I frown, then remember why I had approached him in the first place. “I was hoping you could tell me where the showers are.”
“Third door back on the left.”
“Thanks,” I mutter and turn, hurrying back down the hall.
“A word of advice.” His voice stops me, my blood turning to ice. There is a hint of condemnation in his voice—as if he’s warning me of a fate he’s already certain will befall me. Still, I look over my shoulder at him. “Don’t wander the halls at night. It our territory then. We don’t appreciate trespassers. You would do well to keep your head down until you can escape this place.”
I have no idea how I’m supposed to respond to that, but it’s not like he seems to expect one. I hurry to the door he said, and nearly rip it from its hinges as I try to open it so quickly. I spare a glance back at the strange boy but he’s gone. It’s impossible. That was the end of the hall, there were no hallways down there and I’d have noticed him walking by me. There was no doubt, though. He’s gone.
And I’m running late.
“You’ll be assigned cleaning duties until we can assess your skill levels in other areas.” Mr. Cornell is an imposing figure, but nowhere near as intimidating as Mrs. Browning. In fact, his disinterested stare is positively warm compared to the woman’s icy glare. I struggle to keep up with his long strides down the hall. He’s dividing his attention between me and inspecting other staff and referencing the clipboard in his hands. “Your duties are scheduled from 6:00 a.m. until 7:00, when you may take breakfast with the rest of the students. Then your classes are from 8:00 until noon. After lunch, I expect you to report back, as your duties begin again from 1:00 until 5:00.”
“No afternoon classes?” I ask despite not really caring. He doesn’t seem to mind the question though, flipping through the pages. I suspect the frown on his face is permanent.
“Afternoons are reserved for selective study and the students are often in their assigned labs or working with their advisers. As you have not declared a thesis, you may as well be of use to the staff. After 5:00 p.m., your time is your own. As are your weekends, unless myself or Mrs. Browning believe you are shirking your duties.” He whirls on me then, and I pull back so I don’t run into him. “We are not a charity, Miss Wollstonecraft. Mrs. Browning has taken you in because you are a relation, no matter how distant. I expect you to follow the rules, and if I believe you are skipping your duties, you will find yourself scrubbing the cellars until your eighteenth birthday.”
“Y-yes sir,” I stutter, too shocked at the change of tone to take offense at his suggestion that I’d skip what are essentially my chores.
He stares at me for a long moment and must find what he’s looking for. He steps through the open doorway we were next to. A moment later, I’ve got a bucket filled with a stack of washcloths and two different spray bottles. Then I follow a homely-looking woman in a gray housekeeping dress to a classroom and I wipe down each desk. She’s quiet as she wipes down the windows with practiced efficiency. For all I know, she could have forgotten about me entirely.
I steal a moment and slip my cell phone from my back pocket and check for the signal. I’d lost it on the drive out here and hadn’t had the energy to check until now.
“You won’t find any type of signal here.”
I look up at the woman, Bridget, and cock my head. “Really? Are we in a dead zone?”
She shakes her head and starts wiping down the whiteboard along the wall. She gives me a pointed look and I put my phone away and get back to wiping down the desks. “No. The manor has a signal blocker. There is no signal for two miles around the manor. The students’ work is too valuable to risk hacking. The internet is also strictly controlled with private servers.”
“What if there’s an emergency and you need to call the police?” I ask, stupefied at the idea of no contact with the outside world. She looks at me like I’m the one speaking nonsense.
“Then we use the phone in Mrs. Browning’s office or Mr. Cornell’s.” She tuts as she sees how much progress I’ve made with the desks. “You’ll need to get faster if you don’t want to earn the ire of Mr. Cornell. You’ve got ten minutes to finish the desks and sweep. Then you can go to breakfast. I’ll take your bucket this time, but tomorrow I expect you to be quicker.”
Properly chastised, I clean faster than I think I ever have under Bridget’s approving eye. Just as I’m handing her the bucket, I hear other doors opening and closing and voices filling the hall.
