Now, tonight, she refused to even mention him.
Tai and Cody joked back and forth about old mobile games while Ellory read over her essay a couple of times before submitting it. Her neck and shoulders ached. Pressure built behind her eyes, warning of an impending stress headache. When the words of her second paper began to swim in front of her, Ellory closed her laptop and rubbed her temples.
“You know,” said Tai, frowning, “Lor, you don’t seem much more relaxed now than you were before fall break. What’s been going on with you lately?”
“Are you and Hudson finally dating?” Cody asked. “I’ve got a bet going with a few of the soccer bros.”
“No,” Ellory said, avoiding any reference to Liam so that Cody learned a lesson about gambling and friendship. “And fall break was fine. It was good. I’m fine.”
All things considered, shewasfine. Fall break had passed in the blink of an eye, but Aunt Carol had remained in perfect health and Ellory had actually gotten a call from her parents. Their pride over how hard she was working on her political science degree had made guilt ferment in her chest, but not enough guilt to stop her from purchasing the séance materials she’d researched. Otherwise, it was quiet. She learned to make two new meals for Carol’s post-stroke dietary plan. She bought the latestIronheartcomic. She considered texting her old friends to hang out and went to the Air and Space Museum alone instead.
She’d refused to think about magic and memory at all.
Perhapsfinewas a stretch, but there was little to be done about how quiet her phone had been that week. High school had been a blur of work and academic achievement, sleepless nights and longdays with the goal of qualifying for the kinds of schools that she couldn’t afford to attend. Her friends had taken her constant refusals as a sign she didn’t want to be invited anywhere at all—and as those invitations had dried up, as those names had fallen farther down her list of open text threads, as the seasons had changed without a single meaningful word exchanged, she’d let them all go.
Now she knew that Polly hated the feeling of wearing wet socks, that Zane was allergic to cats, and that Shug cried at the end of any Disney movie about families. Intimate details about strangers that were two years out of date. Useless residue from the friendships that had evaporated while she’d been buried in her books.
Every second Ellory spent in this country was devoted to building a future that seemed further out of reach the closer she supposedly got. She had to work hard here in order to get there. Then she had to work even harder there to getover there. And if she wanted to get upthere, well, she’d have to workten timesharder than that, because she was Black and a woman and an immigrant, and very few people with those intersections ever made itup there.
Ellory hadn’t figured out if Warren was yet another stop on a still-expanding road of academia—masters, doctorates, postdocs—or if this was finally where all her hard work and sacrifice would pay off. If these were the years she would finally get to live, to thrive. All she knew was that she was tired of treading water until the next wave came.
She rubbed her temples harder. “I need a longer break, I think. Five days wasn’t enough.”
“You’re really not going to tell us what you and Graves have been up to, huh?” Tai asked, leaning forward so that Ellory could see her even with her head dipped toward the table. “Or why you guys are suddenly spending all this time together if you’re notdating?”
“Ididtell you,” Ellory grumbled, “and you told me I was cracking under pressure and took me out for lunch.”
Tai blinked. “I was trying to help you. If you were upset, you could’ve said something.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Can we please not do this passive-aggressive bullshit? This isn’t middle school.”
“I know you’re not accusingmeof passive-aggressive bullshit—”
“I obviously missed something,” said Cody, looking between them. “What’s going on?”
With a sigh, Ellory repeated the same story she’d told Tai, about her disappearing tattoo and the day at Bancroft Field, an endless sense of déjà vu and the not-quite-memories that slipped out of reach. This time, she added the note in her own hand, what she and Hudson had learned about the symbol, and the hidden room in the founders’ museum, carefully skirting any mention of Hudson at all. Cody’s eyes were dinner-plate wide by the time she finished. Even Tai looked apologetic.
“So, what’s your next step?” Tai asked. “Or, rather,ournext step?”
“Our?”
“If you’re being cursed or whatever, you’re not going to deal with that alone. I have sixteen Nigerian aunties on speed dial who could help you.”
Cody lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I think I have a third cousin everyone says is a bruja. I’m not sure it’strue, but I’m willing to reach out and confirm.”
Ellory blinked slowly into the silence that followed, but it seemed that Cody and Tai were serious. She glanced at her phone,face down on the table, and then back at her friends and their earnest desire to help. She’d planned to do this with Hudson, as part of their partnership, but…
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Meet me back here at around one a.m.? We’re going to summon the Graves Ghost.”
“Oh, is that all?” said Tai, before muttering something in Hausa.
Cody placed a hand on her shoulder. “The Graves Ghost isn’t even dangerous. It just presses all the buttons in the elevators and pulls books off the shelves sometimes. It’ll be fine.”
Ellory nodded, hoping Cody was right, hoping itwouldbe fine. If not, it wasn’t as though her school year could get any worse.
***
