Sublime Author:Christina Lauren

Chapter 1 HER

THE GIRL IS BENT INTO ODD ANGLES WHEN she wakes. It doesn’t seem possible that she could have been sleeping here, alone on a dirt path, surrounded by leaves and grass and clouds. She feels like she might have fallen from the sky.

She sits up, dusty and disoriented. Behind her, a narrow trail turns and disappears, crowded with trees flaming garishly with fall colors. In front of her is a lake. It is calm and blue, its surface rippling only at the edges where shallow water meets rock. On instinct, she crawls to it and peers in, feeling a tug of instinctive pity for the confused girl staring back at her.

Only when she stands does she see the hulking buildings looming at the perimeter of the park. Made of gray stone, they stand tall over the tips of fiery red trees, staring down at where she’s landed. The buildings strike her as both welcoming and threatening, as if she’s at that in-between stage of awake and asleep when it’s possible for dreams and reality to coexist.

Instead of being afraid, she feels a surge of excitement tear through her. Excitement, like the sound of a gunshot to a sprinter.

Go.

She slips down the trail and across the dirt road to where the sidewalk abruptly begins. She doesn’t remember putting on the silk dress she’s wearing, printed with a delicate floral calico and falling in wispy folds to her knees. She stares at her unfamiliar feet, wrapped in stiff new sandals. Although she isn’t cold, uniformed students walk past, wrapped in thick wool, navy and gray. Personality lies in the small additions: boots, earrings, the flash of a red scarf. But few bother to notice the wisp of a girl shuffling and hunched over, fighting against the weight of the wind.

The smell of damp earth is familiar, as is the way the stone buildings capture the echoes of the quad and hold them tight, making time slow down and conversations last longer. From the way the wind whips all around her, and from her precious new memory of the trees in the woods, she also knows that it’s autumn.

But nothing looks like it did yesterday. And yesterday, it was spring.

An archway looms ahead, adorned with tarnished green-blue copper letters that seem to be written from the same ink as the sky.

SAINT OSANNA’S PREPARATORY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS AND BOYS

GRADES K–12

EST. 1814 Beneath it, a broad iron sign lurches in the wind: And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. Mark 9:42

The campus is larger than she expects, but somehow she knows where to look—right, not left—to find the grouping of smaller brick buildings and, in the distance, a wood cabin. She moves forward with a different kind of excitement now, like walking into a warm house knowing what’s for dinner. The familiar kind. Except she has no idea where she is.

Or who.

Of the four main buildings, she chooses the one on the left, bordering the wilderness. The steps are crowded with students, but even so, no one helps her with the door, which seems intent on pushing her back outside with its own weight. The handle is leaden and dull in her grip, and beside it, her skin seems to shimmer.

“Close the door,” someone calls. “It’s freezing!”

The girl ducks into the entryway, breaking her attention from her own stardust skin. The air inside is warm and carries the familiar smell of bacon and coffee beans. She hovers near the door, but nobody looks up. It’s as if she is any other student walking into a crowd; life keeps moving in the roaring dining hall, and in a blurred frenzy, she stands perfectly still. She’s not invisible—she can see her reflection in the window to her right—but she might as well be.

Finally, she makes her way through a maze of tables and chairs to an old woman with a clipboard who stands at the doorway to the kitchen. She’s ticking items off a list, her pen pressing and flicking in perfect, practiced check marks. Each new mark is identical to the others. A single question perches on the girl’s tongue and sticks there, unmoving, while she waits for the old woman to notice her.

The girl is afraid to speak. She doesn’t even know herself, let alone how to ask the one question she needs answered. Glancing down, she sees that her skin glows faintly under the honeyed light fixture, and for the first time it occurs to her to worry that she doesn’t look entirely . . . normal. What if she opens her mouth and dissolves into a flock of ravens? What if she’s lost her words along with her past?

Get it together.

“Excuse me,” she says once and then louder.

The woman looks up, clearly surprised to find a stranger standing so close. She seems a mixture of confused and, eventually, uneasy as she takes in the dusty dress, the hair tangled with leaves. Her eyes scan the girl’s face, searching as if a name perches near the back of her mind. “Are you . . . ? Can I help you?”

The girl wants to ask, Do you know me? Instead, she says, “What day is it?”

The woman’s eyebrows move closer together as she looks the girl over. It wasn’t the right question somehow, but she answers anyway: “It’s Tuesday.”

“But which Tuesday?”

Pointing to a calendar behind her, the woman says, “Tuesday, October fourth.”

Only now does the girl realize that knowing the date doesn’t help much, because although those numbers feel unfamiliar and wrong, she doesn’t know what year it should be. The girl steps back, mumbling her thanks, and reclaims her place against the wall. She feels glued to this building, as if it’s where she’ll be found.

“It’s you,” someone will say. “You’re back. You’re back.”

But no one says that. The dining hall clears out over the next hour until only a group of giggling teenage girls remains seated at a round table in the corner. Now the girl is positive something is wrong: Not once do they look her way. Even in her moth-eaten memories she knows how quickly teenage eyes seek out anyone different.

From the kitchen, a boy emerges, pulling a red apron over his neck and tying it as he walks. Wild, dark curls fall into his eyes, and he flips them away with an unconscious shake of his head.

In that moment, her silent heart twists beneath the empty walls of her chest. And she realizes, in the absence of hunger or thirst, discomfort or cold, this is the first physical sensation she’s had since waking under a sky full of falling leaves.

Her eyes move over every part of him, her lungs greedy for breath she doesn’t remember needing before now. He’s tall and lanky, managing somehow to look broad. His teeth are white but the slightest bit crooked. A small silver ring curves around the center of his full bottom lip, and her fingers burn with the need to reach out and touch it. His nose has been broken at least once. But he’s perfect. And something about the light in his eyes when he looks up makes her ache to share herself with him. But share what? Her mind? Her body? How can she share things she doesn’t know?

When he approaches the other table, the schoolgirls stop talking and watch him, eyes full of anticipation, perky smiles in place.

“Hey.” He greets them with a wave. “Grabbing a late breakfast?” A blond girl with a strip of garish pink in her hair leans forward and slowly tugs his apron string loose. “Just came by to have something sweet.”

The boy grins, but it’s a patient grin—flexed jaw, smile climbing only partway up his face—and he steps out of her grip, motioning to the buffet against the far wall. “Go grab whatever you want. I need to start clearing it out soon.”

“Jay said you guys did some pretty crazy stunts in the quarry yesterday,” she says.

“Yeah.” He nods in a slow, easy movement and pushes a handful of wavy hair off his forehead. “We set up some jumps. It was pretty sick.” A short pause and then: “You guys might want to grab some food real quick. Kitchen closed five minutes ago.”

Out of instinct, the girl glances to the kitchen and sees the old woman standing in the doorway and watching the boy. The woman blinks over to her then, studying with eyes both wary and unblinking; the girl is the first to look away.

