Page 6 of Requiem

SORRELL

Gaynor is a shadowy dot,and then she is a blur, and then she’s gone.

I wanted to walk her back up to the car, but Jeremy (which is apparently the sea plane’s pilot’s name) told me to get situated while he hurried her back up the slope toward the Subaru. He was back in no time at all, the plane was running, then speeding across the lake, and then we were climbing into the air in what felt like seconds.

“I am not a personal fuckingtaxi,” he grumbles, as the plane banks heavily to the left. He skirts along the perimeter of the lake, the water a reflective black mirror below us. I say nothing. Jeremy is pissed, and Jeremy will stay pissed no matter what I tell him. A carpet of trees rolls onward into the night. In every direction, all I can see are trees and the dark, looming shapes of mountains in the distance.

We’re in the air for all of ten minutes before Jeremy tells me to sit tight, and then he straightens out the plane, and we descend. We land on another lake—wait, thesamelake? Surely it can’t be?—and Jeremy pulls up alongside a much larger, more impressive looking dock, making the whole affair look easy.

“You tell Ford that I’m charging double for this one, you hear?” he tells me, as he grabs my bags and dumps them onto the dock.

“Uhhh. Should I…?” I point over my shoulder, into the darkness. It’s amazing justhowdark it is when you head out of the city and there are no ambient lights to throw off some shadows. I have no idea which direction I’m supposed to head in if I want to find the school.

“No, no,” Jeremy snaps. “Don’t go wandering off. You’ll only break your fucking neck. Just wait.”

His attitude is shitty as hell, but kind of amusing. I like his generous usage of the word ‘fuck.’

“He’s also pretty hot, don’t you think?”a voice in the back of my head comments. Rachel’s voice. I laugh softly under my breath, a flood of sadness rising in me; that isexactlywhat she’d have whispered in my ear if she was here. And yeah, grumpy Jeremy is kind of hot. He ties off the plane like it’s a boat and grabs my bags again, hurrying along the jetty toward solid ground. At the end of the dock, a golf cart is waiting for us. I consider asking Jeremy if I can drive, but I don’t think his wicked temper could take the joke right now.

He fumes, muttering under his breath as he speeds up a hill and across a massive field. We turn a corner, the golf cart tipping precariously, and then—

Whoa.

The place looked impressive in Rachel’s photos. Stately. But even in the dark, it is so much more than that. Toussaint Academy ishuge. There is only one light on inside the building—a light in what looks like the entrance way, beneath a grand portico. The rest of the building, with its carved stone lintels, gables and parapets, is a Victorian masterpiece. Ivy chokes the eastern wing of the building, its tendrils clinging tightly to the stonework. The western wing is formed out of a colonnade, monolithic columns dotting a kind of porchway, seven, eight, nine…notenmonstrous cylinders of stone, rising seven floors, reaching all the way up to an elaborate iron cresting that runs the length of a fifty-foot-long parapet. A giant domed cupola sits in pride of place atop it all, it’s beaten gold panels somehow bright and glorious even without any sunlight to bounce off of them.

“Oh my…god,” I breathe.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s great. Come on. I have to get you signed in so I can go home.” Jeremy has my bags again. He’s halfway up the worn stone steps that lead to the entranceway before I’ve even gotten out of the golf cart.

Somehow, I have a clipboard in my hands a moment later. I’m signing my name into a registry. Gripping a flashlight between his teeth, carrying a bag in either hand, Jeremy guides me down a long, winding, darkened hallway, warning me not to touch anything, and then he’s leading me up a flight of stairs. Another flight, and then another. I can’t see much within the narrow beam of light thrown off by the flashlight, but I can feel how plush the carpet is underfoot. I can smell the beeswax, and the faintest hint of something floral and clean. The silence nearly crushes me.

Jeremy takes a right, hurrying along a wide hallway, gesturing for me to hurry up and follow. “Where is everyone?” I hiss.

“Where the hell do you think they are? They’re sleeping.”

“But it’s early—”

“Hah! It’s two in the fucking morning! Why do you think I’m so desperate for my bed?”

He’s lying. He has to be. “But it was dusk earlier. It only went dark properly while we were waiting for you.”

Jeremy stops abruptly and dumps my bags. “This is you. Rosewood 13. Breakfast is at six-thirty. Since you’re on Rosewood, you go to the Rosewood room for roll call.” He takes a breath, assessing me with very sharp, very blue eyes. “Dusk is subjective out here, princess. Sometimes it goes dark at four. Sometimes it doesn’t ever get dark. Not properly. Depends on the season and the lights.”

“Lights?”

Jeremy huffs. He obviously thinks I’m slow. “TheNorthernLights? Aurora Borealis? We see them here sometimes. They’ve been crazy this year. I’m leaving now. Have you got everything?”

I nod.

“Awesome.” Jeremy takes off at a jog, leaving me alone, standing outside a heavy dark wood door marked with a golden, shiny number thirteen.

3

SORRELL

I pass out hard,too tired to properly assess my surroundings.

In the morning, I wake to birdsong, and the sound of the frantic chirruping sets my teeth on edge. My new bed is a voluminous thing—a cloud, really, soft and enveloping. So warm and cozy that I hurl myself out of it as soon as I gather my senses, horrified that I could ever dream of being so comfortable in a place like this. Shafts of cold morning light spear into the room through a large picture frame window that looks out over the lake, where Jeremy landed in the Super Cub in the early hours of this morning. The plane is gone now. The only things gliding over the surface of the water now are a couple of very vocal Canada Geese.

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