Just try to have some dignity, I told myself, squaring my shoulders and starting my solitary march toward the back of the room, eyes fixed on the farthest station, in the corner. I figured I might as well take the last table if I was going to work alone. At least I wouldn’t have people staring at the back of my head, thinking about the empty chair at my side.
But just as I was about to put my books down, Becca grabbed my arm, laughing her easy laugh. “Jill, where are you going? Get over here!”
I blinked at her with surprise. “What?”
“Our station,” Becca said, pointing to lab three. “I grabbed one for us.”
“Us?”
Becca looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Duh, Jill. We’re partnering, right? I mean, you have to save my butt! You’re the one who understands this stuff!”
“I . . . I . . .” I stammered for a second, still uncertain. Becca Wright had picked me not necessarily because we were friends—she had too many friends to count—but because I was serviceable for her. Which, I supposed, in her eyes was a pretty darn good reason for us to link up. Not insulting at all to a person who would never imagine worrying about having a partner.
So why was I little hurt to be seen mainly as a human study aid?
And Becca had set us up at station three, which Darcy claimed didn’t work right. “We should switch to lab ten,” I suggested, pointing to the back of the room. “I heard lab three . . .”
“No way,” Becca interrupted, still smiling. “I want to be near Seth, and he’s on five, right behind us.”
I hesitated for one more second, knowing that if Becca had her heart set on being near Seth, she wouldn’t budge, even if the malfunctioning burner threatened to set us both on fire.
I gave one last glance to the empty table at the far end of the class.
Then I went with Becca to lab three, awkwardly climbing on to the high stool. Hearing somebody behind her, Darcy turned around to see who was getting stuck with the misfiring burners and gave me a surprised, incredulous look like, “Didn’t I just warn you about that lab?”
I smiled weakly and shrugged, and Darcy rolled her blue eyes before twisting back around to face front.
“Okay, everyone,” Mr. Messerschmidt announced, clapping his hands to summon our attention. “Are we all set? All partnered?” He counted heads a second time, then consulted a sheet of paper in his hand, frowning again. “We still seem to be missing someone . . .”
Just then the door opened and in walked Tristen Hyde. Late. And not seeming to care that the whole class was already assembled. He strolled right in front of Mr. Messerschmidt and picked up the textbook, checking the cover and nodding like I’d done. Like he recognized the book as a good one, too.
Mr. Messerschmidt watched this performance in silence, mouth set in a firm line. “You’re late, Mr. Hyde,” he finally said when Tristen took his sweet time collecting the lab manual.
“Sorry,” Tristen said absently, more focused on trying to jam the manual into his battered messenger bag, like he had no intention of looking at the rules and regulations.
I noticed that he’d gotten a light tan over the summer, and the sun had highlighted his thick, dirty-blond hair, and I wondered for a second where he’d been, what he’d done over the last few months. Tristen was a cross-country runner, a track star. Maybe he’d just been . . . running? Or had he traveled back to England? I’d heard that his dad was a psychiatrist, here for some kind of visiting professorship. Maybe they’d gone home for the summer break?
I definitely couldn’t recall seeing Tristen around town. Then again, I hadn’t really seen anybody around town. I’d worked in the basement of Carson Pharmaceuticals cleaning equipment and inventorying stock. A pity job that my dad’s old boss had wrangled for me. Although I’d hated the work, it had been really nice of Mr. Layne to look out for me, given what my dad had been accused of doing at Carson in the months before his murder on their property.
We were fortunate, too, that Mercy Hospital was desperate for nurses, so Mom hadn’t lost her job when she’d had her breakdown right after Dad’s funeral.
Yes, things could have been worse. So why didn’t I feel luckier?
Still standing at the front of the room, Tristen took some time to survey the lab stations, looking for a spot. He didn’t seem panicked or desperate, even though it must have been obvious that everybody was already paired up.
“Do you have a pass or an excuse?” Mr. Messerschmidt asked, holding out his hand.
