Twenty-Seven

I get a good night's sleep for the first time in weeks. No nighttime writing. No nightmares. No waking with an aching neck, hunched over my desk. Instead, I wake to the sound of birdsong, warm in my borrowed bed. I feel like I've truly escaped from Isabella, as well as from Magni Viri's clutches. I feel like my life is my own again, even if it's a giant mess and I don't know what I'm going to do next.

I luxuriate in the feeling, lying in bed until I hear Marla and Mr. Hanks clattering dishes in the kitchen. I dress slowly, watching myself in the mirror, looking for signs of Isabella. But my face is my own. No smile lines, no divot in my forehead. Just my own freckled nose and too-small lips, my own blue eyes. I smile at my reflection, and there's nothing sardonic or mocking in it. I'm myself. Ordinary. And for the first time, I'm glad to be ordinary.

Mr. Hanks and his sister are lovingly bickering their way through a pot of tea when I come into the kitchen. Mr. Hanks jumps up to get a cup for me and pushes the milk jug in my direction. Marla makes me a plate of eggs, grits, and biscuits without breaking her conversational stride.

I eat my breakfast and sip my tea, listening to them argue about whether the roses need to be cut back. I wonder what it would be like to wake up every day like this, in a small, homely life; to have a normal job and hobbies and never think about college again. To forget about greatness. To forget about achievement. To choose smaller dreams.

It doesn't look so bad.

But my peace only lasts an hour. I'm helping Mr. Hanks clear away the plates from breakfast when I notice a framed picture in the corner of the glass-fronted china cabinet. My hands go numb and cold. I walk slowly toward the frame and pick it up. The photograph shows a woman holding two fat laughing babies in her lap. The woman is Isabella Snow. Her hair is dark, her eyes are bright, her lips are painted burgundy. It's the first time I've seen her in color—except, of course, in the mirror.

"What have you got there?" Mr. Hanks asks. I turn mechanically toward him and hold out the photo. A sad smile passes over his face. "My cousin Isabella," he says. "And me and Marla, if you can believe it."

"You're related to Isabella Snow?" I ask, trying to keep my voice even, trying not to panic.

Mr. Hanks's eyebrows come together in surprise. "How did you...?"

I shake my head, close my eyes. Mr. Hanks's first name is Coy. He said he's lived here all his life. He's a caretaker of Corbin College, just like Isabella's family was. It seems impossible, but...

"Tara?"

I swallow. "Do you remember when I asked if you believe in ghosts?"

Mr. Hanks nods, though he looks bewildered.

"The ghost... it wasn't the girl who died. I was wrong. It wasn't Meredith."

His eyes widen with understanding, and then with dismay.

I stagger to a chair, still clutching the picture frame. "I asked you about Magni Viri before I ever joined. You could have told me your cousin was a director in it."

Mr. Hanks sits too. "We don't... we don't tend to talk about her in my family. Is she really...?" His words trail off helplessly.

"She's why I'm here. She's why I'm in this state," I say, gesturing vaguely at myself. I laugh. "And even here, all these miles away, here she is."

Mr. Hanks rubs his face. "She died when I was a child. Some kind of cancer; I never heard what."

"Is that why y'all don't talk about her?"

He shakes his head. "No, it's... complicated. My granddaddy, Coy Dossey, who I was named after, he was her mama's brother. Eugenia was her name. But she's—well, she's not the one who raised Isabella. You see—"

"What? Who raised her?" I ask, interrupting him. Isabella's father couldn't have done it; Eugenia had killed him. But I don't believe Eugenia would have given Isabella up to anyone, not willingly. Not with the fierce way she loved her baby at the end of Cicada. I remember the way that love felt.

Mr. Hanks rubs his cheek, which needs a shave. "Isabella was born out of wedlock. That was a much bigger deal back then than it is now, especially in these parts. Her daddy was a boy up at the college."

I steel myself for what comes next. The murder. The inevitable scandal that must have followed.

