Thorn Abbey

For Jens

T
HE 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

“T
ESS, THIS IS
D
EVON
M
C
C
AIN
. S
HE’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.”

H
OW CAN
I
DESCRIBE
T
HORN
A
BBEY
? I
T 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 small group.

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