Free to Fall Page 3

  It’s just nerves, I told myself. Lots of perfectly sane adults heard the Doubt when they were stressed. But telling myself this only intensified my anxiety.

  “We should order matching comforters,” I heard Hershey say. She’d moved on from her magazines and was now scrolling through the Anthropologie lookbook. “Otherwise we’ll end up with that whole hodgepodge, mismatched, pretending-to-be-eclectic dorm room cliché. What do you think of this one?”

  I still didn’t understand how we’d ended up living together. According to our acceptance packet, roommate assignments were done by a computer program that matched students based on their personalities and interests. Since Hershey and I had exactly nothing in common, I had to assume the program was flawed.

  I blinked and tried to focus on the neon paisley pattern on her screen. It was hideous.

  “Why don’t we wait and see what the room looks like first?” I suggested.

  Hershey gave me a pitying look. “I won’t make you pay for it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “It’s not that,” I said evenly. “I’d just prefer something that doesn’t make my eyes feel like someone has poured bleach on them.”

  “How about we repurpose some old denim and stitch it together with hemp?”

  I ignored her jab and went back to my tablet.

  Paradise Lost was still on my screen, so I scrolled up to the beginning and began to wade through it, forcing myself to read every word. I absorbed none of it, but the task occupied my mind for the rest of the flight. It was a trick I’d learned in elementary school. As long as your brain was busy, the Doubt couldn’t speak.

  Our flight landed in Boston fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. If we hurried, we could catch the earlier bus to campus, assuming we didn’t have to wait for our bags. As we speed-walked to baggage claim, I launched my travel monitor and tracked our suitcases as they made their way from the belly of the plane to the carousel. They got there thirty seconds after we did.

  My heart-shaped lock was busted, as if whoever inspected my bag hadn’t even bothered with the key that hung next to it. The sleeve of a T-shirt was pushing out through the opening, dirty from the conveyer belt. I wouldn’t have locked it at all, but the zipper track was warped, causing one of the sliders to inch away from the other, leaving an open gap. Lux had recommended that I use a twist tie, but I’d used the lock instead. Beck had given it to me on my thirteenth birthday as part of a vintage diary set. I never wrote in the notebook, but I adored the heart-shaped lock. I sighed and slipped the broken lock into my pocket as Hershey struggled to lift her gargantuan Louis Vuitton from the carousel. Served me right for ignoring Lux.

  “The two-thirty shuttle to Theden Academy campus departs in three minutes,” our handhelds declared in unison. We hurried to the pick-up spot. The driver waved us over.

  “Just in time,” he said as we boarded, marking our names off on his tablet. Hershey immediately pulled out her Gemini to post a status update. I knew Beck would be waiting for mine, but my thoughts were too jumbled to formulate a pithy post. I looked around at my new classmates. Nothing about them screamed gifted. They were just a bunch of sixteen-year-olds on their handhelds. I felt a wave of disappointment. I’d been so worried about feeling out of my league that I hadn’t considered that the alternative might be worse.

  Hershey was on Forum for most of the two-hour ride to campus. I put my earbuds in and stared out the window, watching as the buildings got farther and farther apart until there was nothing but trees and rock. Giant slabs of granite lined the roads as we cut through mountain, the sunlight a deeper gold than I’d ever seen it. Apart from the network towers—made to look like trees, but much too perfect-looking to fool anyone—there were none of the trappings of modernity that Seattle’s nature parks were known for. No assisted sidewalks. No solar-powered trolleys. It was as if time had given up on these woods or accepted its own inconsequence. My cheek pressed against the window, I let my eyes unfocus and blur. By the time we descended into the Connecticut River valley, I was asleep.

  “Rory.” Hershey nudged me with her elbow. “We’re here.”

  My eyes sprung open just as the bus passed through the campus gates. I spun in my seat, watching as the wrought-iron rungs moved back into place behind us, sealing us off from the rest of the world. It was more for show than security; the stone wall stopped just a few feet from the gate. Still, it was imposing, the smooth stone columns, the iron gate, the high arch with ornamental scrolls. And in the center of the archway, the tree-shaped Theden seal, identical to the design on the lapel pin clasped to the tongue of my sneaker.

