Having sort of lost the conversational thread, I say lamely, “Saralinda de la Flor.” I am grateful I don’t add my social security number.
“I’m Antoine Dubois,” he says. Which is polite because he has got to know I know who he is. I have meanwhile fixated on his bare knees and I make an attempt to meet his eyes but mine catch instead on his equally bare forearms and nobody could reasonably expect me to remain unmoved. I do manage to smile into his face at last.
He gestures at the sofa beside him which now I remember he did before. He wants me to sit next to him but I cannot focus on that because he is talking again. “This spot is dry, which I can’t say for most of the chairs. The roof leaks.” He points upward.
On the ceiling there is a big dark spot in which a drop of water visibly gathers, then plops to land splat in a puddle on a chair seat, making me reassess my building rehab plans to prioritize roofing.
“That’s rotten,” I say. I am obviously still somewhat intellectually impaired. Also I am leaning on Georgia. It might not be entirely that I am overcome by Antoine’s presence, maybe I overstated the situation about not needing Georgia anymore.
The pacing new girl pauses for long enough to snarl over her shoulder.
“Literally rotten! I’ve counted at least five leaks. Building should be freaking condemned.”
She doesn’t appear to expect a reply which is good because I am entirely occupied in shrugging out of my raincoat. I put it on the back of the puddle chair and sit next to Antoine on the sofa, easing Georgia down unobtrusively on the floor.
“Evan and I were saying that we didn’t know the school still used this building,” Antoine says. He raises his voice. “Right, Evan?”
“Correct.” Evangeline lifts her gaze from her phone and looks at me at last with steady eyes (and no smile) and after a few seconds I rate an unsmiling “Hello” which is more than I was hoping for. Then she goes back to whatever she’s doing on her phone.
Antoine jokes, “Evan has tremendous multitasking powers but we’re working on her social skills.”
Evangeline glances up again to snap, “My stepmother keeps on texting me about my birthday. She wants to throw a party. I’m trying to be tactful.”
“Really? That’s new,” says Antoine.
“Just following your advice.”
“Also new.”
Evangeline snorts.
I hope they are only friends.
I wonder if now is the right time to mention my suspicion that my invitation was a mistake. But they haven’t said anything.
Instead I say, “So why are we meeting here, anyway? Is there something secret about Leaders Club? They wanted us to be somewhere nobody else would see so they wouldn’t be hurt if they weren’t invited?” I do not add: If so, that’s stupid because when you conceal things it hurts people worse. They always find out. I think this however and I also think that I have given Antoine an opening to tell me (he would be gentle) that I do not belong.
But Antoine shakes his head. “Nothing like that. It’s just another club, except that the faculty picks the members. I don’t know why we’re all the way out here in this rat-hole. Last year we met in the library.”
I think about telling Antoine not to call my carriage house a rat-hole. Then I hear an exasperated sigh. It’s the new girl, who stops pacing right in front of me.
“Leaders Club? Give me a break. This meeting is a total and complete waste of my time.” She confronts me with a small, square palm. “I’m Kenyon.”
Oh, I think. Oh! But I do not gape. I reach out and shake hands, which if it’s a thing that girls do when they meet, I never experienced it before but then again I am sheltered. I also feel stupid because I should have figured it out. This is the famous senior transfer student. She definitely belongs at Leaders Club, even if she only arrived at Rockland Academy two minutes ago.
Martha (her true first name) McKenyon is maybe five inches taller than me, which is to say of medium height, and she wears a black tank top that exposes her arms. The short hair on one side of her head is trimmed so close that I can see pale scalp. She also has a tattoo in purple lettering which looks a little like bruising on her fair skin. The tattoo starts behind her ear and says WHY BE HAPPY WHEN—it runs down below her shirt so I can’t read the rest (see previous mention of my creatively obstructionist fairy godmother).
I only have a second of frustration however since Kenyon immediately returns to pacing and also to grumbling.
