(11) Stupid Petty Wagers

I don't actually expect an answer to my question, so it startles me when Exie says, "My brother came here."

"Here?" I repeat stupidly. "Like, to Melliford Academy?"

She nods.

"What happened?"

Curse the church if that question drives another wedge between us. I really do want to know what's up with this school now, and Exie almost certainly has more leads than I do. My heart begins to sink as she fails to reply. Seconds tick past, encroaching on a minute as a mounting urge presses me to retract the question.

"Sorry," I blurt. "I just—"

"I don't know." She buries her face in her arms. "I don't know what happened. That's why I'm here. He got home—"

"Alive?"

"Yes, alive. Let me talk. He got home at the end of the year, but it wasn't... him? I don't know what happened to him. My parents always pressed him hard in school, but he hated being lectured at; he wanted to start a business on his own, and he was brilliant at it. I don't know why they sent him here. The school suckered them in. Maybe he didn't listen much, but he didn't deserve anything that happened to him."

"Which was what?" I say helplessly.

Exie digs both hands into her hair and clenches it. It's all askew right now, its stylish fluff half-shrunk, but all unevenly, giving her a harried look in the darkness.

"I don't know," she snaps.

"Then describe it? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"He prayed." She flings both hands out. "My brother never prayed before. But he got home and he'd kneel in his room for hours, pleading like his life depended on it. And he looked terrified. But I'd ask, and he could never tell me what he was so scared of. He stopped talking about business, or anything else that wasn't working for the church like my father always wanted. He'd spend hours at the stupid church. I couldn't hold a conversation with him anymore. We used to..." Her voice breaks, and she wilts against the wall. "We used to talk so much."

So they were close. I gnaw my cheek until it stings, like that will help me grapple with the mixed messages I'm getting from this school. "But he was alive."

"Yes."

"Is it getting... worse, then?"

"I don't know."

"Unless that was an accident. In the stairwell." I scrub my hand over the empty bed. The feeling of still-warm body has crept into my fingers now, where I pressed them to Colson's neck. I can't bring myself to believe this school would kill him. Or let him die. It was an accident; he snuck out like me and Exie did, but slipped on the stairs and broke his neck. We're going to hear about the tragedy tomorrow morning. Then the school will need to write a horrible letter to his parents, a job I don't envy anyone. But the rest of us aren't in danger. Whatever happened to Exie's brother was a fluke.

"I had to convince them to let me come," says Exie. "My parents. They didn't want me to. That's how I knew I wasn't crazy. Even my parents knew something was wrong with David; they just wouldn't say it out loud."

Nothing out loud. That's all she has; just a hunch that something happened to her brother, when there are many things that can change someone during a year-long stint at boarding school. For better, or for worse.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you."

I startle from my thoughts to find Exie glaring at me. "What?" I say before my brain catches up with me. My doubts must be showing.

"You think I'm crazy. You think I don't know what I saw."

"I think you saw something."

"You don't know anything about this."

I can't have this conversation with my brain half checked out over the feeling of dead body. I fish for more constructive conversation topics like an awkward bureaucrat making small talk at a businessmen's luncheon. "Okay, but what are you doing here?"

"I told you already: figuring out what happened."

She's bristling, and I realize what I meant to say came out wrong. I shake my head. "Not like that. I know that. What are you... looking for, specifically? Or what have you found?"

"Not enough. They're hiding all their secrets. Do you know how hard it is to find anything about this place? There's no plaques, no commemorations, nothing in their library. I couldn't find anything outside it, either; that's why I knew I had to come here myself. Whatever happens here, they stop it from getting out into the outside world, and nobody seems to care about it. One librarian I talked to back home said she'd had one person come in asking about the school before. One. And it was probably a parent looking to ship their own kid off to be zombified. I thought it would be better here, but it's not. I wanted to get into Mrs. Hardwick's office to see if she had least had anything more about..." She breaks off, eyeing me. "Do you still think I'm crazy?"

She's corroborating little feelings I've had all over since I arrived, even if I don't want to admit it. So I say, "No, I don't think you're crazy," and it's only half a lie.

"I'm telling you, there's something wrong this school. It all reeks like something's being covered up."

"What were you looking for in Mrs. Hardwick's office?"

"Anything about angels."

Those words blast a cold wind through the fog that clots my skull. The chill seeps down through my body as my thoughts abruptly clarify. "You noticed that, too?"

"Noticed?" Exie's voice jumps up half an octave. "This place is swarming with them! It's obsessed with angel iconography. I've found stained glass, paintings, mosaics on the floor, angels carved into the organ, gargoyle angels, angels on the arms of the pews, there's one holding up the lectern in the lobby, tiny angels on the classroom nameplates, angels on the old sconces, and there's one room upstairs with a full set of angel wings carved into the door. When I went looking through the library, I found an old hymnal, too. The one you found me reading. It had an angel on the cover."

