Shades of Darkness (21 page)

“What the hell is going on?” I whispered.

But Munin didn't answer. The raven ruffled its feathers and flew off, cawing as loud as the secrets I thought I'd buried deep and dead.

•  •  •

I was jumped the moment I stepped inside my dorm.

“Tell me it's not true,” Elisa sobbed into my arms. “Tell me it's not true.”

I held her close and rubbed her back and tried not to feel like an imposter. Munin had never appeared like that, not so brazenly.
I'm not going back,
I wanted to scream. Instead, I focused on her. On Jane. On the event I still vehemently swore to myself I had nothing to do with.

“What are they saying?” I asked.

For some reason, I felt stronger here, holding Elisa up. She weighted me down to the present, made me focus on the definite things. It was always easier to be a hero for someone else. Being your own savior was the hard part.

“They're saying she killed herself,” Elisa sobbed. She barely got the words out. “She wouldn't do that, Kaira. She wouldn't kill herself. Not without saying something. Not without reaching out.”

“I know. I know, it doesn't make any sense.” Again, that small tell of a lie.
It doesn't make sense, and that's why I feel responsible.

“We just saw her. We sat with her at lunch and she was happy.”

I bit my lip. I knew the words to say, but that didn't make saying them any easier.

“Sometimes it's easy to hide behind smiles. Some people are really, really good at it.”

“But why? Why would she do it? She wasn't depressed. She was my friend, Kaira, and she never said anything about it.”

“Secrets like that are hard to share,” I said. “Who knows how much stress she was under?”

“I did. We told each other everything.
Everything.
”

I sighed. “I know. And I don't understand it either.”

Elisa took a deep, sobbing breath and pulled back. Her eyes were reddened and haloed with smudged mascara. She looked like an angel in mourning.

“What are we going to do now?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I replied, thinking of Munin perched on my shoulder. I'd never felt more honest in my life.

•  •  •

Our second school assembly was called that night. Right at sign-in, when we'd normally be sequestered to our dorms, we trudged out in the snow and back into the theatre we'd huddled in one week ago.

I sat in the back once more, Elisa on one side and Ethan and Oliver on the other. I spotted Chris up front, with some other boys from his dorm. He didn't look my way. Not once. I hated admitting to myself how much it hurt.
Why did you push him away?

Why did
you
want him closer?

Ms. Kenton took to the stage again. The place was already in transition for Elisa's play, with gray platforms and chains and swathes of fabric. Our president looked like a shadow among the ruins of the set, a ghost.

I didn't listen to a word she said. I couldn't focus on her, just the back of Chris's head and the shadows leaking into the corners of the room like ravens through the trees. I picked out a few words—like “solidarity” and “mourning” and “support groups”—but there was no point listening to her talk about how suicide wasn't the answer, that there were people here who loved us and wanted us to flourish and were always there to listen.

“Are you okay?” Ethan whispered into my ear.

I jolted to the side, nearly knocking into Elisa.

I didn't risk speaking, so I shrugged and nodded and kept my eyes on Ms. Kenton, who was now saying that please, everyone, life was precious. Let's not forget that.

Ethan took my hand as we left the theatre and wandered back through the thickening snow. I ignored the crows lined up on the streetlamps. I ignored Chris, who walked a little farther ahead of me. It felt like I was a character in a video game controlled by someone else. And I was perfectly okay with that. I didn't want to be responsible. I didn't want to be here.

But that was the problem with boarding school. There wasn't anywhere else to go.

•  •  •

“Promise me,” Elisa said in the darkness. “Promise me you'll never leave me. Not like that.”

“I promise,” I whispered back.

Elisa mumbled something else. It sounded like a prayer to Jane, her words begging forgiveness for not being there. I turned over and buried my head under the comforter. I didn't like listening in.

The tea from Mom warmed me, slipping me in and out of my heavy consciousness. Mugwort and chamomile, peppermint and rose hips. To calm and strengthen the dreaming mind, to promote deep sleep. I prayed to the gods it would work.

I squeezed the crystal in my hand. I didn't want to talk to him. Not tonight. Not yet.

I'm not ready to go back. I'm not ready for you to take me.

When sleep finally came, it wasn't the lull of the tide or slipping under into dream. It was the flap of raven wings and the scent of burnt ash.

I woke up the next morning to a blessed lack of dreams and a few texts from Ethan.
I hope you're okay, this shit's getting cray
and
I can't believe I just rhymed okay and cray. I'm gayer than I thought—don't tell Oliver.
And finally,
We need to get out of here.

A grin broke across my face in spite of myself. Leave it to Ethan to be able to cheer me up, even when things were about as shitty as they could be.

If you ever say “cray” again I'll de-friend you
, I typed back.
Also, yes please. I need out.

T'Chai Nanni wouldn't be open until later in the afternoon, and I couldn't imagine spending any time in the studio or this room or wandering like a ghost through the paths of the woods. Islington was a prison today, and I needed freedom. Not that anything in town sounded idyllic. I just knew I couldn't sit still. There was no way this day was going to be anything other than a wash.

