by Rory Power
“I know what it does.” I wait for her to tell us, but she stands up quickly and brushes off her slacks. “Get inside.”
Julia looks at me, baffled. “What are we gonna do about—”
“I said get inside.” Headmistress is veiled with a deadly sort of calm. “Send Taylor out to me. And not a word to anyone. And, Hetty, I’ll have those keys.”
“Okay.” I drop them into her outstretched palm, and then I’m hurrying away from her. Julia’s not far behind. I snag Carson’s sleeve as we pass. Together the three of us move quickly up the walk, file through the double doors.
We forgot. Or at least, I tried to. About the girls who would be waiting for us. They’re clustered in groups around the main hall, and as the doors shut behind us, they fall quiet, the easy hum and chatter dying down. I remember that feeling. The excitement, the hunger gnawing bone-deep. And the dread too. The worry that one day there won’t be enough.
Well, today they’re right.
I look to Julia. Don’t pass this weight to me. I can’t bear it.
“Food’s in the kitchen,” she says. “Gotta make do with what we have.”
Nobody moves. I’m not sure if anybody believes her. Julia isn’t exactly known for her sense of humor, and we’ve had a lot happen to us, but I can see girls start to smile nervously. One of the youngest ones in the corner giggles before she’s hushed by her friends.
“Well?” Julia says, her voice filed sharp. “I’m not your goddamn waiter.”
There’s a flurry of movement as girls get up and head for the kitchen, to claim food for their circle just like always. Except now there’s no Welch to claim it from, and Reese isn’t here waiting for me.
I take the pistol from my waistband, push it into Julia’s hands, and go upstairs, back to my room. Stretch out on my bunk. Try not to see Welch’s body when I close my eye.
CHAPTER 19
Dinner here and gone, evening coming in. It feels like years since Reese and I snuck out to follow Welch. But it’s only been a day. A day, and everything’s fallen even farther apart.
If Byatt were here, I keep thinking. She’d know how to fix it. She’d know what to do to make it right. But she’s farther away than ever. Welch dead, answers slipping out of reach.
It’s late, now. Nearing morning. I thought maybe Reese would sneak back in once she thought I was asleep, but nothing. Just silence in the hallways, and the nightmare sounds we’re used to now—a scream here, a whimper there, and under it a girl crying herself back to sleep.
And then, faint and on the wind, a low, jagged moan. It comes in stuttering pulses, the sound so deep I can feel it in my body. I’ve never heard anything like it. Not machinery, not man. That sound came from the wild.
I get up, go to the window. The light is blue and rising, but from my window, all I can see is the courtyard and the north wing of the house. Nobody else is stirring. The whole house is quiet. Probably just something out in the woods, then. Or maybe I imagined it.
But I didn’t. It comes again a minute later. Clearer, longer, with an echo to it, a space inside.
Somebody else has to have heard it by now, so I head for the door and step out into the hallway. It takes a bit for my eye to adjust, and at first I think I’m alone. And then, farther down the hall. Reese, her hair creating strange shadows.
“Oh,” I say. I haven’t seen her since we ended things. She looks like she’s fine. Of course she does.
Reese doesn’t answer. She has her head cocked, and when I open my mouth to say something else, she holds up her hand. She’s taken off her sling, but from the pallor of her skin I can tell she’s still in pain.
That’s when we hear it a third time. Loud enough now that I can hear it trail off into a low growl. Whatever this animal is, it must be close.
“Should we get Headmistress?” I ask.
She won’t meet my gaze, but she sounds normal when she says, “Not sure.”
We haven’t seen Headmistress since this afternoon, when Julia, Carson, and I got back. She must be dealing with whatever’s in the canister, dealing with losing Welch.
Cat pokes her head out from her room near the mouth of the hallway, Lindsay lingering in the shadows behind her. “Hey. You guys heard it too?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“What is that?” She rubs sleep from her eyes. “Has anybody heard from Gun Shift?”
I come farther out into the hall. “Nothing yet.”
