Under the Rose (26 page)

“Maybe my problem was that it gave you another chance to act chauvinistic and superior.”

And apparently that remark hit a little too close to home as well. Poe was silent for a moment, then regrouped. “Amy, grow up. I did a little good-old-boy talk, and we got in. Get over your indignation.”

Poe stuck his hands in his pockets and kept walking. I stood there for a moment, seething, my mouth opening and closing like a fish. Easy for him to say. Easy for him not to get up in arms every time he was taken for a moron, because he
chose
when it would happen. When you deal with dismissive attitudes every day, playing the fool grates a hell of a lot more. I was treated like a lesser being several times a week when I
wasn’t
feigning stupidity, merely by virtue of…of what? In the general population, it was because I was a woman, in the world of Eli it was because I was a “soft” Literature major, and in my own secret society it was because I held a slight historical tendency toward paranoia.

But I was not an idiot, and I was not wrong about this. Any of it. There was something monumentally weird happening in the case of Jenny Santos, and I was going to prove it.

I caught up to Poe as he headed down the steps into the graduate school’s main building. “Okay, fine,” I said. “I agree to put aside our partisan politics in favor of the greater good. Yes, we got into her room. Thank you. And I know you aren’t going to believe me, but that place was a disaster last night. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there.”

Poe closed the door behind us and stood there for one long moment, his hand on the knob, his faced downturned. Then he looked at me, his gray eyes sad and full of concern. “I believe you,” he said at last. “I think she may be in danger.”

I hereby confess:

I’m not above feeling smug.

14.

Commission and Omission

Why did Poe’s proclamation chill me the way it did? After all, I’d been saying as much all day. But by this point, I’d gotten used to people not believing me. So when someone did—someone who, up until this point, seemed to have one purpose in life and that was proving me wrong—I didn’t feel vindicated. At least, not right away. No, my immediate reaction was terror.

Then triumph. Natch.

“What?” I exclaimed. “If you believe me, then we should be running to tell the police what we know.”

“Not without any evidence of wrongdoing. Not for an adult who’s been gone one day. No one would see a clean room as a sign of a kidnapping.”

“When were you going to tell me about your change of heart?” We’d been together for the past half hour and he’d given me no indication he felt any differently.

“How about not in front of the Edison dean?”

“How about
yes
in front of him! How long were you planning on keeping me on the hook?”

“I wanted more information first. I wanted to confirm the facts.”

Because he couldn’t just believe me. “Why wouldn’t you let me speak back in the tower? You saw that room. You know that’s not the way it was.”

“That’s not the only thing I know.” Poe checked the surrounding area, then backed me into a tiny chantry, leaned his head close to me, and started whispering. “After class today, I called Mr. Gehry.”

“You did? I thought you said he wouldn’t speak to you.”

But apparently it was a matter of what, exactly, the disgraced Poe had to offer. “I told him we believe Jennifer Santos is responsible for the leak.”

“And?”

“He didn’t act surprised. Which in itself is not noteworthy. But then he said he’d ‘taken care of it’ and ‘seen to it that people like her were no longer a threat to the organization.’” Poe pushed off the wall and turned away. “I thought I knew what he meant by that, but…her room! It’s like it had been sanitized.”

I didn’t know how to deal with this Poe. The angry, smug, holier-than-thou Poe I was used to. Not the one who looked worried, or friendly, or…frightened. This was the Poe Malcolm actually liked. And I had no idea how to react to him.

He sat down on the bench and folded his hands before him. “You said that last night you thought her bedroom had been trashed. Maybe they were looking for something. And after seeing the room today, I’d say they found it.” I digested this, and Poe watched me with clear, gray eyes. “Amy, are you sure there was no one else in that room with you last night?”

Oddly enough, the
of course
response failed to fall from my lips. It might be because I’d suddenly started shivering. This stone enclave was cold, and dark, and a little damp. And I may be in serious shit.

“I don’t know. There was so much crap in there. I don’t know where someone would have been hiding—” Except behind the computer table, or in the closet, or even under the bed, blocked from sight by the balled-up duvet. I rubbed my hands up and down my arms. “If someone was there, and they saw me…”

“Then they probably think you have the info, too. They may be following us right now. They may be searching your room next.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” I realized my voice had gone up an octave and a few decibels, and I brought it back to a whisper. “Who would be following me? Every Digger on the planet knows the information Jenny’s been spilling to the site. Of course I have the info. We all have it. That’s never been of concern.”

“They know what’s she leaked so far. Our initiation procedures and similar information. To tell the truth, I’m pretty sure most of that stuff has been leaked at various times in the last century or so. But unless you read the Black Books, you don’t know substantive information about the day-to-day of clubs that you didn’t belong to. Maybe they’re interested in discovering what she knows of those kind of details.” He paused. “Or maybe it’s even more than that.” Poe closed in and took me by the shoulders. “What else do you know?”

