Since I’m relatively sure the dean has left Main Hall for the night, I head back to the dorm. I grab a tuna melt from the Rat and eat in my room, away from everyone, stoking the rumor mill even further.
After all the craziness that’s gone on today, I didn’t think I’d be relieved to go to an Ivy Bound meeting, but when the time comes, I am. I’m safe in this twisted little group.
At nine, I mount the stairs to the attics. The rest of the Swallows are in the Commons, waiting. Everyone is nervous, you can smell it coming out of their pores.
“What’s happening?” I ask Jordan, who looks like death warmed over, but she shakes her head.
“No idea. No one knows. I’m scared to death. Amanda is a psycho, Miranda is, too. I think they switch places for fun. They’ve been torturing me with stupid tasks, taking all my study time. I failed a chem exam today. This is out of hand. If they take things much further, someone should complain to the dean. They’re not allowed to haze us like this.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“Swallows!”
Twin One and Twin Two, Miranda and Amanda, have appeared from the tunnel. They are dressed in cardinal red, like identical handmaidens, and stand by the door to the red staircase with manic grins on their faces.
“Follow,” one of them intones and pulls up her hood. Oh, great. Now they’re wearing spooky-ass hoods that scream ritual sacrifice. This is going to be a blast. Maybe I was better off alone in the woods.
The dirt tunnel path to the cabin has been trod often enough now that the cobwebs are gone. We dart through the tunnels in pairs for safety’s sake, so no one falls down, trailing after the spooky sisters as they lead us deep into campus. Jordan grips my hand so hard the bruises Becca left the night of Camille’s death flare up and I have to get her to switch sides.
We enter the cabin, which is dark except for candles lined up on the oak table and a fire in the fireplace, the first time I’ve seen one. It makes the damp space warm and cozy, and I’d relax if I weren’t so scared.
“Oh! This is it,” Jordan says, and the note of excitement in her voice steadies me a bit. “Whatever they have in store for us is going to happen tonight, early, because the police are roaming campus and they don’t want to wait any longer to make us sisters. They must be about to get in trouble for the hazing.”
“They’re initiating us?”
A twin barks, “Shut up, Swallows, or we’ll shut your mouths for you. Silence. Now.”
The Falconers are dressed in red robes, covered head to foot. All that’s missing is our leader. As I start looking for her, she detaches herself from the shadows behind us. Becca is resplendent in black, her hood covering her sunny hair. She is a crow. A raven.
Our Mistress.
We are placed in line, given a drink and a pill. This isn’t a little one like the Ecstasy, and I’m immediately worried about what it might be. I can’t lose control, not now. Not with so much at stake.
But when I try to refuse, my mouth is pried open and the pill pushed in, the bottle clanked against my teeth until I swallow it all down.
It doesn’t take long to start working, I feel woozy almost immediately.
The bottle is passed again, and again.
They build up the fire in the grate. It is then that I notice the poker in Becca’s hand. The tip glows red in the coals.
Murmurs begin. The acrid scent of sweat and panic fills the room.
Oh, no. No way. They’re going to burn us?
The end of the poker has a curl on it. I realize it is the stylized wing of a bird in flight.
Not burn. Brand.
I don’t want to do this. This is crazy. It’s archaic. Inhumane.
Standing there with a red-hot poker in her hands, flanked by the red-robed Falconers, Becca intones about the meaning of Ivy Bound. About why we were chosen. About each girl’s strengths, what she brings to the group.
She runs through all thirteen of us. Giving us the why.
The reasons vary. Humor. Kindness. Intelligence. Fortitude.
When she gets to me, I find it hard to meet her eyes.
“Ash. You were fragile. Hurt. And yet you faced your fears with formidable internal strength. You are the heart of Ivy Bound. You are its soul. You will forevermore have sisters by your side to hold you up, who will sip at your power when they need their own. Your service to your sisters will go down in legend. You will never be alone again.”
It’s probably the pill and vodka, but I can’t help myself from grinning. The smile in her eyes makes all of this worth it. Whatever else has happened, I have found someone special. She may be mercurial, but part of that is the situation into which I’ve been thrust, as a Swallow. Now that we’re sisters—equals—we can begin our real friendship.
She finishes reciting the reasons for inclusion to the end of the line, then puts the brand in the fire again and beckons the first girl toward her.
There are screams. Faints. Stoicism. Tears. I stay in line, hands tucked under my arms to keep them from shaking, and shuffle my way forward. I am midway now. Four to go. Three. Two. And then, finally, it’s my turn.
Despite the vodka, despite whatever pill I’ve taken, when I raise my shaking left arm and let Becca force the flaming hot metal into my rib cage to the left of my breast, equal latitude to my heart, I want to scream. It is agonizing. It is the most pain I’ve ever experienced, willingly or otherwise. But I grit my teeth. Tears pour down my face. I deserve this torture. It is cleansing, this pain. So intense, so severe. There’s something about it I like.
