“I swiped flashlights from the supply closet and you have snow boots on. Come on!”
Ivy’s excitement was infectious, and I grabbed my stuff and shoved it all into my bag. Pulling my hat down over my hair, I placed the book carefully inside my bag next to my computer and followed her out.
The snow fluttered down from the sky lazily, like millions of tiny, weightless feathers, tickling our noses as we hurried across campus. Our feet left long tracks in the snow behind us as we ignored the
shoveled pathways. My heart hollowed out when we passed the huge patch of dirt where Billings used to be, the front walkway now leading to nowhere. I averted my eyes and quickened my pace. I was going to fix this. Right here, right now, I was taking my first steps toward bringing Billings back.
When we reached the very edge of campus, Ivy and I paused and looked over our shoulders. There were only a few souls out on the grounds, all of them indistinguishable in the darkness, and none of them interested in us. They were too busy huddling into their scarves and coats, rushing back to the warmth of their dorms. We still had an hour before we were technically supposed to be inside our houses, but it seemed like most people had already hunkered down for the night. Ivy and I looked at one another in anticipation, took a breath, and ran. Our feet crunched through the untouched snow on this side of campus. It was slow going, even as we tried to hurry, and soon my lungs started to burn. With every step I waited for the shout—the voice telling us to stop, come back, that we weren’t allowed past the tree line. But, mercifully, it never came.
As we ducked into the woods at the top of the hill we slowed to catch our breath. The snow wasn’t as deep under the trees, the leaves carrying the brunt of the burden, and we flicked the flashlights on, following the familiar path toward the clearing. My heart pounded with nerves, excitement, and sadness as we came to the clearing.
“Reed? Come on,” Ivy said, urging me forward.
I hadn’t even realized I’d paused.
“Yeah. Coming.”
We slid over fallen leaves, ducked branches here and there, and finally came to the end of the pathway. Rising up in front of us was an old white clapboard church, the steeple collapsing in on itself, the steps that led to the double doors crumbling. Two fluorescent orange signs nailed to the doors had D
ANGER!
C
ONDEMNED!
stamped across them, but the two-by-fours nailed across the door had been pried free. One of the doors hung slightly ajar, creaking in the wind.
“Okay. This is spooky,” I said, shivering so violently I had to hug myself to stop it.
“Spooky, but beautiful,” Ivy replied, running the beam of the flashlight over the dirty white planks of wood. “Shall we?”
I swallowed my fear. This was for Billings. “Sure.”
We picked our way carefully up the crumbling steps and pushed open the door. It cried out in protest, and the noise rousted some birds—or perhaps bats—from their hiding places, sending them flapping into the night sky. Inside, the chapel was bone-numbingly cold—even colder, it seemed, than the air outside. We stood in the corner of the long, rectangular room and shone our flashlights across the small space. There were several dusty pews with a wide aisle down the center facing an old altar, and half a dozen wall sconces held melted candles, their wax frozen in drips over their bases. The wood floor was littered with garbage. Cigarette butts, beer bottles, old joints, crumpled fast-food bags. The place was a sty.
“I don’t really think my friends are going to like hanging out here,” I said wryly, taking a few tentative steps into the room.
“My friends would
love
it,” she said with a glint in her eye. “Of course, they would probably tag the crap out of it.”
I chuckled as my footsteps on the chapel’s aisle caused a cacophony of creaks and wails. Actually, I was surprised there had been no outright vandalism inside the chapel. Garbage aplenty, yeah, but no spray paint or anything.
“We have to use it,” Ivy said. “It has the history.” She edged her way along the right side of the room, down the side aisle, and peered through an open archway riddled with cobwebs. Apparently finding nothing of interest there, she kept walking toward the pulpit at the front of the chapel. “We could clean it up. Make it more livable. With all new candles lit and the wood polished up, it could be amazing.”
I took a breath. The stained-glass windows were beautiful and mostly intact, only a few of them cracked here and there. With candles glowing, and maybe some pillows and cozy blankets, the ambience could be just right.