“No,” Tristen said, still coolly appraising the class.
“Oh.” Mr. Messerschmidt didn’t seem to know what to make of Tristen’s total lack of justification or concern. My teacher’s hand flopped to his side. “Well . . . take a seat, please.”
“Sure,” Tristen agreed, starting to make his way down the center aisle.
“We have an odd number this year,” Mr. Messerschmidt began to point out.
“That’s fine,” Tristen said, heading toward the empty table at the back of the room. Lab station ten, where I’d nearly ended up.
“I suppose we could have one team of three,” Mr. Messerschmidt suggested as we all followed Tristen’s solitary progress. “You could join—”
“No, I’m good,” Tristen interrupted, thudding his messenger bag on the table, claiming the space. He slid onto the stool and began to leaf through the textbook, sort of shutting Mr. Messerschmidt—and all of us—out.
There was a weird moment of silence, during which we all stayed swiveled toward the back of the class, looking in Tristen’s direction. He continued reading.
“Well, then,” Mr. Messerschmidt finally said, clapping his hands again, ending the interruption and regaining control of the situation, which Tristen had somehow hijacked with nothing more than a casual disregard for . . . everything.
Over the course of the next half hour, our teacher proceeded to guide us, page by laborious page, through the contents of the lab manual, advising us of all the ways we could inconvenience the local emergency crews, the school district, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by variously scalding, searing, asphyxiating, and blowing each other up if things were mishandled.
I’d had Mr. Messerschmidt for basic chem the year before, and I knew all the proper procedures, but I turned the pages anyway, as directed.
But now and then, for some reason, my mind would wander back to the far end of the classroom. To Tristen.
Did he even remember that day in the graveyard? Should I tell him, someday, that he’d been right—and wrong—back then? That some things had gotten better . . . but some had gotten much, much worse as the police had delved into my dad’s activities, exposing a double life? Late nights at Carson labs. Murky images on security cameras. Unexplained thefts of chemicals that seemed innocuous enough, but which Dad had stolen, nonetheless.
And then there was Mom, who still seemed to be hanging on by her fingernails.
My grief had softened a little as Tristen had promised on that day he’d held me. But I wouldn’t say life was “better.”
Would I tell Tristen all that someday?
Of course, I knew I wouldn’t. We hadn’t even talked again, except to say hi in the halls now and then. I wouldn’t go bare my soul to him just because we’d shared one close moment in a cemetery.
Yet I found myself glancing over my shoulder at him. And when I did, I saw that Tristen wasn’t following along with his lab manual. It wasn’t even on his desk. He was still reading the textbook, which was spread open before him, and his mouth was drawn down in concentration, like he was engrossed in some concept or theory that challenged him.
I watched his face, his mouth, thinking, Those lips have brushed against mine.
How weird that touch seemed in retrospect. Tristen was like a million miles away from me although we were in the same room. How was it that he’d ever held me, stroked my hair?
Like the rest of that whole period of my life, it all seemed part of some crazy dream. A crazy nightmare.
; I must have stared at Tristen so long that he sensed me watching, because he glanced up from his book, caught me observing him, arched his eyebrows . . . and smiled. A smile that was at once surprised, questioning, and maybe a little teasing. A grin that managed to say, “Me? Really? I’m flattered, I guess!”
NO!
I whipped back around, face flaming. Why had I been studying him?
Becca had noticed the whole thing, too. She elbowed me and whispered, “What was that about?”
“Nothing,” I told her, meaning it. “Nothing!”
Then the bell rang, rescuing me, and I gathered up my books, refusing to look in Tristen’s direction again. Fortunately Becca was immediately shanghaied by Seth—or maybe it was vice versa—so I was spared more questions.
But I wasn’t quite in the clear. As I made my way toward the door, Mr. Messerschmidt called out above the din of chattering students. “Jill! Darcy! Hyde! Come here! I have something for you three.”
Turning to see what our teacher wanted, I noticed that he held a few folded sheets of lime green paper. “I’m coming,” I said as Mr. Messerschmidt began waving the papers, using them to summon us.
