by Tom Dolby
Anastasia led Nick and Patch up several flights of stairs in the direction of the rooftop pool. Nick wanted to give Patch the full tour of the town house, but he also didn’t want to attract suspicion from any of the other members who were roaming about. Like a classic gentlemen’s club, the place had the odor of cigars and worn leather, and its walls were adorned with aging oil paintings of mediocre quality, along with framed medals, photographs, and letters from politicians, all yellowing at the corners and wrinkled in their frames.
With everything Nick now knew about the Society, being at the town house felt cheap. He wouldn’t exactly describe the first night there in the fall as magical, but it had possessed a certain aura of exclusivity, of the idea that they were part of something special. There had been a richness that the building held; now, in its place, all he felt was a troubling emptiness, the feeling of promises broken, of betrayal.
“So this is it,” Patch said as he looked around. They were on the top floor. The entryway to the swimming pool had a white marble floor and a tiled dome ceiling. Through the entryway, blue light from the pool flickered against the potted palms that lined the sides of the room. The roof of the swimming pool was glass, so you could see the stars as you floated in the water.
A bar had been set up against one wall, and Emily van Piper, one of the members of the class above them, was mixing drinks. She was wearing a blue swimsuit with a wrap tied around her waist. With her blond hair, she fit in perfectly with the pool party atmosphere. Nick knew Emily was Lauren’s mentor and would surely notice she was missing as well. Nick and Patch got ginger ales, but luckily, Emily didn’t ask about Lauren.
Nick stood with Patch on the side of the pool. “Are you going to put your suit on?” Patch asked, motioning to Nick’s messenger bag. Both of them had dutifully packed swimsuits, as per the instructions they had been given, but swimming was the last thing Nick wanted to do.
Nick shook his head. “No.”
As he looked at all the members splashing around the pool and relaxing so easily, Nick thought back again to the first time he had been here, in the fall. It had all been fun and entrancing and mysterious. Most exciting of all had been meeting Phoebe, seeing her in a swimsuit a mere twenty-four hours after they had met. He couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t interested him, that he hadn’t been paying attention.
Charles Lawrence walked over to Nick. He wore a bright red square-cut bathing suit and had a towel draped around his neck as if it were the middle of summer and he was a lifeguard at the country club doing his hourly patrol.
“Having fun?” Charles asked.
Nick gave Charles a blank look. It was difficult to know how to act around Charles—he was, after all, the de facto leader of the older class of Conscripts. He had started out as a friendly guy, someone everyone liked, but as last semester progressed, Nick suspected Charles of having a hand in Jared’s and Alejandro’s deaths. He was the one who had handed Alejandro a drink before his collapse, and he was the first one who had discovered Jared at Cleopatra’s Needle. Nick didn’t know whether to be afraid of Charles or to scorn him.
“I need to talk to you about something,” Charles said. “Actually, to both of you. I’ve been asked by the Council of Regents to be a mentor to both of you, since neither of you has one currently.”
It was true. Jared had been Nick’s mentor, and Patch hadn’t been assigned one yet.
“What about Jeremy?” Nick asked. “And aren’t you already Bradley Winston’s mentor?” Jeremy Hopkins had been Alejandro’s mentor, so it would have been logical to pair up Jeremy with Patch.
Charles laughed. “Bradley is doing just fine. And I’m not really sure Jeremy’s up to the challenge. He’s a little busy right now with some kind of art project that he’s doing with Anastasia.” He looked at Nick. “Your dad asked me personally that I be a mentor to the two of you.”
“Whatever,” Nick said, shrugging. “I guess it’s fine.”
“Why don’t you and Patch go get changed?” Charles asked. “The water feels great.”
Nick scowled. “Not tonight.” He laughed a little, mostly out of nervousness. “I don’t see how you can just relax after everything that’s happened,” he muttered.
“What do you mean?” Charles asked.
“Um, I don’t know,” Nick said. “Maybe that two people died last semester? Why does no one seem to care about that?”
“Nick, accidents happen. Everyone knows that. You can’t dwell on the past. Come on, have a drink, come and hang out with the other members. People are starting to think you’re a bit of a snob, the way you only talk to your friends.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Nick said. “We’re fine where we are. We’ll watch from the side.”
Nick knew he was supposed to pretend that nothing was wrong, but when someone like Charles came along and provoked him, he couldn’t stay silent. He wasn’t going to let on about his grandfather’s challenge and his offer to get him and his friends out of the Society—that would just be stupid. But he also figured that Charles and the others might be suspicious if he and Patch suddenly seemed like they were going along with everything, no questions asked.
“Suit yourself.” Charles shrugged and walked away.
As Nick looked at the other members, they disgusted him as they horsed around in the pool. Two of the guys, both slim and tan, tried to throw one of the girls in, the three of them fell in together, and then she retaliated by dunking their heads underwater. He heard snippets of conversation echoing around the room: I got my early acceptance a few days ago . . . Yale . . . Harvard . . . vacation in St. Barts . . . ski house in Aspen . . . I know! . . . Grab me another drink? . . . SAT scores? Well, I’m not going to worry about something that doesn’t even affect me!