An idea suddenly hit me like a kick to the gut. The third task. I’d been wondering what sort of chore we could devise to fit the requirements of beautifying or improving some aspect of the school. This was perfect. We could clean up the old Billings chapel—the space our sisters used to gather in—and make it suitable for ourselves. It was like someone had just wrapped up a huge gift and dropped it in my lap.
I smiled up at the high ceiling.
Thanks, Elizabeth Williams.
Ivy grinned, her face partially shadowed in the shifting light. “You’re loving me now, aren’t you?”
I rolled my eyes and turned for the door. “Come on. Let’s get back to Pemberly. We have a lot of work to do.”
I took one look back at the chapel as I stepped out, and a chill went through me. I paused, my heart in my throat, feeling like someone was watching me. Then I took a breath and shook it off. It was just the darkness, the coldness, the desertedness. Soon this place would be inhabited again, by laughter and conversation and light. Soon this place would belong to Billings again.
“I don’t understand. Why are you inviting Noelle?” Ivy asked.
She sat back against the side of my bed, holding an old-fashioned quill pen between her fingers. Laid out on the wood floor between us were several cream-colored cards and envelopes, which she had purchased at the Paperie—an exclusive stationer in Easton—the previous afternoon. It was 6 a.m. on Wednesday and we’d been working on the invites since four, trying to get them done before breakfast, chapel, and classes got in the way. My back was killing me from bending over the cards, but time was running out, so I just had to suck it up if we were going to mail these out this morning.
“She’s a Billings Girl. I can’t just not invite her to join the Billings Literary Society,” I said, holding the edges of one of the stationery cards between my palms as I inspected my handwriting. Altogether we were filling out fifteen invitations. One for each Billings Girl and one for Ivy. I hadn’t even mentioned the idea of inviting more people,
not wanting to risk too many of my friends being cut if it really came down to that.
“But she already turned you down,” Ivy replied, tossing her long dark hair back from her face. She leaned forward and carefully addressed an envelope. “Do you really want to get rejected twice?”
“Look, I know you don’t like her,” I began, “but I—”
“It’s not because I don’t like her,” Ivy said, fixing me with a stare. “I mean, okay, I think she’s the devil incarnate—”
I snorted a laugh. She didn’t join me. Damn. She was serious.
“It’s just, there are only eleven open spots,” Ivy continued. “Ten if we don’t count yours. There are already too many girls to begin with. The fewer you tap, the fewer will be disappointed.”
I swallowed against my suddenly sandpapery throat. Here it was. The conversation I’d been dreading. I placed the card aside and folded my hands together.
“Yeah, about that only-eleven-members thing—”
“Don’t even try it,” Ivy said, pointing at me with the pen. “We said we were going to follow every point down to the letter.”
I gritted my teeth and tilted my head. “I know, but—”
“There are no buts, Reed!” Ivy said, scrambling to her feet. “You promised we were going to honor the book, the original sisters. You can’t go back on that now.”
“But Ivy, there are only fifteen of us,” I said, tilting my head back to look up at her. “What’s the big deal if we let in four more? The whole reason I wanted to do this was to keep Billings together, not throw people out.”
“I don’t understand,” Ivy said, pursing her lips as she crossed her arms over her slim chest. “If this is just about keeping Billings together, why am I even here?”
I shrugged and looked down at the heavy note cards spread before me. “Is it wrong to want to hang out with all of my friends together?” I said, looking up at her again. “Including you?”
Ivy rolled her eyes and let her hands droop at her sides. “God. Sometimes I forget how mushy you are.”
“What?” I blurted, half offended, half laughing.
“You are!” She sat down again with a smile, shaking her head. “Listen to you. You sound like Anne of Green Gables or something.”
“That was one of my favorite books as a kid,” I conceded, toying with one of the pens. I used to fantasize about being whisked away from my family and adopted by stern-but-kind Marilla Cuthbert and sweet old Thomas. Anne’s life might have been a bit of a struggle—especially before she went to the Island—but it was a freaking cakewalk compared to having a drug-addicted mother with violent mood swings and a penchant for guilt trips.
Thank God she was better now.
“I was more into Stephen King,” Ivy replied.
I narrowed my eyes. “That explains a
lot
.”
“Shut up, Anne Shirley.” Ivy laughed and tossed the pen at me.
My phone beeped with a text.
