The Reckoning of Noah Shaw

by Michelle Hodkin

  If it weren’t for the professor, I think, I might’ve done it already. God knows there’s a ready supply of drugs, even (especially) at King’s.

  She was writing about suicide, of course. I swerve away from the rest of her words and the thought of her here and try to place myself back beside Ceridwen and Goose, who seems to be asking her for advice.

  “Don’t ride the Jesus horse,” is the sentence I catch.

  “Is . . . that a euphemism for something . . . ?” I ask.

  “No. The horse, at Jesus. Don’t ride it.”

  “Right,” I say, still out of it. “Forgot that one.” I gaze back up at King’s College Chapel, feeling as though I couldn’t be farther from Miami or New York, in every possible way. “It’s all very Christian, isn’t it. Seems rather exclusive, no?”

  “Don’t think they were big on inclusivity in the Middle Ages,” Ceridwen says. “The term that’s beginning this week is still called Michaelmas. The next one is Lent, then Easter.”

  “Christ.”

  “Also a college,” she adds with a grin. “Not to be confused with Corpus Christi. Which, again.”

  “Wait, is there a Jesus bar?” Goose asks.

  She laughs. “Not only is there a bar, but Jesus has a somewhat peculiar obsession with cock, as it happens. Cocks on the logo, bronze cocks—”

  “Like some bizarre compound of sexual innuendo and poultry,” I say.

  Goose turns to me. “I need to go here, absolutely.”

  “Despite the lack of nightlife?” she asks teasingly.

  “You lot make your own fun, I’m told. And luckily, we’re used to that, aren’t we?”

  Ceridwen flashes him a half smile. “You should come up next year,” she says to Goose. Then, to me, “You as well.”

  My eyes take in the stonework on the gate, the turrets and arcading on the college. Mara talked about going to uni, and I would have followed her anywhere. Can’t really imagine her here, though.

  But then, I couldn’t have imagined myself without her. Yet here I stand.

  “Hard to imagine a future in which I go here,” is all I say.

  “Then you’ve got a rather lacking imagination,” she says. Then, her tone shifting, “We might be different from most everyone else in some ways, but we don’t have to live like it. It doesn’t have to define you, unless you let it.”

  What would it feel like, to really believe that? “We really do appreciate everything.”

  She lifts her shoulders in a careless shrug. “We’re family, of a sort,” she says. “Got to look out for each other, haven’t we?”

  Two guys in red chinos approach us in the darkened street, and Ceridwen rolls her eyes. “Bloody hell,” she mumbles. Then, to us, “Right. You lot have fun. I’ll let the porters know to let you in, if you remember your names when it’s all done.” She flounces off, drawing the attention of the approaching chino-wearers, before they turn to us.

  They both look like they lost out at auditions for American Psycho: The Musical.

  “Alastair Greaves?” one of them asks.

  “Literally no one calls me that,” he says, extending a hand.

  “Noah Shaw?”

  “Present,” I say, as Goose stifles a laugh, but only just.

  They withdraw something from each of their pockets—kerchiefs, I suppose. “Turn around.”

  I look witheringly at Goose. “This is really how I’m going to spend my last night as myself?”

  “If you drink yourself into oblivion you won’t need any of our new friend’s help.” He grins.

  “You owe me,” I say to him as I turn away from the Tory Twins.

  “You’ll thank me later,” he insists as both of us are blindfolded.

  “Ecce ego mitto vos sicut oves in medio luporum!” they say loudly, in unison, before an unseen hand prods me forward.

  I’m jostled into Goose’s shoulder and hear him say, “Caught ‘wolves,’ ” before we’re told to shut up. We’re marched forward and, after several metres, downstairs.

  We’ve climbed down dozens of stone steps by the time Goose says, in a low voice, “I’ve just worked it out.” One of the Tories knocks in a peculiar way on what sounds like a wooden door.

  “Please, keep me in suspense,” I say, when I hear footsteps heading back up the stairs. I used to know perfect abbey Latin, once. Seems the eidetic memory bit’s been lost with my other abilities. Shame.

  “In medio. Among,” Goose says, as ancient iron hinges creak. “Behold, I send you out—”

  “As sheep among the wolves,” another voice answers—an incredibly familiar voice, and completely jarring, given where we are.

