Academy of the Forgotten

by Eva Chase

  She spun on her heel and stalked back toward the school with a swish of her skirt against her thighs. I watched her go, clutching my lunch and feeling more ineffectual than I ever had in my entire life. The damp air had turned the grilled cheese sandwich outright soggy while we’d talked.

  I should have been subtler in my approach. I’d gone overboard with my avoidance, and that had tipped her off, and now she saw me as a fuck-up anyway. Next time—next time—

  My fingers dug into the already battered banana. I didn’t want to think about next time. I hardly wanted to think about this time. A hopeless sensation was creeping over me that there was no right answer, no way to win, no path to victory. Only more failure.

  Staying where I was, I forced the rest of the sandwich down, tossed the banana toward the wall where it could eventually become fertilizer for the rosebush, and retraced my steps across the lawn at a slower pace. I’d have steered clear of the building for a while longer, except I was due for my first weekly counseling appointment, joy of all joys.

  I approached the first-floor room with rising trepidation. You’d have thought my nightly torments would leave me numbed to the sorts of emotions the appointments were intended to provoke, but I was shit out of luck there. If anything, they set off a cyclical effect, the fresh visuals making the words stab harder, the lingering echoes of those encounters turning the nighttime voices more visceral. Another way this place reminded me that there was no winning here.

  That maybe I’d never won at all, no matter what I’d done out in the “real” world.

  At my scheduled time, I opened the door and stepped inside. The lock clicked over by some force of its own. As always, a plain chair stood in the middle of the small, white-walled room, but I never bothered to sit. It was easier to brace myself standing up.

  Who would it be today? My sister? My grandmother? One of the many classmates and “friends” the school could twist to its use?

  The rose scent flooded the room even stronger than if I’d been standing right in front of the blooms. The walls shimmered, and images appeared on them as if projected by an invisible device.

  Trix’s pale green eyes gazed at me from every direction. My body recoiled instinctively, but I had enough self-control not to try the door. I knew from plenty of experience that it never opened until the appointment was over.

  The images of her were smiling at me, some close up on her face, some farther away so I could see her whole appealing figure. Somehow that smile was worse than the way she’d snapped at me less than an hour ago.

  “Why the hell do you let them beat you down?” one of her asked with a dismissive shake of her head. “They don’t get to call the shots.”

  But they do, I answered silently. In every goddamn way.

  “Were you ever even a kid?” another image teased. She loped toward the woods, waving for me to join her. “Come on. You’ve got a lot of making up for lost time to do. Let me guess—you’ve never even climbed a tree.”

  Too many other more necessary things to do. That’s what my grandfather would have said. And God help me if I gave any indication I didn’t appreciate all he was doing for us.

  “Oh, fuck him,” a third version of Trix said, as if she’d read my thoughts. Probably the powers that fueled this room could—probably that was why it’d presented me with her after the actual confrontation outside. “Just because someone helps you out doesn’t mean they can’t be an asshole. And that dude? From what you’ve told me, asshole through and through.”

  You’d say the same thing about me if you’d been around me back then.

  More Trixes flitted past my view: Trix clambering out onto the school roof with the wind whipping her hair into a blaze of orange flame; Trix banging on a door with her teeth gritted tight. “Can’t you talk to them or something? For fuck’s sake, Elias.” Trix tucked under a blanket that had fallen back with the rise and fall of her breath to show her bare shoulder, begging to be kissed. Trix staring up at me, her hair plastered to her head and her cheeks mud-flecked, her eyes watery with more than just the rain.

  “What if it’s not enough? We can’t let them win. But I feel like I’m doing everything I can, and it’s just out of reach. What am I missing? Please.”

  I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. They’re going to win, no matter what we do. They always win.

  A laugh spilled out of her as she whirled past me through a streak of moonlight, a moment of unfettered joy I knew was rare. A fantasy, all of it—none of these moments, good or bad, would ever really be mine. The invisible counselor was simply hammering that fact home, over and over, as if my heart hadn’t already cracked apart in my chest.

  Maybe, just this once, the forces around me had misjudged, though. I found myself sinking into the chair, surrounded by all these realities that weren’t, thinking back to the reality that was—the accusation in her eyes and the demand in her voice on the lawn outside, the flicking of her hair in the wind. The potential balled in that lithely strong body.

  I was never going to win. That hadn’t changed. But there was a quieter message within the current that ran through the words that pelted me. It filled my heart with a sharper ache, but this once I let it in rather than pushing it away.

  Trix didn’t expect me to have all the answers. She didn’t expect me to fix the world for her. She wasn’t even sure she could do it herself, for all her bravado. All she’d asked of me, really, was that I try. Making the effort would matter to her so much more than the end result.

  I was the one who cared about winning. Roseborne College hadn’t beaten the urge out of me yet. I’d almost let my old ways shackle me all over again.

  She deserved better than that, even if the impending failure wrenched at me, even if I wanted to run away from it just like she’d accused me of. But I could do right by her, no matter how many people I’d let down before. I could be better than that.

  I would be.