“Can’t you sit and hang out for a few?” Pink-Haired Girl asks, her voice and lips heavy with a pout.

“Sorry, Amanda, I have calc over in Henley. Just helping Dot finish up in the kitchen.”

He’s fascinating to watch: his unhurried smile, the solid curve of his shoulders and the comfortable way he slips his hands in his pockets and rocks on the balls of his feet. It’s easy to tell why the schoolgirls want him to stay.

But then he turns, blinking away from the table of his peers to the girl sitting alone, watching him. She can actually see the pulse in his neck begin to pound, and it seems to echo inside her own throat.

And he sees her, bare legs and arms, wearing a spring dress in October.

“You here for breakfast?” he asks. His voice vibrates through her. “Last call . . .”

Her mouth opens again, and what spills forward isn’t what she expects; nor does she dissolve into a flock of ravens. “I think I’m here for you.”

CHAPTER 2 HIM

A WEEK LATER

COLIN HOVERS NEAR THE DOOR, STARING down at the fingers sticking out of the end of his newly set cast. They’re big and awkward—some are crooked from the older breaks he’d never had set. His knuckles are wide, his skin scarred from cuts and scrapes left to heal on their own. Today his fingers look swollen. Abused.

He’s finally managed to get the door open when his boss confronts him.

“Colin,” Dot says, her face set in a grim line. “Joe called and told me you’ve been at the infirmary all morning.” She doesn’t need to add, Don’t bother making an excuse, or, I knew this would happen again.

He exhales a shaky breath, and it condenses in the cold air in front of him. “I’m sorry, Dot,” he says, letting the door close behind him.

“Why are you apologizing to me? It’s your arm in a cast.” She clears her throat, her expression softening as she touches the plaster. “Broken this time?” He nods. “So why are you showing up for work?”

Her apron is drenched. She’s been doing dishes again, and Colin makes a mental note to kick Dane’s ass for not finishing before he left for class.

“I was coming to tell you I can’t work for the next two weeks.” The words burn as they come out. Working in the dining hall makes him feel less like a charity case.

“Only two?” She cocks her head and looks straight at him, catching the lie.

“Okay, four.” He fidgets, starting to reach to scratch his neck with the hand of his broken arm and then winces, working to not grunt some cusswords in front of Dot. She was his mom’s best friend and the closest thing he’s had to a grandmother for the past twelve years. The last thing he wants to do is upset her.

“And you haven’t been to basketball in three weeks,” she says. His eyes widen, and she nods. “Yep, I know about that. Talked to Coach Tucker a week ago; he says they cut you from the team.”

“Come on, Dot. You know that kind of stuff isn’t my thing.”

Dot narrows her eyes, considering him. “What is your thing, exactly? Defying death? Driving the rest of us to drink, worrying about you? I’ve always loved your fire, kiddo. But I’m not going to tolerate any more of this insanity.”

“It’s not insanity,” Colin says against his better judgment. “It’s biking.”

“Now, that’s a bald-faced lie. It’s tricks and props and jumping from train cars to the tracks. It’s riding on the train tracks and across bridges made out of rope over the quarry.” His head snaps up, and Dot nods forcefully. “Oh yeah. I know about that. You could have died out there. When will you realize you can only be so reckless before it’s too far?”

Colin curses under his breath. “Does Joe know?”

“No.” He hears the layer of warning in her voice, the unspoken not yet. “Slow down. The tricks, the racing. Everything. I’m too old to lose this much sleep worrying about you.” She pauses, considering her words before speaking. “I know seventeen-year-old boys think they’re invincible, but you more than anyone know how quickly people can be taken from us. I’m not going to let it happen to you.”

He bristles slightly, and Dot reaches for his arm.

“Just promise you’ll be more careful. Promise you’ll think.” When he doesn’t respond, she closes her eyes for a long beat. “I’m cutting down your spending account and revoking your state parks pass. You’re grounded to school property until I say otherwise.” She glances at him, probably waiting for him to explode, but he knows it isn’t worth it. Since Colin’s parents died, Joe has kept Colin under his roof and handled the official details of Colin’s meager inheritance, but Dot has the unofficial final say. The two of them give Colin miles of rope to proverbially hang himself and are always there to pick him up when he almost does. This has been coming for a long time.

He nods, hooking his bag over his shoulder before walking into the kitchen to cross his name off of his dining hall shifts. The marker squeals in the silence with a sound of finality, and he can feel the pressure of Dot’s attention on his back. He hates disappointing her. He knows how much she worries about him; it’s a constant, obsessive loop in her mind.

It’s why he hid in his room with a broken arm last night instead of going straight to the infirmary. It’s why Dot and Joe will never, ever know half the stupid shit he’s done.

Pulling his hood up against the wind, he grips the handrail as he climbs the steps of Henley Hall. The metal is cold and familiar beneath his palm, colder even than the autumn air that snakes around him. White paint has started to flake away, the surface marked with the scars of tires and skateboard axles—most of them his. The beginnings of rust bloom around the edges. What little sleep he got last night was broken up by stabbing pain; now he’s just sore and tired and not sure he can deal with today.

He pushes through the door, and emptiness greets him; the space ticks dully with the synchronized rhythm of the clocks at either end of the long hallway.

The halls don’t stay empty for long, though. The bell rings, and he turns the corner to find Jay pressing a girl against a locker outside class, a set of red-tipped acrylic nails running through his dirty-blond hair.

Jay looks back as Colin approaches, smirking at him over his shoulder. “About time you got here, slacker,” he says. “You missed the world’s most painful calculus class. I could practically hear my brain bleeding.”

Colin nods his chin in greeting, lifting his cast. “I think I’d have preferred calc over this.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Jay’s latest conquest reluctantly leaves as he and Colin walk into the classroom. Students continue to file in around them, and Colin drops his bag at a desk inside, bending to dig for his assignment.

“So you were right,” Jay says, motioning to the cast. “Broken?”

“Yeah.” As quickly as he can with one functioning arm, Colin finds his paper and stuffs everything else back in the bag.

“Joe and Dot read you the riot act?” Jay’s been at Saint Osanna’s as long as Colin has—since kindergarten—and knows just as well that Dot has never appreciated the two boys’ particular thirst for adventure.

Colin looks at him pointedly. “Dot did.”

Jay straightens. “Did she ground your fun money?”

“Yeah. And I’m restricted to school property indefinitely. Thank God you took my bike to your parents’ house last night or she’d probably take that, too.”

“Brutal.”

Colin hums in agreement and hands his assignment to the teacher. What kills him the most is that this ride wasn’t even that dangerous. A week ago he jumped from the lip of the quarry onto a boulder at the base and came home without a scratch. But yesterday he couldn’t land even a rookie jump without wiping out.

“Hood off, Colin,” Mrs. Polzweski says. He pushes it off and shoves his hair back from his eyes as they move to their desks.

