A Lesson in Vengeance(51)

Ellis’s expression has gone still and smooth as marble, a sculpted neutrality that I don’t know how to interpret. But I stay where I am, my feet rooted into the stone floor, into the uneven foundation of Godwin itself.

At last a slim smile cracks her mouth, and she nods, once. “Fine,” she says, and she says it calmly enough that I almost believe she doesn’t care anymore. “As you like. I hope you recover well, Kajal.”

She turns and goes without another word, and the vacuum of air left by her absence makes it hard to breathe. When I look at Kajal, she’s leaning back against the kitchen counter like she’s been exsanguinated.

“Ellis will get over it,” I tell her, and I offer an arm that I don’t expect her to take. Only she does, leaning her weight in against my side and letting me help her out into the common room to curl up on the sofa. I drape one of our ugly knit blankets over her reed-thin legs and tuck it in around her hips. “Can I get you something? A book? Tea?”

“Tea would be nice,” she admits, and I spend the rest of the morning checking on her, making sure she eats something between bouts of editing my English paper that’s now due at the end of the week.

When night falls I leave without Ellis. I’ve chosen a field farther up in the mountains for tonight’s meeting—far enough away that I have to steal an unlocked bike from Yancey House and pedal my way through the hills. By the time I make it to the right coordinates, I’m sweaty and out of breath. The bike chain catches at my skirt as I dismount, ripping the hem.

“Fantastic,” I mutter, hopping on one foot to examine the damage. The chain has left a smear of grease along the ankle of my tights, too. This isn’t even the final location—I plan to move us somewhere new once the others have arrived—and I’m starting to regret that choice, the same way I’m starting to regret the sacred materials I’ve packed in my satchel. The bag hangs heavy against my thigh, an unignorable reminder of my own foolishness.

As usual, I shouldn’t have let Ellis pressure me into this.

Leonie is already here, crouched down by the start of a little fire and blowing on the embers like she can coax it into existence despite the damp.

“I don’t know why Ellis can’t schedule these indoors,” Leonie says, stabbing at the coals with a stick. She blames Ellis, of course, even though I’m the one who planned tonight’s meeting. “It’s November. It’s absolutely freezing.”

“If we aren’t uncomfortable, we aren’t having the true experience,” I say in my best Ellis impression, which earns me a snort and half a grin from Leonie.

“Well, maybe next time you can be the first one out here,” she says. “Tell Ellis to schedule me last.”

It must have rained up here earlier, then froze after dusk fell. The stones we’re meant to sit on are slick with ice; the grass is crunchy underfoot. I put my satchel on the ground and sit on top of it, feet stretched toward Leonie’s meager fire.

“I’m ready for Thanksgiving break,” Leonie says. “Kajal’s coming back with me, you know.”

“You’re from…?” I know Leonie said, the night I first met her, but I don’t remember. I’d been too busy thinking about myself—and Ellis.

“Newport. So it won’t be any warmer than this, I’m afraid.”

“Are you planning to do anything fun?”

She shrugs; the gesture looks oddly stilted, but that might be because of the cold. “I mean…My grandmother’s sick. Dying, probably. So…not really.”

I flinch and wish I could take the question back. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She tosses the stick into the flames, abandoning her attempt. “She’s getting old. It was going to happen sooner or later.”

“Even so.”

Leonie sighs and sits on one of the frigid rocks, gloved hands planted in the grass. “She was the first Black student at Dalloway, you know. Desegregation of schools had just passed in the Supreme Court, and Dalloway wanted to look progressive—so they had to find an appropriately bright, appropriately wealthy young Black girl to play the role. My great-grandmother was rich, an inventor, and my grandmother really was a genius. The Schuylers have attended Dalloway ever since.”

My brows rise despite myself. “I didn’t know that.” I suppose there always has to be a first, but it never occurred to me how utilitarian it all was, how Leonie’s grandmother might have felt less like a welcomed admission and far more like a weapon.

Leonie nods, twisting her signet ring around her pinkie. “She’s why I’m here. Thomasin and Penelope, too, I suppose.”

It takes a moment for me to place the names: Thomasin is a sophomore, Penelope a junior. They’re both Black.

“There’s just three of you,” I say, surprised, and then immediately flush. “Sorry. That was a silly thing to say.”

“Not really.” Leonie stops fidgeting with her ring and places her hands flat on the rocks beneath us, leaning her weight back so she can tilt her face toward the starry sky. “You’re right. Three of us. My grandmother was so proud to be an alumna.”

“I’m sorry she’s ill. I can’t imagine.” Which is true; I never knew my grandparents. My mother didn’t speak about them, and they didn’t bother to get in touch.