Chapter Twelve
The rain has stopped. A florid sunset muscles through bruised clouds on the horizon.
Students stroll the campus loop, holding hands, sharing earbuds, taking pictures of each other.
Boring-ass promenades pass for dates when your boarding school won’t let you keep a car on campus, I guess.
Kids give me weird looks when I sprint past, but I only slow down when I see the basketball courts.
I text Vik: Usual place ASAP. My plan is, I’ll shoot threes till he texts back.
Once he confirms he’s coming, I’ll duck onto the footpath and go wait in the clearing, so no one sees us together.
I’d rather gossip not spread that we’re having a clandestine woodland rendezvous after I assured Dr. Langmore that we didn’t, like, hang out.
My phone buzzes: Already there.
The footpath is muddy, churned by Vik’s boots.
I squelch down the slope with my arms out for balance.
When I enter the clearing, the sun sits speared on the treetops, giving the wet leaves a hallucinatory shimmer.
Vik stands in the clearing’s center, head down.
He’s changed since clinic, into another faded T-shirt, this one with holes in the collar and an illustration of a leafy maple tree below which sit the words, emphatically capitalized, I’D TAP THAT.
Irritation clogs my throat. He and I just pulled off nav that ninety percent of the world thinks is impossible. Why isn’t he more—
More what, Norah?
This is a transaction. Vik doesn’t owe me anything but what we agreed on. Anything includes awe, excitement, starstruck gazing, and a shirt without holes.
“How was detention?” I ask.
He raises his head. Face exhausted, eyes alert. “Langmore interrogated me about leaguing without mentioning leaguing.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I don’t know how we managed to banish the beasts. Which is true. Technically.”
“Yeah, I pretended to be completely obtuse too.”
A smile ghosts across his face. “Can’t have been convincing.”
I look away, embarrassed, into the shimmering trees. “I’m an excellent actress. We agree she suspects what we did?”
“Yeah. What I can’t understand is why she’s angry. I… I wasn’t imagining how powerful it was, right?”
“We had a thousand eyes.”
He nods.
“How—how did we do it? I mean, what did we do differently this time?”
He thinks. “Today, I wasn’t trying to league. I just channeled all my nav to you. And you, you channeled all your nav to me at the same time.”
I nod.
We stand in silence. As usual, his face doesn’t give much away. I’m not sure what he’s feeling.
I’m not sure what I’m feeling. A beast almost bit me. Again.
But this time, I wasn’t helpless. This time, I banished it. We banished it. Because Vik disobeyed a direct order from Dr. Langmore to walk into danger and help me. Because we finally succeeded in doing something that we’d failed at twenty-odd times, something everyone thought was impossible.
Something Dr. Langmore hates.
Is it dangerous? Wrong? Evil?
“Want to try again?” he asks hesitantly.
I offer him my hand before he’s finished speaking. Maybe leaguing is dangerous or wrong. I guess I’ll find out. But I already know it might have saved some lives.
Vik laces his fingers through mine. Earlier, in clinic, his skin was cold with fear. It’s warm now.
“We know what we did.” His voice rumbles from his chest. “We should replicate that. Count us down?”
I whisper into the woods’ drip and rustle. “Three, two, one—”
Fire explodes in my skull.
When I can see—see anything other than the agonized pinkish throb of my own brain—muddy grass greets me. I’m lying cheek-down. Vik, sprawled beside me, pushes up on his elbows and coughs. Fine red spray colors the grass beneath him.
“Okay?” I croak.
“Bit my cheek going down.” He climbs to his feet and offers me a hand.
I hesitate. Five seconds ago, us touching set off a bomb.
Don’t be chicken, Norah. Five seconds ago, we were trying to set off…
not a bomb, but something. I grab his hand.
He levers me upright without effort. It makes me want to ask unhinged questions (How much can you bench-press?
Could you bench-press me?). I cover for myself by snarking, “So that sucked.”
He wipes his bloody mouth on his sleeve. “You didn’t like it?”
I snort. My shirt used to read PROPERTY OF SAINT CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA’S ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT. Now, mud and grass stains cover so many letters that it announces, mysteriously, PRO CAT LET DEPART. “I was planning to do laundry tomorrow anyway.”
“Go early. Laundry room’s a mosh pit on weekends.”
I can’t keep up the banter. “What did we do wrong?”
“Wish I knew.” Frustration twists Vik’s face. “There isn’t a handbook for this.”
Then it comes to me. “Wait, isn’t there? That book, Philosophy of Navigation. You said Dr. Ortega wrote a chapter about leaguing.”
“The book has a couple chapters on leaguing. They’re theoretical, though. None of the writers have leagued.”
“But we have. Maybe we can put their theories into practice.”
