by Lauren Kate
She gave his shoulders the tiniest push, not intending to affect him at all, but the lightest touch of her fingertips was enough to knock Daniel over.
His fall took her so much by surprise, she accidentally lost her own balance and landed in a tangled heap on top of him. Daniel was flat on his back, looking at her with wide eyes.
She should not have told him that. Here she was, on top of him, and she’d just divulged her deepest secret, the thing that really defined her as a lunatic.
How could she still want to kiss him so badly at a time like this?
Her heart was pounding impossibly fast. Then she realized: She was feeling both of their hearts, racing each other. A kind of desperate conversation, one they couldn’t have with words.
“You really see them?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered, wanting to pick herself up and take it all back. And yet she was unable to move off Daniel’s chest. She tried to read his thoughts—what any normal person would think about an admission like hers. “Let me guess,” she said glumly. “Now you’re certain I need a transfer. To a psychiatric ward.”
He pushed himself out from under her, leaving her lying practically face-first on the rock. Her eyes moved up his feet, to his legs, to his torso, to his face. He was staring up at the forest.
“That’s never happened before,” he said.
Luce got to her feet. It was humiliating, lying there alone. Plus, it was like he hadn’t even heard what she said.
“What’s never happened? Before what?”
He turned to her and cupped her cheeks in his hands. She held her breath. He was so close. His lips were so close to hers. Luce gave her thigh a pinch to make sure this time she wasn’t dreaming. She was wide awake.
Then he almost forcibly pulled himself away. He stood before her, breathing quickly, his arms stiff at his sides.
“Tell me again what you saw.”
Luce turned away to face the lake. The clear blue water lapped softly at the bank, and she considered diving in. That was what Daniel had done the last time things had gotten too intense for him. Why couldn’t she do it, too?
“It may surprise you to know this,” she said. “But it’s no thrill for me to sit here and talk about how thoroughly insane I am.” Especially to you.
Daniel didn’t answer, but she could feel his eyes on her. When she finally got the courage to glance at him, he was giving her a strange, disturbing, mournful look—one in which his eyes turned down at the corners and their particular gray was the saddest thing Luce had ever seen. She felt as if she’d let him down somehow. But this was her awful confession. Why should Daniel be the one to look so shattered?
He stepped toward her and leaned down until his eyes were gazing directly into hers. Luce almost couldn’t take it. But she couldn’t make herself budge, either. Whatever happened to break this trance would have to be up to Daniel—who was moving closer still, tilting his head toward hers and closing his eyes. His lips parted. Luce’s breath caught in her throat.
She closed her eyes, too. She tilted her head toward his, too. She parted her lips, too.
And waited.
The kiss she had been dying for didn’t come. She opened her eyes because nothing had happened, except for the rustling sound of a tree branch. Daniel was gone. She sighed, crestfallen but not surprised.
What was strange was that she could almost see the path he’d taken back through the forest. As if she were some kind of hunter who could pinpoint the rotation of a leaf and let it lead her back to Daniel. Except she was nothing of the sort, and the kind of trail that Daniel left in his wake was somehow bigger, clearer, and at the same time, even more elusive. It was as if a violet glow illuminated his path back through the forest.
Like the violet glow she’d seen during the library fire. She was seeing things. She steadied herself on the rock and looked away for a moment, rubbing her eyes. But when she looked back, it was just the same: In just one plane of her vision—as if she were looking through bi focals with a wild prescription—the live oaks, and the mulch beneath them, and even the songs of the birds in the branches—all of it seemed to wobble out of focus. And it didn’t just wobble, bathed in that faintest purple light, but seemed to emit a barely audible low-pitched hum.
She spun back around, terrified to face it, terrified of what it meant. Something was happening to her, and she could tell no one about it. She tried to focus on the lake, but even it was growing darker and difficult to see.
