Killing November

by Adriana Mather

She laughs. “You’re the worst.”

  “The worst, but not boring,” I say with a grin, and wipe chocolate off my lip.

  The back door opens and we both look up.

  “You know, you girls can roast marshmallows just as easily inside by the fireplace without freezing your butts off,” my dad says.

  “That’s what I keep telling her,” Emily replies. “But you know what she’s like.”

  “We have like ten blankets and it’s a balmy forty-eight,” I argue.

  “Practically tropical,” Emily groans.

  “Well, I’ll put the kettle on if you want some tea to warm up with,” he says.

  “Thanks, Dad. We’ll be in soon.”

  He starts to pull the door shut, then pauses. “I forgot to tell you. I’m headed over to Aunt Jo’s after work tomorrow. So I won’t be home for dinner.”

  “She can eat at my place,” Emily volunteers. “No problem.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he says, and closes the door.

  “Your dad’s been going to Providence a lot. That’s the second time in two weeks, right?”

  “Third,” I say. “He’s been helping her with some home repairs. I keep telling him he should go on a weekend so I can go with him.”

  Dad went to see Aunt Jo three times in two weeks, which was unusual enough, but on top of that he always went on days I couldn’t go. And then right after all these unusual visits, her house got broken into. Which raises the question: Did Dad know something was going on even before the supposed break-in? I can’t believe I never picked up on this. And now that I’m painfully aware that I don’t know squat about my family, I am worried—worried about what’s really going on with them and that I have absolutely no way to get in touch and find out if everything’s okay. Damn this school’s archaic isolation.

  Just then Matteo enters the courtyard and snaps me out of my thoughts. He doesn’t look puffy and red-eyed from crying the way I would be if I’d just lost my close friend. Instead he looks focused and…furious. Ines and Felix enter the courtyard right behind him.

  On instinct, I check my distance from the two exits just in case I need to make a run for it. But Matteo has yet to look in my direction. Charles and Brendan, however, are staring right at me.

  The professor smiles at me and places her hand on her chest. “Professor Basurto,” she says, and just like that the silent standoff among the six of us is broken. “You must be…”

  “November,” I say.

  “November. Right, of course. All you need to know is that I move quickly, I expect the best, and I encourage you to be creative.”

  Basurto—a Spanish name, and one I’ve always loved because it means “the middle of the forest.”

  “Sure. I love to climb,” I say, but it sounds less peppy than it normally would.

  “Then we’ll get along just fine. Why be on the ground when you can be in a tree, no?” She winks and claps her hands together.

  Matteo still hasn’t looked at me. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.

  “Throughout the ages, trees have played an integral role in plotting and trickery,” Basurto says. “There is the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, whose hollowed-out trunk supposedly served as the hideout for Robin Hood and his Merry Men. There’s the arrow that killed Ponce de León because it was tipped with poison from the sap of the manchineel tree. There are the weapons made from wood and the deadly codes written on paper, and then there’s my favorite use of trees—evasion. They are the perfect escape route because they offer unpredictable terrain, they provide coverage, and only the very skilled can move through them swiftly without falling to their death or suffering grave injury.”

  I steal a glance at Matteo again, but it seems like his thoughts are a million miles away.

  Basurto smiles and there’s a spring to her step as she paces through the grass. Her shirtsleeves are rolled up, revealing well-toned arms that she no doubt acquired from years of climbing. “So today we’re going to start off with a chase exercise. You must show me how uncatchable you are—or the opposite, as the case may be. For my first group I’ll take Charles, Matteo, Nyx, November, and Kiku.” Basurto points to each of us, ending on the girl Ash was with when he came into the parlor the other night. “Go ahead and form a line. The front person should start one vine ahead of the next person, and so on.”

  I try to maneuver my way to the back of our group without making it obvious, but Matteo cuts me off and steps behind me, taking the last spot. My stomach drops so fast that I gulp. Charles looks back at me and smirks.

  “When I say so, you’ll climb three-quarters of the way up your vines,” Basurto says. “And when I say go, you’ll move as fast as you can to the far end of the courtyard. The first person in each group to reach the other side wins. Those of you at the back of your lines can only advance if you catch the person in front of you. Being the first has its advantages but also means everyone is after you. Hence the chase. If you get tagged, you’re out. Likewise, if you fall to the ground, you’re out. We will do this more than once, changing the order each time we go.”

  Kiku is in front of me, then Charles; Nyx is in the first position. Behind me, I hear Matteo crack his knuckles. I wipe my hands on my pants to make sure they’re dry and grab hold of the knobby vine. I can feel my pulse through my fingertips.

  “You may start climbing,” Basurto says.

  The second my feet lift off the ground I feel the familiar rush of excitement. Unfortunately, it’s coupled with my dread of having Matteo directly behind me. All I want to do is look over at him, but Layla’s warning about showing fear rings in my head.

  “Go!” Basurto yells unexpectedly before we’re even halfway to the trees.

