I bit my lip. “What do you know about Scales and Fangs, Harper?”
He furrowed his brow. “Why?”
“Do you believe in... magic?”
“Seriously?”
This was ridiculous. I shut my eyes. “Never mind. You know what? You should probably go.”
“No way. I’m worried about you. What’s going on with you? I mean, first, there are all these rumors about you and Professor Alexander, and then he just disappears.”
“Disappears?”
“Yeah, he left town. And Professor Bancroft’s my faculty advisor for the play now.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Are the rumors true?”
I hung my head. “Oh, Harper.”
He let out a breath. “Whoa.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Were you with him the whole time?”
“We weren’t—It wasn’t exactly like that.” I twisted my fingers together. “I tried to stay away from him. He tried to stay away from me, but...” I shook my head. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. Because he’s working with them somehow. And they’re going to do something to me.”
“Who is?”
“Scales and Fangs.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I know. I sound crazy. Hell, maybe I am. Maybe I’m losing it. Maybe I imagined all of it.” I sat down on my bed. “Maybe it runs in the family.”
“What do you mean?”
He hadn’t run away yet. That was something, wasn’t it? “My mother came to Thornfield College twenty-one years ago. She was fine before she got here. But when she got home, she was completely out of her mind, and she was pregnant with me. No one knows what happened to her. The doctors say she was always schizophrenic.” I gripped the headboard of my bed. “So maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m finally losing it, just like she did. Or...” I looked at him. “Maybe they did something to her. Maybe they’re going to do it to me too.”
Harper didn’t speak. He looked at me, and I could tell that he was trying to get his thoughts together. Probably, he was thinking that I was a nutcase, and he was trying to figure out how he’d get away from me. “That true? About your mother?”
“Yes,” I said. “I never thought that anything bad happened to her here. I just figured that she was already crazy underneath everything and that stress or something brought it out of her. But you know what? She’s obsessed with snakes. She draws them all the time. All over the walls. My aunts used to try to wash them down, but not anymore. So they’re everywhere. She draws snakes everywhere.”
Harper sat down next to me. “Did she ever say anything about Scales and Fangs?”
I shook my head. “Most of what she says doesn’t make sense.” I rubbed my face. “She always writes, ‘Don’t scream, Angela’ all over too. I always thought she wrote it because it’s what my aunts would say to her. Sometimes she’d go through these fits where she’d just yell and yell. And Aunt Libby would come in and say, ‘Don’t scream, Angela.’”
“Your mom’s name is Angela?”
I guessed I’d left that part out. “Yeah. She’s afraid. She’s always afraid that people are coming to get her. She’s so paranoid.”
“You think Scales and Fangs did something to your mother twenty years ago,” he said. “You think that’s why she’s obsessed with snakes. And you think they’re the ones who told her not to scream.”
I nodded. “Yes.” He’d explained it so concisely. “Does that sound crazy?”
“A little bit.”
“Of course it does.” I started to get up.
“Wait.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me down next to him again. “It also sounds like maybe there’s something going on here. You’re obviously freaked out, and I’ve never known you to think anything crazy before. So, I think this is worth checking out.”
“You do?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
“But Harper, you don’t know how crazy this gets. They did something to me, and I can’t leave or even call my aunts or do anything without... this pain in my chest.” I gestured. “It takes over everything. It hurts.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Do you believe me about that?” I said. “Do you believe that they could do a spell or something? Some kind of magic to keep me here?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know about that. But I do think that if they hurt your mother, they’re capable of hurting you. So... we just need to find out more information.”
“About a secret society.”
“Well, I guess that is going to make it tough, isn’t it?” He cracked a smile.
I smiled carefully. “Are you humoring me? Do you really think I’m crazy?”
“I don’t...” He got up off the bed. He walked over to my window. “I like you.”
“Harper—”
“Oh, no trust me, I got the Carter memo. I know you don’t like me back.”
“I do like you, I just don’t—”
“Maybe it means I’m a little bit...” He looked at me. “I’m on your side. That’s all that matters, okay? I want to look out for you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Does that make sense?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good.” He crossed the room and bent to kiss me on the forehead. “They have old college newspapers in the library. We can go and look at them tomorrow. See if there’s anything in there about your mother.”
I looked up at him. “Thank you, Harper.”
He shrugged. “Not a big deal.”
* * *
The librarian had been giving us funny looks the whole time we’d been in the library. It was starting to freak me out to the point where I was considering asking Harper if he’d noticed it too. Maybe she was some kind of Scales and Fangs spy trying to keep me from trying to get away again.
Not that there was much chance of that. If I tried to leave, they hurt me. It was that simple.
“Here’s the next one,” said Harper. He gestured to the microfiche in front of us.
I scanned the article. “Another recital, huh?” I hadn’t even known that my mother was a singer, but she’d been pretty active in the music department at Thornfield during her time here. “Does it say anything different than the other articles?”
