Thorn Abbey Read online

  For Jens

  PROLOGUE

  THE DREAM IS ALWAYS THE SAME. I AM WALKING DOWN THE path, the one that winds through the woods by Thorn Abbey and leads down to the beach. The air is cool and wet with rain, and my footsteps are light on the carpet of brown, fallen leaves as I hurry down to the place where I know he is waiting for me. My cheeks are cold, and my heavy wool sweater scratches against my skin, but I don’t care because I can already feel his strong arms around my body and his warm lips against mine.

  And then I am at the bottom of the hill. The beach rises above the horizon, endless and gray. Suddenly, I feel exposed. Frightened. The air is different here: bigger, less forgiving. It smells like the sea and salt and dead things.

  I move closer to the water. A wave rushes up to my boots and then snakes away, leaving two identical dark stains. I shudder against the chill and look around. Where is he, and why is he late?

  Another wave comes up, more imposing than the last, and I step back. But the wave doesn’t retreat. It keeps rising toward me, not cresting or breaking. I cry out and stumble backward. The wave grows larger, more menacing, finally overtaking me and sucking me into its icy deep.

  Hands, fingers, hair. Her hands, her fingers, her hair. They wrap around me, colder than death, and pull me under as I scream. Her face—her beautiful, perfect face that he loved with a passion he will never feel for me—is the last thing I see as my lungs fill with the brackish water and I black out into the nothingness, still calling out his name in vain.

  PART ONE

  1.

  “TESS, THIS IS DEVON MCCAIN. SHE’LL BE YOUR ROOMMATE. Devon, this is Tess Szekeres. She’s a sophomore.”

  The house counselor, Mrs. Frith, moves aside as she makes the introductions and waves me into my new room. I enter, hesitating in the doorway as two enormous emerald eyes size me up.

  “Hi, Tess! Welcome to Thorn Abbey!” Devon steps forward and gives me a quick, fierce hug. She is tall, maybe five ten, and reminds me of an Amazon warrior. Her long, silky black hair looks striking against her crisp white blouse and plaid school jumper.

  “I’ll leave you to unpack and get settled,” Mrs. Frith says to me. “Devon is a junior. From Boston. She’s been here since ninth grade, so she can fill you in on anything you need to know.”

  “Yeah, like all the best places on campus to get high and make out,” Devon says merrily.

  My cheeks grow hot as I wait for Mrs. Frith to start yelling or give Devon a detention or something. But instead, she laughs. “Good one, Devon. Don’t forget the Welcome Tea at four, in the downstairs parlors. See you girls then.”

  “Lipton’s and stale scones. Can’t wait.” Devon closes the door after Mrs. Frith and turns to me with a dazzling smile. She has perfect teeth—braces, obviously—and I instinctively clamp my mouth shut. “I thought she’d never leave. Come on, show me the clothes you brought. I saved you the good closet.”

  “Um, thanks. I didn’t bring . . . that is, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to . . .”

  My voice drifts as I picture my wardrobe, Old Navy circa 2010, folded neatly in my one suitcase. I glance around the room, which is so much bigger than my own at home. Devon, who must have arrived on the early side of check-in, has already taken possession of her half. She’s hung framed posters on the yellow-rose wallpaper: a Vogue cover from the sixties, an ad for a German production of the opera Aida, and photos of Billie Holiday and Amy Winehouse. Her desk is cluttered with makeup, tampons, an iPod, a white laptop, and what look like birth control pills. There is a purple silk quilt on her bed that looks impossibly glamorous.

  Devon plops down on the quilt and kicks off her ballerina flats. She grabs a bottle of nail polish from her nightstand and starts painting her toenails. The way she is sitting, I can just make out a tattoo on her left thigh—a flower?—and a sliver of her black lace panties. I look away.

  “Soooo. What is that, Greek?” she asks me.

  “What?”

  “Your name. Sounds Greek.”

  “Actually, it’s Hungarian. My family’s a mix of Hungarian, Swedish, Chinese, Dutch, and a few other things.”

  “Wow. Mine are, like, straight Irish American. My dad’s ancestors were potato farmers from Galway. My nana on my mom’s side was an opera singer from Dublin. I’m boring, compared to you.”

