Ivy holds up the origami pig she folded out of one of the paper menus. “Slade, you barely pass for a high school sophomore.” His face sours, so she adds, “Don’t worry—I’m sure college chicks really dig the jockey look.”
“If I’m a jockey, why haven’t I ridden you yet?”
Ivy lets her hand hover an inch above her head. “Because you must be this tall to ride the Ivy.”
Slade gnashes his teeth at her, then pushes Troy in the direction of the pizza counter.
The banter between Ivy and Slade has always entertained me, but occasionally it ventures some place bordering on venomous. I know the two of them hang out together alone, outside of the Amaranthine Society, to the point that I’ve overheard other students suggest that they’re hooking up, or even secretly dating. It’s certainly crossed my mind before, although they’re two of my best friends and I’ve never seen a lick of evidence. No suggestive text messages. No fleeting touches. No movie night with Troy and me that they might have both blown off to be alone. Even now, as we watch Slade lean over the counter and gesture excitedly at Troy, and as the three cashiers behind the counter laugh, Ivy’s face is devoid of any envy. Only amusement.
Wyatt squints at the counter. “What story do you think he’s feeding them? That Troy’s a famous movie star and Slade’s his agent?”
“I’m sure that in Slade’s world, it’s the other way around,” Ivy says.
While Wyatt and Ivy are distracted spectating, I casually unzip the edge of Troy’s backpack. The white envelope I spotted before rests on top of the pile of overnight clothes he stuffed into his bag. I know I should zip the pack closed, but it’s too late.
Because I’ve noticed the University of Barcelona crest in the corner of the envelope.
I quickly excuse myself, saying I’m going to the bathroom. I retreat to the privacy of the mail center, where a few students are spinning the combination locks on their little post office boxes. The prepaid envelope cradled in my hands is, sure enough, addressed to the university. And it’s sealed, which indicates to me two things:
Troy had already made his decision to go to Spain, a week before we even had our discussion, and
If he made up his mind before he talked to me about it, I must not have weighed as heavily into his deliberation as I thought.
I’m seized by a sudden icy resentment. With all our lives in danger, I know that it’s petty to be furious about a little envelope. It shouldn’t change anything—but it does. It feels like the last two months we had together have vanished beneath a crimson haze.
I extend the letter toward the mail slot in the wall labeled “International.” If Troy really mailed this letter today, then good riddance. I’m not about to let a few ripples in the pond make him hesitate this time.
But now I’m the one who hesitates. As I’m about to slip the letter into the slot, I notice the dark marks. The rest of the heavy-stock paper is a fresh white except for the oily smudge of fingerprints around the edges. Troy must have sat in his bed, fretting as he turned the letter over and over again until the borders turned gray.
Am I being too brash? On one hand, I’d already come to terms with Troy’s decision to study abroad, even prepared myself for the reality that I might lose him. On the other, “losing Troy” has taken on a whole new context since Osiris started peering into the terrarium of my life, tapping on the glass, toying with all of us. It might be selfish, but it kills me inside that I’m fighting to keep him and the others safe—to keep him in my life—all while he’s about to make a flip decision that potentially removes me from his.
I don’t even notice Wyatt sneak up behind me. “What’s that?” he asks.
I let go of the letter, and it slides through the slot. I hear the paper “splash” as it lands in the bin on the other side. No turning back now. “Mailing in my rent check for the month,” I joke. I try to sound casual, but inside I’m wound tighter than the threads of a screw.
Wyatt doesn’t look like he buys it, but he changes the subject. “So apparently Windshire’s water polo team is having a ‘welcome party’ for me and some other recruits tonight at an off-campus house.”
“They’re going to woo you into attending Windshire by plying you with booze and women? That’s so original for an athletics program.” I’m momentarily distracted, because I see an unfamiliar girl, a gorgeous cheerful redhead, chatting with Ivy back at the couches.
When I turn back to Wyatt, he’s looking searchingly into my eyes. “I feel like I haven’t had a lot of time to hang out with you recently, especially without your entourage around. Do you think, maybe when we get back to Massachusetts, we could spend a little time one-on-one? You know, eighteen holes of a miniature golf, maybe smuggle in a sixer of those hard lemonades you love so much?”