Elisa was already gone, which wasn't surprising. I looked over to her side of the room, to the photos of her and Jane on vacation together, the road trips and smiles. Jane had slept in our room a few times for movie nights, and we'd stayed up way too late watching crappy horror movies and eating junk food and trying not to squeal with laughter at the bad special effects lest an RA come in and, well, sit down and watch with us. It felt like there was a hole in my gut, one punched out by Jane's ghost. But the sadness wasn't there. Instead, I just felt empty.

The phone buzzed with Ethan's response.

I see you missed breakfast. I nearly did as well. Let's get donuts and vanish.

I typed back a quick
yes please. Meet in thirty?

I wanted to call my mom. I wanted her to tell me what was going on and how to make it better. But I didn't want to worry her. The last thing she needed was to think there was some weird suicide pact thing going on around campus. Instead, I slid from bed and into the bathroom for a shower. I doubted the heat would melt the numbness inside, but it was a better course of action than staring at the wall until Ethan showed up to whisk me away.

The water offered no solace. I hadn't expected it to. I turned off the faucet and toweled off and stared into the mirror. It took all of my self-control to keep the images down, the empty bathroom and my blood on the tiles.

I knew how it felt to stand on the edge and leap. I knew what came after the free fall.

Jane's and Mandy's deaths brought it all back into focus.

When I finally slipped into clean-ish clothes, I felt no better than when I woke up. Jane was gone. Jane was gone. Why did we remain?

I hated to admit that this hurt worse than Mandy, just as I hated to admit that I was too numb to truly feel anything but distanced from it all. Maybe that was just how I coped.

I needed Ethan to root me back down. I had my parents, sure, but he was the one who was here to show he cared, and that I mattered. I didn't want to make this about me, but . . . two suicides was hitting too close to home.

Especially since I still couldn't figure out how or why Munin was involved.

Before I could get too lost in my head, I walked down to the lobby to wait for Ethan.

Maria was behind the counter again. She was clearly in distress—her usual fancy dress and wicked rockabilly hair was replaced by a sweater and track pants, her hair hanging in a limp frizz down her back.

“How you doing?” she asked when she saw me.

“Managing. You?”

“Managing.” She gave me a weak smile. “They don't really train you for this sort of thing, you know? You girls are my best friends and family here.”

“I know,” I said. “It's . . .”

“Yeah.”

We sat in silence for a bit. Then I wandered over to my cubby, where a tiny strip of paper was waiting for me.

Kaira,

l'd like to speak with you soon. Saw your thesis and felt now would be a good time to reach out. l'll be free all day. Take care.

Jonathan A.

Of course he saw my thesis—he would have seen it when searching out Helen. And of course he would be concerned.

“Hey Winters,” Ethan said. I turned and stuffed the note in my pocket.

I hugged him in response. He smelled of faded cologne and boy soap and black tea. Just the scent of him helped root me back down, pull me back into my body. Ethan was a constant. Ethan would always be a constant.

“You doing okay?” he asked, still pressed tight against me. His voice was rough.

“Not really.”

“Me neither. Let's go.”

I signed out with Maria and followed Ethan into the dismal morning light. Gray sky, the ground covered in fresh snow. And on the streetlamp across from my dorm, a raven sat watching. Chills broke over me; I ignored them just as I ignored the bird.

“How's Oliver taking it?” I asked as we trudged away.

“He's okay. They weren't as close as we were.”

I nodded. No matter what, it was still a blow to everyone here. There was no way to live on a campus this small and not be affected by the death.

“I still can't believe she's gone,” he said after a while. Only a handful of students were out right now, wandering between dorms and studios. No music came from the practice rooms, though, which made the place feel abandoned. Islington always had a soundtrack.

“I can't either,” I replied.We reached his car and he took out the keys. “How's Elisa?”

“Not good,” I replied. “I haven't seen her at all today.”

“She was at breakfast talking to Cassie and some others. I think they were going to do some sort of vigil for her.”

I nodded. Even just being in his car felt strange. The scenery was the same, but the cast was different. He and I were no longer playing the right parts. So what were the right parts? When had our lives gotten so dark?

“Where do you want to go?”

“You mentioned donuts.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. Donuts and coffee and wandering? I don't really feel like sitting still.”

“Perfect.”

With the shudder of his engine, we rolled out of the parking lot and onto the street. I glanced out the window at the raven watching from the roof of the cafeteria. It watched us the entire way.

•  •  •

“This isn't how I expected to spend my last few months of Islington,” Ethan muttered. We walked slowly through downtown. It was like the entire world had picked up on the mood from school—only a handful of people were out, and those that were huddled under heavy coats and hoods and didn't bother to say hello or pause to window shop. Ethan and I clutched our donuts and mochas and did much the same.

“I don't think anyone expected it,” I said. “Especially since neither of them said anything.”

He paused, and when he spoke again, there was a tentative note to his voice.

“I saw your thesis,” he said.