  The driveway was long and paved with something smooth and gray that definitely wasn’t asphalt. Towering elms, evenly staggered along the sides of the road, formed a high canopy of green above us. Beyond them, the ground sloped up and the light disappeared into thick, overcrowded woods.

  The driveway curved to the left and there it was: Theden Academy. A dozen redbrick buildings enclosing an interior courtyard that was still out of sight. I knew from Panopticon that these were the original structures built by Theden’s founders in 1781, and that the academy’s architecture was considered one of the best examples of the Federal style. What I didn’t know was the effect the whole would have on me when we rounded that corner, the Appalachian Mountains coming into view just as the buildings did, the forest like a cocoon around them.

  “Wow,” Hershey whispered, uncharacteristically un-blasé.

  We were silent as the bus pulled into the large parking lot marked FACULTY and double-parked behind a row of BMWs. The spaces were labeled with engraved bronze placards on thick wrought-iron posts.

  “That’s Dean Atwater,” Hershey said, pointing at the tall, silver-haired man striding across the lawn, his hands loosely in the pockets of his pressed khaki pants. “I recognize him from my dad’s photos.”

  Our driver cut the engine as Dean Atwater boarded the bus. He had a kindly, grandfatherly quality, with the commanding presence of a prep school dean. He smiled broadly in greeting as he surveyed our faces. His eyes hung on mine for a few seconds, something like recognition flashing there. My heart sped up. Had he known my mom? I knew how much I resembled her. Our coloring was different, but we had the same wavy hair, the same smattering of freckles across our cheeks, the same heart-shaped face and almond-shaped eyes. My dad said I was taller than she’d been, but you couldn’t tell that from pictures. I looked so little like him that my stepmom once joked that Mom had just cloned herself, but my dad snapped at her for being insensitive and she never said it again.

  “You’re here!” Dean Atwater declared, pumping his fist in the air. The seats around me erupted into cheers and whistles. The old man laughed. “Time has no doubt been crawling for each of you since the day you received your acceptance letters. I can assure you, it will speed up now. Before you know it, you will be graduating and wondering where the last two years went.” He smiled. “Or, in my case, the last twenty-five.”

  Twenty-five years. He had to have known my mom. I touched my mom’s pendant, feeling the engraving under my fingertips.

  “The upperclassmen returned to campus last week,” the dean continued. “So we’ll all gather at six this evening in the rotunda for an opening assembly, followed by our annual welcome dinner. Until then, you’re on your own. You’ll find your dormitory assignments under the ‘housing’ tab in your Theden app. That’s also where you’ll find a list of important campus phone numbers—the registrar, my office, the psych line. . . .” The psych line. I swallowed hard. “And your campus key. Our locks are tied to your handhelds,” he explained. “Your key will get you through the main door of each academic building and into your assigned rooms.” Around me, people scrambled for their phones. “I suggest you spend the next few hours getting acquainted with one another and our campus. I’ll see you all again at six.” He gave us a little wave and stepped back down off the bus.

  “My dad told me it was like this,” Hershey whispe
red, closing out of Forum and tapping the little Theden icon on her screen. Around us, kids were checking their housing assignments and talking excitedly. No one had gotten up yet.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Totally free. A super-late curfew, no dorm check-ins, no dress code. Basically, no rules. You can pretty much do whatever you want.”

  “Really?” Prep schools were notorious for their rules. I’d figured Theden would be even stricter than most.

  “Uh-huh. A ‘privilege of prudence’ or some crap.” She leaned against me and held her Gemini up for a selfie. “Perf,” she said when she saw it, then promptly uploaded it to Forum. My Gemini buzzed.

  The photo “roomie BFFs!” has been added to your timeline by @HersheyClements.

  The photo was horrendous. My forehead was shining and my bangs were split down the middle and my smile looked more like a grimace. But there was no way to delete it now that she’d posted it, and no way to untag myself either.

  “Lovely,” I muttered, gathering my things. My handheld buzzed again.

  @BeckAmbrose: had a nightmare u moved 3,000 miles away and became “roomie BFFs” w HC.