I said “sure” the last time he asked me something similar and never followed through. Things change when you wind up in a serious relationship. Friendships with guys who aren’t your boyfriend become subject to new rules, new boundaries, complications, especially when the friendship in question is with a muscular, popular, Hollywood-smile type like Wyatt. I clear my throat and tuck a tress of hair behind my ear. “Sure.”
“Come to the party tonight,” he suggests. “I bet you could convince your host to bring you.”
I scoff. “Are you kidding? My host is a—” I have to cut myself off because I almost spoke too soon again. My host last time was a mousy no-fun square, whose idea of a good time was making me sit through her two-hour chorus rehearsal, then playing Gin Rummy back in her dorm. To put it eloquently, she sucked. “Sounds like fun,” I say, changing course. “Hopefully my host won’t be a total lame-ass.”
“Your host is a lame-ass and she smells bad,” says the pretty redhead who was talking with Ivy before. “She also, quite unfortunately, happens to be me.”
I give the girl a once-over. Unless my previous host underwent a She’s All That makeover today, this is clearly not the joyless academic I stayed with last time. Soccer-toned calves in place of unfashionable socks. A deep-set tan instead of a glacial paleness. “You’re … not what I expected,” I say, choosing my words carefully.
“Yeah, sorry.” She plucks at the name-tag on her sundress—Emma—and gives an apologetic shrug. “I would have worn something a bit more ‘admissions representative professional’ if I’d known I was going to be hosting tonight. I got a frantic voicemail in class from my supervisor, saying that your original host had a family emergency.” She bites her lip. “Probably should have cleaned up my room and inflated the air mattress.”
Wyatt slaps me on the back. “Don’t worry—give Renata a bed of hay or a soft patch of grass and she’ll sleep through the apocalypse.”
I pinch his cheek. “I think what Wyatt is trying to say is that he hopes his overnight host looks like you.”
“Amen,” Wyatt whispers.
Emma winks at him. “I’ll give the girls at Delta Gamma a call and see if they have an open bed in the sorority house. For now, you’re probably stuck in an athlete’s apartment, which means it’s going to smell like a jockstrap. Have fun!” With that, she drags me away toward my overnight bag back by the couches.
Until now, I’ve been able to go through the motions of living today a second time, but now dread swells in me, like my body is filling with rubber cement. Dread because I’m being separated from my friends. Dread that sooner or later Troy is going to open his backpack and find his envelope missing.
Dread because something in the fabric of time was somehow altered to give me a new overnight host.
And I’m not the one who altered it.
“Come on.” Emma tugs on my arm. “You can see your friends any day of the week—but you only get one overnight at Windshire.”
Ordinarily I’d agree with her. But when the rules of time have been fractured and an assassin is tracking you down, any day with your friends could be your last.
Emma picks up my heavy overnight bag, which is packed so tight that th
e zippers look ready to fly off. She grunts as she slings it over her shoulder. “Wow, girl, did you bring enough baggage?”
On the other side of the couches, Troy winks at me as he shakes hands with his own host. “You have no idea,” I reply.
As it turns out, whatever twist of fate replaced Mousy Liz with Fun Emma was a blessing. Emma skips her Ancient Science class to take me up to the lawn behind the athletic center, where we throw a Frisbee around with some of her sorority sisters. It’s a breezeless beautiful afternoon that feels more like June than early March, the kind where the sun softly warms your bare shoulders if you stand still long enough. I smile and laugh at all the right cues, like when Emma and her friends make me promise to pledge Delta Gamma if—no, when—I enroll at Windshire.
Desiree, one of Emma’s sorority sisters, flips the Frisbee in her hands. “I’m secretly dating someone in the admissions office,” she says, “so if you get waitlisted, let me know and I’ll pull some strings.”
Emma snorts. “Are you sure strings are what you’ll be pulling?” She makes a motion with her hand and everyone laughs. Desiree yells, “Shut up, loser” and whips the Frisbee at her. It falls way short and drops limply to the grass, and we all laugh again.