  I book it up my vine to the first available branch and swing my legs up. Two branches away from me, Kiku is just getting a grip. I stabilize myself and jump to the next branch, but Kiku’s branch is too far to reach. I spot a vine and quickly sidestep to my left to grab it. Kiku has gotten her balance, but she’s still gauging her next move, and while she does, I swing over to her branch, keeping the vine in my hand for safety. She jumps as my feet make contact, but not before I graze her elbow with my fingertips. Gotcha.

  She gives me a death stare.

  I glance back to find that Matteo is only one branch away and my heart starts pounding. If I hesitate, he’ll catch me for sure.

  Still holding the vine, I yank it more firmly toward me and hook it securely around a nub on the trunk, effectively pulling it out of Matteo’s reach. That should buy me some time. Then I start to climb, looking for Charles as I maneuver through the branches. When I spy him, he and Nyx are about six feet above me in the trees and heading for the middle of the courtyard, where the branches are thinner. I watch as Nyx makes a daring leap, just managing to stabilize herself as she lands. Charles isn’t far behind.

  All the time they’ve spent chasing each other up into the canopy has slowed their progress, which means I have a shot at catching up. I balance myself on a big solid branch and snag a new vine, holding it as I race along, only stopping when I’m under them.

  I hear boots on bark and the sound is too close for comfort. I look left, discovering that Matteo has just stepped onto my branch and there’s only about twenty feet between us. I whip my vine at him, hoping it will slow him down, but he leans out of the way and it goes sailing past him. Knowing Matteo is mere seconds behind me, I scramble onto a higher branch so fast that I give myself bark burn. Just as I get my balance, Nyx jumps from a branch above my head and I instinctively duck. But Charles is only a beat behind her, and as he lands I reach up and tap his ankle. The look of horror on his face is rather satisfying.

  He snaps a twig above my head, sending down wood and leaves into my face.

  I sidestep and grab a higher branch. Only, before I can get a good hold, a big hand wraps around my c
alf. I look down, and as we make eye contact, instead of letting go of me, Matteo yanks on my leg. My hands scrape against the bark and my stomach slams onto the branch I was standing on just moments ago. My legs flail and I desperately try to steady myself, but my momentum is too great and I tumble past Matteo, frantically grabbing on to his ankle to keep from dropping.

  For a split second we stay frozen like that—me dangling from his boot and him looking down at me—before I manage to hook my legs around a vine and let go of him.

  I’m so mad I want to scream, but Matteo’s already moved on, chasing after Nyx.

  I steady myself with the vine, shaking from anger and exertion, and climb my way back down to the ground. If I weren’t so used to falling in trees, Matteo could have killed me back there. He probably meant to.

  “Beautiful first go,” Basurto says as I land in the soft grass—only, I barely hear her compliment because I’m moving toward the end of the courtyard where Matteo will land any minute now.

  I pace back and forth in the grass.

  “Why is it that so many people seem to want to hurt you?” Brendan says, his voice like silk. “It must be your shining personality.”

  Charles joins us and smirks.

  “Whatever,” I say. I don’t get mad often, but when I do, I want to tear the world apart at the seams. I look at the burning scrapes all over my arms. Spots of blood stain my white shirt.

  As I examine my cuts, Matteo drops down from a vine, and the moment he lands I shove him with both hands, sending him back a step.

  “You could have killed me,” I growl. “Basurto said tag, not yank the person you catch down to their death. What the hell is your problem? And don’t try to tell me it’s because of Stefano, because you know I wouldn’t kill someone in my own Family to get back at you for a punch!” I’m taking a chance, but I hope my indignation over Family rings true to him. I need to undermine whoever is trying to pit us against each other.

  “Hey, now!” Basurto yells from the middle of the courtyard as she starts to march toward us. “This is not how we use our energy in my class.”

  Matteo stares me down, breathing hard from the climb, daring me to hit him. “Save it for someone who cares. Your words don’t mean anything to me.” His voice is calm but his eyes are anything but.

  Basurto steps between us. “I see you two have a flair for the dramatic today. I saw your little maneuver up in the trees, Matteo. It was bad form, I’ll grant you that. But if he really wanted to kill you, November, he could have shaken you off his boot before you could reach for a vine. But go ahead and continue. Fight it out. Throw yourselves on the ground like children if you need to.”

  Matteo and I stare at each other for a long moment before I eventually look away. He did have the opportunity to kill me, I realize, and he chose to let me get my grip. But that doesn’t prove that he doesn’t want me dead—only that he wasn’t willing to kill me in front of everyone.

  “No takers? Well, I’m going to get back to this beautiful day, then,” Basurto says.

  The entire class watches us, with Brendan and Charles looking particularly interested in the exchange. I’m left feeling oddly exposed.

  STILL WORKED UP over my exchange with Matteo and my worry about my family, I take a seat in Conner’s office. I focus on the flames crackling in the fireplace, the only thing in the whole room that has movement and doesn’t feel stale.

  “Is there anything you would like to tell me, November?” Conner asks from the couch across from mine. Ten things that I don’t want him to know flash through my thoughts.

  “Not particularly,” I say.

  His eyes focus on me in a way that tells me he doesn’t accept my answer. “Why don’t we talk about your friendship with Ashai?” he says slowly.

