CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Over the next few days I mulled over what to do, turn-ing over ev-ery pos-si-ble stone un-til the facts them-selves seemed warped—the way a word re-peated too of-ten loses its mean-ing, be-com-ing a mere fum-bling of the tongue over teeth.
My life hung in the bal-ance, yet still I was plagued by in-de-ci-sion.
Be-cause what should you do? What should you do when your only choices are risk-ing your mother’s death, or some-how in-ca-pac-i-tat-ing the most fear-less per-son you know?
Classes and re-hearsals went on as nor-mal, but Davina still didn’t at-tend them.
Af-ter one ses-sion iron-ing out the kinks in Act IV, I ap-proached Dr-ever af-ter ev-ery-one else had fil-tered out of the re-hearsal space.
“Where’s Davina?” I asked with-out pre-am-ble. I was shak-ing so pro-foundly that it was mirac-u-lous he didn’t no-tice.
He looked up from the script he was scrib-bling on in red Sharpie, vis-i-bly sur-prised. “She booked a small TV role. It’s film-ing in Mal-lorca this week. The dean granted her spe-cial dis-pen-sa-tion.”
I stared at him for a few sec-onds too long, the temp-ta-tion of telling him that I knew ev-ery-thing al-most too strong to re-sist, but I still didn’t want him to know it was me who black-mailed him at the start of the se-mes-ter. And so I left the room with-out an-other word.
Strid-ing to the li-brary to meet Catalina, re-al-iza-tion dawned. If Davina was out of the coun-try all week and the cuts sud-denly stopped ap-pear-ing on my body … there was a high chance she was the per-pe-tra-tor. This was an op-por-tu-nity to add fur-ther ev-i-dence to my grow-ing dossier.
As for the large fa-cial scar, I found my-self less both-ered by the aes-thetic ap-pear-ance of it than I should have been. For some-one who had ded-i-cated her whole life to the pur-suit of phys-i-cal per-fec-tion, such dis-fig-ure-ment should have been the most trau-matic thing that could hap-pen to me. A per-ma-nent and ir-re-versible de-feat.
But in re-al-ity, it was oddly ex-hil-a-rat-ing.
Free-ing.
Be-cause now I would never be per-fect, no mat-ter how hard I tried.
As I stud-ied the beet-pur-ple hue in my dorm’s fogged-up mir-ror, trac-ing the ragged edges with an icy fin-ger-tip, that quote from East of Eden played on a loop in my mind: “Now that you don’t have to be per-fect, you can be good.”
The wound felt, in a way, like per-mis-sion. Like a long, slow ex-hale. Like drop-ping out of a race I couldn’t re-mem-ber ac-tively choos-ing to run.
Be-ing born beau-ti-ful had car-ried with it a sense of obli-ga-tion. It was a gift I had been granted, and was honor-bound to take great care of this thing that so many peo-ple cov-eted. I’d of-ten felt as though re-mark-able beauty were the uni-verse’s way of mark-ing me for great-ness, and I had a crush-ing sense of re-spon-si-bil-ity to make the most of it. What-ever that meant.
But now the worst had hap-pened—my great-est cur-rency had been com-pro-mised—and the over-rid-ing emo-tion was not dev-as-ta-tion but re-lief.
Now I would have to find an-other race to run. And the thought was qui-etly ex-cit-ing.
There was still the fear, of course, of what it meant. A fi-nal bru-tal swipe be-fore the killing blow came. But at the sight of my own re-flec-tion, I felt a per-verse kind of sat-is-fac-tion. A dark smile played across my face like a silent movie. My pupils di-lated to their fullest, swal-low-ing the green of my irises with black-ness. A black-ness with-out a bot-tom. I frowned at the hue—I’d never seen a black quite like that be-fore.
Then—
No.
My eyes were play-ing tricks on me.
I lifted my fin-ger to the wound—
In the mir-ror, my fin-gers reached up to touch smooth, blank skin.
In my re-flec-tion, the wound was on the wrong side.
I turned away from the mir-ror, chest pound-ing, a dizzi-ness yank-ing the floor out from un-der me.
When I turned back, the im-age had righted it-self. The mir-ror wound matched my face wound.