  The blindfold’s pulled from my eyes, and Jamie’s standing in front of us, holding the door open.

  39

  ALWAYS A RIDDLE

  AS I STARE, WORDLESS AND blinking, I wonder for a fraction of a second if Jamie and Isaac look and sound much more alike than I remembered, and if it’s the former who’s standing in front of me.

  But then Jamie does a little tap dance in the arched doorway, and then spreads out his arms. “Ta da!”

  “Brilliant,” Goose says, applauding. “Jamie Roth! Who’d have guessed?” He turns to me.

  Hearing Goose acknowledge him puts me back on somewhat solid ground. “Well done,” I agree, looking over Jamie’s shoulder at what appears to be a party going on behind him.

  “Thanks! Come on in,” Jamie says, sweeping his arm.

  “You were literally the last person I expected to see,” I say a bit dreamily as we walk over the threshold.

  “Literally?” He mocks my accent. “The last?”

  “We are still in Cambridge, yes?” I ask him as I touch one of the stone walls. If this is an illusion, it’s impressive. If Sophie and Leo show up, I suppose I’ll know once and for all if we’re fucked.

  “Usually people don’t start feeling up inanimate objects until they’ve had one of my cocktails, but go ahead. And yes, we’re still in Cambridge, Dorothy.” He takes something from a silver tray being passed by a waiter in a tuxedo. “This,” he says, holding up what appears to be a fig smothered in something, “is fucking delicious.”

  Goose bites his lip. “Want. Immediately.”

  “As you wish,” Jamie says, holding out his elbow to Goose.

  “What are you doing here, though?” I ask warily.

  “Brooklyn was boring without you,” he says. “So I texted your sister to find out where you were, and she said here. And then I thought, why limit myself in applying to American colleges only? Why not explore opportunities abroad.” He winks at Goose.

  My eyes narrow. “How’d you get Kate’s number?”

  He makes a cringe face, then explains to Goose, “We went out a while ago, for a very brief second. I’m a changed man.” Then, to me, “You really forgot?”

  I had, actually. It’s strange, seeing him here, and seeing him without Mara—the two of them have become paired, now, in my mind. I resist the urge to look for her, but only just.

  I skirt a curtain of dewdrop lights strewn from ceiling to floor. “How’d you get in?” I ask.

  “How’d you get in, asshole?”

  “We were invited,” I say evenly.

  “We thought we were being pranked by a mate,” Goose says, nicking a charged glass of champagne from a tray held by a passing waiter. I think I notice a shift in Jamie’s expression just before Goose downs the contents of his glass. “This is splendid,” Goose says.

  Jamie, back to his usual self, says to Goose, “Well, in a sense, that’s true. You were pranked by a mate, if you consider me a mate.”

  “So those Tory dicks—” Goose starts.

  “Just two dudes I paid with a pint. Easy prey,” Jamie says.

  “Worth it,” Goose agrees.

  “I’ve always considered myself to have a flair for the dramatic.”

  “One might think you actually go here, starting sentences with, ‘I’ve always considered myself,’ ” I sa
y, narrowly avoiding two women in high-necked dresses, their hair whipped up behind them.

  “When in Rome,” Jamie says, following my gaze. Then, “Is it just you guys?”

  “What, here?” Goose asks. Jamie nods. “Indeed it is,” Goose replies brightly.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “No reason,” Jamie says, shrugging. “Thought maybe you might’ve met up with old chums here in Merrie England.”

  I search Jamie’s face. “Old chums? No,” I say cautiously. “What about our old chums from Brooklyn?” When he doesn’t answer immediately, I specify, “Leo? Sophie?”

  Can’t ask about Mara or Daniel. Not yet. Shouldn’t ask at all, if I want to keep my dignity.

  Jamie shakes his head. “Haven’t heard a peep. And wouldn’t exactly call them chums.” He looks around us. “This place is wild, right?”

  It is, that. Everyone, Jamie included, is in formal dress—so good on Goose there, for that—and we seem to be underground, in an impressively large Gothic arcade. There are tables scattered about, set with china and navy linens, and every available sconce is lit with dripping candles, making the light flicker.