I brought my hands down on his forearms, karate-chop style. “Nothing. I only know what they’ve been saying at the meetings.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure?”

What the hell was he talking about? “Of course I’m sure. It’s me you’re talking to, remember? I’m the most clueless Digger of them all!”

Poe didn’t respond, simply stood there for a moment, studying me. “You keep saying that, but you must know it’s not true.” His tone was soft, almost conciliatory. Or maybe it was just that he was whispering. “You have this way of…weaseling information out. Like last year…” He returned to the bench, and sat, staring at his shoes for several seconds.

Yeah, it was just the whisper.
Weaseling information out?
Please. Right after my initiation, when the patriarchs had barricaded the tomb, Poe had made an obscure slip of the tongue, and I remembered it long enough to figure out he’d do anything to support his club. It’s not like I’d had him locked in a room, interrogating him with water boards and finger screws.
Weaseling!

Finally, he lifted his head, “Amy, there’s something…after you kicked me out of the tomb last month…”

“I’m not your confessor, James,” I said. The last thing I wanted was to fill in for his graduated Digger friends. “Once upon a time, I found your weakness, and I exploited it. End of story.”

Ah, the patented glare was back. Good. I was on firmer footing if Poe reverted to form. He lifted his chin. “Yes. You did. So now I’m not going to have any more weaknesses.”

“You’re still a devoted Digger,” I said. “You know it, and I know it. You’d do anything to protect the sanctity of this organization.”

He smirked. “Shows what you know.”

Yep, back on solid ground.

When you become a Digger, you take three oaths to the society. They go like this:

1)
The oath of secrecy:
I do hereby most solemnly avow, within the Flame of Life and beneath the Shadow of Death, never to reveal, by commission or by omission, the existence of, the knowledge considered sacred by, or the names of the membership of the Order of Rose & Grave.

2)
The oath of constancy:
I do hereby most solemnly avow, within the Flame of Life and beneath the Shadow of Death, to bear the confidence and the confessions of my brothers, to support them in all their endeavors, and to keep forever sacred whatsoever I may learn beneath the seal of the Order of Rose & Grave.

3)
The oath of fidelity:
I do hereby most solemnly pledge and avow my love and affection, everlasting loyalty and undying fealty. By the Flame of Life and the Shadow of Death, I swear to cleave wholly unto the principles of this ancient order, to further its friends and plight its enemies, and place above all others the causes of the Order of Rose & Grave.

And yes, I know those second two sound like synonyms. I didn’t name the darn things; I just swore by them.

After Poe and I took our rather chilly leave of each other, I grabbed dinner then headed off to the library to get started on the
Humphrey Clinker
clunker. But the words wouldn’t come, and the rereading-significant-passages phase failed to uncover any paper-worthy insights. This was going to be a painful one. After a few hours, I packed up and headed home. If I wasn’t going to be working hard, I might as well not be doing so in the comfort of my own suite. Persephone willing, I wouldn’t come face-to-face with Josh, because, frankly, ain’t exactly feeling the brotherly love at the moment.

Instead, I found Lydia, who’d clearly been waiting for me a while, to judge by the way she pounced the second I crossed the threshold. “Do you have a minute?”

“
A
minute.” I took off my bag and sat. “What’s up?” My roommate was looking rather less than happy at the moment. I hadn’t been hanging with her much lately. Things at the tomb had been so hectic. But were those dark circles under her eyes?

“Something weird is going on with Josh. He’s been acting strange all week.”

All week? Not since, oh, Wednesday? I nodded and looked thoughtful. “Hmm…”

“And I think I know why.”

I clapped my mouth shut. She did? She what? How? We’d been so
discreet.

Lydia took a deep breath. “I—um—kind of let the L-word slip. The real one. Not the ‘I love your hair, I love your laugh, I love spending time with you’ one, but the nonqualified version. I think I freaked him out.”

Honestly, I thought so, too, but I remained unconvinced that this was the root of his personality shift. Unless…He had gone on the attack right at the beginning of the week. Could our little confrontation a few days ago have been caused by his own relationship woes? But I tried to keep my tone neutral. “Wow. When did you say it?”

“After Halloween.”

Bingo. “And the response?”

Lydia blushed.

In my opinion, there are several families of response to this statement:

1)
“I love you, too.” (Or some variation thereof.) And you mean it.

2)
Same, but you don’t.

3)
“Thanks.”

4)
An upfront admission that, no, you don’t love them, and you don’t think it’s a good idea they expend much energy loving you.

5)
The coward’s way out. (Full disclosure: I’m very familiar with this strategy, having most recently used it on Brandon. He said he loved me, I zoned out, he caught my attention, and I insisted I’d been listening the whole time. And, at the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, it sucks.)