Just as the second bell rings, she walks in. The girl from the dining hall. Colin hasn’t seen her in a week, and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about what she said just before she ran out the door.

I think I’m here for you.

Who says shit like that? He’d tried to call after her, but she was gone before the words dissolved in the air in front of him.

She slips through the noisy room and takes the seat in the row next to his, moving her eyes to him and then quickly away. Her arms are empty, no books or paper, no backpack. A few people watch her sit down, but she moves so fluidly, she seems to already have joined the rhythm of the room.

“If you can’t ride for a whole month, we’re going to need a plan,” Jay whispers. “No way can you be stuck inside that long. You’ll go insane.”

Colin hums, distracted. It’s crazy; the girl seems otherworldly, almost as if a faint sheen of light surrounds the exposed skin on her arms. Her white-blond hair has been brushed free of leaves, and she has these badass black boots laced to her knees with a French-blue oxford tucked into the navy uniform skirt. Her lips are full and red, her eyes lined with thick lashes. She looks like she could rip through the wool of his trousers with only a dirty word. As if feeling him watching, she pulls her legs farther under the desk, her arms closer against her body.

Jay pokes Colin right above his cast. “You’re not going to let that little cast stop you from having fun, are you?”

He pulls his eyes from the girl to look at Jay. “Are you kidding me? There’s tons of other ways to get in trouble without leaving the grounds.”

Jay grins and bumps Colin’s good fist.

Mrs. Polzweski organizes her stack of papers at her desk, ignoring the flurry of hushed activity: books being opened, pages turning, and students grumbling, the occasional cough, a pencil being sharpened somewhere. The girl sits, staring ahead, looking like she’s trying as hard as she can to not be noticed.

Where has she been?

In the periphery, Colin sees her thin fingers reach for a pencil that someone has left on the desk. She turns it over and over in her hand, as if the movement requires practice, examining it like she suspects it’s a magic wand.

Colin doesn’t think he’s ever seen such light hair before. When she tilts her head slightly, inspecting the pencil, her hair catches a dusty sunbeam, making it seem almost translucent. The strands twist and spill over shoulders that are hunched forward and wrapped in a shirt that’s too bulky for someone so delicate. She looks like a shadow of a girl. A shadow wearing a cap of sunshine.

As if she can feel him staring, she turns, an involuntary smile lifting the corner of her mouth. Her dimple makes him think of giggled pleas, mischievous promises, and the taste of sugar on his tongue. Gunmetal eyes meet his, and the color is alive, churning like an angry ocean, pulling him in.

He lets himself drown.

THE ONLY PERSON LOOKING AT HER IS THE same boy whose face has haunted her all week, with wild dark hair that needs to be cut, an arm in a new cast, and eyes that pierce her, amber and fierce. “Hi,” she rasps, tucking away her smile. Her voice is rough because this is the first time she’s used it in six days.

The first time she used it since she spoke to him and then burst from the dining room, intending to run into town to find the police and tell them she needed help. She could get only as far as a hulking metal campus gate a half mile down the gravelly road. Each of the three times she tried to escape, one step past the gate put her right back on the trail where she woke up, as if she’d stepped into a skipping song.

The boy’s gaze narrows and slips across her cheeks, over her nose, pauses at her mouth. He blinks once, slowly, then again. “Where did you go?”

Nowhere, she thinks, envisioning the empty shed she found in the middle of a barren field beside the school. It was as deserted as her memory bank, after all, and seemed the perfect home for a girl who has no name, no past. After being inexplicably drawn to this school building every morning for a week, she finally grew brave enough to steal a uniform, walk inside, and sit down.

“You disappeared,” he says.

She shifts in her seat, glancing at his mouth. “I know. I wasn’t quite sure how to follow up my stunning opening line.”

Laughing, he says, “Here,” and pushes his open textbook closer to her.

She blinks, the phantom trace of a pulse racing inside her throat at the way his eyes move over her face, the way he purses his lips slightly before smiling.

“Thanks,” she says. “But I’m okay. I can just listen.” He shrugs, but doesn’t move away. “I think we’re covering the history of labor-management relations today. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on the full experience.”

The girl isn’t sure what to do with his attention. She suspects, from the way her skin seems to be aching to move

closer to him, that he’s the reason she’s drawn here every morning, just as she found herself in the dining hall that first day. But he seems so sweet, almost too open, like she’s a strip of paper dragged through poisoned honey and this perfect boy flies innocently around her. How good can a girl be when she doesn’t need to eat or sleep and keeps finding herself snapped back to school grounds every time she tries to leave? He continues to stare, and she shifts her hair over her shoulder, lowering it like a curtain between them. “Colin?” It’s a woman’s voice, clear and authoritative. The pressure of his gaze on her lifts. “Sorry, Mrs. Polzweski,” he says.

Now that the girl knows his name, she wants to whisper it over and over.

“Who are you, honey?” the teacher asks.

The room is a vast bubble, silent and pulsing with expectation, and the girl realizes this Ms. Polzweski is speaking to her. But with the question hanging in the air, a man’s voice speaks in the girl’s mind.

“I bet you didn’t know your name means light,” he whispered, lips too close to her ear.

“I did know,” she wanted to say, but the hand on her throat made it hard to even draw breath.

“Lucia,” she remembers in a gasp. “My name is Lucy.” The teacher hums in acknowledgment. “Lucy, are you new?” Something inside Lucy stirs at the sound of someone else saying her name. For a heavy moment, she feels real, as if she’s a balloon and someone has finally weighted her to the ground. Maybe a girl with a name won’t float off into the sky. Lucy nods, and a phantom heat burns across her cheek where Colin’s gaze settles again.

“You’re not on my roll, Lucy. Can you go to the office to check in?”

“Sorry,” Lucy says, fighting panic. “I just started today.” Ms. Polzweski smiles. “You need to make sure to pick up your add card. I’ll sign it.”

Lucy nods again and slips away, wanting to disappear like a shadow into black.

Lucy knew she’d be told to go, but she doesn’t even know where the office is and isn’t quite ready to brave the outdoors and the winds that weigh more than she does. And here her feet seem grounded anyway, keeping her from leaving. She sits at the end of the hall, knees to chest, waiting for the next tug of instinct to pull her up and forward.

A door opens and closes shut with a quiet click. “Lucy?” It’s one of the only two voices in this world that she’s connected to a name—Colin—and it’s hesitant and deep and quiet. It cuts straight down the hall, and his lanky figure moves just as smoothly, straight to her. “Hey. Do you need help finding the office?”

She shakes her head, wishing she had something to gather to take with her so she could look purposeful and less like a lost girl sitting on the floor. Instead, she stands and turns, watching the lines of wood flooring weave a path in front of her as she walks away. She knows how it would go, anyway: He would walk with her, notice how she fights the wind, ask if she’s okay. And how would she respond? I don’t know. I only remembered my name five minutes ago.

“Hey, wait.”

She reaches a door, but it’s locked. She tries another beside it. Also locked.

