Chapter Eight
EIGHT
NARROW, WINDING ROADS CLIMB TREACHEROUS hills up the side of the mountain, but the people here know them like the backs of their hands. Tucked into the eastern face of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Black Mountain Academy sticks out like a sore thumb. Beautiful, but all wrong here.
In the bowl at the bottom of the mountain, downtown Earnest is known as the Village and hosts quaint shops and local eateries and mountain-themed tourist traps. There are ghost tours and archery classes and randomly placed cemeteries, the tombstones overrun with kudzu.
Beyond that the road branches off into neighborhoods, and about thirty minutes downriver, the mountains are slowly fighting against a suburban, capitalistic hellscape: Walmart and Golden Corral and a combination KFC-Pizza Hut-Taco Bell.
Above the Village the road turns to brick and hulking oaks lean, their branches intertwining to create a canopy. At the entrance of the school, the gates—which open to the town in the summer—have been closed for the school year. Except for church on Sundays.
Debris from a string of summer storms crunches beneath us as we roll past the security box and through the slowly opening iron bars, a murder of crows taking flight from the road, circling above our car before disappearing into the forest.
“Creepy,” my mother mutters from the driver’s seat.
I say nothing because I’m too preoccupied with the scene before me.
I haven’t stepped foot past the gates all summer. Not since last year’s art bazaar.
My cheeks pinken at the memory. Malachi was still at football training camp, and the disastrous way we’d left things was still weighing on me. The morose, lovesick paintings were too emo to sell well to the vacation crowd.
Lucas had opted out of the camp, which hadn’t surprised me. He had never taken sports as seriously. I always figured he played because Malachi did.
Alone for the summer, Lucas and I grew closer than ever.
Maybe that’s how we found ourselves scarfing down Kona Ice in the shade of the poplar trees on Main Street, Lucas’s legs dangling as he sat perched atop my table.
By late July his skin had deepened to a rich, dark golden brown with just a hint of red across his nose.
His frayed Topsail Island cap was turned backward, his shades obscuring his crystal blue eyes.
As dusk settled in and his lips stretched into a lazy, sun-tired smile, I finally saw it—the thing other girls always seemed to see in him.
Ohhhh, I’d thought, feeling like an idiot. He’s beautiful.
But in that moment I had no idea the trouble that simple realization would bring me.
Now the bronze crest inlaid in the brick pillars on either side of us taunt me, and the pendant at my throat grows warm as dread hums quietly in my chest.
“We can still turn around if you want,” my mother says, glancing at me quickly, assessing my profile as the gate yawns open its gaping maw and swallows us whole.
In the end it didn’t take much to convince her.
After the funeral and the cleanup, facing the community my grandmother left behind and picking up the pieces my father abandoned, she had no fight left.
And honestly, there’s a part of me that wonders if she’s glad to be rid of me.
If she’s relieved that she can haunt the house alone.
Relieved that she doesn’t have to pretend to be better, and I don’t have to pretend not to notice.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. I know she tries. I know she does.
Her hand plops onto my knee. “I just want you to be okay.”
“I know,” I huff, frustrated.
“I’ll never understand how you do it—how you did it.
Dealing with her, with this town. Your dad, he—” She covers her mouth, her eyes wide.
She never talks about Dad. She shakes her head and cranes her neck, looking for a parking spot outside Biltmore Hall, the administration building where we’re supposed to pick up my dorm assignment and uniforms. “Anyway, I just don’t feel quite right when I’m here. ”
What isn’t said, and what I don’t ask, is does she feel it too? The electric current. The humming like she’s charging for a battle she never knew existed?
Despite the sinister view of campus nestled into the summit, it’s filled with quiet beauty.
When we step out of the car, I’m nearly bowled over.
Crisp, clean, floral, it’s just like I remember.
It’s serene, even as students mill about, in and out of the dorm buildings with carts full of stuff.
Sparrows chirp in the trees and the bushes are equidistant and perfectly squared.
But the longer I stand admiring the campus, the more something begins to feel off. Underneath the serenity, a cloyingly sweet smell, just strange enough to set me on edge. And besides that, a thin thread of dread winding itself around my throat.
“This place is huge,” my mom murmurs as we begin ascending the stone steps. “Nothing like the high school I went to, that’s for sure.”
I can’t tell if there’s resentment in her voice or not.
Inside Biltmore Hall, twin staircases wind from the floor and meet in the middle with ornate wooden balustrades the same color as the freshly waxed wood floors.
Deep burgundy rugs soften our steps and climb the stairs.
Lush, plentiful plants line the walls, and vines hang from the balcony leading to the second-story hallway.
In the center of the room two thick oak tables sit adorned with welcome banners.
“Swanky,” I mumble under my breath, tugging the bottom of my oversized T-shirt.
Though the school was once divided by sex, it is now coed. It seems, however, that one thing has withstood the test of time: Everywhere I look is a monotony of porcelain—ivory, pale, pearl—in the class photos, in the room I’m in now.
I stick out like a drop of blood in the snow.
As we’re waiting in line, I’m drawn to a display that sits at the back of the large room.
I approach it, my fingers grazing the navy velvet rope that shields a wall of class photos dating all the way back to the 1920s, when the final Biltmore heir married into the Matsoukas family, and they decided that all this land and ornate architecture would better serve as a school.
It’s funny, the things that get buried beneath a friendship.
We never talked about the fact that Lucas was adopted, we never talked about my dad, we never talked about Malachi’s leg or how the boys were heirs of the school that centers our universe.
But it was there, languishing beneath it all.
