "My mom keeps saying that she'll only sign the consent form for me to go into Riverton on our free Saturdays if I have straight A's at midterm. But I had a hunch she'd already signed it, and I don't feel so good about chemistry, so I decided to check. See if the consent form was in my file. Like I told you before, I'm not good at playing by the rules."

  "Of course." Even if it was wrong of him to do it, it wasn't too wrong, was it? Trusting Lucas came easily to me. "So, did you find it?"

  "Yep." Lucas's self-satisfaction was obviously overdone to make me smile, which it did. "Even if I get a B, I'm in the clear."

  "What's so important about the free weekends? I spent some time in town over the summer, before you guys got here. Trust me, there's not a lot to see."

  We walked in the shade, carefully weaving our way closer to Evernight, making our way around the side so that we could merge into the other students without being observed. Both of us were pretty good at being sneaky. "Just thought that might be a good place for us to spend some time together. Away from Evernight. What do you think?"

  Given our conversation at the gazebo, I shouldn't have felt so surprised or bowled over. But I did, and it was simultaneously scary and kind of wonderful. "Yeah. I mean, I'd like that."

  "Me, too."

  After that, neither of us spoke for a little while. I wished that he would take my hand, but I wasn't quite brave enough to take his yet. Feverishly, I tried to think of something entertaining in Riverton, a town that was larger than Arrowwood and yet even more boring. There was a movie theater, at least, one that showed classic films before the regular late shows, sometimes. "Do you like old movies?" I ventured.

  Lucas's eyes lit up. "I love movies—old, new, whatever. John Ford to Quentin Tarantino, it's all good."

  Relieved, I smiled back at him. Maybe everything really was about to be fine.

  * * *

  Later that week, the seasons shifted overnight. The cold awakened me first thing in the morning, and I could feel the change down in my bones.

  I pulled the blankets more tightly around me, but that didn't do much good. Fall had laced the windowpanes with frost. I'd need to pull down the heavy comforter from the top shelf of my closet later; from now on, it would be harder to stay warm.

  The light was still soft and pink, and I knew it was just past dawn. Groaning, I sat up and resigned myself to being awake. I could've fetched the comforter and tried to snatch a few more hours of sleep, but I needed to get in some work on my English paper on Dracula or face yet more of the wrath of Mrs. Bethany. So I slipped into my robe and tiptoed past Patrice, who slept soundly, as if the cold couldn't penetrate the thin sheet over her.

  Evernight's bathrooms had been built in an earlier era, one in which students were probably so grateful to have an indoor toilet that they weren't picky about things like plumbing. Too few stalls, no conveniences like electrical outlets or even mirrors, and separate faucets for hot and cold water in the tiny sinks—I'd hated them from the start. At least by now I had learned to scoop a handful of icy water in my palm before letting the steaming-hot water pour into that. This way, I could wash my face without scalding my fingers. The tile was so chilly against my bare feet that I made a mental note to wear socks to bed until spring.

  As soon as I turned off the faucets, I heard something else—crying, soft and quiet. I patted my face dry with my washcloth as I walked toward the sound. "Hello? Is somebody there?"

  The sniffling stopped. Just when I thought I was intruding, Raquel's face peeked out of one of the stalls. She wore pajamas and the tan-leather braided bracelet that she always seemed to have on. Her eyes were red. "Bianca?" she whispered.

  "Yeah. Are you okay?"

  She shook her head and wiped at her cheeks. "I'm freaking out. I can't sleep."

  "It got cold all of a sudden, didn't it?" I felt stupid even saying that. I knew as well as Raquel did that she wasn't sobbing in the bathroom at dawn because the weather was frosty.

  "I have to tell you something." Raquel's hand closed over my wrist, her grip stronger than I would've thought. Her face was pale, her nose reddened from crying. "I need you to tell me if you think I'm going insane."

  This is a weird question to be asked, no matter who's asking, no matter when or where or how. Carefully, I asked, "Do you think you're going insane?"

  "Maybe?" Raquel laughed unevenly, and that reassured me. If she could see the funny side of this, then probably she was basically okay.

  I glanced around behind us, but the bathroom was empty. At that hour, we were sure to have the place to ourselves for quite a while. "Are you having bad dreams or something?"

