Page 46 of Switching Graves

Back home, Poppy would lead us through most social situations while I stood quietly behind her, content with being the random cousin who always seemed to be on her trail. Without her here, I feel like I’ve lost all social skills. Maybe I never had any at all. But the pressure of keeping up appearances as Poppy and not coming across as a total freak always steers me away from things like this.

Ironically, I would be a psychologist’s dream.

As luck would have it, I was given this Friday off from the kitchen, so I took that as a sign to accept Hayes’s offer andlet loose a little bit. Though, as I slowly approach the crowd, I realize how silly that impulse was.

I spot Beatrix, Ava, and Jonah huddled together on a blanket beneath one of the larger trees across the courtyard, while Hayes and a few of his friends toss a football back and forth in front of them. Tucking my head down, I make a beeline toward them, stepping around blankets and picnic tables without really looking at who is there.

Hayes smiles at me as I approach, holding his finger up to his friends before jogging toward me while I close in on the last ten feet.

“I wasn’t sure you would come,” he greets eagerly, pulling me into an awkward, one-armed hug.

“The stars aligned. I got the night off,” I mutter through a smile, brushing past him to greet my friends.

Beatrix and Ava scoot over on the blanket to make room for me, and Jonah reaches into the cooler behind him to offer me a beer that I gratefully accept.

“It’s freezing,” Ava complains, tugging the oversized jacket around her shoulders even tighter.

“Drink something. It’ll warm you up,” Hayes offers from behind me, waving his hand toward the bag of glass bottles sitting against the tree trunk.

Shaking her head, Ava hunches forward. “I have to work in the library tomorrow morning.”

Balking at her, I ask, “New work study?”

“It’s a part of the history program. We take inventory of the old textbooks in the Landry library once a month,” she answers miserably.

“Gotta love the arts,” Beatrix mumbles sarcastically.

Ava shoots an icy glare over her shoulder, which Beatrix ignores to take another sip from her plastic cup.

I want to find a way to ask if she can show me some things about her gifts without sounding suspicious. When I complained to Poppy the other night about being stuck in Valeria classes as a glorified placebo while I’m starving for more information about my Aeternum blood, she suggested I take private lessons from Ava. The problem is that even asking for those lessons would give me away as a fake, and I’m not sure how much I can trust Ava with that yet.

Hayes’s friends call out for him and he holds a finger up again for them to wait one more minute. They throw their hands in the air, mumbling playful jabs toward him that he ignores to turn toward me instead. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ve just got to finish this game.”

Nodding, I hold up my beer. “Take your time,” I tell him.

He smiles, then turns and jogs back to his friends, who all give him shit for being slow.

“He likes you,” Jonah teases, wiggling his eyebrows.

I fall into the spot beside him and cross my legs, huddling into my jacket. “He does not. He’s just overly-friendly.”

“Hayes has never been that friendly toward me,” Beatrix points out, then gulps down her beer. She’s got on a comically huge fur hat that completely conceals her hair and makes her large eyes pop.

“That’s because you aren’t nice to him,” Ava laughs.

“You aren’t nice to anyone,” Jonah agrees, and Beatrix shrugs in response.

We wait for Hayes to finish whatever game he’s playing, then leave the safety of our tree to join the majority of people who have migrated into at a cluster of picnic tables. An hour passes and while I’m enjoying conversation with Hayes, I’m freezing my ass off. Beatrix and Jonah break off to chat with a group of their friends that I haven’t met yet. I decide to take the out when Avasays she’s ready to go, offering an awkward goodnight to Hayes before jogging back to Devlin.

I'm so exhausted when I get back to my dorm, I promise myself no more social interactions for the rest of the weekend.

25

Raze

My Monday and Wednesday morning Clinical Psychology lecture has easily become my favorite course to teach for the simple fact that I get to spend the entire ninety minutes picking at Penelope Ellery’s weak armor. She is a welcomed variation in my otherwise mundane existence.

Murdering, sleuthing, hiding my involvement in the Midnight Syndicate from the unsuspecting students and staff at Ravenshurst—it all pales in comparison to the thrill I get each time her stubborn glare practically saws me in half across the lecture hall.

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