Page 10 of They're Watching You

I flop down onto my beanbag chair and tear the little wax seal in half. Tucked inside is $400 cash and an invitation almost exactly like Polly’s.

Dear Maren,

You are cordially invited to attend the semi-annual initiation meeting of the Gamemaster’s Society, located in the old cathedral. Please wear your finest attire and arrive promptly at 11 p.m. on Friday, the 25th of April. You already possess the tokens required for entry.

Do not forget your tokens.

Do not tell anyone about the meeting.

Do not mention a word of the society.

VICTORY OR DUST.

Sincerely,

The Gamemaster

Friday, the 25th. That’s today.

It’s probably for the best. Less time to think means less time to overthink and back out. I’m not claustrophobic, but that doesn’t mean I’m eager to get stuffed inside a casket.

The invitation refers to tokens again; this time it says I already have them. I rack my brain for what it could mean, and Annabelle’s words from this afternoon ricochet back to me:And keep the pebbles. You’ll be needing them.

So weird.

I scramble over to my dirty clothes hamper, where my sweats are dangling over the edge. Some of the “pebbles” have fallen inside the hamper and scatter the floor. A couple more are still stuck inside the pocket. I gather them and pace over to my closet, but my eyes snag on the collage hanging between my desk and Polly’s. The one filled with photos of the two of us.

Every year, the Form II class takes a trip to Europe as part of the school’s World History program. While the members of the sophomore class at East Derry High across town were stuck inside their plastic chairs, reading about the Renaissance in their crusty textbooks, Torrey-Wells Form II students were strolling the Louvre. Of course, there was no way my parents could afford the trip. Polly couldn’t afford it either, but she managed to win the academy’s lone scholarship, which meant I’d be the only Form II stuck at school for two weeks.

Except Polly refused to leave me behind. She gave up the scholarship to stay with me. I couldn’t believe it—no one could believe it. Her parents and Headmistress Koehler tried to convince her that she was forfeiting the opportunity of a lifetime. But Polly didn’t care.

The final project for the Europe trip is always a scrapbook of everyone’s travels. The perfect way to rub all those gorgeous photos in our faces. So Polly decided we’d make our own memories. Over those two weeks, we took a million selfies of all the stupid stuff we did—movie marathoning in the empty common room, illegal apple picking in the campus orchard, downtown shopping in our pajamas.

It’s all up there on the wall. The two weeks that forged an unbreakable bond between us.

At least, I thought they did.

Wrenching my eyes away from the collage, I focus on the invitation again. Myfinest attire. It takes three seconds of shoving my “fancy” dresses around to grab the most suitable option.

Then I slide the door over, exposing Polly’s half of the closet to find the black wool maxi coat she always let me borrow for athletic banquets. An assortment of sparkly dresses fit for a princess dangle from the rack; more gifts from Annabelle. My eye stops on a silver one with a deep V, but there’s a knock on the door.

I scurry over to open it, finding Jordan in the doorway, holding a box of Funfetti cake mix.

“Hey, Maren. I thought we could bake.” She smiles expectantly, glancing beyond me like I’m supposed to invite her in.

“Oh.” My mind zips to the invitation still lying on my desk in plain sight. “That would be fun, Jordan, but I have to study. For English.”

“No problem,” she says, the hand holding the cake mix lowering to her side. “I’ll study with you. I have this essay—”

“I can’t, sorry. It’s a reading assignment, and I need total silence or I can’t concentrate.” Jordan’s brows angle, probably because she knows I have no issue reading in the café across campus that’s been known to play Taylor Swift on repeat while its patrons sing along.

“I get it,” she says, and it hurts, because I think she really does get it.

“You know what?” I reach out just as she spins around to face the hall. “I’m getting all stressed because of my scholarships, and it’s making me overreact. Let’s go bake that cake.” I peek over my shoulder again and add, “I’ll meet you down in the kitchen.”

***

At a quarter ’til eleven, I’m ready in my knee-length, navy blue dress, and my hair smells of sugar and vanilla. Jordan is tucked away in her own room, suffering from a slight stomachache due to all the cake she scarfed down. I was too nervous to eat anything other than my fingernails, which are chewed to the point of pain.

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