Authors: Lisa Roecker
I couldn’t see anyone through the books and could only hear the sound of my own ragged breathing. I peered around the corner, but no one was there. I had to make a break for the stairs. I shot forward and hurled my body upward, taking the steps three at a time.
When I landed in the library foyer, Porter was busy romancing a couple of first-years who giggled inanely at something he’d said. Their conversation ground to a halt as they took in my frazzled state, mouths gaping. I ignored their strange looks and headed straight for Dorothy’s desk, the note wrinkled in my sweaty palm.
“Ms. D.,” I huffed, “did you see anyone go down to the stacks after you left?”
“Kate, what happened?” Ms. D. asked as she stood up, a concerned look on her face. If Ms. D. were allowed to carry a gun, I’m pretty sure her hand would have moved to the holster at that moment.
But instead of slapping the note on her desk and requesting a handwriting analysis, I crumpled the paper into a ball and shoved my hand into my pocket.
“Oh…um…I just got a little scared. I heard noises and…I just wanted to see if…someone else was down there.”
Ms. D. narrowed her eyes, probably considering whether or not she should call the police.
“I want you to file an incident report.” She handed me a form. “Submit it to Headmaster Sinclair personally when you go to school tomorrow.” She shook her head back and forth slowly. “I’ve told him countless times those stacks are trouble. I can’t be in two places at once,” she mumbled. “Maybe he’ll listen to a complaint directly from a student.”
I didn’t have time to argue, because the clock behind her desk read twelve after seven. My parents were going to kill me.
“I’m actually late, but I’ll fill this out and turn it in tomorrow.” I swung my book bag around and pushed the paper inside.
As I pedaled in the direction of home, my legs burned with exertion and my mind spun with questions. Maybe Ms. D. was right and some secrets were meant to stay buried. But then Grace’s face flashed through my mind.
Some secrets were worth the trouble.
As I waited for the traffic light to change at an intersection, I saw lightning streak through the blackness. A few seconds later, thunder rolled. I pulled the crumpled note from my pocket and took in the crooked letters for a second time.
We’re watching.
The wind picked up, and I couldn’t stop myself from twisting around to see if I was being followed. Fat raindrops landed on the note and swirls of red ink bled into the droplet, blurring the letters below. Soon the words of the threat were as muddled as the clues I’d gathered.
My phone vibrated from the pocket of my jeans as soon as the lightning struck again, and the skies opened up. Completely drenched within seconds, I pulled my bike beneath a tree, sure it was one of my parents calling. They were probably worried about me riding in a storm. After the whole tennis-skipping debacle the week before, I couldn’t afford to be screening anymore calls.
But it wasn’t my mom or my dad. In fact, it wasn’t a phone call at all.
I had mail.
Sent: Wed 7:16 PM
From: [email protected]
Subject: (no subject)
We’re running out of time.
Go to the arches.
The truth is with the benefactor.
I need you.
Last Fall
I wished whoever was screaming would stop. My head was pounding, and oddly enough, my throat felt raw. It wasn’t until I brought my hand to my neck that I realized the sound was coming from me.
Flames licked at the old chapel, searing through wooden beams that broke like matchsticks and collapsed. As the chapel fell in on itself, puffs of sparks floated up into the night sky. I stood in front of the wooden building and watched it burn, hypnotized by the oranges and blues of the fire. Finally the heat reached my face and arms, snapping me out of my daze and sending me tearing through the woods to find Maddie and Grace. Someone could be in there. I had to get help.
By the time I made it out of the woods, fire trucks and emergency vehicles were already on the scene. Firemen were directing students away from the bonfire and maneuvering their trucks as close to the burning chapel as possible. I searched the crowd for Grace, praying that I was wrong about seeing her in the woods, hoping she hadn’t been summoned to the chapel as I had.
But she was nowhere to be found. And neither was Maddie. Tears welled in my eyes, but I forced myself back to action before they spilled over the edges. I didn’t have time to cry. Not now.