  "Vampires. Black capes, fangs, the works." She tried to laugh. "You wouldn't think anybody out of kindergarten could still be scared of vampires, but in my dreams—Bianca, they're terrible."

  "I had a nightmare about a dying flower the night before classes started," I said. I wanted to distract her from her own nightmares; maybe sharing mine would help, even if I did feel sort of stupid talking about it out loud. "An orchid or a lily or something, wilting in the middle of a storm. It scared me so badly I couldn't shake it from my mind the whole next day."

  "I can't get them out of my head, though. These dead hands, grabbing at me—"

  "You're only thinking about that because of the Dracula assignment," I said. "We'll be done with Bram Stoker in another week. You'll see."

  "I know that; I'm not stupid. But the nightmares will just change into something else. I don't ever feel safe. It's like there's this person—this presence—someone, something that's getting too close. Something terrible." Raquel leaned closer and whispered, "Don't you ever feel like there's something at this school
that's…evil?"

  "Courtney, sometimes." I tried to turn it into a joke.

  "Not that kind of evil. Real evil." Her voice shook. "Do you believe in real evil?"

  Nobody had ever asked me that, but I knew the answer. "Yeah. I do."

  Raquel swallowed so hard I could hear it, and we stared at each other for a few moments, unsure what to say next. I knew that I ought to keep reassuring her, but the intensity of her fear forced me to listen.

  "I always feel like I'm being watched here," she said. "Always. Even when I'm alone. I know it sounds crazy, but it's real. Sometimes I feel like my nightmares last even after I wake up. Late at night I hear things—scrapes and thumps on the roof. When I look out the window, I swear sometimes I see a shadow running into the forest. And the squirrels—you've seen them, right? How they're dying?"

  "A couple." Maybe it was the autumn chill in the drafty old bathroom making me shiver, but maybe it was Raquel's fear.

  "Do you ever feel safe here? Ever?"

  I stammered, "I don't feel safe, but I don't think it's anything weird." Then again, weird meant different things to different people. "It's just this school. This place. The gargoyles and the stone and the cold—and the attitudes—it makes me feel so out of place. Alone. And scared."

  "Evernight sucks the life out of you." Raquel laughed weakly. "Listen to me. Life sucking. Still with the vampires."

  "You just need some rest," I said firmly, sounding too much like my mother. "Some rest, and something different to read."

  "Rest sounds good. Do you think the school nurse would give out sleeping pills?"

  "I'm not sure there is a school nurse." When Raquel's nose wrinkled in consternation, I suggested, "You could probably grab something over the counter at the drugstore when we go into Riverton."

  "I guess. It's a good idea, anyway." She paused, then gave me a watery smile. "Thanks for listening to me. I know that I sound nuts."

  I shook my head. "Not at all. Like I said, Evernight just gets to people."

  "The drugstore," Raquel said quietly as she gathered her things to go back to her room. "Sleeping pills. That way, I'll sleep through it."

  "Sleep through what?"

  "The sounds on the roof." Her face was grave now, that of someone older than her years. "Because somebody is up there at night. I can hear it. That part isn't a nightmare, Bianca. It's real."

  For a long time after she had gone back to bed, I stood alone in the bathroom, still shivering.

  Chapter Five

  Normally, you'd think the girl going out on her first date ever would have dibs on the mirror. But when the Friday night of the Riverton trip came, Patrice was so busy looking at herself that I might as well have been dressing in the dark. She kept studying her face and figure in the full-length mirror, squinting and turning, unable to find whatever she was searching for, whether imperfections or beauty. "You look fine," I said. "Eat something, will you? You're practically invisible."

  "The Autumn Ball isn't even a month away. I want to look my best."

  "What good is going to the Autumn Ball if you can't enjoy it?"

  "I'll enjoy it even more this way." Patrice smiled at me. She had a way of being both patronizing and completely sincere. "Someday you'll understand."

  I didn't like it when she talked down to me like that, but she was on my good side. For my date, Patrice had let me borrow a soft, ivory-colored sweater she owned, acting as if this was the biggest favor anyone had ever done for anyone. Maybe she was right. In that sweater, my figure—well, you could tell that I had one, something the dowdy Evernight plaids and blazers never revealed.

  "None of you guys are going?" I asked as I tried pulling my hair back into a high ponytail. I didn't have to explain who "you guys" meant.

