20. Petra
PETRA
PRESENT DAY
After a night filled with much heartburn (both the literal kind because of my you-know-what state and more eerie dreams about that stranger also called Sin), I pull myself out of bed with the express intent of requesting Ms. Matthews to assign me a different partner.
Literally anyone else will do.
It’s not enough that he’s haunting my days with his wicked smile and stupid charm, but now he has to invade my dreams, too? How is it that since that fateful night, I haven’t been able to dream of anything else but him?
Well, it’s him and it’s not, since apparently my brain found it better to center our forbidden romance in the actual Gilded Age.
Not to mention him being a dazzling occult professor and me . . . well, I was just a member of a cult.
Nice, Petra, you just got yourself the plot of a smutty romance.
I grimace and berate myself: Those dreams have been quite steamy, all right. Perhaps not full-on, fuck-your-brains-out type, but close enough.
Good gracious, I’m really starting to lose it if this is what my subconscious is conjuring up.
Yet no matter how decided I am to change my project partner, my resolve falters when I arrive at school. The corridors of St. Anselm Hall buzz with an inscrutable energy, a certain urgency underscored by whispered conversations, furtive glances, and tense faces.
Even in the midst of my inner anguish, I can feel the pervasive sense of doom that’s settled over the SAH junta as soon as I step through the front doors.
“Did you hear?” Claire announces as she skids to a halt before me.
“Oh my God, Petra, it’s just horrible!”
These are the most words I have ever heard Claire utter, as she usually keeps to herself.
So I ask, “Hear what?” almost instinctively. Something must be very amiss if Claire is this unsettled.
“That kid who dropped out of Art History?” Claire begins in a breathless voice.
“Yes? I got his seat when he dropped out,” I respond fearfully.
Are they going to tell me that there was some kind of mistake? That I don’t have the seat after all?
Of course, the real news is much worse.
“They-they found him dead on the school property,” Claire stammers. “They’re saying it might be—”
“Wait, what? Claire, did you just say someone’s dead?”
I grab her shoulders to steady her because her eyes are wide and unfocused. Her hair’s all over the place, and frankly, she looks like she’s coming apart at the seams.
“Edwin Greenfield!” she cries out. “That red-haired guy who got an early-decision to Harvard, remember? He was your partner in that course last year, right?”
The blood drains from my face as the name finally registers.
Edwin.
We’d worked together on an Econ 101 project, and he’d helped me understand the toughest parts of microeconomic analysis. More importantly, Edwin was a nice person, someone who had helped me without judgment or mockery.
“Wha-what happened?” I finally manage to ask in a trembling voice.
“They found him in the woods, Petra. Right past the track-and-field arena. One of the gardeners found him . . . It’s all anyone’s talking about.”
My vision blurs as the thought of someone’s dead body, that, too, of someone I used to know quite well, floods my mind and overwhelms me completely.
“I can’t believe it,” I whisper in a weak voice, automatically leaning against the cool metal of my locker.
“Me neither!” Claire cries out before a guy, one of the jocks from Ms. Matthews’s class, stops beside her.
“Did you guys hear?” he asks, his expression stricken.
“About Edwin? Yes!” Claire exclaims, as if relieved to find someone else who might offer more words than I am coming up with.
“I heard the police are questioning people,” the guy continues, looking at me.
Okay . . . why would he look at me while saying that?
My paranoia is already working overtime, so the tiniest look or gesture can set me off.
“And the teachers are trying to keep a lid on the whole thing,” Claire adds, running her fingers through the mass of curls uncoiling atop her head.
“Huh, as if that will work,” the guy scoffs back.
“I have to go,” I hear myself say as I start walking away. “I left something in the . . .”
But neither Claire nor the guy is listening to me anymore, so I just stroll away without completing my sentence.
How could this happen? And why? Edwin had disappeared so suddenly that I didn’t have a chance to ask why he left, but I never imagined anything like this.
“Hey, Petra,” I hear someone else call out my name. It’s Harry. “You okay?” he asks, and when I don’t say anything, he continues, “I guess you heard about Edwin.”
I shake my head, unable to find the right words.
“I . . . I knew him, Harry. We did a project together last year.”
Harry’s eyes widen. “Fuck!” he says in a soft voice.
We stand in painful silence for a few seconds.
“I’m so sorry,” Harry begins again in an awkward tone. “This must feel so unreal to you.”
“I don’t really know, it’s all so . . . I just found out that he was the one who dropped out of Art History.”
Harry looks puzzled, unsurprisingly because he doesn’t know that I had gotten Edwin’s spot in the class instead.
Oh God. The reality of it sinks in deeper.
The thought that Edwin’s death had inadvertently opened a door for me makes me feel sick and twisted with guilt.
“Do-do they know what happened?” I ask, not knowing what else to say.
“Not yet,” Harry replies. “They’re still investigating.” The bell rings at that moment, and Harry says, “I gotta dash, Petra. But let me know if you need to talk or something.”
He looks sincere when he offers to help, but I can only give him a grateful nod in return. After he leaves, I too force myself to move, to put one foot in front of the other, and head to class.
On the way, I get a message from Amelia.
Hey Petra, how you holding up?
Am I holding up? Am I barely managing to keep my head over water? I don’t know, so I text back:
I’m fine, just busy with schoolwork.
