Offense mars her features, and she points a fountain pen at me. “Take that back.”
“There areworsecomparisons, you know.”
“Yes, but no one wants to bejustlike their mother.” She frowns. “Although you look more and more like her every day.”
My nerves twist into millions of little knots. Sure, I might look like her, but the difference between us is that Mom has talent—she writes bestsellers under a pseudonym—and Dad. Meanwhile, my accolades and love life are currently nonexistent.
Not for lack of trying. But not everything is meant to work out, I guess.
“So if the California dream is dead, what’s your plan here?” Quincy asks.
“Don’t know yet. Playing it by ear.”
She grunts, unamused. “Asher’s only attending because of Lucy, you know. He’ll be gone in the spring when she graduates.”
“I’m aware. I might not visit often, but I do keep tabs on our family. I even came up to help Lucy with an audition last year.”
Quincy’s eyebrows raise. “I didn’t know about that.”
“Well, you weren’t around.” I pause, refraining from addingas usual. No reason to let her know just how deeply her absence affects me.
Leaning forward, I peer at the spines of the other books on her desk.The Mythos of Fury Hill,Hauntings and Ghost Sightings in the White Mountains,andThe Rule of Three: What Hidden Catacombs Can Tell the Modern World.
“Aren’t you a classics professor?” I ask, reaching for the one on top.
“Does that mean I can only read the classics?” She snatches the book from my hand, glowering, as she sets a small journal on top of the stack. “You shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to you.”
“Maybe I want to read too.”
My eyes fall to the journal. The cover is white and stained with what looks like smudged fingerprints, though the coloring is off. Dark brown or maybe red, and there are dozens of symbols—poppies,torches, and something else I can’t make out—scrawled around a single word etched in permanent marker.
Directoribus.
It reminds me of the school’s mantra,mortui vivos docent, which makes me think of the lake and the bodies that apparently go in but don’t come out.
I think of the night eight years ago when everything changed here, then quickly shove the thoughts away.
After a moment, Quincy reaches into a drawer, producing a composition notebook with a series of dates scribbled on the front. Silent, she stares at it for several beats and then seems to decide against handing it over, placing it on the stack along with the Directoribus.
My interest piques, but I school my expression, unwilling to let her know I find her evasiveness intriguing.
“Look,” she continues, removing her glasses to rub between her eyes, “just do me a favor and keep the trouble to a minimum, all right? That means don’t go into the Primordial Forest for any reason. Missing persons reports are up by, like, a thousand percent this year, and we don’t need another incident like the last time you were here.”
Nausea pokes at the base of my throat.I’ve never forgotten those eyes. Instead of pointing that out, I straighten my spine and nod. “Okay, fine. I’ll stay out.”
“I mean it, Noelle.” She looks at me. “Mom and Dad got a glimpse into how bad shit is here, but it’s hard to really tell unless you’re in it. Given what happened with Asher last semester, it’s unlikely you’d be the target of such violence again so soon, but not an impossibility. Avernia sweepseverythingunder the rug. Don’t expect any problems to get solved. They’ll take your statement and then pretend you don’t exist.”
Unease filters through my veins. That seems like something we should be alerting our parents to, yet the rule here is that what’sreallyhappening doesn’t get back to them.
“So then… Why do you stick around?” I ask. “If this place is so dangerous and awful, why comeback? Why let Asher and me enroll and keep all the secrets from our parents?”
The floor lamp next to us flickers beneath its dark shade. Quincy’s fingers curl inward. The temperature in the room seems to drop, a breeze bursting suddenly from the vent in the ceiling.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Noelle?”
My eyebrows arch. “Uh…I don’tnotbelieve in them, I guess.”
“Scientifically speaking, there’s norealevidence supporting their existence. But not everything can be explained by science. Some things transcend deduction. Phenomena that occur but can’t be defined.”
