The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(13)

“I knew it,” she said.

Larry pulled out onto the road. It was so much darker here. The suburbs of Pittsburgh had more shops and strip malls, more gas stations, more light in general. Out here, the dark settled over the land until it met the rock or the trees, and then the dark fell over everything. The sky above was dotted with stars. Stevie felt a warm familiarity for the signs along the road, the billboards for ski lodges and maple candy and glassblowing. And there were the road signs along I-89 that she loved the most, the ones that just read MOOSE. She had noticed these when she rode up to Ellingham for the first time, the constant moose, moose, moose signs and yet . . .

No moose.

“Ever see a moose?” she asked.

“Yup,” he said.

“What was it like?”

“Big.”

This was a satisfactory reply. At least the moose was not a lie.

“So now that you’re back,” Larry said, “I assume you’re going to be following the rules a bit more.”

“I always did,” Stevie said. “Maybe just . . .”

“You went into sealed tunnels, where someone died. You cornered a possible murder suspect in your house. . . .”

Stevie blushed in pride, which was probably not the reaction Larry wanted.

“I’m saying, this time will be different, right?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I’d like to hear you say it,” he said.

“Rules,” she said. “Follow them. I will. Promise. All of them.”

“Good. Because I like you, and it would pain me to bust your ass and send you packing. You want to solve crimes, Stevie? You can’t act like you’re smarter than everyone around you and do it all on your own. That’s how people get hurt.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not about being sorry,” he said.

Stevie slunk down in her seat at this and stayed that way, folded in over her waist, letting the seat belt cut into her neck as punishment. The car made the geometrically questionable turn up the treacherous path to the school. She had first come up this path in the morning, in the oversized school coach. There were a smattering of lights along the path, providing enough illumination to show the deep, shadowy crowd of forest, the narrowness of the passage, the dramatic dip over the stream at the base, then the climb, the climb . . .

The car crested the hill and two sphinxes appeared in the glow of two focused spotlights. There was a dark curtain of trees, and then it all opened up. There was a bright circle of light around the green, lights on in almost every window, lights pointed at the Neptune fountain, and the Great House sitting above it all. Bright. Ready.

Act Two was about to begin.

Larry let Stevie off on the circular drive.

“Come by the Great House in the morning,” he said. “Dr. Scott wants to talk with you to get you set up. Ten o’clock.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Ten. I’ll be there.”

“Right then. Good night. I’ll see your stuff is delivered.”

Stevie walked toward Minerva House. The air was biting and cold, her footsteps loud and crisp on the stone pathways. Overhead, the trees made an unbroken canopy that blocked out the moon. She tightened her arms around herself as her head swam a bit. Anxiety again, percolating. So much of anxiety was anxiety about having anxiety. Would it come tonight? Would it suddenly wrap its fingers around her neck and warp the world, now, at the moment when she should be happiest? Would the universe crunch itself into a ball and ping itself right between her eyes?

There was a pleasant smell of wood smoke. There was a fire somewhere. The smell should have warmed her and made her happy, but it reminded her how far this place was, and different, and how much had been loaded on her today. She stopped and took a long breath through the nose and held it. Long exhale through the mouth in a steady plume of frost. She had been doing her breathing exercises every night for half an hour, religiously. They helped her take back some control, helped her body complete the cycle and reset itself. After a minute or so of this, the wood smoke became pleasant again. Or, at least, not as scary. She was going home, to her friends, to the place she loved. There was nothing to be frightened of.

She continued down the path. The tree cover was breaking, and there was a building ahead of her. In the dark, the tower on the end loomed a bit, and the Virginia creeper looked a bit creepier than in the daytime. The blue door was just as welcoming, and there were lights on in the common room and Janelle’s room. Upstairs, all the lights were off but one on the end. Nate’s room. Stevie reached to her pocket for her pass to tap herself in before she remembered that she no longer had one. She stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. She was about to go over to Janelle’s window, when the door opened.

“Stevie!”

Pix—Dr. Nell Pixwell, the faculty resident of Minerva—was wrapped in a massive plaid flannel robe. She had allowed her shaved head to grow to the point where there was a faint brown fuzz showing—a winter cut, for warmth. She raised her arms in the air in a cheerful greeting.

“I only got the call an hour ago! I’m so glad, I’m so glad. We missed you so much. Get in here!”

The common room of Minerva was swelteringly warm. There was a fire crackling away in the fireplace, where two smiling pumpkins stood at attention at either end of the mantelpiece. The moose head over the fireplace had been decorated in orange and black winking lights. Enough time had passed since she left that they had started preparing for Halloween.