  Hershey heard me laugh. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I lied, dropping my handheld into my bag. “Come on, roomie,” I said, nudging her forward. “Let’s find our room.”

  Theden’s two hundred and eighty-eight students all lived in the same building, Athenian Hall, a V-shaped structure on the north end of campus. Our room was on the second floor of the girls’ wing and looked more like a fancy hotel room than a dorm. There were two double beds, matching mahogany desks and dressers, two walk-in closets, and an electronic fireplace. But no light fixtures. When I didn’t see any in the ceiling, I looked around for lamps. The brightness in the room had to be coming from somewhere, and there weren’t any windows. But there wasn’t a single light source that I could see.

  Hershey had picked up the small black remote sitting on the bed she’d claimed as hers. There was an identical remote on my bed, with three rows of buttons on the front and the distinctive Gnosis logo on the back. Hershey started at the top and worked her way down, pressing every button. First the room got brighter, then dimmer, until it was completely dark save for the wall connected to the door, which glowed a warm amber. Hershey’s face lit up. “PHOLED wallpaper!” She pressed another button and the wall became a TV screen. Another, and we were looking at the dashboard of her Gemini. Another, and the screen split into two screens. “Turn your side on,” she told me, pointing at the remote on my bed. “The button labeled LINK.” When I pressed it, my Gemini dashboard popped up next to hers.

  I’d heard that Gnosis had developed wallpaper made up of PHOLEDs—the display technology used in most of its devices—but I didn’t think it’d been released yet. I walked over and touched the wallpaper with my fingertips. It was smooth and cool under my skin, and when I pulled my hand away there were faint fingerprint smudges there. I wiped them away with the hem of my T-shirt.

  Hershey tossed her remote onto the bed. “Let’s take a walk. I want coffee.”

  “Good call. The dining hall has an all-day snack cart. I saw it on—”

  “Lame,” Hershey declared. “It’s only a ten-minute walk to downtown. Eight if we take the unauthorized scenic route, which we totally are.” She pulled a tube of lip gloss and a mirrored compact from her bag. She slid the tube across her lips then pursed them in a sultry pout. “C’mon,” she said, snapping the compact shut. “Let’s go.”

  The “unauthorized scenic route” involved trespassing through a private cemetery east of campus, which was marked, appropriately, PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING. Despite the midday sunshine, I was creeped out. The moss-covered headstones were oversize and weathered with centuries of age. I shivered in the humid heat.

  “Which way?” I asked impatiently, eager to get out of there. Whoever owned this place had hung that no trespassing sign for a reason. And they’d put a giant statue of a very angry-looking angel in the center of the cemetery, his long stone finger pointing toward the exit, to emphasize the point.

  “I dunno,” Hershey said, squinting at her Gemini. “I lost service.”

  “Can we please just go back? I’d prefer not to get arrested on my first day here.” I was attempting to sound more annoyed than freaked out, but the truth was I was both.

  Hershey rolled her eyes. “Relax. The town green is just on the other side of those woods.” Her eyes scanned the trees. “I think.” She held her Gemini up, searching for a signal. “So much for the ‘everywhere network,’” she said.

  “It’s not a shortcut if we get lost,” I pointed out.

  “God, Rory, would you just chill out? Here”—she reached into her bag and pulled out two airplane bottles of Baileys, tossing one to me—“that’ll help.” She twisted the cap off the other one and chugged its contents. “Ugh.” She shuddered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I hate Baileys. But I couldn’t reach the vodka.”

  “I’m not drinking this,” I said, handing it back to her. “The assembly starts in an hour.”

  Hershey sighed. “Look, Rory, I’m not suggesting you get wasted and take an exam. It’s our first day, and we’ve got nothing to do but listen to a bunch of self-congratulatory and ultimately forgettable speeches about how great we are, and how great Theden is, and how much greater we’ll all be when we graduate from here. The onus is on us to live deep, to suck all the marrow out of life. No one’s gonna do it for us.” She held the mini bottle back out, waving it a little until I took it. I’m not sure why I did; maybe it was the shock of hearing Hershey use the word onus correctly, or the fact that she’d casually quoted Thoreau. Or maybe it was just that her words had struck a chord. I applied to Theden because I wanted my life to change, but so far the only thing different about my life was its location. And that wasn’t enough.