“Nope. Stunning voice. Beautiful presence. Yadda yadda.”
I sighed. “This isn’t getting us anywhere, Harper. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like knowing more about my mom. But it’s not helping us find out if she was actually hurt by Scales and Fangs or not.”
“Well,” said Harper, “that’s probably not going to be in the school newspaper.”
“So, why are we looking here?”
“I don’t know. It was a place to start.” He sighed. “Look, there’s only one more article that mentions her. You want me to pull that up?”
“Why not?” I shrugged. “Look, I’m sorry if I sound ungrateful. I really appreciate what you’re doing for me.”
“I wish I could do more.” He flipped through the microfiche.
“What’s this one?” I said.
“Um, it’s an article about secret societies,” he said.
I sat forward. “What?” The headline read, “Secret Societies a Campus Menace?” I began to scan the words. It was a piece about what students thought about the existence of Scales and Fangs. My mother had been quoted as saying that she thought Scales and Fangs was a unique aspect to Thornfield, and that it only brought more prestige to the college. I pointed it out to Harper. “That sure makes it sound like she was a member, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Well, it proves she didn’t hate Scales and Fangs at one point, anyway.”
I bit my lip. “Actually, she couldn’t have been a member. You have to be twenty-one to get in, and my mother left Thornfield when she was nineteen.”
“That rule about being twenty-one is recent,” said Harper. “Last five years or so. I think they use alcohol in their initiation ceremony or something, and they were worried about the
bad press.”
“So, she could have been a member?”
He shrugged. “Could be, I guess.”
I chewed on my lip. “Can we get a copy of this article?”
“Sure,” he said. “They have microform printers over there, but they only accept cards, not coins. You got money on your Thorncard?”
Thorncards were our ID cards. We could put money on them as well and use them like credit cards all over campus. I pulled mine out of my pocket. “I don’t think so. Do you?”
He shook his head. “I bought scantrons with mine yesterday. But I can put more money on—”
“No, don’t be silly,” I said. “I’ll do it.” I got up. “Be right back.”
There was a machine by the librarian’s desk that could put money on the Thorncards, kind of like a reverse ATM. I dug out a few dollar bills and slid them into the machine. It told me to insert my card. I did.
“You’re Angela’s daughter, aren’t you?”
I whirled.
The librarian was close. She glanced around the library, as if worried that someone was watching us.
“You knew my mother?”
The librarian nodded. “I went to school here back then. I remember her. You look just like her. I overheard what you and that boy were talking about. Scales and Fangs?”
I nodded.
She lowered her voice. “I think they had something to do with her accident.”
“Accident?”
She looked around again. She moved closer to me. Her voice was barely a whisper. “They found her out in the woods. She was curled up, naked, and terrified. Something happened to her. She was never the same after that.”
“What happened to her?”
“No one knows. She couldn’t talk about it. Too upset. But it was right around the time of year when Scales and Fangs does their initiation. And everyone knows they do it out in those woods.”
“So you think they hurt her.”
“I don’t know what I think,” said the librarian, casting another wary look around. “But I do know that she isn’t the first girl to be found like that. There was another girl, probably fifty years ago. She didn’t go to the school, but they found her out in the woods. Look it up. You’ll see. Scales and Fangs, I wouldn’t put it past them to be doing something satanic. Your mother and that other girl, they got away, but I bet anything that they’re the exception. That secret society is probably sacrificing virgins underneath the full moon. Who knows how many they’ve killed.”
I gulped.
“You be careful, girl. You look just like her.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You said she sounded a little crazy,” said Harper, opening the pizza box he’d just brought upstairs.
I was hunched over his laptop, sitting on the extra bed in his dorm. “I sound crazy too, though. I have to check this out.”
“You want pepperoni or mushroom?”
“Mushroom.” I scrolled through the search results on the internet. “I think she’s right.”
“About sacrificing virgins?”
“Well, I don’t know about that part, but I think she’s right about there being other girls.”
“Really?” He handed me a paper plate with a piece of pizza on it and peered at the computer screen.
“Yup. See, here’s the girl she was talking about from fifty years ago.” I pointed at the article. “It says she was found running naked through the woods, all scratched up and terrified, and that she was too freaked out to speak.” I took a bite of pizza. “And then, open the other tab.”
“Hold on,” said Harper. He was still scrolling through the first story. “What do you think happened to this chick?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They couldn’t even figure out her name. They probably sent her to an insane asylum or something. I mean, this was fifty years ago. What else could they have done?”
He clicked over to the next tab. It was an even older news story. This one was simply a scan from the original paper. “Jesus! How long ago was this?”
“Almost ninety years ago,” I said. “It’s another girl, found in the woods.”
“Yeah, I see that.” He got himself a piece of pepperoni pizza and chewed thoughtfully. “And you think they’re connected.”