Upton: Sorry for the delay. Math not my forte. Is approx 515 days. NOW will u tell me what ur wearing?
“What’s with the blush?” Ivy asked, angling to see the phone. “Is it a
boy
?” she teased.
“Kind of,” I said. “Well, yeah, he’s a boy. I met him in St. Barths. When I wasn’t, you know—”
“Left for dead on a deserted island?” she said, raising one eyebrow.
“Yeah. His name’s Upton.” I sighed, my heart feeling suddenly heavy as I looked down at the text.
Ivy twirled her pen between two fingers. “What’s wrong?”
I leaned back on my hands, my phone in my lap. “It’s just . . . it was fun while it lasted and everything, but he’s in England and I’m here. . . . I think it was more of a transitional thing. But I really like him and we said that if neither one of us had a boyfriend or girlfriend by spring break, we’d go to Italy.”
“Italy? Damn, girl,” Ivy said, impressed. “The only place Josh has taken me is the house on the Cape.”
Instantly, my throat crowded with jealousy. What was wrong with me? Here I was showing off about my amazing semiboyfriend and I still wanted
hers.
How selfish could I be? I picked up the phone again, hit the reply button and texted back.
Gray shorts and Easton T. Sorry it’s not sexier. But it is hot in here, if that helps. :)
His reply came in seconds.
You = sexy in anything.
I smiled. Even thousands of miles away, Upton was good for the self-esteem.
“Got any pictures?” Ivy asked.
I scrolled to a photo of Upton I’d taken on the beach the day before we’d left the island. He looked insanely hot in plaid madras shorts with no shirt, the ring on his necklace glinting in the sunlight, his light brown hair tousled with ocean water. Ivy whistled.
“Okay. Next Christmas I’m going to St. Barths,” she joked.
“Well, you can tell everyone I said hi, because I’m never going back there again.” I powered my phone down and set it on my bed behind me.
Ivy looked up at me tentatively through her lashes, tapping her palm with the end of her pen. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. “What happened on that island, I mean. It must have been so freaking scary.”
A huge rock settled in the center of my chest as the memories of the ordeal came back to me rapid-fire. “Not really,” I said, neatening the pile of finished invites, my fingers suddenly trembling. “I’d rather just forget it ever happened, honestly. But thanks for asking.”
“I understand,” she said. “I didn’t want to talk about the shooting for a while either.” She leaned forward across her legs, reaching for one of the blank envelopes, then suddenly winced and fell back again. Her hand, still holding the pen, hovered over her stomach. Hot white guilt flooded my veins.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Do you need something?”
“No. I’m good,” she said, then laughed. “So much for not talking about it.”
“Yeah,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say that
wouldn’t be awkward. I handed her the envelope she’d been reaching for. My throat was so tight I could hardly breathe. “Okay,” I said, looking Ivy in the eye. “Eleven members it is.”
“Yeah?” she asked, taking a deep, faltering breath.
I felt another surge of guilt and nodded.
“Yeah. There must have been some reason Elizabeth Williams chose that number,” I said, looking over at the book, which sat atop my desk. “I may never know what it was, but it was important to her. And it’s important to you, too.”
Ivy looked at me and smiled, blushing. “Okay, Anne Shirley.”
“If you keep calling me that,
you’re
not going to get tapped,” I told her.
Ivy raised her hands in surrender. “Fine. I’m done. Now let’s write these things up already. My butt’s starting to go numb.”
“Right. Let’s do this,” I said, resting another blank invitation atop my chemistry book.
Carefully I started to write out Noelle’s name.
Miss Noelle Lange
The honor of your presence is requested.
9:35 p.m. Friday night
Hull Hall
The basement
Enter by the south side window. Come alone.
Yours in sisterhood,
BLS
When I finished filling out the information, I held it up to check my work. A tingling of uncertainty wove through me and I wondered, just for a second, if we wouldn’t be better off if she did turn us down. Already four people weren’t going to get in. If Noelle bailed, it would be only three. The fewer casualties, the better, right?
Ivy handed me a freshly written envelope and I placed the invite inside, unsure of what to hope for. Noelle was the only one who could make the choice. I just hoped she made the right one, for all of us.