Shud-der-ing, I turned away. There was some-thing not right with the mir-rors in this place.
I cov-ered up the scar as best I could with stage-qual-ity makeup be-fore head-ing to classes and re-hearsals. Just be-cause it gave me a pe-cu-liar thrill didn’t mean I wanted to in-vite ques-tions from out-side par-ties.
A week wore on with-out a sin-gle sight-ing of Davina—and with-out a sin-gle new mark ap-pear-ing on my body.
For ev-ery morn-ing I woke up un-blem-ished, I felt even more grimly cer-tain that the most ob-vi-ous an-swer was the right one: Davina was the killer. But why Celia and Lyle? Did the two fa-mous ac-tors have some-thing to do with her im-me-di-ate au-di-tion-ing suc-cess, or was it pure and sim-ple blood-lust?
To both my hor-ror and ex-hil-a-ra-tion, Davina fi-nally resur-faced the day of the mas-ter and sub-ject class.
Morn-ing ses-sions had be-come in-creas-in-gly em-bar-rass-ing—the day be-fore, Lawrie had us em-body the four el-e-ments for hours on end—in or-der to slowly erode our egos. To make us more com-fort-able around each other, so that we might act to-gether with-out in-hi-bi-tion. It was all build-ing to this one game: mas-ter and sub-ject. The game that had made Do-rian in-fa-mous when sto-ries of it hit the news a few decades ago. A rite of pas-sage at a pres-ti-gious in-sti-tu-tion. One I had been dread-ing ever since I ar-rived.
The sight of Davina loung-ing in a wooden chair, leather jacket slung over the back, was an elec-tric jolt. A bat-ter-ing ram straight to the chest, all the breath slammed out of my lungs.
Sup-press-ing the urge to cower away, I watched her care-fully as Catalina and I walked past her to seats a few rows be-hind.
Davina’s gaze snapped up to mine like a band of elas-tic.
And she stared.
Not just at my face, but at my throat, my chest, my col-lar-bones. All the places I was criss-crossed with es-o-teric scars. I wore a thick cream tur-tle-neck jumper, so she couldn’t see a thing. But the way she looked … it was as though the fab-ric didn’t ex-ist at all.
She was so brazen. Was she try-ing to make me feel threat-ened? To spark fresh dread at her re-turn, and what that might mean for me?
Ha-tred sank deep into my stom-ach like a stone in a well.
She was en-joy-ing this.
Catalina, how-ever, was not. We slid into two chairs near the back of the room, and she reached out across the aisle and squeezed my hand. “Are you okay? That was in-tense.”
Her touch was like cot-ton: warm and com-fort-ing and charged, some-how. I didn’t want her to pull away.
“I’m okay,” I lied. I felt any-thing but.
Catalina nod-ded fiercely. “I’ve got your back, okay? When-ever you need me, I’m here. Just say the word and I’ll smother her with a pil-low.”
De-spite ev-ery-thing, I laughed, feel-ing so glad I’d con-fided in her about ev-ery-thing. At the sight of the fresh fa-cial wound—shown to her in a bed-room adorned with fan-tasy maps and Funko Pops—she had made me sleep in her bed for the night, so that if any-thing else hap-pened, she was there. She had curled up on the floor in a bed made of cardi-gans and blan-kets, and though I found it im-pos-si-ble to drift off, the sound of her breath-ing had been a soft, steady an-chor, hyp-notic as the sound of gen-tle waves lap-ping a shore.
Come morn-ing, she had been ready to hunt Davina down her-self. I talked her out of it, of course. The last thing I wanted was an in-no-cent girl get-ting hurt just to pro-tect me. No mat-ter how good that pro-tec-tion might feel.
Davina was my prob-lem to deal with. I just had to fig-ure out how.