“Dining hall is on the other side of the main foyer, just follow the other students,” she says, shooing me out of the classroom. “I will see you after lunch.”
“Thanks,” I breathe out as I follow the voices.
The main foyer is still as intimidating as it had been the night before, but at least the praying angel looks properly angelic and not like a demon waiting for unwary souls. My eyes wander to the portrait that dominates the wall at the top of the stairs. My ancestor who founded the school, Cassandra something or other. I’d already forgotten her last name. I’m a terrible family member, clearly.
There’s a connection I feel with her though, and not just because of how much we look alike.
I run into someone before I can ruminate on our connection and fall to my butt, nearly cracking my head against the massive circular table. Laughter, high-pitched and feminine, makes my face redden in shame. I push my hair behind my ears and force myself to look at the girl I ran into. She’s looking at me with something resembling incredulous disdain.
“You need to watch where you’re going,” she tells me, surrounded by three other girls. I figure she must be the lead bitch here and I’m apparently already on her bad side. “Otherwise I’ll report you to Mr. Cornell and you’ll be out the door before you can even plead your case. And why aren’t you in your staff uniform?”
“Because she isn’t staff,” a familiar voice drawls and we all turn to look at Nikolai walking down the stairs, hands in his pockets. He’s wearing a similar outfit as last night, but now he’s got a blazer on as well, and I realize it’s similar to the ones all the girls are wearing. At least the girls look like they get the option between slim-fitting trousers and knee-length pleated skirts.
“Nikolai,” the girl positively pouts his name, her eyelashes fluttering. All thoughts of me have disappeared clearly, which is fine by me. I try to sneak past them, my butt still smarting from the hardwood floor but Nikolai’s introduction stops me.
“Cordelia, this is Mary Wollstonecraft. I believe she will be joining us, unless we scare her away.” His lips quirk into a feral smirk, parting just enough to show a hint of teeth. It’s a threat coated in charm, and it melts all the girls except Cordelia. It seems she doesn’t approve of Nikolai smiling at me from how strained her expression becomes.
“Is that right?” She turns her gaze back to me. “What’s your specialization?”
Again, Nikolai beats me to the punch. I open my mouth, trying to think of something to say when he answers.
“She doesn’t have one, Delia,” he rolls his eyes. “It’s why she doesn’t have a uniform. She’s taking classes with us, but she’s not one of us.”
He says the last part with such antipathy, it feels as if a line has been drawn and I’ll never even come close to crossing it.
“Oh, how darling,” she simpers, her smile saccharine but her eyes are daggers. Once again, my cheeks are flooded with shame. She dismisses me again, and looks expectantly at Nikolai. “Shall we discuss the latest results on the chemical compounds you’ve been working to isolate over breakfast?”
Nikolai slips a hand out of his pocket, guiding her towards the doorway that leads to the dining hall, and I see that he’s wearing black leather gloves and his hand hovers at the small of her back without ever actually touching Cordelia. But she doesn’t seem to think there’s anything odd about it. I wait a few minutes, other students slipping past me, either looking at me with distant interest or ignoring me entirely. Finally I walk
in, too hungry to wait any longer, and I realize that was the worst choice I could have made.
The moment I step into the hall, there’s a hush. There are only maybe twenty-five students sitting at the two long tables, and other than Cordelia’s pack—there are only three other girls. The rest are boys. Everyone seems to range from fifteen to eighteen. Great. I hear a snicker, and Cordelia’s group laughs. I meet Nikolai’s gaze, his blue eyes bright even across the room. There’s a challenge in there, daring me to try to be one of them.
But I’ll never be one of them, even if I want to. My monsters will never allow it.
Chapter Three
At breakfast, I refuse to give in to their stares. Instead of sitting at the lonely and empty end of one of the tables, I sit close enough to the students that only two seats separate myself and a dour-looking boy of maybe fifteen. He has a shadow over his top lip as if he were trying to coax a mustache out by will alone, but his face looks like the moon—puberty is not being kind to him. Two seats between us mean I am still on the outside, far enough to dissuade conversation, but I’m not falling to the outskirts like they expected.
