Killing November

by Adriana Mather

  Kartal looks directly at me. “Strange things also happen on purpose,” she says before breaking eye contact. “During the Middle Ages, King John of England wanted to build a highway right through Gotham. And the residents were required to pay for this highway themselves. At the time, madness was considered contagious. So the good people of Gotham decided to fake insanity to discourage people from wanting to pass through, trying to eliminate the need for the highway they didn’t want. A whole town gone mad.” She smiles. “Would anyone like to tell me where I’m going with this?”

  “There’s something about coincidences that people are attracted to,” Nyx says, and she sounds annoyed by it. “The stranger the coincidences are, the more people want to believe them. An entire town gone mad is a good story; people will actually go out of their way to verify it rather than examine the motives.”

  I take a better look at Nyx. I can’t help but feel like this particular conversation is somehow related to the murder.

  “Absolutely true,” Kartal says. “Anyone else?”

  “It’s easy to talk people into believing coincidences and into not believing them,” Aarya says.

  “Explain,” Kartal says.

  Aarya leans back in her chair. “If the coincidence gets reinforced, people will attach to it and expand upon it. They’ll try to understand every last detail about what makes it so strange and believe it even beyond reason. However, if the coincidence is argued against, it will forever be clouded with doubt, whether it’s real or not.”

  “I quite agree,” Kartal says. “Which makes orchestrating one of these events extremely risky, but glorious if you can pull it off. Now tell me: Which story isn’t like the others?”

  “The first,” Layla says. “Someone who knew about King Umberto’s meeting with the restaurant owner might also encourage the telling of that story at dinner parties or social gatherings. Once the story became commonly known, it would be fairly easy to shoot the restaurant owner, tell the king, and then orchestrate an assassination. It builds on the oddity and lends credence to the coincidences, suggesting fate as a possible reason for the king’s death.”

  I look at Layla and I’m a little in awe. Ash was right when he said they analyze history, understand how one domino topples another, and use that information to predict future events. It’s not unlike the way he reads my mannerisms.

  “And furthermore,” Felix says, “Layla’s analysis has created the very doubt that Aarya was talking about. So even if the restaurant owner’s and king’s deaths were pure coincidence, we’ve just been introduced to new variables that mean we can’t deny the possible intentionality of the events.”

  “Quite so,” Kartal says. “The framing of history impacts its credibility as much as the facts. Just like a portrait painter who hides his subjects’ flaws changes our impression of them. Peeling away those layers to find the truth is often difficult. And if the person who framed the story is skilled enough, there may always be doubt, so much so that the truth is lost forever.” She says this last part slowly.

  I swallow. A week ago I would have thought this conversation was a coincidence, but as I just learned, coincidences can be carefully orchestrated events.

  “Let’s talk about a specific plot that centered around the discovery of a body rather than the body itself,” Kartal says.

  I fight the urge to scan the room, to see if anyone is reacting to Kartal’s doublespeak. Layla stays unnaturally still, with a blank expression, and I immediately realize that they all hear it. I’m just the idiot who is about to be obvious about it. Damn it. Every time I think I’m catching on, I discover I’m a step behind. Ash was right when he said I was in the bleachers eating popcorn while everyone else was on the playing field.

  “During World War Two, British intelligence dropped a body dressed as a British officer into the Mediterranean Sea,” Kartal says. “On this body, they placed the plans for an invasion of Greece. The thing was, Greece was a decoy; they were actually planning to invade Sicily. The Spanish found the body and bought the ruse, believing that the invasion would occur in Greece. What made the entire thing work, though, is that while the Spanish gave the documents to the Germans, they never handed over the body. Spain was chosen as the target of this plot because of their particular aversion to autopsies. Had the Germans discovered the body, they would have conducted an autopsy and would have potentially figured out that the person hadn’t died from drowning and that it was all a fake.” She looks around the room. “The entire plan relied on the fact that the people finding the body wouldn’t do the inspection they needed to.”

  The questions Kartal is raising make my head spin, especially if there’s a chance that she’s referring to the way in which Stefano was found and by whom. Blackwood did say that her investigative methods would be unusual and unpredictable. So part of me can’t help but wonder if some of the staff are simply trying to stir the pot and get us to question what we think we know—exactly like I’m doing right now.

  “WHY DID WE leave the parlor? Aarya’s still in there,” I whisper to Ash in the middle of an empty hallway lit by a single torch.

  Ash pulls me into the shadows and talks so quietly that I can barely hear him, and I’m right next to him. “Because I saw Felix tell her in sign language that he would meet her.”

  “Meet her where?” I ask, a pit forming in my stomach. Ash’s nearness isn’t helping with my nerves. I’m sure if anyone came through the hallway they would think we were having a romantic moment. But the last thing I need is more marks. I’m probably going to be scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush as it is.

  “I’m assuming her room,” he says.

  I pull back slightly to get a look at him. “What are you saying right now?”

  “I’m saying I want to hear that conversation,” he whispers, and I can tell by his tone that he’s serious.

