Evernight

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“I’ll try harder,” I promised.

“I know you will.” Mom covered my hand with her own.

On Monday, I went into English class determined to make a fresh start. We had recently started mythology and folklore, both subjects I’d always enjoyed. Surely if I could prove myself to Mrs Bethany in any area, it would be that.

Well, apparently I couldn’t prove myself to Mrs Bethany.

“I expect that relatively few of you will have read our next assignment,” she said, as a stack of paperbacks made its way around the room. Mrs Bethany always smelled slightly of lavender—feminine, yet sharp. “However, I imagine that virtually all of you have heard of it.”

The paperbacks reached my desk, and I took a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. From the next row of desks, I heard Raquel mutter, “Vampires?”

As soon as she’d said it, a weird sort of electricity seemed to crackle through the room. Mrs Bethany pounced. “Do you have a problem with the assignment, Miss Vargas?”

Her eyes glittered as she fixed her birdlike gaze on Raquel, who looked like she would have gladly bitten off her tongue to have kept from saying anything. Already her one uniform sweater had begun to pill and look worn around the elbows. “No, ma’am.”

“It sounded as though you did. Please, Miss Vargas, enlighten us.” Mrs Bethany folded her arms in front of her chest, amused by whatever joke she was playing. Her fingernails were thick and strangely grooved. “If Norse sagas about giant monsters strike you as worthy of your notice, why not novels about vampires?”

Whatever Raquel said would be wrong. She’d try to answer, and Mrs Bethany would shoot her down no matter what, and we could go on like that for most of the class. That was the way Mrs Bethany had amused herself during every class period so far, finding someone to torment, usually for the amusement of the students whose powerful families she obviously preferred. The smart thing to do would’ve been for me to shut up and let Raquel be Mrs Bethany’s whipping boy for the day, but I couldn’t stand watching it.

Tentatively, I raised my hand. Mrs Bethany barely glanced at me. “Yes, Miss Olivier?”

“Dracula’s not a very good book, though, is it?” Everyone stared at me, shocked that somebody else had contradicted Mrs Bethany. “It has such flowery language, and all those letters within letters.”

“I see that someone disapproves of the epistolary form that so many distinguished authors employed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” The click-click of Mrs Bethany’s shoes on the tile floor seemed unnaturally loud as she walked toward me, Raquel forgotten. The scent of lavender grew stronger. “Do you find it antiquated? Out of date?”

Why did I ever raise my hand? “It just isn’t a very fastmoving book. That’s all.”

“Speed is, of course, the standard by which all literature is to be judged.” A few snickers around the room made me squirm in my seat. “Perhaps you want your classmates to wonder why anyone would ever study this?”

“We’re studying folklore,” Courtney interjected. She wasn’t rescuing me, just showing off. I wondered if that was to put me down or get Balthazar to look at her. For days she’d been making sure her kilt showed off her legs to their best advantage every time she sat down, but so far he seemed unmoved. “One common element in folklore around the world is the vampire.”

Mrs Bethany simply nodded at Courtney. “In modern Western culture no vampire myth is more famous than that of Dracula. Where better to begin?”

I surprised everyone, including myself, by saying, “The Turn of the Screw.”

“I beg your pardon?” Mrs Bethany raised her eyebrows. Nobody in the room seemed to understand what I was getting at—except Balthazar, who was obviously biting his lip to keep from laughing.

“The Turn of the Screw. The Henry James novella about ghosts, at least maybe about ghosts.” I wasn’t going to start the old debate about whether or not the main character was insane. I’d always found ghosts really scary, but they were easier to face in fiction than Mrs Bethany was in the flesh. “Ghosts are even more universal in folklore than vampires. And Henry James is a better writer than Bram Stoker.”

“When you are designing the class, Miss Olivier, you may begin with ghosts.” My teacher’s voice could have cut glass. I had to suppress a shiver as she stood over me, more stonefaced than any gargoyle. “Here, we will begin by studying vampires. We will learn how differently vampires have been perceived by different cultures over the ages, from the distant past until today. If you find it dull, take heart. We’ll get to ghosts soon enough even for you.”

After that, I knew to shut up and stay quiet.

In the hallway after class, tremulous with that strange weakness that always follows humiliation, I walked slowly through the throng of students. It seemed as if everyone was laughing with a friend except me. Raquel and I might have consoled each other, but she had already skulked away.

Then I heard someone say, “Another Henry James reader.”

I turned to see Balthazar, who had fallen into step at my side. Maybe he was there to offer support; maybe he was just trying to avoid Courtney. Either way, I was grateful to see a friendly face. “Well, I’ve read The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller. That’s about it.”

“Try Portrait of a Lady sometime. I think you would like that one.”

“Really? Why?” I assumed that Balthazar would say something about how good the book was, but he surprised me.

“It’s about a woman who wants to define herself, instead of letting other people define her.” He navigated easily through the crowd without ever taking his eyes from me. The only other guy who had ever looked at me so intently was Lucas. “I had a hunch that you might respond to that.”

“You might be right,” I said. “I’ll check it out of the library. And—thanks. For the recommendation.” And, I thought, for thinking of me that way.

“You’re welcome.” Balthazar grinned, showing off the dimple in his chin again, but then we both heard Courtney’s laugh, not far away. He gave me a mock-scared look that made me laugh. “Gotta run.”

“Hurry!” I whispered as he dodged down the nearest hallway. Although Balthazar’s encouragement had helped, I still felt wrung out after Mrs Bethany’s interrogation. I decided to take a quick walk on the grounds for some fresh air and quiet before I ate. Maybe I could have a few precious minutes alone.

Unfortunately, I was far from the only one with the same idea. Several students were milling around outside, playing music and talking. I noticed a group of girls sitting in the shade, none of them apparently headed back to their rooms for lunch. Probably they were dieting for the Autumn Ball, I decided as I watched them whispering together in the shadows cast by one of the old elm trees.

There was only one person in the grounds I wanted to see. I recognized him from the first day, and Lucas’s description. “Vic?” I called.

Vic grinned at me. “Yo!”

You’d have thought we were old friends, instead of speaking for the first time. His floppy, sandy-brown hair stuck out from the sides of the Phillies cap he wore, and he carried an iPod emblazoned with a skin swirled with orange and green. As he loped to my side and tugged out his earbuds, I said, “Hey. Have you seen Lucas?”

“That guy, he’s crazy.” In Vic’s world, crazy seemed to be a compliment. “He cut out of study hall, and I was, like, what are you doing? And he was all, just cover for me, right? So I did, until now, but you’re not gonna nark on him. You’re cool.”

Since Vic and I had never even spoken before, how could he know I was cool? Then I wondered if Lucas told him, and that made me smile. “Do you know where he is?”

“If a teacher asks me, I don’t know anything. Since it’s you, I think it might have to do with the carriage house.”

The carriage house to the north, near the lake, had been where they’d kept the horses and buggies back in the old days. Now it had been remade into Evernight Academy’s administrative offices and Mrs Bethany’s residence. What would Lucas be doing there?

“I think I’ll take a stroll over that way,” I suggested. “Just going for a walk. Not doing anything in particular.”

“Ohhhh, riiiiiiiight,” Vic said, nodding his head, like I’d actually said something really sly. “You got it.”