And then it is over, though the sting remains. I am dipped in petroleum jelly and wrapped in some sort of plastic and sent to the end of the line, where Twin One is waiting with another dose of something to take away the pain, the cares, the worries. I down it gratefully.
When the last screams die out, Becca kicks dirt onto the fire, then faces us.
“Ivy Bound is based on integrity. You were chosen for your strength and your honor. You shine as an example of the best of Goode. The finest character, the strongest personalities, the kindest hearts. You have all been tested and found worthy. Welcome to the sisterhood.”
There is cheering, hugs. Falconers and Swallows merge into a mass of sweaty, drunk, stoned girls.
Swallows and Falconers no longer. The Mistress no longer.
We are one now.
We are sisters.
We are Ivy Bound.
I’ve done it.
Becca seeks me out and pulls me to her breast. I collapse against her with relief, my arms snaking around her waist. She is warm and smells like jasmine, and it’s just so nice to be held again by someone who loves me. She rubs a hand up and down my back, careful not to touch the brand, and it feels like a promise. I look up at her and she’s smiling at me, tenderness in her eyes. I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and touch my lips lightly to hers.
I am on the dirt floor before I can blink.
“What the hell, Ash?”
I have forgotten where I am. I am higher than high and in pain and drunk, and despite all of these things, I realize I’ve done something dreadfully wrong.
Becca is standing over me with a look of sheer panic on her face, and all around me, I hear whispers, louder and louder, some amused, some horrified.
“Did she actually kiss her?”
“Oh, my God, lesbo alert.”
“I knew she had the hots for her.”
“Wait, is Becca gay?”
But it is Becca herself who breaks me in two. Her voice is shaking and the rage monster I saw in her room is back. “Get out.”
What have I done? Oh, my God, what have I done?
This isn’t getting drunk at a party and hooking up, which is totally acceptable. Or even messing around behind closed doors. This was a kiss of love. I’ve just outed Goode’s head girl i
n front of our entire secret society.
Apparently, there are still some taboos at Goode.
“Go!” she hisses at me.
“Where?”
“Back to the school. You are out.”
70
THE DOOR
The door to the Commons swings closed behind me and I run, crying, down the stairs to my room. The pain in my side doesn’t compare to the pain in my heart, seeing Becca look at me like that. Like I am some sort of freak. She started this. I didn’t seek her out. She was the one who encouraged me.
Have I actually been kicked out of Ivy Bound? Is this even possible? She was talking about sisterhood and love and friendship and now I’ve been cast out, cast aside.
I didn’t mean to do it.
How could she? How could she?
I am so dizzy. The room is spinning, and the air seems like it’s wavering in and out. I don’t feel the ground when I hit it. I don’t feel anything at all.
* * *
I wake to chilled air sweeping around my body. I am on the floor in my room. I don’t know how much time has passed. I am thirsty, and I crawl across the room to my water bottle. I gulp down the contents, but it’s not enough, I need more.
I drag myself to my feet, and that’s when I fully realize cold air is pouring into the room. Where is it coming from? My windows are closed, my door is closed. But cool, damp air is bleeding in.
Someone must have left the hallway window open to the fire escapes.
And someone has been in my room. In my bed. A gift has been left on my pillow.
The bird is small, soft in its mutilation. The nail is driven straight through its tiny heart, impaling both the body and the note, written in red ink—or the bird’s blood, I don’t know which—which says in big block letters: WHORE.
I stumble backward, away from the horror.
Fuck. Fuck. They’re sick. Sick and twisted and wrong. How could I have ever wanted to be a part of this group?
I flee into the hall, retreating away from the mess, and see the door across the way is wide open. The draft is coming from a window on the far side of the darkened space. The sash is fully raised, letting in the cool air.
I trip almost immediately when I walk into the room, fall to my knees. I’m unsteady anyway, still feeling some of the effects of whatever drug they gave us, but someone has moved things around in here. Must be the janitors. And they left the window open. And something smells funny.
Cigarette smoke, I manage to put together. Someone was smoking out the window.
So much for the bright, shiny lock. If they leave the room open, what difference does it make?
I haul myself to my feet. I’ve skinned my knee, but I ignore the sensation of blood running down my shin. There is a shadow in the corner that has my full attention. My vision is adjusting to the darkness, the moon’s glow gives enough light to make out the strange shapes and lumps through the room.
The planks of wood that used to lean against the wall are stacked up in front of the door, that’s what I’ve tripped on. With them moved away from the wall, for the first time I see what they were hiding.
There is a door.
And it is open.
My first thought is to run. My second is more jumbled. Perhaps it was all a test. Perhaps I am not kicked out of Ivy Bound. Perhaps Becca is waiting for me. She complimented my strength. I need to be strong now.
Hope flickers in my chest. All is not lost after all.