  “I don’t think so.” I can’t imagine Devon ever being boring.

  “Where did you transfer from?”

  “You mean, what school? Avery Park.”

  “Never heard of it. Oh my God, is that one of those hippie prep schools where you grow organic vegetables and worship Gaia the earth goddess?”

  “No, it’s just a regular high school. Like a normal public school. It’s in Avery Park, New York, near Albany.”

  “Oh?” Devon raises one eyebrow. “Well, you’re going to love it here. Private school is soooo much better than public school.”

  “I know. That’s why my mom made me apply, because my classes weren’t challenging enough and because—”

  Devon shakes her head. “No, you idiot, not the classes! I meant the other stuff. You can get away with anything in private school.”

  I stare at her. I’m not sure what to say.

  “You have a lot to learn, Young Apprentice,” Devon says, smiling her dazzling smile again “Unpack your crap, then I’ll take you on the unofficial tour.”

  2.

  HOW CAN I DESCRIBE THORN ABBEY? IT IS LIKE SOMETHING out of Jane Austen or Harry Potter or a fairy tale. The main building, Lanyon Hall, is an enormous gray stone mansion, practically a castle. It has turrets and towers and tall, arched windows that overlook the wide, grassy quadrangle. Or “quad,” as Devon calls it. There are gardens everywhere, including flower gardens and herb gardens and even a Shakespeare garden. On the north face of the quad are dorms, including mine, Kerrith Hall. On the south face are more dorms as well as the music and art studios.

  To the east is the ocean. It’s hard to see it from the quad or anywhere on the ground level because it’s beyond a dense forest and below a sharp cliff. But from the higher floors of Lanyon or Kerrith or any other building, there is an amazing view. It is windy today, so the waters are dark and choppy, with a grid of tiny whitecaps that seem almost motionless from a distance.

  I think about home. The little ranch house with the scrubby, overgrown lawn. The dying strip mall where my mom and I do our grocery shopping. And of course, Avery Park High, which looks like a massive cinder-block prison in the middle of a bombed-out cornfield. I can still picture the painted metal signs out front: HOME OF THE FIGHTING SPARTANS! and DRUG-FREE GUN-FREE SCHOOL ZONE.

  I’m not in Avery Park anymore.

  By the time Devon and I arrive at the Welcome Tea, twenty minutes late, she has already shown me the best places to get high and make out, as promised—even though there is less than a zero percent chance that I will ever need to know these things. She has also explained a number of what she called “survival strategies,” like how to stay out past the nightly curfew and score food when the dining halls are closed.

  Dozens of girls are gathered in the Kerrith parlors. Some of them are dressed in the school uniform, like Devon. The rest are in miniskirts and stylish tops with fancy sandals. I feel dumb in my wrinkled black T-shirt and jeans, which is what I wore on the long, long bus ride from Albany. I hover way in the back, by the antique doors painted with medieval knights and maidens. Parents were on campus when I first arrived, but they seem to be long gone now.

  If there was a welcome speech, Devon and I must have missed it. Mrs. Frith is at the refreshment table cutting into a coffee cake, and the girls stand around in tight clusters: talking, laughing, sipping tea from gold and white porcelain cups. Devon grabs my wrist and drags me over to a smal
l group.

  “Hey, tramps! Meet Tess,” Devon says. “Tess, this is Priscilla, Elinor, and Yoonie. They have a triplet on our floor.”

  “Hi,” I say, forcing a smile.

  I can feel three pairs of eyes giving me the once-over. They all seem to linger on my blue flip-flops and unpolished toenails. “Hey,” a pretty strawberry blonde with a Southern accent—Priscilla?—says. “Welcome to Kerrith! This is the most awesome dorm on campus. Well, except for the bat problem. But we won’t talk about that.”

  The what?

  This is followed by a chorus of “where are you from?” and “what do you like to do?” type questions. I tell them I’m from upstate New York, I was second clarinet in my high school honors band, and I love Russian novels and screwball comedies. I stop there because they already look a little bored. I decide not to bring up my interest in astronomy or the fact that I can recite the periodic table of elements.