Nick nudged Patch. “What do you think?”
His friend seemed chagrined. “I don’t know. Would I be wrong to say that it actually looks like fun? I know I’m not supposed to think that. But I can see how everyone’s gotten sucked into it. The perks aren’t bad. And the view—I think this might be the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen in Manhattan.”
“It’s true,” Nick said. “But we can’t let ourselves be so enchanted by it. I need to be more careful, though. I thought I was going to lose it in front of Charles.”
“He’s a snake,” Patch said. “He’s become, like, your father’s little errand boy.”
“Yeah, right—since I never exactly fulfilled that role, and my brothers are away at school.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up,” Patch said. “You’re doing what’s right. Charles will get what’s coming to him someday. What I want to know, though, is, do you think it was always like this? I mean, if our parents were—or, in your case, are—in it, I can’t believe that all the terrible stuff we saw on the island is what it’s always been about. Why would they ever join a group like that?”
Nick shook his head. “I’m not sure. Maybe there was some kind of golden age for the Society that we missed. My father said that the Power of Fourteen”—his voice lowered—“started in the 1960s. In this pool, actually. Which is totally wacked, I know. Someone drowned during a ritual and they all had to keep it quiet, since everyone felt like it was their fault.”
“Maybe it’s like with a lot of things,” Patch said. “It starts out good and then it turns evil. It gets corrupted when it doesn’t know what to do with its own power.”
Nick nodded. “But I think everyone here—or at least a lot of the people here—have no idea how bad it is. They think it’s a social organization, with all the charitable stuff and the parties and the donations made by the Bradford Trust Association. But that’s all a smoke screen.”
The Administrator approached Nick and Patch from across the room, and Nick knew they had to cease their conversation.
“Hello, Nicholas,” she said. Katherine Winthrop Stapleton, known to many members as the Administrator, was a longtime member of the Society and was in charge of keeping records. She was a
n older woman and didn’t tolerate any nonsense from the younger members. She also protected their parents, many of whom were Elders themselves, from having to discipline their own children about Society matters.
Nick nodded a wary hello.
“I’ve noted that everyone is present tonight except for Phoebe Dowling, Lauren Mortimer, and Thaddeus Johnson. Do you know their whereabouts?”
Nick shook his head. “I think some of them were sick.”
“It was made very clear early on that if someone is ill, they are to check in with me beforehand in order to get permission to miss the meeting.”
“I don’t know what happened, Miss Stapleton,” Nick said. “Maybe they were too sick to remember.”
She made a few notes on her pad and then retreated to the paneled anteroom. She pushed one of the panels, it opened, and she stepped inside, closing the panel behind her.
Charles appeared at Nick’s side. “Did she give you the inquisition about your missing friends?” he asked. “I told her I didn’t know anything.”
Nick nodded. It seemed so obvious that Charles was pretending he was on their side.
“You guys had better be careful,” Charles said. “You may think that because of your family and everything, you’re above all this. But you’re just the same as the rest of us.”
Claire Chilton, a member of their class, joined the boys after getting up from a chaise longue. That evening, Claire was one of the few who hadn’t gotten her hair wet at all. She was dressed in a white robe and sandals, like a Park Avenue matron at a spa retreat. “Hello, boys. Are we discussing the absence of your three friends?”
Nick ignored her, though he was unsure of whether he should respond to Charles’s earlier comment.
Thankfully, Patch saved him. “You know, we’d really better get going. School night, you know.”
A few of the Society members were looking at Nick and Patch strangely. Hunter Jones and Emily van Piper had stopped their conversation by the bar, and Jeremy Hopkins was looking at them from across the pool. Nick wondered if he was being paranoid.
“Same old, same old,” Patch muttered to Nick. “You get into a club, and you still feel like you don’t belong. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Ten
On Tuesday afternoon, Lauren ran into Claire Chilton in the ladies’ lounge at the Ralph Lauren store on Madison Avenue. The flagship store was housed in a Gilded Age mansion, and even its restrooms were gorgeous, with brass fixtures from England and lovely prints on the walls. Lauren had been shopping the post-holiday sales, which so far, had worked as a distraction.
Running into Claire had just ruined that for her.
“Funny seeing you here, Lauren,” Claire said. Lauren had forgotten how underneath her veneer of snobbery, Claire was, at heart, extremely awkward. What was funny about seeing her here? Not much.
Lauren gave Claire an icy stare before looking ahead at the mirrors. They weren’t at a Society event, and Lauren didn’t have to be nice to her. After all, Claire had never returned the favor.
“You were missed at the meeting last night,” Claire said as she washed her hands. “It was a lot of fun, hanging out at the pool. Strange how three people were all sick on the same night. None of you seemed sick at the memorial service for your boyfriend.”
Lauren shot her a look that said How dare you bring up Alejandro? but Claire continued.
“I overheard my mom talking and she said that in her day, they never had issues with things like attendance. People were so much more devoted to the cause.”
“The cause? What cause?” Lauren didn’t know what Claire was talking about.
“You know about the museum benefit, don’t you?” Claire started carefully drying her hands with a cloth towel she took from a basket.
