I smiled, so glad that all the uncertainty and anguish were about to end for her. “I guess you’ll have to show up and find out,” I said with a conspiratorial smile.
Constance giggled uncontrollably and slipped the invite away. Across the table, Sabine sighed.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, a sudden suspicion occurring to me. “You did get one, didn’t you?”
“Yes. But I just don’t understand,” she said petulantly. “I didn’t ask to be in some sorority. It’s just a dorm. A place to live. A place they put me. And now I have to go through all these tests and rituals, just to be accepted in the house I was sent to. It doesn’t seem fair.”
Constance and I exchanged a look. “You don’t want to be in Billings?” Constance demanded, dumbfounded.
Sabine lifted a shoulder, and I felt this weird twinge. This irritation at being rejected. How could anyone not want to be in Billings?
But then, Sabine was an outsider. She hadn’t had the superiority of Billings House drilled into her from day one like I had. She had never met Noelle, Ariana, Kiran, and Taylor. Never seen how seductive and cool the Billings Girls could truly be. She had just been shown through the door at the feet of substandards like Cheyenne and Portia
and had been either tortured or publicly humiliated every day since. Why
should
she look up to them—to us? To her we were just a bunch of random girls forcing her to do random crap for our approval.
“Sabine, if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to,” I told her, feeling almost sacrilegious, but forging ahead. “I’m sure you can get a transfer. There are other rooms on campus.”
Even though I’d hate, hate,
hate
to see Cheyenne win.
“Yes, but then . . . ” She looked away and toyed with her pen, as if embarrassed by what she was about to say.
“But then what?” Constance prompted.
“But then I would not be rooming with you,” she said, looking at me.
Now I felt a
real
pang.
“Aw!” Constance trilled, giving us both a little pouty look. “I was the same way last year when she left me. She’s, like, the
best
roommate.”
I laughed and shook my head. They were ridiculous, but I was pleased nonetheless. “Don’t worry, Sabine. It’ll get better. After tonight, it’ll get
a lot
better. I promise.”
Sabine nodded, seeming comforted. I only hoped that my promise didn’t turn out to be a false one.
NEW RITUAL
I stood between Vienna and Rose that night, dressed in my basic black skirt and a black ballet-neck T-shirt, my hair pulled back from my face. Rose wore a simple black dress, but Vienna was, as ever, busting out the top of a strapless black frock that could have been a pillowcase in a former life. Around us, the rest of the Billings Girls were gathered into a semicircle, our black taper candles flickering in front of us. All except Cheyenne, who had taken Noelle’s position before us. Her face seemed to be set in a permanent smirk.
We heard footsteps creaking at the top of the stairs. My pulse started to race.
“Here we go,” Rose said under her breath.
“Shhh!” Cheyenne admonished.
Rose rolled her eyes.
Finally, London appeared on the steps, wearing a slightly more modest dress than her Twin City counterpart. Ever-so-slowly, she
led the six new Billings Girls down the stairs and into the foyer. They were blindfolded and holding hands in a line. All in white, they looked like a string of freshly cut paper dolls. When London stopped, they all bumped into one another one by one, and even I had a hard time keeping myself from laughing. London slipped over to stand next to Vienna. Constance’s head twitched around nervously, and I was so elated for her. In a few minutes all her uncertainty would be over. I couldn’t wait.
“Ladies. Remove your blindfolds,” Cheyenne ordered, lowering her voice to what was supposed to be an imperious tone. She sounded more shrill than intimidating.
The girls tore off their white blindfolds. They looked around, confused and blinking. Constance’s eyes fell on the jewelry boxes that sat on the mantel and I saw her bite down on her lip to keep from smiling.
“Welcome, everyone, to this, the eighty-fifth initiation ceremony of Billings House,” Cheyenne said. “You will each step forward when I call your name.”
My candle warmed my face as someone down the line cursed under her breath, burned by hot wax. It was amazing, seeing the ritual from this side. It had seemed so eerie and important last year. The girls all so ethereal and untouchable. Now I knew they were just a bunch of girls who were stressing about their homework, picking their wedgies, and looking forward to the champagne stashed in the next room.
“Step forward, Astrid Chou,” Cheyenne said.
Astrid stepped up. Cheyenne handed her an unlit candle, which Astrid tipped toward Cheyenne’s to accept the flame.
