Flickerstate

Chapter Four

After that tense interaction with Vik, I’m relieved when Mirabel regathers the transfers and mentors. We straggle out of the dining hall into the humid August evening.

Vik falls into step with me. Mr. Otherwise Rude is trying for politeness, I think. But his idea of polite company doesn’t involve chitchat. After a silent minute—fidgety on my end, serene on his—I break. “So… You’re from Vermont?”

He glances down at his chest, which does indeed declare VERMONT. “Yeah. You?”

“St. Louis. All I know about Vermont is, you guys have the Ben & Jerry’s factory. What’s it like?”

He shrugs. “Remote. Green. More cows than people.”

“Do your parents work for Ben and Jerry? Are they the flavor wizards who’ve brought me so much joy?”

“My parents are lactose-intolerant nutritionists. Alas.”

“Oh, no, that’s—wait. You’re messing with me.”

His lips quirk. “Maybe.”

In the column ahead, pockets buzz. Vik pulls out his phone. His eyes narrow. Maybe by accident, he tilts the screen my way. I glimpse a questionnaire with multiple-choice reactions from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”

The words MY MENTEE jump out at me. “Can I see that?”

I expect him to say no. But after glancing at the kids ahead of us, he passes me his phone at hip height.

The questionnaire is called PEER MENTOR EVALUATION OF TRANSFER. Bolded instructions order the mentors to complete the survey after they have finished their mentor-transfer dinner. Under no circumstances should mentors show the questionnaire to their transfer.

Some of the questionnaire’s statements seem harmless: MY TRANSFER LIKES GROUP ACTIVITIES. Others are odd: MY TRANSFER AVOIDS VOLUNTEERING PERSONAL INFORMATION. Others are downright bizarre: MY TRANSFER SEEMS LIKE A SOCIAL OUTCAST. MY TRANSFER SWEATS PROFUSELY.

I pass his phone back. “The hell is this?” I whisper. “You spy on us and answer the questions, and then what?”

“The surveys go to Guidance and the Nav Department. Their line is, they want detailed information about new students so the Academy can support them.”

“Their line?”

Vik spaces out his words. “The Academy’s…stimulating. It’s not…supportive.”

“Then why the surveys?”

“No idea. I’m not Guidance.”

I force a laugh. “No kidding. You haven’t measured my sweat rate. You going to pick answers randomly?”

“I’m going to choose ‘neither agree nor disagree’ every time.”

My next laugh comes easier. “They assign ‘Civil Disobedience’ here too?”

“No, Walden. And they always point out Thoreau was full of shit. The whole time he was claiming to rough it, his mom was doing his laundry. It’s almost like,” he adds wryly, “they want to discourage nonconformists.”

We reach a baronial absurdity, turrets stabbing the sky. Mirabel addresses the crowd: “This is the senior dorm, Lucasson. It’s named after Kay Lucasson, one of Highwall’s most important collaborators. She was a major player in manifestation studies.”

Manifestation studies: the going euphemism for beast research. Lucasson’s the one who proved that intense navigation attracts beasts. And the one who first banished beasts with nav.

“See that keycard lock?” Mirabel says. “You can open it with the student IDs that Admissions mailed out over the summer. You all have yours? Good. Let’s go.” She swipes open the main door with her ID. Kids rush inside.

I turn to Vik. “Okay, Souza. Any tips before we part ways?”

“No.”

“That tracks. Well. This has been totally unhelpful. I’ll see you at our next mentor-mentee dinner. Bye? Bye.”

***

In Lucasson’s fourth-floor hallway, doors line the walls, brass numbers above their peepholes. My battered black suitcase stands outside door 41. I tap my ID to the electric lock above the doorknob, and the light in the lock flashes green.

Our block’s common room is neat and airy. A pale-blue rug, patterned with roses and hummingbirds, mostly covers the hardwood floor. A matching stuffed armchair and sofa face each other across the carpet. An arched window looks onto the main quad.

All this for three students? Damn.

The armchair sits between two doors. The closer door is probably the bathroom. The farther door bears a brass A. In the opposite wall is another door labeled B.

I bump my suitcase over to room A. I expect a cubbyhole, but the single is bigger than the room I share with Jo at home. It’s furnished with a bed, a dresser, and a desk. A window with a pale-blue curtain gives me another view of the quad.

The front door opens. Candace’s voice floats through my wall: “—shouldn’t have told her.”

“I couldn’t avoid telling her,” a tenor says.

“You could have. Easily. You avoid telling someone a secret by not telling them.”

“She was trying to help—”

“She failed.”

I feel weird about eavesdropping unseen, so I step back into the common room.

Candace stands, arms crossed, staring down a tall blond guy who’s thrown himself into our armchair.

He’s dressed like he rows crew or plays squash: a sea-green polo shirt and shorts with a handsewn red logo that looks like a marijuana leaf but probably isn’t supposed to.

I clear my throat. “Hi.”

The guy gives me a once-over. “Who’s this, Candace?”

I’m suddenly too conscious that I’m wearing secondhand athleisure scrounged from a West County charity store run by Pilates moms. “Someone who can speak for herself,” I snap.

“Norah,” Candace says, “meet my useless stepbrother.”

He clutches his chest in mock agony. “Useless?”

“Worse than useless. A saboteur.”

“Mirabel was only trying to—” He stops, glancing at me.

“Horse, barn door. I showed Norah the bites.”

He gives me another once-over, more considered. “She’s not shunning you.”

“I’m not,” I agree. “Because that would be moronic.”

“She swooped in and tried to rescue me from ostracism,” Candace says. “It is no thanks to you or Mirabel that anyone is talking to me.”

