The Tenth Girl

by Sara Faring

  Or do I hope to find someone who will either accept what I saw last night as truth or blast its veracity away entirely in blunt, serious terms? Not brush me off as a hungover wreck, as Yesi did?

  Perhaps I should look for Morency. She respects the darkness in this house as much as I now feel I should. And she’s the only one to truly do so; every other occupant is cavalier about the rules, barring dearest Carmela. Morency was also missing at last night’s dinner, yet present in the hallway of my nightmares last night. It cannot be a coincidence.

  I knock on her door for several agonizing minutes with no result—a good thirty seconds between attempts. I head back downstairs in the general direction of the family’s quarters, accessible through that stone hallway. If I know one thing, it’s that Morency will smell my trespassing presence. I follow the route that Dom took the night I pursued him. Before he was my friend. I slow by his room, and the corridor is pin-drop silent.

  “Morency?” I call. “Yoooohoooo.”

  Nothing. I press on. The hallways in the family’s quarters boast vaulted ceilings; the decor is richer; the overall feeling is airier, as if they’ve afforded themselves alone the privilege of easy breathing. I wonder where Carmela works during the day—if she keeps any photographs of her daughter, the would-be empress of business, in her room. If I might recognize her daughter in those photographs.

  I wonder, also, if she worries for herself or for Dom being here, the spot her family was pushed from sixty years ago—if she worries that the De Vaccaro family is doomed to a type of tragedy that runs much deeper than a virus. I shiver in place. Morbid, unruly thoughts. Perhaps Yesi’s right, and as a narrative builder, I should be put out to pasture.

  I leave the family’s quarters and fetch some calming tea in the deserted kitchen, eager to put my mind to rest during my daily conversation with Dom. Surely he’ll tell me if my imagination runs too wild and dark.

  * * *

  The fireplace crackles as I cross the threshold of the latest sitting room and spot the top of Dom’s head. Relief crashes over me all at once, and I settle beside him, careful not to spill my tea. He looks up from his book, Tropic of Cancer. I’ve never read it myself, but I know it was considered obscene for years and years. Of course he’s reading it.

  “You looked like you were going to leap off the balcony this morning,” he says, turning to face me, and his resemblance to the girl last night—in the dark, slashing eyebrows and the pointed chin, too—silences me.

  I fake a smile and bring the tea to my lips as he watches me.

  “Mavi?”

  I swallow and clear my throat. “Only testing out my wings before the weather gets too bad. Missed you at dinner,” I say, trying for a relaxed tone.

  “Will you think I’m a degenerate if I tell you I slept through it?” he asks, flipping the page.

  “Not especially. I already think you’re a degenerate,” I say, recapturing my shaky sense of self. “But I’ll be infinitely jealous.”

  “How was it? Especially awful?”

  “More or less.”

  We sit in silence, my pulse heavy in my throat, my hands, my heart. He evaluates me, brow raised. “You look weird. What’s wrong? Which one is it—more or less awful?” His eyes are a baby’s blue, a robin’s-egg blue, that blue of all things supposedly pure.

  I exhale and smell the lingering fermented remains of last night’s excess. I’ll tell him. I must tell him. “Supremely awful. I can’t believe you missed it. No one brought up Mrs. Hawk’s departure at all. Your mother served us all wine, and people unraveled. Lamb made the mistake of mentioning your sister—”

  “Mrs. Hawk’s departure?” he asks, shutting his book. “Which one is she again?”

  “—and I fell asleep half-drunk with my shoes on and had the strangest nightmare. A little girl in an old, ratty nightgown warned me that trouble was coming to the house in the form of ghosts. Others, she called them.” I expect him, for a moment, to laugh it off, and there’s an expectant smile on my face. I refrain from including the salient detail of his resemblance to this girl: Perhaps even now I’m afraid a mention of his sister will upset him. It’s one of the odd triggers I notice; every time I mention her, he breaks eye contact.

  But now he leans toward me.