“Ladies of Billings House, do we receive Astrid Chou into our circle?” Cheyenne asked.
“Welcome, Astrid! To our circle!” we chorused.
We had gone over it just before the ceremony, but somehow, it still sounded different to me. Different from my initiation. But then, a lot of this was different. I had been all alone. I hadn’t been blindfolded and dressed in white. I had been a last-minute substitution. And to be honest, the details of that intense day were still very murky.
Astrid smiled as Portia retrieved a jewelry box from the pile and opened it to reveal the diamond
B
inside. Astrid grinned and took the box in her free hand. Cheyenne touched her shoulder, steering her toward the end of the semicircle. She was now on our side of the room. One of us.
“Step forward, Melissa Thurber,” Cheyenne said.
Missy’s nose was so high in the air, she could probably smell tomorrow morning’s breakfast. We went through the ritual again.
“Ladies of Billings House, do we receive Melissa Thurber into our circle?”
“Welcome, Melissa! To our circle.”
I may not have said it so loudly that time.
Missy received her necklace and stood next to Astrid. We initiated Kiki, who was wearing her Easton tennis uniform—probably the only piece of white clothing she owned—and then it was Sabine’s turn.
“Step forward, Sabine DuLac,” Cheyenne said.
The flame of her candle flickered. Between the dancing shadows I could have sworn I saw a mischievous gleam in her eye. My heart skipped a beat, but I told myself I was seeing things. I had to be seeing things.
“Ladies of Billings House, do we receive Sabine DuLac into our circle?” Cheyenne asked, looking over at us.
“Welcome, Sabine! To our circle!”
All the oxygen was sucked out of the room. Rose, Tiffany, London, and I were the only ones who had spoken. The lobby was so deathly silent, I could hear the candle flames hissing. Sabine’s skin had turned waxy in the dim light.
“London!” Vienna said through her teeth.
“Sorry! I forgot,” London whispered back.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Portia’s sudden movement startled me. She grabbed a box from the mantel, opened it, and handed it to Sabine. Sabine’s hand trembled as she reached for it. There was nothing inside.
“Step forward, Constance Talbot!” Cheyenne said, hurrying things along.
“Wait,” I heard myself say.
This was wrong. This was all wrong. Constance looked petrified as she stood next to Sabine. Petrified but still somehow hopeful. I thought Cheyenne had caved. I thought my threat had worked. But this—
“Ladies of Billings House, do we receive Constance Talbot into our circle?” Cheyenne asked.
Dead. Silence.
“Welcome, Constance! To our circle!” I said loudly.
Constance received her empty box.
“Step forward, Lorna Gross.”
Lorna didn’t move. Her head was tipped forward. She was already sobbing. That was it. Never in my life had I seen anything quite this cruel. And I couldn’t help feeling that this was my fault. That I had been so naïve as to believe that my tactics had worked on Cheyenne. What had I been thinking? She was the only person I had ever seen get one over on Noelle Lange. It had only happened once, but it had happened. How could I have thought myself better than that?
“Stop this!” I shouted.
I stepped out of line and faced Cheyenne, shaking with barely restrained rage.
“Reed. Get back in line,” Cheyenne ordered.
“You uncontrollable bitch,” I said, my jaw clenched. “You can’t do this to them.”
“Reed! You’re disrupting an ages-old ritual!” Cheyenne lifted her hand to her chest, faking shock.
“Screw your ritual!” I shouted. I blew out my candle and threw it at her feet, where it broke in two. “This is
not
how your precious founding sisters would want this place to be!”
“Oh, please. Like you know anything about Billings and its history,” Cheyenne spat. “My grandmother was in Billings. My mother. All her friends. And if they knew how you and our new headmaster were trying to corrupt it, they’d be appalled.”
“I think they’d be appalled by you,” I retorted.
“That’s it. I’m done playing nice with you,” Cheyenne said,
stepping up to me. “You don’t belong here, Reed. No more than any of these losers do.”
“What?” I snapped.
“You know it. We all know it. No one here voted you in. You were Ariana’s pet project. She went over all our heads to get Leanne expelled and bring you in, but guess what? Ariana—psycho that she turned out to be—is gone now. And nobody wants you here.”
