Page 20 of Switching Graves

She smiles and takes it. Once our paperwork is in the right hands and no one we know is around to bear witness to our plans, we finally exchange suitcases.

Swiping away a tear, Poppy throws her head to the side and sniffles. “I don’t know why it’s so much harder to leave you,” she says in a sobbing-laugh.

I only nod, my throat too blocked with a wall of emotion to form actual words. Our whole plan feels insane at this point, and I’m struggling to see the purpose behind all this work when it only means I’ll be half a world away from the only person who has ever understood me. I’ve never had to do life without Poppy by my side. The prospect of it sounds absolutely terrifying.

Maybe I should just go to Costa Rica with her . . .

“This will all be worth it,” she assures me, somehow knowing the exact direction my thoughts have gone.

“It doesn’t feel like it,” I argue.

“Then you’re just going to have to trust me for now. We’ll look back on this one day and be so proud of ourselves. Or, we’ll realize what fucking idiots we are,” she jokes, earning a small, reluctant laugh from me. “Either way, we’ll never have to wonder whatcouldhave been.”

Her flight is called above our heads, sending another wave of panic through me. Poppy yanks me into another hug, then starts to back away toward her gate.

“I’ll love you until the world burns,” she calls out with a sad smile.

“And even then,” I reply, then watch her with tears running down my cheeks until she disappears around the corner.

My gate is across the terminal, so I don’t have time to linger. In one last goodbye, I mentally bid farewell to Sonny Ellery and turn away from the window Poppy’s plane sits outside of.

From here on out, I’m the new Penelope Ellery.

8

Sonny

On the northern Atlantic coast, nestled deep into a coastal plain between monstrous mountains and a vast ocean, Nocturne Valley sprawls out like a lazy, sleeping cat. The busy center of the small town is surrounded by a maze of residential streets, packed with bungalows and small cottages practically sitting atop one another to accommodate its impressive population. And burrowed far back into the northeast corner, butting right against the mountain range as if the town was only built to camouflage it, is Ravenshurst University.

The heart of the campus is built from one of the oldest châteaus in the country that was once owned by the Landrys, a wealthy family who colonized the area directly from Britain. After they settled into their isolated plot of coastal land, the Landrys went on to fund the construction of the town surrounding it. They launched a campaign to bring people to the town from the closest major city, Infinity Heights, promising hope and prosperity to all who took the chance on them.

The path leading in and out has since been expanded and smoothly paved. A major highway was constructed a few miles away, just on the other side of the dense woods, that offers citizens of Nocturne Valley easy access to the surrounding towns and cities that have been built up since.

As my taxi weaves through the densely covered, nearly claustrophobic road, I can’t fight the eerie feeling that there’s more to the Nocturne Valley than what their website and perfectly polished origin story share. And I know, based on the scraps of information my parents let slip through my childhood, that my suspicions are justified. Even if Aunt Divina regularly touts about the university. The instinct to turn back chills my bones as we near the famed place, but I’m too terrified to voice those thoughts to my taxi driver.

“First-year?” the female asks over her shoulder once we finally break through the forest and Nocturne Valley stretches out before us in the windshield. She slows to a stop to allow a young family to scurry across the street.

Nodding, my gaze follows the family as they make their way toward what I assume is the town’s center, where dozens of people are buzzing around. “Yes.”

“You’ve got that look about you.”

I snap my attention back toward her. “What look?”

“Nothing bad.” She shakes her head. “You’ve just got that expression like you’ve never seen a place like Nocturne Valley before. It’s unique. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

She takes a turn down what appears to be a main street through the town. All the way at the end of the road, I can see the familiar black spires that adorn the top of every official Ravenshurst University letterhead I’ve received stabbing proudly into the sky.

“Are you from here?” I ask conversationally, watching as cars and people make their way through town at a leisurely pace.

There’s a bookstore that catches my attention, stationed appropriately beside a coffee shop that seems to be popular. It appears that they’ve got stores for everything—from souvenirs to groceries, clothing to pharmacy. I probably won’t have to leave for the major city very often, which is a good thing, considering I no longer have a car.

Poppy’s face flashes through my mind, and for what feels like the thousandth time, I check my phone for a message from her. Still nothing.

“Born and raised,” the driver announces proudly. “Most of the residents in town are. The rest are transplants. People who came to visit and never looked back.”

That strikes me as odd, but I can tell it’s something the driver—and possibly the entire town—uses as a bragging point, so I school my expression and gaze through the windshield. Toward the fast-approaching, tree-lined road and Ravenshurst University’s iron gates sitting at the end.

My heart kicks up speed, and every reason I’ve come up with for why this is such a horrible idea races to the forefront of my mind. Someonehasto know what the real Poppy looks like. There’s no way that Aunt Divina kept her this tight-lipped secret, especially when she campaigned so hard to have her attend. One look at me, and they’ll immediately know that I’m not her. Perhaps they’ll even draw the resemblance to my own mother and tote me out in a police car.

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