“I’ll be over in a second,” Stevie said to Nate and Hunter.
She approached Germaine’s table and sat down. Germaine did not look up.
“Don’t,” Germaine said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t tell me I shouldn’t have posted it. I didn’t say it was Janelle’s fault.”
“You said her machine blew up,” Stevie said. “Which isn’t even true.”
“Did you see that thing go? It broke Mudge’s arm.”
“But it didn’t blow up. It . . .”
Germaine shut her laptop firmly and stared at Stevie. “Look,” she said. “I know Janelle is upset. I told the story. That’s it. Just like you looked into Hayes’s death. And how did that turn out?”
It was like Stevie had been punched in the face. She almost physically reeled from the blow. She leaned back, then got up, walking back to the group table in a daze. Call Me Charles and Dr. Quinn came briskly into the room. They conferred with a few teachers by the door, all their expressions serious.
“Not good,” Nate whispered to Stevie.
Charles went to the middle of the study area and stepped up onto a low table made of heavy wood.
“Can everyone gather or look over here?” he said.
The room went quiet very quickly. Stevie could hear the fire crackle from a good distance.
“We asked everyone to come here this morning so we could all talk,” he began. “This semester has been one of the hardest in the school’s history. We’ve never experienced anything quite like it, at least not in our lifetimes. We mourn the loss of two of our friends. Those losses brought about some very serious conversations—conversations about safety, both physical and emotional. We felt that the school and all of you would benefit from continuing the semester. However . . .”
However was bad. Very bad.
“. . . and I want to stress this is no one’s fault . . .”
Janelle coughed back a sob.
“. . . we’ve come to the very difficult decision that this semester should be brought to a close.”
The ripple that went through the room was a sonic event the likes of which Stevie had never experienced. It was a collective intake that seemed to suck away all the air, followed by a yelp, then a cry, an “oh shit” and several “oh my Gods.”
“What? What are we going to do?” This was from Maris. She was sitting on the floor by the fire, curled up like a cat in a pair of velvety black pajama bottoms and a massive fuzzy sweatshirt. She gazed up from her position like a tragic heroine in a silent movie.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Charles said. “First, you don’t need to worry about your academics. We’re going to work out a way for all of you to finish the semester remotely. None of your academic credit will be affected. None of it.”
One relieved sigh from an unknown corner of the room.
“Normally, we would want to give you time to process, to talk, but there is a complicating factor. I’m sure you’ve heard about the storm coming in. It’s looking to be a big one. By this time tomorrow, the roads will be impassible. So, unfortunately, we’re going to have to start the moving out tonight. . . .”
Everything was spinning a bit. The room seemed to elongate. Stevie looked up at the peaked roof with its wood beams, the ones that made this building seem like a ski lodge or some kind of Alpine retreat. She could smell the warm maple syrup, the fire, and that strange funk that all cafeterias possess no matter how hard they try not to.
“I realize that is not much time,” Charles said. “You do not need to worry about any travel—we will arrange and pay for all of it. For those of you who need flights, we’re already getting them set up. Planes are still taking off from the airport this afternoon and this evening, which is why we had to meet this morning. For those of you who are within driving or train distance, we have set up that as well. You don’t need to worry about packing all your things. Take the things you need for this week, and we’ll get everything else to you. We’re going to text each one of your travel—”
“Are we coming back?” someone else asked.
“That remains an open question,” he replied. “I hope so.”
He went on for another five or so minutes, talking about community and emotions. Stevie heard none of it. The room continued to distort, and her pulse raced. She had not thought to bring her bag with her medication, so she closed her eyes and breathed. In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
Pix was coming in as they were going out. She embraced everyone, except Nate, who did not hug.
“I have a flight to San Francisco at two,” Vi said, staring at their phone.
“Mine’s at four,” Janelle said.
The two held each other. Stevie felt the buzz in her pocket but refused to look.
“I’ll meet you all at home in a few minutes,” Pix said. “I’m sorry. It’s all going to be okay.”
But it wasn’t, of course.
They made their way back to Minerva in a slow, silent procession. Vi came along with them, walking hand in hand with Janelle. Stevie had memorized that sentence from The Great Gatsby that had so transfixed her. She hadn’t meant to—she just read it several times and now it was stuck, running through her head as she looked up: He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.
She still didn’t know exactly what it meant, but the words scared her. They made her aware that there were echoey hallways inside herself that she had not yet explored, that the world was big, and that objects changed upon examination. These are not the kinds of things you want to think about when your dreams of school and escape and friendship have—at long last—properly exploded. Everything was the last. The last time as a group walking back from the dining hall. The last time touching her ID to the pad. The last time pushing open the big blue door. The last time looking at the weird snowshoe spikes, and the moose head, and David sitting on the saggy purple sofa. . . .
David. Was sitting there. Hands folded in his lap, a massive backpack by his feet, wearing his two-thousand-dollar Sherlock coat and a knowing smile.
“Hey, everybody,” he said. “Miss me? Shut the door. Not a lot of time.”
September 1936
IT WAS VERY ODD SEEING A LAKE GO AWAY. HOUR BY HOUR, IT SANK from view. At breakfast, Flora Robinson had gone out to its bank to wish it good-bye. After lunch, it was not looking itself and had revealed a mossy, slimy border of rock. By four, one could hear a whooshing sound as it continued to sink. Leaves congealed on the contracting surface. By sunset, it was gone.
The lake met its fate because a famous physic had called the New York Times and told a reporter that Alice Ellingham had never left home at all; that she was at the bottom of the garden lake. Albert Ellingham did not believe in psychics, but after four sleepless nights, he told Mackenzie to call up the engineers and drain it anyway. This was not hard to do. The lake was fed by a series of pipes that brought water down from a higher point on the mountain; another pipe ran downhill and into the river. All that needed to be done was to close the feed and open the drain and . . . good-bye, lake.