“Everybody else better get here soon. At least the faculty sponsor. Because student leadership? Could I possibly care less? Listen, you guys. I will not be roped into it. I’m going to talk to whoever is in charge and make that absolutely clear.”
She glares at Antoine and at me and at Evangeline and at the turret boy, who (if he hears) is no more interested in her speechifying than he was in my arrival. Evangeline is still working her phone with nimble thumbs, she doesn’t acknowledge Kenyon’s rant by even an inclination of her stylish head. Meanwhile the turret boy grips the window frame like prison bars and leans toward the glass as if he’s going to smash his head against it.
“No worries, Kenyon,” says Antoine peaceably.
Kenyon turns to him and me. Her eyes are very blue inside the rings of eyeliner.
“Sorry. I’m overreacting. It’s just, here’s the thing.” Her fists clench. “I won’t be Rockland Academy’s token queer. I will not pose for photographs for the school website. I am not going to plan the prom or whatever it is this leadership club does. I am here to finish high school and get out. Low profile all the way. Nobody said my scholarship depended on anything like this. I’m just supposed to get A’s. That’s what I was told! Is that clear to everyone here?”
She is calm at first, but as she talks her voice tightens to match her fists, it’s like she can’t help herself.
I find myself leaning toward her.
“I’m sure nobody is going to make you do things you don’t want to,” I say. I think about adding that everybody knows about her tragedy but I don’t say anything because maybe it would hurt her or remind her or something.
At the same time I am thinking that if there is prom planning to be done, I could do it for her. I would like to go to the Academy prom even if I am sitting behind the check-in desk with Georgia, handing out whatever.
Kenyon looks from me to Antoine. “So I’ve made my point?”
Antoine says again, “No worries.” After a moment, during which another fat drop of water plops audibly down onto the wooden chair, he adds, “So what I think you’re concerned about here, is that you might get used? No. Nobody is going to use you.” He looks straight at her. “I promise.”
If I were not sitting, I would swoon at his large sneakered feet. I totally have taste in boys do I not?
Kenyon reaches for the back of her neck. “Thanks. Thank you. I’m sorry. I appreciate that. It’s just, I don’t want extra responsibilities this year. I got a little scared and—and paranoid.” Her eyes blink very fast.
Again I wonder about telling her that I understand about her mom’s murder and all, but I haven’t found the right way to say anything when Evangeline looks up from her phone and cuts in.
“If you ask me, Martha—which, I remind you, you did, you asked all of us—here’s what I think. Since you don’t care about helping make Rockland a good place for absolutely everyone, and you’re only interested in yourself, then you should leave this meeting. The rest of us can explain to our faculty advisor why you’re gone. In fact, I’d be happy to take that on personally, especially if it means we can be done with your drama. Deal?”
A fatter drop of water plops into the puddle in the center of the wooden chair and I think that Evangeline must not know about Kenyon’s mother, although how can she not it was all over the news and everything—but if she knew she wouldn’t be saying things like that.
Kenyon stiffens like a dog catching a bad scent. She swivels to face Evangeline. “No,” she says distinctly. “No deal. I always speak for myself.”
Evangeline’s hair swings gently. “True. Quite a lot, I’m noticing.”
I look at Antoine. He closes his eyes for a second and shakes his head, and then opens his eyes again, visibly trying to decide what to say and meanwhile for some reason I look over at the boy in the turret—
I get a squish-squish maybe-I’m-sick feeling.
I know exactly who the turret boy is. His hair is longer, the ponytail is new, and he is taller and broader than he was last year, but this is Caleb Colchester, and you should hear what they say about him. There’s this one story about a suspicious fire in his dorm that I really find scary and frankly Georgia shall go nowhere near him. I decree it. Just to be safe.
We looked at each other once. Caleb and me, I mean. It wasn’t just looking, I don’t know how to explain it except that it was a looook.