Under the room’s fluorescent lights those colorful flyers looked like a cheerful enough invitation. But in truth, the bright leaflet with my name on it would turn out to be the ticket to a lot of dark places.
Dark places in my school.
Dark places in my home.
Dark places in myself.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Tristen and Darcy, who would take the wild ride with me, I opened the flyer and read.
Chapter 2
Jill
“I UNDERSTAND THAT this is the first time three students from a school as small as Supplee Mill have been invited to participate in the competition,” Mr. Messerschmidt noted as Darcy, Tristen, and I crowded around his desk, silently reading the information he’d handed to us. “The Foreman Foundation is very selective.”
I only half heard my teacher. I was trying to concentrate on the words on the green paper and not get distracted by the fact that Tristen was practically bumping against me as he looked over his own flyer. I was still so embarrassed to have been caught looking at him, and by Tristen’s obvious misinterpretation of my nonexistent interest, that I just wanted to get to my next class. Still, I pushed my slipping glasses up to the bridge of my nose and tried to focus, because Mr. Messerschmidt seemed so excited about this contest he’d apparently nominated us for.
And, at first glance, it did look like a pretty good opportunity.
The Foreman Foundation for the Promotion of Scientific Inquiry . . . national scholarship contest . . . original experiment in the categories of chemistry, physical sciences, biology . . . Presentation at the University of the Sciences . . .
College was looming next year, and I needed scholarships to supplement the money saved for my education. I wasn’t exactly sure how much Dad had earned as a senior chemist, but things definitely seemed tight without his salary. Lately Mom had even been trying to work extra shifts at the hospital when she could get up the energy.
“How much is this worth?” Tristen cut to the chase, flipping the paper over, looking for a sum. “It looks like a lot of work.”
“It’s a thirty-thousand-dollar scholarship,” Mr. Messerschmidt said just as I found the number myself.
Thirty. Thousand. Dollars. Once I saw it in print, the figure was pretty much all I noticed.
Darcy seemed kind of impressed, too. “That’s a decent chunk of change,” she admitted. “It won’t cover all my tuition at Harvard, but it’s nice money.”
“And a nice bit of work,” Tristen reminded us. “Hours in the lab conducting original research—and more time to develop a presentation. That’s a lot of effort.” He glanced at me. “Don’t you think, Jill?”
I was surprised to be singled out, and pushed my hair behind my ear, irrationally nervous as I met his brown eyes. “I—I don’t know . . . I mean—”
“It’s not just the money.” Mr. Messerschmidt cut me off before I could stammer out more nonsense.
I looked away from Tristen and trained my eyes on the paper, not wanting to see him laugh at me. Because I was pretty sure he’d been starting to smile at my failure to articulate a simple thought.
“Imagine how a win would look on college applications,” our teacher continued. “Universities would sit up and take notice.”
“Meaning more scholarship money,” Darcy said shrewdly.
I glanced at my rival, with her bobbed blond hair, her clear blue eyes, and her confident pose, manicured hand on hip, and thought with jealousy that Darcy probably really would get into Harvard, as she already seemed to assume.
Mr. Messerschmidt also smiled with approval at Darcy’s ability to connect the dots. “Precisely.” He plucked my flyer from my fingers, pointing to the copy. “And see—you can work alone or in pairs.”
Pairs again.
“And split the cash, then?” Tristen asked, squinting at the small print.
“Yes, half the money—but double the chance of winning,” Mr. Messerschmidt noted. “You guys are good, but a lot of talented students will compete for this. Two heads would definitely be better than one. And you’d still get all the prestige. That can’t be halved.”
Mr. Messerschmidt had a point. It was probably better to play it safe and have at least a decent shot at $15,000, which was nothing to sneeze at. It was like a year of education if I went to a nearby state university, like Kutztown or Millersville, and lived at home. And even at Smith, my dream school . . . my long shot . . . the money would go a long way.