  Priscilla volunteers that she is from Dallas and wants to go to law school someday. Elinor says that she is from Fair-something, Connecticut, and rides horses. Yoonie adds that she is from Los Angeles and plays the violin. They all seem polite but distant. Of course, I’ve never been very good at making small talk.

  The four of them proceed to discuss their fall schedules: Who’s taking French, who’s got Bags for English, why is there a new photography teacher? Elinor says that Miss Lawrence—the photography teacher?—had to leave because the headmaster found out about her affair with Mr. Z.

  “Mr. Z? Uh-uh, no way,” Priscilla says. “He’s like old and married . . . and Asian.” She elbows Yoonie, and the four girls crack up.

  “Hey, Asians are tigers in the bedroom,” Yoonie says.

  “Yeah, I know. Your dad and I hooked up during Parents’ Weekend last year,” Devon says with a grin.

  “Bitch!”

  “Asian bitch!” Devon snaps back.

  They all crack up again.

  I have no idea what they’re talking about, so I stand there nodding, smiling stupidly, wishing I could make a smooth, graceful exit. But to where? My stomach grumbles. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, which was an Egg McMuffin on the Greyhound.

  I point to the refreshment table. “Excuse me. I’m just going to . . . um. I’ll be right back.”

  “Ew, that stuff’s disgusting, I’d stay away,” Elinor says, scrunching up her small, elfin face. “I have Hydroxycut in my purse, do you want one?”

  Hydroxycut? “No, I’m good. I’ll just . . .” I wave and turn and bump into a chair. The room seems crazy crowded all of a sudden, an obstacle course of furniture and people. I blush and head toward the refreshment table.

  “Well, she’s different,” I hear Elinor say behind me.

  “Yeah, she’s totally not like—” Priscilla’s voice drops to a whisper.

  I’m totally not like who?

  3.

  IT’S MY FIRST NIGHT AWAY FROM HOME—AS IN REALLY AWAY from home, aside from Girl Scout camp and a few sleepovers and visiting my grandparents’ farm in the Finger Lakes. I have a hard time falling asleep; the mattress is too soft, and the sheets Mom bought for me at Target reek of polyester and practically crackle with newness. Plus the radiator hisses and clangs, and the room is insanely hot.

  I’m not sure where Devon is. It’s eleven o’clock, past curfew. I saw her just after dinner, and she said something about a party at a dorm across campus. I lie here, resorting to my usual insomnia trick: counting weeks by Mondays. Monday September second, Monday September ninth, Monday September sixteenth, Monday September twenty-third . . .

  Somewhere around November eighteenth, I feel my eyelids grow heavy.

  Minutes . . . or hours . . . later, I wake up to the muffled sound of crying. The room is pitch dark, except for a thin sliver of moonlight slicing through the curtains. Also, the room, which used to be too warm, is now too cold, even though the radiator is still hissing and clanging. Is the window open?

  “Devon? Are you okay?” I whisper.

  No answer.

  I can just make out her form across the room, huddled under her purple silk quilt. For a second I’m unsure what to do. It’s not like we’re best friends or anything, and she doesn’t seem like the crying type, so maybe she just wants to be left alone.

  But the sound of her quiet sobbing is so heart-wrenchingly sad that I get up and tiptoe over to her bed. As I pass the window, I check to make sure it’s closed. It is.

  “Hey, Devon?” I kneel down and tap her shoulder.

  She groans and rolls toward me. She smells like sleep and musky perfume. “Hmmm? What?”

  “Did you have a nightmare, or—”

  “Shit, what time is it?”

  I glance around, totally confused. Devon wasn’t crying; the sound was coming from somewhere else in the room, and now it’s stopped. “Ohmigosh, I’m so sorry! It’s just that I thought you were . . . I mean, I heard someone crying, and I thought it was . . .”

  Devon bolts up. Her emerald eyes flash with panic—or maybe the moonlight is playing tricks on me? A second later, they are hard and inscrutable again. “It must be Gita next door. She probably got dumped by her boyfriend. Again,” she snipes.

  “Oh, okay.”

