In the Hall with the Knife

by Diana Peterfreund

  “And what about your other theory?” Orchid pressed Vaughn.

  “Other theory?” Mrs. White asked. She peered at him, her eyes narrowed.

  Orchid supplied the details. “That if it’s not a looter, it’s one of us.”

  Right. Well, he’d had a busy day, it seemed. “I can’t be the only one to think it’s a possibility.” It’s not as if everyone in this house were BFFs.

  Orchid crossed her arms over her chest.

  Mrs. White sighed. “What did I say about that? It’s not going to do any good to incite a panic.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. White,” said Orchid. “It can’t be easy, watching your home become the site of violence like this.”

  Mrs. White’s gaze slid in Orchid’s direction. “Oh, girl, have you forgotten what this place once was? If this house has a soul, it’s been begging for more excitement than the yearly hair-pulling fight between whichever two students get the highest SAT scores.”

  “A murder is hardly a party like the old days,” said Vaughn.

  “Party?” asked Orchid. “I thought Tudor House was a reform school.”

  Mrs. White’s smile might have given Mona Lisa a run for her money. “Vaughn, dear, run and get me the album from the bottom shelf over there. The one marked ‘1970 to 1975.’”

  Did he have to? Obediently, Vaughn trotted over and grabbed the big leather-bound book from the shelf. His muscles ached as he moved.

  Mrs. White sat forward on the couch and patted the spaces to either side of her. “Let me show you what Tudor was really like, back when I first came here.”

  Vaughn couldn’t do anything else but look. The pictures were mostly meaningless to him. The usual grainy, colored shots of teenage girls in wide-legged pants and patterned minidresses. They had long shiny hair or big puffy bouffants. They sat in front of the fire reading, or posed with mugs around a dining table laden with roasts, or lined up in winter coats and long scarves against a field white with snow. He recognized a face in the crowd.

  “Oh, wow, Mrs. White, is this you?” Orchid pointed at one of the photos.

  She nodded. “Want to know what I was in for?” Orchid laughed nervously. She was probably picturing fistfights or stealing cars. “Okay.”

  “I went to Woodstock.”

  Orchid’s laugh turned genuine. Almost musical. “You’re joking. A concert gets you sent to reform school?”

  “According to my parents. It was also the third or fourth time I’d run away from home.” Mrs. White smiled, remembering. “They were at their wits’ end trying to figure out what to do with me.”

  “So they sent you from a rural farming village to a rural logging town,” Vaughn joked. Man, he’d have loved to have been at Woodstock. He’d never heard this story of Mrs. White’s before.

  “I didn’t come straight from Woodstock,” said Mrs. White. “But yes, my first night here, I thought it was a prison. We didn’t even have the bridge over the ravine yet. You could only get here by boat.”

  “If you thought it was a prison,” said Vaughn, “why did you never leave? You were so good at running away.”

  Mrs. White was silent for a long moment. “It was never what I was running to, Vaughn. It was what I was running from.”

  “Home wasn’t safe,” Orchid said suddenly. “So safety—here—became home.”

  Mrs. White patted Orchid’s hand. Vaughn considered this. Wasn’t it why he had come to Blackbrook yesterday? Because he felt safer here than in his own house, alone with a brother who rarely even tried to understand why the school was so important to him.

  Except it wasn’t safe here, either, anymore. There was a corpse in the conservatory that proved it.

  He watched as Mrs. White turned another page, her fingers flitting lightly over long-past images of herself and her friends and their antics during Tudor’s glory days. There were boys in some of the photos, of course. Blackbrook boys who either didn’t mind the reputation that Tudor girls had, or thought of it as a bonus. He looked into the smarmy faces and wondered if anything had really changed. A Tudor girl might be one step up from a townie, but it was a small one.

  “I can’t believe I never looked at these before!” Orchid exclaimed. “All this time, the whole history of the house was sitting there on the shelf, getting dusty.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. White. “How can it compete with scrolling through your phone?”

