Page 95 of The Narrow

“Is the ghost going to come after us again?” Ruth asks.

She doesn’t want anything to do with you, I want to say, but I make myself shake my head. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

“We’ll figure it out with Oster,” Veronica pledges. “We’re all in this together. It’ll be okay.”

The other two nod. In this together? Can they be that deluded? Eden turned to me because she was alone. I felt that ache inside her. I know that pain.

That’s the end of the conversation, blessedly. I drift along in the others’ wake as they get ready and troop out for a quick breakfast before our meeting.

Outside, the daylight strikes my skin, and I almost laugh with joy. The sky is patchy with clouds, but between them is blue, a blue so bright it hurts my eyes. I haven’t seen sunlight in—

The moon shines between the clouds, illuminating us briefly.

“You came,” I say as she steps from the trees.

“I came to say goodbye.”

I stumble. Ruth catches me. “Careful, klutz,” she says, and I stop myself from biting out an insult in return.

The cafeteria hasn’t changed at all. The pictures on the walls are different, but with everyone in uniform, only the hairstyles mark the passage of the years. The food is the same, too. Eggs scrambled until there’s not a trace of moisture in them, sausages slippery with grease. I put a bite in my mouth and almost moan.

Eating. I didn’t realize how much I missedeating.

I’m so focused on the flavors, it’s easy to tune out the others.

Until finally, Veronica is tugging at my sleeve. “Time to go.”

I lower my fork reluctantly.

“We’ll get your plates,” Zoya offers, all treacly sweet. I can tell she’s the sort of girl who pretends she doesn’t know how beautiful she is. Plays up being nice and sweet and shy because it’ll only make people compliment her more.

Veronica keeps glancing at me out of the corner of her eye as we walk, almost like she expects me to dart away, make a run for it. Oster calledmepossessive? Veronica can’t stand Eden getting away from her. But I’ve seen Eden’s memories. I know what’s really going on. Veronica doesn’t want a friend; she wants a lackey. Someone not as pretty as her, not as talented, not as clever.

She wants an audience.

That’s why they keep Eden around. Not because they care about her, but because beauty doesn’t matter if there’s no one there to adore it; wit doesn’t matter if there’s no one there to laugh at it. Eden is just a mirror for them to marvel at themselves in.

We enter the administration building. The last time I was here I—

“...have you corrupting the morals of...”

“Mr.Fairchild, that isn’t the issue here.”

“Isn’t it?”

I blink back to the present. I’m sitting in Oster’s office, and I don’t remember entering. Oster is here, behind the desk where Dean Lawrence sat the day I was kicked out. Veronica sits in the same chair where Oster himself was then, his hands folded in his lap, his expression troubled. And where my father had been sits Ms.Fournier.

She was beautiful once. Now her face is lined, her body sagging, no longer that pert little starlet. Funny, though. We’re nearly the same age, aren’t we? I’m only a few years older.

“Ms.Fournier and I have had a long talk. We have laid all our cards on the table,” Oster is saying.

How long have we been sitting here? How much of this conversation have I missed?

“Something we should have done a long time ago, I think. The facts are these: the spirit of Grace Carpenter has, somehow, found its home in Delphine; this is the cause of her condition. The Drowning Girl—Maeve Fairchild—is drawn to her. She believes they are meant to be together forever.”

Because we are.

“Eden, you have been drawn into the middle of all of this through no fault of your own. We do not know how to protect Delphine from Maeve or from the symptoms Grace’s presence causes. But we will work to find a solution. In the meantime, we need to make sure that no one else is harmed. Eden, I believe it would be best for you to leave the school and return home.”

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