  My eyes widen as I realize what he’s implying. “No. Forget it. That is so not what I signed up for, Ash. I’m not breaking into…I’m not doing that.”

  “Then stay here and be scared,” he says. “Any minute now they could come out of that parlor and we’ll lose our window of opportunity. But that’s okay; you go to bed. I’m sure you’ll sleep well knowing that you will likely be blamed for a murder you didn’t commit.” And he walks away.

  For a second I just watch him with my mouth open. I’ve clearly met my match in Ash when it comes to being creatively pushy.

  “Damn it,” I say under my breath, and walk quickly down the hall to catch up with him.

  When I reach him, he’s wearing a small smile, like he knew exactly what the result of that conversation would be. I scowl and consider saying something biting, but as we pass into the stairwell, my annoyance with Ash is eclipsed by my fear of what we’re about to do.

  Ash stops in front of the second-floor entrance to the girls’ dormitory, checking for guards, and I immediately get a feeling of déjà vu from the other night. Only then it was all still a game.

  Ash motions for me to follow him and we dart into the hallway, keeping our steps silent. He stops at the fourth door on the right and silently lifts the latch of Aarya and Ines’s door. We slide inside, my heart beating a bazillion miles an hour.

  I’ve never considered how easy it is to get into someone else’s space at the Academy. The doors can only be locked from the inside. But then again, I’m not sure what use locks would be with this group. Instead of making it harder to break in, I suspect locks would incentivize this group to try.

  “What now?” I whisper, scanning the common room, which is a replica of Layla’s and mine. Between the stone floors and antique furniture, the only good space to hide is under the beds, and there is absolutely no way I’m risking getting trapped in one of their bedrooms.

  “What’s now is that you pick up that piece of grass you tracked in,” Ash says, looking at the floor like he can’t be
lieve I’m so careless. “Unless you want to immediately alert Aarya that we’re here, and if that’s the case, I hope your fighting skills are good enough to handle a three-on-two fight.”

  I look down at the floor, and sure enough there is a single blade of grass that must have been stuck to the bottom of my boot. I pick it up and shove it in my pocket.

  Ash makes his way across the room to the window blotted out with a heavy curtain. “The sill is big enough. Go from below and try not to pull the curtain out too far. If light gets through, the guards outside might see it and come up here. Don’t sit down on the sill—stand and press your back against the side of the window arch. And get yourself into a position that you can stay in for a few hours and where you have flexibility of movement without making any noise. If someone pats the curtain, you have to be ready to move so that the fabric doesn’t touch your body and give us away.”

  For a moment I just stare at him, thinking he can’t possibly mean what he’s saying. But he gives no indication that he is anything but serious.

  I gulp. “So I’m going to be hiding for hours against a second-story window in a room with someone who probably wouldn’t think twice about pushing me out of it? And there is a real possibility that someone is going to check the curtain, and I’ll have to avoid their hand?”

  “Yes,” Ash says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Then he pulls out the curtain just enough for me to shinny under it. “You first.”

  “How are we going to get back out?” I ask, and realize I’ve taken a step away from the curtain, not toward it.

  “We wait until they go to sleep and we’re quiet about it,” he says.

  “And if someone sleeps on the couch?”

  “Then we’re stuck here for the night, or we have to take our chances with sneaking past them,” he says, and pauses. “You need to get under this curtain now, unless you want them to walk in and catch us outright.”

  I walk toward him, dreading the moment when Aarya returns.

  Ash watches me carefully. I bend down, hesitantly touching the curtain.

  Ash sighs. “Go back to your room, November,” he says, and I stop what I’m doing.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Seriously, go back. You can’t do this if you’re not confident. You’ll give us away in a minute. Go. Quickly, before this is all a waste.”

  I stand, pushing my hair back from my face, and he gives me a hard look. I want to say something, to protest, but he’s right. There’s no time. And the only thing that would make this whole thing worse would be getting caught because I’m lingering stupidly.

  I peek into the hallway and, luckily, it’s empty. I slip out of the room, closing the door behind me. It’s not the silent exit Ash would have made, and that only makes me feel crappier about the whole thing as I dart into the stairwell toward my room. This is the first time anyone has ever suggested that I’m not confident enough to do something, and it’s screwing with my head. He didn’t say I wasn’t good enough. He wouldn’t have brought me if he didn’t think I was capable. But that piece of grass was a huge oversight.

  I tiptoe down my bedroom hallway, careful to avoid all the creaky boards. I drop to my hands and knees and crawl across the living room floor until I get to the back of the couch.

  “I can hear your breathing, my onesie-wearing spy,” Aunt Jo calls from the couch, where she’s playing cards with Dad.

  I stand up. “Dang it.”

  “And I saw you slinking around on the floor, Nova,” Dad says. “What have I told you about that?”

  I put my hand on my hip, annoyed that I have to repeat things back to him like a little kid when I’m almost eight. “That my small size is an advantage, but not if I can’t stay completely hidden.”

  “And how would you have stayed hidden?” he asks.

  I huff. “By staying in the hallway and not coming all the way to the couch.”

  He nods.

  “But I couldn’t hear you as well from there,” I protest. “And the floor in the hallway is cold.”

