9. Nim
Chapter 9
Nim
Three Weeks Later
“I can’t believe you abandoned me. I miss you already,” Peggy whines through my rental car’s hands-free. I’d have been driving my parents’ beat-up Honda, but Quinton advised me to sell it so I could cover a month’s mortgage. At that stage, I think we were both still pretty sure the insurance payout was imminent.
“It’s been like six hours,” I tell her through a laugh. “And I’m sure you’ll be just fine now that Jackson took over all my shifts.”
“Yeah, that helps a little but you’d better video call me like every night.” She sighs. “I wish I was going to college.”
“No you don’t. You hated school.”
“I hated high school. I haven’t had a chance to hate college.”
“I’ll hate it for you,” I tell her, smiling despite myself. “Just promise me you’ll eat at least one proper meal a day.”
“Ugh, yes Mom.”
“I’m heading into the pass,” I tell her. “I’d better concentrate on driving.”
“Oh, yeah.” Peggy sounds apologetic, and I want to be mad at her for that. But she’s my best friend, and it’s not her fault she keeps freezing up at the slightest mention of my parents. Like whenever I say “car” or “pass” or “accident”… God, the list is endless.
“Love you, Nim! Speak soon.”
“Bye.” I end the call and let out a long breath.
This isn’t Bug Ash Pass, the mountain pass where my parents had their fatal accident. This is the Littlerock Pass, the road leading into the valley-town of Cinderhart.
It’s fucking breathtaking.
Snowy, desolate mountains with dark green birch forests on the less formidable slopes. This pass doesn’t have a river like the one at Bug Ash Pass, and thank God for that, because then there’d be a sheer drop to look at.
Luckily I don’t have to drive through Bug Ash myself. Someone’s coming to pick me up from Cinderhart Square in about two hours. It gives me just enough time to return my rental and grab something to eat.
I follow Google Maps to the rental car drop-off point. Thankfully the Liberation Diner is on Reserve Road, the main street cutting through Cinderhart Square, and less than a ten-minute walk through a very scenic town. The diner is a little too kitsch for my taste with its red vinyl booths and old movie posters on the wall, but they make a damn good cheeseburger, and their milkshake is so thick I have to eat the first bit with a spoon, so I’ll forgive their design faux-pas.
The first twenty minutes or so that I’m inside the place, I’m scanning every face I see, hoping that none of them will resolve into one of the hunters from the woods. But eventually the friendly chatter of the other diners, the old rock ’n roll tunes on the jukebox, and the delicious food lull me into a sense of security.
Probably false, but thankfully I’m not hanging in town for too long. I’m actually kind of glad the academy is so remote. There’s no chance I’ll run into the hunters all the way out there. I mean, I doubt they’d allow hunting in the forests near the Academy.
As I’m waiting for the bill, I check my phone for the time.
“Shit.” I have to meet Juliet in like ten minutes, and I still have to figure out where the bus stop is.
But my panic was unwarranted. I keep forgetting how small Cinderhart is. I’m at the bus stop in under five minutes—and I can still see the roof of the diner through the leaves of an oak tree two streets down.
Juliet pulls up in a Ford truck and stops right beside me, winding down her window to speak to me. “Nim Winters?” she calls out.
“That’s me.”
“That all your stuff?” She frowns at my duffle bag.
I shrug. “And this.” I tug at the strap of the backpack hanging over my shoulder.
“I’ll throw it in the back.”
Soon as I’m done stashing my meager possessions, I slide into the passenger seat and buckle in. Juliet gives me a warm smile and sticks out her hand. “Welcome to Cinderhart.”
“Thanks,” I say, shaking her hand. She’s in her mid-twenties. A plain-faced woman with short brown hair and an affinity for denim, if her denim pants and shirt are anything to go by. All she needs is a cowboy hat.
Bug Ash Pass is...something else. With a sheer drop on one side and a cliff face on the other, it feels like we’re veering toward the canyon. Juliet must be used to driving this road, though, because she definitely doesn’t seem fazed.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she says, grinning at me as the pass winds around an outcrop.
“It’s...uh...certainly something.” I’m sure someone whose parents didn’t die on this road would have found it beautiful.