She was alone. Daniel had left her. And in his place, this path she didn’t know how—or want—to navigate. When the sun sank behind the mountains and the lake became a charcoal gray, Luce dared another glance back at the forest. She sucked in her breath, not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. It was a forest like any other, no quivering light or violet hum. No sign of Daniel’s ever having been there at all.
THIRTEEN
TOUCHED AT THE ROOTS
Luce could hear her Converse sneakers beating hard against the pavement. She could feel the humid wind tugging on her black T-shirt. She could practically taste the hot tar from a freshly paved portion of the parking lot. But when she flung her arms around the two huddled creatures near the entrance to Sword & Cross on Saturday morning, all of that was forgotten.
She had never been so glad to hug her parents in her life.
For days, she’d been regretting how cold and distant things had been at the hospital, and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
They both stumbled as she plowed into them. Her mother started giggling and her dad thwacked her back in his tough-guy way with his palm. He had his enormous camera strapped around his neck. They straightened up and held their daughter at arm’s length. They seemed to want a good look at her face, but as soon as they got it, their own faces fell. Luce was crying.
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter?” her father asked, resting his hand on her head.
Her mom fished through her giant blue pocketbook for her stash of tissues. Eyes wide, she dangled one in front of Luce’s nose and asked, “We’re here now. Everything’s fine, isn’t it?”
No, everything was not fine.
“Why didn’t you take me home the other day?” Luce asked, feeling angry and hurt all over again. “Why did you let them bring me back here?”
Her father blanched. “Every time we spoke to the headmaster, he said you were doing great, back in classes, like the trouper we raised. A sore throat from the smoke and a little bump on the head. We thought that was all.” He licked his lips.
“Was there more?” her mom asked.
One look between her parents told that they’d had this fight already. Mom would have begged to visit again sooner. Luce’s tough-love dad would have put his foot down.
There was no way to explain to them what had happened that night or what she’d been going through since then. She had gone straight back to classes, though not by her own choice. And physically, she was fine. It was just that in every other way—emotionally, psychologically, romantically—she couldn’t have felt more broken.
“We’re just trying to follow the rules,” Luce’s father explained, moving his big hand to squeeze her neck. The weight of it shifted her whole posture and made it uncomfortable to stand still, but it had been so long since she’d been this close to people she loved, she didn’t dare move away. “Because we only want what’s best for you,” her dad added. “We have to take it on faith that these people”—he gestured at the formidable buildings around campus, as if they represented Randy and Headmaster Udell and the rest of them—“that they know what they’re talking about.”
“They don’t,” Luce said, glancing at the shoddy buildings and the empty commons. So far, nothing at this school made any sense to her.
Case in point, what they called Parents’ Day. They’d made such a big deal about how lucky the students were to get the privilege of seeing their own flesh and blood. And yet it was ten minutes until lunchtime and Luce’s pare
nts’ car was the only one in the parking lot.
“This place is an absolute joke,” she said, sounding cynical enough that her parents shared a troubled look.
“Luce, honey,” her mom said, stroking her hair. Luce could tell she wasn’t used to its short length. Her fingers had a maternal instinct to follow the ghost of Luce’s former hair all the way down her back. “We just want one nice day with you. Your father brought all your favorite foods.”
Sheepishly, her father held up a colorful patchwork quilt and a large briefcase-style contraption made of wicker that Luce had never seen before. Usually when they picnicked, it was a much more casual affair, with paper grocery bags and an old ripped sheet thrown down on the grass by the canoe trail outside their house.
“Pickled okra?” Luce asked in a voice that sounded very much like little-kid Lucy. No one could say her parents weren’t trying.
Her dad nodded. “And sweet tea, and biscuits with white gravy. Cheddar grits with extra jalapeños, just the way you like ’em. Oh,” he said, “and one more thing.”
Luce’s mom reached into her purse for a fat, sealed red envelope and held it out to Luce. For the briefest moment, a pain gnawed at Luce’s stomach when she thought back to the mail she was accustomed to receiving. Psycho Killer. Death Girl.
