“Are we supposed to know what that means?” Rhea asks, and though she still sounds mad, she’s definitely calmed down a lot.
“I’m not sure what it means,” Dr. Minthe answers, deliberately misunderstanding her before turning back to me. “Your cheek will be fine, Penelope.”
“That’s what I thought.” I start to back away, but he stops me with a raised hand.
“You did very well today—”
“I don’t think that’s true.” I shake my head. “The snakes—”
“I’m not talking about the snakes.” He lowers his voice so the others can’t hear him. “The things you said about the Pandora’s box myth were very insightful. I like the way you think.”
“Oh.” I flush with pride. “Thank you.”
He glances over my head with narrowed eyes, and it takes me a second to realize he’s trying to see if anyone in my group is watching us. They’re not—they’re too busy reliving the last hour of our lives to pay any attention to what Dr. Minthe and I are talking about.
That doesn’t stop an uncomfortable feeling from taking root in my stomach at his secrecy. Especially when he finally says, “It’s very important that you keep doing that.”
“Keep doing what?”
“Delving beneath the surface. There’s a lot here at Anaximander’s that is not quite as it seems.”
My throat goes dry at his tone—serious, dark, mysterious. But before I can ask him what he means, two other groups of students finally stumble through their doors. Dr. Minthe gives me a long, searching look before heading over to greet them.
A long, serious, unsettling look. Not knowing what to think about his warnings—or any of the rest of this—I walk over to Fifi and Arjun, both of whom still look a little shell-shocked.
“Why did you do that?” Fifi asks, throwing her arms around me in a huge hug.
“Do what?” I answer, wondering if they overheard Dr. Minthe’s warning.
“Why did you let those snakes try to bite you? You could have died!” For the first time since I met her, she sounds really angry.
I’m not sure what to say to that, especially since I don’t have much time. The fourth team just piled out of their door, so class will resume soon. On the plus side—or maybe the negative side—every single person who walks through the bright red door looks like they had it worse than us.
In the end, I just tell her the truth. Because it’s a fairly wild story and also because no one seemed to know what I was talking about when I mentioned it before. “This is the second time I’ve seen snakes like that. It happened to me on the bridge crossing to Anaximander’s. The lattice on the bridge turned into snakes that came at me.”
That’s not all that happened on that bridge, but for now it seems like the most important part, so I focus on it. “They swarmed me until one bit me, and then, once it did, all the rest of them retreated. I thought maybe that could work again in this situation.”
“That actually seems logical.” Arjun looks more contemplative than angry as he studies me.
“Yeah, logic that nearly got her killed! Think about me before you do something like that next time, will you? Imagine the trauma I’ll carry if my roommate and new bestie gets herself killed on our very first day. I’ll never recover.”
She puts a dramatic hand to her head and Arjun and I both laugh, as she intends. But the look she shoots me afterward tells me she isn’t actually joking.
A sudden lump appears in my throat, and this time, I’m the one who links arms with her. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“You should be,” she answers with a glare.
Before I can think of something else to say that might actually calm her down, Dr. Minthe claps his hands three times.
“You’ve all done well here today,” he says as his eyes meet mine. “Some more than others. Class will be over shortly, but before I send you on your way, please take out a notebook. I have a few things I’d like to discuss with you.”
He waits for us to do as he asks before continuing, “I know I let you go through those doors with little to no explanation. Class won’t always be like that. But I’d like you all to take a seat and reflect in a journal entry on what you learned while you were behind the doors. It may not seem important now, but you will meet many challenges here at Anaximander’s. My hope is that this morning helped prepare you to face them.”
Again, his eyes meet mine, and for a second it feels like he’s talking directly to me and only me. But that doesn’t make any sense. My whole group played a part in getting us back through the door—even Rhea and Sullivan. Plus, the other groups all found their ways back as well.
So why is he still looking at me?
I pull my eyes away from his odd, swirling ones and focus on my journal, where I end up writing down all the confusion I’ve felt since getting to this school. I’ve written nearly three pages before Dr. Minthe calls time.