“Some kind of animal. I think,” Reese says, and then she breaks off, nods toward the mezzanine overlooking the main hall. “Let’s take a look.”
We walk together, Cat and Reese ahead, me trailing behind with Lindsay. Lindsay’s watching me, I can feel it—she must know something’s wrong, with Reese sleeping all the way down the hall, but luckily, she doesn’t say anything. I don’t think I could stand it.
Across the mezzanine, and down the stairs. Ali’s on guard at the door.
“Hey,” she says when she sees us coming, her face relieved. “What’s that sound?”
“We were gonna go take a look,” Reese says. “It’s coming from outside, over that direction.” She points to the south corridor, toward Headmistress’s corner office. “You want to come?”
“No,” Ali says quickly. “I’ll go up to the roof, check with Gun Shift.” She hurries up the stairs, leaving us alone in the main hall.
We head for the double doors, and Cat and Lindsay ease back, waiting for Reese to open them, deferring to her in that way all the girls do, equal parts fear and awe. But she can’t, not with her shoulder like that.
“I’ve got it,” I say. With two hands I heave one of the doors open. I glance at Reese, hoping for anything. Just a smile. Just a look. But she ducks through, her head turned away. Cat and Lindsay follow, and I check to make sure the door will stay unlocked before I slip out after them.
We collect on the porch, doing up our jackets as the cold steals into our bodies. The air is heavy, with a charge to it like a storm’s about to break. It’s sweet and sharp, and I breathe it in, look out to a clear sky and whorls of stars. For a moment we’re all still, and I hear one of us sigh softly. And then it breaks. The sound again, a juddering groan. It’s coming from over by the fence.
I squint into the night and head a ways down the walk, the other girls behind. We should be able to see it by now. By the sound of it this animal’s big. It should be hard to miss, even through the trees.
A wide, flat stretch of frost, the flagstone walk slicing through. The fence holding strong, and above the trees, above everything, the first hint of sunrise. But there’s something else, too, something dark and moving by the gate, and I can’t quite pull it out from everything else. I blink, look away and back again, and Cat gasps, and Lindsay says “Holy hell,” and suddenly the lines are clear.
Black, glossy fur. Huge, as tall as me on all fours, with hulking shoulders and a low-slung head. A bear. What I saw on my first trip out on Boat Shift, what I heard in the woods as we left Welch’s body behind. Only now it’s on this side of the fence.
It moans again, and we stumble into one another, hold as still as we can, the winter air ripping ragged breaths from our lungs.
“What the hell is taking Gun Shift so long?” Cat whispers. “How did it get through the fence?”
“There,” Lindsay says, pointing into the dark. “That’s how.”
Dread burning in my gut, but I know it already. And sure enough. Behind the bear, swallowed up by the dark: the gate, swung all the way open.
I should have paid more attention. I should have checked. But I came back in from Boat Shift, and I just pulled it closed. Welch, and the canister, and the wake of the night before, but that shouldn’t have mattered. How could I have put us at risk like that? How could I have been so stupid?
I did this. I brought the end of everything. I
’m sorry, I think, I’m so sorry.
The bear is closer now, on all fours with its nose to the ground as it lumbers toward the house. Every so often it huffs loudly and bites the air, the pop of its jaw sounding dully across the lawn. I can see its ears twitching, can see patches of skin ripped bare and raw all down its spine.
A yell from the roof and then a gunshot. It skims in over our heads, hits the stone of the front walk, and the bear rears back. I yelp in surprise. Someone’s hand clamps down over my mouth, but it’s too late.
The bear’s head swings up and around to look right at me. I let out a muffled scream. One half of its face is bare to the bone.
Make noise, Mr. Harker told us. Fight. But this is the Tox, and I don’t think those rules are true anymore.
“The shot didn’t scare him off,” Reese says. “But Gun Shift could still hit him.”
Next to me Lindsay is trembling. Pressed in against the other girls, my body feels like a live wire. Tension running so strong you could snap me in half, my heart racing.
“Give them one more chance,” I whisper.
