“Okay, that’s enough, Snoop,” she said. “Isn’t there research we should be doing on family trees?”
“Speaking of snooping.” Penn’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, there is research we should be doing. But not the kind you’re thinking.”
Luce stared at her blankly. “Huh?”
“Look.” Penn put her hand on Luce’s shoulder. “If you really want to know about Daniel Grigori—”
“Shhh!” Luce hissed, jumping to close her door. She stuck her head into the hall and scanned the scene. The coast looked clear—but that didn’t mean anything. People at this school had a suspicious way of appearing out of nowhere. Cam in particular. And Luce would die if he—or anyone—found out how enamored of Daniel she was. Or, at this point, anyone but Penn.
Satisfied, Luce closed and locked the door and turned back to her friend. Penn was sitting cross-legged at the edge of Luce’s bed. She looked amused.
Luce locked her hands behind her back and dug her toe into the circular red rug near her door. “What makes you think I want to know anything about him?”
“Give me a break,” Penn said, laughing. “A, it’s totally obvious that you stare at Daniel Grigori all the time.”
“Shhh!” Luce said again.
“B,” Penn said, not dropping her voice, “I watched you stalk him online for an entire class the other day. Sue me—but you were being totally shameless. And C, don’t get all paranoid. You think I blab to anyone at this school besides you?”
Penn did have a point.
“I’m only saying,” she continued, “assuming hypothetically you did want to know more about a certain unnamed person, you could conceivably bark up a more fruitful tree.” Penn shrugged one shoulder. “You know, if you had help.”
“I’m listening,” Luce said, sinking down on the bed. Her Internet search the other day had only amounted to typing, then deleting, then retyping Daniel’s name into the search field.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Penn said. “I didn’t bring books with me today because I’m giving you”—she widened her eyes goofily—“a guided tour of the highly off-limits underground lair of Sword & Cross office records!”
Luce grimaced. “I don’t know. Prying into Daniel’s files? I’m not sure I need another reason to feel like a crazy stalker girl.”
“Ha.” Penn snickered. “And yes, you did just say that out loud. Come on, Luce. It’ll be fun. Besides, what else are you going to do on a perfectly sunny Saturday morning?”
It was a nice day—precisely the kind of nice that made you feel lonely if you didn’t have anything fun and outdoorsy planned. In the middle of the night, Luce had felt a cool front brush through her open window, and when she’d awoken this morning, the heat and humidity had all but disappeared.
She used to spend these golden early-fall days tearing up the neighborhood bike path with her friends. That was before she started avoiding the woodsy trail because of the shadows none of the other girls ever saw. Before her friends sat her down one day during recess and said their parents didn’t want them inviting her over anymore, in case she had an incident.
Truth was, Luce had been a little panicked about how she’d spend this first weekend at Sword & Cross. No classes, no terrorizing physical fitness tests, no social events on the docket. Just forty-eight endless hours of free time. An eternity. She’d had a queasy homesick feeling all morning—until Penn showed up.
“Okay.” Luce tried not to laugh when she said, “Take me to your secret lair.”
Penn practically skipped as she led Luce across the trampled grass of the commons to the main lobby near the school’s entrance. “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for a partner in crime to bring down here with me.”
Luce smiled, glad Penn was more focused on having a friend to explore with than she was on, well, this … thing Luce had for Daniel.
At the edge of the commons, they passed a few kids lazing around on the bleachers in the clear late-morning sun. It was strange to see color on campus, on these students with whom Luce so closely identified the color black. But there was Roland in a pair of lime-green soccer shorts, dribbling a ball between his feet. And Gabbe in her purple gingham button-down shirt. Jules and Phillip—the tongue-ringed couple—were drawing on the knees of each other’s faded jeans. Todd Hammond sat apart from the rest of the kids on the bleachers, reading a comic book in a camouflage T-shirt. Even Luce’s own gray tank top and shorts felt more vibrant than anything she’d worn all week.
Coach Diante and the Albatross were on lawn duty and had set up two plastic lawn chairs and a sagging umbrella at the edge of the commons. Aside from when they ashed their cigarettes on the lawn, they could have been asleep behind their dark sunglasses. They looked utterly bored, as imprisoned by their jobs as the charges they were monitoring.
There were a lot of people out on the commons, but as she followed closely behind Penn, she was glad to see there wasn’t anyone near the main lobby at all. No one had said anything to Luce about trespassing in restricted areas, or even which areas were restricted, but she was sure Randy would find an appropriate punishment.
“What about the reds?” Luce asked, remembering the omnipresent cameras.
“I just stuck some dead batteries in a few of them on my way over to your room,” Penn said, in the same nonchalant tone of voice someone else might use to say “I just filled the car up with gas.”
Penn took a sweeping glance around before she led Luce to the main building’s back entrance and down three steep steps to an olive-colored door not visible from ground level.
“Is this basement from the Civil War era, too?” Luce asked. It looked like an entrance to the kind of place where you could stash some POWs.
Penn gave the damp air a long, dramatic sniff. “Does the malodorous rot answer your question? This here is some antebellum mildew.” She grinned at Luce. “Most students would keel over for the chance to inhale such storied air.”
Luce tried not to breathe through her nose as Penn produced a hardware store’s worth of keys held together on a giant lanyard. “My life would be so much easier if they got around to making a skeleton key for this place,” she said, sifting through the assortment and finally pulling forward a thin silver key.
When the key turned in the lock, Luce felt an unexpected shiver of excitement. Penn was right—this was way better than mapping out her family tree.
They walked a short distance through a warm, damp corridor whose ceiling was only a few inches higher than their heads. The stale air smelled like something had died there, and Luce was almost glad the room was too dark to clearly see the floor. Just when she was beginning to feel claustrophobic, Penn produced another key that opened a small but much more modern door. They ducked through, then were able to stand up on the other side.
Inside, the records office reeked of mildew, but the air felt much cooler and drier. It was pitch-black except for the pale red glow of the EXIT sign over their heads.
Luce could make out Penn’s sturdy silhouette, her hands groping in the air. “Where’s that string?” she muttered. “There.”