by Claudia Gray
“Yeah. Thanks for helping me get started. And thank you for the picture; it’s beautiful.” They smiled at each other, relieved to have made me happy, at least a little bit.
“Quite a feast tonight.” Dad nodded toward the table. “Your mother outdid herself.” Mom didn’t usually cook big meals; the night was definitely a special occasion. She’d made all my favorites, more than I could ever eat. I realized that I was starving because I’d gone without lunch, and for the first part of the dinner, Mom and Dad had to speak to each other. My appetite kept my mouth too full to talk.
“Mrs. Bethany said they’ve finally finished refitting the labs,” Dad said between sips from his glass. “I hope I have a chance to check them out before the students do. Might have some equipment so modern that I don’t know what to do with it.”
“This is why I teach history,” Mom replied. “The past doesn’t change. It just gets longer.”
“Will I have you guys for teachers?” I said through a full mouth.
“Swallow your food.” The Dad command seemed auto matic. “Wait and see tomorrow, like the others.”
“Oh. Okay.” It wasn’t like him to cut me off that way, and I felt taken aback.
“We can’t get in the habit of giving you too much extra information,” Mom said more gently. “You need to have as much as possible in common with the rest of the students, you know?”
She meant it lightly, but it hit me hard. “Who is it here I’m supposed to have something in common with? The Evernight kids whose families have been coming here for centuries? The outsiders who fit in here even worse than I do? Which group am I supposed to be like?”
Dad sighed. “Bianca, be reasonable. There’s no point in arguing about this again.”
It was past time to let it go, but I couldn’t. “Right, I know. We came here ‘for my own good.’ How is leaving our home and all my friends good for me? Explain that again, because I never quite got it.”
Mom laid her hand over mine. “It’s good for you because you’ve almost never left Arrowwood. Because you rarely even left our neighborhood unless we forced you. And because the handful of friends you made there couldn’t possibly sustain you forever.”
She made sense, and I knew it.
Dad set his glass down. “You have to learn to adapt to changing circumstances, and you have to become more independent. Those are the most important skills your mother and I can teach you. You can’t always stay our little girl, Bianca, no matter how much we might want you to. This is the best way for us to prepare you for the person you’re going to become.”
“Stop pretending that this is all about growing up,” I said. “It’s not, and you know it. This is about what you guys want for me, and you’re determined to get your way whether I like it or not.”
I stood up and walked away from the table. Instead of slinking back to my room for my sweatshirt, I just grabbed Mom’s cardigan from the coat rack and pulled it on over my clothes. Even in early fall, the school grounds were cool after dark.
Mom and Dad didn’t ask where I was going. It was an old house rule: Anybody on the verge of getting angry had to take a quick walk, a break from the discussion, then come back and say what they really mean. No matter how upset we were, that walk always helped.
As a matter of fact, I created that rule. Made it up when I was nine. So I didn’t think my maturity was really the issue.
My uneasiness in the world—the sure, complete belief that I didn’t really have a place in it—that wasn’t about being a teenager. It was a part of me, and it always had been. Maybe it always would be.
While I walked across the grounds, I cast a glance around, wondering if I might see Lucas in the forest again. It was a stupid idea—why would he spend all his time outside?—but I felt lonely, so I had to look. He wasn’t there. Looming behind me, Evernight Academy looked more like a castle than a boarding school. You could imagine princesses locked in cells, princes fighting dragons in the shadows, and evil witches guarding the doors with enchantments. I’d never had less use for fairy tales.
The wind changed directions and brought a flicker of sound—laughter toward the west, in the direction of the gazebo in the west yard. No doubt those were the “picnickers.” I gathered the cardigan more tightly around me and walked into the woods—not east toward the road, the way I’d run that morning, but instead toward the small lake that lay to the north.
