Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Anora and Lily Martin

I know something’s off when I walk into Mr. Val’s class and notice Natalie, Jasmine, and Michelle glaring at me. I choose to smile at them and slide into my seat. Their gazes burn my back the whole hour. At the end of class, I hope to escape first, but Natalie and her friends have other ideas. They barrel past me, knocking me into my desk. If Mr. Val notices, he doesn’t say anything.

Lennon meets me outside Walcourt, bursting with excitement.

“You won!” she cries, her hair dancing as she jumps up and down.

“Won?”

“You’re our princess for queen’s ransom! It was announced this morning.”

Oh no. I told Shy I didn’t want that.

“Is there a way to…I don’t know…relinquish the title?”

Lennon frowns. “Why would you want to? You beat Natalie Rivera! Did you see the look on her face?”

I can’t really pinpoint why, but Lennon’s excitement at my having beat Natalie seems a little off—almost vengeful.

“I’m not interested.”

Lennon blinks at me like she can’t comprehend the words that just came out of my mouth. Finally, she shrugs. “Talk to Shy.”

I don’t want to talk to Shy.

He knows things about me. When he looks at me, I see him stitching it together in his head—sees the dead, knows my weapons, lies.

After he left on Saturday, I spent the rest of the weekend warding my house against the dead when Mom wasn’t holed up in her room. Sprinkling a mix of crushed garlic and cloves under the windows outside and at the front and back doors. I also burned sage in my room. Mom wouldn’t let me do it throughout the house. She hates the smell, and I could tell from how little I saw of her that she was having an episode that I didn’t want to exacerbate.

I placed Shy’s obsidian in my window, because despite the fact that it won’t keep people like him away, I believe he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the dead. And if the ones from the mass grave are looking for me, I want to do everything I can to keep them away. After seeing the scythe sheathed at Shy’s side, I know he’s one of them: the people who hunted me after Chase died.

If ever there is a sign I need to move forward carefully, this is it. I’d already made too many mistakes, but I think I can right this ship so long as I find my coin.

Being named princess for queen’s ransom is doing the exact opposite of what I want, and I’m furious at Shy for ignoring my request. The whole thing is bringing me out of the dark, shoving me under the spotlight where people can see and talk to me. People yell “hey, princess” as I walk from class to class. Some give me high fives, and others invade my space to give hugs.

The first time it happens, I bristle so hard, the thread threatens to explode from my hand. The second time, I consider tossing the guy over my shoulder but refrain.

“I thought you had to be invited to touch royalty,” I grumble, rubbing my arms from the last too-tight bear hug.

Lennon laughs. “I see you have no problems embracing the title.”

At lunch, I head to the administration office and work up the courage to ask Mrs. Cole if a coin has been turned into lost and found. Today, she’s wearing a bright yellow cardigan that reflects off her face.

“It’s a piece of my grandfather’s collection,” I lie. “I lost it my first week here.”

“Let me see,” she says and dutifully bends to pull a box from under her desk. I hear her rummaging around through the intercom. After a moment, she looks up. “I’m sorry, Miss Silby, but I don’t see a coin.” I must seem miserable, because Mrs. Cole looks sympathetic and says, “Let me take your information. I’ll let you know if anyone turns it in.”

I offer her a smile. “Thanks, Mrs. Cole.”

Once I give her my phone number, I head outside. I’m not feeling hungry, and I’m not in the mood to hang out in the crowded cafeteria even if I do want to find Shy and lay into him for making me the princess.

The weather is nice today, and there’s hardly any wind—an anomaly, I’m told, in Oklahoma. The sun reflects off the white sidewalk, making my eyes water. I keep my head down until I round the corner of Emerson and am in the shadow of the school, but I halt when I find Lily standing a few feet in front of me, staring up at the fire escape ladder on the side of the building.

I hesitate, torn between wanting to talk to her and retreating. I have to be cautious in my friendships, and Lily seems to be linked to everyone who’s ever shown interest in me—good and bad. Just as I start to turn away, her head snaps in my direction, and I’m welded to the spot.

Lily looks like she’s spent a week buried under brush. Her uniform is dirty and tattered, her blond hair is matted together in clumps, and the skin under her eyes is reddish purple. It’s the blood that draws my attention, though—a crimson stain has pooled near her feet. Where is it coming from?

“Lily…what happened?”

I start to move toward her, but something holds me back. Her stare is different—a look I’ve only seen in the dead. Or maybe it’s the thread, sparking to life within my palm: a siren telling me this is wrong. Get rid of it.

I wobble on my feet and take a step back instead.

