She grabbed a pen and tablet from her welcome bag and scribbled down her Tomas words.
“Khu isn’t German, at all, it’s…ancient…Egyptian, I think.” He shook his head. “Sort of means soul. Schatz is treasure; Gefahr is danger; bin entwichen is ‘I escaped’—Hailey…” With a concerned look he handed her the tablet. “What’s the context of all this?”
She tried to think of a quick way to sum things up. “How much time do you have?”
“None,” he told her, checking his watch. “I’ll swing by tomorrow morning for breakfast,” he said, and then he leaned over and pecked her on the cheek.
“Goodbye, raging bitch,” he called to Giselle, and without moving her magazine, she flipped him the bird as he walked out the door.
“Whoa,” Hailey breathed, clutching her stomach after the door closed. “That…was…”
“Gross,” her roommate finished for her, and Hailey looked up. Giselle had moved the magazine, stood up, and was scowling hatefully from beside her bed at Hailey, who smiled excitedly back.
This roommate was no monster. She was just the girl with the prematurely gray hair. Hailey blew a sigh of relief, and as she marveled, Giselle fell like a feather back onto her bed and lifted her magazine again.
She certainly was aptly named, moving with the grace of a ballerina. Though her eyes were a mesmerizing crystal blue—the rest of her seemed a bit horrible, with slightly frizzy gray hair reaching down to her hips and a couple of facial wrinkles that belonged to a crotchety, 80-year-old bat.
Otherwise, in the face, Giselle looked…at least in Hailey’s eyes…somewhat similar to Holly. Were it not for her six-foot stature, corpse hair, and permanent look of disgust on her kisser, she could have been Holly’s doppelganger. Maybe she just missed her sister. In any case, and despite her grumpiness, Hailey liked her immediately.
“Stop staring at me,” Giselle said from behind her magazine.
“I’m sorry.” Hailey averted her eyes. “You just remind me of my sister.”
“She must be ugly,” she said in a monotone, and Hailey shook her head.
“She was beautiful.” Hailey reached for her back pocket. “Oh,” she whispered. “Asher still has Holly’s picture, or else I’d show you.”
“I don’t want to see it,” Giselle droned, and Hailey ignored her indifferent tone. So far, Giselle was the only student to talk to her, and even if that “talking” amounted to a string of grouchy insults, Hailey was delighted.
“So, where are you from?” she tried.
“Hell.”
“Oh, come on, Giselle, Cleveland’s not that bad,” Hailey laughed, trying to coax a smile, but Giselle flicked her magazine down to show Hailey her pointy teeth.
“It’s a village in the Alps,” she said through them. “The literal translation is Hell,” she sputtered, and then with a loud tsk, she pulled herself back behind her magazine.
Hailey rubbed her forehead. “I actually have a roommate from Hell,” she muttered. “What country would that be?”
Giselle didn’t answer.
“Well, I’m from Pittsburgh,” Hailey said as she arranged her things inside her closet—all on one shelf.
“I don’t care,” said Giselle with more than a little hostility, but that didn’t discourage Hailey. Since small talk wasn’t working, she tried flattery.
“I think your eyes are really pretty, and…” Hailey swallowed hard. “I saw you at the welcome dinner. You and I must be wearing the same student repellant,” she laughed, and a puff of steam literally rose out of Giselle’s head.
“Nobody will talk to you,” she snapped, ripping her magazine as she threw it down, “because Asher told us all to stay away from you.”
“What? When?”
“This summer. And he already killed one student as an example, and I’m not supposed to tell you that or anything else about him, but I’ll probably be dead in a couple months anyway, so who cares if he rips me apart?”
Hailey’s jaw fell. “That can’t be, Asher’s—”
“Asher can be terrifying, little girl.”
Hailey stared at Giselle, the horror of her words a great weight against her chest.