  Chapter Twelve

  Trix

  Fourteen-year-old Cade’s voice rolled over me from where he’d hunkered down on the bottom bunk next to me. He traced a finger along the inside of my arm. “We’d do anything for each other, wouldn’t we, Baby Bea? Whatever you need, I’ll be there for you. That goes both ways, right?”

  There was something in his tone I’d never heard before, low and cajoling, but it sent a shiver through me like the glances I’d caught him giving me here and there over the last few months, as if he were measuring something in me with his eyes. The shiver tasted of both anticipation and uneasiness. Something was coming—something I might love or hate or maybe both at once.

  “Of course,” I said, because there was no other possible answer when it came to this boy. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m hoping nothing is.” His breath grazed my ear. “I want you to prove it, so I know for sure.”

  The dream shifted; I turned over and found myself standing in the dark in a rain-slick alley, the Cade of five years later looming over a form that had fallen to the warped pavement. “You fucker!” he shouted as he kicked the guy in the gut, over and over. “You piece of fucking shit.” When his legs started to wobble from the effort, he bent down and brought his fists into the pummeling.

  I stood still and rigid, not wanting to watch, feeling I had to—It’s my fault; it was all my fault—but the dream tipped me over and threw me out into the cramped space behind the garden shed that always smelled like turpentine. Cade’s arms wrapped around my trembling shoulders as our foster father stomped around in the mudroom so loud his footsteps and furious voice carried right across the backyard.

  Cade hugged me tighter. “Don’t you worry, Trix. If he tries to touch you, he’ll have to get through me first.” With the unwavering confidence that somehow his eight-year-old self could take on a raging full-grown man.

  “I don’t want him to hurt you either,” I choked out around a sob, clutching his arm, and he leaned his head close to mine, and we lurched forward into another memory,
two years later, speeding down a steep, icy hill on a snow racer. The frigid wind wiped my hair from under my hat and bit into my cheeks. One of Cade’s arms was still around me, his other extended to grip the handle.

  We shot past a few trees and into view of a kids’ plywood fort right in front of us. A shriek tore from my throat. Cade jerked on the handle, but it was too late. We slammed right into the boards, splinters flying as they snapped apart, and tumbled onto the snowy ground. Cade pulled me to him with a laugh bursting from his lungs, and as the panic washed away, I started laughing too—

  —and then he was ripped away from me with a strangled sound, off into a black hole that wrenched his limbs from their sockets and tore his chest in half, blood and guts flying even as the monstrous mass swallowed him up. A cry broke from my lips. I hurled myself after him—

  —and jolted upright on my bed in the Roseborne dorms, my forehead damp with sweat and my throat still stinging.

  The impression of having watched my foster brother ripped apart lingered with a clenching of my stomach even as I took in the room, the sheets tangled around me, and my ragged breaths. For all I knew, something that horrible had happened to him here. Had I gotten even a little closer to understanding what? What had I actually accomplished in the week and a half I’d been here?

  The gloom of the bedroom fed into those thoughts. I’d come up here after my afternoon cleaning duty to take a nap, half afraid I felt the prickling of another headache coming on, and it was still day outside, if muted by the constant clouds. The fractured sleep had only left my mind more muggy. I rubbed my temple.

  “Everything all right?” Violet asked in that softly lilting voice that always surprised me. My head snapped around. She’d been perched on her bed so quietly that in my daze I hadn’t noticed anyone was in the room.

  It was the first time I could remember her expressing any actual concern for me, rather than grudgingly answering the occasional question. Maybe the concern I’d shown her yesterday had won me points I hadn’t realized.

  I hesitated, but the honest answer slipped out. “I feel like I’m not doing enough. I’m letting him down.”

  I could tell from the set of her mouth that I didn’t need to spell out who I meant by “him.” By now, everyone at the school must have heard or heard of my inquiries about Cade.

  Violet’s hands twisted in her lap. She looked down at them and then back at me. “I’m just saying, because you might not have noticed or bothered to look there, if you wanted to check out the whole school… There’s a maintenance shed around the side.”

  The suggestion was vague, but her tone full of portent. Telling me something without outright telling me. I hoped even that wouldn’t bring some punishment down on her.

  I scrambled up with a skip of my pulse. “Thank you.”

  “Can’t say it’s definitely a favor,” she muttered, but then, as I reached for the door, she added, “Trix?”

  I looked back at her. “Yeah?”

  “You know… You’re here because you asked to stay. They weren’t after you. If you tell them you’re ready to leave, they might let you.”

  Her expression had tensed as she said the words. She was offering me a possible escape route that she knew was out of reach to every other student, including herself. My chest constricted.

  Her idea did make sense. I’d insisted on staying—the staff had wanted me to leave. We’d struck a deal without any specific timeline. If I said I was done, that I’d walk away and forget this place the way they could probably compel me to do, would the gate open for me then?

  Would I even want to?

  “That’s—that’s a good point,” I said. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  Taking that way out would make Jenson happy, I supposed. He’d been rubbing in how little I belonged from the first moment I’d arrived. Maybe Elias would be overjoyed too, since he seemed to find my presence so off-putting. But frankly, I didn’t give a shit what either of them thought.