“Did you know, the Littlerock Pass was closed off for almost a decade back in the day?”
“Rockslide?” I manage, my fingers sinking deeper and deeper into the seat cushion.
Juliet sighs and shakes her head. “That’s more common on this road. We lost some visitors about two months ago to one of those. Tragic.”
There’s a lump in my throat, and it doesn’t matter how much I swallow, it doesn’t go away.
“But no, the Littlerock Pass was closed when a massive explosion in one of the tunnels blew out half of the mountainside. Next time you drive through there, keep an eye out for the hole it left behind. Looks like a cave mouth.”
“It closed up the pass?”
“Doesn’t take much,” Juliet says through a laugh. “Bug Ash is steep as hell, but that pass is narrow. Plus, they had to stabilize the tunnel so they wouldn’t endanger the workers going in to clear the rubble.”
“Yeah, but...ten years?”
Juliet shrugs. “If you ask me, I don’t think the townsfolk back then wanted to have it fixed. We’ve always been a little too independent for our own good. Until the famine hit us, of course. Then everyone was only too eager to get that pass opened up.”
“Famine?”
She waves away the question. “There’ll be plenty of time for history lessons at the Academy.”
An hour later, we start descending the pass. This valley is as verdant as the one Cinderhart is nestled in, but the bottom is filled with a vast lake.
“Scarstone,” Juliet says when she sees me looking. “Awesome in summer if you need to cool off.”
“The water looks black.”
“Something to do with the stones on the lakebed,” Juliet says. “And nothing at all to do with the curse.”
“Curse?” I say through a laugh.
Juliet smiles. “This old town has urban myths and folklore coming out of its ears. It’s all nonsense, of course.”
“Of course,” I murmur, staring at the distant lake.
It’s savagely beautiful, like Bug Ash Pass. The shore is covered with dark gray gravel and big slab-like stones. It almost looks like a meteor crater that filled up with water.
“Can you see it?”
“Hmm?” I glance at Juliet. She’s grinning. Her eyes move past me to my window. “There, kinda in the middle of the forest.”
I turn and scan past the massive lake.
My breath catches. “Is that...?”
“Cinderhart Academy.”
“It’s like something out of a fairy tale.”
“Yeah, they were definitely going for that whole Sleeping Beauty vibe back then. You’ll actually see a lot of that architecture around Cinderhart, especially by the warehouse district.”
“Really?” I frown at her.
“It used to be the center of town, but after the explosion, they relocated to a spot further away from the coal mines. Just in case, I guess. Now we have a bunch of really pretty, really run-down buildings filled with packing plants and hobos.”
My eyes are drawn back to the black spires of Cinderhart Academy. They peek through a thick forest of firs that stretch all the way to the distant banks of Scarstone Lake.
“And that—” Juliet points “—is Camp Joy.”
“What’s that?”
“A summer camp you do not want to end up in.” She gives a laugh that sounds anything but merry. “But at least it’s better than Lavender Valley, the military academy. We’ll be at that intersection in a few minutes.”
I watch the stunning landscape stream past for a few seconds before I pull out my phone and open Google Maps. We’ve been on the road for over an hour since we left Cinderhart Square, which begs the question...
“Wait, so where are the shops?”
“Shops?” Juliet giggles. “We just came from them.”
“So there’s nothing but the academy and that Camp Joy place out here?”
“Yup!” Juliet sounds happier than she should. “Easier to focus if there aren’t any distractions, right?”
Oh my God, I had no idea this place was so isolated. I mean, I looked it up and everything, but it’s so different being here. Suddenly all the green bits on Google Maps take on a more sinister meaning.
“But don’t worry,” Juliet says, completely mistaking my sudden silence. “The Academy has everything you could need.”
She’s right, of course. I spent a bit of time on Google Maps when I was planning my move here for the fall semester. The Academy grounds take up hundreds of acres. There’s a massive square building with some kind of field in the middle, which I assume is where the classes and stuff are. Then there are several sprawling structures dotted through the rest of the grounds. A football stadium, tennis courts, and possibly stables. They did mention they offered equine studies.
“And if you have to go into town, you can catch the bus. There’s one that goes all the way to the Lavender Glen intersection from town, twice a day.” She winces. “Although, they don’t let students off the campus grounds during the week. Only Saturdays, really.”
