The Merciless II (6 page)

O
nly a total bitch would go after Jude
.

Sutton's warning echoes in my head. I didn't even know who he was, I remind myself. I didn't mean to stare at him.

I make my way alone to my first class of the day. St. Mary's is a maze. The hallways twist around one another and dead-end at strange places. Stairways seem to appear out of nowhere, and the light is so dim that I can barely see two feet in front of me. I get the feeling that whoever built this school wanted the students to get lost.

Once you're at St. Mary's, you never escape
 . . .

“Stop it,” I mutter to myself, pushing Sutton's creepy warning out of my head. A crow flies past the window, its shadow stretching long across the hall. A shrieking laugh booms from inside a classroom and then cuts off as a door slams.

I wander down wrong hallways twice before finally digging out the map Leena sketched for me. She went over my schedule after Mass and drew little stars on all my classes. I have a strange thought as I stare down at the paper—what if Leena intentionally drew the stars in the wrong places? What if she wanted me to get lost?

I shake my head, pushing the thought aside. I have no reason to mistrust Leena—she's been nothing but nice to me. I stop in the middle of the hallway and squint down at my map.

A girl rushes past me, knocking into my arm. My map and notebooks go flying.

“Sorry,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Wait!” I yell after her. “Do you know where Sister Lauren's—”

But the girl disappears around the corner before I finish my question. I drop to my knees and gather my notebooks.

“Hey—” The voice sounds like a hiss, and it comes from right next to me. I jerk my head up, but there's no
one there. I hug my books to my chest, and push myself to my feet.

“Hello?” I call.

Someone giggles. The sound rises, and then fades just as quickly. I hurry to the end of the hallway and peer around the corner just in time to see a door swing shut. The hallways are now completely empty. It's my first day and I'm late.

“Creepiest school ever,” I mutter, glancing at Leena's map as I retrace my steps. My English class is room 108. It's just two hallways down, which is strange. I could've sworn I was just there. I follow the map and find room 108 hiding at the end of a hallway. Finally. I hover near the doorway, listening to the students talk and laugh and greet their friends. No one looks at me, but I still feel awkward.

“All right, everyone, settle down,” Sister Lauren says, standing behind an old wooden desk. I didn't recognize her in her full nun's habit. Black robes rustle around her legs and a white headpiece obscures her short brown hair. A long gold cross hangs from her neck. I clear my throat to get her attention.

“Sofia! I didn't see you there,” she says, smiling. “Welcome to Junior English. Let's see, there's a free desk in the corner, next to Mr. Sellito. Go ahead and take a seat.”

Mr. Sellito
. I turn and see Jude crouched over a desk near the wall. He glances up at the sound of his name, but doesn't look at me. He's dressed like all the other boys now, in creased navy pants and a stiff white shirt, a plaid tie knotted around his neck. A dark lock of hair falls over his forehead, blocking most of his face. I replay the moment where our eyes locked in the chapel, and heat rushes to my face.

Only a total bitch
 . . .

I grit my teeth, forcing the words out of my head. I
didn't
go after Jude, so I have no reason to feel guilty. Still, Sutton's warning is stuck in my head. She seems very protective of Leena, and I don't want to ruin the only two friendships I have at St. Mary's. I try to ask Sister Lauren if there's another desk, but she's already turned to write something on the chalkboard.

People are looking at me. Someone giggles in the back row. I stare down at my notebooks and hurry to my desk.

“Let's all turn to page thirteen,” Sister Lauren says, dusting the chalk off her hands. She opens the top drawer of her desk and pulls out a paperback book. “Sofia, you're welcome to use my copy until we get you one of your own.”

She drops the book onto my desk. I blink down at it and, for a second, I think I'm seeing things.

The Tempest
. Of course that's what we're reading.
Sister Lauren's copy looks exactly like the one I have back in my dorm. A woman with wild red hair gazes out over an angry sea. I stare at the woman's back for a long moment, daring her to turn and look at me. To smile her horrible smile. All teeth and hair.