  "Erich's throwing another party by the lake." Patrice shrugged. She still wore her pink satin robe, and her hair was covered with a lacy scarf. Probably the party wouldn't start until after midnight, not if she hadn't even started getting ready. "Most of the teachers will be in town chaperoning. That makes it a prime night here."

  "I don't admit that Evernight Academy has prime nights."

  "It's not as though they keep us in a cage, Bianca. Also, that hairstyle is not working for you."

  I sighed. "I know. I can see for myself."

  "Hold still." Patrice came up behind me, shook out the uneven braids I'd painstakingly woven, and ruffled her fingers through the strands. Then she gathered my hair back in a soft knot just at the nape of my neck. A few tendrils slipped loose to frame my face—messy but beautiful, just the way I always wanted my hair to look. Watching this transformation in the mirror, I thought it looked almost as if my hair had been fixed by magic.

  "How did you do that?"

  "You learn over time." She smiled, prouder of her handiwork than of me. "Your hair's a wonderful color, you know. When it falls over the ivory of this sweater, you get to show it off more. See?"

  When did this shade of red become a "wonderful color" for hair? I smiled at my reflection, thinking that as long as Lucas and I were going out, any miracle was possible.

  "Beautiful," Patrice said, and this time, somehow, I realized that she meant it. The compliment was still impersonal—I thought that the idea of beauty meant more to her than I did. But she wouldn't say I looked beautiful if she didn't think so.

  Bashful and delighted, I stared at my reflection a little while longer. If Patrice could see something beautiful in me, then maybe Lucas could, too.

  * * *

  "You look great!" Lucas called.

  F, trying to maintain eye contact as we each pushed through the students squeezing into the bus that would take us into town. Evernight Academy didn't have anything as ordinary as a normal yellow school bus; this was a small luxury shuttle, the kind of thing a swanky hotel might operate, which had probably been rented for the occasion. I'd been shoved on in the first wave, and Lucas was still struggling to get near the door. At least I could see his smile through the window.

  "Dee-luxe." Vic laughed, flopping down into the seat next to me. He was wearing a fedora that looked like something from the 1940s, and he actually was pretty cute—but he still wasn't who I wanted to ride with. My face must have fallen, because he nudged my shoulder. "No worries. I'm just keeping the seat warm for Lucas."

  "Thanks."

  If it hadn't been for Vic, I wouldn't have gotten to sit with Lucas at all. People couldn't get onto that bus fast enough, and it seemed like about two dozen students—in fact, virtually all the kids who weren't the "Evernight type"—were determined to get into Riverton. Given how boring Riverton was, probably they just wanted to get away from school, and anyplace else would do. I knew how they felt.

  Vic gallantly surrendered his seat when Lucas finally made his way to my side, but I wouldn't say the date started then. We were completely surrounded by other students, all of whom were laughing, talking, and shouting, relieved to be off the claustrophobic school grounds at last. Raquel was a few rows away, talking animatedly to her roommate; I must have put her fears at ease, at least for now. A few people cast curious glances in my direction that weren't exactly friendly. Apparently I was still suspected of being part of the in crowd, which was so wrong it was funny. Vic knelt on the seat in front of us, determined to tell us all about the amp he was going to buy at a music store that was open late in town.

  "What are you going to do with an amp?" I shouted over the din as we bounced along the road to town. "They're not going to let you play electric guitar in our rooms."

  Vic shrugged, a grin still splashed across his face. "It's enough just to look at it, man! To know I have something so excellent. Gonna make me smile every day."

  "You never stop smiling. You smile in your sleep." Despite the teasing way Lucas said this, I could tell that, down deep, he liked Vic.

  "Only way to live, you know?"

  Vic was the exact opposite of the Evernight type, and I decided I liked him, too. "So what are you going to do while we
're at the movies?"

  "Explore. Wander. Feel the earth beneath my feet." Vic waggled his eyebrows. "Maybe meet some hotties in town."

  "Better buy the amp later, then," Lucas pointed out. "It's going to cut into your action if you have to lug that thing around with you." Vic nodded seriously, and I hid my smile behind my hand.

  So Lucas and I weren't really alone together until we were walking along Riverton's main street, just a block from the theater. We both brightened when we saw what was on the marquee.

  "Suspicion," he said. "Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He's a genius."