Nineteen

I stare at myself—not myself—

I stare at her. My hands shake. Or are they her hands?

This woman in the mirror... Is she my ghost, my captor, the author of my book? Did she dream up Coy, Hazel, Eugenia, and all the rest? Is this the one who drags me each night from my bed to tell their story? To tell her story?

"Who are you?" I whisper, half expecting the reflection in the mirror to answer, as if it has a body separate from mine. But my lips don't move, and neither do hers. She stares at me, waiting.

With a cry, I turn away from the mirror, shoving my fingers deep into the roots of my hair. I pull hard, and the sensation returns me to myself a little, makes the bathroom stop feeling like one of those funhouse-mirror attractions they have at the fair.

"I am Tara Boone," I say to myself, my voice a strained, wild thing. "I am Tara Marie Boone. I'm seventeen years old. I was born in Gaiman, Florida. My mother's name is Bethany Charles. My father's name is Thomas Boone. I have no brothers and no sisters—well, I do, but they don't really count. I... I broke my arm when I was seven, falling out of a tree. I scored a twenty-nine on the ACT because I bombed the math. My favorite book is Jane Eyre. My favorite color is... is maroon."

The basic facts of myself make me feel a little more tethered to earth. I'm still me, despite the ghost taking up residence inside me. After a few deep breaths, I turn back around and look in the mirror. I instinctively flinch away, but it's my own face that I now see there. My own tired, haggard, exhausted face. Little red dots have risen to the surface of the skin around my eyes, thanks to all that puking. My eyes are bloodshot and my own usual blue. There's a pimple on the side of my nose. My skin looks oily and pale, my freckles brighter than usual.

I've never been so glad to see my own face, terrible as it looks. But I know it's not the entire truth. She's still under there. I can feel her beneath my skin. I can see her features like smudged-out pencil beneath my own. She has taken root in my body, in my mind. This stranger. This woman.

It was bad enough when I thought that beautiful, mysterious, brilliant Meredith Brown was possessing me. But this is abhorrent, unbearable. I don't want a strange woman sharing my brain, my blood. It's a violation. It's disgusting. I feel like cockroaches are crawling under my skin.

"Get out," I growl at the mirror. "Get out! Leave me alone. Get out!"

My own face stares back at me, its features twisted with despair, revulsion. The woman who has stolen my body doesn't answer. She doesn't acknowledge me.

Someone knocks on the bathroom door, making me jump. I stare at the door. The knock comes again.

"Hey, let me in! I really need to go!" someone shouts, banging on the door again.

I cross the room and open the door, and Azar nearly tumbles into the bathroom. She barely looks at me before she pushes me out and slams the door behind her. A moment later I hear her throw up.

Like a sleepwalker, I pad through the hall and into Azar's room. I walk straight to Meredith's desk and open the drawer. The little bottle of perfume sits there in its silk scarf. I pull it out and spray it on my wrist.

Roses. It smells like dried roses, crushed and spiced.

Not lily of the valley.

I drop the perfume bottle back into the drawer and leave the room, drifting down the stairs, as if I'm searching for something I've lost but I can't remember what. My mind can't take all of this in. Am I having a psychotic break? Is this what schizophrenia feels like? I never even considered the possibility before, when I thought it was Meredith haunting me.

But this is something completely different. This is...

I stand in the doorway to the library, staring at the painting of Meredith. All this time, I've been obsessed with her. Half in love with her at times, half enraged by her at others. Always jealous, always insecure. Sometimes giving myself over to her power, sometimes fighting her with all I'm worth. But she was never here. She was only a memory.

The painting is as alive and vibrant as ever, but it has lost its terror now. Meredith is only a girl, a dead girl. She's nothing to do with me. Someone completely different has me in her clutches. Someone older and smarter and far more powerful.

I wish it had been Meredith now. I could bear it if it were Meredith.

I turn away from the painting and pad into the kitchen for a glass of water. Just as I bring the water to my lips, Penny walks into the room. She flinches and takes a step back. We stare at each other for a long moment. I remember how I told her that I was being haunted. She wasn't surprised. She wasn't concerned. She told me that I should just finish the book and see how I felt.

She knew.She wasn't surprised because she knew. She knew it wasn't Meredith but someone else. And she didn't say anything. She walked away from me.

And last night, she said our relationship was a mistake.

