Time to claim the prize.
She extended a hand, holding it out to touch the fabled statue,but her fingers did not make contact with stone. A shadow drifted from behind the statue. It coiled around her arm and spiraled down her legs, squeezing her bones in a suffocating embrace.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, as it pulled her into thedarkness.
1
Raven
Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin.
—Mary Shelley,Frankenstein
It’s a terriblething: wanting.
The envelope sits unopened in my hands. It’s heavy, not with the weight of its contents but with its purpose. Acceptance or rejection? The letter will dictate my fate. My name glitters in silvery ink on the envelope, the wax seal for Sibylline College of Magical Arts still intact and tempting me to break it. It should be easy, like ripping off a Band-Aid. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve been waiting for this letter for what feels like my whole life, and now I’m not sure what to do with it. I both want and don’t want to know what’s inside. A purgatory of my own creation, and I’ve been trapped in it since the letter’s unexpected arrival.
It appeared in between the pages of a library book I had checked out. Sibylline has no need for the postal service, of course.
I texted the group chat right away, sending a single exclamation point. I didn’t have to say anything more than that. We all know when and where to meet. I’m still holding the letter tightly when I claim our bench on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, with its picturesque view of the Manhattan skyline in the umber summer evening. People trying to capture the fading summer lightwith their phones walk past me, but all I can do is look at the letter in my hand.
A figure approaches. A dark-haired boy in a shabby but elegant tweed coat, hems and cuffs frayed from wear. A rare vintage find, like the wearer.
“Got yours, huh?” Atticus asks, flashing an envelope. It’s identical to mine, save for his name: Atticus Edward Garcia. My relief upon seeing my friend is only a brief respite from the anxiety churning in my gut.
“I didn’t want to open it alone,” I say as he takes a seat next to me.
“Me neither,” he says. A paper tray sits on his lap with three iced coffees from the nearby cafe.
“I don’t think I should have any caffeine. I’m shaking already,” I say.
“That’s why I got you an herbal iced tea.”
He knows me so well, even without his gift for reading people. He hands me my drink and a straw, and I accept it gratefully, though I don’t take a sip. My stomach might just hurl it back up.
“Dorian?” I ask.
“On his way.” Atticus sets down the tray with Dorian’s drink on the bench.
“Where’d you get the letter?” I ask.
He takes a long sip and sighs. “I was doing line work in my sketchbook, and poof”—he flicks his free hand, mimicking a firework—“there it was, replacing the pen in my hand.”
I nod, my insides still twisting with anticipation. I take a deep breath and set both the drink and my decision letter down to rub my throbbing temples. Meanwhile, Atticus at my side has one arm thrown over the back of the bench casually.
“How do you always seem so calm?” I ask. “Weeks of waiting, and you’re just…fine?”
Atticus watches joggers passing by on the promenade, appreciating the last vestiges of summer. “Don’t let appearances fool you.” He talks around the straw in his mouth, lazily resting the tip of it against his teeth as he says, “Life’s a façade.” He swivels his head and looks at me with his deep brown eyes. “I read that on a fortune cookie somewhere.”
He manages to get a smile out of me, which is exactly what he wanted. It does make me feel a little bit better now thathe’shere. When Atticus isn’t drawing for the architecture firm where his mom works as a clerk, he scribbles in his notebooks and on tabletops, and sometimes, when there is no other surface available, he makes do. Ink covers his jeans. I can tell he’s nervous now, especially since he’s whipped out one of his fancy pens and started drawing crosshatches on his denim-covered thigh.
“If you must know, I’m terrified,” he says, not looking up from his work. Each stroke of the pen is a delicate, practiced flick, each line perfectly spaced.
I like watching him work. I like watching him most of the time, but especially now. I love the way the sunset makes his brown skin glow. His full lips part as he sighs, his eyes dancing over his work, as if he’s memorizing each line and shape he creates.
“If any of us gets in,” he says, glancing at me from behind his shaggy bangs, “it’ll definitely be you. You’re the best of us. Plus, you’re the only one of us who can afford it.”
“Money doesn’t matter,” I say, trying to downplay it.