Lily looks at the blood on the ground and then returns her gaze to the fire escape ladder.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” she says. Her voice is gravelly, reminding me of static on an old radio.

“Lily…”

“My name’s not Lily!” she seethes, and when she looks at me, her eyes are finally alight. It’s the only thing about her that actually looks alive. “You’re just like the rest of them!”

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, holding up my hands as if that will ward her off, but I don’t understand. The person I’m staring at is Lily—a battered and beaten Lily. Maybe she fell and has amnesia. I try asking her what happened again.

She doesn’t look at me, but her brows knit together. “I don’t know. One moment, I was free, and the next, I was trapped.”

“Did someone kidnap you?” I ask, trying to understand, but she shakes her head.

“No. A thread trapped me.”

My stomach sinks. “A…thread?”

My thread?

“Vera?” Her name comes out as a whisper, but Lily—or the person I thought was Lily—hears it, latches on to it, and exhales, as if I’ve awakened her.

When she opens her eyes again, she says, “I’m supposed to be up there. They have to see me, to understand what they did to me.”

That’s why she’s staring up at the fire escape. She’s trying to figure out how to climb to the roof and hang herself again. She doesn’t want to be alive.

I’ve seen a lot of terrifying things: souls who experienced horrific endings at the end of a knife or a gun. I’ve seen victims of car wrecks wandering about searching for their head or an arm or leg.

I’ve never seen a soul inhabit a body where it doesn’t belong.

So many questions run through my head: If Vera’s soul is in Lily’s body, where is Lily’s soul? Is it trapped in my coin? Who could do that? And why Lily?

Vera starts toward the fire escape ladder.

“Vera, no!”

She halts, becoming even more agitated. “They have to see me!” she yells.

“Who?”

“Everyone!” she cries. “They forgot me! But they won’t forget me again. I’ll hang here forever, a nightmare burned into their memories. I’ll haunt them all!”

The words are like chains, binding her to earth in death.

My fingers ache from clenching them so hard. I could capture Vera’s soul again, but then what? I’d have a lifeless body on my hands—Lily’s lifeless body with a missing soul—and I can’t let Vera go through with her plan either.

I need help.

Suddenly, I’m torn between two evils—Thane or Shy. Thane already assumes I had something to do with Vera’s disappearance. Will he think I did this to Lily? Will he even know how to help? But Shy carries a scythe, and the last time I saw one of those, the blade was pressed to my neck, and everything I ever loved was threatened.

I’ll take the lesser of two evils—Thane.

I start to move, hoping to slip away and find him, when Lily looks at me again. This time, recognition blossoms on her face.

“You!” She jabs a finger in my direction. “You did this to me! Send me back!” she demands and lunges.

I try to dodge but lose my footing on the edge of the sidewalk, collapsing to the ground, only to feel a sharp pain as Lily grabs a handful of my hair and pulls.

“Send me back!” she shrieks.

I reach for her arm with both hands and yank, sending her over my head and onto her back in the middle of the rose garden. I twist, attempting to scramble to my feet. I have to get out of here before I make another mistake, but Lily grips my ankle, and I fall hard to my knees, scraping my hands against the cement. I kick at her, hitting her square in the face, and she lets me go.

I run.

Thane. I have to find Thane.

It’s still lunch, and the past few days, he’s been hanging out in the cafeteria. What are the chances he’s there today?

I head inside Emerson in search of him, but the bell rings, and the hall fills with students. It’s hard to move in the crowd, and the skin on my hands and knees stings as I’m jostled about like a ship on a stormy sea.

Someone grabs my arm and pulls me. I’m about to rip myself free when I realize it’s Shy. He looks down at my shirt. It’s then I realize I’ve been holding my bloodied hands to my white top. I meet his gaze. His jaw is set tight.

“What happened?” he demands.

“Please.” I try to pull away, but he moves his arms to either side of my shoulders.

“Anora, who did this to you?”

“No one!”

He frowns and releases me. “We both know that’s not true.”

His eyes drop again, roving, reading my injuries as if they were a map.

That’s when the chorus begins—a haunting refrain of shrieks and screams.

Oh no. I’m too late.

Shy hurries past me and pushes through the crowd gathering at the entrance of Emerson. I follow after him. I want to reach for him and keep him inside, prevent him from seeing what’s happened.

Shy steps outside and twists. His whole body goes rigid, and his eyes widen but in a hard way, like ice. His jaw and throat work as if he’s swallowing a scream. I’m not sure how long he stands there, but the sound of a camera snapping draws his attention. I’ve never seen someone move so fast—he snatches the phone from a student nearby and slams it into the concrete.