My heart jumps. A hymnal. The books we've found aren't the same after all. "Did you read it?"

"Yes." She looks disgruntled. "Half of it was gibberish."

"How so?"

"Acronyms, weird names, and stuff about justice everywhere. But never what that justice was for."

Justice for the fallen.

"I know someone who might know more about it," I say.

Exie stops short and eyes me. "Who?"

"My roommate. She's been... collecting things from all around the school."

"The kleptomaniac?"

"Her name's Clarice."

Exie looks unconvinced.

"She can read over it, though," I press. "And see if she recognizes anything. I've already been talking to her, because I've found... weird things, too."

"Like what?"

I can tell she has one step down from zero belief in my capabilities, and I very nearly tell her to piss off and do her own investigation. The feeling of dead body stops me. "The name of the school headmaster matches the last name on the paintings. I don't know if they're the same person, but they're both Massinghams. And I have a book, too. With an angel on the cover. A bible."

Exie bolts upright. "Have you read it?"

"I was in the middle of detention. I didn't have time to read anything."

"Where did you find it? Can you give it to me if you're not going to read it? Or are you going to read it yourself?"

Something sticks in my throat that isn't from the present situation. Memories flash past me: years of teachers asking me to read, when nothing good ever comes of that solicitation. I keep an iron grip on the fear and reach for Exie's newer question before I start to drown. "I found it in a pew. I also found the school cornerstone outside, and this building isn't as old as it looks. Someone made it look this way on purpose."

"Tradition."

"What?"

Exie's eyes are suddenly alight. She radiates an intensity that makes me want to tuck up against the wall before it burns me in passing. "Tradition. That's the only reason anyone builds something to look older than it is; they're honoring some kind of religious or architectural legacy. If they made it look Gothic, that's where this whole conspiracy is rooted."

That sounds like more wild speculation, but that seems to be the way Exie runs. She drums a finger against her chin. "That's a big clue. What was the date on the cornerstone?"

"Sixty years ago? The bible was the same."

She presses me for the exact number, then begins ticking off fingers. "So that means we've got four leads now. The angel iconography is obviously connected to whoever built this place, who is probably connected to Leander Massingham, who commissioned all the paintings. We need to know if he's the current headmaster. Then we have the bible and the hymnal."

"You said four leads."

"And anything that happened in this area the year this place was built. Do you trust your roommate?"

"What?"

Exie gives a sigh of exaggerated patience. "Do you trust your roommate? We need someone who might recognize the hymnal wording."

"We?"

Silence drops over the room. Exie gives her head a little toss, like she's flicking hair over her shoulder. "You don't have to work with me. But if you don't, I want that bible."

My desire to hand over said bible drops through all nine circles of hell the moment those words breeze past me. I scowl. Discovering another student's death together doesn't mean we're close, but Exie isn't even pretending. She wants me for my leads on this school. Not that I see her any differently, after her recent displays towards me in class.

"So?" says Exie. "What'll it be?"

"Do you actually want to work together?"

"Frankly, no. I'd rather have the bible."

"Wow, thanks."

"Look, I'm not the one throwing chairs through classroom windows. Your only asset right now is that you have an excuse—you're supposed to be working with me on a project already, so it wouldn't be suspicious if we talk. Also, you're probably the one person who's acted unstable enough that teachers will only listen to me if we got caught. I'm willing to work with your roommate if you think she won't talk, because I want to know what's in the hymnal. But if I had my pick of co-conspirators, I'd rather have my brother."

"You're an ass, you know that?"

"Really, Des? You make a point of trying to flunk out of this school by disrupting class for every single person in the room, and I'm the ass here?"

"So you'd rather play by the rules of a place that did whatever-it-was to your brother? Suck up to teachers who were probably knowing participants in whatever happened to him? What happens if you find you need to break that system you're so intent on playing by?"

"When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

I have to take a moment to recalibrate. "Are you calling me stupid?"

She shrugs. "Try a different tool now and again. Unless the urge to throw things can't handle the stress."

I want to throw something. Which precisely proves her point, so I clench both fists in the bedspread beneath me instead. "Alright, then. Bet."

She inspects her nails. "Name your wager."

"I'll get Clarice on our side and read that stupid bible before you find out anything about this school. If I win, I can throw whatever I want."

"Then I'll decode the hymnal and make a timeline of this place's founding year before you finish with the bible. If I win, you stop throwing things. Alternately, first one to prove or disprove the identity of Leander Massingham wins."

I know this is a stupid, petty wager, but I'm steaming inside, and it feels so much better than acknowledging what we just encountered in the stairwell that I can't stop. If a stupid, petty wager is my downfall, at least I'll go down fighting. "You're on."

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