I stared at her, unable to find the words to cut through my fury. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
She was. She had to be. And yet, no one was coming to my defense. I stared into Cheyenne’s eyes defiantly, just willing someone, anyone, to stick up for me. No one did. Well, screw them. Sure, maybe they had all gone through all the hazing and ridiculous chores and tests, but I had nearly died to be here. Not another soul in that room could claim that. I was more of a Billings Girl than any of them.
“Uh, Reed?” Rose said. “Cheyenne?”
“What?” we both blurted.
We turned to look at her, and our jaws dropped in unison. Suddenly I knew why not even my closest allies had spoken up. Standing at the open door were Headmaster Cromwell, his goon Mr. White, and our housemother Mrs. Lattimer, clutching at the high neck of her blouse. The headmaster looked around, taking in the candles, the black and white clothing, the discarded blindfolds, and set his face into a grim mask.
“Well,” he said finally. “This is very disappointing.”
RINGLEADER
Headmaster Cromwell and I stared at each other across his wide desk. A fire crackled in the huge stone fireplace behind me, heating my back to the point of blistering. It was twenty past midnight. He and Mr. White had already grilled most of my Billings sisters. They had each passed me by in the outer waiting room, heads down, no eye contact. Not one of them had looked at me or Cheyenne, who was still on the other side of that thick wooden door. Waiting.
If he was going to expel me, I wished he would just get it over with. The skin on my neck was going to be permanently disfigured at this point.
The headmaster shifted in his seat, leaning back and placing one finger on his cheek as he studied me. If he was waiting for me to crack and start blubbering, he had no idea who he was dealing with. My stomach was folding over and over and over on itself like an intricate
work of origami, and I had to pee. My palms were sweating. My head pounded. My eyes were dry. But none of that mattered. I’d already read all the titles on the 234 tomes behind his desk, and I could do it again. He had them in alphabetical order by author, OCD man that he was. Perfectly in order. Just like the rest of his office. All right angles, gleaming glass, and freshly shone wood.
Behind me, Mr. White cleared his throat. The headmaster looked up. He adjusted back to his original position. Hands laced together on his desk. Expression stern.
“What was going on in Billings House tonight, Miss Brennan?” he asked in that imperious voice of his.
I smirked. “You’ve already talked to fourteen of my friends. I think you know.”
His eyebrows arched. Oops. Too pert? But we both knew this was a joke. Someone had obviously cracked before I even walked through his door. Constance, definitely, could never have handled this. So why was he even continuing with this charade?
“I’d like to hear it from you,” he said.
“I have nothing to say,” I told him.
He blew out a sigh. “Look, Miss Brennan, I’m not here to make trouble for you. I know your history. I’ve read your file. I hardly believe that a scholarship student from central Pennsylvania is the ringleader of this little sorority of yours. All I want to know is who that ringleader might be. Tell me that, and then you can go.”
I almost choked on a laugh. Was he really good-copping me? And even more ridiculous, was he really telling me that all I had to do was
give up the one girl I wanted to see booted from this institution and I was off the hook? It was almost too perfect.
“I know who it is, Miss Brennan. You know who it is,” he told me. “But I need someone to go on record with the information if I’m going to do anything about it.”
So it was up to me. No one else had given her up. That was what he was telling me. Shocking. Finally it had come down to me and Cheyenne. I could end this, right here, right now. Get rid of the girl who had stolen the love of my life. Make it so that she and Josh would never see each other again. Well, maybe not never, but at least not every day. Get them out of trysting distance of each other. Oh, how I’d love to take away any possibility Cheyenne had of being with him again.
But the more I thought about it, a cold blanket descended over my shoulders. As much as I hated her, as awful as she’d been, as easily as she’d tricked me, now that I was faced with the choice, I knew that I couldn’t be the one to give up Cheyenne. Doing that would be proving her right about me. It would be proving to her that I wasn’t a true Billings Girl. That I didn’t understand what it meant. Maybe I didn’t agree with all Cheyenne’s opinions on what being in Billings signified, but I did know one thing. Billings Girls protected one another. Even when they didn’t want to. I’d learned that from Noelle. Among so many other things. The only reason to turn Cheyenne in now would be to protect myself, and I had a feeling that I wasn’t going anywhere. As long as we stuck together, the headmaster could do nothing. There was no way he could expel sixteen of us without a negative backlash from the alumni and the press unlike any other.