  “You interrupted my awesome dream. I was surfing in Bali with two hot locals.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I retreat to my bed, embarrassed. My alarm clock glows 1:49. I shiver and burrow under my comforter.

  “Devon?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think we should go check on her? Gita?”

  A heavy sigh. “No, we shouldn’t go check on her. I’m sure she’ll chill once her Xanax kicks in.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  I lie there for a long time listening to Devon toss and turn, wondering why I never get it right, why I’m always making the wrong gesture. I take a deep breath and start to count again: Monday September second, Monday September ninth, Monday September sixteenth . . .

  Devon is talking to someone.

  “Please don’t be sad. I hate it when you’re sad.”

  Silence.

  “No, no, it’s not like that!”

  Silence.

  I blink into the darkness. It’s 3:23 a.m. The room is even colder than it was before; my extremities are practically numb.

  “Please, let me prove it to you.”

  Silence.

  She must be on the phone. But this late?

  The moon is brighter now, and I can see Devon sitting cross-legged on her bed, her body angled away from me.

  I can also see her cell charging on her desk.

  “Just tell me what to do. You know I always do what you say.”

  I shift, and one of my pillows bumps up against my night-stand, knocking over an empty Coke can. Devon whirls around. I close my eyes and pretend to be snoring.

  Silence and more silence. I can feel Devon’s gaze boring into me in the darkness. There’s probably a simple explanation for all this: She is talking in her sleep, or drunk, or on drugs, or nuts. Or all of the above. Or maybe I’m having one of those weird dreams that feels completely real. Whatever it is, I wish it would stop.

  4.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I OVERSLEEP, WHICH I HARDLY EVER DO. I skip my shower and get dressed in two minutes flat, a new record. I don’t want to be late for my very first class at Thorn Abbey, an English seminar called The Twentieth-Century Novel.

  I see Devon at breakfast, but only for a moment. She is just leaving the Lanyon dining hall as I rush in.

  “Sorry if I woke you last night,” she apologizes. “I got fucked up at Lise and Sophia’s party. And then I had this insane nightmare!”

  Oh. Mystery solved.

  “I was babbling like a crazy homeless person in my sleep, wasn’t I? What did I say?” she goes on.

  “What? No! Honestly, you didn’t bother me at all,” I lie.

  She gives me one of her dazzling smiles. “Good! Hey, let’s have lunch together later. Meet back here at noon? You
don’t have any plans, do you?”

  “Um, no. Lunch sounds great!”

  Actually, I’m incredibly relieved that she invited me. I was worried about having to eat alone in the losers’ corner, if this school even has one of those. Or worse yet, taking food back to the room to avoid everyone.

  I’m also relieved to know that Devon talks in her sleep sometimes. I never did figure out what was wrong with the heater, but it seemed to be working again by the time I woke up.

  Devon and I say good-bye. I grab a poppy seed bagel and scarf down most of it as I head to room 429.

  Lanyon seems very old and historical. The hallways are lined with faded photos: class of 1880, class of 1881, and so on and so on. Of course, I manage to get lost. There are so many sets of stairs, some of which go all the way to the top and some of which only go up to a certain floor and then sprout wings and annexes. The place is like a maze.

  I finally find room 429. The teacher, Mr. Bagley, is writing some stuff on the blackboard about our summer reading assignment, The French Lieutenant’s Woman. He peers at me over the top of his tiny, round glasses, then pulls a crumpled index card out of his jacket pocket. “You must be . . . ah, Tess Szekeres. Did I pronounce that right? Have a seat. We were just about to start our discussion.”

  “I’m so sorry I’m late, I got lost, and—”

  “No worries. It’s the first day of the new school year.”

  The room is small and college-like, with a massive oak seminar table and twelve chairs. I take the remaining seat, between a boy with short, coppery hair and a girl I could swear was Mila Kunis. Across from me are two blond girls I recognize from Kerrith. One of them stares pointedly at me, then types something on her iPad and slants it toward the other girl. I cover my mouth, wondering if I have bagel stuck in my teeth.

  Mr. Bagley turns from the blackboard and taps one of the words he has written—OUTCAST—with a piece of yellow chalk. “Please elaborate,” he says simply. “Anyone? Franklin?”