A Drop of Night(2)

“Mama!”

The revolutionaries flow around her. Delphine is wailing in my arms. The old guard slaps her. The panel slides shut.

And now there is only darkness, our moving feet and our quick gasping breaths, and we cannot cry, we cannot stop. The guards are pushing us—down, down into the blackness—toward the new palace, to good luck and safety and everlasting peace, where Father waits.



I’m scribbling a good-bye note in permanent marker on Mom’s stainless-steel fridge. I don’t know if permanent marker sticks on stainless steel. I’m thinking maybe I should have been super dramatic and scratched it in with a steak knife, but the marker is going to have to do because in one minute I’m gone. In one minute I’ll be in a black Mercedes heading for the airport. In an hour I’ll be meeting the others. In three we’ll be somewhere over the Atlantic.

Hi family! I mash the tip against the cold surface. The clock above the oven locks onto 5:59 P.M. The sun’s setting, oozing gold and pink all over the lawn outside.

I’m going to Azerbaijan, surprise surprise! Why, you ask? Oh wait, no you don’t. But you’ll hear about it anyway in about three months. In the New York Times. And the Washington Post.

Bye,

Anouk

It’s not funny. It’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to hurt. And that last part–Anouk–that really is my name. I don’t know who picks up a newborn baby, looks it in the eye, and names it Anouk, but that’s me: Anouk Geneviève van Roijer-Peerenboom, pronounced like “‘Ahhh-nuke is falling, everybody run!”‘

You should.

I pull my woolen granny coat around me and hurry out of the kitchen. A bunch of neon feathers screeches at me from a cage above the bar. Pete the Parrot. Ancient, perpetually depressed, incredibly annoying. Basically my soul in bird form. Bye, Pete.

I’m in the front hall. Tires are crunching up the gravel driveway outside. The house feels huge and empty around me, marble pale. I’m a deliberate smudge, an eraser mark on all the sharp lines and sleekness. No one’s going to be home for hours. Penny has a ballet recital. They all went. In a perfect world Mom and Dad would come tearing out of their rooms right now, and Penny would show up in a purple unicorn onesie or whatever she wears these days. They’d all lean over the railing like extras from Les Misérables and shout and beg for me to reconsider, and I’d snap something scathing at them and march myself righteously out the door.

Pete shrieks again from his cage. Good enough.

I hear a car door slam and the driver start up the front steps.

I take a deep breath. This is it. The biggest thing I’ve ever done. Not vandalizing fridges. And I lied about going to Azerbaijan. This. I was picked for it. Picked out of hundreds of other brats and geniuses and entitled, private-school-educated, polo-shirt-wearing bootlickers. I can do this.

I see the driver’s shadow growing against the Venetian glass panes in the front doors.

Go.

I grab my suitcase, click off security, open the doors.

“Good evening, Miss—”

I hand the driver my bag, dart around him, and walk down the front steps. Slide into the backseat of the Mercedes. Pull my toothpick legs in after me. Sunglasses on. Cold face.

The driver closes my door and gets back in up front. He gives me a quick glance in the rearview mirror, eyebrows knit, trying to sum me up.

You can’t, buddy. Don’t even try.

He starts the engine. The car eases up the driveway. The gates are open. We’re out on the street, gliding under the bare branches of Long Island winter. I don’t look back. Have a blast at the ballet recital, I think, and I can actually feel my anger curling like a red-hot animal in the pit of my stomach. Dance your heart out, Penny. For me.



We’re meeting in JFK, in the white-glass-steel world of Terminal 4. We were given very specific instructions:

6:45 P.M.—Arrive at airport. Do not check your bags. Clear security and proceed to the exit at Gate B-24. Your plane will be waiting for you there, together with the other students selected for this expedition. Your chaperone and point of contact: Professor Dr. Thibault Dorf.

I got the fancy blue folder in the mail a matter of hours ago. Reams of thick, creamy paper detailing where we’re going, what we’ll be doing, what’s expected of us. I run my fingers over the Sapani coat of arms embossed on the top right corner of each of the pages—a hatchet and flag, entwined with two roses. They’re the financiers. They own the chateau the site was found under. According to Google, they’re the fifth richest family in the world. Never heard of them. They definitely don’t go to my parents’ lawn parties. I keep flipping back and forth through the pages like I’m actually reading them. I’m not. I’ve gone over all this a dozen times, but I don’t want the driver to get chatty. I’ll snap his head off if he talks to me. I’m really trying to be helpful here.

My eyes dart over the documents. Packing lists. Safety precautions. Something called Building Good Teams—

Clarity, Communication, and Commitment, which I’ve skipped every time. They had me take weeklong intensive courses in rock climbing and scuba diving, sign thirty-six pages of contracts, get tested for every major disease and condition known to man, to make sure I didn’t have anything that might endanger the expedition. On top of that they expect me to be a clear, communicative, and committed person? That’s asking a lot.