The Swallows

by Lisa Lutz

  It changed how everyone saw her, but in completely different ways. Come to think of it, Witt herself was like an inkblot test. Everyone saw something different. Tegan stood by her bitch label. Gabe stayed with bonkers, and Emelia said Witt was growing on her. She thought she was funny. Mick, on the other hand, kept wondering why Leonard Witt wouldn’t shake out his shoes before he put them on, because Mick always does that, just in case.

  “Will you steal all of our socks or put salt in the sugar dish?” Adam asked.

  “Nope. I’ll just pick the topic, the format, even the title,” Witt said with a poker face.

  Sandra Polonsky raised her hand. She didn’t have a question about the assignment. She needed to pee. I swear, she can’t go more than a half hour without a bathroom break.

  Witt nodded her permission.

  “Maybe you need antibiotics,” Mick said.

  Sandra ignored him and threw her tiny frame into the industrial door.

  “Maybe you should keep your medical opinions to yourself,” Mel said to Mick.

  “I wouldn’t want to step on any toes,” said Mick. “If I remember correctly, you’re the foremost UTI scholar at Stonebridge.”

  “But you’re the authority on STDs, right?” said Mel.

  Howls of laughter erupted, followed by more cross-talk. Witt rubbed her temples.

  Mel was getting bolder. In theory, that was a good thing; in practice, I needed her to lock it down until we’d made more progress. I’d asked for another status update on the Darkroom. She said she was getting close. When I asked for specifics, she tossed out a bunch of words that sounded like tech-speak, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. She was hiding something from me. I put Linny on her trail.

  “Everyone clear your desks and close your eyes,” Witt said. “For the next five minutes, I don’t want you to do anything but concentrate on your breathing.”

  A couple of students asked what we were doing, and Witt told them to be quiet and follow her instructions. Then she told us to breathe. To inhale and count to seven, exhale and count to seven. It was kind of awful. Half the guys had cases of poison oak, so you heard more scratching than breathing. The sound of nails on dry, scaly skin is bad enough. If you add pervy mouth-breathing, it’s an assault on the senses.

  As we filed out of class that day, Mick said, “Good God, what was that in there?”

  “I think we were meditating,” Jonah replied.

  Ms. Witt

  Stonebridge looked like a postcard in October. Like one of those photoshopped pictures with color-enhancing tints that aren’t quite of this world. The moment was over almost as soon as it had begun. The landscape took on a brittle, haunted quality. It felt like the ground was constantly shifting beneath me, or sinking, considering all of the rain that Wainwright refused to acknowledge. Stonebridge was a mercurial home. I could be confused, inspired, and gutted all in the same day.

  One predictably bright spot was Jonah Wagman. He reminded me that sometimes a person can surprise you, be more interesting or better than you originally believed. He took to spending office hours in my room. I got the sense that he was avoiding something. Sometimes he would try to meditate and ask for my advice. I’m not an expert, but I did tell him I thought he might be able to focus better if he weren’t chomping on those red jawbreakers. Also, the constant crunching sound was starting to wear on me. Still, I admired his effort.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Jonah asked, after a very brief attempt at meditation.

  “That’s a weird question to ask your teacher-slash-adviser.”

  “It’s not that kind of question. It’s a girl question,” Jonah said.

  “Shoot.”

  “What do they like?” Jonah said.

  His tone was plaintive and his brow made a perfect W, and his big brown eyes gave me the most earnest look I had ever seen.

  “What do girls like?” I said, trying not to laugh. “They like all kinds of things and not the same things. You know this, Jonah. They’re like boys that way, like all people. The variety can astound you.”

  “That was a bad question,” Jonah said.

  “There are no bad questions. But that was sort of a bad question.”

  “There’s a girl—one girl,” he said.

  “Okay, we’re getting somewhere,” I said.

  “This girl. I want to show her that I like her, so I keep giving her things that I really think she’ll like, but she doesn’t like them.”

  “Why are you giving her things?”

  “Because I want her to know that I like her. And sometimes I just want to give her things that will make her happy. How do I know what will make her happy?”

  “Maybe you’re thinking too narrowly,” I said. “Maybe she doesn’t like things. Don’t ask what does she like. Ask yourself what does she want?”

  Keith, on the other hand, consistently baffled me. I remember stopping by Dahl sometime after lunch one afternoon. Unbused plates remained scattered on the tables, and the floor was covered with detritus. Linny, that delightful spearfisher, was methodically going from table to table and cleaning the mess that students had left behind. I grabbed a coffee and was on my way out when I heard Coach Keith.

  “Knock it off, Linny,” he said, angry.

  The severity in his tone seemed extreme, considering Linny’s undertaking. I slipped behind the kitchen door and listened to the rest of their conversation.

  “We talked about this, right?” Keith said.

  “It makes me feel better,” Linny said.

  “I don’t give a shit,” he said.