Another shot, and the bear roars. I think maybe they hit it, but it’s still coming toward us.
“We’re going to move backward,” Reese continues, her voice even and low. “Slowly, on three.”
I grab Cat’s hand as Reese starts to count. We’re all of us linked, and I feel somebody shiver as the bear snorts and shifts its weight. It’s not far to the house, but if we run, it’s sure to catch at least one of us.
Our first step takes us back enough that I can’t smell the hot stink of its breath. It watches us, and I’m trying not to blink, trying not to break eye contact, but my blind eye is aching, the strain and the dark and I’m so, so tired.
“And again,” Reese says. Together, another step. Shivering nerves, clenched fists.
For a second everything is quiet, and I feel my shoulders relax. And then a growl, rumbling up out of the ground, so loud it shakes me to my core.
“Okay,” Reese says. “It’s time to run.”
Cat breaks first, pushes away from us and takes off. I crash onto my hands and knees, dirt rough against my palms, cold scrape tearing skin. Shadow thickening, and when I look up it’s coming, bone glistening, mouth open and wet. A calm settles over me. All I have is my knife tucked in my belt, not good for much in a fight like this, but I can buy the others time. I’m the one who let it in. I’ll die keeping it out.
But Reese hooks her silver hand under my arm and hauls me to my feet, eyes wild, a flush high on her cheeks.
“Move.”
Feet pounding, air whipping against my face, blood pumping, and I can hear it—the bear, steps shaking the earth as it sprints after us. The crack of a gun, but it misses in the dark, and I can’t look back, can’t look back. Cat waiting at the door, Lindsay just ahead of me. Past her, and into the open. Every breath harder and harder, the cold closing my lungs.
“Hurry!” Cat yells. Reese hits the door and disappears inside. Cat reaches out to me, and the control leaves my limbs, breaks my stride as I crash into her, let her shove me into the main hall.
“Come on, Lindsay,” she calls. And Lindsay was right behind me, I swear she was, but I hear her cry out and then a scream, fractured and hoarse. The sound rakes down my back, terrible and scraping. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
Cat braces the front door, and Reese fumbles with the lock, throws the deadbolt across. Over it all, wet snarls and pops of bone. Lindsay whimpers once, and never again.
“You okay?” I say to Cat.
She’s got no color left in her, and her eyes are bright, but she nods. Stoic and strong, the way they teach Navy daughters to be. “For now.”
We wait—thank God the room has no windows—and pray the bear won’t try to break through the door. The lock is strong, but it won’t hold for long against something like that.
“Let’s go,” Reese says, “while we can. We have to warn Headmistress.”
Ali comes dashing down the stairs, the two Gun Shift girls at her heels. “Shit,” she says. “Where’s Lindsay?”
“Where’s Lindsay?” Cat pushes past Ali and grabs the nearest Gun Shift girl. It’s Lauren, the one who took my vacant spot. “Where the hell were you?”
“I’m sorry,” Lauren says, stumbling over her words, and the other girl, Claire, steps between Cat and Lauren.
“It’s not her fault.” She swallows, a blush visible on her cheeks even in the dim light. “We were taking shifts and it was my turn. I fell asleep.”
Cat releases Lauren’s jacket. “You fell asleep?”
Claire won’t look at her. “It was an accident.”
“Tell that to Lindsay,” Cat snarls.
Light, then, showing at the mouth of the north corridor, and Headmistress comes hurrying into the hall, her head down. I can’t think of any place in that direction where she could keep the canister, but she knows the house better than I do.
“Hey,” Reese says, and she jumps. Stares up at us with wide, nervous eyes.
“Girls. What’s going on?”
Reese explains it all. The sound we heard, the bear, how it broke through. She leaves out Lindsay, leaves out that Gun Shift fell asleep. It doesn’t matter anyway.
Headmistress’s mouth opens and closes, a sore flashing vivid red on her tongue, and finally, she clears her throat. “How did it get through?”
