“At this hour?” Gordon said.
Another uncomfortable silence. I was sure whatever reason Jeremiah had for being late was a legitimate one. He could’ve had a breakthrough he wasn’t ready to share. Or Teacher might have asked for his help, told him to keep things confidential. I wanted to defend my friend but now was not the time to cause trouble. I tried to catch Jeremiah’s eye. He was busy returning Gordon’s glare.
“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business for once?” Jeremiah finally said, tired.
Ruth gasped. Raeanne smirked. Everyone shifted nervously except Gordon, whose face and statuesque stillness gave away nothing as he stared at Jeremiah.
Sofia bounced harder on her toes, goggling at the horizon. “Can we jump in now?”
That broke the spell. Jeremiah turned away from Gordon and stood next to me, mouthing, Sorry. I smiled and his shoulders slackened.
Ruth stepped up. “Unless one of you wants to lead this ceremony, no more outbursts.” She fixed each of us with a scowl. No one said a word. “Let’s get in the water.”
My fellow students slipped out of their shoes and hitched up their pant legs.
“Cannonball,” hollered Sofia, running toward the sea.
“Sofia, don’t,” Ruth called. “The water’s not that—”
Sofia jumped in. We all peered over the boulders, waiting. A couple of seconds later she resurfaced, shrieking about how cold it was. Ruth sighed.
Everyone else eased off the rocks. I gasped when the water bit my toes, then ankles, then knees—it couldn’t have been over fifty degrees. Ruth and Sanderson were last to get in. She squeezed his hand when she thought no one was looking, and he smiled back. The group waded deeper, forming a circle around me like a shiver of sharks. I waited, trying to stop shaking. I didn’t want them to think I was scared.
Once Sofia had quieted down, Ruth said, “The Inner Circle is a group of students that are more committed than the average guest to pursuing their Maximized Selves. The six months of classes are a good start, but we need the opportunity to put what we’ve learned into action. Think, for example, of becoming a lawyer.” She paused. “After completing years of course work, you don’t simply begin arguing in a courtroom. First you have to pass the bar exam. Do you understand?”
I nodded, mind racing.
“The way we test ourselves is through Quests of Fearlessness. Some members call them q’s for short. In each quest we attempt to master a universal fear.”
She stopped again. I felt like I should say something. “How many quests are there?” My legs were numb.
“No one knows,” Debbie said with wonder.
“Teacher does,” Raeanne said.
“With every completed quest, you move one step closer to your Maximized Self,” Ruth said. “None of us knows what a quest entails until the first of us tries to complete it.”
Sofia spoke up, water dripping from her head. “They’re the most life-altering experiences you’ll ever have.”
The others nodded.
“Teacher will never ask you to complete a quest until she knows you’re ready,” Ruth said. “In order to be initiated you have to pass your q1. The Quest of Judgment.”
Butterflies swarmed my stomach. “Tonight?”
She tipped her head forward.
The people here didn’t judge the failures of my past—they wanted to better the Kit standing in front of them right now. When I’d joined Wisewood back in July, I had hoped I might return home with a few strategies to break harmful thought patterns. I wanted to loosen the noose of guilt around my neck. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d come this far, find the philosophy I had been searching for my whole life.
“I’ll do it.” My teeth chattered.
Ruth beamed. “First we have to get you clean.” She joined me in the center of the circle, told me to lie on my back in the water. I did as instructed, sopping sweater and jeans pinned to my freezing limbs.
“From water you were born, and in water you shall be reborn,” Ruth said.
Without warning she yanked my head under with both hands. I screamed at the icy shock, swallowing salt water in the process. I coughed and swallowed more. Ruth’s grip on my head tightened. She was stronger than she appeared.
What if she didn’t let me back up in time?
My arms and legs began to thrash, and liquid coursed down my throat. My lungs heaved in protest. Above me Ruth was indistinct, soft-edged but monstrous in the dark. I clawed at her hands with my fingernails.
She lifted me out.
Ruth let go of my head and patted my shoulder. In the moonlight I could make out her glistening eyes.
“You’re ready for q1,” she said.
Sanderson finger whistled. Raeanne hooted. Jeremiah bit his lip. My adrenaline receded as I took in all their eager faces. After a couple of minutes I quit trembling. Between coughs I grinned. My throat and nostrils burned but I didn’t care.
The fear was the point—this was what I’d signed up for.
“Now,” Ruth said, “let’s go find Teacher.”
29
I POKED MY head out of the khaki tent that had been erected on the lip of the ice. Dawn had turned the yawning sky the hue of cotton candy. On the frozen lake ahead, a man in a snowsuit bored a perfectly symmetrical hole in the ice with a power auger. Beneath the ice rushed bitterly cold water. Nearby The Five watched him work. He had almost finished the job.
Behind the tent, an unending expanse was carpeted in snow. The snow was blue, almost lavender, the sky reflecting in the flakes. Bald trees dotted the rolling prairie. Wooden fence posts separated the large swathes of land, though for whom or from what one couldn’t tell. The fences were handmade, the posts uneven in width and height. A handful of them staggered at forty-five-degree angles, as if they could not bear the weight of one more barbaric New York winter. On a low-hanging branch a red-bellied woodpecker cheerfully went to work, the only one not grousing about the breath-stealing cold.
I pulled my head back inside the tent and zipped it closed. The space was cramped, barely big enough for two, plus the rack of dry suits, booties, and masks. The space heater blasted, pooling sweat inside my suit. I turned to Gabe, who handed me my boots. “I hope you’re right about this,” he said.
With forced patience I set down the boots. “We’ve been over this.”
“Would it have killed you to choose a different stunt?”
“I should change my performance because you’re afraid?”
He struggled to keep his composure. “Can you blame me after what happened with Aflame?”