“Think of the most dis-turb-ing movie you’ve ever watched,” boomed Dr-ever, once class had be-gun in earnest. He leaned back against his desk, his shirt un-but-toned at the col-lar and the sleeves rolled up to his el-bows. Thick veins wormed all over his fore-arms be-neath coarse gray-black hair. “Whether it’s as phys-i-cally abom-in-able as The Hu-man Cen-ti-pede or some-thing al-to-gether more psy-cho-log-i-cal, re-mem-ber that ac-tors had to per-form it. They likely had to per-form it again and again and again, over many takes, from many dif-fer-ent an-gles. It’s im-por-tant that you be-come well ac-quainted with dis-tress and hu-mil-i-a-tion, with vul-ner-a-bil-ity and shame, with ex-pos-ing your-self in all the ways it is pos-si-ble to do so.”
Dis-com-fort churned in my gut like the con-tents of a witch’s caul-dron. A raven sat on the win-dowsill, watch-ing our hu-man folly with vague dis-in-ter-est.
“When Tom Six was cast-ing The Hu-man Cen-ti-pede, many ac-tors found them-selves too shaken to en-act, even fully clothed, what hap-pened to those vic-tims. They would read the lines, and the chem-istry would be there, but when it came time to crouch on hands and knees, mouths agape, they found they could not do it. They fled.
“Few au-di-tions are likely to in-voke such strong re-volt in you, and yet it’s im-por-tant to be pre-pared. To be ex-posed to even a frac-tion of that de-gra-da-tion here, now, the way a vac-cine works with a mi-cro-dose. Be-cause in truth, open-ing your-self to hor-ror of the mind and body will cre-ate count-less paths into the film in-dus-try. Let’s face it—not all of you are go-ing to play Ham-let. Not all of you are go-ing to cap-ture hearts as Romeo or Juliet. Most of you will have to find other doors to crank open with a crow-bar. Most of you are go-ing to have to force your way in.
“And look, there will al-ways be weird, niche in-die movies look-ing for up-and-com-ers. As voyeurs, we’re end-lessly com-pelled by dis-turb-ing things hap-pen-ing to the hu-man body.” My hand went to my cheek with-out think-ing. “High-pro-file ac-tors rarely want to take on such roles. For that they need new-bies. For that they need you. And you need to be ready.”
The witch’s caul-dron bub-bled over, and im-mense dread spilled into my veins and ar-ter-ies. Not just at the hideous premise of that film, but at the idea of hav-ing to per-form it, any of it, any-thing that went be-yond the rel-a-tively safe con-fines of Shake-speare. Hell, the au-di-tion-ing process was fraught enough for me as it was—I al-ways felt vul-ner-a-ble, ex-posed, self-con-scious to the point of paral-y-sis.
Maybe Dr-ever was right—that needed to be beaten out of me by what-ever means nec-es-sary.
“This is how it will go.” He clapped his hands to-gether, and it made me jump. “You’ll be paired up with one of your class-mates, and you will each take a turn to be mas-ter and sub-ject. For ten whole min-utes, the sub-ject must do any-thing the mas-ter tells them to do. Any-thing. And then the ta-bles will turn. The sub-jects will be-come the mas-ters, and the power will be theirs.”
“Can you give us some ex-am-ples of things peo-ple have done in the past?” asked Nairne, ner-vously plait-ing and un-plait-ing the end of her thick blonde pony-tail.
“Cer-tainly.” Dr-ever raised a bushy brow, white and gin-ger like a fox’s tail. “There has been a lot of nu-dity, as I’m sure you can imag-ine. Things al-ways seem to de-velop sex-ual un-der-tones. You’re all young, I sup-pose, and ram-pant with cer-tain hor-mones.” A parental chuckle, so at odds with what he was do-ing with Davina be-hind closed doors. “Last year one of my finest stu-dents was slapped in the face by his friend’s … ap-pendage. An-other had her sub-ject suck all of her toes one by one.”
Do-minic snorted. “That’s messed up.” The tone was jock-ish, un-both-ered, but there was a twitch-i-ness to his move-ments that made me think he was qui-etly ner-vous.
“What hap-pens if sub-jects refuse to do some-thing?” asked Davina, and be-side her Maisie smirked.
Dr-ever looked at her al-most too care-fully, con-sciously, and it seemed so bla-tant that there was some-thing be-tween them. I didn’t un-der-stand how no-body else could see it. Then again, was I re-ally pars-ing sub-text and body lan-guage when I al-ready knew what to look for? When these ac-tions had a fully formed mean-ing al-ready as-cribed?
