Page 39 of An Academy for Liars

“It’s not that,” said Blaine. “The last time you took a psychedelic, you were so…so—”

“Catatonic,” said Sawyer, finishing for her.

Blaine nodded. “It was like a part of your brain had broken for a moment. I really thought we weren’t going to get you back. It was terrifying. It almost would’ve been less scary if you were just out cold. But you weren’t. Your eyes were open and you were tracking us, but your expression was so vacant. It was clear that you weren’t behind your own eyes anymore.”

“Even Dante looked worried,” said Sawyer. “And he’s never worried. About anything. But you were in rough shape, Lennon. You weren’t present enough to see it, but we were. It was bad. Really, really bad. And this drug is even stronger than the last one you took, so who knows what will happen. Is it really worth the risk just to pass a class?”

“It’s not just a class,” said Lennon. “If I don’t prove to them that I have a handle on this whole elevator gate thing, they’re going to take my memories of this place and kick me out.”

“They said that?” said Sawyer, looking stunned.

Lennon nodded. “So I have to do this. Okay? With or without you.”

Sawyer just shook his head, but Blaine—lips bloodless and pursed—nodded.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

Following Kieran’s instructions, Lennon removed one of the twotabs from the baggie and placed it on the tip of her tongue. She waited for a while, sitting cross-legged and straight-backed at the foot of her bed. The minutes ticked by, and she tapped out a rhythm on her thigh to keep the nerves at bay. Sawyer paced with his hands behind his back. Blaine nibbled at a hangnail on her pinky finger. “A disgusting habit,” she said, sheepish, when Lennon looked her way.

Ian and Nadine did not return.

Exasperated, Lennon made to stand. “This is bullshit. I don’t even feel—”

The ground rattled. A brief little shudder that reverberated through her bones.

“Did you feel that?” Lennon asked, sliding all the way out of bed. Her legs felt limp beneath her.

“No,” said Sawyer and Blaine in unison. Their pale faces had taken on a strange glow that reminded her of those Bible stories where people encountered angels whose brightly shining faces hurt to look at.

“Well, I think it’s working,” said Sawyer, and when he spoke, she saw a glimpse of pink tongue, the black at the back of his mouth where his throat began. His voice sounded wet and muffled.

“Easy,” said Blaine, or the suggestion of Blaine, really; there was no part of her that Lennon recognized as the friend she knew. A white light had overtaken her. Blaine’s hand felt hot and foreign on her arm.

“You need to call an elevator,” said the voice that belonged to Sawyer. “Hurry before you get too high.”

When Lennon nodded, the whole room pitched this way and that like a snow globe shaken. And she was surprised when all the furniture remained in place.

She started chattering, teeth cracking together so violently she bit every word she attempted to speak clean in half, like brittle cookies.The crumbs of everything she meant to say scattered across the rug at her feet.

“She’s not making any sense,” said the Sawyer voice, sounding panicked. “We should call someone.”

“Just give her a chance,” said the one that was Blaine. “She can do it.”

Lennon’s vision blurred badly at the edges, so she only had a pinhole to see through.

“Go ahead, call the elevator,” said Blaine. “You can do it. I know you can.”

“I’m trying,” Lennon managed to say, though she was not in fact trying to do anything more than stay on her feet and keep from throwing up.

The blurriness cleared some, retracting back to her periphery. And the light in Blaine and Sawyer’s faces dimmed along with it. She could see the room again—the dimensions a little warped, as if gazing through a glass tumbler, and she felt her legs firm up beneath her.

Lennon then homed in her vision on a bare spot on her bedroom wall because that seemed like the likeliest place for an elevator to appear. But every time she tried to focus, her gaze kept being pulled back to the door. She felt like if she squinted hard enough, she’d be able to see right through it, see through everything.

“Why does she keep going cross-eyed?” Sawyer asked.

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not right here,” said Lennon, and her voice didn’t come from her mouth but from beneath her feet. The floor shook with it.

Someone in the ground was speaking along with her.

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