failed to materialize. Alex had seen a teen Gray in an R.E.M. T-shirt roaming around the
parking lot that had taken the Coliseum’s place, moving in aimless circles as if still hoping to score tickets.
The entry for murder was frustratingly short:
In the event of violent death associated with the activities of the landed societies, a colloquy will be called between the dean, the university president, the active members of
Lethe House, the acting Centurion, and the president of the Lethe Trust to decide a course of action. (See “Meeting Protocols.”)
Alex flipped to “Meeting Protocols,” but all she found was a diagram of the Lethe House dining room, along with a guide to seating according to precedence, a reminder of
the need for minutes to be kept by the residing Oculus, and suggested menus. Apparently,
light fare was prescribed, alcohol to be served only upon request. There was even a recipe
for something called minted slush punch.
“Big help, fellas,” Alex muttered. They talked about death like it was a breach of manners. And she had no idea how to pronounce “colloquy” but it was obviously a big-ass
meeting she had no intention of calling. Was she really supposed to hit up the president of
the university and invite him over for cold meats? Sandow had told her to rest easy. He hadn’t said anything about a colloquy. Why? Because this is a funding year. Because Tara
Hutchins is town. Because there’s no indication the societies are involved at all. So let it go.
Instead, Alex returned to the hallway, shut the door to the library, and reopened the Albemarle Book. This time the scent of cigars puffed up from the pages and she heard the
clinking of dishes. That was the Lethe memory of murder—not blood or suffering, but men gathered around a table, drinking minted slush punch. She hesitated, trying to think of
the right words to guide the library, then she inscribed a new entry: How to speak to the dead.
She slid the book into place and the bookcase shuddered violently. This time when she
entered the library, the shelves were packed.
It was hard not to feel that Darlington was somehow looking over her shoulder, the eager scholar restraining himself from interfering in her clumsy attempts at research.
When did you first see them? Alex had told Darlington the truth. She simply couldn’t remember the first time she’d seen the dead. She’d never even called them that in her head. The blue-lipped girl in a bikini by the pool; the naked man standing behind the chain-link fence at the schoolyard, toying lazily with himself as her class ran suicides; the two boys in bloody sweatshirts seated at a booth at the In-N-Out who never ordered. They
were just the Quiet Ones, and if she didn’t pay them too much attention, they left her alone.
That had all changed in a Goleta bathroom when she was twelve years old.
By then she’d learned to keep her mouth shut about the things she saw, and she’d been
doing pretty well. When it was time to start junior high, she asked her mother to start calling her Alex instead of Galaxy and to fill out her school forms that way. At her old school, everyone had known her as the twitchy kid who talked to herself and flinched at
things that weren’t there, who didn’t have a dad and who didn’t look like her mom. One
counselor thought she had ADD; another thought she needed a more regular sleep
schedule. Then there was the vice principal, who had taken her mother aside and
murmured that Alex might just be a little slow. “Some things can’t be fixed with therapy
or a pill, you know? Some kids are below average, and there’s room for them in the classroom too.”
But a new school meant a fresh start, a chance to remake herself into someone ordinary.
“You shouldn’t be ashamed to be different,” her mother had said when Alex had
summoned the courage to ask for the name change. “I called you Galaxy for a reason.”
Alex didn’t disagree. Most of the books she read and the TV shows she watched told
her different was okay. Different was great! Except no one was different quite like her.
Besides, she thought, as she looked around their tiny apartment laden with dream catchers