Anger flares up in my chest, hot and bright, blotting out even my fear. I want to yell at her. I want to scream. I want to throw my glass against the wall. Instead, tears prick my eyes and clog my throat, the way they always do.

"Morning," Penny says awkwardly, going to the teakettle.

I watch as she fills the kettle and places it back on its heating element. She pulls down a mug from the cabinet and a little metal strainer. She measures a teaspoon of black tea into it. Then she has nothing else to do with her hands; she has to wait for the water to boil.

She risks a glance at me. I can't read her expression. I have no idea who she is, I realize. She's a stranger, same as the ghost inside me. I might have kissed her. I might have lain under the green canopy of the conservatory with her, swapping quotations from The Secret History. I might have held her hand in the cemetery. I might have memorized every detail of her face.

But I do not know her.

She's a stranger, and she lied to me. Whatever we had together is over now.

"Tara," she says. "I want to—"

Without a word, I leave the room, tears rolling down my cheeks.

As if on autopilot, I take a shower and get dressed, instinctively avoiding every mirror. Wren is still sleeping, their face smooshed into a pillow. I gather my books and papers and leave the room, and then the house.

It's a cold, clear morning. The leaves on every tree are stark red and bright yellow, ochre and bloody pink—each of them printed against a cloudless, cerulean sky. It's almost too perfect, like a picture for the college website, captioned "Corbin College in the fall." Laughter rings out across the courtyard, red-nosed coeds hurrying to their classes. Everyone looks sharp, definite, unbearably vital and alive.

But I pass through it all as if in a dream. Maybe I'm in shock.

I even cross paths with Helena, who sneers at me and then does a double take. I wonder if she can see the woman too, or if she's just surprised by how run-down I look. It doesn't matter. She can't help me.

I go to my classes. I barely listen, my entire attention focused on the woman inside my skin. What did she do with me in all those lost hours? Did she only write her book? She could have taken me anywhere, done anything with me, and I wouldn't know.

The thought sends a cold, leaden feeling through me. Vaguely, I recognize it as dread.

What if she's dangerous? What if she makes me hurt someone?

What if she makes me hurt myself—more than she already has?

I shiver, hard. So hard my teeth clack together. The girl sitting next to me looks over and then leans away from me, as if afraid I'm contagious.

I squeeze my eyes closed. I have to get control of myself. I have to do something.

The second class is over, I gather my things and rush out of the classroom. I decide to skip lunch. I didn't eat breakfast, but I'm not hungry at all. The thought of the woman hiding beneath my skin, inside my mind, has obliterated even the thought of food. I go straight to my bedroom. Wren is gone, their cheerful clutter everywhere.

I sit at my desk and pull out the notebook that I've—that she's—been writing Cicada in. I open it with shaking hands. I study the shapes of the letters on the page, the places the ink blots and scratches, as if the markings can tell me something about her. My hand formed each word, but her mind wrote it, not mine. There must be something of her here. Something that will tell me who she is.

I start at the beginning of the novella and I read, looking for clues of her. The first thing I realize is the tenderness with which she writes about Eugenia. Eugenia ought to be the villain of the book. She is clearly evil, seducing unsuspecting college boys and leading them one by one to their deaths. But she... isn't.

The woman paints Eugenia as beautiful and intelligent, as someone who feels deeply, someone with a righteous cause. How did I not see this before? The readers aren't meant to condemn Eugenia; they're meant to root for her.

I would never write a character like that... would I?

I read on, letting myself get caught up in the story in a way I couldn't when I thought I was the one writing it. I read it like I would a book from the library, turning the pages with breathless urgency.

And I start to understand it—her fondness for Eugenia. Eugenia's family has always been downtrodden, looked down on. She is smarter than all the boys at the college, smarter even than many of the professors who cross her path. But she's seen as nothing more than a cheap body to be used and discarded. Isn't her anger reasonable? Isn't it righteous?

The writing stops at what must be the midpoint of the novella, a tense and almost visceral scene where Eugenia realizes she's pregnant. She wraps her hands around her stomach, and a flow of terrible, possessive love washes over her. I shiver, knowing that this love won't make her milder, more tender, won't stop her ruthless quest for revenge and dominance. It will only lead her to ever bloodier lengths. Because now she won't act only from a place of frustration and nihilism. She has something to fight for, something to kill for. Eugenia is more dangerous than she has ever been.

With a little gasp, I sit back in my chair. The woman I saw in the mirror this morning has a mind far darker and far bleaker than my own. And I want it out—I want her mind out of my brain. I want her out.