  I reflexively scan the crowd looking for the face I want but am terrified to see. “Are you alone?” I ask Jamie, ever so casually.

  “You mean, is Mara here?” Jamie arches an eyebrow.

  There it is.

  “She’s in her childhood bedroom, waiting by the phone for you to call as she listens to R.E.M. on repeat,” he says, and when he sees my expression he pats me on the shoulder. “Just kidding, she’s totally over you.”

  This isn’t what I expected when I allowed myself to be led here by Goose; it’s worse. Far, far worse.

  When I saw Jamie I considered, for the briefest of seconds, asking questions I now realise I’ve been desperate for answers to—where is she? What is she doing? Who’s she with? But I refuse to give Jamie the satisfaction. Shan’t.

  “Lovely,” is all I say.

  Jamie flashes a phony smile. “What are friends for?”

  “Is that what we are?” I ask him.

  Goose throws his arms around both of us. “Gentlemen, gentlemen. On a night such as this, how could any man bicker?”

  “I bring out the best in him,” Jamie says to Goose, who starts edging us toward one of the tables. With food, I notice.

  “So how did you find out about this?” I ask Jamie, still uncomfortable about all of it. The seeming randomness of it all. The invitations with our names on them, I could accept, especially if Jamie had them made—if he’d found out about the party, somehow, and Kate told him we’d be in Cambridge.

  But how did he know about it? I can’t hear his heartbeat or pulse, and so I can’t know for certain whether he’s lying. I wish for the first time that I could.

  Jamie picks at one of the pomegranate seeds spilling out from a platter laden with paper-thin sashimi. “I know a guy who knows a guy,” he says, pulling a plate nearer to us. “You gotta try the hamachi,” he says to Goose. “It’s marinated in yuzu.”

  “What’s the name?” I ask. “Of the guy you know?”

  “Is it so shocking that I’d have friends here?”

  Fuck it, I decide. Might as well come right out and ask. “Was it the professor?” I’m not sure if Jamie flinches or if the candles have just flickered.

  Goose shoots me an embarrassed look and mutters under his breath, “Mate, really?” Then, turning to Jamie, “Oh! Do you know Ceridwen?”

  Jamie looks momentarily flustered—I think?—but recovers quickly. “No,” he says, picking up another piece of sashimi. “Is she one of Noah’s exes?”

  “No, we just met her, and she’s got this friend—”

  “Goose,” I say, and shake my head once. Jamie looks back and forth between us.

  “What?” Jamie asks, picking another pomegranate seed from the platter, rolling it between his fingers.

  Goose rolls his eyes. “Forgive him. He’s having an off night. Feeling rather paranoid.”

  “You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you,” Jamie deadpans.

  I watch him, saying nothing. He seems off, somehow, and different, but Goose doesn’t pick up on it, and it’s fucking tiresome, not being believed.

  “Here,” Goose says, taking two glasses from the next passing tray. “This’ll help.” He offers the other to Jamie, who refuses.

  “Since when do you not drink?” I ask Jamie.

  “I’m not thirsty,” he says, shrugging. I put down my glass as well.

  “Come on,” Goose says to me, rather exasperated.” It’s medicinal.”

  I ignore him. “When did you get to England?” I ask Jamie. “What have you been doing here?”

  “A couple of days ago,” he says easily. “Sightseeing. You?”

  “Sightseeing where?”

  “Oxford first, but don’t tell anyone here,” Jamie whispers to Goose. “They call it the Other Place.”

  Goose smirks. “They do, that.”

  “Massive Tolkien fan, though. Couldn’t not check it out.”

  “So you came to visit colleges,” I say, affecting a bored tone. “And because Brooklyn was boring without us.”

  “I was being nice,” Jamie says maddeningly. “I really meant that it was boring without Goose but didn’t want you to feel excluded.”

  He’s firing back with all the right answers. But they don’t feel right.

  I finally realise why. “You just left Mara?”

  “No, you left Mara,” he fires back. “Or don’t you remember.”

  Of course I fucking remember. If only I could forget, because Jamie’s right and I hate that he’s right, and myself, of course, as always, which is possibly why I can’t stop myself from asking, “Where is she?”