Blue and red emergency lights spun on top of police cars and were reflected in the shocked faces of students and teachers. People scrambled around cupping hands around their lips, battling against the wail of the sirens. Names were being shouted, girls were sobbing, and people were hugging each other and thanking God when they found their friends. We all understood that this was more than just a fire, that this was more serious than the loss of a building.
I wound through the clusters of students, searching for Grace and Maddie. They were nowhere to be found. When I finally saw Seth’s familiar crop of red curls, I ran to him.
“Seth!” I threw my arms around his neck. I just needed to touch someone. “Have you seen Maddie and Grace? I can’t find them anywhere!”
Seth’s cheeks were completely pale, making his hair look brighter than usual. “Relax, Kate. Everything’s going to be fine. I haven’t seen them, but I’m sure…”
I was already off and running for the teachers before Seth had time to finish. My best friends were in that chapel. I just knew it. I had to get them out. I had to save them.
The teachers were clustered around Headmaster Sinclair, looking nearly as shocked and scared as the students. Fresh fear sliced through my heart.
“I need to get by!” I shouted as I shoved my way through the mass of administrators and made my way to the headmaster. “Headmaster Sinclair!” His face was flushed, and I watched a droplet of sweat zigzag from his sideburn to his chin.
I grabbed his arm. “I think my friends are in there!”
The teachers froze, and for a second I couldn’t hear anything except the shouts of the firemen and the crackling of the fire.
“That’s impossible.” But in spite of his words he looked worried. “No one has used that building for years. All the entrances are sealed.” But he was wrong. There was a way in, because I was supposed to have found it.
“I saw one of them walk into the woods earlier, and now I can’t find either of them.”
“Who is it?” one of the other teachers asked from behind me.
“Grace Lee and Maddie Greene.”
There were some murmurs. No one else had seen them around the bonfire since the fire had broken out. I could hear the concern in their voices.
“Come on. We’ll alert the fire chief.” The other teachers watched us anxiously as we walked away.
The headmaster grabbed my shoulder as we made our way toward the firemen. “Are you sure they didn’t leave with friends?”
“They’d never do that. Grace’s parents are strict, and they’re supposed to be picking us up tonight.” I continued to scan the crowd, praying that I was wrong. That I’d hear Grace’s and Maddie’s voices or catch them coming back from the woods with Cameron or even Porter.
“And, there’s this.” I dug around in my back pocket for the invitation. They had to see it. Other people could be stuck in that building. Who knows how many people had received the same mysterious note in their lockers? But as I dug around in my pocket, there was nothing but the wrappers from a few sticks of gum Grace had offered all of us in the car on the way over. Headmaster Sinclair’s face twisted with anger as he snatched the crumpled paper from between my fingers.
“Young lady, this better not be some kind of joke. There’s no time for this.” He cast the foil down and it reflected orange and yellow flames as it floated to the ground. I shoved my hand into my other pocket, desperate to feel the creamy card stock of the invitation that had been there minutes ago.
“Wait!” I cried. “I know it’s here somewhere.” But Headmaster Sinclair was already talking to another frantic student.
I rushed through the crowd and pushed my way to the front of the group where students, their faces glowing orange, stood staring at the hose, which now was bursting with water. I saw Bradley Farrow rubbing at his eyes, almost in disbelief, and Alistair Reynolds, wide-eyed and shocked.
“My friends!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “They’re in there!” By now tears were streaming down my face. I tried to push further, to run with the firemen, but students held me back. “Grace! Maddie!” I screamed, my voice cracking.
A young fireman who held part of the hose inched over to where I stood screaming.
“It’s going to be okay. Do you hear me? It’s going to be okay. No one’s used the chapel for years. There’s no way in.”
“No, you don’t understand. My friends are in there. I had an invitation…”
I threw myself forward, one last attempt to shove my way through the human barrier, but the bodies were too thick. I was forced to turn back into the crowd, ducking and pushing, searching for the faces of my friends in the dancing light of the bonfire.
