He showed me to his office, which was little more than a converted broom closet. “Be right back,” he said, and a few seconds later, I heard the thump of his footsteps up the stairs. “Hey, Grant!” he called from somewhere above me.
The office-closet was crammed with posters of mathematics and robotics competitions from the last couple of years, and a large poster of a symbol that looked a little like a misshapen integral. There was a typewriter on a desk that was so cluttered with papers it looked like a fire hazard.
“Here you are,” he said, handing me a piece of paper when he returned a few minutes later. I still hadn’t sat down, opting instead to stand against the door, and now he’d almost run into me.
“Your treasurer’s name is Grant? As in Grant Hafer?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly. But thanks a lot for this.” All of a sudden, I didn’t want the conversation to end. He was another person my age at this school besides Max and Luce, another scholar, another person who lost himself in his studies like me. I blurted the first thing I could think of. “Kat is not a Greek character.”
Basile’s eyes lit up, and I flushed. “No, it’s not. It stands for καθαρ?ς, Katharos.” He sat down at the chair behind the desk, thumb absentmindedly running over his bottom lip. “Philosopho, katharí psychí.Lover of wisdom, pure of soul. Truth be told, we’re not as much of a frat as a glorified math club. We’ve won the tri-state mathematics competition for the last three years in a row, and we participate in this local outreach of robotics and mathematics programs for elementary and middle-school kids. Since we get a lot of donors and alumni looking to help out, the school let us have a house on campus. This poster here”—he pointed to the symbol on the poster of two intertwined snakes that branched in two different directions—“a graphic designer alum designed it for us a couple of years ago. It’s a play on an integral. I know, bunch of nerds, right? We’re lucky anyone comes to our parties.” He chuckled.
I shrugged. “You don’t strike me as the giant nerd type.”
“What does a nerd look like, I wonder?” He smiled good-naturedly.
I blushed profusely. “God, that was so rude, I’m sorry.”
He tucked his hands in his pockets and rocked back, dark eyes dancing with mirth. “There’s no need to apologize.”
I slipped a lock of hair behind my ear. “Well, I should really get going,” I said, waving the paper around like an idiot. “This is really helpful, super helpful. Thanks—thank you for this.”
He laughed and walked me out of the cramped office, which seemed to be shrinking the more I talked. I sidled past him in the confined space, our shoulders brushing against each other. I held mine rigid so we didn’t accidentally touch again.
He laughed again, not unkindly. “Any time, and if you need anything else, don’t be a stranger.”
“Blargh!” I blurted the minute I was out the door and down the steps, trying to will everything dumb I’d said out of my head. What was wrong with me? I shook my head as I walked away, feeling a little like I’d woken from a dream.
In the interest of having a complete record, I’ve added several of Danica’s shorter journal entries below. They do give some indication of her state of mind, I think, which seems to change radically in a short period of time. These take place roughly one month before the murder, from the period of February 25thto March 3rd.
FEBRUARY 25TH
when nyx was born, I became
nyktipoloi
when you were born, I became
whole
FEBRUARY 26TH
It’s like you breathed me into life,
What was once monad, dyad
((((Your soul is immortal))))
MARCH 2ND
Your name means ignorance, did you know that? It means the veil that covers our real nature and the reality of the world around us.
((((Your soul is imprisoned))))
MARCH 4TH
Do I scare you? I know I do. I see it in the way you look at me.
