Chapter 4
Quill
Chandelier Moth
Ouendake
Goldmund
Carefully and with a tense look on my face, I pushed the earring into my right ear, even though I knew that my ears would be sore in a few hours, despite the fact that the tiny nibs with the ink drop at the end were made of real gold.
Tony had given them to me a week ago for my nineteenth birthday, and I appreciated that he took my personality as an author seriously, as only Lara had done up to that point.
Tony wanted me to finish high school, and Lara thought I should find a loving, rich husband, especially since Maplecrest was full of them.
But neither did I want to end up in a soul-sucking nine-to-five job, nor did I long to be tied to a man and end up like Lorette.
I was glad my brother and my best friend didn't know each other. They would have conspired against me.
The sound of a message on my computer made me rush to my desk, where I opened the chat with Lara.
Lara: If you knew how much I'd love to throw on one of my new dresses and show up at the Richters' to drag my best friend out of her prison and have some fun.
A grin stole across my lips.
Lara: Dad won't let me come. He doesn't like me hanging out with the town elite as if he weren't one of them.
The image of her rolling her eyes should have intensified my grin, but it disappeared completely.
Of course, I knew Lara wouldn't be coming. I would never have wanted that. But the fact that her father was friends with mine, and I hadn't even known about that until a week ago, shouldn't have surprised me.
Lawyers knew each other in Virginia. Especially Harvard or Maplecrest graduates.
Lara and I had met in the high school book club and quickly realized that we laughed at the same things, liked the same music, and that she was the Bill to my Ted, the warm, shining sun to my cold moon.
Dilara Rydell was an extroverted Halloween angel with a heart too big for her own good and a weakness for Lucky Charm cornflakes, horror movies, pumpkin lattes, and puppies.
Just three weeks ago, she had taken home an Australian Shepherd puppy from the shelter where she had been helping out over the summer, a move her dad didn't seem to be too thrilled about.
Now I was getting daily photos of her puppy emailed to me, and it felt like I knew more about my best friend's dog's hair care routine than I did about my own. I didn't even have one.
In high school, which we had attended together – until three months ago – in a larger town two towns away, Lara had often told me how much she enjoyed spending time with her dad when he wasn't caught up in his work, and I hoped, especially since I knew about the connection to my father, that he was a good father and that she really told me everything that happened at home.
I wished I could open up and tell her everything. But it hurt too much to even write it down.
One last time, I let my gaze wander over the loosely falling floor-length night-blue velvet evening dress, which sparkled like the night sky as I turned in the dim light of the warm vintage lamps.
Then I slipped out into the hallway on the third floor, toward the stairs, from which pleasant piano music and muffled voices drifted up from the ground floor.
Two conflicting interests raged within me. One wanted to defy my father like a stubborn child and mingle with the guests of this house, and the other urged me to retreat to the library to read, knowing that I was part of this event but could observe it from afar and be alone.
It was a feeling that couldn't be described.
Observing seclusion. A slightly stimulating comfort zone.
Glad that no one was on the second floor, I crept to the railing and peered down the stairs, discovering groups of men in their finest suits chatting under sparkling chandeliers, women with champagne glasses filled with sparkling bubbles, dressed in glittering and shimmering dresses, their hair artfully pinned up in elaborate hairstyles.
I wore my hair down.
If I went down there, they would all stare at me. I would be the center of attention. That was something I didn't enjoy, which was why the muffled voices coming from my father's whiskey room on the right felt like a blessing distraction.
The Green Pills
Carlos Rafael Rivera
Cautiously, I crossed the hallway, turned the corner, and approached the two doors that I usually avoided at all costs.
He had only asked me into his office once. But the whiskey room was a sacred place that no one except Anthony or other male business associates were allowed to enter.
“It's about time we start selecting the elite again.”
Overcautious and holding my breath, I approached the slightly open door.
Tony was the one who always forgot to close doors. Dressed in one of his black suits, he stood there by the fireplace, a whiskey glass in his hand – like all the other men present – and watched the old man who had just spoken with a tense expression.
Said old man was leaning on a walking stick in front of the window, and I wasn't sure if he was staring at his reflection or actually looking into the impenetrable darkness of the night.
His hair was completely gray-white, his eyes blue and glassy, bloodshot, lined with countless wrinkles, like the rest of his sunken face.
Arnold Fitzek.
If I remembered correctly, he was eighty-one. A child of the Golden Twenties. A former German soldier. In right-wing circles, a self-confessed Nazi.
He had already visited twice since I had been living here, and Tony had explained to me that this limping, grumpy-looking man was not only a professor of constitutional law at Maplecrest, but had also founded the entire law faculty forty years ago.
Anthony didn't like him and often complained about his highly conservative and discriminatory lectures.
Even my father, who was standing a few feet away, seemed small next to the notably short man, whose dominance far outweighed his physical stature.
He sipped his whiskey glass with self-control, which he would empty and refill as soon as he was alone again, until he could no longer walk straight and would be dependent on Lorette's mercy.
“What do you have in mind for that?” asked another man whom I had never seen here before, with interest and joy in his voice.
He looked to be about my father's age, even slimmer than my father, almost a skeleton, wearing a cream-colored suit with a blue-shimmering neckerchief and a monocle attached to his also cream-colored waistcoat patterned with white checks.
His hair was gray, but darker and thicker than Professor Fitzek's. His eyes were gray-blue.
“Each of you will choose a worthy student and train him until he is able to compete against the other chosen ones in debates and simulations.”