  I unscrewed the cap and took a tiny sip. Hershey grinned and held up her own empty bottle. “To sucking the marrow out of life,” she declared.

  I raised my bottle to hers. “And topping it off with Irish cream.”

  We laughed, but as we clinked, my eyes caught the epigraph on a headstone a few feet away and the laugh got lodged in my throat.

  BE SOBER, BE VIGILANT;

  BECAUSE YOUR ADVERSARY THE DEVIL, AS A

  ROARING LION, WALKETH ABOUT,

  SEEKING WHOM HE MAY DEVOUR.—1 PETER 5:8

  The hair on my forearms prickled. I brought the bottle back to my lips, but this time only pretended to sip it. Hershey had already turned and was heading toward the trees, so I quickly emptied the contents of the bottle on the grass and hurried to catch up.

  “So where are we going?” I asked, falling in stride with her.

  “Café Paradiso,” she replied. “It’s on the river. Used to be a mill or something.”

  I pulled out my Gemini to check the reviews on its Forum page, but I still didn’t have service. “This whole place is a dead zone,” I said. Beside me, Hershey chortled.

  “Fitting, right?” She tossed her bag over the rusty chain-link fence that stood between us and the trees, and began to climb. “Ouch!” A broken link had snagged the hem of her dress, scratching her thigh.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She cleared the fence then jumped. “You coming?”

  I made my way over, careful to avoid the broken link. There was an embankment on the other side that led into a denser patch of woods. Hershey scampered up the grassy hill and disappeared into the trees. “I see buildings,” she called. “We’re close.” I followed her up, sliding in my sandals. It was several degrees cooler up there, dense leaves blocking the sun. A few steps later, I heard the river roaring up ahead.

  Café Paradiso was in a wooden building on the corner of State and Main, painted fire-engine red and set apart from the others. I had service again, so I pulled up the café’s Forum page. Its rating was one and a half stars.

  “There’s anot
her coffee shop a few blocks down,” I said, pulling up the page for River City Beans, voted “Best Coffee in the Valley” by the Berkshire Gazette. I wasn’t a snob about much, but I was a Seattle native, after all. “It’s got way better reviews.”

  “Yeah, that’s the place Lux recommended,” Hershey replied, striding toward Paradiso.

  I sighed and followed her.

  A bell above the door jangled as we stepped inside. It was split-level, with the counter at ground level and seating space in a loft above it, overlooking the river. For a place with thousands of bad reviews, it was awfully packed. I didn’t see a single empty table. When we stepped up to the counter, I understood why. There was a laminated sign stuck to the register that read IF YOU LIKE US, LEAVE US A REALLY CRAPPY REVIEW ON FORUM. SHOW IT TO US, AND YOUR NEXT DRINK IS ON US!

  “You didn’t fall for it,” I heard a male voice say. “Or you just like shitty coffee.” I looked up. The guy behind the counter was about our age, and he might’ve been cute were it not for the tattoos covering his bare arms and peeking out from the collar of his white V-neck T-shirt. I didn’t have anything against tattoos in general—Beck had a hanja character behind his left ear—but this guy had that whole my-diffuse-body-art-makes-me-countercultural-and-thus-cooler-than-you vibe about him. The Mohawk on his head didn’t help.

  “I was brought against my will,” I said, and the boy smiled. His eyes, pinned on mine, were dark brown, almost black, his pupils shiny like wet paint. “Let me guess—first-years at the academy?” There was something dismissive in his tone, as if our affiliation with Theden was a mark against us.

  “I’m Hershey, and this is Rory,” Hershey said, stepping up to the counter. “Maybe you can show us around sometime.” The boy didn’t respond. “Cool ink,” she cooed, touching her fingers to his forearm. There were lines of text drawn there, each one in different handwriting. They looked like lines of poetry or quotes from books. The writing was small and I definitely wasn’t about to lean in for a closer look, so it was hard to be sure. “What’s your name?” she asked him.