Chapter 11
Inessa insists we celebrate, which is how I spend part of my Sunday on an impromptu trip into town.
Students are allowed off campus on weekends as long as we scan in and out at reception and are back before eight.
It’s a twenty-minute walk to Main Street, the town’s center that draws in year-round tourism.
Boutiques with curated knitwear and timeless treasures, confectionaries with handcrafted truffles, and cozy coffee shops offering seasonal drinks overlook the picturesque Mirror Lake.
But today we stop in my dad’s favorite bakery, gathered around two wrought iron patio tables we’ve pushed together.
It drizzled earlier this morning, and I smell the petrichor rising from the damp earth.
As I bite into a maple-buttercream cookie, I remember the countless times my dad placed the same order.
But Inessa nudges my shoulder before I can sink into that memory and encourages me to recount my part in our great trophy heist, so I rehash the details to the members of our Capture team as they listen, enraptured, cheering at all the best moments.
I don’t mention Enzo’s strange attire.
I don’t mention how he introduced himself by another name.
I don’t mention my brain is hazy on the details surrounding our collision.
Later, Analiese texts me when she’s ready to get dinner and spends half an hour complaining about Tyler, the editor-in-chief of The Herald.
My eyes spring from her to Sumner, who’s invited Enzo to sit at his table.
He’s wearing the same outfit, and I wonder if his luggage is permanently lost. Poor guy.
Not exactly the greatest start to the year.
On Monday, I find a rhythm in my new routine.
Physics III: Electricity and Magnetism, Calculus II, and European History, followed by lunch, then Biology III, Honors English, and Astronomy.
According to Ivernia’s online portal, I’m currently ranked twenty.
Sumner is twenty-one. A slight thrill zips up my spine when I imagine his utter annoyance.
Once Astronomy ends, I FaceTime Madelene as I maneuver my way to meet Mrs. Vidar-Tett. It takes three attempts before she answers.
“What?” She’s annoyed. The grainy video clears to reveal her sitting on the theater’s black Masonite flooring. Long legs scamper in and out of frame behind her, but she doesn’t seem bothered.
“She lives,” I joke.
Mads rolls her eyes, and I pretend like it doesn’t hurt. “Did Mom tell you to call?”
I text Mom daily, mostly to make sure she’s okay. We’ve talked a few times since I’ve been back, but not about Mads. She tells me she’s proud of me, that he’d be proud of me, and every time I hear the layers of grief in her voice.
“No,” I say. “You haven’t responded to my texts.”
I don’t mean to sound accusatory, but the longer she left me without a response, the more my concern grew. She’s been ignoring Jared, too. It’s just me and him talking to each other in our group chat.
“I’ve been busy.” Her focus catches on something to her right. “Rehearsals.”
“And high school, it’s—good?”
I hope she can’t hear the worry in my question. I haven’t told anyone in my family what I’ve overheard about Ivernia. That’s not a problem I want to unleash on them right now.
“It’s school,” she says. “Somewhere I’m required to be by law. And I have to go.”
Before I can say goodbye, two steady beeps let me know she’s already hung up.
I’m iced out of her life, and I don’t even know why.
I tap to our text thread where a half dozen of my messages take up space with no response.
Did I do something to upset Maddy? I text Jared.
Don’t think so, he replies.
It stresses me out when there’s conflict in the family. Not that it happens often since we’re not children anymore, but still. I like us best when we’re getting along, not when there are cracks in the glass.
We spent the summer redecorating her room with treasures we’d scored at thrift stores.
When she pulled out her nail polish collection late one night, we painted each of our fingernails a different color, and after, we dug through Dad’s old DVD collection and ranked the classics he’d kept.
So when I rack my brain to try to figure out why I’m experiencing the short end of her fuse, I come up empty.
Maybe it’s not me. It’s a lot of change at once. A care package might help. It won’t eliminate the hard feelings, but it’ll let her know I’m thinking of her. A reminder I’ll give her whatever she needs from me.
My mood sinks even further when I raise my knuckles to rap on Mrs. Vidar-Tett’s door at four o’clock, exactly when I’m expected.
A heavy creak, followed by a new face.
“Delaney,” she says. “Come in.”
She’s understatedly pretty, with deep olive skin and thick dark hair.
I sidestep around her and enter the biology classroom.
Plastic chairs with attached surface wings sit in tidy rows, and posters of plant and animal cells are pinned along the back wall.
But it’s a plain sheet of computer paper taped to the back of the door that catches my attention.
Stay Curious, it reads, the lettering thick and blocky.
Grounded feet. Open mind. Maintain curiosity.
My dad’s mantra comes back to me. It’s funny how we find remnants of people and memories in unexpected places.
Mrs. Vidar-Tett gestures for me to sit in the empty chair in front of her desk, which is scattered in lesson plans.
She starts collecting and organizing them into piles to make room, long dark hair spilling over her shoulders as she shifts things around.
She seems young, maybe somewhere in her thirties, and I wonder where she taught before accepting this position.
“It’s great to meet you,” she begins. “Headmistress Ellerby told me you were joining Ladies of Polite Society this year.”