"Eugenia, she didn't want a baby. She tried to get rid of it, of Isabella, but it didn't work. Abortions weren't legal in the US at all then, and the ones you could get..." He shakes his head. "So when Isabella came, Eugenia hated her. She was a danger to that baby, and everyone knew it. After a few weeks, my grandaddy took Isabella to the boy's family—to Isabella's father's family, I mean. They raised her. They were wealthy folk. The one condition was that no one from our family could have contact with Isabella. And so no one did until Isabella came back here to the college as a teacher. Then she sought us out, and we all—"

I hold up a hand. "Wait, so Eugenia never got in trouble for killing the boy?"

Mr. Hanks's head snaps up. "What? What boy?"

"Isabella's dad, Frederick."

Mr. Hanks scrunches up his face. "She didn't kill him. Where did you hear that? That boy left her. My grandaddy had to track him down to make him take responsibility. And even then he didn't. He left it to his parents to handle. Went off to law school someplace."

My head spins. The story Isabella wrote wasn't true. It didn't happen. It seems impossible that the events of Cicada are merely fiction when I practically lived through them myself, tangled up in Isabella's mind, Isabella's words. But here's the truth in front of me. Eugenia didn't kill Frederick. She didn't love her baby.

"So Isabella was raised by these rich people, and no one in your family ever saw her?" I ask, incredulous. The events of Cicada still feel absolutely real to me.

Mr. Hanks shakes his head. "It was a shock when she came 'round all those years later, so well educated and all those fancy manners and everything. My parents couldn't figure out what on earth she wanted to do with all of us. Eugenia had run off years ago, nobody knew where. So Isabella didn't get a chance to meet her mother. Only to hear about her secondhand, and I don't think she much liked anything she heard. Maybe she thought her mama would be waiting for her with open arms, glad to have her daughter back. It must have been a disappointment."

His words feel like a punch to my stomach. A disappointment? That word can't begin to describe it. I know what it must have felt like. Like living through her mother's rejection all over again, the scar that never healed tearing wide open. The same thing I feel every time I try to call my mom and she doesn't answer, knowing deep down that she's never going to answer.

Maybe that's another reason Isabella picked me. Neither of us got the mother a kid deserves. Maybe she sensed that in me—that place where a mother's love is supposed to be. I bet that's why she chose Meredith too, judging by what Penny told me about Meredith's hateful mother. We were like mirrors for her, reflecting her greatest wound.

"What was Isabella like?" I ask, trying hard to picture the events he's describing.

"I didn't really get to know her. I was too young. I only know what my parents and other relatives said about her."

"What did they say?"

Mr. Hanks sighs. "That she was a very complicated woman. Brilliant, a mind like nothing they'd ever seen. But hard-hearted, angry. I don't think she was treated well by the people who raised her. I think she felt she had quite a lot to prove. She was very ambitious. She had enormous aims for herself. I have no doubt she would have achieved them if she'd lived."

I sit quietly for a few moments, absorbing this information. So much of what I assumed was fact in Cicada is false. But why? Why did she rewrite her own history, especially in such a bloody, violent way?

"That's pretty much everything I know," Mr. Hanks says. "Is she really— What exactly has been happening to you?"

I don't even know where to begin. But I try to tell him. He's opened his home to me; the least I can do is be honest with him. I tell him everything, right up until the point I landed on his doorstep.

Mr. Hanks looks astonished. "How is this all possible?" He shakes his head. "I'm a scientific man, but I'm not so proud as to reject what my parents and grandparents taught me about this world. I've heard of hauntings and I've seen a ghost or two myself. But this... this shouldn't be able to happen."

"It's Magni Viri," I say. "They've done some kind of ritual that binds the dead to new students. The others, they all walked into it knowing what was happening. But Isabella picked me for herself and no one told me. No one told me what I was agreeing to when I joined."

"Is she—is she here now?" he asks, looking around as if to catch sight of her.

I shake my head. "I'm far enough away from campus to be rid of her, I guess. She lost her hold on me. But if I go back..." I look up at him. "I'm scared. I'm scared of what she might do to me."

"I hate to think that my own flesh and blood could do this to a girl. Could steal a life that's not hers. Makes me ashamed," he says. "I'll do anything I can do to help you. You just say the word."

I touch his arm. "Thank you. And don't be ashamed. You're the best person I know. You've helped me more than anyone."

He gives me a brief nod. It's the same one he's given me a dozen times before, but now I can see the warmth in it. "I'm proud to know you," he says.