  I hate these vague leading questions. I much prefer Blackwood’s direct ones. “Where’s Headmaster Blackwood?”

  “Not here,” Conner says, and offers no clarification.

  I lean back into the couch, trying to give him the impression that I’m comfortable and have nothing to hide. “What do you want to know?”

  “You and Ashai have been spending a lot of time together,” he says like he’s daring me to disagree.

  “He’s my roommate’s brother. It would be hard to avoid him if I wanted to,” I say.

  “Do you want to?” he asks.

  These mind games are the worst. “Not particularly.”

  “Because you find him attractive?” he says.

  “You already heard me say that to Headmaster Blackwood,” I reply casually, as though there’s nothing more to the story.

  “But I didn’t believe you when you said it,” Conner says, and I hold my breath for a brief second.

  “Are you kidding?” I say in a slightly brighter tone. “Even someone with terrible vision could see that Ash is attractive.”

  “I’m not debating his looks. I’m simply saying that I don’t believe they’re a contributing factor to your leaving your room after curfew.”

  I instinctively glance toward the door, which I’m sure he notices and interprets as me wanting to avoid his question.

  He waits.

  I sigh, trying to show him that I’m going to tell him what he wants to know. “You told me you were worried I might not be able to keep up in history. Well, I’m competitive, like everyone else here, and I didn’t want to be behind. I noticed that Ash is a strong analyst and I wanted to convince him to tutor me.”

  Conner considers my words. “Hmmm. I see. And that night, after you met with him, which route did you take back to your room again?”

  Oh, shit. Ash was wrong—I did not do well in my first interview. “When I spoke with you and Headmaster Blackwood, we covered—”

  “Take me through it step by step,” Conner says, and puts his pen down to watch me more closely.

  I take a deep breath, trying to slow my heart, but it doesn’t work. “The moment I came back in the building, I was moving fast. I—”

  “Which door did you come through?”

  “The one at the east end of the vine courtyard.”

  “Uh-huh, go on,” he says. “Details, please.”

  “As I said, I was moving fast because I knew it was late, and there’s really nothing to tell. I went up the stairs and down the hallway. And when I got back to my room, that guard spotted me,” I say, attempting to keep my voice light and my hands from fidgeting.

  “When I said details, I meant details, November.” Conner’s tone is sharp. “Which staircase? Which hallway?”

  It feels like the temperature suddenly went up ten degrees. I roll up my sleeves. “The hallway that my dorm room is in and the staircase by way of the courtyard.” I only hope that my leading with the thing that’s true means he won’t get a clear read that I’m lying.

  “Blackwood and I questioned the guard who saw you,” he says, and my palms start to sweat. “And unfortunately for you, that night, the guard patrolled the girls’ dormitory from a different direction than he usually does.” He adds this in a way that makes me think he’s closing in on his one-two punch.

  I make a conscious effort to stay still and not let him see me squirm.

  Conner is silent, drawing out the time, knowing that I’m hanging on his every word. “The guard usually enters the dormitory area from the west end of the hallway. But that night he used the staircase and hallway at the east end.” Conner smiles. “The same staircase that you supposedly took to return to your room. If you did in fact take that staircase and hallway, you would have been right in front of him. Unless you expect me to believe that you were in that staircase with him, yet so quiet and so invisible that he didn’t hear or see you?”

  My pulse races, but I stay silent. I know by now that not talking when you get caught is way better than covering a lie with another lie.

  �
�Well?” he says.

  “I don’t know,” I say, and I feel a bead of sweat form above my upper lip.

  “You don’t know or you’re lying?” he says with a smugness that’s infuriating.

  My mind is racing. “It seems strange that a guard who takes the same route every single night suddenly decides to change his routine,” I say to throw the focus off me. But now that I’ve said it, it does seem odd.

  With that, the smugness in Conner’s expression disappears, like I just disrupted his favorite game. His eyes narrow slightly. “That doesn’t change the fact that he was in that staircase and you could not have been.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to explain it to you. I’m just as confused as you are. Maybe you should question the guard further. Perhaps he’s not telling you something.”

  We stare at each other for a few more seconds, and I know in my gut that while I may have won this round, the fight is only beginning. Conner is out for blood, and right now he thinks I’m guilty. Not that I entirely blame him, with all the lies I’ve told.

  He puts his folder down on the maroon cushion and readjusts his blazer, picking a piece of lint off his shoulder. When he speaks next, his voice is smooth and calm. “Tell me about your conflict with Matteo.”

  “It’s simple. He hates me and I don’t understand why,” I say, relieved to have something completely true to say.

  “I’m surprised you don’t understand, considering who you are to each other.”

  My heart skips a beat. “What did you just say?” Ash and Layla were right. Even though I don’t know who people are here, that doesn’t mean they don’t know who I am.

  Conner gives me a look. “Pay attention, November. I said, I’m surprised you don’t understand, considering how you are with each other. I heard about your little altercation in the courtyard earlier.”

  I give Conner a sideways look. That is not what he said. It’s also entirely possible he knows and is messing with me, trying to see how I’ll react. “He nearly pulled me out of the tree.”

  “So you tried to start a fight with him?” Conner says.