Page 9 of Ruined
CHAPTER 3
Haley
The Sage and Ivy Preparatory Academy was a boarding school for rich children. The school was nestled in the woods of Cresting Heights, an old mill town in the Pacific Northwest, abandoned and forgotten, which made it the perfect location for a secretive boarding school, where children could be tucked away until they were deemed fit for the public eye, or until they aged out. The abandoned nature of the town also made it a fantastic location for an entertainment club for indulgent billionaires. But that didn’t mean that the staff of Sage and Ivy Preparatory Academy welcomed the people that worked at the Dahlia District. Therefore, I kept my profession a secret.
The buildings were tall and angular, built in a style that reminded me of what I imagined New England structures aspired to be. Gratuitous spires, brick buildings in between, large white paned windows. It housed girls from kindergarten through high school. Mama had chosen to go into more debt with Dahlia in order to pay for a place where Nora would be hidden. The extra years of labor were worth it, she had argued, as long as Nora would be free from that life. I was already guaranteed to work at the Dahlia District by then, but Mama wanted to save at least one of her children.
And, as her dying wish, she asked me to keep that promise.
The lawns were manicured with a couple of students reading in the grass. The front buildings were the classrooms, and in the back beyond the courtyard, were the dorm rooms. Nora was there, probably still getting ready before she went to the dining hall for breakfast. I had to get here early so that I was able to talk to the administration staff, and still get to see Nora before her school day started.
The attendant opened the door, gesturing for me to go into the office. Tina, the assistant to the headmaster, was perched at the front desk like usual, wearing her hair tucked into a harsh bun at the top of her head, reminiscent of a ballerina, but with much less poise. She looked up her nose at me.
“Mrs. Ramsey,” she said.
“Miss Ramsey,” I corrected. I wasn’t married, but she never cared to make that distinction. It was frowned upon for the guardians of the students to be unwed. “Nora told me that there’s a winter ball coming up?”
“Yes. End of the semester.” She jerked her head to the side. “It’s for the upperclassmen. At her grade, she must have an invitation.”
“She does.” I fidgeted with my shoulder bag, eyeing my wallet. “And the ticket price?”
“Two thousand and five hundred dollars.”
She said the words with such punctuality that it was hard to remember that Tina was not, in fact, a robot, but a human being. I likely made more money than Tina, but that didn’t mean that I got to keep that money. Yay for outrageous debts.
I fumbled with the zipper on the wallet and removed a few crisp hundred dollar bills. Then I counted them out in front of her.
“That should cover it,” I said.
“You know,” her eyes lowered to the money, her hands brushing it off of the counter and into her palm, like it was dirt to be collected into a dustpan, “we’re readying the new system, which, sadly, won’t accept cash. We won’t be able to accept physical bills on any part of the premises.”
She had been threatening me with this issue for months now. Each time, she assured me that I needed to use a card. But I didn’t want anything tying me to the school. Most of the time, I left my cards with Dahlia, since I could access my accounts at any time. Mama had lied to Dahlia about what she was using the loan for, claiming that Nora had died in childbirth, and she needed the loan to pay for hospital bills. And when Dahlia took me in, I kept that lie. A record of the payments on my card wasn’t a trail I could leave behind.
It probably didn’t help that I never tried to look nice when I came here. Sweatpants, a sloppy hairdo. I had tried to be presentable at first, but once Tina made it clear that she didn’t care for my sister or me, I stopped trying to make a good impression. As long as they got their money, she was happy. Or at least, tolerated me.
“I’m sure you can manage,” I said.
After I signed in and got the appropriate badge, I exited the front office and strolled through the courtyard. A two-tiered fountain with a rustic finish babbled in the middle, and students in uniforms laughed with each other, all filing into the dining hall. A student wearing glasses sat on a bench, wearing her hair in a tangly low ponytail, her light brown eyes shining behind her glasses. My sister, Nora.
She smiled when she saw me, then opened up her messenger bag.
“I saved you one this time,” she said. A lemon poppyseed muffin with a blueberry glaze filling. It was pure paradise in pastry form.
And Nora was using it to butter me up. The sneaky little thing.
“I will accept your bribery,” I said. She raised an eyebrow and I swiped the muffin out of her hand. I unraveled the plastic wrap and took a bite. “It’s better than anything our head chef makes,” I moaned through a mouth full.
“Well, I sure hope so. They have to be.” Nora knew that with how much we paid for her tuition, it would be a crisis to have store-bought muffins. A literal travesty. No, these students needed their own personal gourmet chef for each grade.
Well, there was at leastonegourmet chef for each meal period.
“So tell me about this boy,” I said.
“Chance?” A grin spread across his face. “Well. He’s a junior.” Older by two years, then, at least. Okay. A little suspicious, but not too much. “And he’s got blue eyes.” Fine, I could accept pretty eyes as a factor of attraction. Who would be able to resist that? “And he’s planning to study engineering in college.” I raised an eyebrow. Smart, too?
“He sounds like the whole package.”
“Exactly!” Nora said. She pulled her ponytail onto her shoulder and stroked it. “And he’s nice too. I mean, why does someone like him like me? I’m a nobody. I shouldn’t even be on his radar.”