  Mrs. White paused on a close-up of herself sitting on a stone wall, the peaks of Tudor House rising in the distance. Her arm was slung over the shoulder of a bright-eyed girl. They both wore kerchiefs wrapped across their hair, and kicked their sandaled feet in the direction of the camera.

  Vaughn had never seen that one before.

  “Who is that?” Orchid asked.

  “My best friend, Olivia Vaughn,” said Mrs. White pointedly.

  “Vaughn!” exclaimed Orchid, and glanced at him, smiling. “That’s funny.”

  “Yep,” he agreed politely, and looked away. With any luck, they’d change the subject soon.

  But Mrs. White went on. “Now, she was brilliant. She’d have fit right in here with you Blackbrook geniuses. Never seen a mind like hers in my life.”

  Vaughn swallowed.

  “What happened to her?” asked Orchid.

  “Same thing that happened to all of them,” Mrs. White said. “Moved out, had a family, got a life. All the things I never really managed.”

  “No, I mean, did she become a scientist or anything?” Orchid asked.

  “She was a scientist, yes.” Now Mrs. White did look at Vaughn, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. It was Oliver who concerned himself with the legacy of Gemma’s scientific achievements. She closed the book. “I suppose I should start thinking about dinner . . .”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Mrs. White,” Orchid insisted, jumping up. Vaughn followed suit. “We can fend for ourselves, honestly.”

  “But it’s my job,” she replied. “Please. If I’m not taking care of Tudor and the people here, then what is the point of any of it?” She gave Vaughn her hand to help her up. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t have the energy to contradict any of Mrs. White’s stories. Not this afternoon. But “moved away” might have been an overstatement. No one escaped Rocky Point.

  “Are you sure we can’t help?” Orchid asked as Mrs. White moved to the door. “There are so many people here.”

  “Please,” said Mrs. White with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’m barely recovered from all the ‘help’ the headmaster insisted you kids provide yesterday. It’ll be easiest if I’m on my own. Why don’t you relax? Take a nap! Vaughn here looks like he’s been run ragged.”

  “Thanks,” he grumbled as Mrs. White departed.

  Orchid returned the album to its shelf. Her expression was thoughtful. “You know, you hear rumors about the reform school or whatever, but I guess I got this weird idea in my head about strict curfews and stiff rulers.”

  “I don’t know if the idea at Tudor was ever to truly reform the people they sent here,” said Vaughn. “Mostly, I think it was just to make them disappear. Do you know the number one reason a girl wound up in this house, back during the glory days Mrs. White was just talking about?”

  Orchid frowned. “Well, from the pictures, I’d say pregnancy.”

  “Bingo.” Vaughn tapped his nose. “Out of sight, out of mind. Nine months at Tudor, and she could go back to her own life and pretend nothing had ever happened.”

  “And what about the babies?”

  “Adopted, mostly,” he replied. “Sometimes the people in the village took them. Growing up in Rocky Point, everyone knew someone whose bio-mom had passed through this house.”

  “When did it all end?” Orchid examined the shelf. There was one more album, after the one they’d taken out. It was marked 1976. She opened it. In the beginning, there were lots of pictures, but they grew sparser and sparser, and in the end, it was nothing but blank pa
ges.

  “When Blackbrook started getting big,” Vaughn said. “When they got all that money from Dick Fain’s glue and bought out half of Rocky Point. The school went co-ed, and bought Tudor to house the new female students.” That was a story Oliver would never let him forget.

  “And Mrs. White stayed on as proctor,” Orchid said, nodding. “Sounds like a movie.”

  “Well, you heard her,” said Vaughn. “Without Tudor, what’s the point?”

  It must be nice, to belong to something that much. Vaughn had never in his life felt that way. He was born here, but he’d always been an outsider. He was a Blackbrook kid, but as his brother reveled in reminding him, he would never fully live the life the other students enjoyed. He’d never had anything that was really his.

