The house was full on opening night. When we all appeared onstage for curtain call, the audience rose to their feet in one oceanic surge, but the clapping didn’t drown out the small sounds of grief that had persisted from the final tragic scene. Gwendolyn sat in the front row beside Dean Holinshed, tears shining on her cheeks, a tissue pinched beneath her nose. We returned to the dressing rooms in suffocating silence.
We’d planned to have the cast party as usual on Friday night, though none of us, I was certain, really felt like having a party at all. At the same time, we were desperate to pretend that everything was all right—or something like it—and to prove as much to everyone else. Colin, who died at the end of Act III, had taken it upon himself to hurry back to the Castle before curtain call and have everything ready for us when we arrived. In a halfhearted show of respect for the school’s recent crackdown on reckless drinking, we’d only bought half the booze we normally did, and Filippa and Colin made it clear to prospective guests that if any illegal substance came within a mile of the Castle—or Alexander—there would be hell to pay.
We took our time undressing after the show, partly because our costumes were complicated (we’d been dressed in a neoclassical Empire style, in shades of blue and gray and lilac), and partly because we, poor sleepers all, were too tired to move any faster. James changed more quickly than I or Alexander, hung his costume on the rack, and left the room without a word. When we emerged into the crossover, there was no sign of him.
“He must have already left for the Castle.”
“You think?”
“Where else would he go?”
“Who knows. I’ve stopped wondering.”
The night was cold, a gusty, merciless wind blowing down out of the sky. We pulled our coats close around us and walked briskly, heads down. The wind was so loud that we were nearly at the front door before we heard the music. Unlike our last party, there were no lights outside—only a dim yellowish glow seeping out from the kitchen. Upstairs, a candle guttered in one of the library windows.
We let ourselves in and found the kitchen sparsely populated. Only two handles had been cracked, and most of the food was untouched.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Late enough,” Alexander said. “There should be more people here.”
We accepted a few soft congratulations from the small crowd gathered at the counter before Wren and Filippa came in from the dining room. They’d changed into their party clothes, but they looked strangely colorless—Filippa in sleek silvery gray, Wren in pale ice pink.
“Hey,” Filippa said, voice raised just enough to be heard over the bounce and thud of music from the next room, which felt incongruously upbeat. “Feel like a drink?”
Alexander: “Might as well. What have we got?”
Wren: “Not much. There’s some Stoli stashed upstairs.”
Me: “Fine by me. Have either of you seen James?”
They shook their heads in unison.
Filippa: “We thought he’d come back with you.”
Me: “Yeah. We did, too.”
“He might just be taking one of his walks,” Wren suggested. “I think he needs a few minutes to come down from being Edmund, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said again. “I guess.”
Alexander surveyed the room, neck craned to see over everyone’s heads, and asked, “Where’s Colin?”
“In the dining room,” Wren said. “He’s hosting more than we are.”
Filippa touched Alexander’s elbow. “C’mon,” she said, “he’s been waiting for you,” and they disappeared into the dining room together.
Wren offered me a weak smile. I mimicked it without conviction and said, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Meredith.”
“In the garden, I think.”
“Will you be all right if I leave you?”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
I left her, a little reluctantly, and slipped outside.
Meredith was sitting on the table again. It would have been a familiar sight, reminiscent of that now infamous November night, if not for the empty, barren feeling of the yard. The wind whirled around me, darted under my shirt and jacket, and sent goose bumps skating across my skin. Meredith huddled on the table, elbows folded close to her body, knees pressed tightly together. She was wearing black again, but she looked more like she was ready for a wake than a party. Her hair blew in a wild auburn gust around her face.
As I walked across the yard, the tree branches rustled and swept together, a soft hiss and clatter in the shadows. Music limped and lilted from the Castle, drowned out by the wind one moment, carried through the trees like the smoky-sweet scent of incense the next. I sat beside Meredith on the table, and her hair tangled around her fingers as she pushed it out of her face. At first it was hard to see in the gloom, but the tender skin under her eyes glistened, and little black smudges had rubbed off beneath her lashes. Raggedy Ann. She breathed in short little bursts through her nose, but was otherwise silent. She hadn’t looked at me since I set foot outside, and I didn’t know if a touch would be comforting or unwelcome, so I did nothing.
“Are you okay?” I asked, when the wind settled for a moment. The same question I’d asked James in the Tower a month before—the same because I already knew the answer.
“Not even a little bit.”
“Can I help?” I glanced down at my hands, lying limp and useless in my lap. “I still—I want to help.”
The breeze kicked up again, tossed a few locks of her hair into my face. It brushed my lips, tickled my nose. Her perfume was familiar by then, amber and jasmine. Something ached deep in my chest. The squall passed, and her hair fell down around her shoulders again. She picked at the rim of her cup with short, bitten-down fingernails she’d tried to hide with wine-red polish.
“Oliver,” she said, her voice strained and plaintive, “I have to tell you something.”
The ache in my chest sharpened, the scab on my soul threatening to split wide open. “Okay,” I said. A single loose tear dragged a line of watercolor black down her cheek. I wanted to brush it away, kiss both her eyelids, take her hands and rub some warmth into them. Instead, I waited.
She lifted her head suddenly, wiped underneath her eyes, and looked sideways at me. “You know, let’s talk about it tomorrow.”