Jude shifts in the seat next to me. He still smells like the smoky vanilla incense that was burning in the chapel. I tilt my head to the side, pretending to stare at the crack running across the wall behind his shoulder so that I can study him from the corner of my eye. He's scribbling something in a battered notebook, but it doesn't look like notes. His handwriting is small and slanted and half the words are scribbled out.

He pushes his sleeves up to his elbows. He's wearing the same wooden cross he had on in the chapel, only he's knotted the leather around his wrist, like a bracelet. The cross is worn and shiny, as though it's been rubbed smooth by his hands.

“In this scene, Prospero and Miranda have just witnessed the shipwreck,” Sister Lauren begins. I tear my eyes away from Jude and stare down at my book.

The class drags. I've read
The Tempest
so many times that it's hard to pay attention as Sister Lauren talks about themes and imagery. My eyes glaze over, and my stiff new shoes dig into the backs of my feet. I can practically feel the blisters forming on my skin.

“Sofia?” Sister Lauren says.

The sound of my name snaps me back to attention. I blink. “Um, yeah?”

“Can you tell me why you think this passage was so compelling?”

My palms are immediately sweaty as I start flipping through the yellowed pages. The words blur together. “Um . . .”

A second ticks past. I narrow my eyes, pretending to study a line of text. I have this play practically memorized, but I have no idea which passage she's talking about.

“Come
on
 . . .” the girl behind me mutters. Another student laughs under his breath. I curl my fingers around the edges of the book. I want to sink down through the floor and disappear.

“
The isle is full of noises
,” Jude whispers. He tilts his head toward me, pretending to study the cross knotted at his wrist. “Caliban's speech. Act 3, scene 2.”

I feel an instant gut punch of relief. I wrote a paper on Caliban's speech last year. “This passage is compelling because it's so different from anything Caliban has said before. It changes the way the audience views him. They know he's a tortured soul.”

“Very good, Sofia,” Sister Lauren says. She writes Caliban's name on the blackboard, the chalk sending a
high-pitched screech through the room. “Now if you'll all—”

The bell rings, cutting her off. Students around me stand and gather their things. I twist around, hoping to catch Jude and thank him. But he's already hurrying toward the door.

“Sofia?” Sister Lauren calls from the front of the classroom. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”

I grab my notebooks and walk up to Sister Lauren's desk as she erases the chalkboard. “Listen, if this is about how I need to follow along better, I know—”

“What are you talking about?” Sister Lauren leans against the chalkboard. “I think you did a great job today.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“I wanted to talk to you about the school play. I'm directing this year and I thought you might be interested in helping out. We're doing
The Tempest
,” she says, nodding at the paperback in my hands.

I hesitate. Leena said she and Jude were in the play. I don't want her to think I'm interfering.

“I know it sounds like a lot of extra work, and you're probably already overwhelmed, but you should consider it. First impressions are important at St. Mary's, and Father Marcus looks more”—Sister Lauren hesitates, searching for the right word—“
favorably
on students who
get involved in school activities. He thinks it keeps them from getting into trouble.”

Sister Lauren smiles, but there's an edge to her voice. I don't want to ask what kind of trouble she's talking about.

“What would I have to do?” I ask.

“Well, the roles are cast, but you could help with set design. You look like you'd be good with a nail gun.”

The blood drains from my face. The sound of metal shooting through skin and bone echoes in my head.

“Sofia?” The voice makes me flinch. Sister Lauren is staring at me, confused. “Are you okay?” she asks. “I'm sorry, I was joking.”

“I'll do the play,” I say, swallowing and trying to dig up a smile. “But only if I don't have to use a nail gun.”

• • •

After classes are over, Sister Lauren puts me to work painting sets. I kneel next to a cardboard tree, adding some painted texture to the bark. Spotlights shine down from the rafters, their glare so hot that a tiny bead of sweat rolls down my neck and disappears beneath the collar of my school uniform.

A senior boy named Connor saws a two-by-four in half backstage, and two girls talk in low voices while sorting through a trunk of plastic props. One of the girls is named Alice—I recognize her from my history
class—but I haven't met the other girl. Someone practices the cello in the music room next door. Haunting snatches of music drift through the walls.