I raised both eyebrows, having wondered ever since Tony told me about this exquisite circle of gentlemen what these men decided, what made them so special that they were respected, apart from the fact that they formed the board of Maplecrest's law faculty.
“In each round, one student will be eliminated and will then have to leave our faculty.”
Interesting. So it was a power game to select the best fruit of the harvest. A harvest that I would fortunately never be part of, because even if I had had a degree, not even ten horses could have dragged me into studying law, politics, medicine, or economics.
Besides, I had already been identified as a crippled fruit in elementary school.
This game sounded like pure stress for those candidates who would be unlucky enough to be selected by these bored men. And it could get exciting. Another reason to put my plan into action and sneak into one of the law lectures to gather notes for my next novel.
I was currently writing a book about a psychopath who had escaped from an asylum and enrolled in law school disguising himself as a student.
When researching characters like this, I loved to immerse myself as deeply as possible in their minds, even putting myself in similar situations to make what I wrote as realistic as possible.
I had never gone that far before, asking my best friend to make me a fake ID two weeks ago, but what lengths wouldn't a writer go to in order to write a good book?
“If I may comment,” said the last man present, whom I also didn’t know, clearing his throat.
He looked barely older than Tony, had brown hair, three-day stubble, and the same serious, grim expression as Professor Fitzek.
He was wearing a dark gray three-piece suit.
“I think this idea is fruitful.” He set his whiskey glass down on the polished wooden table.
There was a hint of disdain in his tone.
“More and more graduates are brainless good-for-nothings who buy their places here. They all forget that heritage is only one of three fundamental pillars.”
What were the other two pillars? All I knew for sure was that I already had a strong dislike for this man. I was definitely not going to sit in his lecture.
“So, you want us to turn five of these students against each other?” Tony asked critically, crossing his arms and leaning against the fireplace, his gaze fixed on the old professor at the window, who was still staring into the darkness.
“For heaven’s sake, Anthony,” the man his age snorted. “That’s how life works.”
My brother narrowed his eyes, and something told me that this man was the professor colleague he disliked so much and who was the terror of every law student at Maplecrest University.
“They want to become lawyers,” Professor Fitzek grumbled. “There is no effort they should spare. We are opening the doors to the world for these young men. They must pay the price.”
Anthony didn't argue with the old man, because he had the power to fire him from his professorship, but his gaze spoke volumes. He thought nothing of this game.
Father placed his whiskey glass on the table, his gaze fixed on Professor Fitzek.
“You have my full support for this experiment.”
I almost snorted in annoyance.
Of course he would do everything this man asked of him. Director Fitzek was not only his boss, but also the man who had taken him under his wing and trained him to be a lawyer. The man he had disappointed because of me and before whom he had to save face.
Father blamed me for the fact that he could no longer be a lawyer and instead had to waste away as a university professor.
I had ruined his life.
“I'd like to add a bonus.” The man, who was about Tony's age, looked around. The corners of his mouth curled up in a devilish way and a sly look settled in his eyes. “The one of us who mentors the winner of this game should become the future head of the faculty.”
Once again, I raised my eyebrows.
Was this really how power games between rich men were played? Backroom deals made over whiskey, with the future of unsuspecting students at stake?
Professor Fitzek cleared his throat and turned to the others with a visibly tense expression.
“I have already decided that Joseph will take over the faculty.”
“Your son obviously wants to prove himself,” my father snorted. “And I would love to watch his candidate lose to Davian's.”
Wait... The cunning man Tony's age was Director Fitzek's son? The son of the faculty's founder? Shouldn't he inherit his father's legacy? Or did the conservative old man prefer my father to his own son for good reasons?
“Speaking of your golden protégé.” Fitzek's son looked at my father with a challengingly raised eyebrow. What did he mean by protégé? “Where on earth is the honorable Mr. Rydell?”
My eyes widened.
Rydell? Like my best friend's last name? Could it be that Lara's father was part of this academic cult? After all, he was a law professor at Maplecrest.
“He'll be here in a minute,” Anthony sighed, as if he would rather be somewhere else.
“He's probably busy besieging one of the female guests again,” Fitzek's son laughed mockingly.
“We know it's the other way around, Troy,” Anthony replied irritably. “And now that you mention it... I should probably go rescue him.”
He ignored the murderous look from Troy, pushed himself away from the fireplace, and stepped toward the double doors behind which I was standing.
Sneaky Snitch
Kevin MacLeod
Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck...
With my eyes wide open, I stumbled backwards, tripped over the edge of the carpet, and crashed into the dresser behind me, where a tray of champagne glasses was clattering.
The next second, panic overtook me and I spun around, rushing through the hallway to the nearest door, which I immediately threw open. I just caught a glimpse of Tony appearing in the hallway and looking around before I disappeared into the library and hastily closed the door behind me.
What if Tony had seen me? What if the other men had heard me and were now following Tony here to find out who had been eavesdropping on them?
Even more panic crept up my throat and I rushed through the library like a scared animal.
Back and forth. Back and forth...
A minute passed and no one came.
But I couldn't leave.
God, why had I even put on this dress and thought it was smart to rebel against my father?
The lump in my chest calmed down a little and I forced myself to slide down one of the shelves with my back against it.
Taking a quick breath, I looked between the three wide rows of shelves with their pleasant warm lamps before randomly pulling one of the books next to me off the shelf and forcing myself to read the first page of The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
All too quickly, the content of the book piqued my interest and I continued flipping through it.
When I was already on page five, the door creaked.
I walk through this life like a ghost.
You all see the body in which I try to survive,
but no one sees my fading soul.
– Leaking Batteries Diary