“Lucy, wait,” Colin says. “What are you looking for? You can’t go in there. Those are janitor closets.”

She stops, turning to face him, and he’s looking at her. Really looking, like he wants to capture every detail. When their eyes meet, he makes a strangled sound, narrowing his gaze and leaning closer to look. Her eyes are murky greenbrown; she’s stared at them for hours in an old mirror hoping to remember the girl behind them.

“What?” she asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He shakes his head. “You’re . . .”

“I’m what?” What will he say? What does he see?

He blinks again, slowly, and she realizes it’s just something he does: an unselfconscious, unhurried blink, as if he’s capturing an image of her and developing it on his lids. “Intense,” he murmurs.

With that word, the other man’s voice appears in her head again, an echo from the same intrusive memory, “You have to know how intense this is for me.”

She stumbles back, eyes wide.

“Are you okay?” Colin reaches for her arm, but she’s already turning, hurrying away.

With lips wet and pressed to her ear, he asked, “Are you afraid of dying?”

“Lucy!”

A flash of her reflection in a crisp blade of silver. Breath smelling of coffee and sugar, cigarettes and delight. Cool water lapping near her head. A knife, drowning in her own blood, the feeling of being pried open.

She bursts through the side exit, sucking in a huge gasp of sharp, autumn air.

So that’s who she is. She’s the girl who isn’t alive anymore.

CHAPTER 4 HIM

THERE’S THAT NEW GIRL,” JAY SAYS THROUGH a mouthful of sandwich. Colin follows his gaze and grunts, noncommittal, as Lucy glides across the soccer field. When she’s alone, she’s statuesque, long lines and slim profile. When she gets closer to the other students, she shrinks in on herself: shoulders pulled in, head down.

She reminds him of himself after his parents died and he didn’t and the sadness and guilt felt like a crushing weight under his ribs. He didn’t know how he was supposed to weather it. When people tried to talk to him at first, it made him wish he could turn into air and disperse in a thousand different directions. Lucy carries that same kind of bewildered fragility.

It’s been three days since she showed up in his class, offered the most achingly vulnerable smile he’d ever seen, and then ran away again. Nobody talks to her. Nobody looks at her. She has no books, or even a backpack. She looks at every building as if she’s trying to see through its walls to what lies inside. She always touches the outstretched arm of the statue of Saint Osanna Andreasi as she passes through the darkest corner of the quad, pulling back as if she’s been burned before reaching out to touch it again, carefully. No one ever touches the statue—it’s said to be haunted—but Lucy does. Colin has never seen her with anyone. Lucy doesn’t even go to the same classes every day. She kind of hovers around campus.

He feels like a total stalker for knowing these things when everyone else seems content to let her be. Most new students get a schedule of classes and let the tide carry them. Lucy seems determined to remain disorganized.

At least she looks more peaceful today, as if she’s enjoying the weather before it all goes subzero. It’s still a bit on the cool side, but she never wears a jacket. Thin blue fabric wraps down the length of her arms. How can she be warm enough? She must live off campus, he reasons. Maybe she left her coat at home.

“She seems weird, though,” Jay says. This catches Colin’s attention, and he looks over at Jay, wondering what he means. Two nights now Colin has fallen asleep thinking about Lucy’s mood-ring eyes. Does Jay notice too? “Weird, how?”

Jay shrugs and takes another bite, propping his feet on the wall of the arts building. His dirty sneakers blend into the gray concrete. “She’s been in my English class a few times. Doesn’t talk much.”

“And her eyes, too.”

Glancing at Colin, Jay asks, “Eyes?”

“Never mind. They’re . . . I don’t know. Different.” “Different? Aren’t they, like, brown or something?” Colin mumbles, “Maybe gray,” but his heart is thundering.

He’s pretty sure if he says, “They’re like melted metal,” Jay will actually have a T-shirt made for him with the words I AM A DELICATE POET printed across the chest.

“Brown hair, gray eyes,” Jay says as if reciting the ingredients for average. Colin pauses with his sandwich partway to his lips. He turns to Jay and follows his gaze again, making sure they’re both looking at the same girl. They are.

“Brown?” Colin asks, motioning to where she’s reached the edge of the field. “That girl over there?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jay answers. “The same one you’ve been staring at for the last twenty minutes.”

Lucy’s hair isn’t brown. It’s not even close. Colin watches her again and shivers, pulling his hood up.

Colin wonders if it should freak him out that Jay sees brown hair when he sees almost white-blond. But, with a strange rush of warmth in his limbs, he finds he likes that he sees her differently. It feels strangely surreal, and it occurs to him that this reaction might come from the same part of his brain that turns on when he looks over a cliff and instead of thinking, Back off, he thinks, Pedal faster.

“Amanda said they saw her walking down by the lake,” Jay says.

“The lake?”

“Yeah. She’s new; wouldn’t know the stories, would she?”

Colin nods. “No, she wouldn’t know any of that.”

The stories are as old as the buildings here: Walkers out in daylight, wandering lost and confused. A man in military uniform sitting on the bench near the lake. A girl vanishing between two trees. Sometimes a student will claim a Walker tried to talk to them or, worse, grab them. But it’s all ghost stories, a legend built on the morbid history of the school. The Catholic institution was built on grounds where children of settlers were buried before the survivors made their long trek through the mountains, but in the first week the school was open, two more kids died in a fire that burned down the chapel. For years, students claimed to see the two lost children standing by the newly erected statue of Saint Osanna, or sitting in a pew in the rebuilt chapel. The legend lived on, and over time, the population of Walkers grew in the students’ collective imagination.

It’s a morbid history, Colin knows, and the students keep the stories alive because it makes the school interesting and makes them sound brave. But even though everyone swears they don’t believe the Walkers exist, only stoners and drunk kids given a dare on Halloween hang at the lake or deep in the woods. Or dumbasses like him and Jay, who are doing shit they don’t want to get busted for. Of course Amanda would be the one to have seen Lucy there.

Jay pulls his feet from the wall. “You like her.”

Colin bends and ties shoelaces that don’t need tying.

“It’s cool if you like her. She’s not ugly or anything, but she’s . . . I don’t know. Quiet.” Jay takes a long pull from his water bottle. “Which isn’t always a bad thing. Amanda would never shut up. God. Was she always talking when you guys were—”

“Dude.” Colin doesn’t want to think about another girl while he’s watching Lucy. It feels wrong, like comparing a river stone to a ruby.

“She totally was,” Jay guesses, and makes a yapping gesture with his hand. “Oh, Colin, Colin, Colin,” he gasps in a high, breathy voice.

Colin doesn’t reply, choosing instead to shove a handful of chips in his mouth. Jay actually does a fairly good Amanda impersonation.

“Have you talked to her?” Jay asks.

“Amanda?”

“New girl.”

Colin shrugs and wipes his palms on his jeans. “Once or twice. Last time I tried, she ran away.”