  I peered around the door and watched Keith toss a balled-up napkin toward the trash can. He missed. Linny looked at Keith, raised an eyebrow, and took a step closer to the trash.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “Whatever,” Linny said, as she stomped out of the room.

  * * *

  —

  I knew my days at Stonebridge were numbered when I got the video. At the end of the day, I logged in to the Blackboard system. I had an email from Jonah Wagman, which seemed odd since I had just seen him during office hours. The subject line read: Check this out.

  In the body of the message was a video icon. I clicked on it. A grainy image popped up on my screen. It was a tracking shot through the woods. I could hear the labored breath and the sound of the videographer’s footsteps in the woods. After less than a minute, my cottage came into view. A light was on inside; no foil on the windows. The cameraperson approached the cottage and trained the lens through the window.

  I wasn’t doing anything remarkable. I was wearing pajamas, sitting on my bed, grading papers. The camera stayed on me for about five minutes. Then the screen went black.

  It shouldn’t have bothered me. It was nothing. I’d been through the same thing before, under far uglier circumstances.

  I went back and checked the email address. It was a random Hotmail account. I didn’t know why Jonah’s name was used, but I knew it wasn’t him. The person who took the video was calculating and sadistic. I have been disappointed by students, even hurt and humiliated. That was the first time I felt fear.

  Norman Crowley

  After the poison-oak outbreak in Dickens, Carl Bloom started burning sage in the hallways. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t a curse. It was karma. Whatever happened next, they had it coming.

  We had another editorial meeting to arrange the Halloween party. Mick suggested a pimps ’n’ hos party, like the seniors did last year and the year before that. Adam, weirdly, nixed that idea.

  “It’s bad messaging, Mick. We can’t tell the ladies we respect them and then ask them to dress like prostitutes. Let’s have a fancy-dress party instead. They’ll love it.”

  Something was going on. It started sometime after the October board meeting, the one I got evicted from. The editors were
all acting like gentlemen, holding doors and crap. I’d never seen so much hand-holding between pseudo couples at this school. Nick and Emelia looked full-on. He was always walking her to class and stuff—even carrying her books. But then I’d see him slipping out of the woods or into one of the studios with Hannah. I was dying to warn Emelia, but we’ve never had a conversation that got any deeper than Hey, how was your summer?

  Even Jack Vandenberg managed to look legit with that freshman. Although he was more careful about being seen in public with her. He said Tegan would cut off his dick if she caught him with another girl.

  At the end of the meeting, Jack took out a beat-up poster that I’d seen around campus. I’m not sure how to describe it. It was like a logic chart for when to give blowjobs. Each editor saw the poster as a personal affront. They were determined to identify and destroy its maker.

  “I thought we handled the insurgents,” Mick said.

  “I have to wonder if Ms. Witt is behind this,” said Adam.

  “I thought we dealt with her,” Gabe said.

  I must have looked too interested, because Adam dismissed me again.

  Whatever the editors were up to felt diabolical. There’s no way Alyson left Stonebridge because she was homesick. I was worried about what they had done to Ms. Witt. I liked her. I didn’t want her to leave.

  The worst part was that they were getting away with it.

  Later that night, I headed over to Milton Studio to study. The door was locked, which was unusual, so I walked around the side to peer through the window to see whether the room was occupied. I saw Nick, leaning against the wall, a girl on her knees before him. I wish I had the balls to take a picture and show Emelia. Nick looked up, but I’m not sure whether he saw me or not. I crouched down between Keats Studio and Milton and waited. A few minutes later, I heard the door open and shut.

  A girl’s voice: “Now, remember, Nick, I want a perfect score on the trifecta.”

  I ducked down and walked to the edge of the wall and peered around the corner. Rachel Rose tossed an air kiss in Nick’s direction as they parted ways. I don’t know what Rachel’s deal is. I get that she wants to win Dulcinea, but it doesn’t explain half of the other stuff she does. Like, why did she give the editors that photo of Kate? And I still don’t want to think about how her pink scarf turned up in Ford’s apartment. I used to have to visit Ford every single day to get my meds. God, that was torture. The only upside was that I think it irked him more than it did me. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why I hated him so much. Then I realized why. He’s the editors all grown up. Ford reminds me that I might never escape this place.

  * * *

  —

  I checked the door to Keats Studio. It was unlocked. I sat down and opened my computer. I tried to work, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Nick and Rachel and Nick and Hannah and Nick and Emelia.

  I couldn’t wait for Mel to earn a PhD in computer science before she got into the Darkroom. I sent another anonymous message to Mel with simple, straightforward instructions and prayed that she wouldn’t overthink it.

  To: Mel Eastman

  From: Bill Haydon

  Re: read this message

  When you view source in the forum control panel, you can make any grayed-out option live by removing the word “disabled” from that line of code. It shouldn’t be this simple, but this works on “log in as user.” Pick Andre. Don’t enter or alter data. I don’t know how much more specific I can be.

  Delete this message immediately.