It was last year not long after I started going to school here and I was puppy-smiley to everyone, although in kind of a cautious way by which I mean I didn’t keep looking at people long enough afterward to see if they smiled back in case they didn’t. (I am aware this is pathetic.)
But he wouldn’t let me look away. Caleb. I cannot explain. I had to keep looking at him and in fact I was staring even though his face had all the expression of flat paint, which is to say he did not smile back, and our eyes locked and I felt my smile kind of dissolve but I kept looking at him and he kept looking at me. By the way he has very dark brown eyes not that I would notice such a thing and he has lashes which let me just say do not need CoverGirl mascara. Then (or maybe it was all happening at once) he noticed Georgia only not with a once-quick-and-away furtive glance like most people but instead he looked slowly, and my equally good foot started throbbing and I wondered about my blood sugar level and I had to lean on Georgia to make it down the corridor and around the corner to where I could rest. I sort of had a panicky feeling that he would follow me and to tell the truth I felt sure that he would follow me but he didn’t and after a while I breathed again.
I didn’t know then and I don’t know now what that was. Am I his type? He is not my type. I like nice boys. Also he is Dr. Caleb Colchester’s son. He’s Caleb Colchester Jr. There are entirely too many students at Rockland with famous parents. (I am not one. Neither is Antoine, yay. Evangeline, yes. Kenyon is famous but for being herself which is awesome.) Anyway since then, whenever I see Caleb Colchester Jr. anywhere, I disappear however I can. He makes my insides jump.
But he’s never glanced my way again as far as I can tell.
To repeat, I am not the kind of girl who goes for the bad boys. I have better sense. I like the good ones. Even in books and movies I disapprove of the bad boys, so there. I feel extremely strongly about this in case you can’t tell. My point is that love should not be complicated if you can possibly help it, and I believe you can help it by picking out a good one from the start. How hard can that be, right?
Caleb keeps to his turret now, unaware that I have identified him, and I am glad glad glad and I think about leaving before he can turn and see me, which is crazy I know.
Meanwhile (and by the way that mental drama of mine took maybe five seconds) Kenyon takes a step toward Evangeline and looks her up and down and her lip curls. “I guess every school has its pretty little goody-goodies like you who care how things look, not how they are.”
I blink because “goody-goody” is not what anybody would ever say about Evangeline.
Evangeline arches an eyebrow.
Antoine says, “Evan, no. Peace. Leave her alone. She’s upset. She didn’t mean it.”
Kenyon glares at Antoine. “I don’t need your protection. And I did mean it.”
“Antoine?” says Evangeline sweetly. “She doesn’t need your protection. Also, she did mean it.”
Antoine drops his head into his hands, then looks over at me and mutters, “Someday, someone is going to kill Evan. It might be a relief.”
Evangeline drawls, “So, Martha? This little, er, goody-goody was looking forward to meeting you. I admired how you got those guys bragging on video. How you got justice for that girl. But now that I’ve met you, I know your kind. You wanted attention, not justice. That’s why you did what you did.”
I am appalled, I have to intervene. I blurt, “Evangeline, stop, listen, maybe you don’t realize about Kenyon’s—”
A tremendous crashing of thunder interrupts me and we all freeze listening to it and outside now the rain pelts down hard and the windows rattle and—
“I’m out of here,” Kenyon says and walks to the door. More thunder blocks out whatever it is that Evangeline says as Kenyon grabs the knob and pulls. But the door does not open because she is making the same mistake I made before (maybe Kenyon has my same fairy godmother?).
Now she kicks the door and I grab Georgia and get to Kenyon as she kicks the door once again. I say, “Kenyon, we have to push, let me help,” and she looks up just as I reach out—
Which is when from overhead there’s this loud groaning crackling sound.
Which is not thunder.
Chapter 5. Caleb
Voices behind you force themselves into your consciousness. You don’t want to look to see what’s happening. You don’t want to care or even be curious. But you turn anyway.