That imbalance of power. The knowledge that they fit here in ways I never would.
They were the heart and soul of BMA, of Earnest, of my hopes and dreams.
I shuffle along, taking in the rest of the wall.
A large plaque continues to explain the lore of the school, most notably how the opening of Black Mountain Academy followed the unfortunate demise of Western North Carolina’s first school for colored youth—a converted one-room style schoolhouse that mysteriously burned down.
Goose bumps sprout on my arms.
In the photo: a wooden building with a steepled tower and a bell, white peeling paint, and a worn footpath leading to the steps. The schoolhouse was there even before Biltmore was built, and it looks like a lone relic standing guard against the massive construction efforts that surround it.
I’ve seen this school before. Only it was engulfed in flames.
My dream. The men. The witches.
Apparently, in the aftermath of the fire, the family was able to build Lee Chapel and open the gates of the estate, expanding down into the valley, continuing to bring in jobs for the community through the expansion of the institution.
I’m not sure why, but I take out my phone and snap a picture of the display.
“There’s an amazing history to be learned about this campus,” someone says from behind me.
I jump, hand flying to my chest as I turn, taking in the tall, broad-shouldered man. Recognition immediately floods me. His once deep-red hair has further darkened with age and is now peppered with gray near the temples, but flashes of summers past come to mind.
“Mr. Matsoukas!” I squeak. “I didn’t realize you were behind me!”
Alastair Matsoukas’s eyes crinkle at the edges as he clasps his hands behind his back. “Harper,” he says, “it’s good to see you. I’m so happy that you decided to accept our invitation to the school.”
Confused, I look up at the man I’ve barely known for nearly all my life.
I take in his tan slacks that are pressed down the middle, and his navy polo with a marigold crest on the shirt pocket.
This is a strangely spirited outfit for student check-in day.
I know the family is proud of this school and all, but yikes.
At first Alastair seems confused by my confusion, but then he laughs uncomfortably.
“Oh, that’s right! Your award letter was sent out before I officially took over for Mr. King,” he says, scratching at his half-gray stubble. “I’m the new headmaster,” he shrugs sheepishly, his mouth pulling to the side conspiratorially, like we’re both in on some secret I’m not yet privy to.
My stomach churns at the familiar expression.
Integral to the community of Earnest, the Matsoukas family claims to have been here before the first road was carved into the side of Black Mountain, but Gigi used to say that was a load of hogwash.
She said us Black folk were here first. That the Biltmores came and ruined their town, and the Matsoukas family followed shortly after.
Maybe that’s why she always hated the Matsoukases.
With their “backward morals and Bible thumping history revisionism” or whatever, and though she never quite approved, at least she looked the other way as the boys and I grew close over the years, in direct defiance of both sides of the property line.
She didn’t like it, and she never failed to tell me so.
But nothing could have kept us apart.
The brothers—Alastair and Josiah Matsoukas—were active at town hall meetings and seasonal events, just like Gigi.
That’s how I met Malachi and Lucas. Running amok outside Lee Chapel while the grown-ups argued over what order the upcoming festival floats should be in.
Malachi and Lucas have always been the kind of cousins that are more like brothers, both of them often found doting over Malachi’s much younger sister, Alexis.
My chin begins to wobble when her face unwittingly pops into my mind.
Erase it, I think. Don’t think of her, don’t think of her.
“Oh,” I say, “congratulations.” I glance back at my mom who is still waiting in line.
“When a generous donation came in for the arts department, I knew I had to suggest that the spot go to one of the most talented young artists I know,” Alastair says, his chest puffed out with pride.
My cheeks heat. Alastair had always been the calmer of the two elder Matsoukas men, though I never got that good at telling them apart. He was the one to cut us slack when we got caught weaving through the forest separating the two properties. The one to always sneak us fruit snacks and Capri-Suns.
“I don’t, I mean—I can’t… um… thank you?” I stutter, shuffling on my feet as I look toward my mom, who is now speaking to some blond lady with really animated hand gesticulations.
“No thank you necessary! I’m just glad your mother let you attend after… well, after everything.”
My shoulders hike up to my ears.
“I was so sorry to hear about the passing of your grandmother. Harper was such a light, and I know how close you were to her.” Emotion fills his voice as he places his hand on my shoulder and gives it a light squeeze.
“I’m so sorry we missed the funeral, by the way.
Lucas and I—we had an… obligation.” A wave of emotion I can’t quite make out slithers across his eyes.
“I’m glad Kai could make it though. As you know, he understands all too well how it feels to lose someone dear to him. ”
He spins the ring on his pinky finger as he looks down at me.
If the guilt about how things ended between the boys and me is evident on my face, he doesn’t seem to notice. “But anyway, I’m sure that as an alumnus herself, Harper would be happy to know you’re following in her footsteps.”
Death is so fucking bizarre. It’s, like, you die, and people suddenly forget you hated their guts. Gigi must be rolling in her grave—or tree—right now.
“Um, thanks,” I say anyway, searching inside myself for the comfort he hopes his words will bring, but I come up empty.
It’s a dance I’m used to playing now, after everything.
“I, uh, I appreciate the opportunity.” I take a step away from my new headmaster toward my mother. “It’s good seeing you again. If you’ll excuse me.”
I throw him a quick smile and turn, my mind spinning so fast, I can’t seem to catch a thought.
I’m already several steps away when he calls out to me, voice warm and familiar, “Harper?”
I look over my shoulder, searching his face.
“I’m really glad you’re here. Welcome to Black Mountain Academy,” he says, his eyes crinkling softly at the edges. “Welcome home.”