“That’s because you’re a dick,” Jay says with a punch to his arm. “A nice dick. But still a dick.”

Colin pauses before balling up his garbage and tossing it into the trash. “You called me a nice dick.”

Jay winks at him, but two seconds later punches his good arm again. “So are you going to talk to her again, or what?”

Colin shrugs, but of course he knows he will.

“All right, lover boy,” Jay says, stretching his arms over his head. “This chat’s been great, but I told Shelby I’d meet her behind the school.”

“You’re a walking cliché.”

Jay cycles through girls the way Colin goes through bike tires. Only used for a few, wild rides. Ignoring the comment, Jay juts his chin toward where Lucy has turned and is walking back toward the quad, only twenty or so feet away. “She’s coming back.”

For a brief moment, Lucy’s eyes catch Colin’s and hold on. And even though he thinks she’s been watching him, too, suddenly she’s walking faster and veering away from where he sits.

“Make me proud,” Jay says, clapping a hand on Colin’s back before walking away.

Colin stands and crosses the soccer field, accelerating his long strides to catch her. He has no idea what to say. It doesn’t feel the same as approaching one of the girls from school, the girls who knew him when he was five and couldn’t write the letter “S.” The girls who knew him when he was ten and wore the same Han Solo shirt for an entire week. The girls who, lately, never seem to say no. This feels like approaching an exotic snake on a trail.

As if she knows he’s there, Lucy turns and looks at him over her shoulder.

“Hey,” he says nervously, shoving his good hand into his pocket. The fingers of his other hand twitch at his side.

She frowns and keeps moving along the grass.

“I didn’t see you eat anything,” he continues, moving into step beside her. “Weren’t you hungry? Dot makes the best grilled cheese.” Lucy gives only a small shake of her head, but the response is enough to make something like hope spread in his chest. “Are you cold? I have a fleece in my room. . . .” He cringes inwardly. That sounded like the worst pickup line ever.

They walk for another minute in silence, leaves crunching beneath the soles of their shoes. Although it’s weird how quiet she is, for some reason he doesn’t feel ignored, either. “Did you move here?” Ducking his head, he smiles at her. “It’s like you just showed up one day.”

There’s a slight falter in her steps but nothing else. Colin studies her profile: creamy, pale skin and bee-stung lips that stick out in kind of a hot pout.

“Where did you go to school before?” he asks.

Lucy picks up her pace but doesn’t answer. He’s decided to give up and turn away when she slows, motioning to his cast. “How did you hurt your arm?”

He flexes the fingers of his left hand on instinct. “On my bike. I didn’t quite land a jump.”

“Does it hurt?” she asks. Her voice is scratchy, like she was at a show last night screaming her head off. He imagines her dancing alone, rocking out, not giving a crap what anyone thinks.

“Nah. I’ve had worse. Broken bones, fractures, concussions, stitches. You name it. This is nothing.” He stops talking abruptly, realizing he sounds like a frat boy bragging about slamming a beer can against his forehead.

Lucy frowns again. “Why would you do those things if you keep hurting yourself?”

Without thinking, Colin says, “For the rush? The burst of adrenaline? That feeling you get when you do something that reminds you you’re alive?”

Lucy stops in her tracks; her face goes blank and her arms wrap protectively around her stomach. “I have to go.”

“Wait,” he says. But it’s too late. With long, determined strides, she walks away.

CHAPTER 5 HER

ONCE LUCY REMEMBERS WHAT HAPPENED TO her, a tangle of other memories connect, plugging together bundles of fine, tenuous synapses. She remembers her loud, barking laugh, forever-skinny arms, and hair so straight it slipped right out of clips and bands. A gift for chemistry but also art, fear of dogs, and a love for the smell of oranges.

She remembers the face of her first teacher, but not her father. She remembers her favorite torn jeans and a Cookie Monster sweatshirt she wanted to wear every day when she was little.

In other words, she remembers nothing that tells her anything about why she’s here instead of floating on a cloud somewhere, or beneath the trails and pavement, dancing in flames.

And it’s that question —why am I here?—that begins to eat away at her quiet, composed shell. Questions burn on her tongue, wanting to be screamed into the cold. But she knows there’s no one to answer them. She’s spent hours since she woke trying to understand what she is. If she’s back where she was killed, then is she a ghost? And if she is, then how can she wear clothes and open doors and even be seen? Is she an angel who came crashing through the clouds and landed on the trail? Then, where are her wings? Where is her sense of purpose?

Her chest aches with the tickling anxiety that she could disappear as quickly—and mysteriously—as she appeared. Somehow, the idea of leaving and being sent elsewhere is more terrifying than the idea of staying here as a shadow. At least here is familiar. Elsewhere might be the stuff of nightmares: stitched-together monsters and blue-black darkness, yellowed claws and misery.

So much about this strange life doesn’t make sense. There’s the statue in the quad, the one with the outstretched arms and heavy marble cloak draped over her shoulders. Lucy is convinced she’s touched it a hundred times before, but now it doesn’t feel . . . right. Or at least, it feels more right than stone should. The first time, Lucy let her hand linger on the delicately carved fingers, trying to remember the exact moment she’d felt it before and marveling at the strange texture. But last time she jerked away, convinced she felt a faint warmth beneath the marble skin and certain one of the fingers had moved. Other students make a wide arc around the statue when they pass, but to Lucy, it beckons.

It feels like one more thing that separates her from the students around her: Her skin turns almost translucent in the sunshine. Normal objects like pencils and stones fascinate her when she stares at them, but when she picks them up, they grow dull in her hand. She’s solid enough to wear clothes, but they weigh a good deal more than she does and she never loses awareness of them: stiff and touching her everywhere. Her mind is full of questions and empty of memories. It’s as if she’s been dropped here and is waiting, suspended, for her fall to make a sound.

The unknown of it all sometimes slips in and makes her feel breathless, tight in the chest, panicked. In those moments, Lucy closes her eyes and shuts out everything but the quiet. She’s here, a ghost in girls’ clothing, haunting this private school; she should just get used to it. But she doesn’t want to haunt anyone. She wants to be tangible and solid. To sleep in a dorm and eat in the dining hall and flirt. With him. All she wants is to be near him.

And he seems to want it, too. Colin follows her everywhere, and where she feels as if she’s built of a million questions and doubts, he seems to be only instinct, happy to simply be near her. His presence raises a warm, soothing hum beneath her skin. He’s behind her as she walks down the halls between classes. Sometimes he walks beside her and talks about—everything—even though she rarely answers what he asks. He’s stopped offering to share his lunch. He’s stopped offering to share his books. Since that first day in the hall, he’s never tried to touch her. But he hasn’t yet revoked his company.

She isolates herself at school because she feels so other. She’s unable to throw away the clothes she woke up wearing, but they feel like a hook to another place, piled in the corner of the old shed she’s found. Every time Lucy looks at them, she knows she wore them when she lay buried somewhere. The new, stolen uniform hangs limp on her bony frame. She tells herself to keep going to classes because, really, what else does she have? At least here, she can be near him. And the closer he is, the more she relaxes. Is it dangerous to want so much to know someone without first knowing yourself?

