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 down her apprehension, she begins. “I woke up by the lake a few weeks ago.” She points behind them, over her shoulder. “The day I saw you? I had only just stumbled off the trail.”
His first reaction is silence, and it reverberates dully between them. She chances a look at his profile; he’s squinting as if translating the words in his head. “Sorry. I don’t know what you mean,” he says finally. “You fell asleep out there? In the woods?”
“I appeared there,” she says. “I don’t know if I fell from the sky, or materialized out of thin air, or if I’d been sleeping there for a hundred years or a day. I woke up with no memories, no belongings, nothing.”
“Really?” he asks, his voice high-pitched and shaky. He meets her eyes then, studying. She sees his expression cloud with something. Anxiety, maybe fear.
“Please don’t be scared,” she whispers. “I’m not going to hurt you.” At least, I don’t think I am. She slips her hands into her lap, as if they might be capable of something she hasn’t yet discovered.
He shifts back, his angular jaw clenched tight, and it’s clear in his expression the thought hadn’t occurred to him until she’d said it.
She shakes her head. “Sorry, I’m not doing a good job explaining. See, I think I know why I don’t remember anything and why it’s hard to pick things up and why I don’t need food or sleep or—your sweatshirt.” She looks up at him, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Licking her lips, her eyes pulsing with anxiety, she says, “I’m pretty sure I’m dead.”
“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 down her apprehension, she begins. “I woke up by the lake a few weeks ago.” She points behind them, over her shoulder. “The day I saw you? I had only just stumbled off the trail.”
His first reaction is silence, and it reverberates dully between them. She chances a look at his profile; he’s squinting as if translating the words in his head. “Sorry. I don’t know what you mean,” he says finally. “You fell asleep out there? In the woods?”
“I appeared there,” she says. “I don’t know if I fell from the sky, or materialized out of thin air, or if I’d been sleeping there for a hundred years or a day. I woke up with no memories, no belongings, nothing.”
“Really?” he asks, his voice high-pitched and shaky. He meets her eyes then, studying. She sees his expression cloud with something. Anxiety, maybe fear.
“Please don’t be scared,” she whispers. “I’m not going to hurt you.” At least, I don’t think I am. She slips her hands into her lap, as if they might be capable of something she hasn’t yet discovered.
He shifts back, his angular jaw clenched tight, and it’s clear in his expression the thought hadn’t occurred to him until she’d said it.
She shakes her head. “Sorry, I’m not doing a good job explaining. See, I think I know why I don’t remember anything and why it’s hard to pick things up and why I don’t need food or sleep or—your sweatshirt.” She looks up at him, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Licking her lips, her eyes pulsing with anxiety, she says, “I’m pretty sure I’m dead.”