Slowly, Vik nods. “How about this. We skip our weekend morning practices and rest up. Our second try might’ve failed because we’re burned-out. I’ll reread the book tomorrow and hand it off to you at our mentor-transfer dinner—”
“I forgot we had that.”
“I would’ve too, but Mirabel sent the mentors several terrifying reminder emails. I’ll give you the book, and we’ll talk about it Monday morning. That work?”
“Yeah, um…” I shake my head. I’m not sure what to say, but I need to speak. “You know this is huge? If we can banish more beasts with less nav… Imagine if every nav department knew how to do that. It would save lives.”
Vik smiles. Not a microsecond grin this time—slow and joyful. “I know.”
***
When Vik and I emerge onto the basketball courts, sunset slants across the campus, brightening the leaded windows. The breeze ruffles my ponytail like a playful hand.
On some happy instinct, I swerve and grab a basketball from the rack. The ball smacks asphalt and leaps back to my hand like it missed me.
Dad played basketball through college. In the apartment we rented before Kev and Irene were born, he hung a mini hoop from my bedroom door.
The mini ball that came with the hoop was pastel blue like an Easter egg.
When Dad taught me shooting form—how to hold my elbow, flick my wrist, follow through—the ball left blue smudges that smelled like rubber on our palms. I giggled a lot during these lessons: The ball was little, and Dad’s hands were so big.
Whenever I did, Dad would wiggle his ears and dunk on me.
I shake my head. I’m not thinking about Dad right now. This is a celebration.
“Want to play H-O-R-S-E?” I ask Vik.
He grins. “Sure. Let’s warm up first, though.”
I pass him the ball. He tosses in a layup and passes back to me. I miss a three-pointer, pounce on the rebound, and try again. Swish.
“Nice shot,” Griffin calls.
When I glance behind me, he’s walking onto the court, framed against the Academy’s spires-and-turrets skyline.
“That’s all I make,” I call over my shoulder, jogging for the rebound.
“You win your trial?” Griffin swings his arms, looking pleased, as he approaches.
Whatever it cost me.
I shake off that thought too. “If you want to talk, you’ve got to play.”
“Okay, let’s talk and play. First, were you two mud-wrestling?” He gestures to my dirty shirt.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, Vik and I were mud-wrestling, Griffin.”
He grins. “Okay then. Second, I want to bask in my correctness. Now everyone knows what I’ve been saying.”
“What have you been saying?” I ask. “I zone out when you talk.”
“You’re a killer.”
“I don’t recall murdering anyone.”
“You scorched those beasts off the face of the earth.”
It’s pure speak-of-the-devil superstition, the fear people have that beasts manifest if you talk about them. But I’m surprised Griffin would risk it, mere hours after the near disaster during the trials. It’s like watching him smash a mirror for giggles.
“I helped scorch them,” I correct him primly.
“Right. Can’t forget my buddy Vik here. You guys put on quite the show in flickerstate.”
I don’t want Griffin thinking too hard about whatever he saw. I try to distract him. “Had you seen me in flickerstate before yesterday?”
“You’re a fire.” He grins. “Red-hot.”
I ignore the cheesy innuendo. “I don’t think I’ve seen you navigate. What does your nav look like?”
He shoves a hand into his hair. “Depends who’s looking. Whose shot is it?”
Vik was right: Griffin’s squirrelly about his nav. And now that he’s changed the subject, I won’t make him suspicious by doing it myself.
“Mine. Bank swish.” I shoot. The ball bangs off the backstop and rockets through the net.
“Me next.” Griffin legs it past me toward the ball.
Vik’s face goes somber, as if an unpleasant thought has occurred to him. He glances around for eavesdroppers, walks close to me, and speaks low. “See anything strange at the trial? Before the manifestation, I mean.”
Prickles crawl down my spine. “Strange. As in what?”
Before Vik can answer, Griffin dribbles up to me. “Are we playing with nav?”
“No.” I turn too fast and speak too sharply; I sound like I’m scolding a dog.
“What’s the point of playing without nav?”
“The point of basketball without nav,” I say, “is basketball. Shoot or forfeit.”
“Okay, boss lady.” He puts too much muscle into the shot: The ball strikes the backstop high up and misses the hoop.
“Strange as in interference,” Vik tells me quietly. Since I turned, he’s behind me now. In the post-rain chill, I can feel his body heat against my back. I stare hard at the basketball hoop.
Griffin snags the ball and chest-passes hard to Vik, playing rough, trying to catch his friend off guard. Vik plucks the ball from the air and waits for my answer.
“Go, shoot—act normal,” I whisper, barely moving my lips.
He walks to the free throw and shoots. Bank swish, perfect.
“What are you two mumbling about?” Griffin asks.
Vik collects his rebound and passes to me. “It’s strange Sam cheated.”
Vik thinks someone interfered with Sam to make him cheat?