Where the Drowned Girls Go(Wayward Children #7)(12)
“We were not,” said the first girl. Her voice took on a strident tone. “We were always on the bottom of the middle. One person isn’t enough to drag us down. We rise and fall as a team.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Emily,” said the dainty girl, and stepped away from her bed, falling into position at the foot with almost military precision.
Cora fastened her bra and yanked her uniform top on over her head and looked quickly around the room, fingers moving on autopilot to do up her buttons. She still had to tie her tie before she’d be considered anything less than naked, but at least this was a start. It was more than she’d had a moment before.
“Hurry,” hissed another girl.
Cora set herself to dressing even faster, afraid, as she was every morning, that she would rip something or lose a button in her hurry. She hated the fact that they were expected to dress immediately upon getting out of bed, when their turn at the showers wasn’t until after breakfast; it was unhygienic, and even though the rule applied to all of them equally, the consequences of walking around the school smelling of sweat and sleep weren’t applied equally to all members of the student body. Cora had learned that the hard way in her pre-Trenches middle school. If a thin, pretty girl smelled bad, it was because she smelled bad that day. If Cora smelled bad, the other girls would say it was because she was fat, would say all fat people smelled bad, all the time. Reminding them about the shower rules wouldn’t erase the sneers from their faces.
But her discomfort wasn’t going to change anything, not here, not in this place where the needs of the student body as a whole were put ahead of the needs of any individual. And as the daily routine dulled the rainbows on her skin more and more, and quieted the whispers of the Drowned Gods in her ears, she found it easier and easier to forgive and dismiss the parts that rubbed her wrong.
The headmaster was still talking, although he seemed to be winding down. He had already made his usual points about academics—important—and athletics—also important, even though the nature of the school meant they couldn’t compete against anyone else, and needed, instead, to compete against each other, dorm fighting dorm, like school was some sort of gladiatorial competition most of them would never stand a chance of winning; all that remained was today’s inspirational message, whatever that was going to be.
“We here at the Whitethorn Institute understand that you are going through a difficult period in your lives. Childhood is confusing. Adulthood is even more so. We know that you’re fighting against an endless cascade of contradictions. That’s why we provide you with a structured environment tailored to help you remember what it means to be a citizen of the world. This world, the only one that should ever matter to you. You are home. It may not feel like it right now, but I promise you, one day, you’ll remember all the parts of your life that made it so fulfilling before you were led astray.”
The girls in the dorm stood perfectly straight and perfectly still at the foots of their beds, arms at their sides, chins lifted, staring at the wall like it was going to reveal all the secrets of the universe.
“I am overjoyed to be able to tell you all that one of our own is going to be graduating today. Regan Lewis has finally put the past behind her, and will be returning to her family, where she will be able to rejoin society. Regan, did you want to say something to the student body?”
“I absolutely do, Headmaster Whitethorn.” The new voice was sweet, happy, bland. If oatmeal were a person, it would sound like that girl. Cora resisted the urge to close her eyes.
Once, Regan Lewis had been as bright and alive as anyone. She had been bright and alive enough to break the rules, to be branded a bad girl and a transgressor and a flight risk, bright and alive enough to find herself walled up in the living tomb of the Whitethorn Institute, where she could never have done anything but die.
“Hello, everyone. My name is Regan Lewis, and I’m going to graduate today. I’m going home to my family and my parents, and I’m going to finish high school with the rest of my class. I’m going to stand next to kids I’ve known since kindergarten, and it’s going to be hard, because they’re still going to think of me as the weird girl who spent all her time daydreaming about unicorns, and not the mature citizen that I’ve become. I’ll have to work. The work doesn’t end just because I leave. I’ll have to—”
She stopped, seeming to struggle with her next words, like they had become stones, like they were sticking in her throat.
“Regan? Are you all right?” The headmaster’s voice was gentle, even compassionate. He did care about them, in his way. It was just that his care didn’t help them the way he liked to pretend it did. A jack-o’-lantern might be beautiful, but it was still something that had been cut open and hollowed out because someone wanted it to suit their idea of what a pumpkin ought to be. It wasn’t its own self anymore.
Cora couldn’t wait to be a jack-o’-lantern. Anything that meant she was still Cora in some way, and not the puppet of the Drowned Gods. She listened to Regan and she yearned, wishing with everything she had to be in the other girl’s shoes.
Regan laughed. The sound was loud and wild and free, was bright and alive, and every head in the room snapped up and swiveled toward the loudspeaker. Emily clapped her hands over her mouth. The dainty girl, whose name Cora still didn’t know after sharing a room with her for months—Cora wondered if the school had taken it away somehow, as a punishment—looked like she was about to cry. The other two girls, Rowena and Stephanie, looked as if they’d seen a ghost.