The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(18)

“Stevie!” he called. “Oh my God! When did you get back? This is amazing!”

“Last night,” Stevie replied, suddenly feeling shy.

It was a nice greeting, even though Stevie and Kaz didn’t really know each other very well. Kaz was always enthusiastic. His special interest was the environment, and he spent a lot of time getting Ellingham to convert over to composting toilets. Kaz cared a lot about composting toilets.

There was someone else watching closely—a small person with large, luminous eyes. She was wearing a brown sweater and peering at Stevie over the top of her tablet.

Germaine Batt.

Technically, Germaine had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t her fault that her story was the thing that made Stevie’s parents pull her out. But the feeling was still there.

David was not in the dining hall.

“How do you feel?” Nate asked as they walked to a table.

“Like the prettiest girl on syrup mountain,” Stevie replied.

They took a table by the window. Janelle’s head was on a swivel. She was watching for Vi, of course. The three of them settled in to have their brunch. Stevie sliced into the crisp chocolate-chip waffle and dipped it into the warm syrup.

Vi Harper-Tomo came bursting into the dining hall. Stevie had never really seen anyone burst into anywhere before, but that’s what they did—sending the door flying back, rushing in with arms flailing. Vi was dressed in their favorite outfit—wide white overalls and a gray sweatshirt, silver-blond hair spiked high.

Vi greeted Stevie much as Janelle had, with an incomprehensible string of affection.

“I can’t believe it,” they said.

They turned to Janelle. There were greeting kisses at breakfast now, like a couple from TV. Nate tore his waffle slowly as the pair leaned cozily into one another.

“You know we’re cute,” Janelle said to him.

“Cuteness is my favorite,” he said.

“It’s good for when you write romances in your book, right?” Stevie said.

“I don’t write romance. I write about finding dragons and breaking magic rocks in half.”

“The real magic rocks are the friends we make along the way,” Stevie replied. “Right?”

“He’s happy for us,” Janelle said. “This is how he shows it.”

Nate looked up at all of them, dark shadows under his eyes.

“This is why I prefer books to people.”

“We love you too,” Janelle said.

Even though Janelle had food, she accompanied Vi up to the food line. Nate centered his scrambled eggs on his plate.

“So,” he said. “What changed your parents’ minds?”

Stevie dunked her waffle nervously into the syrup pool.

“Who knows?”

“They just said, ‘We’re sending you back’?”

“I mean . . .” Stevie nervously rubbed under her eye. “We talked about it a little, but . . .”

She was dancing on the edge of the truth, telling a lie of omission. One step could send her into falsehood.

“I don’t know what motivates my parents,” she said.

There. She lied. So simple. It fell out of her mouth. Plop.

“You guys ever hear anything about Ellie?” Stevie said, changing the conversation. “What’s going on with that?”

Nate was still studying Stevie’s expression, but then he seemed to give up and returned to his eggs.

“Nothing,” he said. “I mean, they looked. There were police around for a few days. Low-key, but they were around. I think they may have had dogs, even. She must have gone to Burlington. She knows a lot of people there.”

Stevie sipped at her coffee and looked out the window. They were facing toward the back, to the thick line of trees that bordered the property. During the day, they were a bright, bold wall. At night, they loomed and contained multitudes. The area where the school was was flat, but it dipped down dramatically as it went toward the road, and there was a river that bordered it on two sides. The other way out was up, toward jagged rocks and higher peaks and thicker woods.

Getting out would not have been easy. Stevie wasn’t even sure Ellie had a coat on when she vanished that night.

“It’s not your fault,” Nate said.

“What?”

“It’s not your fault,” he repeated. “Whatever Ellie has done—why she ran—that’s not on you.”

“I know that,” she said, concentrating on the squares in her waffles. “Are people saying this is my fault?”

“No,” he said quickly. “No. Just . . . no. Forget I said anything. I think Vi and Janelle are about to make out on top of those mugs.”

Stevie turned and saw Vi and Janelle locked in an intense embrace by the coffee station.

“It’s been a long week,” Nate said. “Don’t leave again. Don’t leave me with these people.”

“Which people?”

“Any people.”

“I don’t count as people?”

“Of course not,” he said. “It’s been all feelings and love. I want to go back to numbness and avoidance. You’re great at that stuff.”

She smiled and tapped her phone to check the time.

“I have to go,” she said. “Meeting with Call Me Charles.”