  “Only a nightmare,” I add, light as air. “I must have been thinking about the virus your mother mentioned at dinner the first night. You know how these things are,” I say, even though I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. He watches me intently, and I expect him to tell me I’m full of nonsense. My mouth goes dry, and I point at the book. “What’s it about?” A pathetic save.

  “Oh. Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve only just started.”

  “What’s your favorite bit so far?” I lift the tea to my lips.

  He folds open the book to the first page and shows the line to me: The cancer of time is eating us away.

  “So the first page.”

  He laughs, but it’s short and not heartfelt. He sets a hand out on the table between us, double the size of mine. “I want to hear about your nightmare. Come on. Tell me.”

  I’m trembling now. I hide it with a manic smile—my exhaustion setting in. “Oh, please. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You wouldn’t have said anything if it didn’t matter, Mav,” he says. “I sort of like to think I know how you work by now. At least some of the time.”

  So I exhale, and my overworked brain urges me to trust him.

  I tell him everything, and though the nerves do not lessen, a weight melts, bit by bit, from my shoulders. He asks me to repeat every detail twice—to swear I am recounting every word exactly as it reached my ears.

  As I finish, the curiosity in his eyes is undeniable. “Are you afraid?”

  I can’t help but remember his earlier mention of something sinister in the house. Of ghosts.

  “Sort of,” I admit. I run my fingers through my hair. “Well, I don’t know. Should I be? It didn’t feel like a nightmare. But the literary seer of domestic ghosts says I’m being ridiculous.” I bite my tongue before mentioning the tragic, lost Zapuche and their infamous curses. “You mentioned ghosts here before. What truly happened to the inhabitants of this school sixty years ago?” I ask him in a whisper.

  He rubs his hands together for a good moment, watching the flames dance before us. “It wasn’t a virus,” he says at last. “And you didn’t have a nightmare.”

  Though he speaks gently, his certainty chills me more than the memory of the girl’s visit itself.

  The dinner bell rings, jerking us out of our seats in our hideaway, as if someone was, indeed, watching us. I lose the opportunity to discuss the matter further—though perhaps that’s a blessing, because I don’t possess the courage to dive into that dark realm just yet.

  12

  ANGEL: 2020–1200

  A ghostly creature with a delicate humanity. Visible to Mavi as more than rippling air or a fraying, otherworldly swatch of threads. This girl who snuck up on Mavi in her sleep sounds lifted from Mama’s tales, with her wise warnings and her pragmatism. A dead-perfect match for the sacrificed girl in the house history books: protector of humans, with powers beyond comprehension and knowledge of the godforsaken pack of Others.

  My mind’s aflame with thoughts of this mystical tenth girl and all the questions I want to ask her. Need to ask her. But how to call her out to speak with me?

  I never thought I’d say this, but I’ll find an answer in the books. The issue at hand being that I’ve scoped all the good ones—only Carmela’s personal collection remains to be liberated.

  Sweeping through the family’s quarters in Dom, I jiggle every door handle. Locked. But I can peek through keyholes, and crouching, with one eye open, I find Carmela’s office empty.

  After checking around the corner, I hold my breath, then slide the two unfurled paper clips into the lock. Dom’s heart jackhammers as I jimmy it. When it clicks, I exhale and open the door, venturing inside the one place I ha
ven’t gone before while visible: Carmela’s private rooms. Time to put the man hands to good use.

  On the solitary bookshelf, I spot a couple of repeat Zapuche tribe history books and an Argentine social register. I nose my way toward her desk, detecting different details while in Dom: She keeps no personal items here at all except for a framed photo of a child’s footprint, inscribed with the identifying letter M. Not Dom—his sister, maybe. I drag my thumb over it, wishing I could access Dom’s memories. I pull open the heavy drawers, expecting stacks of paperwork, but Carmela keeps offensively, irresponsibly little material in her desk for an administrator. Specifically: no material at all. No curriculum plans, no official-looking documents, no dossiers on the students and staff. (Dom must have squirreled away the only one.)

  I size up Carmela’s bulging armoire next and scour the room for its key. There aren’t many places to look since everything is so damn empty. I spot the key wedged under the leather writing mat on her desk, the most obvious hiding place ever. Do less.