“Then they will know, in them-selves, that they lack for-ti-tude,” he an-swered se-ri-ously. “And I will know they lack for-ti-tude. Fu-ture roles will be cast with that knowl-edge in mind.”
Al-low your-selves to be hu-mil-i-ated and de-graded, or suc-cess will be snatched away like a child’s fa-vorite toy.
How was this any bet-ter than the black-mail I’d snared Davina with?
At the in-ter-views, they’d warned us Do-rian was a con-stant ex-er-cise in break-ing down in or-der to build back up. We would be made to act out an-i-mals defe-cat-ing, all shame and em-bar-rass-ment left at the door. Lead roles would be given, only to be snatched away on open-ing night, to steel against re-jec-tion. I’d even heard ru-mors of stu-dents forced to au-di-tion naked, back in the six-ties, be-fore even my mum’s time, be-fore the Of-fice for Stu-dents caught wind of it. All in the name of great-ness.
“And there won’t be any con-se-quences?” asked Fraser. “For what we have our sub-jects do? Or … say?” He seemed ner-vous too.
“As long as it’s within the con-fines of the law, yes.”
“Slap-ping a dick in some-one’s face isn’t le-gal,” said Catalina in-dig-nantly.
“You’re right. It isn’t.” Dr-ever fixed us all with a mean-ing-ful stare. Was he im-ply-ing that pretty much any-thing went? Were we about to go full Purge? “I’m about to read out your pair-ings. If your name is called out first, you’re the mas-ter first. Catalina, you’ll be mas-ter-ing Fraser.” Fraser’s shoul-ders vis-i-bly sank with re-lief. “Do-minic mas-ter-ing Erin. Nairne, Maisie. Penny—”
I held my breath so tight in my chest it be-came painful.
“—Davina.”
Of course. Of course it was Davina.
Had she con-vinced Dr-ever to pair us up just so she could hu-mil-i-ate me? Had she asked to be the mas-ter sec-ond, so she could take what-ever I’d made her do and boomerang it ten times worse?
As Davina crossed over to me, fear wrapped around my lungs like a leather belt, stiff and un-yield-ing.
I’d spent the last few weeks won-der-ing if the girl now stand-ing in front of me was a mur-derer. Won-der-ing whether she was about to mur-der me.
Now we were about to dive into a vi-cious mind game, and I didn’t know if I had the strength to win.
All the ta-bles and chairs had been pushed to the side of the high-ceilinged class-room, cre-at-ing a kind of arena in the cen-ter. Weak morn-ing light washed through the bay win-dows, sil-vered by win-ter clouds. Davina wore leg-warm-ers and bal-let slip-pers with silent soles, glid-ing over the slat-ted wooden floor-boards like the swans over the lake.
She stared at the spot on my face where the wound was al-most per-fectly dis-guised.
The twin pil-lars of anger and fear rose in my chest. She didn’t care that I knew it was her. She wanted me to know, with-out ever truly know-ing.
Around us, fel-low stu-dents be-gan mer-rily bark-ing com-mands at their sub-jects. Most of them sounded fairly tame: Play the air pi-ano. Jump up and down like a frog. Cock your leg and pre-tend to pee like a dog. Bound-ary test-ing. I heard Catalina, ever the in-no-cent soul, or-der Fraser to sing a nurs-ery rhyme of his choos-ing. Soon the room was filled with off-pitch “Twin-kle Twin-kle” and other gen-er-al-ized tom-fool-ery.
Yet I couldn’t move.
Davina stood a few feet in front of me and stared. Those pale eyes, like an Arc-tic fox, bore into me—dar-ing me to do some-thing, say some-thing, flip a fig-u-ra-tive ta-ble. And yet ter-ror rooted me to the ground, as though dark vines had risen from the earth and wrapped around my an-kles.
Over her shoul-der, Do-minic watched glee-fully as Erin tied her red plaid scarf around her eyes as a blind-fold. A sub-tle ex-er-cise in dom-i-na-tion, be-gin-ning to be pulled along on a sex-ual un-der-tow.