But when Luce looked at the handwriting on the envelope, her face broke into an enormous grin.
Callie.
She tore into the envelope and pulled out a card with a black-and-white photograph on the front of two old ladies getting their hair done. Inside, every square inch of the card was filled with Callie’s large, bubbly handwriting. And there were several pieces of scrawled-on loose-leaf paper because she’d run out of room on the card.
Dear Luce,
Since our phone time is now ridiculously insufficient (Can you please petition for some more? It’s downright unjust), I’m going to get all old-fashioned on you and take up epic letter writing. Enclosed you will find every single minuscule thing that happened to me over the past two weeks. Whether you like it or not …
Luce clutched the envelope to her chest, still grinning, eager to devour the letter as soon as her parents headed home. Callie hadn’t given up on her. And her parents were sitting right beside her. It had been way too long since Luce had felt this loved. She reached out and squeezed her father’s hand.
A blaring whistle made both her parents jump. “It’s just the dinner bell,” she explained; they seemed relieved. “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
As they walked from the hot, hazy parking lot toward the commons where the opening events of Parents’ Day were being held, Luce started to see the campus through her parents’ eyes. She noticed anew the sagging roof of the main office, and the sickly, overripe odor of the rotting peach grove next to the gym. The way the wrought iron of the cemetery gates was overcome with orangey rust. She realized that in only a couple of weeks, she’d grown completely accustomed to Sword & Cross’s many eyesores.
Her parents looked mostly horrified. Her father gestured at a dying grapevine winding its decrepit way around the splintering fence at the entrance to the commons.
“Those are chardonnay grapes,” he said, wincing because when a plant felt pain, so did he.
Her mother was using two hands to grip her pocket-book to her chest, with both elbows sticking out—the stance she took when she found herself in a neighborhood where she thought she might be mugged. And they hadn’t even seen the reds yet. Her parents, who were adamantly against little things like Luce getting a webcam, would hate the idea of constant surveillance at her school.
Luce wanted to protect them from all the atrocities of Sword & Cross, because she was figuring out how to manage—and sometimes even beat—the system here. Just the other day, Arriane had taken her through an obstacle course-like sprint across the campus to point out all the “dead reds” whose batteries had died or been slyly “replaced,” effectively creating the blind spots of the school. Her parents didn’t need to know about all that; they just needed to have a good day with her.
Penn was swinging her legs from the bleachers, where she and Luce had promised to meet at noon. She was holding a potted mum.
“Penn, these are my parents, Harry and Doreen Price,” Luce said, gesturing. “Mom and Dad, this is—”
“Pennyweather Van Syckle-Lockwood,” Penn said formally, extending the mum with both hands. “Thank you for letting me join you for lunch.”
Ever polite, Luce’s parents cooed and smiled, not asking any questions about Penn’s own family’s whereabouts, which Luce hadn’t had the time to explain.
It was another warm, clear day. The acid-green willow trees in front of the library swayed gently in the breeze, and Luce steered her parents to a position where the willows obscured most of the soot stains and the windows broken by the fire. As they spread out the quilt on a dry patch of grass, Luce pulled Penn aside.
“How are you?” Luce asked, knowing that if she’d been the one who had to sit through a whole day honoring everyone’s parents but hers, she would have needed a major pick-me-up.
To her surprise, Penn’s head bobbed happily. “This is already so much better than last year!” she said. “And it’s all because of you. I wouldn’t have anyone today if you hadn’t come along.”
The compliment took Luce by surprise and made her look around the quad to see how everyone else was handling the event. Despite the still half-empty parking lot, Parents’ Day seemed to be slowly filling up.
Molly sat on a blanket nearby, between a pug-faced man and woman, gnawing hungrily on a turkey leg. Arriane was crouched on a bleacher, whispering to an older punk girl with hypnotizing hot-pink hair. Most likely her big sister. The two of them caught Luce’s eye and Arriane grinned and waved, then turned to the other girl to whisper something.
