Sometimes, when she thought about this, she felt guilt uncurl inside her like an insect uncoiling to reveal its horrendous inner parts. She wondered if she was becoming an addict, or if she had finally gone crazy. She knew she should call her psychiatrist and let her know what she was doing, if only to find out if it was possible to sicken from abusing her medication the way she was, but then she worried that her pills might be taken from her and, as a result, did not make the call. Mostly, she tried not to think about it.
Even so, her dreams had been strange and disjointed, as surreal as what she imagined an acid trip might be like. She had been having a lot of strange dreams like that lately. The last one, for example. One moment, she had been drowning in a black sea, each breath knifing pain through her lungs, and then in the next, a dark prince was kissing her back to life, as if she were sleeping beauty—only to kill her again with a blade of ice and starlight.
She took in the room dazedly, feeling a bit as if she were in another dream.
Mary was sitting at her desk, working on her Stats homework. Val could hear the punch-punchpunch of the graphing calculator's buttons, followed by the scratch of pencil on paper.
She considered feigning sleep a little while longer. Mary would have questions that she would insist be answered. A few more minutes of avoidance could be a blessing. On the other hand, her spine was stiff and she felt as groggy as if her brain had been packed in cotton. If she lay in bed for much longer she would just end up falling asleep again.
Also she was relieved that she hadn't had to wake up alone. Often when she woke up, her roommate was already gone and that made her feel even lonelier than she already did. Maybe she needed somebody to confide in, if only so the burden wouldn't be on her shoulders.
Val stretched, and something slid off her bed to brush lightly against the floor. She paused, frowning, and leaned over to peer beneath her bed to see what had fallen. Some sort of plant. She had never seen its like before, but it looked kind of like carrot leaves.
“Hey, you're awake. Good. There was something I wanted to—” Mary trailed off into a startled yelp. “Oh. My. God. Val, what the heck are you doing? Is that hemlock? What are you doing with hemlock?”
Val dropped the plant in her hands as if it were on fire or had sprouted thorns. “Hemlock?” Mary went into the bathroom to get a wad of paper towels. She carefully picked up the plant—the hemlock—from the floor.
“That's hemlock?” Val yelped. Mary crushed the leaves a little and a foul odor asserted itself, making Val wince. “Hemlock,” she confirmed. “My parents had some in our garden. By accident. It killed our neighbor's dog. So I'll ask you again, what the heck are you doing with hemlock?”
“H-how do you know it's hemlock?” Mary shook her head in disgust. “See the white flowers? Also, the stalk—it's not fuzzy. Parsnips and parsley and carrots—the lookalikes—have, like, these little fuzzy bits on the stalks. But mainly it's the smell that's a dead giveaway. And the color.”
The stem was an angry purple with streaks of red that reminded Val of infection. “You weren't going to eat it, were you?” “What? No!”
“This couldn't have come from around here. There are laws about this sort of thing. The university would be real careful not to have any of this stuff growing were students or animals or kids could get at it. This had to have come from the woods.”
She turned suspicious eyes on Val. “I wasn't going to eat it. I'm not suicidal just because I'm depressed.”
“Right. Okay. Sorry.”
Mary put the hemlock in a ziplock bag, towels and all, and sealed it tight. She went into the bathroom. Water gushed from the sink as she washed the traces of the plant from her hands.
Val stared at the plastic baggie of hemlock and wondered if she was feeling the effects of its poison. Gavin had access to plants.
He knew a lot about them.
He knew about their uses, their properties, their meanings. But what was he trying to say here?
Hemlock, for hatred?
Knowing him, it wasn't that simple.
Val washed her own hands and nearly ran into
Mary, who had positioned herself outside the bathroom door. “If you weren't going to eat it, what were you going to do with it?”
“Nothing.” Val spoke through clenched teeth. “It was there when I…woke up…” The dream—the kiss. “Shit.” That had been no prince kissing her. He was here. He was here, watching me sleep.
