“I didn’t think she was, either, but then I guess some people hide it well.”
“Cressida never did hide anything, though, did she?” Deirdre reflects. “Whatever she was feeling or going through, the world had to know about it.”
“So you don’t think she jumped?”
“I’ve never known what to think, Kersti. But in my heart of hearts? No, I don’t think she did. But let’s face it,” Deirdre sniffles. “I wasn’t around. What did I really know about her? I like to think there’s no way she would have tried to kill herself and the note was just teen melodrama—a coincidence, a bid for attention. Then I think maybe I’m just deluding myself. It certainly hurts less if it was an accident. She had so much promise—”
“Does she remember anything?” Kersti asks. “She seemed to remember Lille just now. Is that possible?”
“It’s possible,” Deirdre says.
“Have you ever asked her what happened, Deirdre?”
“Of course,” Deirdre says. “Many times. She just stares back at me, empty. Maybe it’s for the best that she doesn’t remember—”
She shakes her head then, her face a mask of anguish and confusion, tears collecting in the corners of her eyes and spilling slowly down her cheeks. Amazing her ducts still function, Kersti observes.
“Why did you make me leave the first time I came to visit her?” Kersti asks.
“I told you then. It was too painful. I knew she wouldn’t want you to see her like that.”
“She wouldn’t, or you didn’t?”
“Both, I suppose,” Deirdre admits.
“What if she just missed me?”
“Maybe she did. She’s had such a disappointing life, Kersti—”
“I’m sorry.” Kersti reaches out and places her hand on the sharp bone of Deirdre’s shoulder. “Do you remember when I visited last time, I asked you about a ledger?”
“Vaguely.”
“Lille also mentioned the ledger in her letter to me. She thought there might be something incriminating in it.”
“Incriminating for who?”
“She didn’t say.”
“I never came across a ledger. The school never sent it to me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“You said there wasn’t a suicide note, either,” Kersti reminds her.
“I swear, Kersti. There was no ledger with her things. There’s no reason for me to lie about that, but I’m sure you can imagine why I never wanted anyone to know about the suicide note. Cressida was above suicide.”
Kersti hands back the note, not sure she trusts Deirdre.
“Whom did the ledger belong to?” Deirdre asks, refolding the note, something she’s probably done hundreds of times before.
“I don’t know,” Kersti lies, deciding not to say anything. Cressida fell the very same night she got her hands on that ledger. Whether she jumped, fell by accident, or was pushed, Kersti—like Lille—has probably always known the ledger contains the answers. Why they both chose to ignore their instincts for so long can only be attributed to post-traumatic stress and adolescent self-preservation. It was just simpler to accept a drunken fall.
“Do you think someone could have pushed her?” Deirdre asks.
Kersti recalls the web of people Cressida had hurt by the end of her final year at the Lycée—the relationships destroyed, the friends betrayed, the hearts broken—and yes, Kersti considers it’s very possible. She can think of two people in particular.
“What about Magnus Foley?” Deirdre says, reading her mind. “He’s the one she snuck out to meet that night—”
What Deirdre doesn’t know is that Cressida snuck out to tell Magnus she was in love with someone else, and that later on, according to Lille, Magnus came looking for Cressida at Huber House. Who knows how he took being dumped? He was crazy in love with her, spoiled, entitled. What if he pushed her and wrote a suicide note? Which would mean Kersti lost her virginity to a murderer, the possibility of which she doesn’t want to think about right now.
And if Magnus didn’t push her, does he know something? “I have to find that ledger,” Kersti says, more to herself. Knowing where she has to go next.
“Please keep me abreast,” Deirdre says, touching Kersti’s wrist with her translucent blue hands. “If you find anything out, I’d like you to let me know.”
There’s an ambivalence in her request that Kersti recognizes, which comes from wanting to know the truth and being afraid of it at the same time.
They return to Cressida’s bedside and Kersti sits down beside her. Cressida turns to face her, her aqua eyes focused and lucid. “Statch—” she says, startling them.
Kersti looks at Deirdre and Laylay for a translation.
“What are you trying to say?” Laylay asks her.
“Statch,” Cressida repeats. “You.”
“Say again—”
“Statch. You.”
“She’s saying statue,” Kersti cries. “Do you remember the statue, Cress?”
Cressida blinks.
“What statue?” Deirdre says.
“There was a statue of Helvetia at the Lycée,” Kersti explains.
“My God,” Deirdre says hopefully. “Cress? Darling? Is that what you meant to say? Statue?”
Cressida’s beautiful face reveals nothing. It’s a porcelain mask, blank and impenetrable, magnificently concealing a damaged mind full of God only knows what.
Chapter 12
LAUSANNE—November 1995
Kersti knows something is different in French class on Monday. Magnus barely acknowledges her when she sits down next to him, other than to grunt, “Hey.” He doesn’t even call her Kuusk, the way he normally does, doesn’t scribble any notes to her or stretch his legs out so they touch hers. When she tries to catch his attention or make eye contact, he deliberately looks away, pretending to concentrate on whatever M. Feuilly is saying.
It goes on like that for the entire two-hour class and when it’s finally over, Magnus gets up quickly and runs off, muttering, “See you later.” Not even looking back at her.
She wants to scream after him, “You devirginized me, asshole!” Instead she rushes to the bathroom, ashamed and bewildered. She figured they were a couple. She spent the entire weekend imagining them holding hands after class, kissing each other good-bye as they parted ways. Everyone in the school knowing they were together.
She locks herself in the stall and sobs very quietly because she can hear Abby Ho-Tai in the stall beside her. Maybe Magnus is embarrassed about what happened on Saturday, she rationalizes. Maybe he regrets taking her virginity on a rock when they were both so drunk. She spins it all kinds of ways before concluding it’s probably a good idea to talk to him.