And then I found her.
“Maddie! Thank God!”
“Oh, Kate! I thought…I mean…” Her head whipped around, her eyes searching wildly. “Where’s Grace? Is she…”
A sharp pain spread from the center of my chest. It felt like my insides were breaking. “I thought she was with you,” I screamed. I grabbed both of her hands, my eyes wide, my voice frantic. “Maddie, did you get an invitation last week? Something about meeting in the chapel tonight?”
She looked past me, her body shaking violently.
Tears ran jagged down my cheeks. “I know this is awful, Maddie, but I’m scared. I think someone wanted us to be in that chapel when it burned. There’s something going on…”
Instead of answering, Maddie wandered away from the direction of the fire like she was sleepwalking. The sound of sirens wailing in the distance forced me in the opposite direction. I shoved through the masses of people huddled together, blinking back thick smoke and waving away particles of ash that danced against the sky like snow. But in my heart, I knew the truth. I was already too late.
Grace was gone.
Present Day
Attention everyone.” Taylor rapped a small gavel on the lectern and called the Concilium to order. I’d never realized it before, but I think this was one of the first times I’d actually heard her speak. She usually forced her underlings to do all the talking for her.
“We have a lot to cover today, so I’m going to hand it over to Bethany.” She sighed prettily and gave Beefany the gavel, lowering herself into one of the front seats, her eyes drilling into mine with a look cool enough to give me frostbite.
Alistair Reynolds and Bradley Farrow booed when Beefany took the lectern, so she began rapping the gavel furiously against the wood.
“Come on, you guys! Can you at least pretend to be mature for ten minutes?” Beefany’s face was red; she was clearly flustered. Even Taylor narrowed her eyes in the boys’ direction, her normally impassive face wrinkled with frustration.
“Yeah, we’re all yours once you start saying something worth listening to,” Alistair shot back.
Taylor stood up. “Enough. This isn’t the time or place.” Her blue eyes sparked with anger. After a couple of muttered references to “bitches” and suggestions about exactly what Taylor could do with the stick shoved up her ass, Bradley and Alistair quieted down and kept their loudmouthed heckling to whispers.
Taylor took her seat, and Beefany began her lecture on the importance of maintaining Pemberly Brown traditions and updating alumni contact information. Her voice went up more than an octave when she spoke in front of a crowd, resulting in an earsplitting pitch that probably had dogs across town howling. I had my notebook in front of me, pen poised so I would look like I was taking notes, but really I read Grace’s email over and over again, trying to figure out what it meant.
So far, I’d been able to figure out that I needed to talk to the person who had donated the arches. I was 99 percent sure that the arches referred to were Farrow’s Arches, so the benefactor must be a part of the Farrow family. But that’s where it got tricky. By my calculation, more than twenty Farrows had attended Pemberly Brown. Bradley and Naomi were the first to come to mind, but they had a slew of cousins, aunts, uncles, and even grandparents who had been students over the years.
I’d already done a little research and knew the arches themselves had been donated by Bradley and Naomi’s grandfather Cornelius. Aside from the fact that he was loaded (big shocker there) and had founded Cleveland’s largest real-estate development company, there wasn’t really all that much information about him.
Apparently, in addition to being the school’s first African American student, he was the first PB student to earn a full scholarship to Harvard. According to the articles, he had donated the arches as a way to show his appreciation for the gift of education. When he proposed to his wife at the dedication ceremony, Station 10 was complete.
I knew I had to start with Naomi or Bradley, but the thought of confronting them made me want to puke. What could I possibly say? “Oh, hey, I got this email, and I think you might know something about how Grace died. Spill. Oh, and sorry about randomly ditching our tennis match last week.” Or better yet, “Bradley, I know it’s been a little awkward since our ‘kiss’ last year, but tell me the truth—did you set fire to the chapel?”