  Maybe that’s why he never got on board with his brother’s plans. Vaughn just wanted to let the past die. It was the only way to make a future of his own.

  “Are you okay?” Orchid asked. Her hand rested on his arm.

  He blinked down at her. Had he been wavering on his feet? “I think Mrs. White is right. I should take a nap.”

  “Naps can’t hurt,” Orchid said.

  He chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve had one since I was a toddler.” Not with his schedule. Not with his habit of sleeping with one eye open.

  She gave him a curious look, but maybe it wasn’t all that curious. “You know, you don’t have to show off all the time.”

  “Show off?”

  “I mean, like last night with the guitar, or today when you were spouting all those creepy theories about who might have killed the headmaster. I like you just the way you are.”

  The guitar performance he’d cop to, but he couldn’t be blamed for today. So she thought Oliver had been acting creepy! Good to know he wasn’t the only one. But then again, everyone in the house was on edge thanks to his brother’s little performance this afternoon.

  Vaughn wouldn’t let that bother him. He’d long ago learned not to hold himself responsible for Oliver’s antics. But the other comment stung. He thought they’d had a connection last night. “You don’t like my music?”

  She had such a pretty smile. “I actually loved it. You’re extremely talented.”

  He didn’t need soups or hearth fires or hot stove backs to keep warm. He could just remember her words. “Thanks.” He almost didn’t want to ask the next part. That was another lesson he’d learned—don’t search for clarification; just fill in the version you like best. But he couldn’t do it with Orchid. He had to know. “But you think it was showing off.”

  “Well . . .” She ducked her chin and her bangs fell into her eyes, but they didn’t hide her smile. “Wasn’t it?”

  He smiled back. Okay, she had him there. “A little.”

  “A little? ” she repeated.

  Now he grinned wide. “Oh, Orchid, when I really want to show off, you’ll know it.”

  18

  Plum

  Finn raised up his hands. “You scared the life out of me! I thought you were the murderer.”

  The way Mustard was standing there, Finn wasn’t entirely sure he would survive this encounter anyway. The other boy was big. His frame filled the narrow passageway. There’d be no getting around him.

  “You— You thought I—” Mustard tripped over his words. He gestured wildly toward the table at Finn’s back. “What are you doing in here? Is that Boddy’s computer? Where did you put his money?”

  “Hold on, hold on—”

  “Answer me!” Mustard roared.

  For a second, it was all silence. The low hum of the instruments on the table, a distant drip from somewhere in the passageway. Mustard standing, feet planted apart, across Finn’s only exit.

  When you had no defense, your only option was an offense. Scarlett had taught him that.

  “Well, what are you doing here?” he shot back.

  “Finishing searching the ground floor,” cried Mustard. Finn thought about pointing out that this was not the ground floor. “Since you and your girlfriend can’t be bothered to do your jobs.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Finn snapped.

  “Whatever is going on with you two. Now, what are you doing with the school’s files?” He didn’t look ready to drop it.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Mustard made an incredulous face. “Those things, behind you on the table.”

  “I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the house search.”

  Mustard looked astonished. “Because you seem to have the things we’re looking for.”

  Finn couldn’t think of anything. He couldn’t say the things were Boddy’s and he had just found them. He’d lose them anyway.

  His gaze traveled over Mustard’s shoulder, as if he could somehow magically transport himself away.

  “Forget it,” Mustard said, seeing the direction of his gaze. “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve answered my questions.”

  Finn straightened. “Excuse me? Kidnapping? Maybe you’re the murderer.”

  “Do you have any idea how delusional you sound right now?” Mustard shook his head in disbelief. “I thought you were supposed to be the genius of the school, and you sound like a total moron. Do people actually buy your crap?”

  Finn blinked, and it was like all the air left his body in a rush. He’d been berated by Beth. Abandoned by Scarlett. Chased down into a dungeon and confronted by this soldier, this stranger who had decided to put himself in charge and didn’t care at all who Finn Plum was at Blackbrook.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “Usually.”

