20. Unnatural Habitats
On Sunday morning, Briar is drinking an enormous mug of freshly pressed coffee when someone slides a note under their door.
It says come to the refectory in spidery script.
Briar opens the door and finds Westby standing there, only just straightening up, looking like he went to a blood drive and accidentally donated all of it.
‘Oh,’ he says, visibly confused.
‘You could have just knocked.’
‘I thought maybe you’d be . . .’ This sentence never picks back up again. Westby is wearing the same cardigan as yesterday, and his hair is almost entirely vertical.
He’s incapable of speech all the way downstairs and across the lawn.
It’s already late morning; inside the refectory, it’s mostly older scholars who seem to be suffering from similar afflictions.
A group of younger boys walk through, scrapping loudly, and Briar watches as a sixth-year turns his head and narrows his focus, mouth moving.
The boys fall silent, looking panicked, and rush away.
Briar’s trying to figure out the specialism. Discomfort? Alarm? Is there a Working that makes you believe you’re late for an important appointment elsewhere, and white-rabbits you from the room?
At the end of the table in the darkest corner, Hadley is seemingly asleep with her head on her arms, and Tate is mechanically eating eggs with the grim determination of somebody intentionally chugging poison.
When Westby and Briar approach, Hadley lifts her head, and just says, ‘Help.’
Westby pats her consolingly on the arm, and then limps jerkily away to the serving hatch.
Briar doesn’t want to think about food. They sit down and wait, and when Westby returns, he’s carefully carrying three cups of coffee.
It’s touch and go for a bit, but he manages to set them down without spilling more than half.
Briar risks a sip, and nearly spits it out.
‘How many sugars did you put in this?’
Westby raises his cup to his lips with a shaking hand. ‘All.’
He and Hadley drink their disgusting coffees in silence, and when they’re done, Hadley picks up a glass of water and chugs the entire thing down in a few gulps, letting some of it bead in her hair and drip onto the table. When she’s done, she folds her arms again to use as a pillow.
‘I’m doomed by the narrative,’ says Westby, his eyes closed, bruised-lilac eyelids fluttering like a classic heroine in the throes of a swoon.
‘You’re not doomed by the narrative,’ Tate says robotically. ‘You are hungover. Eat an egg.’
‘I’d rather die.’
‘Then die.’
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Westby says, daring to crack an eye open. ‘Jones, did you kiss Watson in a field last night?’
‘Um,’ Briar says non-committally, sipping coffee.
Hadley gives a thumbs-up of confirmation.
‘I kissed West,’ Tate says. Everybody looks at him; even Hadley manages to turn her head to the side and squint. ‘After we were breathalysed and shouted at by the Housemaster.’
‘That you did,’ says Westby. ‘But I think you were just feeling left out.’
‘Mmm. Probably.’
‘So, all right. Next time . . . I’ll kiss Jones, you can kiss Watson, and then we’re square. Oh, no, wait - Jones needs to kiss you, or it’s all out of kilter.’ It’s a relief to discover that clearly, none of this actually means anything.
‘Where’s your stick?’ Briar says, registering that it’s not propped up against the table next to him.
‘Lost it last night. It’s all right. I have evolved past the need for the stick. Or, maybe I’ll go back for it. Adams, I’m truly suffering here - will you do your thing?’
‘No. And you know exactly why not.’
‘Come on. Special dispensation. What’s the point if you’re not going to use it?’
Briar looks at Tate and thinks, Ease. They could all use a little to get through this day.
‘I’d like to know what it feels like,’ they say, and Tate frowns.
‘I stopped doing it for friends.’
‘Come on, give Jones a tiny sip of heroin. Nobody ever got addicted on one tiny sip.’
‘I think you’ve misunderstood a few fundamental things about heroin,’ Tate says, but he sighs, and levels his gaze at Briar, looking pained as his mouth begins to move.
It’s just a tickle in their extremities at first, like the nerves in your foot falling asleep, and then .
. . Briar’s hangover melts away, as if it’s been doused in cool spring water and washed down the drain.
Their bruises seem to reabsorb, their cuts heal over.
Their heartbeat slows to a rhythm that’s mellow and steady, and a weight they hadn’t known they’d been carrying just .
. . lifts. It’s like their lungs have extra capacity or something, there’s so much room for air, and their thoughts feel clear and bright.
Everything’s going to be totally fine. Bastian, the farm, the future.
Briar has no idea why they’ve been worrying about any of it.
Tate returns to his eggs, and reality flattens Briar with the velocity of a dropped piano.
‘Ow.’