Beefany rapped the mini-gavel again, and I had to wonder if she and Taylor shared custody of the stupid thing. A snort of laughter escaped my lips when I pictured Taylor prying the gavel out of Beefany’s meaty fingers every other weekend.
“Excuse me, Kerry? Do you have something to add?” Beefany barked from the lectern, staring directly at me. Her husky voice had returned.
“Er, it’s Kate, and, uh…no,” I stammered.
“Well, Cade, our last order of business is Homecoming. I need some help hanging signs around the school today. Are you familiar with how to use a staple gun?”
I had the urge to tell her most monkeys were proficient in staple-gun usage, but Taylor shot me a chilly look from her throne on the sidelines and I found myself nodding my head instead. Beefany and her queen had spent the past year pretending I didn’t exist, and now all of a sudden they wanted me to help hang posters? Surely this was a sign of the impending Apocalypse.
“Great, let’s get moving then. Everyone, you know the drill.” Beefany stalked toward me carrying a rather sizable staple gun. “Come on, Cade. Grab those posters and try to keep up.” I glanced back at Taylor and saw that she hadn’t even bothered to get up from her chair. Instead people were waiting to talk to her like they were in some sort of receiving line. Unbelievable.
Beefany’s thick fingers wrapped around my bicep, and she dragged me to a bulletin board outside the classroom. She thrust a poster into my hands and gestured that I should hold it up. Before I could even straighten it, she attacked the poster with the gun. Apparently staple conservation wasn’t a primary concern for Beefany.
“Didn’t I see you with Liam Gilmour at Starbucks last week?” she asked, pausing to reload the gun.
I’d never noticed how smooth her olive-colored skin was until I stood right next to her. She was prettier than I’d given her credit for. Exotic even.
“Um, yeah,” was the only response I could manage.
“Just watch yourself around him. You know what everyone says about the drug money.” She affected an awed whisper for the words “drug” and “money.”
“Didn’t stop you from throwing yourself at him,” I said before I could stop myself.
Geez, Kate, jealous much?
Beefany froze in her tracks and spun around to stare directly into my eyes.
“Liam Gilmour is off limits. You don’t know anything about him, Cade. And trust me when I say it’s safer for you that way.”
She didn’t bother to wait for a response. She turned around, straightened her shoulders, and began walking, her black waves rippling with each step. As we turned the corner, we ran directly into Liam, who had obviously heard Beefany’s words echo through the empty hallway.
I glanced at Beefany, curious to see how she’d respond after seeing him, but his presence didn’t seem to faze her. I guess girls like Beefany didn’t know that embarrassment was an actual emotion.
“Well, am I right or am I right? You are off limits.” He went to open his mouth, but Beefany pushed her finger to his lips. “We should talk.” Her sharp brown eyes seared into mine, but she addressed Liam “in private.”
I tried to gauge his reaction to Beefany’s demand. For someone who claimed to hate the Beefster and her queen, he agreed rather readily, and I was again left completely confused. What kind of hold did she have over him? Did they have some kind of history together?
They walked toward a nook in the hallway, and again Beefany hissed something into his ear, her arm snaked around his waist. At that moment, he seemed so submissive, so unlike the Liam Gilmour I thought I was getting to know.
Our “date” at Starbucks seemed like a figment of my imagination, our moment in the hall a fake. Taylor had probably put Beefany up to it as an experimental form of torture. I could imagine her whispering, “Let’s see if we can get Kate to think a guy actually likes her. It’ll be hilarious.”
As soon as they finished talking, Liam gave me one of his patented boy nods and walked away. I had been dismissed. I hated when people, especially guys, made me feel that way. Every time it happened, I remembered that night with Bradley and my own stupidity.
Beefany walked back over to me. “No hard feelings,” she chirped in the same nails-on-a-chalkboard voice she’d used at the Concilium meeting. Considering that she had the staple gun pointed directly at my chest, her comment felt more like an order than an apology.
I briefly considered making a grab for the gun to put myself out of my misery, but in the end I just nodded and followed along. Sometimes life was easier that way.