  “But you could hear us,” he says. “And yet by coming all the way into the room, you’ve been caught, letting Aunt Jo and me know that we’re being spied on. So what good did it do you?”

  “None,” I say, annoyed.

  “It wasn’t a bad effort, though, little one,” Aunt Jo says, and puts her elbow over the back of the couch to get a better look at me. “And I’m entirely flattered that you would go through all that trouble to get out here just to overhear our conversation. I won’t leave you empty-handed. For your efforts, I’ll reward you by letting you know that I’m beating the pants off your father in rummy.”

  Dad shakes his head. “The imagination is an amazing thing, Jo.” He looks at me. “Now, back to bed, Nova.”

  “Fine,” I grumble, and Aunt Jo gives me a kiss on my forehead. She looks down at my ankles and laughs because I’ve unevenly cut the noisy skidproof plastic feet off my onesie.

  At seven years old I was more confident, more willing to take risks, than I just was in Aarya’s room. And I know better than to track things in and linger indecisively like that. Dad told me a million times that you either do something or you don’t, but hesitating is never an option.

  When I get to my room, I immediately check behind the curtains and under the beds. Emily always thought it was weird the way my family encouraged me to be better at sneaking around, instead of scolding me. I used to tell her it was because Dad believed that survival skills were just that—for survival. But until I came here, I didn’t actually realize how right he was.

  LAYLA HANDS ME my cloak as she recaps what Ash overheard last night. “Apparently, Matteo only just returned from the outer perimeter, so Felix was telling Aarya he’s not sure Matteo even knows about Stefano yet,” Layla says. “Although I’m certain he figured something was wrong when he returned to his room and Stefano was missing.”

  “Outer perimeter?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  “Blackwood has been known to send students to the outer perimeter as part of their punishment,” Layla says. “The tasks vary, but it’s frustrating because you miss all your lessons.”

  I try to keep the fear off my face that Matteo is back. He already punched me for no reason that I can tell; I really don’t want to find out what he will do if he actually believes I killed his friend. “How did Felix know Matteo was in the outer perimeter?” Only in a school as competitive as this would people be upset they missed their classes.

  Layla shrugs. “Ash didn’t say. Maybe Felix spotted him coming back in and assumed, or maybe he overheard Matteo telling someone that was where he’d been. Felix also told Aarya that Charles spotted Ash out on the night of the murder. And if Aarya knows that, you can pretty much assume the entire school will know by lunchtime, leaving us vulnerable to possible sabotage by the other students who might have reason to further the idea that you or Ash was responsible.”

  “Great,” I say with no enthusiasm as I slip my arms through my cloak. “Is it weird that Charles would tell Felix about seeing Ash? I didn’t get the sense they were friends.”

  “They’re not. But the passing of information is about strategy, not friendships.” Layla opens the door and we make our way into the hall, cutting off our conversation.

  As I walk alongside Layla, I instinctively look over my shoulder for Matteo, even though it’s unlikely he’d be in the girls’ dorm. I can’t help but be a little bothered that Ash didn’t tell me what he heard last night; he must have come to our room this morning to tell Layla and not included me. I know his sister is the obvious go-to, but I wonder if he’s lost a little faith in me for being so hesitant about hiding in Aarya’s room. And I can’t really blame him. In a situation where so much is at stake, I dropped the ball.

  “If you keep looking over your shoulder, the entire school is going to k
now you’re afraid of Matteo, which only makes you look guilty,” Layla says under her breath as we walk through the downstairs foyer.

  “If I don’t look over my shoulder and Matteo jumps on my head, I’ll be squished,” I mumble, trying to make light of my raging nerves.

  We walk into the courtyard with the vines and stop. About seven students are already there.

  “I’ll come get you before poisons class,” Layla says, and I can tell by the way her eyes dart to the side that even she is concerned about what Matteo’s return will mean.

  I feel like I’ve been flipped into an alternate universe. Just a week ago I had nothing more on my mind than how to talk my way out of detention and the dress shopping Emily wanted to do for the winter formal. Now my thoughts are full of murder, deception, and classes that teach me how to poison people. I’ve never been so homesick.

  “So are you going to the dance with Jack or what?” Emily asks as she turns her marshmallow over the fire pit on my back deck.

  “Not sure,” I say, tucking in the blanket around my legs. I bite into my s’more.

  “Not sure, nothing. I have no intention of babysitting you all night,” Emily says.

  “Me? I’m the most social person you know,” I say, and push her hand a little closer to the flame so her marshmallow browns faster.

  She gives me a look. “Oh, I’m not worried you’re going to get stuck against the wall all night. I’m worried that you’ll have too much time on your hands and decide to scale the building and parachute through the skylight with your dress over your head.”

  I laugh. “And you think Jack is somehow going to dazzle me so hard that I won’t want to misbehave? The bigger problem is that if I do go with him, I’ll probably end up having to babysit him all night.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t get you. You think he’s cute.”

  “He is cute. But he’s boring, you know?” I pause. “I’d way rather make out with him at parties and just call it a day.”