“Aren’t you go-ing to mas-ter me?” Davina said, cool and clipped and com-posed.
I was torn. If I were truly hon-est with my-self, I wanted to em-bar-rass her, to make her feel as small as she so of-ten made me feel. But I was also afraid of an-ger-ing her fur-ther, given the gash on my cheek, the power she had over me. I didn’t want to give her rea-son to end my life with a fi-nal carve through the can-vas.
And yet I hated that I was afraid of her, be-cause that meant she was win-ning. The mark-ing of my face had been in-tended to ter-rify me, and I couldn’t bear to give her the sat-is-fac-tion.
“Go and kiss Dr-ever,” I mut-tered, low and fast as an in-can-ta-tion cast be-fore com-mon sense could pre-vail. A sin-is-ter thrill tore through me like a gun-shot. “Tell him you’ve been think-ing about him.”
Rather than look-ing an-gry, Davina’s ex-pres-sion was one of grat-i-fi-ca-tion. She’d wanted me to make her do some-thing messed up. So she could jus-tify what she was about to do to me?
Her tongue-pink bal-let slip-pers glided over the wooden floor-boards as she crossed to where Dr-ever stood, arms folded, against his desk. Rather than un-der-bak-ing the task, she cupped his jaw in her dainty hand and planted a pas-sion-ate kiss on his lips. Other stu-dents turned to watch, glee-ful en-ter-tain-ment writ-ten in their grins.
Davina ran her hand over his chest, his torso, his waist-band, then purred, “I’ve been think-ing about you.” Ev-ery word dripped with fear-less se-duc-tion.
I thought it would give me a lick of sat-is-fac-tion to see her openly per-form their af-fair for the class, and yet no-body seemed to take it in the least bit se-ri-ously. They thought it was all part of the game.
If any-thing, the line-cross-ing seemed to em-bolden my peers. Within min-utes there was more kiss-ing, more over-the-clothes fondling, some recre-ations of sex-ual po-si-tions. Sub-jects mounted each other like stal-li-ons. A sense of nau-seous dis-ori-en-ta-tion came over me, as though I’d taken some kind of hal-lu-cino-genic and couldn’t es-cape the sick-en-ing phan-tas-mago-ria.
“Any-thing else?” Davina asked me sweetly, wip-ing her mouth on the back of her hand.
There was so much I wanted to make her do. I wanted her to smack her-self in the face over and over, as hard as she could. I wanted her to run full tilt at the bay win-dows and smash right through. I wanted to hurt her, to make her a ves-sel for all the anger and shame and guilt I’d felt over the last weeks and months and years. I craved the re-lease more than I’d ever craved any-thing.
Yet I couldn’t do it. Call it a con-sci-ence, call it cow-ardice, but I sim-ply couldn’t do it.
“Time’s up,” called Dr-ever, be-fore I could sling a fi-nal com-mand in her di-rec-tion. The hes-i-ta-tion felt like fail-ure. “Now the fun re-ally be-gins. Sub-jects, it’s time for re-venge.”
“Take off your clothes,” Davina said in-stantly, as though she weren’t go-ing to waste a sin-gle sec-ond of this power, and I hated her un-fal-ter-ing as-sur-ance.
But not as much as I hated the com-mand.
No-body had ever seen me in my un-der-wear be-fore. At least not in re-cent mem-ory—I had to as-sume my mother had bathed and changed me as an in-fant. She’d re-fused to get a nanny out of sheer para-noia, so con-vinced was she that any in-ter-loper in our home would leak all of her lit-tle se-crets to the press. And even when I was at my clos-est with Samara, we never got un-dressed in front of each other. She was prud-ish, pri-vate, but then again maybe she al-ready sus-pected I had de-vel-oped the wrong kind of feel-ings for her.
I had al-ways thought that this mo-ment would be spe-cial. Choos-ing a per-son I loved and trusted enough to share my bare body with, watch-ing their eyes light up as I un-wrapped my-self like a present, both of us fizzing and giddy with the an-tic-i-pa-tion. The light-ing would be soft golden pools, lamps and can-dles and closed cur-tains, not sharp squares of gray day-light in a crowded class-room. It would be pri-vate and lovely. It was an im-age I held close to my chest, right up against my heart-beat.
