“Meredith,” I said, as she moved toward the girls’ dressing room. She paused at the door. “The other day, in class—” I didn’t want to say it, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Don’t kiss James like that again.”
She stared in blank incomprehension for a moment; then her expression hardened and she asked, “Who is it that you’re jealous of? Him or me?” She made a soft sound of disgust and disappeared through the door before I could reply. My throat seized up. What had I even meant to do? Protect her, warn her, what? I slammed my open hand against the wall, and the impact stung.
It would have to wait. Act III was coming to a close; I could hear Colin gasping through the speakers.
Colin: “I have receiv’d a hurt. Follow me, lady.
Turn out that eyeless villain! Throw this slave
Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace.
Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm.”
I waited by the stage-left door, my back against the wall. The lights went out and the audience applauded, weakly at first and then with greater fervor, shell-shocked by the gruesome tearing out of Gloucester’s eyes. Second-years spilled out of the wings and hurried past without seeing me. Then Colin, then Filippa. Then James.
I grabbed him by the elbow and steered him away from the dressing rooms.
“Oliver! What are you doing?”
“We need to talk.”
“Now?” he said. “Let go, you’re hurting me.”
“Am I?” I had a brutally hard grip on his arm—I was bigger than he was, and for the first time I wanted both of us to be keenly aware of it.
I shoved the hall door open, pulling him through after me. The loading dock had been my first thought, but Alexander and some of the second-and third-years would have gone out to smoke. I considered the basement, but I didn’t want to be trapped down there. James asked two or three more questions—all variations on the same theme; where were we going?—but I ignored them and he fell silent, his pulse quickening under my fingers.
The lawn behind the Hall was wide and flat, the last open place before the ground sloped downward toward the trees. The real sky was enormous overhead, making our mirrors and twinkling stage lights seem ridiculous—Man’s futile attempt to imitate God. When we were far enough from the FAB that I knew we wouldn’t be seen in the dark, much less overheard, I let go of James’s arm and shoved him away from me. He stumbled, found his footing, then glanced nervously over his shoulder at the steep drop of the hill behind him.
“Oliver, we’re in the middle of a show,” he said. “What’s this about?”
“I found the boat hook.” I wished, suddenly, for the wild howling wind of the previous night. The stillness of the world beneath the dark dome of the sky was suffocating, massive, unbearable. “I found the boat hook, shoved inside your mattress.”
His face was pale as bone in the raw moonlight. “I can explain.”
“Can you?” I asked. “Because I’ve got to open Act IV, so you have fifteen minutes to convince me that this isn’t what I think it is.”
“Oliver—” he said, and turned his face away.
“Tell me you didn’t do it.” I risked a step closer, afraid to raise my voice above a whisper. “Tell me you didn’t kill Richard.”
He closed his eyes, swallowed, and said, “I didn’t mean to.”
A steel fist clenched in my chest, crushing the air out of me. My blood felt cold, crawling through my veins like morphine. “Oh, God, James, no.” My voice cracked. Snapped in half. No sound left.
“I swear, I didn’t mean to—you have to understand,” he said, coming desperately toward me. I staggered three steps back, where he couldn’t reach. “It was an accident, just like we said—it was an accident, Oliver, please!”
“No! Don’t come too close,” I said, forcing words out when there was no air for them. “Keep your distance. Tell me what happened.”
The world seemed to stop on its axis, like a top precariously balanced on its point. The stars gleamed cruelly overhead, shards of glass scattered in the sky. Every nerve in my body was a live wire, shrinking away from the touch of the cold March air. James was colder, carved from ice, not my friend, not even human.
“After you went upstairs with Meredith, something happened to Richard,” he said. “It was like Halloween, but worse. He came crashing out of the Castle in this … uncontainable rage. You should have seen it. It was like watching a star explode.” He shook his head slowly, terror and awe indistinguishable in his expression. “Wren and I, we were sitting at the table. We had no idea what was happening, but then he just appeared, with this look on his face like he would crush anything that got in his way. He was headed for the woods—to do what, I have no idea—and Wren tried to stop him.” He faltered, squeezed his eyes shut, like the memory was too close, too painful, excruciating. “God, Oliver. He grabbed her, and I swear I thought he might just break her in half, but he threw her down in the grass, halfway across the yard. And he stormed off into the trees and left her there, just sobbing. It was horrible. I put her back together as best I could, and Pip and I put her to bed. But she wouldn’t stop crying and she kept saying, ‘Go after him, he’ll hurt himself.’ So I went.”
I opened my mouth in disbelief, but he didn’t give me time to say a word.
“You don’t need to tell me how stupid it was,” he said. “I know. I knew then. But I went.”