She pretends she’s wandering the campus—not seeking him out—but is flooded with a wild, charged excitement when she finds him in the parking lot near the security gates, riding a BMX with the other guy she always see with him. His friend—Jay, she remembers—is good-looking, a bit shorter but wiry, with a constant smirk. His gaze slips past her to focus on Colin’s reaction as Lucy approaches. Then Jay stands on his pedals and moves away.

“Hey,” Lucy calls, and she thinks she’s said it too quietly, but Colin’s head snaps up and his eyes go wide. She sees his face every time she closes her eyes, but the reality of him in person still surprises her.

He pedals over, too-long limbs and too-long hair, hopping off his bike while it continues to come to a skidding stop only inches from her legs. He looks impressed that she hasn’t stepped back. “Hey, Lucy.”

She swallows, unprepared for how intimate it feels when he says her name. “How can you bike with a broken arm?”

He shrugs, but something is illuminated behind his eyes, and she recognizes it as joy. “We’re playing around to see if I’ll be able to hit a trail later this week.”

A small tug in her chest. A flutter. “With one arm?”

“Yep.” He grins, and the combination of the wonky bottom tooth that overlaps its twin and the small metal ring hugging his lip make her blink and look away so she can process his answer. “My legs are fine, and I only need one good arm to steer.”

She nods and smooths the wisps of hair off her face. “Are you following me?”

She expects embarrassment or defensiveness, but he laughs, wiping his forehead on the sleeve of his noncasted arm. “Am I following you?” His eyes move to his bike and then back to her, playful. “Not at the moment.”

She’s embarrassed, fighting a smile. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” he says. “And yeah, I guess I have been.” He pauses while he looks at every part of her face. “I mean, we both know I have been.”

His smile widens then, invading every feature and making his eyes brighten last, and best. She wants to stare at him. Long lashes drop slowly as his eyes close, as if developing another image. She loves his blink. It’s a strange fascination she has, but she wants to ask him what he sees behind his lids.

“Why?” she asks.

“Why am I following you?”

She nods, and his playful smile disappears. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t look at me the way the other students do,” she says.

He studies her in that way he has, like every day is made up of hundreds of hours and he’s not in any hurry to wrap up his inspection. “How do other students look at you?”

“They don’t.”

He shrugs and his eyes soften. “Then they’re idiots.”

Every inch of her skin aches to be near him, but the doubts roll back in, gray as rain clouds. He has no instinct to protect himself from the strangeness of her. Is she supposed to believe he hasn’t noticed that she’s different? “You shouldn’t follow me. I’m not who you think I am.”

He rolls his eyes. “That’s kind of dramatic.”

“I know it is. That’s my point.”

He moves closer, expression soft. “Did you come here to find me and tell me to stop coming to find you?”

She shrugs, fighting another smile.

“That seems like a poor use of your lunch break. You could have waited for me to find you later. It’s in my plan, right after chemistry.”

“Seriously, Colin. You shouldn’t—”

“It isn’t that easy,” he interrupts. All teasing is gone from his eyes as he looks up to the sky, and he’s blushing hotly, slowing himself down. His voice drops to barely a whisper, and he admits, “I don’t know why, okay? I just want to get to know you, and I can’t seem to stay away.”

Lucy drinks in his full lips, his hungry expression, and his earnest attention and tries to keep it safe somewhere inside. “Colin.”

He exhales a puff of air, saying shakily, “What?”

She looks away, up at the dense autumn storm clouds now beginning to form, green with electricity and heavy with rain. “Like you said, I’m a dramatic girl.” She smiles, feeling her skin hum with electricity at the way he’s hanging on her every word. “Don’t boys hate that?”

“Usually.” He licks his lips, tracing the shape of the silver ring.

“Seriously though,” she says, dragging her gaze away from his mouth. Her chest, it aches. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

He sees something in her eyes that keeps rejection from clouding his face. He blinks once, nods slowly, as if he already knew this about her. “Okay.”

He stares at her as she walks away; his focus is like a point of heat on her back. Did she really tell him to stay away? Now, as if there’s a magnet behind her and she is composed of shards of scrap metal, she feels almost irresistibly pulled backward. Ahead is the cabin at the edge of campus, and a man in khakis and a sweater stands on the porch, stretching in the crisp air. A small plaque at the foot of the walkway leading to the home reads:

WILLIAM P. VERNON MEMORIAL RESIDENCE Joseph Velasquez, Headmaster As she passes the path to the steps, the man she assumes is Joseph R. Velasquez doesn’t even nod or smile or somehow acknowledge her. His focus is on the lot behind her, where she’s left Colin and Jay horsing around on their bikes. His eyes narrow, and what looks like exasperation moves through his body, deflating him.

“Colin Novak!” he yells, irritation thickening his voice. “The doc said no riding!”

Pressure builds inside her chest, a balloon that fills with some indescribable need until it’s so strong, so full, she fears her ribs might crack beneath the strain. She feels angry. But she has no idea why. And as his words echo past her to the quad, bouncing back and joining the whispers of Colin’s name that repeat in her thoughts, the man glances at her, horror appearing on his face before the sturdy porch groans and in a sharp snap, wood planks splinter. It happens so fast, but in Lucy’s mind it feels like each event occurs in slow succession: wood cracks, Velasquez pitches first forward and then back as his legs break through the porch and he falls beneath. His surprised cry echoes across the lawn.

The balloon bursts, and relief seeps into each corner of her body. She breathes again, gasps as if it’s the first breath she’s ever taken. And she’s horrified. Lucy scrambles up the steps and reaches for his hand before immediately pulling back. She’s never touched anyone, not in this body. She doesn’t even know if she can be touched. Instinct presses her back. He looks up from where he landed, waist-deep under the porch and grimacing in pain.

“Go away,” he says, pleading with her.

She takes another step back, hands moving to cover her mouth in silent apology. But her face is unrecognizable beneath her fingers, like heat and anger have torn away her skin.

“I don’t think I can pull you out,” she says, too quiet, aching with apology but unwilling to move closer, almost as if an invisible wall stands between her and the wounded man. He looks at her in awe, and she steps back, holding her hands up. “I’m afraid to try in case—”

Shouts from the lot reach her, and footsteps pound down the sloping lawn. Colin, with Jay close behind him, shouting, “Joe! Oh, my God, Joe!” Colin buckles when he reaches the gaping hole in the porch, and he and Jay struggle to heave out a dusty and injured Mr. Velasquez.

There’s blood and torn fabric, and Lucy is oddly fascinated with the way the red blooms thickly through the fibers of his pants and pools beside Colin on the porch.

“I’ll . . . go get someone,” she says.