The fact that I’m having such a good time makes me uneasy, guilty even. I’m supposed to be catching a killer—and instead I’m spending the day getting a farmer’s tan with a sorority house.
Now that I know my friends are alive, and not dead at the bottom of a Green Mountain ravine, it almost feels safer to be away from them, like Osiris can only harm them when I’m nearby. From a tactical perspective, this field makes me feel safer, too. Even though I’m out in the open, the turf is flat and I can see a quarter mile in any direction. Unless the killer is perched on the top of the athletic center with a sniper rifle, he’s not going to catch me by surprise.
If he was, I’d already be dead, anyway.
Soon, I discover that the Frisbee game was a mild ruse. The varsity men’s soccer team is climbing the field toward their new stadium. Half of them aren’t wearing shirts. I figure the other girls want to play coy, so I pass the Frisbee to Emma. It hits her in the thigh and flops to the grass, because she’s busy waving to the athletes. Big smiles sweep through the parade of shirtless men like dominos when they see the five of us.
Apparently subtlety is for high school, but in college brazenness prevails. So much for playing hard-to-get.
We spend an hour sitting in the stands as spectators, which is fine by me, because watching topless guys kick a ball around beats my last overnight, when I was forced to sit through the choir’s dreary rehearsal of Mozart’s Lacrimosa. At dinner in the dining hall, the girls excitedly discuss tonight’s luau, which I quickly figure out is the party being hosted by the water polo team.
Well, Wyatt, it looks like I’ll be in attendance tonight after all.
Later, I get ready in front of Emma’s bedroom mirror. She lends me a floral Hawaiian bikini top and a grass skirt. I withhold the urge to ask why she needed to bring two grass skirts with her to college.
The hairbrush keeps snagging in my hair, which is sweaty and moisture-crimped from all the time we spent in the humid outdoors. The heat wave must have made the trees blossom early, because I’m starting to feel that sleepy pollen-coated haze I get during allergy season.
I hear the hiss of air and a “Eureka!” from Emma as she attaches the sagging air mattress to the pump. It’s big enough that it fills nearly the entire floor between the two bunks in the cramped sorority room, which is so small that it feels more like a telephone booth.
Emma comes up behind me in the mirror and purses her lips. “It’s cool if you don’t want to wear makeup, Renata—I’m a big supporter of going au natural myself—but are you sure you don’t want to take a shower? You know, maybe shampoo your hair?”
I twist one of my blonde coils around my finger. Definitely a little on the sticky side. “It’s okay. I’m going to the luau to have a margarita and maybe a little spit-roasted pork, not to impress some water polo guys.”
Emma smirks. “So what’s his name?” I say nothing. “Come on, spill. Was it the sexy, tall Ralph Lauren model with the sidekick? Or that hot piece of dark chocolate who looked ready to pin you up against the mailboxes and pleasure every inch of your—”
“The first one,” I cut her off. “Troy and I decided to give long distance a try.” A conversation he and I won’t have for another two weeks, but Emma doesn’t need to know that.
She nods. “My high school sweetheart and I gave long distance a try, too. Five hundred miles didn’t seem like a deal breaker, especially since we lived in the same hometown and we’d get to spend all our summers and holidays together.”
“Why do I feel like there’s not going to be a happily-ever-after at the end of this story?” I ask.
“He had a new girlfriend by the third week of college. The asshole managed to date us both until I finally found out about it two weeks ago.”
I cringe. “I didn’t realize you were a freshman.”
She offers an unenthusiastic smile. “I’m a junior.” Then she holds up her ring finger to show me the tan line where a promise ring used to be.
I point to the dart board, where a tattered photograph has been chewed to pieces by a thousand dart holes. “So I guess I don’t have to ask who the Swiss cheese is?”
Emma pats me on the back. “College changes everything. If you like the guy, give it a shot. As long as you remember to hope for the best …”
“But expect the worst?” I finish for her.
She holds up her straightening iron. “I was going to say ‘but it doesn’t hurt to look hot just in case.’ Your version works too, though.”
