Blind coincidence, sweeter than any design.
“Of course, dear. I can find someone.”
“Oh.” Faraday almost sounded disappointed. Like she hadn’t quite believed I was one of them—one of us. Despite my last name, my cool stares, my generations-old, exquisitely made, invisibly mended clothes, she wanted me to be her ordinary friend.
I took her hand.
She swallowed. “I wouldn’t ask, except…”
Houses. Horses. Tuition. Paris.
I heard it then, from the hallway, a sound bubbling up. Girls studying for midterms together, glancing every few minutes at their phones.
Ping. Ping.
“It’s going to be okay.” I kissed Faraday’s hand.
She didn’t answer, just heaved a complicated sigh.
Down the hall, the bubbling had spilled out into the corridor. Doors were opening, whispers flying like little scrapes of sandpaper.
I could feel the storm front of tragedy surging, about to interrupt this moment of connection.
In my careful planning of Peter’s test, I hadn’t thought about what came next. The checklist of emotions to perform—frantic questions, shocked silence, fast breathing. Dilated eyes. It was so much work, so muchmess, pretending to care.
“I’ll always be here for you,” I forged ahead with Faraday. “We’ll fix this together.”
A tear rolled from her left eye. “Thank you.”
From outside, the sound of my name reached us, whispers breaking into soft cries as more girls woke up.
Even Faraday heard it now, and our eyes unlocked. We turned to face the door.
“What the hell?” she murmured.
I shrugged, like it had nothing to do with me, and squeezed her hand one last time. It was a soft hand, trusting and warm.
As the frantic knocking finally rattled my door, I found myself wondering what Faraday would wear to Peter’s funeral.
3
That Sunday, the ancient bell in Main Hall tolled eighteen times, once for every year that Peter had lived.
There were candlelit vigils. Moments of silence in lectures. Flowers clumped around the lamppost that lit the parking lot behind Dewitt. Counselors were made available, for ordinaries who needed to vent their grief, for legacies who needed practice.
Most of all, there were rumors.
Peter had called out a girl’s name as he’d fallen. (Absurd.) He was failing all his classes. (Like he’d care.) He’d landed at the stroke of midnight. (So specific.) He was addicted to a meth hybrid called Twerk. (So déclassé.)
It didn’t matter which rumor congealed into legend. Peter had joined the pantheon of dramatic Helshire deaths, the stories we all knew.
Laney Maxwell, stabbed by a townie the year before I arrived. Anthony Sandino, the violin prodigy, heart failure on the rugby field in 2003. Greta Mastropasqua, sometime in the twentieth century, electrocuted in a manner unclear.
But those were all ordinary Hellions, the fragile offspring of middling financiers and prosperous plastic surgeons. It was strange to see a legacy name among them, especially a Morton. As the mythmaking unfolded, I asked myself a question that I’d pushed aside till now.
Why had Grandmother ordered such a conspicuous end for Peter? It went against my training, our traditions.
She was making a point, perhaps. A measure of poetic justice, to match the bluster of his sins.