Her reply is almost immediate.
Ah good, I was hoping to ask you something kinda personal . . .
Sure, what’s up?
I text her back. Anything to get my mind off this hellish situation.
Her next message surprises me.
I was just wondering . . . Are you into anyone at school? Any guys? Or girls?
Why do you ask?
I fire back, not knowing how else to respond.
The last time we texted was tense, right? So I thought maybe I touched a nerve with my tactless questions.
Hmm, a plausible explanation. But Amelia and I always ask tactless questions; it’s kind of our thing, being able to ask each other about the most personal bits of our lives without offering any explanation or context.
Yet that conversation really had been a bad one, so I text back, as way of truce.
There’s nobody like that, Ames. I just don’t have the time for such things these days.
And besides, it’s not like people are just lining up to date a grumpy teen mom-to-be. Of course, I don’t tell her that last bit.
But you’ll tell me? If there’s someone special?
I stiffen a bit, thinking of my entanglement with Sin, even though he doesn’t know about the most solid knot in the thin thread connecting us for now.
Course Ames, you know I will.
I send the text and take a deep breath, trying to center the swirling visions and restive thoughts assailing me.
Edwin’s dead. He was around last week, and now he’s not.
Harry was right: The whole situation feels more than unreal.
It feels like I’m living my own version of The Truman Show and at any moment, the people behind the scenes are going to jump out and tell me it was all scripted. Even the you-know-who and my whole trip to the pharmacy and my conversation with the lady at the counter.
A bitter chuckle escapes my lips as I tuck my phone back into my pocket. Regrettably, my life is all too real at the moment.
Over the course of the day, the whispers and murmurs in the hallways continue to grow and multiply, becoming more frantic and frayed as more gruesome details of Edwin’s death begin to surface.
I’m ever-wary of the rumor mill, so instead of dwelling on the hushed exchanges that speculate about alien and mafia involvement, I head to the library.
But I am wrong to assume that the library would be a safe space.
Here, too, students huddle in tense, agitated groups, with the more dramatic ones bursting into tears while live-streaming to their followers.
I sit at one of the far tables, still trying to steady my breathing but failing to temper the growing dread in my chest.
A shadow falls over my table, and I look up to see Harry again. I know something is very, very wrong the moment I see him. His face is pale, and his eyes are darting everywhere.
“What happened?” I ask at almost the same time as he says, “Petra, have you heard the latest?” in a quivering voice.
I shake my head and repeat my question. “What?”
He glances around before sitting down next to me.
“I-I heard some of the faculty talking. Turns out . . . Edwin wasn’t just found dead. He was—” He breaks off and wipes his face, as if trying to erase a nightmare that’s still unfolding when he’s awake.
“Harry, please!” I implore. “You’re scaring me now.”
“They say he was mutilated, Petra,” Harry says at last.
My blood runs cold. “What do you mean?”
Harry runs his hands through his hair, and I notice that they are shaking slightly. “His chest . . . they said it was empty. Someone removed his organs.” He finally looks me in the face, and I am stunned at the sheer horror permeating his features. “. . . and filled the cavity with dead rats.”
At first, I let out a loud laugh, as if trying to dispel Harry’s words with the force of my incredulity. But the sound dies on my lips when he keeps staring at me with unmitigated terror.
“No, that-that sounds fake. Just another messed-up rumor,” I say firmly, shaking my head in disbelief.
“I thought so at first. But then the teachers were talking about it, Petra. This is not rumor. I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t absolutely sure.” Harry sits back and puts his face in his hands, like he’s trying to rub out the garish, nightmarish images that keep springing up before his eyes.
My hand flies to my mouth as I try to process the enormity of Harry’s news. The room seems to tilt, and bile starts crawling up my throat.
“Who . . . who would do something like that?” My voice comes out shaky, barely louder than a whisper.
“Who knows, Petra? This is some . . . sick fucking prank, but it’s not a prank even. This is . . . it’s beyond anything I could have imagined.”
Claire joins us at that moment. Her face is ashen now compared to the hysterical energy that had animated her features when she had first told me of Edwin’s death. She must have heard about the latest development.
But the facts are just too horrific to even be discussed out loud.
Instead, she asks, “Do the police have any suspects?”
Harry shakes his head. “Not that I’ve heard.”
“Well, they can’t keep a lid on this forever,” Claire says indignantly. “Do they really think they can hide the . . . horrific things done to our classmate? Who the fuck are they kidding?”
This is her way of coping, I guess. Panic has turned to righteous anger.
As for me, nausea and dread are mixing into a lethal cocktail that sloshes around my insides. The grotesque detail of the rats makes it all the more disturbing.
It seems like the most twisted, neurotic thing to do. As if murdering a minor wasn’t bad enough!
“I need some air,” I say abruptly, standing up.
Claire just nods in return while Harry stands up quickly, saying, “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No,” I reply with a smile that comes out looking like a grimace. “Thank you, but I must have a moment alone.”
Harry falls back into the chair and looks almost relieved that he doesn’t have to comfort me when clearly he’s having a hard time wrapping his head around the horrid affair.
But I can’t dwell on his fragile mental condition for much longer because the bile is back in my throat and my vision is getting hazy from tears.
Thankfully, there’s a small courtyard in this quadrant of the campus, so I head there.