Lauren shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“You’ll find out soon enough. I think you’ll realize that the group is about much more than parties. It’s about helping make the world a better place.”
Lauren nodded noncommittally and examined her lip gloss in the mirror, as Claire leaned forward to meet her eye.
“I know that you all skipped the meeting together—you, Phoebe, and Thad,” Claire said. “Everyone knows. It’s completely obvious. You’d better be careful.”
“What are you going to do, Claire?” Lauren said. “Tell on me to your mom? Ruin my chances to get into the Junior League? Maybe it’s a big surprise to you, but I really don’t care about any of it. For some of us, our world is bigger than all that.”
Claire looked shocked, then confused, before gaining her composure again. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said as she patted down her straight hair.
Lauren leaned against one of the sinks and looked at the large oak door to make sure no one had entered. “Claire, hasn’t it ever occurred to you that this group is about a lot more than philanthropy and social opportunities? Haven’t you considered that it’s a truly evil group that we’ve all been indoctrinated into, and that we won’t truly be free until we leave it?” Lauren took a breath. She knew she was getting into risky territory here.
“I think you’re crazy,” Claire said. “There’s nothing evil about the group. My parents have been members since they were teenagers themselves. They’ve never said anything bad about it. What happened last semester were tragedies, but we can’t let that bring the group down. Chin up, Lauren. It’ll get better.”
Claire clasped her purse closed and started to move toward the door before turning around.
“Look, Lauren, I like you.”
“Oh, I’m so glad,” Lauren said as she tried to control her sneer.
Claire ignored her tone. “I think you should know that you guys are all on secret probation. There was a word my mother used: Infidels. They’re calling the five of you ‘the Infidels.’ Anyway, I hope to see you at the next meeting.”
“I’d rather eat broken glass,” Lauren said. She had never gotten this angry at someone like Claire before, but somehow it was all bubbling to the surface now.
Claire smiled, as if she hadn’t even heard what Lauren had said. “There’s really no reason, Lauren, that you have to ruin everything for yourself.”
Chapter Eleven
The following morning, Phoebe woke up to a strange sound coming from above her. A rustling, then a squeaking.
She crawled out of bed and cautiously tiptoed in her bare feet up to the third floor of the town house. It was a floor she and her mother didn’t use much, except when Phoebe had been working on her art. Tatiana Lutyens-Hay, the sculptor friend they were house-sitting for, had a studio, and Phoebe had been storing some of her paintings and art supplies on the third floor.
When she reached the studio, Phoebe gasped, covering her mouth and stifling a scream.
The floor was covered in rats: huge, gray rats scurrying around the worktables and behind the file cabinets, crapping on the carpet and gnawing away at several of the canvases. Two of them ran between her legs, over her feet, and down the stairs.
“Mom!” Phoebe yelled, before remembering that her mother was staying with her boyfriend, Daniel, in Park Slope. Phoebe hadn’t minded her mother being away, until now.
She shut the door of the studio and ran downstairs to grab her phone. Who should she call first? Her mother? Nick?
Nick would be a better choice. Her mom probably wouldn’t believe her anyway.
She got him on the first try, grateful that he had set up a special ring for her on his phone.
“You what?” he said, still groggy. “Rats? Like real rats?”
Upstairs, the squeaking and scratching seemed to be getting louder.
“Yes!” she shouted. “Can you come over and help me? This is really freaking me out. I’ll call an exterminator.”
She grabbed her laptop, and after four tries, was able to get someone on the phone who could be there in half an hour. She put on shoes and waited in the kitchen.
Nick arrived twenty minutes later. He insis
ted on seeing the situation, though Phoebe didn’t want to go up there. Reluctantly, she followed him and peered through the cracked door. She could see why the rats were swarming. What looked like dog kibble had been dumped onto the floor, and the rats were gobbling it up. Someone must have snuck into the house the day before to dump the food and then released the rats early that morning. How could they have gotten in? Security at the town house wasn’t the best; there was a fire escape in the back, and Phoebe and Maia regularly left the windows unlocked. This had to be a major operation, though—there must have been at least fifty rats scurrying around the room.
Amidst the chaos, she could only imagine that the Society had done this to her. She felt like she was about to throw up as she thought of the implications of her suspicion.
“Did you get bitten?” Nick asked.
Phoebe grimaced. “I think I might have. I’m not really sure. Two of them ran over my feet.” She looked down. Inside the sneakers she had thrown on, her feet itched, though maybe it was only her anxiety causing this.
“We should get you to a doctor for some shots. After we get these little beasts out of here.”
The rats upstairs were too big to go under the door frame, but their squeaking seemed to carry through the entire house, a revolting, haunting echo.
“I don’t ever want to be barefoot again in this house,” Phoebe said. “This is so disgusting!”
The doorbell rang, and it was the exterminating team. They would be spreading traps and bait stations all over the town house, which would kill the rats, and then they would remove the bodies. The thought of it was vile.
It would also cost fifteen hundred dollars.
Nick handed over his credit card to one of the exterminators.
“You don’t have to do that,” Phoebe said. “My mom can cover it.”
“I feel like it’s my fault that it happened,” Nick said. “I shouldn’t have let you guys boycott the meeting.”