The first day of December was bright and crisp and freezing cold. Classes were scheduled to resume the following day, and we were told when we arrived on campus that we’d be allowed to move back into the Castle at four o’clock in the afternoon. Alexander and Filippa settled into our usual booth at the Bore’s Head, warming their hands with mugs of spiked cider, while James had tea with Frederick. Meredith was waiting on a delayed flight out of LaGuardia. We had no word from Wren.
I hauled my bags up the stairs to the third floor of the Hall for a brief meeting with Dean Holinshed, where he presented the solution to my sudden lack of funding: a combination of loans, unused scholarship dollars, and work-study. I listened and nodded and thanked him profusely and, when he dismissed me, shouldered my bag again and started down the trail through the trees. One of my work-study occupations, Holinshed explained, would be to take over the cleaning and maintenance of the Castle. It didn’t even occur to me to be humiliated. I was so desperately glad not to be leaving Dellecher that I would have scrubbed every toilet in the Hall if he had asked.
The place was as much of a mess as it had been when we left. I decided to begin in the kitchen, where refuse from the disastrous Caesar party was scattered on every surface. Cleaning supplies, I’d been told, were under the sink—a place I’d never before bothered to explore. But first, I lit a fire in the library. It was painfully cold in the Castle, as if winter had crept in between the stones and made a home there in our absence. I crumpled a few sheets of newspaper from the basket on the hearth and wedged them underneath two new logs without clearing away the old ashes. A few minutes’ fumbling with the fireplace matches yielded a small but persistent flame, and I rubbed my hands over it until I could feel them again.
As I straightened up, I heard a door open downstairs. I froze, waiting. Had Alexander snuck back in three hours early? I cursed him silently and tiptoed down the stairs, hoping to head him off in the kitchen, racking my brains for a plausible excuse for why I was already there. (I didn’t want to burden him or any of the others with my family drama. We had enough drama of our own.) An unfamiliar voice stopped me two steps from the bottom.
“Remind me again why we’re here?”
“Because I want to have a look around before all those kids move back in.”
“Whatever you say, Joe.”
I squatted on the last step and peered through the doorway. Two men were standing in the dining room, with their backs to me. I recognized the taller one—or, rather, I recognized his brown bomber jacket. Colborne. The shorter one was wearing a blue quilted coat and a knobby yellow scarf that was almost certainly handmade. A crop of unruly blazing-red hair gave the impression that his head was on fire. (His name, I would eventually learn, was Ned Walton.) He rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet and glanced around. “What’re we looking for, Chief?”
“Don’t call me Chief,” Colborne said, with a sigh that suggested it wasn’t the first time he’d given that instruction. “I’m not the chief. And don’t touch anything.”
As Walton wandered toward the window, he pulled his gloves off by the fingertips, with his teeth, and stuffed them in his pockets. I wondered if he could see the dock from where he was standing.
Walton: “Is this the first time they’ve lost a student?”
Colborne: “A dancer committed suicide about ten years ago. Found out she didn’t make the cut for fourth year, went up to her room, and slit her wrists.”
Walton: “Jesus.”
Colborne: “I’d seen her around. Pretty girl. Looked like she was made of tissue paper. The media went wild over it, accused the school of ‘driving students to desperation.’”
Walton: “Is that what happened to this kid?”
Colborne turned on the spot, hands on his hips—expression pinched, contemplative. “No. He was the star of the program, from what I understand. Did you see those big red posters around town? I am Caesar?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s him.”
“Scary dude,” Walton said.
Colborne nodded. “The kids have all shut right up about it, but I get the sense that not everyone liked him.”
“Oh no?” Walton asked, one ginger eyebrow rising.
“No.”
Walton frowned across the room at Colborne. “Is that why we’re here?” he asked. “I thought we ruled it an accident.”
“Yeah.” A shadow flitted across Colborne’s face. “We did.”
“Okay,” Walton said, and the word had an interrogative upward tilt. He leaned on the windowsill, arms folded. “Take me through it.”
Colborne took one slow step forward, eyes fixed on the floor. “About nine days ago,” he said, “the fourth-years and bunch of other drama students are all in a show up at the Fine Arts Building.” He pointed northeast, in the direction of the FAB. I sat back on my heels, put one hand on the wall to steady myself. My breath came light and fast through my nose, the cold air stinging in my lungs. Colborne kept walking, putting one foot carefully in front of the other, making a wide circle around the room. “The show ends around ten thirty,” he went on, “and the kids come down through the woods to here, where the party’s already in full swing. Music, dancing, drugs, booze. Richard holes himself up in the library with a bottle of Scotch.”
“If he was the star, why was he lurking up there?”
“Well, that’s what nobody seems to want to tell me. He was in a mood, everyone agrees on that, but why? One of the third-years suggested he was having girlfriend trouble.”
“Who’s the girlfriend?”
“Meredith Dardenne, another fourth-year.”
“Why’s that name sound familiar?”
“Her family makes the fancy watches. They could buy the whole town if they wanted to.”
“You think that’s why no one’s pointing at her?”
Colborne shrugged. “Couldn’t say. But apparently the two of them had a knock-down, drag-out fight in front of everyone, and by the end of the night she was making out with someone else.”
Walton let out a low, dangerous whistle. I leaned forward, my hands on my knees. Blood had rushed up from my chest and limbs and was swimming in my ears.