  Sincerely,

  Bill

  Ms. Witt

  I searched my cottage repeatedly for any type of video surveillance device. I inspected my classroom to the best of my ability. I was cautious in the Wilde Bathhouse, using the shower farthest from the light fixture. I couldn’t see how a camera could be embedded in that wall of white tile. I looked at each of my students as suspects. I combed through the Q&A’s one more time, trying to determine which one of them had sent me the video. I hadn’t ruled out any of the senior boys, except Jonah. Although I had to wonder why anyone would try to implicate him.

  I wasn’t going to let it happen again. I was clear on that. I took every precautionary measure I could think of to preserve my sanity. What I didn’t do was tell anyone. I wouldn’t give that sociopath the satisfaction of knowing I gave it a second thought. I doubt any of them noticed how unhinged I felt day to day.

  I focused on wrangling my seniors into making a final decision on their thesis proposals. I got most of them to commit.

  Gemma and Mel were both working on revenge sagas. Neither had turned in more than a few pages. Their method, they said, was to do a deep dive into research, then write. Adam Westlake was one hundred pages into an espionage novel about a fixer. Tegan intended to write a screenplay about a love triangle between a hit woman and two of her targets. Rachel Rose delivered a stack of faux gossip columns about the goings-on at a school called Woodbridge.

  Ephraim Wiener planned to write a novella focused entirely on a doomed Star Trek training exercise, the Kobayashi Maru. He started to explain the no-win scenarios, but I told him it sounded fine and to write it. I didn’t want any spoilers. Carl was going to serialize his Dungeons & Dragons games. Sandra and Bethany were working on Twilight fan fiction. Sandra intended to shift the focus onto the werewolves, and Bethany said she wanted to write a more adult version. With sex, she clarified. She asked me if I thought that was okay.

  “That’s a million-dollar idea,” I said.

  Norman remained cagey about his project, even after he dodged the first deadline. I heard he had been working on the same novel since last year. I saw him in class, editing pages, always scribbling notes. But when I inquired about the subject or whether I could see any work, he always demurred and said he wasn’t sure. He might try to do a screenplay instead. I sent him a text on the day of the second extended deadline and told him to meet me in my office with pages.

  I sat on the floor in the hallway and waited for Norman. After he sat down next to me, I extended my palm.

  “Hand it over,” I said.

  Norman reluctantly handed me a stack of typewritten pages in prose form. I skimmed the text. It was about a male creative-writing teacher at a boarding school not unlike Stonebridge. The teacher was an aspiring novelist working on a book about a school not unlike the school where he worked. The teacher/novelist was plagued with writer’s block and would give his students pointed assignments. One, in particular, was to record fellow students’ conversations. The teacher, Mr. Fellows, claimed the point of the eavesdrop assignment was to learn the rhythm of dialogue, but he was really using it to flesh out his novel.

  The narration was third person, omniscient, and intensely judgmental of the primary character of Mr. Fellows.

  “I like it,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Norman said, twisting a loose button on his jacket.

  “It seems kind of meta.”

  Too quickly, Norman said, “Nah. I mean, isn’t everything meta?”

  Norman was so agitated by the meta remark that I didn’t ask him if his novel was based on Mr. Ford.

  After I’d reviewed all of my students’ thesis proposals, and the added biographical details that they unintentionally provided, I finally nailed down the respective authors of my Q&A’s. My calculations weren’t one hundred percent, but I was pretty damn close.

  SENIOR WRITING CLASSES

  Q&As = solved

  EPHRAIM WIENER

  What do you love? The Original Star Trek

  What do you hate? Flem

  If you could live inside a book, what book? Lord of the Rings

  What do you want? Ten thousand in unmarked bills

  Who are you? You said this was anonymous

  KATE B
USH

  What do you love? Neko Case, banana bread, the smell of Pine Sol

  What do you hate? BJs, editors, and agents of the Darkroom

  If you could live inside a book, what book? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

  What do you want? An invisibility cloak and cyanide

  Who are you? I’m not who they think I am

  ENID CHO

  What do you love? my parents, popcorn, Katy Perry

  What do you hate? Dahl Hall cuisine, BJs

  If you could live inside a book, what book? Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

  What do you want? an early acceptance letter

  Who are you? the most likely valedictorian

  NORMAN CROWLEY

  What do you love? Bright Eyes, Reservoir Dogs, PB&J sandwiches, CS

  What do you hate? The Darkroom

  If you could live inside a book, what book? Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

  What do you want? For my real life to begin

  Who are you? I’m a coward

  RACHEL ROSE

  What do you love? FF, my pink scarf, power

  What do you hate? bad hygiene, two-faced bitches

  If you could live inside a book, what book? New Moon

  What do you want? to win

  Who are you? one of a kind

  TEGAN BROOKS

  What do you love? myself

  What do you hate? stupid questions

  If you could live inside a book, what book? Alice in Wonderland

  What do you want? for you to go back to where you came from

  Who are you? I’m your worst nightmare.