And then he'd tried to poison her.
“Someone is trying to kill me.”
Mary shook her head and picked up the phone. She disappeared with it into the bathroom. Val heard her voice, a low, urgent murmur, issue from the door.
Calling the men in the white coats. No. She was being paranoid. Mary wouldn't do that—would she?
I don't know. You already know that she thinks you're crazy.
But Mary was also nice to her. Respectful. Tiptoeing around the patient.
Val went to her computer to research hemlock. She quickly learned that it was very, very poisonous. Even a trace amount was enough to kill someone. She read a story about campers who, attracted by the straw-like shape of water hemlock, used them in their drinks. They all died from the effects of the poison.
Hemlock paralyzed the respiratory muscles and essentially caused suffocation. It was a member of the deadly nightshade family. An entire branch of the stuff was a death sentence. If she had ingested part of the plant in sleep, or even touched her lips or mouth with her contaminated hands, she wouldn't have woken to see the light of day ever again.
What had been going through his mind as he twisted her fingers through the leaves of the plant? What about when he had kissed her?
If he had kissed her.
Reality was blurring.
Or maybe she was going crazy after all.
Mary came out of the bathroom and set her phone on her desk. Val watched her grab a pile of clothes from the floor and cram them into one of her open drawers, pushing down, hard, until it could close.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning.”
Val frowned. “Why?”
“I called Student Services and told them we needed the locks changed.”
“Is that who you were calling?” “Who did you think?” Mary said lightly, redoubling Val's doubts.
“And they're doing a room inspection? What did they say?”
“After they finished chewing me out for being irresponsible, you mean? They're sending someone over at four.”
Both girls turned to look at the clock—it was two. Thinking of Gavin, Val said, “That's not soon enough.” He must have gotten a copy made of her key. If he had a mind to, he could easily pay them both another visit. Neither she nor Mary was capable of overpowering him.
“Yeah, well, it's better than nothing.”
That was true. But then, almost anything was. “This is really freaking me out.”
Val opened her mouth to—what, provide comfort? She wouldn't be doing Mary any favors. Fear wasn't pleasant but that was why it saved lives.
Aversive stimuli.
Paranoia.
She wondered if Mary really had been calling Student Services, or if she had called her in as some sort of psychiatric emergency instead. “Help, my roommate has gone crazy—send backup.”
“I don't want to die,” Mary was now saying. Did anyone?
Yes. Some people do.
I do. Sometimes.
Fleetingly.
But the human body was a determined engine; even when things were at their bleakest, it clung desperately to survival, switching to reserves hidden so deep that even scientists hadn't found them all.
“I'm sorry,” Val whispered. “This wasn't what I signed up for.” Mary sounded like she was going to cry. “This isn't how I pictured my freshman year. God, Val, why didn't you say something sooner? Why didn't you tell me?”
Why don't I come with a warning label, you mean? “Because I'm trying to forget
,” Val said, harshly. “At least tell me what he looks like.”
“Who?”
“Him.”
Val rolled over to face the wall. “I don't want to talk about him.” “It's not like I'm asking you to dish. I don't want to know your life's story. I don't want to know how you two met. I just want to know what he looks like in case—in case I ever run into him.”
She did sound fearful. But Val had long ago ceased to believe that anyone was completely innocent. There was always some darker motive at play. Even with those who were close to you.
Especially those who are close to you.
Blake, Lisa, James—they'd all had secrets. Secrets that had driven a wedge between the four of them and had, ultimately, led to their destruction. It was the people closest to you who knew how to hurt you best. “He has black hair. Pale skin. Gray eyes. He's very…tall. Striking—his coloring, I mean.” Not just his coloring. “You would know him straightaway. There's like this energy that surrounds him.”
Animal magnetism.
Mary went still. “I think I have seen him.”
Val looked over at her so quickly that she heard something snap. “What? You have? When?” “A while ago—he wanted to know where Vance lived. He said he'd been bothering you. Vance, that is. That he was a friend looking out for you.”
