CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The next day, I was in the library, scrolling through my phone. The last page open was Basile’s Instagram. He was all over TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. Anywhere people congregated online, he was there, stirring up publicity (and funding, presumably) for his theory, the Reality Paradox. And so were hundreds, thousands of other people, watching him. At first, I’d just watched a few of his TikToks. After our meeting, I’d wanted to know more about him, but the more I watched, the more I got sucked in. His eyes grew wide, swelling with passion as he spoke in his deep, velvety voice. He was different from a normal person, somehow more beautiful, more eloquent, like he’d been sculpted straight from stone. Many of his clips were set to the songs of a young rapper who’d died last year, at only twenty-one. The two worked well together, Basile’s ideas that death wasn’t the end, and the dulcet tones of the rapper, known for his melancholic verses that intermingled sadness with hope. Basile believed in reincarnation. He believed and spoke often of the world beyond this one, the one he’d supposedly proven with a rather complicated combination of physics and mathematics. I confess the calculations were over my head, and I don’t think I was the only one. But his fans weren’t there for that, their attitude reflected in a favorite saying among them:It’s not just math, it’s a movement.The fans loved his videos, seeing their pain reflected back at them. He spoke to a generation who felt lost and powerless, young people who were searching desperately for a shred of hope of an escape from this life, that there was something better out there.
A lot of them had strange spiritual practices, because, after all, if there were other worlds, what was to say they had to be Heaven and Hell? They shirked the traditional ideas of religion and embraced a polytheistic collection of gods, taking bits and pieces of religions from around the world. They worshipped the old gods, some very old, of the Orphic pantheon, bringing back the polytheism of Western culture that had long been buried.
I’d gone to his page several times now, whenever I was anxious or stressed, and found that just listening to him talk about other worlds soothed my mind, made it so my thoughts didn’t come streaming in, bouncing all around my head. The idea was so intriguing to me. A world where things could be different, where you weren’t judged for your past, where your colossal fuckups had never happened. The chance of a clean slate. It was almost too compelling to resist.
I returned from lunch to find Max methodically tearing up a sheet of paper into tiny little pieces.
I arched an eyebrow. “You okay? I can sense you from the door.”
“I’m fine,” he grunted, brushing the paper into a waste bin. He was wound as tight as a coil, his aura* hissing like spurts of electricity.
“You know, it’s okay to have feelings. It’s bothering me, too.”
He always did that, acted like having emotions was somehow a burden to other people. Like if he wasn’t perfect, shiny, happy Max all the time, all the love anyone had for him would get sucked through a window.
He grunted again. “I’m gonna get a coffee. You want anything?”
I shook my head. I knew the investigation was getting to him. We’d been stonewalled ever since the council meeting. Strauss was avoiding us as much as possible, Dr. Oswold was conveniently out of the office for the next week, and other teachers wouldn’t answer a single question about either of them. As for students, we couldn’t find a single person on campus who’d encountered any kind of hexed pill.
Our time was dwindling down, an ever-present hourglass in my mind’s eye. The police had already come sniffing around again—Dr. Robetresse couldn’t keep them at bay forever. Dani’s body couldn’t withstand whatever this was for much longer. And graduation was looming. Dread made me sick to my stomach. If we didn’t find the culprit before then, we might never find them.
As for Dani, no matter how hard I tried not to imagine her, I couldn’t. She’d become a more regular occurrence in my nightmares.
They were strange dreams, watery and dark, where I wandered around and around, feet slapping against puddles, desperately searching for something down long and winding corridors, straining my eyes to make out something, anything, that would contrast against the dim. She was there, too, but she never said anything. Just stood there watching, her hair limp around her face. Lips bloodless, skin marred and bruised. Silent as the grave.
To make up for our lack of progress, I started spending more time in the library; Vern left out cups of black tea with honey for me that went cold as I hunted through the shelves. Night after night, I sat there, reading page after page on curses. How long they could last, any obvious effects on the caster. It got so bad I had to start carrying eye drops whenever I left the dim lighting of the library.
Sometimes Max was there, sometimes not. Half the time, he was running down Ellendale’s funding sources, trying to find a link between them and Strauss’s colleagues at Harvard. He had a theory Strauss had bankrolled one of Ellendale’s research projects, and now, out of loyalty, Ellendale was trying to impede our investigation so we didn’t discover proof of Strauss’s guilt. Or he was at the hospital, desperately trying to sweet-talk a nurse into giving up Joselyn’s toxicology screening. Truth be told, I think he wanted to prove to me more than to anyone that we were doing a good job, that we were making progress, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary.
I couldn’t fault him for it; he was so damned determined about it all.
Sometimes, he had to leave to check on his horses or things back at home. Other times, I assumed, he was seeing his girlfriend. He’d come back afterward, eyes red, the faint smell of alcohol on his breath. I’d ask him what was the matter, but he’d just shake his head.
Once, he came in on a Saturday night because he’d left his phone. “What are you doing in here? I thought we said we were going to meet up tomorrow.”
In truth, I think he was a little baffled by my work ethic. Max had always had people who cared about him. He never had to worry about being someone like Dani, wasting away in a cold room while everyone just hoped he would die and get it over with. He’d never had people gossip or think he was stuck-up because he was quiet or just had a face that people thought looked kind of bitchy.
But I did.
I knew what it felt like to be a Dani, to be an Aaron. To run yourself ragged trying to be kinder, or smarter, or more charming, or justbetter.To work your ass off and still be overlooked in favor of the charming, beautiful people of the world.
Max was part of me, but this was something he would never understand.
Field Journal of Dr. Luce Montgomery
I’ve been spending more time with Basile lately. He’s been helping me look for the fungi and with testing a fungal salve for Dani’s skin. No luck as of yet with either—though, to be honest, I think we’re both just looking for more excuses to spend time together. He’s an interesting creature, is practically running the math department since Ellendale is on some vendetta against the world. I feel terrible for him. Some part of me thinks Basile’s drummed up all this attention for his theory just to get the attention of the one person whose approval he desperately wants. I don’t have the heart to tell him I think he’s fighting a losing battle. It’s obvious Dr. de Vries has spiraled too far into the role of old-man-yells-at-cloud.
Key observations:
I haven’t made as much progress as I’d hoped. The desert isn’t exactly a haven for mushrooms, and my hand is getting a lot worse. There are spidery streaks creeping up my forearm that I didn’t notice before.
Or are you just losing more of yourself?
Sometimes, I wonder if it’s just another side effect of the fungi. Is this how a tree feels when the mycelium’s hyphae slowly start to intertwine with its roots? Whispering in that earthy voice, light as wind rustling leaves,It’s a gift. We’re here to help.
I left Basile’s late, slipped out of the Phi Kat house while he was sleeping. Even though it was dark, I could’ve sworn I saw one of my coworkers, Dr. Oswold, sneaking out of her office with a stack of papers under her arm. Not sure what business she had that necessitated the late hour; she certainly appeared to wish not to be seen, but it’s certainly none of mine. I’ve got my own problems to worry about.