  “You don’t have the right to ask me that,” he says.

  “You’re lying,” I say, to provoke him. “I don’t believe you just left her on her own.”

  He’s growing angry, now. “I didn’t. She’s not a kid. She’s not a thing. She wanted some time to herself and after what you did I don’t blame her.”

  “What I did? Do you know what she did?”

  A few heads turn in our direction at my raised voice. I notice and don’t give a shit. Jamie notices, and does. “Nothing to see here, folks,” he says to them, flashing a too-wide smile. “Keep drinking that champers.”

  “God, that’s what my mother calls it,” Goose says, disgusted. Jamie’s hovering between focusing on Goose and dealing with the problem of me. He decides on Goose.

  “I didn’t know any better,” Jamie says solemnly to him. “It’ll never happen again.”

  “See that it doesn’t,” Goose says.

  I’m of a mind to leave this rapidly congealing conversation; the part of me that has been hoping, naïvely, for a distraction, is dying an agonisingly slow death. But I’m not quite ready to trust whatever this is, yet, that Jamie’s pulling.

  Though maybe I can extract myself, somehow, and manage to watch him for a bit instead?

  I start backing away from both of them. “I think I’m done for the night, chaps,” I say. “Enjoy the party,” I add to Goose.

  Jamie leans his head back, looking up at the ceiling. “Fuck,” he mumbles. Then, “Goosey, can you give us a sec?” He tugs playfully on his lapel.

  “Of course,” Goose says. Then Jamie steers me away from the table, not meeting my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, okay? She’s my best friend, and it doesn’t feel right talking to you about her, now.” He glances over his shoulder—at Goose? Someone else?—before looking back at me. Or, more precisely, my feet.

  I can’t know for certain whether he’s lying. He might be, or I might be losing my mind—might’ve been losing it for a while now, and seeing him here’s shoving me off the edge.

  If I hadn’t spent the earlier part of the evening with someone as suspicious of the world as Isaac, would I be acting like this? Jamie’s the closest I’ve been to Mara since—

/>   Since.

  I’d whore myself for a cigarette right now, something to do with my hands, my mouth. I’m jumpy, anxious. Maybe I’ll start in on the champagne, after this.

  “Look,” Jamie says, voice low. “All I’ll say is this. She’ll always choose the people she cares about over the people she doesn’t, and she cares about you the most. She thought you knew her. She thought you got that.”

  “I do, but—”

  “There’s no ‘but.’ That’s how she is. It’s who she is.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” I say, and immediately regret it. The last thing I want or need is to be drawn into this conversation right now, about her, with him.

  Jamie’s shaking his head. “You don’t get to choose the version of her you want,” he says quietly. “As long as she loves you, she’ll choose you.”

  Kill for you, he means. Which I couldn’t—still can’t—accept.

  “Does she?” I ask miserably. I couldn’t despise myself more. “Still?”

  Jamie looks impossibly more uncomfortable, shifting his weight.

  Turns out I can.

  “Forget I asked,” I say, choking the rest of my questions about Mara down. I give Jamie a single nod. Then, trying to reclaim some pride, I apologise. “Sorry, for all that, before. It’s been . . . an odd night.”

  Jamie smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s cool.” His hands are in his pockets, and he’s facing away from me. He doesn’t ask about my night, which is un-Jamie-like. Or maybe it’s perfectly Jamie-like and I’m reading too much into it, or the wrong thing into it, or everything.

  I’m still trying to scrape away thoughts of Mara from my skull when Goose interrupts us breathlessly. “Guys, I just saw graffiti from 1731. One W. Kymer felt himself important enough to carve his name in stone. Do you know where we are? I think we’re under the chapel,” he answers himself. “There’s loads of people buried here. Like, where we’re walking.”

  “Actually, they’re buried below the chapel floors,” a familiar voice says from behind Goose. When he shifts, I see Victoria Gao standing beside him in a gown that looks like molten silver. “There was a project in the late eighteenth century to lower the steps leading to the sanctuary, but human remains were found inside intact lead coffins, which were disinterred. Noah,” she says to me, holding out her hand. “Lovely to see you again.”