The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)(19)

Eddie was squatting on the floor of the gymnasium, bobbing lightly on the balls of his feet like a broken jack-in-the-box. Francis did not believe in Eddie’s astrological fascinations, but she usually entertained them. Not tonight. Everything was coming unspooled.

“Let’s run. Let’s start the plan.”

“No,” Francis heard herself say. Her voice was like stone. “No. Not now. We’ll never make it now. Don’t you know what this means?”

“It means the dark star . . .”

Edward was about to go on one of his poetic nonsense trips about the dark star and the silver princess and all these characters he had in his head. He took his poetry too far sometimes, got caught up in symbols. Francis cut this off.

“Whatever is going on,” she said, “our letter is mixed up in it. There will be cops, Eddie. Lots of cops.”

“So what? We’re going to be outlaws!”

“If we go now,” Francis said, “we’ll get caught in the first hour. We need to wait. Be cool about it.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Edward said, moving close to her, his breath on her lips.

“The fun,” she said, pushing him back gently, “is making our escape and getting out. When we go, we go forever. We need to be smart.”

This is where it always fell apart with Eddie. He was so wild, he had the imagination, the dreams. But he didn’t think about practicalities, like G-men, police dogs, and roadblocks. He wanted to be an outlaw without the discipline or practice of being an outlaw. It was up to her to keep him in line. That’s why she had done so much of her own preparations. She had to get back to Minerva, back to her room. The things she needed were there.

“They’re making us leave anyway,” he said.

“Maybe for a day or two. Maybe only for a few hours. You need to trust me. Keep your cool. Go home.”

She pressed her lips hard against his and left the gymnasium. She couldn’t risk using the tunnel. Miss Nelson might be in it, and the hatch on the other end would likely be bolted. She would have to go above ground.

There was one advantage tonight, a blue sulfuric fog. This would likely be her only protection against the men with the shotguns. The air was bitingly cold now and the fog went into her nose and mouth, tangling its way down into her lungs. She was up by the library, and in theory she only had to make a straight shot across the top of the green to get home. But the door would obviously be guarded and the entire area exposed. She would have to take the long route around, all the way through the far end of the campus, through the half-finished sites down near the road.

She stayed low, moving from one tree to the next. She tripped over the roots and branches, and the leaves crunched under her feet. She saw the first gunmen in their overalls and coats, their shotguns slung over their shoulders. There were three of them, talking together, by the cupola. She got down, her heart beating fast. They would shoot tonight. They would not hesitate. For one second, she tried to imagine the hot bullet sinking into her chest, the impact. It made her heart race painfully and her hands grew slick. She considered calling out, asking them for help. They would take her home to Minerva. She would get in trouble, but she wouldn’t get shot.

No. She pressed to the ground. She would be a cat. They loved cats here. “Cats know best,” Albert Ellingham would say. She would slink and slide. It was a big campus. She had the courage. Tonight, she would prove herself.

The hardest part would be crossing the road. That was the most open area. She would have to climb down the decline into the woods and cross somewhere in the dark. Francis made her way down the steep slope. Her expensive coat caught on brambles and made her trip, so she tucked it up and crab-walked her way down several feet. If she tried to stand, she was likely to tumble and hit every tree and rock all the way to the river. The rock cut her hands as she grabbed at the ground. Everything smelled of dirt and decaying leaves.

“What’s that?” one of the men said.

She froze.

A light shone through the trees.

“Probably an animal,” another replied.

Francis was very close to being sick. She swallowed hard and waited, not moving an inch. She froze. It must have been fifteen or twenty minutes later before she moved again. Once she had made it a good distance from the statues and the men, she crept to the road’s edge and, taking a deep breath, she ran across. It was a very slender road, so it was just a few steps. She fell into the culvert on the other side and bashed her face. But she did not cry out. She crawled on her belly into the dark.

Then, she went back up the hill. This was much harder. Her breath was labored now. Cops and robbers. G-men and guns, sneaking in the dark. And she was doing it. Francis Josephine Crane, the flour princess of Fifth Avenue, was crawling through the dirt and the night. She dug her nails into the ground with determination, not caring about breaking them. She didn’t care about her clothes or her shoes. This was life.

She crested the top of the incline and emerged on the other side of the road. Now she had to wind her way back up to Minerva. She moved slowly, working her way from building to tree to statue. The fog wrapped around her like a fur coat. It was easy.

By the time she reached Minerva, she no longer worried about how she would get back inside. She would simply find a way. The door would be locked, but the window of her room was not. She went around the back of the building, then peered around the corner. No one was outside. She crept along and made her way to room two. She tested the window first, trying to push it open. It did not give.