Something dark stirred in his eyes. “I won’t tell a soul.”
We met at midnightat the old willow tree that guards the northern edge of campus. Its branches hang all the way to the grass, a hidden space for drinking, smoking, and groping in the speckled dark.
We heard voices inside—ordinaries. I sent Peter to deal with them. He crept to the edge of the leafy curtain and let out a low animal growl. The voices went quiet, then three boys with beer cans and puffy coats ran out the other side, scampering toward the Quad.
Even freshmen know not to linger when odd things happen at Helshire.
Under the umbrella of leaves, the ground was littered with empty bottles, vape cartridges. Helshire was the last stop for a certain kind of rich kid. For us legacies, these wayward, rebellious children were networking opportunities. Future customers.
“Did you bring chalk?” I asked Peter.
“That’s cheating.”
I held out my bag and quoted our Aunt Veronica. “Never climb without it. If you have to, use whatever’s around. Dirt, even dust.”
Peter scowled as he chalked up, not noticing that I hadn’t put any on my own hands.
The parking area between us and the looming bulk of Dewitt was clear, the path empty. Our breath made clouds of condensation.
“Come on,” I said.
Dewitt Hall had a gothic heart, with a modern wing added in the seventies, another only twenty years ago. Inside this architectural jumble, some classrooms were full of screens and lab equipment; others had blackboards that rolled up and down. I led Peter to the original building—a round tower topped with crenelations, guarding the edge of campus like a giant rook.
“Too easy,” he said, testing his hands on the rough-cut stones.
“Stay behind me.”
I started up, careful and unhurried. A climb like this wasn’t going to wear Peter out, but if we took our time, the cold would gradually seize his muscles.
Through a third-story window, the freshly waxed floor of the Disruptive Anatomy classroom gleamed with moonlight. A battered plastic skeleton hung by the window, organs rubber-banded in their places.
Disruptive Anatomy, taught by our Uncle William, was not in Helshire’s catalog. No ordinary student had ever watched us legacies murdering that skeleton countless times. Freshman year, the garrote and the knife; broken bottles and billiard cues as sophomores. This year we’d used shoelacesand scarves, ballpoint pens, twelve-inch strips of duct tape, a knee-drop on that breakaway sternum.
“But always first with the mind,” Uncle William would say after each kill. What exactly this meant was the subject of after-class debates at Riley’s Bar.
“I can go faster,” Peter said.
“Mortons don’t boast.”
“Thatitselfis a boast.”
I almost smiled.
It’s not that Peter was unintelligent or lacked discipline. But he exercised his talents in unseemly ways. Back at the estate, he bullied younger Mortons. Here at Helshire, he stole from ordinaries. Nobody ever caught him in the act, but he’d wear a pilfered watch a few times before storing it away. He kept his secrets, but let you know he had them.
As Grandmother warned us, being mysterious is not the same as being unseen.
Halfway up, he tried to pass me.
I forced him to the left, away from the easy handholds of the tower. The new wings’ walls were flatter, smoother, the mortar almost flush with the bricks.
Peter was up to the challenge. He dug his fingertips into crannies, used shallow toeholds to lunge for window ledges.
“Too easy,” he muttered as he passed me.
“We’re not going all the way,” I called softly.
He looked at me over his shoulder, as gleeful as when he was adding sticks to a fire. I climbed faster, pulled even. The cold was starting to grip my tendons.