“I haven't seen or talked to Vance since the party. Did you give him the address? You didn't—did you?” “I think I did. Oh my God, what have I done?” Val shook her head. So much for Vance.
Mary chewed on her lip. “You know—I think I might have seen him in the hall. Earlier today. Yeah. Now that I think about it, it was him.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No.”
Then he might not kill her.
None of this was making any sense. Vance wasn't the rook. He couldn't be the rook. She would have staked her life that it was Mary.
But it looked like GM planned to kill Vance first.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪ Val paid a drop-in visit to the school psychologist, who doubled as an adjunct professor (her patients were not allowed to take her courses). Val revealed as much of her story as she dared. The psychologist nodded complacently throughout the duration of the hour-long session, withholding judgment.
This actually might be helping. And then, afterward, the psychologist gave Val a deferral to a psychiatrist, which Val tore up and threw away into the wastebasket on her way out. She didn't want to be foisted upon someone else, like garbage.
The upside—if there was an upside to this wretched situation—was that she wouldn't have to attend class for a couple days. Psychological evaluations were apparently academic “get out of jail free” cards.
Val emailed her professors explaining her position very briefly. Most didn't ask for additional details. The school was in an uproar over the murders of its students. The staff had about as many details as they could stand to deal with at the moment.
By the time Val arrived back at the dorms it was five past four. Mary had already gone to class. There was no sign of the locksmith.
Val dropped her purse on the bed and changed her shirt. She had gotten all sweaty from her dash back home. It wasn't hot, but it was humid. The cool clean cotton against her clammy skin felt good and uplifted her mood. When the locksmith did arrive, half an hour late, she was even remotely polite.
He was young, in his mid-twenties probably, with a goatee that did not suit his face and a pair of overalls emblazoned with the name of the company. On his shoulder he carried a canvas bag of tools and, if the scowl on his face was any indication, a grudge.
“You the ones that need new locks?” Val nodded slowly and opened the door wider to let him in. “Somebody stole my key at a party,” she explained as he squatted down in front of the door. “We think the dorm might have been robbed too.”
This was the story Mary had told Student Services on the phone. Val thought this was a good idea. The threat of theft and the possibility of liability would hasten them to get the job done faster—and that was a very good thing. Just thinking about the hemlock gave Val the chills. He might have killed me.
“Careless,” the man muttered. Since he was squinting at the doorknob Val couldn't tell whether he was talking about her or the lock, but it certainly jarred with her current train of thought.
“Hmm?” “This won't take long I don't think.” He stroked the goatee in thought. “Why don't you take a hike for about an hour or so? I should be done by then.”
“You're telling me to leave my own dorm?” That wasn't sketchy at all.
He shrugged. “Tools are loud. Bothers some people. You'll only be in the way.” Oh well. Not like she had anything worth stealing anyway. “I'll have my cell phone. Call me when you're done, I guess.”
She received a noncommittal grunt in response.
▪▫▪▫▪▫▪ There weren't many opportunities for recreation on campus, but she did buy an iced tea from the SU's cafe, sipping it slowly to make it last until the locksmith called. But the SU closed its door at five, and an apologetic janitor ushered her out the door, which slammed closed and locked behind her.
It wasn't too cloudy for once, but this made the air crisper and colder, with a snap to it like a chilled apple. The shadows had grown longer, stretched and contorted, and the sky was rich with a glowing yellow that turned the leaves of the trees overhead to blazing gold. Val immediately checked her cell phone.
No new messages.
How long does it take to install new locks?
Her steps carried her to the doors of the library. It was a beautiful building, even more in the sunset. The large glass windows reflected the dying light and the salmon and sherbert colored clouds. Shaded by sweeping willows, with a fountain bubbling merrily behind a stone cobbled barrier that separated its rose garden from the walkway, it gave off an aura of peace.