“They’re all the same,” I said. “Naked girls being found in the woods. What are the odds?”
“Well, it is a college town,” he said.
“Harper, come on.”
He ate another bite of pizza. “I’m only saying that there could be some reason that girls are out in woods without clothes besides satanic rituals.”
“I’m not saying they’re satanic,” I said. “Near as I can tell, Scales and Fangs worships some kind of snake deity. They addressed some of their chants to it.”
His eyes got wide. “You’re admitting they tapped you.”
“I thought that was a given.”
“You kept denying it.”
“Because it’s a secret,” I said. “But if they’re trying to hurt me, all bets are off. I don’t care who knows about them.”
“Right,” he said. He set down his piece of pizza. “Man, all this time, I’ve wanted to be tapped by Scales and Fangs, and now you’re telling me that they’re crazy and creepy and stuff.”
“Sorry,” I said.
He picked the pizza up. “Wait a second. I don’t know if I buy this.”
“You don’t?”
“Why would they do this?” he said. “They’re a campus society. I mean, they throw parties, and they network, but they don’t do weird... sacrifices and stuff.”
“How do you know?” I said. “What they do is secret.”
“But why would they need to do that to girls?”
“Maybe it’s the way they get their power,” I said. “Maybe they have to do something to a girl to appease their deity or whatever, and then all of the members get continued success and wealth and everything else.”
“I don’t know.”
I stuffed a piece of crust into my mouth. Maybe it was farfetched.
“If it’s something they plan out, why is it so erratic? Your mother was twenty years ago, right? And then the other girl is thirty years before her. And the other one is forty whole years before her. There’s no pattern.”
“That’s true,” I said. I shrugged. “It was just a theory.”
“You want another piece of pizza?”
“Sure.”
He handed me one. “I think maybe that lady in the library got you worked up over nothing, Teagan.”
“No, she knew something,” I said. “Something bad has been happening to girls here.”
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” said Harper. “It’s only three girls. We know that your mother is schizophrenic, right?”
I sighed, starting to feel defeated. “Yeah.”
“Well, is it so farfetched to think that two other girls were raped in the woods or something in the past ninety years? I know it’s horrible, but it’s college. A bunch of young, drunk people all in one tiny space. It could happen.”
He was right. I munched on my pizza. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Honestly, I kind of hope I am. Because I don’t want you to be in danger.”
“That’s the thing, Harper, I am. Even if they haven’t been hurting girls for ninety years. They’re doing something to me. I don’t know what it is.” I peered down at the old, scanned-in news story, reading through it thoroughly.
This time something stuck out at me. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“The girl ninety years ago? She had a name. Miriam Moss.”
“She had the same last name as you?”
I got up. “My aunts always said that the Evil Ones stole our power, and that we were in danger. They didn’t want me to leave the house because they thought it protected us.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think I’m related to Miriam Moss,” I said. “She probably was my great grandmothe
r or great great aunt or something. I think that Scales and Fangs takes girls that are from my family. They’re targeting me specifically.”
“Teagan...”
“No, think about it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. My aunts were always going on and on about how the Evil Ones wanted to steal my light. Scales and Fangs fixed it so that I would win the Cross Scholarship. And it was weird for me to win, wasn’t it? Reba said that they usually pick people who’ve been in the department, right?”
“Well, that’s true, but they’ve picked incoming freshman before.”
“Really? How often do they do that?”
“It’s rare, but it doesn’t mean—”
“I think it does,” I said. “I think they got me here, and they’re keeping me here. And they want to keep me away from Carter for some reason. Why don’t they want me near Carter?” I shook my head.
“Look, Teagan, you’re upset. Maybe you should get some rest.”
I pointed at him. “We have to get inside Scales and Fangs inner sanctum. I’ve been there. I know how to get inside. Will you come with me?”
“Oh no,” he said. “That is a spectacularly bad idea. Everything you’re saying, it sounds... kind of...”
“I thought you were on my side.”
“I am,” he said. “And if you go messing around with Scales and Fangs, you’ll blow your chances of getting into the secret society, and it’s a really awesome networking opportunity.”
“Are you even listening to me? They’re planning to hurt me. I don’t care about Scales and Fangs.”
He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Teagan. I just think it’s a bad idea.”
I sighed. “Fine.”
* * *
A pounding on my door. “Teagan?”
I sat up in bed, pulling my covers tight. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Harper. Let me in.”
I switched on the light and went to the door. “What?”
He pushed his way inside. “I changed my mind. Let’s do it.”
“What?”
“Let’s break into the inner sanctum, like you were saying.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Why’d you change your mind?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I guess I just started thinking about all the stuff you were saying. And it is weird. And I am on your side. So, I don’t want to let you down. If you think we can find out more information on the inner sanctum, then I’m in.”
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