Page 5 of Requiem

“I could be wrong,” she says, “but I think there might be someextreme dangerup ahead.”

I snort at the quip, kicking a chunk of broken tarmac out of the road. It tumbles off into the undergrowth, bouncing along the thick carpet of dried pine needles. “I think you might be right. Can you see a call box anywhere?”

“Over there.” She points off to the left, where a small call box does indeed stand in the center of a cleared patch of dirt. It’s painted red, but in the half-light, I didn’t notice it. Gaynor sets off toward it. I follow after her, still dizzy and a little unsteady on my feet. “There are tire tracks everywhere,” Gaynor observes. “No grass. Looks like this area is some kind of turning loop. Rachel never mentioned this to you?”

I squint back up the destroyed road, trying to make sense of the situation. “No. She didn’t.” It’s cold, and the encroaching evening smells like smoke. The air feels too still, too full, too tense, and a strange prickling sensation climbs up the back of my neck. Somehow, I can tell that we’re the only people for miles and miles and miles. I canfeelit. The last of the sunlight disappears quickly in places like this. It’ll be fully dark soon; fuck knows what kind of animals are lurking out there in the trees, waiting for the cover of night to commence stalking their prey.

Behind me, Gaynor starts talking and I nearly jump out of my skin. “Yes, yes, oh, good evening. Yes, I’m sorry. I know, we got here a little later than I was hoping.” She titters politely. “Yes, that’s right. Sorrell Voss. Well, no, ahh, actuallyI’mGaynor Pettigrew, her guardian, but—yes. Yes. Oh! Oh right. Okay. Yes, I’m sure we can manage. See you soon.”

She hangs up the phone, setting it back in its cradle inside the call box, and I raise my eyebrows, waiting on her to tell me what the hell’s going on. She looks a little flustered when she turns and faces me. “She sounded nice. Ford. Principal Ford. She said we have to take the track that leads west from the call box, down the slope to the jetty. They’re going to send someone to meet us.”

“There’s a jetty?”

Gaynor nods. “There’s a lake down there, that way.” She points. “You didn’t see it. You were sleeping.”

“Okaaay.” This is all very unusual, but whatever. We’ve come this far. Gaynor helps me with my two bags, heaving them out of the trunk.

“Christ, child, what have you got in here, bricks?

“—got in here, bricks?”I finish the sentence along with her, knowing perfectly well what she’s going to say. Gaynor sticks her tongue out at me—very childish. “It’sbooks, actually,” I tell her.

“Ahhh. You brought your Shakespeare collection. The tragedies.”

“Nope. It’s fifteen copies of The Anarchist Cookbook.”

“Sorrell!”

“What? They’re all different editions. Some have updated information in them. Oh, and I also brought a book on poisonous plants and how to use them.”

Poor Gaynor. She’s white as a sheet. “You’re going to put me in an early grave, child,” she declares. “What’sthatgoing to look like, when the police show up to investigate a dead boy on campus—”

“Relax, relax. It’s the Brontës I swear. It’s just the Brontës.”

She growls intelligibly—something about me not being funny atall—as she ambles off down the narrow single track that she found directly behind the call box.

Sure enough, after stumbling down the slope and tripping over tree roots in the twilight, the trail spits us out on the pebbly shore of a massive lake. The water is clear as glass and flat as a mirror, not a ripple in sight. It really is quite breathtaking. On the other side of the lake, the tree line is now a dark black silhouette against the fading sky. A single star flickers to the east, bright enough to be seen through the wispy clouds that whip astonishingly fast across the horizon.

“Would you look at that.” Gaynor looks wistful as ever. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose it is.” I no longer possess the part of my soul that used to recognize and appreciate beauty. It died a month ago. It makes sense to agree with Gaynor, when her words are laced with such awe, though. It’ll go some way to convincing her that I’m not completely dead inside.

The jetty is little more than a small, wooden dock, painted white. It looks new. A large black crest has been painted on the sturdy slats, inside which a T and an A has been etched, presumably for Toussaint Academy. I expect a boat to come tearing across the lake or something, but after a solid forty minutes of waiting, growing colder, the night closing from all sides, something far more unexpected happens.

We hear it first—a high-pitched mechanical whine that is initially just a faint suggestion of sound, but as it gets closer…

“You’vegotto be kidding me.” I stare up into the sky, shaking my head in disbelief. It’s a fuckingsea plane.

Gaynor’s like a kid on Christmas morning. She whoops, clapping her hands together, bubbling over with excitement as the sleek little white aircraft touches down onto the water, buoyed by its skis, and casually parks at the jetty.

A dark-haired guy in his early thirties jumps out, his facial features blank, but…yep, the way he’s holding his shoulders, so tense, his nostrils flaring a little—he isnotstoked right now. “You kids were all supposed to be here by four at the latest,” he grouses. “It’s not safe to be taking off and landing out here in the dark.”

“Sorry!” Gaynor grins from ear-to-ear, staring at the plane; the very last thing she looks is sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this excited. “We had no idea about the road, and having to come down here, and—wow, I just—is that aPiper PA 18 Super Cub?”

The pilot gives her a dumbfounded look. He’s nowhere near as surprised as me, though. “I didn’t know you likedplanes?”

“Good eye,” the pilot says. “Yeah, it’s a Super Cub. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to hang around and chat about it. If you’re going to Toussaint, you need to give me your bags and get in right now,” he says to me. “I’m turning this thing around and heading back in the next fifteen seconds, with or without you. You getting in or what?”

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