Chapter Twenty-Six The villainy of fears
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The villainy of fears
I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE in my Piano I class. But with Jojo’s help out of reach, and Kasem and me searching for answers, I skipped my morning classes to find Vivian.
It was like she was avoiding me. She wasn’t in her usual trappings on campus: the study rooms, roaming Poppy House, or lumbering wistfully in the School of Fine Art student lounges.
So when Kasem suggested I check the stairwells between the painting studios and the practice rooms, I nearly bolted down the steps.
There, I found Vivian.
She stood leaning over the banister, her eyes pressed shut, a soft smile on her lips as she listened to two violinists practice with each other. I’d quickly learned that it could get competitive booking a practice room, which meant that the stairways between floors became makeshift rehearsal rooms.
There was a rawness to the violinists’ playing, the sharp cries of their instruments almost comforting. When Vivian noticed me racing toward her, her eyes widened. And then she drifted through the wall, into the floor below.
The violinists froze, turning to each other in disbelief.
But I was already racing past them, thrusting the door open and chasing after Vivian.
Classes were in session, so the halls were almost empty.
Up ahead, she rushed through the closed door of a lecture hall before appearing three doors ahead.
I called after her, my muscles burning from sprinting.
At last, I saw her disappear into a bathroom up ahead and I burst through, searching widely.
Two of the stalls were empty, the other three occupied.
“I know you’re in here,” I said. “Will you just talk to me?”
Silence.
Someone in one of the other stalls flushed the toilet. Two stalls over, another person watched a video on full volume.
A chill filled the air, and suddenly, the door to the third occupied stall opened of its own accord. I couldn’t see Vivian, but the sound of her voice reverberated, like she was standing nearby.
“I tried to tell you,” she said. “I’ve been warning you about Westfield since you arrived.”
“I know,” I said, heading into the stall and locking it behind me.
“But you’re thinking about staying and rushing Theta.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
Water surged from one of the stalls and the occupants screamed, rushing out of the haunted bathroom. By the time Vivian appeared, it was just us inside. She was dressed in the same Westfield blazer and plaid skirt, dripping with swamp water, as always.
“I thought that too, that I didn’t have a choice, at first. And I died rushing Theta.” She gestured to her dripping clothes. “Drowning isn’t the most pleasant way to go. Especially in a swamp.”
Everything started clicking into place: Vivian’s light hedging about falling into the swampy waters on the fan boat, her aversion to the Greek life here at Westfield.
And then, of course, her dripping outfit and her outdated Westfield blazer.
All of these things were remnants of her final moments alive.
Vivian wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes dark with memories. “We were crossing the swamp,” she said. “There were three of us. The other two survived. One of them is now the provost. They always reward those who maintain the status quo, even if they are victim to it.”
The reality that Provost Henning had been a Theta and had known Vivian when the two were younger was tragic.
“But you told me to pledge—”
“For my sisterhood, not Theta’s. Why do you think Yara separated from them and founded the sisterhood of ?nhye?
The board of trustees has its claws in Sigma and Theta.
They are no longer what they once were when they were founded.
Like my death and those of other students and faculty at Westfield, the board of trustees hides the truth of this place and the curse that has become it.
And so, we spirits are trapped here, haunting the Westfield estate.
No one is safe. Not us, not them. Not with the curse reigning over this university. ”
I clenched my hands, wrapping my arms around myself as a chill fell over me.
“As much as I would love to leave,” I said, “I have nowhere to go.” I couldn’t go to Rhode Island to live with Louisa.
And even if I did, that wouldn’t fix my powers.
And there remained the question of Pete and Jay.
It was only a matter of time before they made their next move.
If we could find them and tie together the threads leading back to the curse, then maybe, just maybe, we could break the curse and my powers would be unbound from Kasem.
“You know nearly everything about Westfield,” I said. “Help me rush? For ?nhye and for Theta.”
“Theta won’t like it if your loyalties are split.”
“Theta and Sigma are controlled by the Board now. You said it yourself. It’s not Theta that would have a problem with me rushing two sororites. It’s the Board. And I think the Board may know more about the curse than everyone realizes.”
Vivian nodded. “That is what we of the ?nhye believe. But the Board are puppets, even to themselves. There is another force that controls them, one here on campus that uses its pawns like Provost Henning, the president, Alaster, and even Westfield’s students for the curse’s bidding.”
“So you’ll help me?”
She sighed. “Fine,” she said, levitating off the ground as she spoke. “Of course.”
“Thank you. Seriously.” And I couldn’t help but smile. It was endearing seeing her float in the air as if it was second nature. “I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to be yourself now.”
“Well, now that we’re actually friends and you’re not just using me for information,” she said, “I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not. You don’t either, you know.”
At my expression, she shrugged. “You skip classes when, half the time, I catch you standing outside classrooms listening to the students inside perform and wishing you were playing too. But something’s stopping you from going all in.
Maybe losing control of your powers isn’t just about Kasem’s lifeline. Maybe it’s about unraveling your own.”