Talking to Mr. Hanks has lifted my spirits a little, made me feel less alone in my own mind. But nothing has changed. Isabella is still waiting for me at Denfeld Hall, and probably growing angrier by the minute. And now I know she didn't just record history; she re-invented it in some bloody vision of her own.

What future does she have planned for me if I go back?

I sit on the bed in the guest room for an hour, mulling over everything Mr. Hanks told me. Isabella's life seems suddenly sadder and smaller—she was abandoned and unloved, unwanted, lonely. She must have created Cicada in a desperate attempt to rewrite her mother's feelings for her, to rewrite the trajectory of her own life. But this knowledge doesn't make her less frightening. After all, she's still rewriting reality—now, in my body, with my life.

But it wasn't only my body she borrowed. She was drawing on my feelings and experiences too. She tapped into my own longing for a mother who would do anything for me, who would protect me. She tapped into my own resentment at the mom I got instead. Only she twisted it all. She twisted it to make Eugenia Dossey.

And Isabella wasn't satisfied in the end, no matter how brilliant and powerful her new story was. Because rewriting history doesn't erase what truly happened. A novella is a poor substitute for parents who love you and give you a stable home.

But I think Isabella will keep trying to rewrite history anyway. She's stuck in a lifetime's worth of pain and resentment and anger. She'll write the same story over and over again for the rest of her immortal existence, trying to convince herself it's true.

Or at least she will if I ever go back to Denfeld. But I can't stand to think about it anymore, so I turn my attention to the work I missed while Isabella was wrecking my life. It's probably a waste of time since I can't go back, but I don't have anything else to do. I need something to keep my mind occupied.

When I pull out my Gothic lit folder, guilt floods me. I remember the half dozen emails from Dr. Hendrix. I think she even left me a voicemail once, when things got so bad I stopped going to class. I open my laptop and read through her emails, starting with the oldest. At first, they are apologetic, embarrassed. She was ashamed of losing her temper at my tutorial. But then the tone turns worried. "I am very concerned for you, Tara. Please let me know you are all right," the newest email says. She includes the number for the campus counseling center and closes with the promise that she will contact student services for a wellness check if she doesn't hear from me soon.

"Shit," I breathe. I feel awful that she's been so worried. And I definitely don't want student services in my business. How long ago was this e-mail sent?

I relax when I see it was only a day or so ago and reply quickly, assuring her that I am okay. I apologize profusely for missing class and not responding to her emails. My fingers hover above the keys as I consider how to account for my behavior. "The truth is that I have been a little lost," I write. "I've been having some personal problems that have affected my mental health." It's not exactly the truth, but it's as close as I can get to it without mentioning ghosts. I include another apology and then send the email, holding my breath.

I email my other professors too—all except for O'Connor—to give them a similar excuse for my poor attendance and missing assignments. A few of them email me back over the next few hours to offer extensions. When Dr. Hendrix's response arrives, I let out an enormous sigh of relief. She's not even mad at me. She says she's glad I'm okay and hopes to see me in class. She says to take all the time I need to complete my next essay because "mental health is more important than classwork."

I almost laugh at the difference between her and O'Connor's views on academic achievement. Then I get back to my homework. It feels good to work on essays and math problems, as if I'm just a normal college student. It's good to use my own mind again, separate from Isabella.

But I haven't quite recovered from the beating she gave my body, and I'm drowsing in bed with an anthology of Sumerian poetry draped over my chest when someone knocks on the guest room door. I expect to see Marla or maybe even Penny, but it's Wren standing there. "Hey," they say. "You're looking a lot better. How are you feeling?"

I sit up. "Okay. Still tired, but I don't seem to have any lasting damage."

Wren comes in and sits on the edge of the bed. "I brought you this." They slide a plastic grocery store bag across to me. Inside is a box of hair coloring. A beautiful blonde smiles from the front of the box, her hair cascading over her shoulder. "It's the closest I could find to your natural color."

"Thanks," I say. "And thanks for coming to find me in the woods."

Wren looks at me with enormous, shining eyes. "Tara, when I said that about having to room with you... I didn't mean it the way you thought. I only meant that it was so much harder for me to keep things from you because we lived together, not that I didn't like having you for a roommate. I love living with you."