‘Exactly,’ Westby says, tilting his face longingly in Tate’s direction. Briar’s headache and dry mouth seem worse now, or maybe it’s just the brutal contrast to all that peace.
‘That was . . .’ they say to Tate, unable to find the words. ‘I can see how it’d get pretty addictive.’
‘And that’s exactly why I’ll never be doing it again,’ Tate says, through a mouthful of egg.
‘Because then you might end up calling for me at weird hours of the night, asking if you can come to my room and sleep next to me so I can do it until you fall asleep, or hitting me up just before exams, or—’
‘Yes, yes, we get the point, I’m incorrigible,’ Westby gripes.
Briar is still dazed. ‘You could make a killing with that feeling. Do people . . . sell it?’
‘Hardly anybody specialises in Ease,’ Tate says, picking up a sausage and eating it one miniscule bite at a time, like a loading bar for onboarding protein.
‘Why not?’
‘Because there are much better ways to control people,’ Hadley says, muffled by the sleeve of her shirt.
‘These are not the bright, happy faces of young people who have been staying out of trouble.’ This is Eugenia, who has appeared from nowhere like an angel of death, gazing down at them all in her linen blazer.
It’s got red lawn stripes on it, far too busy for a morning like this.
‘Your face looks horrible, Briar, by the way.’
Westby blinks at her. ‘Don’t they ever let you have a day off, Genie? I’d sue.’
‘Good idea. I’ll hire a lawyer to sue all the baby lawyers with big lawyer daddies,’ Eugenia deadpans.
‘Briar, I’m sorry to ask, but two of the cleaners are out with something they called “summer flu” and I want to know if you can help with some dorms and classrooms.’ Clearly, Eugenia does not believe in the concept of a summer flu.
‘I will pay you extra,’ she adds, eyes flicking disapprovingly over Hadley’s collapsed form.
Briar doesn’t particularly want to clean anything, but they do want to be paid extra. ‘Um, okay. Sure.’
‘Fine. Ben will show you the supplies in the morning, if you meet him next to my office first thing.’
Briar leaves the others to stew. On the way back to Eden, they spot a grim gaggle of older men in suits exiting the main school building, glossy and expensive; one of them looks familiar, and with a jolt, Briar thinks - Seb’s father.
It’s impossible to be sure though, and they’re gone as quickly as they appear, guided quickly through another door like touring royalty.
Briar goes back to bed and watches the first half hour of To Kill A Mockingbird, soothed by black-and-white Gregory Peck’s deep drawl and seersucker suits.
If they had their phone, they’d search for tailors, to see just how prohibitively expensive it would be to commission a light three-piece nipped in at the waist that they’d have absolutely no occasion to wear.
They nod off before the courtroom scene, and drift in and out of sleep all afternoon.
By five o’clock they feel alive enough to go to the gym for an easy leg session, ignoring the handful of scholars loudly grunting and showboating over their benches.
Afterwards they meet the others in the cloisters, in the golden corner that gets the last of the evening sun, where they all eat pale strawberries and watch Tate perform Ease on a fat, friendly robin until it’s relaxed enough to hop into his palm, burrow into the creases of his fingers and fall asleep.
Ben is late the next day, and Briar spends fifteen minutes kicking about in the hallway, watching admin staff arrive at their offices juggling coffee and keys, jackets flung over their arms. Daniel the librarian makes a stop to sort out some paperwork, and when he sees Briar’s face, he looks deeply concerned.
‘Jesus. Been hammering nails with your head, Briar?’
‘Oh,’ Briar says. The cut on their brow is past the worst, but their fresher injuries are ghastly. ‘No. Just . . . a disagreement.’
‘A disagreement?’ Daniel touches Briar’s eyebrow with broad fingers, wincing in sympathy. ‘With who? A truck? You need more library time, less fisticuffs. Come hang out with the books, they’ll keep you out of trouble.’
‘Yeah,’ Briar says. ‘Maybe.’
When Ben arrives, he shows Briar an article in the newspaper he’s reading about the recently discovered skeleton of a new type of flying dinosaur, and hums a vaguely familiar pop song about coffee as he hands over a new, much smaller set of keys, unlocks the storage cupboard and helps Briar pull together a cart of cleaning supplies.
‘Hawthorn,’ he says. ‘Third and fourth floors. Best to get as much done as you can while the lordlings are in their lessons. There’s a boy on reprimand who’ll help you in the afternoon, but don’t expect him to be much use. They never are. Who’ve you been fighting?’
‘Lordlings,’ says Briar.
Ben nods, with a bitter weariness that makes Briar wonder if he’s ever been on the wrong end of a scholar’s Working. ‘Good on you.’