Chapter 4

I didn’t receive cheers, but the sudden realization I was naked quickly overshadowed any disappointment.

Feeling a primal level of fight or flight, I rolled off the metal slab. After landing on my hands and knees, I scrambled into a run down the center aisle. Wisps of my tableau flickered out as I sprinted for the door.

I expected the never-ending hallway to be there when I pushed my way through. Instead, I found a foyer with big windows looking out onto the same sundrenched autumn campus I’d seen from Ephraim’s office. When I stepped outside, I paused, savoring a pleasant breeze, before ducking behind some shrubbery.

Hunching naked in wood chips and decorative rocks made me feel like a feral animal, but I had no alternative plan. The idea of anyone finding me was so mortifying I wasn’t entirely opposed to staying in my hiding spot for all eternity.

The door above me opened, and I curled further into the foliage, pointy sticks biting into my back. But instead of laughter and teasing, I felt a soft rustling impact just above my head. Flinching, I readied myself for confrontation, but the door opened again, and the presence retreated.

Once the door was closed, I reached up, finding a large black jacket caught in the branches just above my head. Not willing to question the gesture, I grabbed the garment quickly and pulled it on, shuddering as the stranger’s body heat soaked into my skin.

I huddled down, indulging in the temporary comfort. Running out during the ceremony was probably considered unacceptable. After only a matter of minutes, I’d proved myself as melodramatic at best and an exhibitionist at worst. It would surprise no one if they sent me packing after that little display.

It was a shame I truly did want to stay. When I looked down at my body, it felt familiar, lived in. If I went through the black door, I might have been dissolved, each particle of me thrown to different corners of the universe. Or maybe I’d be recycled into a bug, waiting to be crushed or eaten.

No, I preferred familiarity, no matter how frightening.

A whoosh, as if summoned by my anxiety, cut off my reverie. When I looked up, I discovered a familiar door on the wall next to me.

Ephraim emerged, eyes searching the shrubs, before finally landing on me. “How are you feeling?”

I pushed my way to my feet and tugged the jacket around myself. “I’m so sorry about that.”

Expecting a stern hand, I was surprised when he waved my concern away and ushered me inside. “You’re not the first person to be startled by what they saw, and you won’t be the last.”

I nodded, not sure if that made me feel better.

“Rest assured you didn’t miss much. I sorted the last few students and excused them to their dorms. As you might surmise, you will be housed in the Iudex dormitory. It’s not too far from here, but I’ll drop you off. You’ll have a full wardrobe waiting for you. Hang the jacket on your door when you’re finished with it, and it’ll find its way back to its owner.”

“Oh,” I said. “It’s not yours?”

“No, I needed to continue the sorting before people started getting restless.” He removed his hand from the door, waited, then opened it, revealing the front of a large brownstone. “Your time is your own until the campus tour tomorrow. Try to get some rest until then.”

“So, I’m not kicked out?”

He laughed. “Do you want to be?”

I shook my head.

“Then, you’re golden. Have a nice evening.”

“Thanks,” I said, stepping out onto the first limestone step that led to the dorm’s main entrance.

In the foyer was a small sitting area with leather couches and dark wooden tables. The walls were wood paneled, and the floor was maroon carpet. A large flickering fireplace lit everything, giving it a distinctly old but cozy air. On the far wall was a bulletin board, and I crept forward to read some of the announcements pinned to it.

Please note,

All students will be marked as absent unless they remain fully visible for the full length of the class, unless instructed by a teacher. Stage 1 visibility is required to receive full credit. We will not simply “take your word for it.”

Thank you,

Ephraim and faculty

Dear students,

Please do not feed the pterodactyls or any other flying animal. They build nests on our roofs that are very hard to remove. Taking food outside the dining hall is a privilege that can be revoked at any time.

Thank you,

Ephraim and faculty

Dear students,

All cider brewing operations must be properly maintained and monitored at all times. A mammoth’s alcohol tolerance is high, but it’s not a risk we are willing to take again. All paraphernalia left improperly sealed and unattended will be disposed of.

Thank you,

Ephraim and faculty

Dear students,

If your class takes place in the Cathedral, it is important to check the map by the door every day. Reconfiguration of rooms is not a valid excuse to be tardy. We’ve asked the building to stop many times, but it has yet to meet that request and there’s nothing else we can do.

Thank you,

Ephraim and faculty

I stopped reading to avoid getting overwhelmed. Gold-plated arrows pointed to the hallways that branched out in either direction, so I veered left. I found a hallway of doors, all of which had a name printed on them. Mary, James, Ora, and, finally, Agnes. It was the second to last door, with the final room belonging to someone named Lindy.