I swallow down another round of tears. "Really?"

Wren nods. "Really. I'm so sorry about everything. God, what a mess."

I study them. Wren is too thin, their eyes too big in their face. They look as tired and frightened as I feel.

"Are we okay now? I really want to hug you," they say.

"Come here," I say, opening my arms. Wren's face breaks into a smile and they practically leap into my lap.

"Everyone else is here," they say once they let go.

My stomach drops. "Everyone who?"

"Jordan, Azar, and Neil. And Penny and me, of course."

"Why?"

"We all need to talk. We need to figure some things out," Wren says. "But it can wait. Right now, they're outside with Mr. Hanks; he's showing them the telescope and his space photography. He and Azar are best friends now. So if you want, I can dye your hair for you."

I nod, glad for a reprieve from what is sure to be another exhausting confrontation, and we head into the bathroom. There's a stack of old towels on the counter. "Marla said we could use these," Wren says. "It might not be perfect, especially on top of that brown, but we'll do our best. Are you okay with bleaching it first?"

"You know how to do this?" I ask nervously.

Wren snorts. "I used to dye my hair twice a month."

"What color?"

"All of them," Wren says with a laugh. They motion to a chair in front of the sink. "Sit here and lean back. I'll work my magic."

When I emerge from the bathroom, I feel a little more like myself. My hair is blond again—the wrong shade, but still—and Wren has trimmed it into a more modern cut. It actually looks pretty good. I know it's just hair, but it feels like having a little piece of myself back.

We make our way through the house. Jordan is sitting on the floor in the living room, poring over a giant geology book from Mr. Hanks's collection. He jumps to his feet when he sees us. "Hey, you're looking better," he says with a smile. When I remember the gentle way he carried me out of the woods yesterday, I decide to skip all the stuff we need to say and go straight for a hug. I squeeze him so hard he lets out a soft little oof.

"Everyone else is in the sunroom," he says when I let him go. When we walk into the brightly lit sunroom, Marla and Mr. Hanks excuse themselves, leaving the six of us alone.

My eyes find Penny first. She's sprawled out on the floor, her back against the wall, sun cascading over her upturned face. Her smile widens into a grin. "You look hot."

I touch my bangs self-consciously as I take a seat next to her.

"Seriously, Tara, wow," Azar says. "That shag loves you." She's sitting primly on a garden bench, a stack of glossy astronomy photographs in her lap. Neil is next to her, tapping his feet nervously on the ground.

"Thanks," I say. "Why are you all here? If it's to take me back to Denfeld, you can forget it. I'm not going back."

Azar grimaces. "Look, we've behaved like shits. And we're all sorry for it. But you need to understand. See, O'Connor... you know what he's like. He didn't give us a lot of choice."

"There's always a choice," I say.

"Oh, fuck you, Tara!" Neil snaps. "Ever since you got here, you act like you're the only one with problems. We've all got our whole lives riding on Magni Viri. We all stand to lose everything if we step out of line."

The others try to shout him down, but he keeps talking. "Every single person in this room has a reason for what they did. We all have a reason that we need Magni Viri. No one would agree to join the program without one."

"That's true," Azar says.

"Well, what are they?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. "What's so important that you would do this to yourselves—and to me too?"

Jordan leans forward on the wooden swing where he sits next to Wren. "My grandparents raised me. They are both disabled and on a fixed income. They could never afford a school like Corbin, or any school at all. They've got so much medical debt. I need to be as successful as possible so I can take care of them. I owe them everything I am." He lifts his chin slightly, and I see the steel beneath his gentle surface.

Penny nudges me. "I couldn't afford this school either. And you already know how I feel about... how I'm afraid I'll run out of time."

I meet her eyes. "I remember."

Wren bites their lip. "My family has money, but they're really conservative. My parents cut me off when I came out."

That surprises me. Wren never mentioned any family issues to me. Maybe Neil is right that I act like I'm the only one with problems. "I'm sorry," I say. "I had no idea."

Wren shrugs. "I don't like to talk about it."

After a beat of silence, Azar huffs. "Everyone in my family is so successful. My older siblings are all at Ivies. It's ridiculous. And I work so hard, but..." She shakes her head. "It's never enough. I'm good at understanding concepts and ideas, and I'm good with my hands, good at building things, but nothing else comes easy to me. The essays, the tests... it's all a struggle. I just wanted a chance to prove what I'm capable of."