I take a deep breath of the strange, dirty air and step through. There are stairs, winding down, gray concrete with black dots on them. It must be mold of some sort—the air here is overwhelmingly musty—but there is something lodged in the corner of the railing. It’s a piece of cloth. I pull it from its spot. It is black and stiff. I notice a small piece of plastic flapping in the breeze, staked to the banister with a nail, rotted through. It is yellow, with black writing, but it’s unreadable because of the holes and tears.
The black dots on the stairs... It’s blood. And someone, or something, must have wiped their hands off on this piece of fabric and left it behind. And the yellow plastic—is this crime scene tape?
The blood on the cloth is old, dried. It flakes off onto my hands when I touch it like I’ve been doused in ashes from the fire. Gross. I wipe it off on my jeans.
Why do I have a feeling I’ve just discovered the real red staircase?
Something terrible happened here, of this there is no doubt. The pervasive dread creeping along my spine makes me want to turn around and launch myself out the window. I should turn back. Go to my room, lock the door.
But there is truth here, I can feel it. Though the truth about what, I don’t know. Logic tells me this is the path to another variation of our secret society cabin, and I’m curious enough to follow the stairs down to see if I’m right. Especially if there is forgiveness on the other end.
The door above me closes softly. All the hair rises on my body.
Someone has shut me in here.
I run back up the stairs but the door is locked. Locked from the outside. I swear I can hear breathing.
“Funny joke, ha ha. Open the bloody door, you arsewipes.”
Nothing. No more sound. It’s like I’m the only person in the world.
I slam my shoulder against the door, but it is closed tightly. I have no choice but to see where the passageway leads.
My natural claustrophobia combined with my emotional exhaustion at the past week’s events make it feel like the walls are closing in. I drag in a ragged breath.
“Keep moving. It will be okay. They’re playing a joke on you. The gits.”
I call the girls a few more names—this has to be an Ivy Bound joke, it has Becca’s sense of cruelty attached—and take the steps down. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. They’ve branded me, I am wearing the Ivy Bound insignia under my breast. They can’t kick me out. They’ve shared their secrets. I caved when they needed me to be strong. They’re giving me a second chance.
Relief is as sweet as water to my parched throat.
There is no light down here but my eyes have adjusted so I don’t feel like I’m in total blackness. Still, I have to use the nasty dirt wall to keep myself upright. My hand keeps getting tangled in cobwebs, and it is totally freaking me out. What if I get lost down here in this tunnel?
What if it’s not a tunnel at all?
Of course, it is. Don’t be stupid. Piper warned you about them first day of term. You were in one for the tap. This isn’t any different. It will open up into a cabin, and there will be a bunch of snotty bitches screaming and laughing because they’ve pulled one last prank on you. Just keep moving.
It feels like I’ve been walking forever before the air starts to clear and the path slants upward. I hurry now, desperate to get out of the close confines of the tunnel. The air changes, fresher, cleaner, then I hit a gate.
The lock on it is old and rusted. And open. Thank God. Someone has gone out this way and left it open.
Someone is waiting for me.
I step into the darkness, into the cool night air, heaving deep breaths to clear my lungs.
The moonlight spills over the ground and I see rocks, standing rocks. Then my brain does the math and I realize they are gravestones.
I am in a graveyard.
And I’m not alone.
“About time you got here, Swallow.”
71
THE CONFRONTATION
I can’t help it, I scream, but a hand clamps over my mouth so it comes out as a muffled meep.
“Shut up! Do you want everyone to hear you?”
Panic shoots through my body, and my heart starts to thud. I thought it would be Becca on the other side of the door, laughing, joking, jolly, and happy again.
But this is not Becca.
I know this voice. It isn’t one I ever wanted to hear again. I look around wildly, how can I get away? How can I escape?
“I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. If you scream, if you call out...”
Something hard and sharp touches my neck. Christ, she has a knife. She’s insane, this I’ve always known, but she has a bloody knife.
“I’m not insane, you cow, and you know it. How dare you say such a thing?”
Oh, my God, I said it aloud.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please, don’t hurt me.”
The pressure on my neck subsides. She shoves me away. I stumble between the graves. My brain says run but my feet are planted as if the roots surrounding the graves have grown over my bones, as well. I can no sooner run than fly.
“What...what are you doing here?”
“What do you think? Cleaning up your messes. My God, you are a disaster. Every time I turn around, you are practically telling everyone our story.”
“I haven’t said a word. I swear it.”
“You don’t need to lie anymore. This little experiment is over. I need the money.”
“What money?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, sister.”
She drops the word so casually, so caustically, that I close my eyes.
She knows. Oh, God, she knows.
“How did you find out?”
“The letter Gertrude sent to wreck our lives. The solicitors were sniffing around the flat in Oxford. Kevin said he was your boyfriend and they asked him to give you a letter. He gave it to me. It spelled everything out. Everything that matters, at least. Did you know we were sisters?”
Good Girls Lie Page 29