There are four other kids in the room now, not three. And . . . the newcomer is her.
That time you first noticed her, she smiled at you.
You don’t know why the way she looked, the way she moved, got caught on a tape inside your head that plays and replays. All you know is that it did.
It does.
Her cane looks heavy. It is made of wood, and has a handle and a cloudy blue crystal ball on it, so it looks like something Gandalf the Grey would carry. As the son of a physician—because psychiatrists are physicians too, just ones that have chosen to screw around with people’s brains with their medications and their questions—maybe you ought to disapprove because she’d be better off with something metallic and lightweight.
The Gandalf cane suits her, though.
You look at her cane so you won’t look at her as she moves across the room toward the door, which the other girl has just kicked.
You know her name. You do. In a weak moment, you looked her up in the student directory—
A window shatters, and at the same moment there’s an indescribable tearing, cracking, and crashing from the ceiling. More windows crash. Glass flies through the air. Gravel and plaster and tiles and thick, soaked tarpaper descend from above.
In the turret, you’re semi-protected from the collapse of the main roof. Still, instinctively, you throw yourself to the floor and tuck your arms over your head. The crashing— the wind—the torrent of the rain—and the screams.
The screams.
Why it is that you can distinguish Saralinda’s voice from the others, you don’t know. You’ve never heard her speak before.
Still you know her voice.
But there is nothing you can do for her or for anyone, including yourself. Not now, not yet.
Your breath comes and goes. Your heart pounds. I don’t want to die, you think, and your entire body jerks in surprise.
Beyond your crouched body, the wind howls. The crashing goes on and on forever, though later you will calculate that it is all over in three minutes. At some point in the middle, the screams stop. Then the crashing ends. Mostly.
But now the wind and thunder are louder than ever.
Cautiously, you lower your arms.
The ceiling gapes open to the storm. Rain sheets into the room. Furniture is ripped into pieces. Shards and splinters of glass lie scattered everywhere, and heavy wooden support beams lie crashed amid the huge mounds of roofing material.
You canno
t see or hear any sign of the other four kids.
You think of the shredded paper pattern on the floor of your room. Undisturbed this morning. Again.
I could not have done this, you think. Could I?
Unsteadily, unsure, you get to your feet. Did you maybe rig something? Somehow? On the roof? During the daytime? No, that’s crazy. Also, you haven’t had any intervals of blank time recently. But then again, you’ve never realized you’ve had an episode until you’re confronted with proof. Such as—for example—the bloody, disemboweled body of a squirrel on your father’s inlaid ivory-and-ebony chessboard.
Caleb, you’re coming with me to give this poor animal a decent burial in Central Park. Then we will never speak of this again.
“I want Mama—”
No. No, you come back here. You’re coming with me. It would destroy your mother if she knew you did things like this. Do you want to kill her? Do you?
What can you do when your enemy is yourself? Your internal evil twin?
You can’t think about it now, though—you shove it aside.
Now.
Here.
The other kids are buried in the debris. Where?
You cup your hands around your mouth. “Where are you? Somebody answer! Somebody! Saralinda!” The howling wind tears your words away. Even you can hardly hear yourself over the storm.
Nobody answers.
You scan the room as your mind spits out questions. How much weight can the floor bear before it collapses? What about the main roof beam, looming in silhouette against the raging sky? Will it crack and fall next?
You shout for them again.
Nothing.
You’ll search for them inch by inch.
Chapter 6. Saralinda
Tearing, cracking, crashing—
I scream. I scream and I’m on the floor flat on my back and there’s something heavy on top of me I can’t breathe I push upward with my shoulders against the weight the weight the weight but it won’t move panic beats in me choking me my mother where is she she’s always there whether I need her or not and now I do she’s strong I’m weak she’s right after all it’s not safe for me my fingers try to tighten around Georgia who is not there either I lost her when I fell is she okay I try to breathe—