Me, always me, bringing this school crashing down. Reese is angry, and I know she’s thinking about it, about telling Headmistress my half of the truth. I won’t fight it—I’ll deserve it if she does. But she shakes her head. “We don’t know.”
“Okay,” Headmistress says, more to herself than to any of us. “Okay, okay.” And then she looks at me, and she looks at Reese, and disappears into her office.
“Well, shit,” Reese says. “What do we do now?”
CHAPTER 20
What we do is wake everyone up. The house won’t hold on its own, and it’s only a matter of time before the bear breaks through. Too many doors, and the dining room windows, so tall and spreading the whole length of it, but we can at least stay alive as long as possible.
Cat and I go upstairs, march down the hallway room by room, knocking on doors and shaking the littlest girls out of sleep. There’s Julia, there’s Carson, and without prodding they start herding the others into groups and down the stairs. Candles light and girls start trickling into the hall, bleary-eyed and frowning.
Without Welch, though, we need somebody to take charge. Not Reese, but somebody the littlest girls aren’t afraid of. Somebody like Taylor.
I’m not sure exactly which dorm is hers, but I know some of the girls in her year bunk down at the end of the hallway, separated from the others by a few empty rooms. This one used to be Emily and Christine’s, that one Mary’s. I walk past them, try to ignore the rising chatter coming from the main hall as the girls assemble downstairs.
At last, a few doors before Mona’s, there’s a room with a small flicker of light and the rustle of movement inside. I knock, step back, and Taylor wrenches the door open, her hair mussed as she finishes pulling on her shirt. There, set into her chest, a cord of muscle the width of my thumb, running down to disappear past the waist of her jeans. Pale blue and twisting, almost braided, with a pulse to it like it’s alive.
“Seen enough?” Taylor snaps.
I look away quickly. Is that some kind of vein? “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“What is it?”
I clear my throat. “It’s just…we need you down in the hall.” I tell her about the fence, about the bear, and watch her face drain of color.
“Where’s Headmistress?” she asks.
“She went to her office, but I—”
She pushes past me, one of her broad shoulders knocking mine. I can feel my body relax
ing as I follow her toward the mezzanine. If she’s in charge, we’ll figure it out. She’ll know what to do.
Down the stairs, past the last few stragglers joining the others in the main hall. I catch Reese’s eye, watch relief sweep across her face as Taylor wades through the crowd. But it’s jumping the gun. Just like Headmistress, Taylor ignores the girls gathering and breaks into a jog as she heads for the office.
“It’s fine,” Cat says, coming to stand next to me. “We’ll handle this ourselves.”
The first and most important thing to do, we decide, is to shore up the front doors. Claire and Ali lead a group to the classrooms to raid them for leftover desks and chairs, anything we can use to build a barricade. Julia and Carson head for the kitchen, looking for tools to pry the dining room tables up from where they’re bolted to the floor. Landry even pitches in, takes some of the younger girls to the dorms to tear the ladders off the bunks.
And me, I’m rooted to the ground, stuck there in the middle of the hall. For a year and a half we’ve been as safe as we could ask for. The fence, regular supplies. Welch and Headmistress to hold us together. A year and a half, and in a week I’ve torn it all apart.
Sarah and Lauren are dragging the couches over to the front door. Cat’s nearby, looking adrift without Lindsay next to her, and I think I can see Julia in the dining room wrestling with the bolts on the long tables. I start toward the dining room, but before I can get far, a door slams down the corridor, and Headmistress comes sweeping out of the office, Taylor at her heels.
She looks better than she did at the gate. Clothes smoothed—sharp lines and folds fresh, like she’s got an iron hidden somewhere—her hair back in its neat gray bun.
“Up,” she says, clapping twice. “Everybody up.”
There’s a pause, the whole room still. We’re not used to her like this—she’s usually removed, distant, her words spoken by Welch. But I guess that’s not an option anymore.
“Well? Now,” she barks, and we scramble to our feet. She winds her way through us and climbs up to the middle of the staircase, where we can see her. “All right, everybody line up. By year, please, and last name.”