"But, Azar, you're, like, a genius," Wren says.

Azar shrugs. "I'm not. I just work my ass off."

Everyone turns to stare at Neil, the only one who hasn't offered up a secret.

He grits his teeth. "Not that it's any of your fucking business, but I guess we're kumbayaing, so I'll tell you. My parents wouldn't pay for college unless I major in business and work for my dad's firm when I graduate. I'd rather die than do that soul-killing shit, so I am renting out my body to a dearly departed Magni Viri alum in exchange for a successful art career. Fucking sue me."

Azar snorts.

"Who..." I try to find words for the question I want to ask. "I've got Isabella. What about the rest of you?"

Wren gives me a lopsided smile. "Don't you already know mine?"

"Walter Weymouth George?" I guess.

Wren nods. "WWG, yeah. I was worried you had guessed when you asked me about him."

"It was a pretty big clue actually, when I was trying to work everything out."

"How did you figure things out?" Azar asks.

I sigh. "I mean, once Isabella showed me her face, I was bound to find her. Her picture was hanging in O'Connor's office, for God's sake. But when I found her grave, I remembered the vow I made in the cemetery. In the end, it wasn't that hard to put the pieces together."

"A little harder to dig up a corpse," Neil quips.

"That wasn't supposed to happen," Azar says sternly. "We were taking turns keeping an eye on you when things got so bad. That night was Neil's turn and he went way off script."

"I can't believe you were all keeping an eye on me that whole time."

"You thought we'd all abandoned you, huh?" Wren asks guilty.

I nod. "And then when Penny told me about it yesterday, I kind of thought you had been spying on me for O'Connor."

Wren wrinkles their nose. "We deserve that. But we were really just trying to find ways around him. We couldn't tell you anything, but we thought at least we could make sure you didn't get hurt. Or at least we tried."

"Well, I know now. So there's no reason to hide things from me. I need y'all to tell me everything. Everything you know."

The others look at each other. "Honestly, we don't know that much," Jordan says. "O'Connor explained only the bare minimum to us. Some other stuff we've heard from older students. We don't exactly know what's true and what's rumor."

"But we'll try to answer your questions," Wren adds hurriedly. "It's the least we can do. What do you want to know?"

One question after another presents itself to me. It's hard to know what to ask first, what to focus on. "So how much of the work students are doing is theirs, and how much is the ghosts'?" I finally settle on.

"In theory, it's supposed to be 50–50. And for some of us it is," Azar says. "Though there are definitely days we have to fight for that 50 percent. Seems like a lot of days lately," she adds in a murmur.

"For me it's almost like a mentorship," Penny says. "Dr. Coppola is really easy to work with. Our minds are compatible, I guess. It's not just her work. It's mine too. We're working together."

"It's mostly the same for me," Jordan says. "Welty can get out of hand sometimes, and lately, he's been getting worse, but we're basically a team. We're able to combine a lot of his natural instinct with my modern knowledge."

"But not all the ghosts are like that," I say. "Isabella isn't."

"No, Mer always said that Isabella was like a steamroller, trying to completely take over," Neil agrees. "She picked the wrong vessel because Mer wasn't willing to take a backseat."

"I think Isabella picked me because she thought we were the same, that I'd be a better vessel for her story. Because I was so angry and empty and alone." I look away from them, embarrassed. I didn't want to believe O'Connor when he said he saw me in Eugenia, but he was right all along.

Cicadamight have been a product of Isabella's skill and ideas, but she filtered everything through me. My perspective, my feelings, my way of seeing the world. Twisted and nearly unrecognizable, but there.

"Hey, you're nothing like her," Wren says. They put a hand on my arm. "And you're not alone anymore. You have us."

I try to smile. I want Wren to be right. I want to be better than Isabella was. I think I can try to be. I know I want a different life than she did, that I want to let go of old hurts, that I want to let new people love me instead of pining for those who never will.

"What about the rest of you?" I ask. "What are your ghosts like?"

Wren smiles wistfully. "You know how something can be absolutely terrible for you and absolutely wonderful at the same time? That's WWG."

