At the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, there are typically seventy-six days in our summer vacation. That’s eleven weeks. Just under three months. One quarter of a year. I had allowed myself the summer to search and hunt and hopefully find the truth about why the Circle wanted me. The season had never seemed that long before, but right then it was like a black hole, threatening to suck up everything in my life.
“Mary,” I said, gripping the sink tighter and leaning into the light, “there’s someone I need to call.”
Chapter Two
I can’t say for certain, but I’ve got to admit that if this whole spy thing doesn’t work out, I might seriously consider joining a convent. Really, when you think about it, it’s not that different from life at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women.
You’ve got old stone walls and an ancient sisterhood, a collection of women who feel the same calling and are all working toward a higher purpose. Oh, and neither place gives you a whole lot of say on your wardrobe.
At noon the next day, the Mother Superior said that I could have a pair of shoes, and the sisters lent me a coat. The clothes Mary laid on my bed were clean and neatly mended, but they seemed entirely too small.
“I’m sorry but…I don’t think these will fit.”
“They ought to,” Mary said with a giggle. “They’re yours.”
Mine.
I fingered the soft cotton pants and old sweatshirt I would have sworn I’d never seen before. The clothes were worn, lived in, and I didn’t let myself think about all the living I could no longer remember doing.
“There,” Mary said, watching me tie the drawstring on the pants that fit my new body perfectly. “I bet you feel just like your old self, now, don’t ya?”
“Yes,” I said, and Mary smiled at me so sweetly that I almost felt guilty for the lie.
They told me I should rest, that I needed my strength and my sleep, but I didn’t want to wake up again and find it was past Christmas, New Year’s, that my eighteenth birthday had come and gone without my knowledge; so instead I went outside.
As I stepped onto the small path that led to the convent door, I knew it was October, but I was unprepared to feel the chill. Snow covered everything. The branches of the trees were heavy overhead, snapping under the weight of the wet white clumps, crashing through the forest. They made a noise that was too loud—like rifle shots in the cold, thin air. I jumped at every sound and shadow, and I honestly didn’t know which was worse—that I couldn’t remember the last four months, or that for the first time in my life I had absolutely no idea which way was north. I kept the convent safely in my sight, terrified of going too far, not knowing how much more lost I could possibly be.
“We found you there.” Mary must have followed me, because when I turned, she was behind me. Her strawberry hair was blowing free from her habit as she stood there, staring at a river that raged at the bottom of a rocky, steep ravine. She pointed to the bank. “On the big rock near that fallen tree.”
“Was I awake?” I asked.
“Barely.” Mary shoved her hands into her pockets and shivered. “When we found you, you were mumbling. Talking crazy.”
“What did I say?” I asked. Mary started shaking her head, but something about me must have told her that I wasn’t going to rest until I knew, because she took a deep breath.
“‘It’s true,’” the girl said, and shivered again in a way that I knew had nothing to do with the chill. “You said, It’s true. And then you passed out in my arms.”
There is something especially cruel about irony. I could recite a thousand random facts about the Alps. I could tell you the average precipitation and identify a half dozen edible plants. I knew so many things about those mountains in that moment—everything but how I’d reached them.
Mary studied the river below and then turned her gaze to me. “You must be a strong swimmer.”
“I am,” I said, but, skinny and weak as I was, Mary seemed to doubt it. She nodded slowly and turned back to the banks.
“The river is highest in the spring. That’s when the snow melts, and the water is so fast—it’s like the river’s angry. It scares me. I won’t go near it. In the winter, everything freezes, and the water’s barely a trickle, all rocks and ice.” She looked at me and nodded. “You’re lucky you fell when you did. Any other time of year and you would have died for sure.”
“Lucky,” I repeated to myself.
I didn’t know if it was altitude, or fatigue, or the sight of the mountains that loomed around us, but it was harder than it should have been to breathe.
“How far is the nearest town?”
“There’s a small village at the base of that ridge.” Mary turned and pointed, but her voice was not much more than a whisper when she said, “It’s a long way down the mountain.”
Maybe it was the way she stared into the distance, but for the first time, I realized I probably wasn’t the only one who had run away from someone. Something. In my professional opinion, the Alps are an excellent place for hiding.
I turned back to the river, scanned the rocky shore and the waters that ran to the valleys below. “Where did I come from?” I whispered.
Mary shook her head and said, “God?”