It was too late and too dark to see much, but I liked the wind rustling through the trees, the cool scent of pines, and the owl hooting not so far away. Breathing in and out, I stopped thinking about the picnickers or Evernight or anything else. I could just get lost in the moment.
Then nearby footsteps startled me—Lucas, I thought—but it was Dad, his hands in his pockets, strolling toward the same path I stood on. Of course he could find me. “That owl is close. You’d think we would scare him off.”
“Probably he smells food. He won’t leave if there’s a chance of a meal.”
As if to prove my point, a heavy, swift flapping of wings shook the branches overhead, and then the owl’s dark shape darted to the ground. Terrible squealing revealed that a small mouse or squirrel had just become dinner. The owl swooped away too quickly for us to see. Dad and I only watched. I knew I should admire the owl’s hunting skill, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the mouse.
He said, “If I was harsh in there, I’m sorry. You’re a mature young woman, and I shouldn’t have suggested otherwise.”
“It’s okay. I kinda flew off the handle. I know there’s no point in arguing about coming here, not anymore.”
Dad smiled gently at me. “Bianca, you know that your mother and I didn’t ever think we’d be able to have you.”
“I know.” Please, I thought, not the “miracle baby” speech again.
“When you came into our lives, we dedicated ourselves to you. Maybe too much. And that’s our fault, not yours.”
“Dad, no.” I loved it when it was just our family together, only the three of us in the world. “Don’t talk about it like it’s something bad.”
“I’m not.” He seemed sad, and for the first time I wondered if he didn’t really like this either. “But everything changes, sweetheart. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
“I know. I’m sorry I’m still letting it get to me.” My stomach rumbled, and I wrinkled my nose and asked, hopefully, “Could I reheat my dinner?”
“I have a sneaking suspicion that your mother might have already taken care of that.”
She had. For the rest of the evening, we had a good time. I figured I might as well have fun while I could. Tommy Dorsey replaced Glenn Miller, and then Ella Fitzgerald replaced him. We talked and joked about stupid things mostly—movies and TV, all the stuff my parents wouldn’t pay any attention to if it weren’t for me. Once or twice, though, they tried joking about school.
“You’re going to meet some incredible people,” Mom promised.
I shook my head, thinking of Courtney. She was already definitely one of the least incredible people I’d ever met. “You can’t know that.”
“I can and I do.”
“What, you can see the future now?” I teased.
“Honey, you’ve been holding out on me. What else does the soothsayer predict?” Dad asked as he got up to change the records. The man still kept his music collection on vinyl. “This, I want to hear.”
Mom played along, putting her fingertips to her temples like a gypsy fortune-teller. “I think Bianca will meet—boys.”
Lucas’s face flashed in my mind, and my heartbeat quickened within an instant. My parents exchanged looks. Could they hear my pulse pounding all the way across the room? Maybe so.
I tried to make a joke of it. “I hope they’re going to be cute.”
“Not too cute,” Dad interjected, and we all laughed. Mom and Dad really thought it was funny; I was trying to cover the fact that I now had butterflies in my stomach.
It felt weird, not tel
ling them about Lucas. I’d always told them almost everything about my life. Lucas was different, though. Talking about him would break the spell. I wanted him to remain a secret for a while longer. That way, I could keep him for myself.
Already I wanted Lucas to belong only to me.
Chapter Three
“YOU DIDN’T HAVE YOUR UNIFORM TAILORED, did you?” Patrice smoothed her skirt as we prepared for the first day of classes.
Why hadn’t I seen it before? Of course all the real Evernight types had sent their uniforms to a tailor—tucked the blouses here and the kilts there so that they were chic and flattering instead of boxy and asexual. Like mine. “No. I didn’t think of it.”
“You really must remember to do that,” Patrice said. “Individual tailoring makes a world of difference. No woman should neglect it.” I could already tell that she liked giving advice, showing off how worldly and smart she was. This would have annoyed me more if she hadn’t been so obviously right. Sighing, I set back to work, trying to get my hair to lie smooth beneath my headband. Surely I’d see Lucas at some point that day, so I wanted to look my best, or as good as I could look in this stupid uniform.