I’m prepared for a small gathering, maybe five or ten water polo guys forcing Wyatt to do a keg stand and pawing at any females that come through the door. Instead, as we climb onto the paint-chipped porch, we walk into a scene that looks like some sort of elaborate Hollywood set.
We pass a shirtless guy—the bouncer?—in a speedo who looks like he bathes in steroids. He nods approvingly at us, but even his fist-sized abs aren’t enough to deter my gaze from the gutted living room of the frat house. All the interior walls have been torn down to transform the first level into one vast, continuous room. Greek columns have been molded out of plaster around the support beams. The water polo captain sits on an elaborate throne, wielding a beer-can scepter.
In the centerpiece of the royal court is an enormous volcano built out of fake rocks. It rises into the second floor, where a wide, jagged hole has been cut away to give the lobby a cathedral ceiling. A fog machine installed in the volcano’s crater pumps out a white mist that cascades down the plaster rocks.
There’s got to be more than a hundred partygoers, all dressed in beach attire ranging from modest to “might as well be tinsel.” A group cheers as a girl rides a foam surfboard down a Slip ’N Slide. Up on the jagged lip of the second floor, I spy a keg and a water cooler, probably full of jungle juice, with a line leading all the way back to the stairs. It’s a wonder no one’s fallen off the edge onto the volcano yet. Everyone is bobbing to the Hawaiian music. With the amount of booze flowing, I think some of these people would happily dance to the sounds of a washing machine.
My mouth hangs open. Emma notices. “What’s the matter—never been to a party before?”
I suppress a laugh. “The word ‘party’ on the Daedalus campus usually means five guys throwing ping pong balls at cups filled with cheap beer, then hiding under their beds when the RA comes knocking. No, this …” I wag my finger at the chaos. “This is a zoo.”
“A zoo you could get used to?” Emma asks hopefully.
“As long as I don’t wind up in the lion’s cage,” I whisper. Of course I’m all smiles, but the first murmurs of dread creep over the ukulele music. A crowded house in an unfamiliar city. Lots of people around. My friends somewhere nearby on the Windshire campus.
Osiris would have a
field day with this.
Beside me, Emma scans the crowd. “Who do I have to pounce on around here to get cups for the jungle juice?” she asks.
I point to the hot guy leaning against a small table with a stack of red plastic cups and a wicker basket full of cash. “Hopefully that dude?”
Emma spends enough time flirting with “Cup Guy” that he turns over his shift to an eager freshman and escorts us to the front of the drink line. No one argues.
We stand on the edge of the jagged hole, which Cup Guy calls “the Abyss,” while I tune out the flirt-fest between Emma and our new friend. She seems to be making up for all that lost time being in an unfaithful relationship. I take an occasional sip from the mixture of Kool-Aid and hard liquor in my cup, just enough to take the edge off.
But inside I feel all the thoughts about Osiris and this reverse time travel business and my “phoenix-ness” bubbling to the top, all the questions I’d been avoiding since this morning.
The truth is that I’m a 17-year-old girl who shouldn’t stand a chance against an assassin if he wanted me dead. I don’t know who Osiris is, or what he looks like, and the first two times, I was completely blindsided by his attacks. If he wanted to, he could probably walk right up to me and slide a knife between my ribs.
But a walk-by stabbing doesn’t match his profile. In May, he blew up a cruise ship. In April, he edged another bus off the road before he came for mine—and that doesn’t even take into account the entire softball game when I was a sitting duck out on the softball field.
There’s something to these hits that isn’t solely about me. These aren’t tidy assassinations. They’re acts of terror. Which means that this isn’t just about saving myself.
Speak of the devil. Wyatt comes walking up the staircase, no longer sporting the jeans and t-shirt combo he wore this morning. The water polo team dressed him up as Aladdin, complete with a purple vest, baggy white pants, and to top it all off, a red fez with a tassel.
Grateful for the interruption, I lean on the balustrade and smirk at him. “Sweet costume, bro. The toddlers at the Disney-themed birthday party down the street are going to be so excited when you finally show up.”