Wilder Girls(32)

Above me Reese’s bunk creaks, and I remember everything from last night, all at once. Welch’s voice, and the plans she made with the man on the walkie. The needle and thread, now tucked safely into my pocket. Byatt is somewhere in this house. And if I can’t find her today, I’ll find her tonight. Past the fence, after midnight in the last of the dark. Reese and I will follow Welch to Reese’s house, and Byatt will be there. And she’ll be alive.

   “This lying in silence thing is fun,” Reese says suddenly from above me, “but can we go eat?”



* * *



—

On the days without a supply delivery, meals are quiet, almost orderly. Anything good goes fast in that first rush after Boat Shift. All that’s left is what nobody really wanted. Most of the girls wait in the main hall, but there’s one from every small constellation of us that heads down the southern corridor to the kitchen where Welch doles out the food and bottled water, ready to carry something back to her friends.

This has been my job since the start. Byatt said people would feel the worst for me and let me have the best of what was there. They’re scared of Reese, and that works for Boat Shift day, but the name of this game is pity, and I’m how we win.

I leave Reese in the main hall and follow Cat down the south wing corridor. At the corner where the hallway hooks to the left, there’s Headmistress’s office, one of the last places left we’re still not supposed to go. I’ve only been there twice before: once on my first day at Raxter and then again a semester later, when I got reprimanded for talking during assembly.

Maybe that’s where they’re keeping Byatt, I think. I have my hand on the latch before I realize I’m doing this in plain daylight, and Cat is waiting for me.

   I hurry to catch up with her. She gives me a smile, doesn’t ask how I am or what the hell I was doing, and I’m grateful for that. After we put in an appearance at breakfast I’ll circle out around the house, peer through the windows of Headmistress’s office. And then keep searching if I don’t find what I’m looking for.

Together Cat and I turn the corner and continue on to where the kitchen opens, with its skylights and checkerboard tile. The last time I was here, Byatt was on the floor, coming apart. The last time I was here, the whole world ended.

Enough, I think. I’m doing what I can. Soon I’ll have her back.

A handful of other girls are already there, waiting for Welch to come in and unlock the pantry, where we keep the food. I’m dreading having to look her in the eye, but there’s no way she knows what I overheard last night.

“Hey,” says Emmy, barely up to my shoulder, her sleek hair still baby-fine. After her first flare-up the other day, she was bouncing off the walls, excited to be like the rest of us even if her flare-up left her coughing up teeth from somewhere deep inside, but today she’s got on an affected solemnity. Of course she does—she’s here for Landry, probably bursting with pride at representing the girl at the top of what’s left of Raxter’s social ladder.

   “I just wanted to say,” Emmy continues, “I hope you’re okay. After what happened with Byatt.”

“Thanks,” I say, and I hope that’s it, but she keeps talking.

“She’s in our prayers.” Emmy says it just the way Landry would, the same polished tone and rounded corners.

“I’m sure she appreciates it,” I say, rolling my eye. None of this is helping my headache, now dulled to a constant hum of pain. I’m used to it, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather have quiet than Emmy playing at being Landry.

Footsteps pull our attention to the door, and finally, there’s Welch, hastening into the kitchen, already fussing with the ring of keys on her belt. Where did she come from? Was she with Byatt? She doesn’t look any different than she did yesterday, doesn’t look like she’s hiding something. But after the pier, I know she’s better at that than I expected.

“Sorry,” she says as we crowd around her. There’s a crust at the corner of her mouth, something yellowing, the smell sour. Probably from one of those sores she and Headmistress get. “Bit of an issue. All right, who’s first today?”

Passing out food used to be oldest first, the way it is at every other school, the way it was before. And then we realized the oldest would always be the oldest. None of us could leave. Now we rotate through, year by year, day by day, and it’s youngest first today, which is why Landry’s sent Emmy. She picks it just right, so she always eats first. Cat and I are near the middle, with Julia and a few girls from Carson’s year behind us.

   It comes to my turn, and I duck under the lintel into the pantry and step aside to make room for Cat as she joins me. She seems okay today, her skin mostly healed. For the first season we thought maybe that meant she was better. But the blisters keep coming back, bigger and deeper each time, a flash of bone visible at the bottom of them.

The pantry is built off the back of the kitchen. Boat Shift carry everything that isn’t taken immediately, back here after each trip, unpack and unload it into the trash cans for storage. Every day Welch drags one to the middle of the narrow room for us to root through. She counts what we take and writes it down.

Cat brushes some cobwebs off her jacket and sighs, looking at sugar cubes spilled on the floor from where Emmy probably snuck some out with her.