We picked up our class assignments in an enormous line in the great hall, slips of paper handed out to us, just the way it would’ve been done a hundred years ago. The crowds of students were less rowdy than they would have been back at my old school. Everyone here seemed to understand the routine.
Maybe the quiet was only an illusion. My uneasiness seemed to swallow sound, muffling everything, until I wondered if anybody could even hear me if I screamed.
Patrice remained by my side at first, but only because we shared our first class, which was American History, taught by my mother. She was the only parent I would have for a teacher; instead of Dad’s biology class, I’d be taking chemistry with a Professor Iwerebon. I felt awkward walking next to Patrice with nothing to say, but I didn’t really have any alternative—until I saw Lucas, the sunlight through the frosted glass in the hallways turning his golden-brown hair to bronze. At first I thought he saw Patrice and me, but he kept on walking without breaking his stride.
I began to smile. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” I said to Patrice, already darting away from her. She shrugged as she looked for other friends to walk with. “Lucas?” I called.
He still didn’t seem to hear me. I didn’t want to yell after him, so I jogged a couple of steps to catch up. He was headed in the opposite direction from me—not in Mom’s class, apparently—but I was willing to run the risk of being late. More loudly, I said, “Lucas!”
He turned his head only enough to glimpse me, then glanced around at the students nearby as though he was worried we would be overheard. “Hey, there.”
Where was my protector from the forest? The guy standing in front of me now didn’t act like he wanted to take care of me; he acted like he didn’t know me. But he didn’t know me, did he? We’d talked once in the woods—when he’d tried to save my life, and I’d repaid him by telling him to shut up. Just because I thought that was the start of something didn’t mean he did.
In fact, it looked like he definitely didn’t. For one second, he turned his head, then gave me a quick wave and a nod—the way you would any random acquaintance. After that, Lucas just kept on walking, until he vanished into the crowd.
There it was—the brush-off. I wondered how I could possibly understand guys even less than I’d thought.
The girls’ restroom on that floor was nearby, so I was able to duck into a stall and collect myself instead of bursting into tears. What had I done wrong? Despite how strange our first meeting had been, Lucas and I had ended up having a conversation that was as intimate as any I’d had with my best friends. I didn’t know a lot about guys, maybe, but I’d been sure that the connection between us was real. I had been wrong. I was alone at Evernight again, and it felt even worse than before.
Finally, once I was steady, I hurried to Mom’s classroom, barely avoiding being tardy. She shot me a look, and I shrugged as I sank into a desk in the back row. Mom quickly snapped out of mother mode into teacher mode.
“So, who here can tell me about the American Revolution?” Mom clasped her hands together, looking expectantly around the room. I slumped down in my seat, even though I knew she wouldn’t call on me first. I just wanted to be sure she understood how I felt about it. A guy sitting next to me raised his hand, rescuing the rest of us. Mom smiled a little. “And you are Mr.—”
“More. Balthazar More.”
The first thing to understand about him is that he looked like a guy who could actually carry off the name “Balthazar” without being mocked for all time. On him, it looked good. He seemed confident about anything my mother might throw at him but not in an annoying way like most of the guys in the room. Just confident.
“Well, Mr. More, if you were going to sum up the causes of the American Revolution for me, how would you put it?”
“The tax burdens imposed by the English Parliament were the last straw.” He spoke easily, almost lazily. Balthazar was big and broad-shouldered, so much so that he barely fit into the old-fashioned wooden desk. His posture turned difficulty into grace, as though he’d rather lounge like that than sit up straight any day. “Of course, people were concerned about religious and political freedoms as well.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. “So, God and politics are powerful, but as always, money rules the world.” Soft laughter echoed around the room. “Fifty years ago, no American high school teacher would have mentioned the taxes. A hundred years ago, and the entire conversation might’ve been about religion. A hundred and fifty years ago, and the answer would have depended on where you lived. In the North, they’d have taught you about political freedom. In the South, they’d have taught you about economic freedom—which, of course, was impossible without slavery.” Patrice made a rude sound. “Of course, in Great Britain, there were those who would have described the United States of America as a bizarre intellectual experiment that was about to go bust.”