My weight sinks into hard plastic. “Did she also tell you it’s against my will?”
Her mouth curves into an amused smile. “She did.” She pulls a binder from under a stack of paper and flips through it. “Why don’t you start by telling me why you don’t want to be here?”
This must be a trick. But she slips a fountain pen between her fingers and positions it on a blank sheet of paper, round brown eyes focused on me as she waits for my response.
“Um. Well,” I begin. “You’re asking a group to uniformly present themselves a certain way—the gloves, the gowns, the frivolities—on top of society already asking so much of us.
It seems exhausting. And pointless. There are already so many unspoken rules—all these tiny boxes we’re bending over backward to fold ourselves into in order to be seen as good or worthy or enough.
” I take a breath. “Figuring yourself out is hard without all the pomp and circumstance.”
Her pen scratches fervidly across her page. “Good” is all she says.
“Good?” I repeat.
She sets the pen down. “You have valid points,” she continues. “Can I tell you what I think?”
My shoulders inch upward in a short shrug.
“The name,” she says, “stinks.”
I smile. “Yeah. It does.”
She leans back in her chair. “I’m on a mission to revitalize what modern debutantes—if we even want to call them that—look like at Ivernia,” she tells me.
“Instilling confidence, brandishing professional skill sets, developing character, engaging with your community, promoting artistic expression—all of this, I believe, is important to sending young people out into the world with confidence. And that is what I want to focus on presenting. That internal change you’ll carry into the next portion of your life. ”
I hear what she’s saying. But at the end of the day, a presentation ball is still a spectacle.
She taps her pen on the paper in front of her. “Figuring yourself out,” she says, echoing my words. “What does that look like for you?”
“I’m not sure,” I say, because if I’m on a roll with honesty, why stop now?
A noise hums in the back of her throat. It seems to say, I expected this. I don’t like the way it gets under my skin.
She slides an itinerary my way. Lists of dates, bolded community events, and asterisks indicating required participation float in front of me.
“Showing up,” she says, “might be the first step to finding out.”
I fold the paper in half. “What are these meetings for?”
“Consider me your mentor throughout the program.”
My eyes tick back to her sign, and I think of my dad. Keeping an open mind isn’t the worst thing. Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought.
“The presentation ball will happen in December,” she continues. “I’m in the middle of figuring out logistics. There’s also a link to a self-discovery workbook on that itinerary. You’ll complete a chapter before each of our meetings.”
More homework on top of my already demanding class schedule. Perfect.
I raise an eyebrow. “Anything else?”
“Just one thing.” Her fingers lace together, and she smiles. “Don’t write me off too quickly.”
And then I’m dismissed.
When I tell my mom about the presentation ball, I’m going to have to act like it’s my idea. Another tiny lie, but at least she won’t worry. I don’t plan on causing any more trouble this year.
Once I make the trek to my room, I dump my textbooks and laptop on my bed and check my email from my phone.
Mr. Kovacs’s name appears alongside the subject line: FRIDAY.
When I open it, I’m linked to an article detailing the M-class solar flare (medium-ish by space standards) that was categorized three nights ago.
This resulted in a geomagnetic storm producing a show of auroras throughout the northern hemisphere, including New York.
I kick off my loafers and plop on the bed.
I’d seen signs of it on wish night, hadn’t I?
The spectacular glow of green smeared against the night sky.
My dad would have loved it. He’d predicted a high likelihood of this happening in his journal, after all, so I toss my phone aside in favor of reaching for it.
As I lie on my back, fingers flipping through the pages, I quickly realize this is not my dad’s handwriting.
There are no scratchy slanted capitals. No familiar ponderings.
I sit up straight. My hands continue to tear through the pages, but his handwriting doesn’t appear. Heart racing, I fold the journal closed. Smooth over the binding. Scrutinize the surface. That’s when I notice the outside is made of soft, worn leather.
This is not my dad’s journal.
A static fuzz of confusion blurs across my brain. How did I end up with this? I don’t know who it belongs to. And if it isn’t his journal—have I lost his?
That thought nearly causes my heart to stop. I mentally retrace my steps. It was with me in the astronomy lab, but I’d brought it back here. Hadn’t I? So it must have been in my pocket when I went to wish night.
Only—no. That’s not right. Because when Sumner had asked if I had a penny, my pockets were empty.
My eyes skip to my desk. And there it is, his journal propped neatly against my stack of textbooks as though it’s made a permanent residence there. A sense of relief melts away my panic.
But if I didn’t bring his journal to wish night, then this one must not belong to me.
When I peel it open a second time, I find dates scrawled in loopy penmanship on the top right of each page.
Oh hell. Is this someone’s diary? I don’t want to pry, but how else am I going to figure out its owner?
My curiosity urges me to flip forward a few pages.
The dates change with every couple of turns.
9th of February, 1859
23rd of March, 1859
14th of August, 1859
23rd of August, 1859
1st of September, 1859
Eighteen fifty-nine?
My pulse beats in my throat. Slowly, carefully, my thumb hooks on the leather flap, revealing the first page. There, inked at the top in regal looping cursive, a name. One I very much recognize.
William Alexander Cromwell.