“Try to find the rhythm of the language,” Sister Lauren says to the crowd of actors gathered in a semicircle around her. Leena catches my eye and waves. During lunch, I told her I'd be doing set design and she squealed so loud that half the cafeteria turned and looked at us.

I lift my hand to wave back just as Father Marcus pushes through the heavy stage curtains, his dark robes nearly blending into the shadows. He fixes me with his pale blue eyes and frowns. The wrinkles in his forehead deepen.

I lower my hand, feeling as if I've just flashed a symbol of the Antichrist instead of waving to a friend. Leena mentioned that Father Marcus comes to every practice, probably to make sure that no one accidentally touches a member of the opposite sex.

“Careful. You're dripping.”

I flinch and whirl around, practically flinging my paintbrush across the stage. Jude leans against the wall behind me. The top few buttons of his uniform hang open, revealing the white T-shirt beneath. His plaid tie dangles, undone, around his neck.

“Oh—hi,” I say.

“You sit next to me in English, right?” he asks, his mouth twisting into a grin.

“Yes,” I say, looking away from his full lips. “About that, I wanted to thank you for—”

Jude shakes his head. “Hey, it's no big deal.” He snaps his fingers. “Didn't I see you during Mass, too? You were with Leena?”

Leena's name jars me out of my stupor.
Off-limits
. “Yup.” I turn back around and dunk my brush into the can of green paint. “And you're Jude, right? Leena's mentioned you.”

I put a little something extra into the word
mentioned
but if Jude notices, he doesn't show it.

“Hold up.” He leans forward, swiping his thumb across my knee. I flinch, but he holds up his hand, showing me a smear of green on his fingertip. “Gotta be more careful with that thing,” he says, nodding at my paintbrush.

The skin along my leg prickles. I adjust my plaid skirt over my knee, feeling suddenly exposed.

“Mr. Sellito!” Father Marcus's sharp voice cuts through the auditorium. He steps away from the curtain, the heavy cross swinging around his neck like a pendulum. Jude looks up and Father Marcus glares, pointedly, at Jude's undone tie. “Make yourself
presentable
.”

Jude's lips curl into a smile. He pulls his tie into a clumsy knot and buttons the top of his shirt. One of the girls behind me starts to giggle, but Jude doesn't seem to notice.

“Of course, sir,” Jude says, crossing the stage to where the other actors are standing. “Sorry, sir.”

Sister Lauren clears her throat. “Now that Jude's here, let's start at the top of act 3.”

The actors shuffle around to grab their scripts and move into place. Jude slides his own rolled-up pages from his back pocket. I turn back to my task, anxious to drown them out. I've seen more than my fair share of teenagers butchering Shakespeare.

“Jude, begin with ‘Admired Miranda,' whenever you're ready,” Sister Lauren says.

There's a beat of silence. And then, “Admired Miranda. Indeed the top of admiration, worth what's dearest to the world . . .”

Jude's voice rumbles across the stage and sends a shiver dancing up my spine. I tilt my head—just a little—so I can watch him from the corner of my eye.

“Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard . . .”

He even
looks
different. There's something about the way he squares his shoulders and thrusts his jaw forward. There's no mischievous tilt to his lips now. He gazes at Leena like she's something precious. My breath catches. Another drop of paint hits my knee, pulling me out of the moment.

I flinch and wipe at the paint splotch with my thumb, smearing it across my leg. I turn to see if anyone's caught
me, but Jude has entranced everyone. Even I find it hard to look away.

Jude's eyes lock on mine, and he angles his body ever so slightly in my direction. I glance over my shoulder, convinced there's some other, prettier girl behind me. But there's no one. He's looking at
me
.

“The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage brought my too diligent ear,” he says in that deep voice. Another drop of paint hits my leg. This time, I don't even look down. I've read this play three times, but this is the first time I've ever heard it performed out loud. It's beautiful. Like a love poem. I find myself wishing I'd gotten here early enough to audition for a part. I imagine myself standing across from Jude instead of Leena.