“Get Maggie,” Jay says to her, tearing a bit of his shirt and tying it around Mr. Velasquez’s leg.

“Maggie?”

“Campus nurse. Hang on. I’ll go with you. You got this, Col?”

Colin nods numbly and watches as she steps away and begins backing down the stairs. “What happened, Lucy?” “He fell through,” she answers dumbly.

Crimson blood almost reaches Colin’s leg, and he scoots back before it touches him. Looking back down, Colin says quietly, “We’ll get you fixed up, Joe.”

Lucy turns to leave, uneasy with the odd sense of responsibility she’s feeling, remembering the way Mr. Velasquez reacted as if her face told him something terrible was about to happen. Beside her, Jay is already scrolling through a list of names on what she’s learned is a phone with a bright, colorful screen. “I’ll walk with you,” he says.

Lucy had been confused at first when she’d seen students staring down at and tapping the front of what looked like a tiny TV. She’d never seen anything like it in her life. I’m not from here, she thought. I’m not from now. She wonders what would happen if she tried to take one, to use it to call outside the school. Would the dialed call bounce back into the school grounds, too?

They head back down the trail in an uneasy rhythm as Jay passes on the details to Maggie, and Lucy works to match his frantic pace. The lawn rolls ahead, stark and so green it almost looks unreal. Will they walk to the infirmary together? Will she be required to explain how a seemingly sturdy porch simply caved in under the weight of a small man? For once, Lucy wishes the earth would open up and reclaim her, the girl with no answers.

She turns and looks over her shoulder to where Colin remains bent over Mr. Velasquez, speaking quietly.

“Why is he so worried?”

“Did you not see the man up to his chest in porch? The blood?” Jay asks, a hint of sharp amusement in his voice.

Lucy nods, tucking her chin and staring at the brilliant green grass bending only slightly beneath her feet. Her words echo back to her and sound ridiculous. “Of course. I didn’t mean he shouldn’t be worried.”

“No, I know what you mean. He’s more worried than most students would be, I guess.” Jay ducks to meet her eyes. “It’s just that Colin miraculously survived this horrible accident that killed his parents. So accidents kind of freak him out. Plus Joe’s his godfather and, like, his one remaining semi-family member left on the planet.”

CHAPTER 6 HIM

COLIN’S BEEN IN THE INFIRMARY MORE TIMES than he can count, but he’s rarely been the one sitting beside the bed while someone else babbles under the influence of painkillers.

“Like a demon. Or a ghoul. Or . . . something whose face melts,” Joe mumbles.

“Everything’s okay now,” Colin reassures his godfather.

Joe has been rambling about demons for almost an hour. “It’s the morphine.”

The door from the hallway opens and Maggie comes in, carrying fresh bandages and a glass of water. She’s barely in her thirties but carries the wisdom of a much older woman. It shows in the deep set of her frown and the persistent worry lines on her forehead.

“How’s he doing?” she asks Colin.

“Still going on about a face-melting demon, but he seems better.”

Maggie hums, lips tight, and pulls the sheet down to check Joe’s bandage. “We should take this one to the hospital, to be sure.”

“I’m fine,” Joe growls, suddenly coherent. “We’re not driving two hours for something you can do better here.” “I can stitch you up, but this is deep. You’ll have a nasty scar.”

“I’m staying put. Don’t have anyone to impress with my flawless skin.”

“Chicks dig scars,” Colin says, trying to distract him. Joe groans when Maggie peels away the blood-soaked bandage. Colin looks away, wincing. The cut is deep, but clean now, and Colin swears he saw a hint of bone. Maggie shoos him to the other side of the room while she stitches Joe up. His stomach turns at seeing Joe like this: obviously old, vulnerable.

“Get out of here, kid,” Maggie says, lifting her chin toward the door. “You’re green.”

“I’ve . . . never seen him like this.”

“Mm-hmm. And how do you think he felt seeing you worse off more times than any of us can count?”

Colin knows she’s right. He can remember being here or in the hospital after a nasty crash on his bike, with several broken ribs and a huge gash on his scalp. He’d wondered at the time if he were going to die. It seemed so matter of fact to him: Either he would, or he wouldn’t. It was simple. He never considered how they might feel to lose him. “Go on. Get some sleep. I got this,” Maggie says. Colin looks at the man on the bed. “You good, Joe?” Joe grunts as Maggie ties off a stitch. “I’ll be back to work tomorrow,” he says.

The nurse laughs. “The hell you will.”

Colin is startled awake when Jay returns to the dorm room. Dim light from the hall slips across the walls and is gone just as quickly.

“You’d better be alone,” Colin says into his pillow. It’s been a crazy day, and the last thing he wants to deal with tonight is one of Jay’s girlfriends sneaking into their room. If caught, all three of them would get demerits.

“I’m alone. Dude, I’m so tired.” Colin hears the rustle of fabric, Jay swearing as he trips, and the muffled clunk of keys and shoes hitting the rug. The mattress across the room creaks as he collapses on his bed. He moans something and rolls onto his stomach.

Jay’s breathing evens out, and Colin opens an eye, trying to see the clock next to the bed. It’s four in the morning, somehow both too early and too late to easily guess where Jay’s been.

“Where were you?” he asks. Jay doesn’t answer and he asks again, louder, reaching with his good arm and throwing an empty water bottle toward Jay’s side of the room.

Jay startles, lifting his head slightly before dropping it down again. “I’m sleeping, man.”

“Shelby?” Colin asks.

“Nah, she’s such a scene queen. Not to mention insane.”

Colin rolls his eyes and adds a snort so Jay hears his scorn even if he can’t see it. All the girls Jay dates are insane.

“How’s Joe?”

“His leg’s pretty cut up,” Colin says, scrubbing his face. “But otherwise he seemed okay when I left.”

“He’s, like, seven thousand years old,” Jay says. “And nothing keeps Joe down. Not even his whole fucking porch collapsing with him on it.”

“He’s seventy-two,” Colin grumbles. “And he’s lucky. Half an inch to the left and he could have bled to death.”

Jay answers this with the appropriate weight of silence. Sometimes, when the planets align, even he realizes when a smart-ass comment is unnecessary.

“Oh,” he says with more enthusiasm. “I saw your girl.”

“What?”

“Lucy. I saw her on my way here. She was sitting in front of Ethan Hall. I asked her if she needed help, but she said no.”

“First of all, she’s not my girl—”

Jay groans into his pillow.

“Trust me,” Colin counters, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling, wide-awake now. Scattered above him are glowin-the-dark stars and a model of the solar system. His dad made it for him before he died, and it’s followed Colin to every bedroom he’s ever had. He sighs, rubbing his hands over his face again and wondering who this strange girl is and why in the hell she was sitting outside alone at four in the morning. “She told me to leave her alone.”

“Christ.” Jay groans. “It’s like you know nothing about women. They all say shit like that, Col. They have to. It’s, like, hardwired into their brains or something. They say that stuff to feel less guilty about wanting us to jump their bones. I thought everybody knew that.”

