The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(64)

Ellie was gone. The new Ellie was taking over.

Janelle stood and waved to Stevie from one of the booth seats. Stevie headed over toward her. Nate was there, and Vi. Stevie slid in.

“Where did you go last night?” Janelle said.

“Camping,” Stevie replied.

“Where?”

“In the yoga studio. It was peaceful in there. The rain on the roof was really nice.”

“You should have stayed with us. Are you okay? Did you sleep in there?”

A tray lowered itself onto the table. It was attached to David, who sat down with them. He didn’t look up at Stevie. He just picked up a piece of bacon and started snapping it into pieces.

The veins in Stevie’s forehead began ululating in alarm.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Are you okay?” Janelle asked David. “You weren’t there either.”

“Great,” he said. “I’m great.”

He snapped his bacon again. He looked right at Stevie, but her image seemed to bounce right off his eyes. Stevie felt herself vanishing, shrinking away. The toxic awkwardness of this conversation was obvious. Nate looked like he was trying to retreat into his sweater. Vi flashed a look of concern at Janelle. Janelle, of course, continued to face it all head-on.

“The yurt is nice,” she said. “They moved in some beds, and they made little rooms for us with these tapestries.”

“Good to hear,” David said. “I’ve always wanted to live at a renaissance faire.”

“I’m going to get some food,” Stevie said, pushing back from the table.

Though it had been some time since she had eaten, Stevie found she had no appetite. She walked along the counter, gazing into the amber depths of the warm maple syrup vat with its tiny ladle. Gretchen came up behind her, sliding her tray along delicately, careful not to touch Stevie’s, as if whatever Stevie had was catching.

“You guys are having a bad year,” Gretchen said quietly. “I liked Ellie.”

“Me too,” Stevie said. Now that she was saying it out loud, she realized she really had. Ellie was goofy and colorful. Ellie had been friendly from the word go. She was ridiculous in her tattered clothes, rolling off the hammock chair in the common room.

“Do you think she did it?” Gretchen said. “Really?”

“I don’t know,” Stevie said, sliding her tray along.

“Sorry,” Gretchen replied.

Stevie shook her head, indicating all was fine, even though all was not fine, and moved quickly along the line. She grabbed a portion of melon as a breakfast gesture so that no one would ask her why she wasn’t eating, and started the long walk back to the table.

She had not done anything wrong, she told herself as she looked up at the judgmental faces of the carved pumpkins that sat on the eaves above. She sat with David in his grief. Then she told him the truth. That was all.

Did she do it in a kind of mean way for no reason she could work out after he bared his soul?

Stop, she told herself. Just . . . stop. It’s fine. Just sit. It’s fine.

The space between her and the table loomed—stretching and shrinking. People turned and glanced up at her as she passed, some still with traces of their costumes of the night before present on their skin and hair. Glitter here, smudged eyes there, colors in their hair.

Stevie was about halfway back to the table when the cafeteria doors opened and a small crew of faculty came in, including Call Me Charles, Jenny Quinn, and Larry. There was the school nurse, the counselors, Pix, a few other teachers. They cleared a bit of space. They gave Stevie just enough cover to sit down next to Janelle and start shoving melon into her mouth.

Charles, today dressed in somber gray pants and a black shirt, stood up on one of the chairs. Jenny Quinn stood beside him, quietly surveying the room. She was also wearing gray and black—black crepe pants, low black shoes, and a massive, thick cardigan of gray wool that swept down to her knees. It was the kind of wild, magical thing that looked like it had come from one of Stevie’s Nordic Noir shows. She had pulled back her hair into a perfect bun that sat on the crown of her head like a doughnut. Her face was firmly set, and she ticked her gaze back and forth across the room like a scanner. She was looking for something, but what, Stevie had no idea.

“Everyone, everyone,” Charles said, holding up his arms. “Could I get some quiet for a minute?”

The cafeteria settled in a moment or so. Stevie turned to listen. She could feel David looking at the back of her head.

“As I think most of you know by now, we suffered a terrible loss. Last night, Element Walker was found. She was not, I hate to have to say, alive.”

The air-sucking quiet in the room said that everyone did know this, but hearing it was another thing entirely.

“I want to tell you what we know and what will happen next,” Charles went on. “It appears that Ellie suffered an accident and became trapped in a tunnel—a tunnel we did not know about, a tunnel that will immediately be surveyed and sealed. One building, Minerva House, was affected, so we will be working with Minerva residents on accommodations . . .”

He shifted a bit and put his hands in his pockets. Jenny’s attention was now pointed in the direction of the Minerva table.

“. . . the last few weeks have been a time of such sadness. What you need to know, what you must know, is that your safety, your health, your emotional well-being is what matters the most. We are going to be here for you. We’re going to have . . .”