But Darcy was already looking from me to Tristen and back again with an exaggerated frown. “Sorry, kids,” she said. “But Darcy Gray works solo.”
Had either of us begged for her help?
I looked to Tristen, mouth starting to open, about to suggest that maybe, just maybe, we might want to consider a partnership. Just to improve our chances.
But before I could speak, he said, with a laugh, “And Tristen Hyde doesn’t work at all!” Then he crammed the flyer into his messenger bag, where presumably his lab manual was also crumpled and already forgotten. “Or at least not that hard.”
Then both Darcy Gray and Tristen Hyde turned on their heels and headed for their next classes, leaving me. The odd girl out.
“That’s a shame,” Mr. Messerschmidt mused, shaking his balding head at their abrupt departure. “For both of you.”
“Um . . . how’s that?” I asked, taking time to refold my flyer, tuck it into my chemistry folder, and zip that into my backpack. What did my teacher consider unfortunate for me and . . . who did he even mean? Darcy or Tristen?
“I really thought the whole idea of a Jekel-Hyde team of chemists might be just interesting enough in itself to get you an advantage,” Mr. Messerschmidt said. “Too bad Tristen’s not interested.”
My hand stopped in mid-zip, and my head jerked up.
Jekel and Hyde.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time I’d thought of our names in that way. When Tristen had arrived at Supplee Mill at the start of our junior year, people had made the connection and joked about us being soul mates. Not only was the teasing embarrassing, but it was obvious that nobody really remembered the old Robert Louis Stevenson novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which we’d all read in freshman lit. In the book, mild-mannered Dr. Henry Jekyll had created a formula that changed him into his evil alter-ego, “Mr. Hyde”—a ruthless killer. It was far from a love story. Thankfully, since Tristen and I hardly ever crossed paths, the jokes had quickly gotten old and pointless, and before long, like everybody else, I’d pretty much forgotten our names were even linked.
Certainly, when Mr. Messerschmidt brought up the connection again in the context of a chemistry competition, that was the first time in months I’d thought about the coincidence of Jekel meeting Hyde again—and connected us both to the old locked box in Dad’s sealed home office.<
br />
I resumed zipping my backpack, but my thoughts were a million miles away.
Or would that be over one hundred years away?
Me, Tristen, and that box . . . The one I’d been warned never, ever to touch.
And certainly never to open.
Forget it, Jill, I told myself, shouldering my backpack and abandoning the idea almost as quickly as it had crossed my mind. I’d been told to leave the box alone, and I would follow my parents’ rules.
At least that’s what I thought I’d do until two nights later, when my mom called me to a family meeting—convening what little was left of our family—and confided a nasty little secret that she’d been hiding specifically from me.
Chapter 3
Tristen
“HEY, TRISTEN.”
I looked first to my arm—surprised and more than a little unhappy to discover a hand resting there—and then shifted my eyes to learn that it was Darcy Gray who dared to touch me, uninvited, as I shoved books into my open locker.
“About that chemistry scholarship,” Darcy said without removing her hand. “I’ve been rethinking working alone.”
My mouth began to twitch with amusement, and I arched my eyebrows. “Really, Darcy? Have you?”
Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to advise Darcy that I had not rethought anything related to the contest—including the partnership that she was about to suggest—because we were both interrupted by yet another hand very unwisely clamping down on my shoulder.
I turned slowly to see Todd Flick’s narrow, suspicious, simian eyes glaring up at me as he demanded, “Why the hell are you touching my girlfriend, Hyde?”
Forgetting Darcy entirely, I turned my head to stare pointedly at Flick’s knuckles. “Take your hand away,” I advised. “Now.”
Although I’d heard much of quarterbacks being the smartest players on American football teams, Flick wasn’t bright enough to do as I said. Instead he issued an ultimatum, snarling, “You have two seconds to explain, Hyde—or I’m gonna kick your ass.”
After that, just as my grandfather had predicted, I forgot pretty much everything. Again.