Secret Society (4 page)

She looked down at her outfit, at her leather jacket, at her gray skirt and her little clutch, and she realized that it was perfect. She was the embodiment of downtown chic. She took another sip of her drink. She was the best dressed person there.

She turned back to find Phoebe, who was deep in conversation with an older gentleman.

“I know your mother's work,” he was saying. “It's quite striking. She's going to make some real waves in the art world. Just you wait.”

Phoebe introduced Lauren. “I can't believe any of this,” Phoebe said. “It's like…well, it's like a party.”

“It's like the best party you've ever been to,” Lauren said.

“I wonder when the masks come off,” Phoebe said.

“Oh, no,” the man said. “That doesn't happen. At least not until later. Much, much later.”

T
he drink, Nick had found out, was called Amnesia. From his early days clubbing and his explorations of his mother's medicine cabinet, he was able to guess that it had some combination of ketamine and Vicodin, maybe with some Xanax to smooth things out. He didn't believe in Special K—he knew that it was junk, that it would mess you up, a clubby drug derived from horse tranquilizer. And yet tonight, he was content to sip it down.

The room was wobbling, as if each step he took were on a different level, and Nick knew he should pace himself. The girls were still sipping their first drink, while he was on his second.

The man who had been talking to Phoebe and Lauren came over to Nick.

“Nicholas Bell,” he said, putting forth a hand for Nick to shake. “I think the Society needs no introduction. Do you accept?”

Nick nodded, a reaction that was so quick, it surprised him. He had never thought of himself as the type who would be part of a secret society. But this party, this initiation—it was pretty cool, he had to admit. And if they were tapping people like Lauren and this girl Phoebe, it couldn't be the buttoned-up institution he had thought it was. Maybe this was the moment he had been waiting for, to integrate his current life with the life his parents wanted him to lead. If the Society was meeting down in the Meatpacking District, then it was a very different type of group from what his father had made it out to be.

There had been a conversation with his father, Parker Bell, over the summer, with all sorts of oblique references, but he had dismissed it; it had been more awkward than discussing sex. But now that it was happening, it made sense. Of course he would be asked. His family was one of the oldest in Manhattan; his father was the president of the Bell Trading Company, which manufactured the parts that made up the infrastructure of cities, everything from steel pipes to subway tracks. His father used to say that half of Manhattan had been built using Bell products. His mother was on numerous charity boards. His parents were frequently seen and photographed in all the right places: benefits for the Met, the opera,
the ballet, the Museum of Natural History, and the Bell Foundation, of course. There was no reason he wouldn't be tapped. This must mean that his father was a member, too. It wouldn't be any other way. He didn't know who these people were or what they stood for, but he knew the name of the Society, and that was enough for him, for now. For once, he had been told that he had made the cut, that they wanted him exactly as he was. It was a delicious feeling—was it real, he wondered, or a result of the drink? He didn't know, but even as this thought flitted through his mind, he savored this sensation of excitement and adventure and acceptance as he followed the man through a dark corridor and down a staircase.

Once downstairs, Nick gasped. He was in a room filled with what looked like coffins, not the wooden kind, but sarcophagi, decorated with Egyptian motifs, images of deities, animals, sacred offerings. Candles flickered off the raw, unfinished walls of the basement. Meat company logos were still visible through peeling paint. A complicated chain-and-pulley system ran around the room, with hooks every few feet. An old slaughterhouse, this was where they were having a party. He saw a rat scurry across a beam and into a hole in the wall. Nick shuddered. He had thought next door was so raw, so gritty, but this was the real thing…and now he was suddenly tired, so tired….

A woman came up to him, wearing a mask like the others. “You'd like to rest?” she asked.

He nodded, barely able to support the weight of his head. Two men stepped forward and placed him in the nearest coffin. Normally he would have thought it was creepy, but it seemed the most natural thing in the world. All he wanted to do was to drift off, and he was being placed in the most comfortable bed he had ever slept in. The woman took a dab of something and put it on his forehead; it smelled like lavender. He allowed the lid to shut over him.

 

Phoebe was spinning around, an exquisite aura enveloping her. Here was everything she wanted to achieve in New York…this party, the gothic setting, the jazz band…. It was inspiring…. Words and images and sounds were coming to her…. She wanted to go home and start making some art….

She must have blacked out at a certain point, because she woke up and found herself in darkness. She was in a box lined with velvet. It smelled of tuberose, like her grandmother's perfume. She was about to scream when the lid opened and she saw she was in a room, somewhat like the one upstairs, with a cracking ceiling. A friendly hand—young, female, with nails polished an attractive shade of red—reached forward to her, and Phoebe took it. She still felt groggy, as if she were underwater. Everything would all flow along, if she could hold it together….

She looked at the face. The woman was wearing a mask, the thin plastic kind you could see someone's features
through. Printed on the mask, though, was another face. Phoebe focused more closely and felt a cry welling up inside her, although she was too stunned to make any sound.

It was her own face on the mask.

The woman's features were merging with her own. She raised a finger to her lips. “Silence, now,” she said. “It will all make sense later.”

 

Lauren's mentor stood with her; they were about the same height. Lauren had had the same reaction as Phoebe: surprise, then wonderment at her own face being projected on Emily van Piper's. She was to be Lauren's mentor through all this, like a big sister, Lauren reasoned. Emily handed her a list, calligraphied on a sheet of what looked like papyrus or some sort of ancient handmade paper:

• You accept that membership in the Society is a privilege that comes with responsibilities as well as rewards. When one member fails, everyone fails
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• Society members are bound to the strictest levels of secrecy. You will not speak to Outsiders about the Society, not to family nor to friends
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• Apart from Society functions, you are not at liberty to discuss the Society amongst yourselves
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• You will leave the room if the Society is brought up in a public setting
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• You will attend all Society functions and meetings as requested. You will not be late
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• Infractions to these and further rules will be punishable by whatever means the Society's Leadership deems appropriate
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• You will accept the Society's orders above those of all others, whether church, school, or state
  .
  

“Do you accept these rules as the tenets for membership?” Emily asked.

Lauren nodded. She felt that she had little choice in the matter, that if she had not been meant to be part of the Society, she would not have been asked, would not have come to the warehouse, would not have accepted the drink that had made her so tired. “Yes.”

“You'll need to remove your necklace.”

Lauren felt around to the back of her neck and quickly unclasped the charm she had been wearing, a small trinket she'd bought at a vintage store and had put on a chain. She looked for her purse, but couldn't remember where she had left it. Emily handed it to her, and she put her necklace away.