  Despite their new lock-picking skill, it somehow takes the hands a solid ten seconds to jangle the old-fashioned key around in the lock and swing open the chest. Inside, I find a single Zapuche tribe history book, published in 1925 (!), my most contemporary find yet. At first glance, it reiterates information about the shaman curse, los Otros, and the girl sacrifices, but I tear the relevant pages from the book with a silent apology (you won’t be used to roll joints! I kind of sort of promise!), shoving them into my pants to devour later.

  The rest of the armoire contains nothing but dust.

  You are the worst principal I’ve ever met.

  And yet: As I think the words, I realize her shittiness must be intentional on her part. After all, it’s abundantly clear she was born to execute. A female cement company CEO in a time when that’s unheard of, pivoting to single-handedly found an isolated historical school after losing half her family.

  A master of public image: polished to shine on the surface. Unmovable below. I remember her false smiles, her hollow speeches.

  A born executor, plainly going through the motions. Biding her time. Keeping hope alive, as she said to Morency on the first day of classes.

  But what does she hope for? What does she wait for?

  I try to knot together the disparate loose threads in my mind: the tenth girl, her warnings, the Zapuche legends, De Vaccaro family history … But I can’t tie them, turbulent as it is in my crystal head.

  The only noticeable changes here come in the form of the growing ice, and the presences of the Others, strengthening by the second.

  Could it be the Others she’s waiting for? I wonder, since all she keeps are Zapuche history books. A family member who knows the legends could be aware of us—of the danger we pose.

  My hand shakes on the chest handle, rattling the metal. I push it forward and slam the chest shut with a louder-than-expected clang.

  “What do you think you’re doing here?” says a shrill voice from the doorway. My other hand drops the key like it’s made of molten iron.

  Carmela bursts in, crossing her arms with fury from hell in her eyes as if she has to physically straitjacket herself to keep from strangling me (acceptable) and dinging her manicure (unacceptable).

  WWDD? Quickquickquickquick.

  “So?” she asks, tapping a heel. Slate gray today.

  Dom wouldn’t watch her like a deer in the headlights. He would act. He would pounce. He would be the bobcat in the woods.

  But I’m not Dom.

  “Uh, nothing,” I say, smooth as silk ties from the mouth of an overworked clown.

  “Is that so.” Her indignation feels forced to me; a glitter in her eyes tells me that this exchange delights her, or at least satisfies some twisted expectation she had. There’s a shade of Liese in her, for sure. But I don’t have time to play another bully’s game. I’ve experienced far too much emotional growth.

  Okay, maybe not, but I’m six feet tall, for Pete’s sake, and built like a ram, if not a bobcat. At least some parts of me are. The words surge up out of my throat, unstoppable. “What do you know about a tenth girl?”

  The shimmer in her dies; she runs the slip of her tongue neatly along her top lip, a half-seductive, wholly reptilian motion. “What did you say?”

  “There’s a tenth girl here,” I say, crossing my meat arms. “A girl who comes out at night. When were you going to tell me about her?” Bitch.

  She won’t meet Dom’s eyes, calm as she remains. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The eyes flick a foot farther from me like they’ve spotted a roach on the ground.

  “Were you planning on hiding her from me?” I rub my hands together, a new charge building. “From all of us?”

  She surprises me by sitting in the chair before me, spine erect. She briefly scans the room, as if the words she needs are on paperwork strewn about, but—whoops!—there are no papers anywhere because she’s a fraud principal.

  But she shakes her head mutely, as if I’m the mad one.

  “She warned us about this place,” I add, leaning closer, wondering if more information is helping my case or torpedoing it; by my luck, this last sentence must rattle her battleship, because her eyes widen, exposing a sliver more sallow-white. “Well?”

  She presses her lips together before speaking. “You have seen her.” I can’t tell if it’s a question or a statement of fact, but I sense the tremble of emotion there.

  My breath catches, and a palpable energy surges afresh through my veins. “Yes,” I lie. “She was wearing a white nightgown, and her hair was long and dark.”