Her words caught me by surprise, and yet, something stirred within me.
But to my relief, we were interrupted by voices outside the bathroom.
“I’ll see you at lunch,” Vivian said. And then she drifted off into the ceiling, disappearing entirely moments before the girls entered.
They were all from my Piano I class, which meant that I’d been gone long enough that the professor had called for our break. They commented on the flooding stall where water pooled, even as they spoke in hushed voices at the sink.
I exited and joined them in front of the mirrors, pretending to wash my hands.
One of the girls was Sarah, the Hearst girl from the Theta party. She had a suitcase with her, and her friends whispered tearful goodbyes before exiting the bathroom.
But Sarah stayed behind, watching me with pointed interest.
“I’m leaving Westfield,” she said.
“I gathered.” I nodded at the suitcase. “You’re probably better off than the rest of us staying here.”
“Tell that to my parents. They’re begging me to stick it out.
At least until the end of the semester. My mother was a Theta and her mother before that, and my dad was a Sigma.
That’s how they met.” She sighed, glaring at her reflection in the mirror, from her bloodshot eyes to the gray bags that had formed underneath them from lack of sleep.
“Do you know what they told me? They said a Westfield degree comes with challenges. They said that Danny knew that when he enrolled, and I should have known too.”
Tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away.
I wasn’t sure what to say to her. In our time here at Westfield, our only encounters had been at the fringes of each other’s worlds, but that impact hadn’t settled right with me, not from the way she’d reported me to Alaster and not with what I’d learned looking into her past.
“What happened at Theta House was a wake-up call,” Sarah continued.
“It was like there was this coldness, everywhere. And I could hear his voice. Danny. He was angry. At me. At them. At everyone. All of his thoughts, all of his pain, I felt it as my own. Like he was within me. There was the window, and then…”
She sobbed into her hands and whispered her thanks as I handed her a paper towel.
“I’m guessing you regret what you did to him.”
“Of course I do,” Sarah snapped. “But it was one fight—one awful, terrible night. And what happened to Danny—it wasn’t because of me or him.
It was this place. Westfield. There’s something about it, something twisted and wrong that warps people’s minds and makes them do unspeakable things.
Besides, do you really think, if I was so set on moving on and forgetting everything, I would be attending the same university as the one where he died? ”
Sarah didn’t know about the curse. None of the students besides Honey did; that was clear. And yet, like everyone at Westfield, its ripple effect had seeped into her own life.
“What did Danny study while he was here?” I asked.
Sarah frowned, confused by the question. But she answered it anyway.
“Computer programming with a minor in business administration. That’s how he met Honey and Nathan Rowhouse. But he wanted to be a writer. A journalist. Danny and I had bonded over that. You know, because of my family’s background.”
At the mention of Nathan, I stilled.
“Were Nathan and Danny friends?” I asked.
“I think so. They were both rushing Sigma together, and Nathan really wanted to climb the social ladder. He thought befriending Honey and Kasem could get him a recommendation letter from Alaster. Danny thought Nathan was going too far, trying to change himself to fit in with their lifestyles. So when Nathan died, Danny sort of snapped. He wrote about it in his journal, talked about exposing the Saint James family and Westfield for what happened to Nathan.”
I followed her out of the bathroom. The stained glass windows reflected embers and fractals of the setting sun, and our shadows stretched along the empty hallways like gravestones.
“Danny was in Rose House the last time I saw him. I was visiting him in his dorm. I found his writings and things he was researching about my family and the board of trustees. It upset me. Some of his claims were… dangerous. He said the Board and my family covered up the accidents on campus, that all of the Ivies, all of the legacy students and their families, worked with Westfield’s board for their own benefit.
The last time we spoke, he said he was going to publish everything he’d learned.
They found his body the next morning, at Theta House, fallen from the window, his arms bound by silver rope.
“But I don’t believe it. He was doing better.
He swore he’d been getting help with his anxiety from school.
And where would he have gotten that rope from?
Silver rope. Like that’s something you just have in a dorm.
” She’d begun to tremble as we spoke, and I squeezed her arm gently, pulling away before a vision emerged.
“I didn’t kill him,” she repeated. “And he didn’t take his own life either. Something happened. His family and I have been pressing the university for answers for months now, but nothing.”
“That’s why you wanted to rush Theta,” I said, understanding settling over me. “Did Alaster promise to help you find out what happened to Danny? Is that why you told him about me?”
More tears had begun to build again at Sarah’s lashes. She wiped them away.
“Alaster helped me get that invitation to the party. He has connections to Theta and Sigma and the Board that even Honey doesn’t know about.
And I’m telling you now, as a warning: Be careful of them.
Not just him, all of them. Whatever demons are haunting the school, they won’t stop until we’re all consumed.
It took Danny and Nathan. And now that Danny’s spirit isn’t trapped here, there’s nothing for me at Westfield.
Don’t let this place fool you into thinking you can change things. ”