“Why would you need me if your new blockmate swoops and rescues?” He springs from the armchair and offers me his hand. “Nice to meet you, Supergirl. I’m Griffin Minter.”

I look to Candace.

She rolls her eyes. “Go ahead.”

I shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, useless stepbrother.”

“Okay, I’ll exit stage right before you ladies start throwing shoes at me. Bye, Candy.”

When the door closes behind him, I echo, “Candy?”

“In all seriousness,” Candace says, “never call me that.”

“Done. Mirabel’s the one who spread the word about your bites?”

Candace nods, dropping onto the sofa. “She says she told them I had healed bites to keep the other students from panicking in case they saw my arm. Because demanifestation is so rare, and because there were no articles about my case online, they thought she was lying when she said I was healed. They panicked anyway.”

I take the armchair. “Why weren’t there articles? The media loves miracle cures. They give people hope.”

“My stepdad didn’t want the publicity. We had to tell our Nav Department, or they wouldn’t have taken me off the registry. But they de-identified my case before they sent it to the CDC.”

I fidget on the armchair’s overstuffed cushion.

Because I hid my wound, I’m not on any registry.

I’ve committed some Class E felonies as a result: flying on a commercial aircraft with an undisclosed bite, traveling between states with an undisclosed bite, etc.

Any mention of registries makes me feel like a criminal.

Which makes sense. I am a criminal.

“How did Mirabel know about your bites in the first place?” I ask.

“She and Griffin have been friends since they were freshmen, and they dated last year. She’s visited us a couple times.

And she and I get on—got on—fine. We could talk.

We used to text. But when she came to our house last winter break, she was acting off.

I thought she knew Griffin was going to break up with her.

Maybe she was terrified of my bites. Turns out Griffin told her before she came. ”

“I’m surprised he’d tell her. People treat bites like they’re contagious. He wasn’t worried she’d start avoiding him? Or tell their other classmates, get him ostracized too?”

“Maybe he should’ve been. But Mirabel’s not a coward or a gossip, at least. She didn’t tell anyone about my bites until today.” Candace leans back, light shining on her bob. “Enough about them. Who are you, blockmate? Why did you come to the Academy?”

I shift uncomfortably. “Same reason everyone does. I found out I could navigate.”

“That’s all?”

If anyone could understand my situation, it would be Candace.

But I’m not about to spill my deep, dark secret to a girl I met a minute ago.

Thinking up a plausible half-truth, I remember Vik’s Philosophy of Navigation, his frustration that the Academy doesn’t explore the why of it all.

“I want to see the Archive. Highwall went so deep into flickerstate. And she buried her research here. I want to know what she learned. Don’t you? ”

Candace taps her forearm where two scars overlap, forming a shiny ridge. “I want to understand one thing in particular.”

“You’re gunning for the Archive too.”

“Of course.”

“Can I ask…”

“An indecorous question? Love those. Go.”

“How’d it happen?”

“The bites?”

“No, the healing. Did something trigger it, or—” I make myself stop. I can hear my own tension, neediness, just plain too muchness. If I keep talking, I might as well blab about Dad.

“I was bitten a year ago, right when my nav manifested,” Candace says after a pause. “I started having the dreams this spring. You know about bite-dreams?”

You could say that. Every night last week Dad woke the whole family up with his screaming. “They show you possible deaths, right? They hurt. And they…they mean you’re getting closer to, um…”

Candace nods. “I started bracing for them until I couldn’t sleep. Finally, my mom insisted I take sleeping pills. That night, I went under with wounds, woke up with scars. I have no idea what happened. Why?”

I feel a sharp, disappointed drop in my stomach. The sleeping pills weren’t what cured Candace—over the decades, people with bites have tried every pill under the sun, including sleeping pills, to no effect—but her story doesn’t offer any other leads. “Just curious.”

She raises her eyebrows. She doesn’t buy what I’m selling.

I need to distract her. Luckily, I have an idea. “We should team up.”

“Team up?”

“For the Archive competition. If we both make it through this ‘screening’ I’ve heard about.”

Her face hardens. “I don’t want a pity teammate.”

“Conveniently, I don’t pity you.”

I really don’t. I mean, she’s healed. Just being this close to someone who survived a bite… Maybe I can figure out how she did it.

“Lay out your rationale,” she says. “Why would I team up with you if you’re crazy enough to team up with me?”

I hate it when people insult my rationality. I am supremely rational! “You’re assuming I should bag experienced teammates, kids who’ve been at the Academy all four years. But come on. No four-year kid smarter than a sandwich would let a new transfer onto their team.”

“You have a point. But why, of all transfers, me?”

“Your parents hired you a tutor as soon as your navigation manifested, right?”

Candace frowns. “Didn’t yours?”

“How much did your tutor charge?”

“I don’t know, why?”

I put on my blandest expression and wait.

After a second, she looks caught out. “I see.”

“Yeah. Besides, you aren’t a random transfer. Your stepbrother’s an Academy long-hauler. Before that, he must’ve had a tutor too, from age—what?”

“Seven.”

Seven. The people I’m up against. “He owes you for telling Mirabel about your bites. Guilt him into joining our team.”

“I do enjoy bossing Griff around,” Candace admits. “And my stepdad would certainly prefer if we could both be on the winning team—he loves winners. But suppose Griffin says no. How will we find a third teammate when no one wants to stand near me?”

“Cross that bridge when we come to it.”

She smiles, a glimmer of teeth. “Fine. Deal.”

We meet in the middle of the carpet to shake on it.