I didn’t have a key, but there wasn’t even a keyhole, so I tried the doorhandle, and it gave way. I wondered if none of the doors locked. It wasn’t like I had any belongings to steal, but it still made me nervous.

Out of curiosity, I leaned over and tested Ora’s door, finding it locked. I was probably assigning too many real-world rules to this strange place.

Entering my room, I was met with the same honey-colored wood paneling, maroon carpet, and a smaller version of the stone fireplace. The furniture was relatively plain, just a desk, bed, standing mirror, and wardrobe.

The real eye-catcher was the massive window on the far wall that stretched nearly the entire length of the ten-foot ceiling and the accompanying view. The window looked out onto the far edge of campus, but instead of a tall fence, I found a dense wall of hedges with a singular opening, like the beginning of a maze.

Students made their way toward it, their laughter carrying up to my window in small bursts. It made the air hum with anticipation. Excitement tickled the inside of my ribs, mingling with fear. But my little room was so empty and foreign anything felt better than hiding inside.

Passing the mirror, I glanced over. I was surprised by how little interest I had in looking. I couldn’t have told you what I looked like off the cuff, but what I found wasn’t shocking. Honey-brown hair, sun-kissed skin, and light-brown eyes gave me a borderline monochromatic look. It made my features blend in an ambiguous way, as though my face was likely to reorganize itself in your mind the second you stopped looking at it. The only disruption in my appearance was a colorless patch around my temple, where the skin shone bright pink like a burn from which a stark white lock of hair sprang forth, acting as an anchor for the rest of my face.

Crossing back to my wardrobe, I opened the doors and was surprised to find it loaded down with clothes. Everything was black, in almost every variation I could think of. T-shirts of every sleeve length, skirts that brushed the floor alongside skirts hardly longer than a belt. Trousers, shorts, and leggings in different materials. The only pop of color was a small golden crest embroidered on the chest of the sweaters and jackets. Three drawers at the bottom held different bras, underwear, and socks. I moved the panties out of the way and tucked the toe tag into the bottom of the drawer.

After pulling on the closest approximation of familiar clothing, jeans and a sweater, I left the room empty-handed and walked outside. The sun had descended, leaving the orange glow of the lanterns that lined the path as the only light source. The gap in the hedges was barely visible in the darkness, but just as it came into view, an inhuman shriek sounded from somewhere in the distance.

I froze, ready to sprint back to the safety of the dorms. But then I remembered I was already technically dead. Still, I had to take a soothing breath before stepping into the hedge’s yawning mouth.

I had been right to assume it was a maze. The hedges curled in either direction with no indication of where the source of the distant, muffled laughter was hiding. I decided to try my luck by going right, but flinched when something moved in the greenery next to me.

I looked up to find a massive insect the size of my forearm perched on the twigs above me. It looked like a huge glowing grub.

Its glossy black eyes watched me as I passed under it. After a few steps, another illuminated, and the two tittered curiously as I continued.

The glowing insects helped me as I began wandering through the maze, trying my best to follow the sound of civilization, which ended up being more of an ordeal than I’d initially anticipated. It hadn’t occurred to me that a goal of having a hedge maze on campus would be to get students genuinely lost, but I was beginning to wonder if I’d failed some kind of sadistic test by wandering in there unattended. I’d follow a burst of noise, only to be led to a dead end every time. All the while, the glowing grubs would judge me from their comfy perches in the foliage overhead.

Just as I debated scrapping my plan and returning to the safety of my room, I noticed the lightest flicker of warm light against the glossy green leaves in the distance. Following the source, when I rounded the corner, the hedges finally opened up into a massive clearing that dipped in the middle like an amphitheater.

Students in black crowded around in rows facing the large firepit below. I recognized those who made up the innermost ring as the newest batch of students, who appeared to be having significantly less fun than the upperclassmen in the stands around them.

The blonde girl, Arlie, clutched the hairpin Ephraim had pulled from her mother’s hair, her eyes shining in the firelight.

“I don’t want to,” she whimpered, holding it close to her chest as the crowd whooped.

A young man with close-shaved hair and a scar on his lip smacked her hard on the back, making her stumble closer to the flame. “Come on, it’s just symbolic.”

“B-But—” She stared at the hair clip.

“Fuckin’ Caspers.” A man sitting near me sneered to the person next to him. “They’re so sentimental.”

The person next to him laughed and handed him an amber bottle of something, which he sipped.

Someone across the circle yelled out, “Get on with it, Casper!”

The name only left the blonde looking even more confused.

She stepped back from the flame as I noticed a movement next to her.