“That’s the kind of reasoning that will earn you a cell mate ironically named Tiny,” Colin says.

“If I’m wrong, then why did I get laid last night and you were here with a pile of laundry and your hand?”

“I think that has less to do with me and more to do with the poor choices being made by the female students at Saint O’s.”

“Ah, right,” Jay says thickly, already half asleep. He falls silent, and eventually his breaths even out. Inside, Colin is a tornado, unable to stop thinking about Lucy and why she might be sitting outside in the cold.

On that first day, she said she was here for him, and although he doesn’t understand what that means . . . maybe part of him does. Clearly she looks different to Colin than she does to Jay, and it’s hard to pretend that doesn’t mean something. In fact, he’s trying his best to ignore the caveman-asshole feeling he gets when he thinks that she’s somehow his, but she’s the one who put it out there, planting the idea like a tiny dark seed inside him.

And now he can’t sleep. Great. Careful not to wake Jay, he grabs two hoodies and slips out of the room.

Lucy is exactly where Jay said she was, sitting on a bench in front of Ethan Hall with her back to Colin, facing the pond. In the low light, the water looks strangely inviting, smooth and dark and calm enough to make the moon and thousands of stars come see their reflections. Mist curls along the edges, like fingers luring its victims into the frigid blackness.

With a deep breath, he closes the distance between them. “Hey,” she says, without turning to see him.

“Hey.”

Finally, she peeks at him out of the corner of her eye.

“What are you doing up?” she asks. Her voice is always so raspy, like she doesn’t use it much. “Couldn’t sleep. What about you?” As expected, she doesn’t answer, so he places the sweatshirt on the bench next to her. “Jay said he saw you out here. I thought you might be cold.” She’s still wearing the plain blue oxford, and no way is it warm enough.

“Is that why you came out here?”

“Maybe.” He rubs his hands together, blowing into them, and glances over at her.

“How is Mr. Velasquez?”

Colin wants to burst out in song he’s so happy she’s speaking to him. “He’s going to be okay. By the time I left, he was back to his old self, insisting he could work from bed if Maggie would let him. I’m pretty sure Dot will be in the infirmary forcing food on him every twenty minutes.”

Lucy stares at the pond for several beats, and Colin wonders if they’ve gone back to the silent game until she says, “Dot is your boss, right? You seem close to her.”

“She is my boss.” He smiles at her tentative efforts at making conversation. “But she’s always been kind of like a grandmother to me.”

“So, your kind-of-grandmother runs the kitchen and the headmaster is your godfather?”

“God-fahhthaahhh,” Colin says in his best Brando, but Lucy only gives him an indulgent tiny-dimpled smile. “My parents died when I was little. They were teachers here and were close to Dot and Joe, who was a history teacher at the time. Dot hired me in the kitchen when I was fourteen, but she’s been feeding me since I was five. I try and hang out with her as much as I can—like help her out on baking nights and stuff.”

“I’m sorry your parents died.”

He nods once. His stomach tightens, and he hopes they can move on from this topic. He doesn’t want to think about his mother’s spiral into psychosis, or the accident, or any of it. Almost everyone here knows the story, and he’s grateful he never really has to tell it.

“And you’ve lived here since you were five?”

“We moved from New Hampshire when my parents got jobs here. They died when I was six, and I lived with Joe until I moved to the dorms freshman year.” He bends so he can see her face more clearly. “What about you? Does your family live in town? I thought you were a commuter, but . . .” He trails off, and her silence rings back to him.

“Colin . . . ,” she says finally.

Hearing her say his name does things to him. It gets him thinking of ways to make her say it again, and louder.

She looks up at him. “About what I said yesterday . . .”

“You mean the part where you asked me to stay away and here I am, finding you in the middle of the night?”

“No, not that.” She sighs, tilting her head up to stare at the sky. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Well, that’s the complete opposite of what he’d expected. This girl is about as hard to read as a Cyrillic text. “Okay . . . ?”

The amount of attention she’s giving the stars makes him wonder if she’s trying to count them. Does she see something there that he can’t?

“I shouldn’t have said what I said yesterday. I want you around me. It’s just that I don’t think you should want to be around me.” She takes a deep breath, like she’s readying herself for a hard admission. “And now I sound crazy.”

He laughs. She totally does. “A little.”

“But I guess what I’m going to say is kind of crazy.”

He stares at her, focusing on the way her teeth rake across her bottom lip. He already knows there’s something different about her. And there’s most definitely something strange about them. It’s not until he’s here, in this moment, that he realizes how much he’s resisted thinking about how weird everything has been. After his mother’s breakdown and the resulting death of both of his parents, he’d learned how to guard his mind so carefully, never lingering too long on his morbid history or—eventually—anything even mildly worrisome. The idea that there might really be something strange about Saint O’s always struck Colin as legend, a way to make new kids behave, to lure the thin stream of tourists to the town nearby in the summer. But there’s something paradoxical about sitting with an odd stranger at night next to a foggy pond that makes you see things more clearly.

Even so, his body fights the clarity. Colin can feel his thoughts clouding, letting go, as if he’s supposed to not care how strange it seems. This time, he pushes back, listening instead to the rational side of his brain and sliding away from her the tiniest bit. He’s always known Lucy wasn’t a normal girl. Her hair is blond to him, not brown. She never seems cold; she never seems to eat. She’s so . . . different. And when her eyes meet his and they are a slow, grinding, anxious gray—filled with metal and ice, worry and hope, and wholly unlike anything Colin has ever imagined before—he wonders for a flash if Lucy is even real.

CHAPTER 7 HER

HER THROAT IS TIGHT, ALMOST AS IF INVISIble hands strangle down the words inside her. But it isn’t some strange, supernatural force urging her to keep her death a secret. It’s fear, plain and simple. Her murder—the blood and death and unanswered screams—is the sharpest memory of her life. She has no idea how much time has passed since she died, or whether anyone in this town was alive when it happened. A boy she kissed? A favorite teacher? Her parents? But after the week of wandering the grounds, of not knowing her name or who bought her the shoes on her feet, of feeling a rising panic stirred up by the sheer emptiness inside, knowing something about her life—even that it’s over—was a bittersweet relief.

But whereas the human rules are always so straightforward—priority number one: stay alive—rules after death are a complete mystery. Was she somehow responsible for what happened to Joe? It feels that way. Worry fills her hollow chest with an icy chill at the thought that she could hurt someone without meaning to.

Now one thing is for sure: The only thing keeping her from being completely alone in this world is the nervous boy sitting next to her. And she does have a story to tell. It might be short and unreal and full of holes, but she can’t keep it from him much longer. The question is whether he’ll want to have anything to do with her once he hears.

“Lucy?” Colin asks, ducking to reclaim eye contact. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like you have to talk. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“No, I’m putting the words together.” She smiles weakly at him. Swallowing dow

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 733