Val sat at the fountain's edge, still clutching her plastic cup of tea. She stared into the rippling water. Behind her reflection, the bottom was covered with coins. Pennies, mostly, with the occasional bit of silver winking through. There were foreign coins as well, and what looked like an arcade token. They gleamed brightly, too brightly, and when Val finally looked away she saw the purple coronas of their afterimages cavorting across her retinas.
A loud crinkling sound made her jump, and she realized that she had just squeezed her cup hard enough to crack the plastic. Val tossed it into one of the recycling bins nearby, her eyes on the cluster of willows where she was certain she had seen a flash.
She hitched her purse a little higher. “Is someone there?” she asked.
Yes. There—in the shadows. Something moved.
“Hello?”
The wind rustled through the leaves with a hiss.
Probably a branch, she thought. Or an animal. What if somebody comes by and sees you talking to yourself? She didn't know anyone who would care. Val turned her back on the trees and went inside the library. Evenings weren't very busy as a general rule and today was no exception. There was one large group circled around a computer, friends or class partners, she couldn't tell, and a couple of stragglers, some of whom were looking at the loud, cheerful members of the former with ill-concealed annoyance.
They look like they're posing for a textbook picture . Val could understand their disgust; nothing was more galling when you were upset than seeing people wallowing in their own happiness. It was as if they were shoving their joy aggressively into your face, rubbing your nose in it, mocking your dearth.
The reading area was completely empty. The mint green couches looked warm and inviting and there were entire lazy-Susan racks crammed with trade paperbacks. When was the last time she had settled down to read a book? Val picked up a title by an author she had used to like and settled down to read. As soon as she did, her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Probably the locksmith. About time, the jerk. She pulled out her phone, frowned. Not the locksmith after all. Mary. Why was Mary calling her?
“Hey, what's up? Are you all right?”
“As rain.”
Her stomach lurched at the sound of the voice. “I hope you don't mind me answering on behalf
of your friend. She's a little tied up right now.” “Where is she?”
“She's fine for now.”
“Where—?”
“Whether she remains that way, however, all depends on you.” “Don't touch her.”
“Val…”
“I mean it. If you hurt her I'll—”
“I understand that this must be very difficult for you and all, but the library is not the place to make a scene, Val.”
He knows where I am. He was watching her, rejoicing in her fear and discomfort. Just like Gavin. She felt the plastic casing strain beneath her fingers. “Where are you?”
“I hear voices in the background. Is there anyone around you?” If he had to ask, he couldn't be watching her very closely.
Unless it was a test.
She was tempted to lie, just to see, but in a test of this nature wrong answers could be fatal. “No,” she said at last.
“But you aren't completely alone, either.” “No.”
“Are you being watched?”
No, nobody seemed to be paying any attention to her at all. But then, nobody ever did. Not when she wanted them too—only when she didn't. “No.”
“Good. Move somewhere quieter but don't be conspicuous. Use the back doors if you have to. They aren't alarmed, are they?”
He didn't know?
“Go that way, then.”
Val picked up her purse and headed for the rear exit. The door led into a small rear courtyard rather like the one in front, except instead of willows there were moss-covered oak trees and instead of roses, there were trellises of a dark wood colored in garlands of wisteria.
The library courtyard was used for poetry slams, or on occasion plays by the drama club, but it was too cold for that now and the square was empty. Val sat at one of the vacant picnic tables, sweeping the dead leaves from the surface.
“I'm alone.”
“Now here is where you need to listen very, very carefully. Are you listening?”
Resentment flared. “Yes. I'm listening.” “Later this evening I'm going to call you with a time and a place.” He waited, as if anticipating another outburst. Val said nothing. After a beat, he continued, “Take the bus or take a cab, I really don't care, but make sure you come alone. If you don't show up, or if you bring a friend along for the ride, it'll be Mary who suffers not you. But I'll make sure that you'll get the chance to watch. Maybe you'd like that?”
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