More laughter now, and I realized that Mom already won over the entire class. Even Balthazar was half smiling at her, in a way that almost made me forget about Lucas.
Not really. But he was nice to look at, with his lazy grin.
“And that, more than anything else, is what I want you to understand about history.” Mom pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan as she wrote on the blackboard: Evolving interpretations. “People’s ideas about the past alter just as much as the present does. The scene in the rearview mirror changes every second. To understand history, it’s not enough to know the names and dates and places; a lot of you know all of those already, I’m sure. But you have to understand all the different interpretations that historical events have had over the centuries; that’s the only way to get a perspective that stands the test of time. We’re going to focus a lot of our energy on that this year.”
People leaned forward, opened their notebooks, and looked up at Mom, totally engaged. Then I realized maybe I ought to start taking notes, too. Mom might love me best, but she’d flunk me faster than she would anyone else in her classroom.
The hour flew by, with students asking questions, clearly testing Mom and liking what they found. Their pens scratched out notes faster than I could imagine writing, and more than once, my fingers felt like they would cramp. I hadn’t realized how competitive the students would be. No, that’s not quite right—it was obvious that they were competitive about clothes, and possessions, and romantic interests. That voracity shivered in the air around them. I just hadn’t realized they’d be competitive about schoolwork, too. No matter what it was, at Evernight, every single person wanted to be the best at everything they did.
So, you know, no pressure there.
“Your mother is fantastic,” Patrice gushed as she walked through the hallways after class. “She’s looking at the big picture, you know? Not only her own little window on the world. So few people have that.”
&n
bsp; “Yeah. I mean—I’m trying to be like her. Someday.”
Just then, Courtney turned the corner. Her blond hair was pulled up into a tight ponytail that made her eyebrows arch even more disdainfully. Patrice stiffened; apparently her new acceptance of me didn’t extend as far as defending me in front of Courtney. I braced myself for Courtney’s latest snarky remark. Instead, she sort of smiled at me, and I could tell she thought she was being nicer to me than I deserved. “Party this weekend,” she said. “Saturday. By the lake. One hour after curfew.”
“Sure.” Patrice shrugged just one shoulder, like she couldn’t care less about being invited to what was probably the coolest party at Evernight this fall, at least until the Autumn Ball. Or were formal dances not cool? Mom and Dad had made it sound like the biggest event of the year, but their ideas about Evernight were already suspect.
My curiosity about balls and their coolness or lack thereof had kept me from answering Courtney for myself. She glared at me, clearly annoyed I hadn’t gushed all over her with thanks. “Well?”
If I’d been gutsier, I’d have told her that she was a snob and a bore and that I had better things to do than go to her party. Instead, I only managed to say, “Um, yeah. Great. That’ll be great.”
Patrice nudged me as Courtney sauntered, with her blond ponytail swinging behind her. “See? I told you. People are going to accept you because you’re—well, you’re their daughter.”
How big a loser do you have to be to coast into high school popularity on your parents? Still, I couldn’t afford to turn my nose up at any acceptance I won, no matter what the reasons were.
“What kind of party is it going to be, though? I mean, on the grounds? At night?”
“You have been to a party before, right?” Sometimes Patrice didn’t sound any nicer than Courtney.
“Of course I have.” I was counting my own birthday parties when I was a kid, but Patrice didn’t have to know that. “I just was wondering if—there wouldn’t be drinking, would there?”
Patrice laughed like I’d said something funny. “Oh, Bianca, grow up.”