Roland had a huge party of people setting up a picnic lunch on a large bedspread. They were laughing and joking, and a few younger kids were throwing food at each other. They seemed to be having a great time until a corn-on-the-cob grenade went flying and almost blind-sided Gabbe, who was walking across the commons. She scowled at Roland as she guided a man who looked old enough to be her grandfather, patting his elbow as they walked toward a row of lawn chairs set up around the open field.
Daniel and Cam were noticeably missing—and Luce couldn’t picture what either of their families would look like. As angry and embarrassed as she’d been after Daniel bailed on her for the second time at the lake, she was still dying to catch a glimpse of anyone related to him. But then, thinking back to Daniel’s thin file in the archive room, Luce wondered whether he even kept in touch with anyone from his family.
Luce’s mother doled cheddar grits onto four plates, and her father topped the mounds with freshly chopped jalapeños. After one bite, Luce’s mouth was on fire, just the way she liked it. Penn seemed unfamiliar with the typical Georgia fare Luce had grown up with. She looked particularly terrified by the pickled okra, but as soon as she took a bite, she gave Luce a surprised smile of approval.
Luce’s mom and dad had brought with them every single one of Luce’s favorite foods, even the pecan pralines from the family drugstore down the block. Her parents chomped happily on either side of her, seeming glad to fill their mouths with something other than talk of death.
Luce should have been enjoying her time with them, and washing it all down with her beloved Georgia sweet tea, but she felt like an imposter daughter for pretending this elysian lunch was normal for Sword & Cross. The whole day was such a sham.
At the sound of a short, feeble round of applause, Luce looked over at the bleachers, where Randy stood next to Headmaster Udell, a man whom Luce had never seen in the flesh before. She recognized him from the unusually dim portrait that hung in the main lobby of the school, but she saw now that the artist had been generous. Penn had already told her that the headmaster showed up on campus only one day of the year—Parents’ Day—with no exceptions. Otherwise, he was
a recluse who didn’t leave his Tybee Island mansion, not even when a student at his school passed away. The man’s jowls were swallowing his chin and his bovine eyes stared out into the crowd, not seeming to focus on anything.
At his side Randy stood, legs akimbo in white stockings. She had a lipless smile plastered across her face, and the headmaster was blotting his big forehead with a napkin. Both had their game faces on today, but it seemed to be taking a lot out of them.
“Welcome to Sword & Cross’s one-hundred-and-fifty-ninth annual Parents’ Day,” Headmaster Udell said into a microphone.
“Is he kidding?” Luce whispered to Penn. It was hard to imagine Parents’ Day during the antebellum period.
Penn rolled her eyes. “Surely a typo. I’ve told them to get him new reading glasses.”
“We have a long and fun-filled day of family time scheduled for you, beginning with this leisurely picnic lunch—”
“Usually we only get nineteen minutes,” Penn interrupted in an aside to Luce’s parents, who stiffened.
Luce smiled over Penn’s head and mouthed, “She’s kidding.”
“Next you’ll have your choice of activities. Our very own biologist, Ms. Yolanda Tross, will deliver a fascinating lecture in the library on the local Savannah flora found on campus. Coach Diante will supervise a series of family-friendly races out here on the lawn. And Mr. Stanley Cole will offer a historical guided tour of our prized heroes’ cemetery. It’s going to be a very busy day. And yes,” Headmaster Udell said with a cheesy, toothy grin, “you will be tested on this.”
It was just the right kind of bland and hackneyed joke to earn some canned laughter out of the bunch of visiting family members. Luce rolled her eyes at Penn. This depressing attempt at good-natured chuckling made it all too clear that everyone was here in order to feel better about leaving their children in the hands of the Sword & Cross faculty. The Prices laughed, too, but kept looking at Luce for more cues on how to handle themselves.