If I had thought breakfast was bad, at least there had been enough students that they eventually stopped staring. In my first class, though, there were only five other students and the teacher.
“Miss Wollstonecraft. Please take a seat.” The teacher is an ancient-looking fellow, his shoulders hunched over, his glasses sliding to the tip of his nose. His paunch of a belly strains at the plaid sweater he wears, but overall he gives the impression of an easily distracted librarian. I like him immediately. There are only six desks, the empty one looking awkward and out of place, as if it had been crammed in so room could be made for me. Another reminder of my place here.
I slip into it though, and honestly it was twice the size of my last classroom’s desks. Even larger than the auditorium I had one class in, where the desk was nothing more than a folding table barely large enough to take notes on. I keep my eyes downcast, refusing to look at the rest of the students. Keeping my head down will let me survive long enough to escape.
“Class, I’m sure you are aware of our new student. Miss Mary Wollstonecraft, a family member of Mrs. Browning’s.” I hear someone snort, but if the teacher notices, he doesn’t comment. I see him frown at my empty desk and I want to snark about how no, the poor orphan didn’t come with any school supplies after she nearly died, sorry to be such an inconvenience. But I bite my tongue hard, the pain reminding me that it could be worse. “Mr. Frankenstein. Would you be so kind as to provide a pen and some paper for the institute’s newest student?”
The boy from last night; the one who refused to shake my hand when I tried to introduce myself.
“Of course, Professor Wilton.” His voice is just as even as it had been last night, and I realize he’s in the desk closest to me, on my left. A scratch hisses through the air as he tears a single sheet of paper from his spiral notebook and, as he sets it and a pen on my desk, he looks directly at me. I go to thank him but he speaks. “Though, I must correct you, sir. Miss Wollstonecraft is not the institute’s newest student.”
Warmth fills my cheeks and I don’t know if I’m embarrassed by the truth or angry with how he declares my status as an insult.
Professor Wilton looks at me blankly for a moment, before shrugging. “Be that as it may, Miss Wollstonecraft, I still expect you to attend these lessons with your complete attention and you’ll be given no leeway in the assignments. If you’ve had the fortune to find yourself in this prestigious institute, you should benefit from it as best you can. If you find the topics difficult, see me after class and I will point you to some...” he pauses to think, “remedial texts in the library.”
This time more students stifle quiet laughter at the word remedial.
“Thank you, Professor,” I grind out between my teeth, trying to force a pleasant smile onto my face.
He launches into a discourse on da Vinci and his work with anatomy and I realize I’m the only one taking notes. Everyone else looks bored, as if they’ve heard this lecture a dozen times. Two boys are even writing notes to one another, and I can just make out a crude drawing.
“Miss Wollstonecraft.” Professor Wilton’s voice startles me and I look back to him, a bit guilty at my distraction. He doesn’t seem to notice, though. “Do you know how many corpses da Vinci studied and dissected in his lifetime?”
To be honest, I hadn’t realized da Vinci did anything except art, but I don’t get the feeling that Wilton is setting me up for failure, so I take a stab in the dark. “Fifteen?”
I swear I can see Frankenstein’s whole body move as he rolls his eyes.
“The correct answer,” the boy drags out his words, each syllable dripping with disdain as if I’d said C comes after E, and that the sky is clearly vermilion, “is at least thirty, though even da Vinci cannot be certain to the exact number.”
“Then, if da Vinci can’t say how many he did—what makes you any more right than me?” I snap back and I feel the classroom go silent. Even Professor Wilton is looking between the boy beside me and myself, wincing like you do when you’re waiting for the sound while popping a balloon. Is this young man, barely old enough to no longer be considered a boy, so dangerous?
When I meet his honey eyes, still raw from irritation, the dark half-moons more pronounced in the light than they were in the hallway, I bite the inside of my lip. He doesn’t look dangerous in the same way a predator looks. He’s the snake sunbathing on the stone, relaxed—but with a bite that can kill within minutes if he’s so much as disturbed. I’m holding my breath, I realize, as I wait to feel his bite.