  The real question was whether I was actually helping anyone I cared about by staying here. What if Cade had been here and then gone, somehow or other, and I’d have found more answers out there? I might be wasting time focusing on this place when I only had a single shred of evidence he’d ever been here.

  On my way down, I found Ryo leaning against the second-floor railing, waiting outside one of the classrooms. He smiled when he saw me—a slow, secretive smile that brought me back to the kitchen yesterday, to the press of his lips against mine and the toned muscle my exploring hands had discovered through his shirt.

  He was a good kisser, giving and taking just the right amount to send a thrill through me from head to toe—a thrill that had become overwhelming as the minutes had slid by. He was too… nice to just drag into a corner somewhere and scratch an itch with. He’d be tender instead of rough, attentive instead of urgent, and that didn’t work when nothing we did was supposed to mean anything.

  But I did want to kiss him again. My gaze lingered on his lips for a moment, and a weird prickling of guilt washed over me.

  I wasn’t betraying anyone by fooling around with him. I didn’t owe my chastity to anyone. As much as I might owe on my tab in other sorts of ways, any commitment like that had been severed more than a year ago, and not by me.

  “Hey,” I said, taking the route that would let me pass him. When I reached him, I tucked my hand around his for just a second and leaned in to steal a kiss as my way of giving that guilt the middle finger.

  Ryo let out a pleased hum as he kissed me back. His smile was broader when we eased apart. “Now I’m twice as annoyed that I have to put up with Literary Analysis instead of running off somewhere with you.”

  What were the punishments around here for skipping class? I didn’t think I wanted to encourage him to find out. I let go of him but brushed my fingers over his arm. “Maybe I’ll find you later.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll look forward to that.”

  What daylight there was had started to dwindle by the time I made it outside. The clouds had bruised with a purple hue. I wandered around the school and spotted the shed Violet had mentioned right away.

  It wasn’t even its own building, just a wooden structure put together up against the brick side of the main school. The boards were scratched up and the shingles on the slanted roof curling. The door stood slightly ajar, which was probably why I’d only given it a brief glance before to confirm it held the sort of things I expected: rusting cans of paint, a tool kit, a rake, one of those old manual lawnmowers. Anything important wouldn’t have been left that easily discovered.

  Now, I pushed the door all the way open and stepped into the dim space. The door jarred against a cot set up behind it, the blankets rumpled and the mattress dipped in the middle.

  I hadn’t gone far enough in to notice that before, but even if I had, I doubted I’d have thought anything of it if Violet hadn’t specifically nudged me toward this spot. I’d have assumed some lesser staff person who looked after the grounds slept out here. But then, I hadn’t seen anyone working on the grounds since I’d arrived. From the layer of dust on the shelves opposite, no one had used those tools in a hell of a long time.

  The bed was a little dusty too. It hadn’t been slept in recently. I picked up the blanket to give it a quick shake, and sneezed at the particles that tickled into my nose. With my next breath, I froze.

  Another scent had touched my senses: a tart, coppery smell that took me straight back to the last time I’d hugged Cade close.

  It had already faded by the time I’d fully recognized it. Without thinking, I yanked the blanket to my nose. A deep inhale filled my lungs with that same scent—faint and with a hint of stale sweat, but unmistakable.

  I had enough wherewithal to shove the door shut so no one walking by would see me and wonder what insanity had grabbed me. Then I knelt on the cot and bent down to press my nose to the thin pillow.

  His smell lingered there too, like a ghost—present but so distan
t I couldn’t quite grasp hold of it. Of him. A lump rose in my throat as I tipped my head to the side, soaking in that minor remnant of his existence.

  How long ago had he last slept out here? The dust suggested it’d been at least a couple of months, but would a body’s scent have clung on much longer than that? Had I missed finding him by a matter of weeks?

  Why had he been sleeping out here instead of in the dorms?

  My fingers curled into the rough sheet that covered the mattress. The impulse ran through my body to collect the linens and carry them back to my third-floor bed, to make some kind of a nest out of them, as if surrounding myself in these minor remnants of him would bring me closer to him in some concrete way.

  I forced myself to let go and to climb off the cot. Then I searched through the rest of the shed, lifting every object that wasn’t fixed in place, scouring the building from floor to ceiling, looking for any other sign Cade might have left behind.

  There was nothing else that showed he’d ever been in here. Not even initials carved into the wood. And nothing to indicate where he might have gone next.

  He hadn’t slept here in months… so where was he sleeping now?

  I ventured back outside into a brisk wind. The branches on the trees across the lawn rattled, their leaves whipping around. Layers of cloud scudded across the sky like currents in a broad river.

  Cade? I thought, but his name stayed locked inside me. If he was close enough to hear me, wouldn’t he be here? I’d come out onto the grounds in plain view often enough.

  I circled the school building just to be sure there weren’t any other structures nearby that I might not have given due attention to. The carriage house a short distance away on the other side of the building hadn’t offered anything interesting when I’d looked through there before. Otherwise there was only the abandoned pool, the badminton court, and lots of grass and trees.