“What the hell, man?” the kid demands.

Shy’s response is to lift his fist.

“Shy, no!”

I reach for his hand, and he stops but doesn’t relax, and his piercing eyes survey the crowd. He says, “This doesn’t belong on your fucking phones. It doesn’t belong on fucking Roundtable.”

His voice sounds different, stripped. When he looks at me, it’s at my hand wrapped around his arm. I release him and step away, hyperaware that behind me is a gruesome scene. The knowledge is solid, like a wall closing in. I’m losing my ability to breathe. My chest feels tight. I have to look. I can’t go back inside without seeing her.

Shy convinces me to turn—not with anything he says but with the look he gives. It’s the look of someone whose heart has broken.

But if he has to face this, I do too.

I start to turn, but he reaches for me and pulls me to him, holding my head against his chest. His lips move toward my ear, and he whispers, “Please, Anora. Don’t look.”

Guilt slams through me, piercing every part of me—head and heart and stomach and feet. I’m tethered by it, held to the earth by its weight.

This can’t be happening.

As I stand there in Shy’s arms, my body grows cold and numb. This is my fault. My coin. Whatever happened to it caused this. Lily died because of me.

Within minutes, the crowd is made to disperse, and everyone’s directed into the auditorium and offered counseling until their parents can pick them up. I’m called to the administration office and made to wait until my mom shows up. When she arrives, she sits beside me in the hard, wooden chairs.

“Anora, honey, are you okay?” she asks, gripping my hands in hers. She’s desperate and slightly manic, but then, so am I. My palms sting, scored from the cement. It’s a reminder of the interaction I had with Lily before I ran away, before she somehow got onto the roof of Emerson Hall and jumped. I should have stayed. Even fighting her, I could have ensured she remained alive.

Now she’s dead.

Mom looks down at our clasped hands and notices the scrapes. “Honey, what happened?”

She reaches into her purse and withdraws a wad of crumpled tissues just as we’re called into Mr. Rivera’s office.

This is the first time I’ve been in the headmaster’s office. It’s exactly what I pictured: an ornate, cherrywood desk sits in front of a set of bookshelves full of leather-bound volumes. The only decorations on the walls are three framed diplomas. A window overlooks the front of campus. An officer stands slightly behind Mr. Rivera’s desk as he takes a seat.

“Please, sit.” Mr. Rivera indicates to two chairs in front of his desk, and we do. “Miss Silby, we were notified you were recently in an altercation with Miss Martin.”

Those words sound strange, though they are true. Mom stiffens beside me. I glimpse a flash of betrayal in her eyes before it melts into disbelief. As if the officer catches it too, he says, “We have video footage.”

“She attacked me,” I say in defense, mostly for Mom’s sake. She’s starting to fidget and tear the tissues. I need her to understand I haven’t been walking around here picking fights with people. That I’m not a problem kid.

“Did you have any previous encounters with Lily?”

“No.” I shake my head. “We were starting to be friends.”

The policeman and Mr. Rivera exchange a glance. “So her behavior toward you was…out of character?”

“Yes.”

There is silence, and then Mr. Rivera says, “But you do have a history of breaking rules, Miss Silby.”

“Was that supposed to be a question?” Mom interjects. She’s frustrated and agitated, and I’m not sure if it’s at me or them.

Lennon said Natalie would destroy me with her connections. Is this the beginning? Did she report to her father that she thinks I’m a troublemaker?

Mr. Rivera and the policeman seem to reconsider where they are taking this conversation. “What happened when you found Miss Martin?”

I shake my head a little. “I ran into her outside at lunch. She…was staring up at the roof, saying she needed to be seen.”

The words sound bizarre. I can’t tell by anyone’s expression whether they believe me.

“What else?” the officer prods.

I don’t respond immediately. I’m trying to keep the tears burning my eyes from spilling down my face. I take a shaky breath and say, “She just seemed to think she wasn’t supposed to be here.”

“Thank you, Miss Silby,” Mr. Rivera says. “If we have any more questions, we’ll be in touch. If you would like to speak to a counselor, they are available to you. In the meantime, all homecoming events are cancelled. Classes will resume Friday.”

Once we’re outside Mr. Rivera’s office, I glance at Mom, whose face is unreadable.

“I don’t want you to think I can’t do this,” I say. “Please don’t send me away.”

Her face falters at that. “Oh, honey,” she says, wrapping her arm around me. “None of this is your fault.”

She has no idea.

From this moment on, I’m not looking for a coin but for the person who took it and put Vera’s soul into Lily’s body. I’m looking for Lily’s murderer.