“Because I am smarter than you.”
He says it with an obvious dismissal, as if these few moments have confirmed his opinions of me he’d made the night before. That I’m so far below him I do not warrant his attention. He turns his attention back to the professor, who begins his lecture once more.
I let out my breath slowly, not wanting Frankenstein to see how much he’d scared me. It was a different fear than the monsters that had chased at the heels of my mother’s and my footsteps. That fear was cold, freezing my blood in my veins, turning my insides to ice, slowing me down. But the fear I’d felt from him was like I had magma instead of blood, as likely to burn me up from the outside as I am to explode.
I try to focus on Professor Wilton, his tone relaxed enough it’s as if I’d never questioned Frankenstein’s knowledge, but it’s difficult. I feel it every time he shifts, even if he sighs as if he wants to disagree with someone Wilton is saying. From the way Wilton watched our exchange, I doubt Wilton would stand his ground against the student. Which is ridiculous, really, because Wilton has to be four times his age.
The students start packing up but I don’t hear a bell. Wilton wraps up, telling us he expects a three-page concise paper on how da Vinci influences today’s understanding of anatomy and how it could apply to our own thesis. Except I don’t have a thesis, and Wilton is the first one of out the door, the others following behind him already gossiping and complaining about the homework.
Frankenstein doesn’t leave though and neither do I. He’s leaning against his desk, arms crossed over his chest, his uniform jacket still hanging over the back of his chair.
Last night he looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in some time. Now I wonder if he ever gets enough sleep. His tan skin looks sallow, and there is the shadow of a beard along his cheeks. More of the shadow that requires daily shaving than the excuse of the shadow on the boy’s lip from breakfast. He doesn’t say anything, studying me instead.
“Can I help you?” I finally break.
“My pen, please?” he asks instead, holding out his hand. I blink hard and then I put the pen in his hand, harder than strictly necessary. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says it like it’s a fact as accepted as the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun. I don’t say anything. He’s not wrong. “Why are you here?”
&nbs
p; Maybe it’s because of the last twelve hours I’ve had, the amount of contempt I’ve already experienced and the clear fact that I’m in so far over my head that I can’t even see the sun. Or maybe I want to lash out, to make him feel an ounce of the shame he’s caused me, so I snap at him, biting out the words I haven’t really accepted myself yet.
“Because my mother died, and I did too. Except I came back, and she didn’t.”
I wait to see the impact my words have on him, to see the flicker of guilt in his eyes as he’s confronted with a girl with a dead mom. It never appears though. In fact his expression never changes.
“A pity,” he says, and I know he’s not meaning it for me. “Had you stayed dead, we wouldn’t have to deal with your presence here.”
Tears well in my eyes even as I will them not to. I will not cry in front of this boy—no, not boy, bastard. I ball my fists, my nails digging into my palms once more, trying to use the pain to ground myself.
“Sorry to have inconvenienced you by living,” I say, but my voice warbles and is husky to my shame.
“Still, at least you can be of some use here,” he says, standing, the pen I’d borrowed in both of his hands. When I used it, I knew it wasn’t one of those pens you bought in packs of twenty in the back-to-school sales. It was one of those fancy pens, the ones you were given after an important promotion, the ones that would put letters after your name.
He snaps it in half without hesitation, the ink splattering between us. He twists at the waist and I watch as he shakes the ink onto the top of his desk, before running his fingers through it, smearing it across the pale surface. The black ink fills every crack and fault in the sealant, giving the impression of tree roots twisting around his fingers. He discards the now useless pen, ignoring it as it rolls across the desk to land on the hardwood floor. The sound it makes is impossibly loud and it sounds more like a slap. He looks at me now with a sympathetic smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He holds my chin, his ink-covered fingers dig into my cheeks. “Now you have something to occupy yourself while the rest of us do things that actually matter. And never question my intelligence again.”
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