I already feel better, just being outside. Making progress.
A thudding bass line cuts through the cold air, carrying all the way over from the freshman residence halls, and leaves crunch underneath my boots as I cross the walkway and cut through the browning grass. Across the quad, other students are scurrying to evening classes in twos and threes, trailing brightly colored scarves, beanies pulled low against the chill.
This is my favorite time of year. The sweet musty decaying smell of the leaves, the early nightfall, and the crispness of the air—even the stars seem brighter. It all just adds to a sense of anticipation. A feeling that somethinggoodis coming.
Seasonal depression and high flu rates, family holiday drama and failing grades, these are a few of my favorite things.
I close my eyes for a second, trying to focus. Faint wisps of rejection, depression, misery hang in the air, all my fellow students experiencing tiny forms of death. Every sip helps, but at a distance, it’s like trying to catch cotton candy strands in gale-force winds. They break apart and scatter before I can feed on them.
I need more. A direct line.
Pressing my hand against my stomach through my coat, I blow out a slow breath, trying to regulate the hunger.
I’m working on it. I will feed you.Sometimes it’s easier to think of the need as a “thing” inside me, something separate from myself. It’s not accurate. But it’s easier.
Ducking my head against the wind, I angle through the grass by the library, P. Edgars Hall, and down a side street to reach old Beecher campus. The newish wrought iron fence around the remains of the church cemetery is shocking in its modernity, compared to the sunken graves and slanted stones within its boundaries. A lone mausoleum, outsized compared to everything else, dominates the entire back right corner.
I hurry past the Greek Row bungalows, where a seemingly unattended bonfire burns in a parking area. Farther down, at the Foreign Language House—it’s German this year, much to Daan’s chagrin—Daan’s bright yellow bike is gone from the rack.
That’s good. That probably means he’s already at the bar.
I can see the sign for Happy’s, a smiling anthropomorphic pizza slice holding a beer, glowing through the trees, a glimpse of the promised land. I’m almost at the corner where I can—though we’re not supposed to—cut through residential backyards to reach the run-down strip mall where the pizza pub holds court. It’s a well-worn path, despite a multitude of warnings from campus admin and no-trespassing signs. But what is private property tocollege students if it stands between them and cheap foamy beer and parmesan-crusted dough nuggets? Especially when it saves ten minutes of walking in a Massachusetts winter.
But before I can cross the street, tires crunch on the road behind me, headlights casting my shadow ahead of me. The engine is smooth and nearly soundless, catching me off guard.
The vehicle slows, and instinctively I tense, hands clenching into fists in my mismatched gloves. Beecher is relatively safe, both the campus and the surrounding small town, if you don’t count the rumors of a serial killer fifty-plus years ago. I mean, every college has to have its urban myths, right? Still, that doesn’t preclude a drunk townie, a random creeper, or—more likely, given that I’m still technically on campus—a bunch of obnoxious frat guys.
They can’t hurt you.No, but I could hurt them, and that would mess everything up just as neatly. Hard to explain a bunch of dead rich boys in a car.
I need to stay in control.
I keep walking, my pace even and unrushed. Showing fear is only going to escalate the situation.
The whine of a window going down tells me ignoring them isn’t going to work, not this time.
“Hey little girl, want some candy?” The harsh raspy voice sounds… odd, forced. Someone trying not to be recognized.
A pulse of panic and preemptive guilt flashes through me as I spin around, hands up, ready. Just like good old “Dad” taught me. Find the center, the brightest glow of life, andpull.
Imagine it streaming right toward you, like water flowing from a hose, only you’re in control. There, you’ve got it!His voice is soft in my memory, but his pride in my accomplishment comes through loud and clear, sending chills over my skin even now. Like I was learningto ride a bike without training wheels or some other normal childhood activity.
I cut the memory off, squinting into the too-bright headlights. An unidentifiable dark shadow hangs out the driver’s side window, and that’s all I can see.
Until the car, a black BMW hybrid, edges up closer and the driver laughs, with her familiar high-pitched snort.
I lower my hands as her face comes into focus. “Jesus, Lennie,” I exhale. Blood is rushing in my ears with a staticky roar.
“The look on your face!” Lennie McCarthy cackles from her open window, her strawberry blond waves trembling in the heat blasting from the interior vents. “And your hands. What, were you going to slap fight me? Officer Schute would be so disappointed in you.”
I bite back my irritation to keep my tone mild. “Not a great idea to roll up on a lone girl and pretend to be a predator, Lennie.” Particularly here. A self-defense class—the very one Officer Schute taught—is required for all freshmen with updates offered at the beginning of every new school year.
She rolls her eyes at me, tapping her ringed hand impatiently on the frame of the car. The heavy twist of silver on her middle finger was a gift from her flaky mother—a “bespoke birthstone piece” designed around a hunk of aquamarine. Even though Lennie was born in October.
“Whatever, Jo. It’s Beecher. Nothing happens here.”
While completely missing my point, she is correct. Which, as it happens, is exactly why I chose it. Not because of the low crime rate—mostly bar fights and petty theft—not exactly. I did the requisite college visit grand tour as a senior in high school. Beecher, the town and the campus, was the only one that felt…right. It took me a while to realize that was because here, unlike everywhere else, including my hometown of Highland Park, I didn’t feel the constant skin-crawling tingle of magic. Of other people like me using, feeding, and challenging each other in territorial disputes.
Anywhere else, a slow car rolling up might not just be a regular old human trying to abduct or kill me but someone with an actual chance at succeeding at both.