Rigel, the vulpine one, who was sharp like a fishhook, slid through the other students. At first, I assumed he would comfort or defend her. But to everyone’s shock, he snatched the hairpin out of her hands and chucked it into the flames.

She gasped as the clip went up in smoke.

To the credit of the room, a chorus of boos flew his way.

“Party foul!” yelled the two people next to me, their voices slurred from the amber bottle’s contents.

To my surprise, my body sprang into action, following some instinct lying dormant beneath my conscious mind.

Rigel was much taller than me, so when I approached, he looked down just in time for my fist to connect with the ridge of his eye socket. We both grunted in surprise as he stumbled back and collided with two other students.

All I could do was shake out my hand and wince from the pain. I hadn’t been prepared for the attack, and I still wasn’t fully sure why I did it.

He jerked back to his feet, holding his eye and blinking hard. I opened my mouth to apologize, but Arlie jumped in front of me, my violence having jolted her out of sadness and directly into righteous anger.

“Yeah, eat shit, motherfucker! I’ll shove that umbrella up your ass and open it next time.”

As she yelled, a crazed smile transformed her face, her ingenue skin fully shed.

The upperclassmen laughed as the man with the shaved head guided her away from Rigel before she could come up with more creative threats.

“There, there, lovely, have a drink,” he said, sounding a bit pandering as he popped the cork on an amber bottle and handed it to her.

She snatched it from him and brought it down on Rigel’s head instead. He collapsed as the crowd’s laughter descended into chaos after being sprayed by liquid during her attack. I lifted my drenched sleeve and sniffed, smelling something sweet and rich like spiced apples.

“All right, that’s enough violence for the evening,” the guy with the close-cropped hair said, leading her up an aisle to a free seat.

She didn’t fight him, using most of her energy to gulp down the remnants of the bottle before grabbing another.

When he returned to the fireside, he offered Rigel a hand, which went ignored. I expected Rigel to be angry, but his face was unmoved, if not a little swollen. He tossed the black umbrella into the fire and ascended the stairs to the tunnel, disappearing into the maze without another word.

Feeling guilty, I watched him go. But when I looked back down, I realized everyone else’s eyes were on me.

“Hey, it’s the naked girl,” someone called, filling the alcove with snickering.

“Ready to toss your token in?” asked the short-haired upperclassman.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Lost it.”

Laughter rippled around me.

“You lost it?”

I tipped my head to the side. “It’s not like I had a pocket.”

That got even more laughs.

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

I took a few more steps down until I was standing in the walkway around the fire pit. “What’s the point of this, anyway?”

The man laughed. “Well, in theory, it’s good for you to separate from your mortal attachments early, since it’s not like you can go back. It’s, you know, symbolic and all. But also, it’s a great excuse for a beginning-of-term party.”

I shrugged. “Okay, cool.”

He picked up an amber bottle and held it out to me. “Drink?”

I extended a hand but hesitated to grab it. “I, um, I don’t know if I’ve ever drunk anything before.”

To my surprise, he nodded. “There’s only one way to find out.”

I wrapped my fingers around the bottle, but when I tried to pull it free, he tightened his grip. “Take it easy, though.”

“Obviously.”

He let the bottle go and gestured for me to sit next to Arlie. Despite how few drinks I’d witnessed her drinking, it was clear from her glassy eyes and sour breath that she was already deep in her cups.

Her eyes focused on me for a second before the dreaded recognition finally dawned.

Gasping with excitement, she pointed a trembling finger in my face. “Great tits!”

I winced. “Oh, brother, here we go.”

She ignored my clear disdain. “I’m so sorry no one buried you, Great Tits.”

“It’s actually Agnes,” I said as the upperclassman popped the stopper on my bottle.

“No, it’s Arlie,” she slurred.

“I’m pretty sure you’re Arlie.”

She rolled her eyes so hard her head lolled back. “Yeah, like I said, I’m Arlie.”

“And I’m Agnes.”

“No, it’s Arlie.”

“All right, Casper,” said the man with the buzzed hair as he plucked the bottle out of her hand. “No more for you.”

“Boo!” she said. “What’s a Casper?”

I also wanted to know, and when I looked at the man, he made eye contact with me. “It’s a . . . joking—”

“Rude,” someone behind me interjected.

He shot them a glare. “Mostly joking term for Custos.”

“Oh, the guardian angels?”

“Yeah, did you never see the movies? Casper the Friendly Ghost? It’s all in good fun, I swear,” he insisted, winking at Arlie.

“What about Iudex? Any fun nicknames for us?” I asked.