  She interweaves her fingers and waits for more; I only have what Mavi told me, and with every passing second of silence, my lack is showing like an ugly pair of flowery underpants under a perfectly decent skirt on a windy day.

  “Liar.” She spits out the word, doesn’t so much speak it. “You don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  As I gape, her fingers straighten. One rises to the corner of her mouth to adjust an invisible, straying speck of lipstick.

  “Um, why would I mention her, then?” I ask. Well done, Dr. Smooth.

  She looks away: reframes something ugly in her mind, rehangs it. To no avail: It’s still ugly, judging from her mien of contempt. “What is it that you want, Domenico?” she asks with more than a sprinkling of condescension.

  I want answers. What do you know about this girl? Is she the one my own mama told me about nightly? What do you want her to do for you? What do you think she can do for me, Angel?

  But strength responds to strength.

  If only I could be a superior damn detective—access her son’s years of experience with her and squeeze out more information without giving her a drop in return.

  “You wished to inform me that you know of her,” she continues, latching onto the pregnant silence on my part like a greedy, little, bump-obsessed vampire. “You hoped to convince someone that you are more than the valueless simulacrum of a living, breathing man. Is that it?”

  I’m silent, a bit dumbfounded—thoroughly convinced I’ve never heard a more elegant put-down of My Fair Dom. Her hands curl into fists, turning a purplish pink. She exhales through her mouth like a SEAL practicing box breaths. When she catches my eyes again, she looks oddly overcomposed, and a dart of terror rips up my spine.

  “You fail to think matters through, Domenico. Each and every time. Your every purposeless action, your every half-formed thought reflect only the worst characteristics of your parents. The parts I have spent my life trying to cull from myself, and the parts that murdered your silly, narcissistic father.” She smiles grotesquely, lips pinching into a thin, pink-edged line. “Tell me: Is this what you desired? An admission of my hidden, shameful feelings toward the son I should love?”

  As she speaks, I wither. I know her fury is directed at Dom, of course. But nothing so eloquently severe should ever be said by a parent to a child. Even Liese’s and He-who-must-not-be-named’s blu
nt rage was often blind and lacking teeth.

  Can she hate Dom so much? Can she hate herself so much? Can she relish these moments of cruelty for their own sake, or does she enjoy punishing herself?

  Watching me blink at her like a lost calf, she mashes one temple with her fingers, smearing some kind of flesh-colored makeup. “Get out,” she snarls. “By the grace of God, get out.”

  I launch myself toward the door, chastened and hypermobile at last. “Um, okay, sorry about this,” I say, vaguely horrified and shocked yet still blandly corporate, like a fast-food manager fielding a complaint about a thumb in a fried-fish sandwich.

  “You’re sorry?” she snaps. I swivel back: Her eyes swirl with a complex hatred I’ve rarely seen, one that requires shared biology. One that reveals unmistakable horror, the shame she herself mentioned, and there, underneath it all, the love she tried to hide.

  “Never mention the girl to me again,” she says. “And go.”

  I do as she says.

  But as I rush into the hall, I feel it flooding me, sickly sweet on the heels of my humiliation: a desperate urge to find this tenth girl. The enigmatic creature whose name, when mentioned, could force someone as formidable as Carmela the Great to splinter and crack.

  * * *

  After dropping off Dom, I race over to the cloud house to grill Charon and find him seated, cirrocumulus book in hand. He groans. “What is it now?”

  “Reading anything good?”

  He shuts his book, and it dissipates. “This isn’t book club, butt wipe.”

  “The tenth girl. Who is she? The little ghost girl who warns the humans about Others.”

  He settles back in his chair. “In their infinite wisdom, the Zapuche believed a special girl could protect the rock,” he says with utter uninterest, as if reading an airline safety card for the hundredth time on a flight because he forgot to pack his own entertainment. “Not quite an Other and not quite a human. They thought she could grant wishes if found.” He pauses. “As if she’s Betty Crocker and wishes are miniature fucking cupcakes.”