  Mustard didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t smile. He didn’t seem to think it was cute.

  “Okay,” Finn said quickly. “It’s my stuff.”

  “Yours.” Mustard still looked skeptical. His arms were now crossed over his chest. Man, those biceps were big.

  “Yes. My computer, my equipment, my work. I’ve brought it down here to keep it safe.”

  “Underground. In a flood.” This was going from bad to worse.

  “Right,” said Finn. “That probably wasn’t the wisest choice I could have made. But I was mostly worried about other people seeing it.” He held his hands out sheepishly toward Mustard. “I was sharing my room with a stranger.”

  “I literally gave you the shirt off my back yesterday.”

  Finn forced a laugh. “I never said I was so generous.”

  “You’re a total sleazeball, is what you are.” Mustard gestured toward the table. “So what is your all-important work?”

  Finn swallowed.

  “Come on, out with it. I think we’ve established you aren’t moving until you’ve come clean.”

  “It’s an invention. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Mustard’s eyes narrowed. “We won’t know until you try. Just last night, Headmaster Boddy was telling me I should learn more about how this school works from star students like you. You remember the headmaster, right? Nice guy, blood’s all over the floor upstairs?”

  “Okay! Okay!” Finn sighed. “It’s a dye.”

  “A dye?”

  “A black dye.”

  “Like for clothes?”

  Finn rolled his eyes. “Sure. Yes. For everything. Scientific uses. Industrial. It’s black like you’ve never seen before. It’s black like you can barely see it at all. It eats light. It eats heat. You could use it for camera backing, for telescopes—”

  “For camouflage,” Mustard finished, starting to nod. “To paint drones so they’d be undetectable.” His eyes grew wide.

  “Yes!” Finn couldn’t help it. Finally, someone who understood what he had on his hands. Finn had kept it all so secret, for so long. Hadn’t dared tell anyone, in fear that they might steal his idea or leak his secrets.

  Now, he supposed, it didn’t matter.

  Mustard looked at the files on the table. “And you invented this dye?”

  “Well, I’ve almost invented it.” He was so close. It had take
n ages for him to devise a formula, and nearly as long for him to squirrel away enough hours in the chem lab to test it out without the Blackbrook teachers catching on to his extracurricular activities.

  And, in the end, they had caught on. His knees started feeling weak again, like they had that day in the headmaster’s office, when all his plans had started to go fuzzy around the edges, and so had his vision.

  “So why are you hiding it?” Mustard asked. “Don’t you want to sell your invention to the military or some big chemical company or something? Like that Richard Fain kid did with his glue? You’d be the next Blackbrook superstar.”

  Finn’s mouth compressed into a line. “That’s just the problem—I don’t want to be a Blackbrook superstar. I don’t want to share this with the school, just because I happened to be here when I created it. Look—can I sit down?” Not waiting for an answer, he sat down on the stone floor, resting his elbows on his knees, and took several deep, cleansing breaths.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Mustard sit down across from him. When he ventured to look up, the other boy was examining him, like one might a particularly thorny math formula.

  “It’s in the student handbook,” Finn said. “Didn’t Scarlett go over that part with you during the whole new-student orientation thing?”

  “You mean the honor code?”

  “Yeah, the honor code, and the other stuff, too. As students of Blackbrook, our work created here is joint property with the school. It was a rule they put in place after the lawsuit with Richard Fain.”

  “The lawsuit?”

  “He invented the glue, right? Made a mint, gave tons of it to the school—but when he died without an heir, the trustees at Blackbrook had to sue for their rights to the patent. Everything Blackbrook has is because they were successfully able to argue he’d invented the glue at Blackbrook, so that meant the state was obligated to assign the patent to them. Now we all sign explicit agreements for patent assignments at the same time as we sign the honor code. It’s in your enrollment documents.”