We talk on and on, and I learn about the other ghosts who are tethered to mine. A musician, an artist, a scientist, an engineer, an ecologist. I have to admit that some of the work they were doing when they died is hugely important, that it ought to be carried on. If Jordan is able to finish his ghost's research, he could cure nearly every type of cancer there is.

But is that truly worth everything Jordan has to give up? There are other ways to carry on a person's work without loaning them your body, your mind, your well-being. And shouldn't every person only get one shot at life, no matter how brilliant they are?

"So when O'Connor dies, does he get to be buried in the cemetery by Denfeld and have his work carried on?" I ask.

Neil snorts. "What work? O'Connor hasn't done anything worthwhile. He's just a suit."

"A fanatical suit," Azar says, raising an eyebrow. "Nobody believes in Magni Viri the way he does."

"He was in Magni Viri when he was a student," Penny says. "And he stayed on as a resident director like Laini. But he never did anything really remarkable after that time. He's still riding his ghost's coattails. He knows he won't get a grave, but he wants to be near the program. He wants to protect it."

"That's why he was willing to sacrifice you to Isabella, even after she killed Meredith," Wren says. "The Magni Viri bylaws say that a ghost that causes serious physical harm to a student will be cut off. Isabella should have been released after that. But O'Connor wasn't willing to let her go. He thought her work was too important."

"More important than Meredith's life," Neil snarls. "And yours."

"He's kind of a monster," Wren says sadly.

"When he brought us in, he lied about what it would all be like too," Azar says. "He said it would be an equal partnership, that we would still be in charge of our own work and futures. But most of us don't have any true autonomy, any choice. We're stuck, even those of us who like the work we're doing."

"We're all giving up a lot more than we planned. He manipulated all of us," Jordan says. "And we're only a few months in. A lot of the older students... well, you can see what they look like. The ghosts seem to take a stronger hold the longer they are embodied. It affects everyone differently. Like, Bernard Cottingham? He's going to get someone killed, if not himself. And O'Connor won't lift a finger to stop it."

"Can't we do anything about him?" I ask. "Isn't there, like, a board or something? And, wait, did you say there are bylaws?"

"We only know about that because of Quigg," Penny says. "O'Connor tells him more stuff than the rest of us since he's his assistant. But O'Connor keeps most of us in the dark as much as possible. He tells us only the bare minimum, and if we ask questions, he threatens us. Hell, maybe the board wants it that way so we can't make too much trouble. I don't know."

"I mean, there's a reason they picked us all, isn't there?" Jordan says, an edge of anger in his voice. "It's not because they love diversity. Not because they believe in educational equity. They picked us because we all have a vulnerability to exploit. We can all be manipulated for one reason or another." He pauses. "There are a lot of reasons playing host to a white dude didn't feel good, but knowing where this is going..." He shakes his head.

"Yeah, exactly," Azar says. "The word colonization comes to mind."

I look between the two of them, taken aback. Sharing my mind with Isabella has been horrible. I hadn't even considered what it might be like for Azar and Jordan to have white men inhabiting their psyches.

"Even if we could get through to the board members, it wouldn't matter. They don't care about us," Azar says. "O'Connor has all the power here."

"Who's on the board?" I ask. "Do you know?"

"Major donors, MV alums, former directors. Some businesspeople who must know enough to want to keep an eye on young people to invest in," Jordan says. "No one who's going to give a shit about our well-being."

We fall into silence. Finally, Neil asks the question everyone else is thinking. "Tara, are you really not coming back to Denfeld?"

"How can I? Isabella is going to kill me." Before, I thought I could let her take the reins and try to make it through in one piece. I know better now.

The others exchange a pained glance.

"What?"

"For all his bullshit, I don't think O'Connor was lying about the damage Isabella could do," Neil finally says. "She's stirring the other ghosts up. They're getting harder to control, intruding more, working us harder. Things were always precarious. But we... we think it's about to get dangerous for everyone."

"So don't go back," I say. "Let's none of us go back."

Penny shakes her head angrily. "It's not fair. None of this is fair."

"What can we do?" I say desperately. "There has to be something we can do."

"Well," Wren says quietly, "I do have one idea." Their mouth turns up at the corner. "How do you all feel about breaking and entering?"