Without thinking, I scrape my nails viciously down the front of my arm, as if I could scratch the woman out of my skin. I cry out at the pain. My nails are trimmed short, but they still leave deep red lines across my skin, blood welling up in a few spots.

Just then, the door opens and Wren hurries in. "Are you okay?" they ask. "I thought I heard you—Oh. Oh, Tara." They drop their stuff at the door and walk slowly toward me. "You hurt yourself." Their voice goes soft, as if speaking to a wounded animal. "I've got a first aid kit. Let me help you."

I gape at them, unsure how to explain myself. Or if I should even try. Talking to Penny didn't go so well, after all. Besides, I heard what they said about me last night, about the burden of rooming with me. I pull my sleeve down to cover my arm.

"I'm fine," I say. "I— My arm was itching and I guess I scratched a little too hard." My voice sounds strained and rusty around the edges.

"Pull your sleeve up. You'll get blood on your shirt," Wren says matter-of-factly.

I stand up. "No, I should—"

"Please," Wren says. They hold out the first aid kit. "Let me help you."

I'm too overwhelmed to argue. I sit back down and pull up my sleeve, smearing blood across my skin.

Wren pulls their desk chair over and sits beside me. Without a word, they start to clean my arm.

"I really wasn't trying to hurt myself," I say. "It was an accident."

"Okay," Wren says. "But even if you were, I'm not judging you. And I'm not going to fuss over you, because I hate when people do that to me."

"Thanks," I say, struggling to reconcile this kind, thoughtful person in front of me with the one who complained about rooming with me last night, the one who has been lying to me. It doesn't make sense.

They put antiseptic on the worst of the cuts, along with a few Band-Aids for the bleeding spots. "There you go, that should heal up nicely." They push back their chair.

"Thank you," I say, pulling my sleeve down again.

Wren looks at me like they want to say or ask something. "Are you..." Their words trail off, and then their eyes fall to the notebook on my desk. "How's your novel coming along?" they ask instead.

"Novella," I say automatically. "It's... fine. Maybe halfway done." My face burns with shame, as if I'm taking credit for someone else's work.

"You'll feel better when it's done," Wren says. "I always do, when I finish a composition. It's like a release."

My head snaps up. That's the same thing Penny said to me out on the bench under the tree the other day. To just finish the novel.

Another thing from that conversation comes back to me. "Walter Weymouth George," I say, and Wren flinches.

"What?" they ask, already on guard.

"Penny was listening to some classical music the other day. By one of Magni Viri's founders, Walter Weymouth George. It reminded me of your music. Is he an influence of yours? Is he why you wanted to join Magni Viri?" I keep my voice as level as I can.

Wren stares at me for a long time, their expression stricken. "Yes, yes, I suppose so," they finally say. Then, "Tara, are you— Do you...?

I wait, my eyebrows raised, my heart starting to race.

But Wren shakes their head, fear in their eyes. "I—I'd better go. I told Quigg I'd help him with something." Before I can open my mouth to call them back, Wren is out of the room.

And now I'm sure. Penny knows what's going on with me, and so does Wren. All of the first-years know. All this time they've known and they kept me in the dark. None of them tried to help me. Not even Wren. Not even Penny. Instead, they pretended to care about me, to be my friends. They're still pretending, even now.

Because they're wrapped up in this too, in ways I don't understand. There have been so many signs. I've been a fool to miss them. The way Wren plays the piano, the way Neil paints. The way Penny was zoned out that day we fought. How they're all working on projects that are more advanced than they have any right to be. How they've all resigned themselves to the brutal demands of Magni Viri, as if there's no other choice.

Could they...? I hesitate. Could they be going through what I am? Could they have ghosts of their own, ghosts like mine? But if they did, why would they hide it from me? What would be the point?

Penny could have told me when I tried to talk to her about being haunted. But she didn't. She walked away from me, left me to deal with it alone. They all did, in their own ways. Is that what she and Jordan were whispering about that night at the hospital, wondering if I'd figured things out yet? Was that the unspoken thing in Wren's eyes every time we talked about Magni Viri? The secret behind Neil's opaque comments and Azar's careful answers? They all clearly decided not to help me. But more than that, they made a conscious choice to leave me in the dark, for some reason I can't begin to fathom.

They have secrets of their own, secrets they've been determined to hide since the day I set foot in Denfeld Hall.