Helshire had a splendid Great Depression.
The Mortons and Lindqvists had already woven themselves into the sinews of the college, keeping it flush with funds and students. But as Europe staggered toward another war, the Seths and Wolvaardts began to send their best and brightest.
A friendly competition fueled Helshire’s expansion. The original buildings were augmented by Main Hall and Quad dorms (Morton money), then Ogden and Rockefeller (the Lindqvists, hence the Viking friezes). The Cold War brought another boom—the sciences at Dewitt (a Seth bequest), and the Terraces (the Wolvaardts, who hated the Dining Commons food), until finally the Old Campus became redundant. The forest was allowed to reclaim it.
Nothing human goes unused though.
Even ordinaries have their rituals in the dark.
Sebastian led methrough the Terraces, which were still pulsing with music, and into the clearcut that follows the power lines out of town. The forest loomed around us, quiet and cold.
The first sign of the Old Campus was a statue, a seated woman with one broken hand held aloft, alone in a field. By legend, Helshire sophomores had to visit her at midnight the day they chose their majors orremain forever virgins. The ritual was still observed, despite the eye-rolling of proud asexuals.
We went into the forest, passing stone walls and a chimney—an old gatehouse, or a professor’s home. Next came an ancient well sealed with recent concrete.
Finally we reached Halcyon Hall, the largest of the old buildings. The trees huddled close to it, and ivy climbed its walls up to the third-floor balconies, pulling at the chimneys.
Sebastian stopped and took out his phone.
He waved its lit screen, cutting a Z across the night.
“How often do you come here?” I asked, but he only shrugged.
From the second-floor balcony, a cigarette lighter flared in answer, inscribing a bright circle in the dark.
“Lindqvist traditions, Lindqvist codes,” I said. “My mother thinks they’re fucking with the Belmonts.”
“She’s living in the past,” he said, then tried to lighten it with a smile. “You know me: friends everywhere. The Lindqvists are just another constituency.”
Complications all the way down.
We went carefully across the ragged front porch, through a doorway. As my eyes adjusted, the dark walls resolved into tattered wallpaper, water stains, and layers of graffiti. The building smelled like animal rot settled into wood, like an old butcher’s block sweating blood on a summer day.
We came to a stairway with graffiti carved into the wood.
“Stick to the steps with words,” Sebastian said. “The rest are booby-trapped with rusty nails.”
I climbed carefully, stepping oncorpse,seepage,charnel,squelch. Words that made ordinaries shudder. The sort of trick Peter would have enjoyed.
Voices drifted down from above.
The second floor was in better shape, with only a few holes bigenough to fall through. A circle of candles, recently extinguished, that I’d smelled on Sebastian’s coat.
Two silhouettes waited for us out on the balcony, wearing generations-old leather and tweed. Unlike us, the Lindqvists had kept their horses. Their longboats too.
“Jessica Morton.” Xavier strode inside, spreading his hands in welcome.
“Xavier Lindqvist,” I said. “What a lovely ruin.”
He smiled. His sister Bianca didn’t.
“Old Helshire belongs to all of us,” he said. “Pity we never see you here.”
“Archery keeps me busy.”
He mimed an arrow going into his chest. The morning after we’d hooked up, I’d eliminated him in the first round.
Bianca glared at Sebastian. “What did you tell her?”