He snorted. “No. You guys are way too intense.”

“What are you?”

He took a swig of his drink before extending his hand to me. “Messor, but my name is Blair, if you’re interested in knowing.”

I went to shake his hand, but Arlie beat me to it. She grabbed his fingers and shook them violently, causing his whole arm to jiggle.

“All right, easy there Casper,” he said.

Though, to his credit, when he pulled his hand free, he did so gently.

I laughed and tested a sip of the drink, finding it sour and fizzy. I must have made a face because Blair laughed.

“Maybe you really didn’t drink.”

I shook my head and coughed. “No, I don’t think I did.”

“I did!” Arlie exclaimed. “At least I think so.”

He smiled at her but then leaned in closer to me and whispered, “Clearly not enough.”

She frowned at him. “You’re mean.”

He winked at her, and she leaned toward him so far she lost her balance and began falling forward.

“I think that’s enough,” Blair said. “You should call it a night.”

“No!” she whined. “I want to stay here with Great Tits!”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can take her.”

“You sure? You just got here.”

“Yeah, it’s been a long day.”

I picked Arlie up by the armpits before pausing in realization. “Wait, Blair, sorry. I don’t actually know where she’s supposed to go.”

Blair turned, but instead of his voice, I heard a female voice over my shoulder. “It’s all right, Blair. I’ve got them.”

As I turned, a statuesque young woman got to her feet and handed her bottle off to the person next to her. She was beautiful, with long black hair and big eyes so widely spaced they sloped down at the sides like they were backsliding over the edge of her sharp cheekbones.

“Really?” Blair asked.

“Yeah, this shit is boring.”

He rolled his eyes, and I got the sense no one was impressed by her disinterest. “Whatever, Lindy.”

She nodded to me, and I carried Arlie up the stairs. The maze was barely wide enough for two people, so I had to walk awkwardly hunched over to keep Arlie at my side.

Lindy loomed behind us, seemingly unbothered.

“Sorry you had to leave the party,” I called back for the sake of conversation.

“I should be thanking you. These beginning-of-term parties are boring the first time, much less the third.”

“Are you Iudex? I think I remember seeing your name on the door next to mine.”

“That’s me.” The words were monotone. “They chose me to be the RA because I don’t have friends, and I don’t like having fun.”

“Oh,” I said, coming to an intersection in the maze and turning back to her for direction. “I take it you’re really into schoolwork, then?”

She jerked her head to the right. “That’s pretty shitty, too, honestly.”

The trip out of the maze was much faster without all the clueless wandering I’d done on my way in. When we emerged, a gust of cool air swept away the meager amount of alcohol in my system. The night was heavy overtop of us, the only light being the amber bulbs of the lamps that lined the walkway ahead.

“This way,” Lindy said, guiding me to the other side of campus where the Custos Dorm stood.

Luckily, Arlie’s room was easy to find, and the moment I dumped her onto her bed, she was asleep.

We walked in silence back toward the Iudex Dorm before she spoke again. “I wouldn’t bother being too concerned about your sorting if I were you.”

“You mean when everyone here saw me naked? Hadn’t crossed my mind, really.”

“Streaking is practically a leisure activity here. People just like watching you squirm.” She rolled her eyes.

Following her expression all the way to the sky, I realized the stars were swimming around like a school of fish.

I had to look down before I got seasick. “You make this place sound lawless.”

“Not exactly. Ephraim is pretty vigilant when he wants to be.”

“He seems pretty cool, though.”

She didn’t respond immediately, and when I looked over, her expression was tight.

“What?” I asked.

She opened the dorm’s front door for me. “Nothing, he’s just . . . He’s interesting.”

I wasn’t sure why, but the comment stopped the conversation in its tracks.

We parted ways silently. My door called to me, an anchoring point in this strange world, both new but comparatively familiar. Not until the door closed could I take a full breath.

The wardrobe held soft black pajamas, which I pulled on before curling up in bed and turning off the lamp. Part of me was convinced that, when I opened my eyes, I would be in a normal bedroom, someplace familiar.

Delicate scratching noises pulled me from sleep’s ledge. My eyes flew open, immediately landing on something small illuminating the corner of my room, causing me to bolt upright. At first, I assumed it was some otherworldly nightlight I’d unwittingly turned on, but then it moved, creeping slightly closer.

It was a mouse.

Its curiously long forked tail and smooth honey-colored fur emitted the softest champagne glow. The creature lifted itself onto its back feet, mirroring my curiosity. Head tipped to the side, it took me in as our eyes met.

When I shifted, it startled, bolting for the corner and disappearing into the wall, taking the warm light with it.