And Davina had just stolen it from me. The prom-ise of that first.
Be-cause no mat-ter how much I ab-horred this com-mand, I could not let her win.
My fur coat came first, then my jumper. My long-sleeved tee, then the ther-mal vest. The flo-ral-em-broi-dered jeans, and the fleece-lined leg-gings be-neath. My Chelsea boots and child-ish socks—Piglet, from Win-nie-the-Pooh. A gift from Samara, be-fore she shut me out of her life.
I couldn’t look down. I couldn’t bear to see my milky-white skin, my jut-ting bones, the gnaw-ing wound in my ribs. The freck-led plane of my stom-ach; the outie belly but-ton. The scar on my knee from when I fell off the mon-key bars in pri-mary school. The pri-vate map of my body, all of it in the pub-lic do-main.
Sev-eral sets of eyes lin-gered on me, the heat of them like spot-lights. Nor-mally I was an or-na-ment on a top shelf, per-pet-u-ally out of reach. An art ex-hi-bi-tion for which no-body could af-ford the en-try fee. But now I was a free-for-all.
What did they think of the cuts on my chest and col-lar-bones? Did they think I’d done it to my-self? The tor-tured daugh-ter of an icon with her own dark se-cret?
Davina’s gaze had bright-ened keenly, and I knew then that it would al-ways be like this be-tween us, a cruel push-pull, a con-stant at-tempt to con-quer the other, the bro-ken pieces of our-selves sharp-ened against the whet-stones of our ha-tred.
Yet she still did not look be-low my col-lar-bone. It was as though the most sat-is-fy-ing thing for her were the vul-ner-a-bil-ity, not the al-most-nu-dity it-self. Did she just want ev-ery-one to see what she’d done to me?
She stud-ied each mark as though she were see-ing it for the first time. I sup-pose, in a sense, she was. She’d only ever seen them on my por-trait.
My por-trait.
A thought struck me, di-a-mond-clear.
How was she get-ting into the gallery in the first place? Did she have a key?
Maybe that’s how I’d get her. I’d hide out in the Basil Hall-ward The-ater ev-ery sin-gle night un-til she showed up again, climb-ing be-neath the stage as the rest of the cam-pus slept.
And then … I wasn’t sure what I’d do next. My mother’s sug-ges-tion re-peated in my head like the re-ver-ber-a-tions of a church bell. Could I re-strain her, some-how?
“Now your un-der-wear,” said Davina, yank-ing me back to the hor-ri-fy-ing present mo-ment.
Ev-ery-thing in me sharp-ened to a sin-gu-lar point of dread.
No.
I wouldn’t do that.
I couldn’t.
My mother had a fa-mous full-frontal scene in a spy movie—the kind of iconic mo-ment watched over and over by teenage boys in dark bed-rooms around the world. I’d never seen it, but I’d al-ways sworn it was a hard line I would never cross my-self. Once those im-ages were out there, they’d be out there for-ever. You could never take it back.
I couldn’t quite de-scribe ex-actly why the thought of to-tal ex-po-sure filled me with tar-like hor-ror. It just felt like a vi-o-la-tion. Was it so wrong to want to keep parts of you to your-self?
Bod-ies are just bod-ies, but they’re also not. Bod-ies are sex and power and iden-tity.
Davina watched the emo-tions play out over my face. “If you don’t, you will lose. You will know you don’t have the stones to be here.” She nod-ded her head in Dr-ever’s di-rec-tion. “And the pro-fes-sor will know too. If you don’t play the game, Lady Mac-beth will be your first and last lead.”
Catalina was watch-ing over Davina’s shoul-der, ab-so-lute fury on her usu-ally bright face.
But I was a piece on a chess-board, and Davina had trapped me. A queen pinned to the king; I couldn’t move in any di-rec-tion with-out los-ing the game on the spot. And yet by stay-ing where I was, I would be de-stroyed.
There was no way I could obey the com-mand. And yet by not obey-ing the com-mand, my fu-ture at Do-rian would be in tat-ters.
Davina had won.
I grabbed my clothes in a hasty bun-dle and fled.