I don’t know why I’m suddenly bothered about shopping. It’s not like I can afford to buy anything. So what if I’m not five minutes from a mall? I’m here to study.
Juliet points out the Lavender Valley intersection a few minutes later, and then we turn onto a dirt road that runs beside the lake.
My parents drove this exact path the night they died. Them and I guess a whole bunch of other former students. Seems ridiculous to travel so far for a reunion party. This place must be some kind of special. Those spires were impressive, but I don’t know...
This is my home for now. Summer break, I’m moving back to the city to spend some time with Peggy.
Thankfully, Mr. Black said he could use the extra hands at Purgatory during summer break, so I’m planning on picking up some shifts when I’m back home.
Although that seems like a long time from now.
Months when I’ll be stranded out here, isolated. Alone.
“Is there electricity?”
Juliet laughs. “Girl, this is a coal town. If there’s something we have more than enough of, it’s power.” Her mirth trails off a second later. “Although sometimes when we get a lot of snow, the power lines can go down for a day or two.”
Great.
“But there’s always enough coal to stay warm.”
I guess she picks up on my mood, because Juliet doesn’t say anything else until we hit a set of tall, iron gates.
There’s a crest in the middle—a rearing stag with enormous horns surrounded by ornate scrollwork.
CINDERHART
WE LIGHT THE FIRE
“What does that mean?”
Juliet shrugs as she waves at the guard emerging from his outpost. He glances at her, gives me a sour look, and goes back inside to open the gate. “Coal, fire. We used to produce a whackload of the stuff back in the day.”
The dirt road changes into a rutted path that winds through thick foliage. What happens when there’s another car heading in the opposite direction? There’s no space for someone to overtake.
“Are you ready?” Juliet asks.
It’s late afternoon, and I left the city hours ago. I’m beyond tired—not just from the drive, but because of all the new shit and uncertainty my mind’s been exposed to. So no, I’m not ready...but what choice do I have, right?
“Sure,” I murmur, wringing my hands in my lap as Juliet guides her truck down the path.
“There it is,” she says, a few minutes later.
The trees start thinning. The rutted dirt road becomes a gravel drive. And then it’s like I blinked and was transported to a castle in Transylvania.
The dark walls are lined with pointed arched windows and a highly ornamental facade.
It even has motherfucking gargoyles.Except these aren’t the usual scary-looking monsters…they’re fierce stags rearing from the stone. I lift my phone and open my camera app.
Juliet snaps her fingers and points at my phone. “Oh, sherbet, I completely forgot. You’re not allowed to take photos.”
“Sorry, what?”
She points at my phone. “No photos. It’s kind of a big deal. You could get expelled if someone catches you.”
“But I can keep my phone, right?”
“Oh yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “We’re not savages.”
Just incredibly secretive. No wonder I couldn’t find anything on the internet. I’m starting to understand why my parents would have driven two hours to get to their reunion. This place is...transcendent. I feel like a time traveler. I expect to see someone in one of those low-cut colonial-style dresses with their boobs popping out coming to greet us.
Or a guy in a top hat and tails.
Juliet parks in the roundabout near the entrance. “Don’t worry about your stuff, it’ll find its way to your room.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“Come on, Romi is waiting for you.”
Romi?
I climb out of the car, pulling at the hem of my top. I had no idea what to wear, but I treat fashion like I would a menu at a fancy restaurant. If I don’t know what it is, I don’t order it.
That’s why my wardrobe consists of black and white. I know I end up looking like a penguin most of the time—black bottoms, black jacket, white shirt—but I don’t really have the attention span to put together interesting outfits.
A pewter double door swings open, breaking a line down the middle of the Cinderhart crest molded onto its surface. A girl close to my age steps out, giving me a hesitant smile when she spots me.
“Nim?”
“Hey.” I glance back at Juliet, but she’s already driving off. God, I hope my stuff gets to my room like she said. I don’t even have her number.
Cinderhart has everything you need.
“Romi,” the girl says. She holds out her hand, her smile brightening a little when I shake. Her mousy brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s wearing…oh my God, is that the school uniform?
What the hell have I gotten myself into?