Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,30

You coming?”

“No,” Reese says, her chin propped on the edge of her bunk, “considering Headmistress will never let you up there.”

Maybe not, but I’m Boat Shift now, and I have the knife in my belt to prove it. If there’s an exception to be made, Headmistress will make it for me. “She’s my best friend,” I say. “It’s worth trying.”

Reese is quiet for a moment, and when I look up she’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite place. Not anger—I know that on her too well—but something softer. “I don’t know, Hetty,” she says. “Is it really friendship with you and Byatt?”

I’ve wondered. Of course I have. And I love Byatt more than anything, more than myself, more than the life I had before Raxter. But I know the warmth in my heart when I look at her. How it burns smooth and even, without a spark.

“Yes,” I say. “She’s my sister, Reese. She’s part of me.”

Reese frowns and sits up, swings her legs over the edge of her bunk. “Look, I get it’s not my business—”

“You apparently feel the need to comment on it anyway.”

“Because it affects me,” she says, and I’m taken aback by the sting in her voice, by the snarl of her lips. “I like Byatt, okay? But I don’t want you to be with me the way you are with her.”

“You don’t want us to be friends?”

Reese sighs like I’ve said something wrong, like there’s something more I’m supposed to understand. “No,” she says plainly, “I don’t.”

I can’t pretend it doesn’t send me reeling. “Well, that’s—” I start, but there’s nothing after, just an emptiness, and not as much surprise as I’d like. “Okay,” I finish at last, and head for the door. I can hear Reese saying my name, but I don’t listen, just yank the door open and hurry out into the hallway.

It shouldn’t matter to me. I have Byatt to worry about, and besides, I wrote Reese off years ago. Too closed, I remind myself, too cold. She’s only with me because she has nobody else.

The hallway opens onto the second-floor mezzanine, and talk drifts up from the girls gathered below in the main hall, their voices soft with sleep. A few of them will go back to bed once they’ve eaten breakfast. Sometimes that’s all there is to do.

But across the mezzanine is the door to the infirmary staircase, and up there somewhere is Byatt. I’m wondering if I can work the lock with the point of my Boat Shift knife when the door jerks open, and there’s Headmistress, stepping off the last of the rickety, narrow stairs.

“Excuse me,” I call, hurrying over. Headmistress looks up from the clipboard she’s carrying. As soon as she sees me, she shuts the door behind her. “Is Byatt all right? How’s she doing?”

“I think perhaps there’s another way you might begin this conversation,” Headmistress says. She’s dressed the same as always, slacks and a button-down shirt, her sturdy hiking boots the only concession to what’s happened at her school. In her slacks pocket I can spot the edge of a bloodstained handkerchief, the one she uses when the sores on her tongue burst. “ ‘Good morning,’ for instance.”

I stop and take a deep breath, fight the impulse to push past her. “Good morning, Headmistress.”

She smiles brightly. “And good morning to you. How are you today?”

This is torture. That’s what this is. “I’m good,” I say, through gritted teeth, and she raises an eyebrow. “Well. Sorry. I’m well.”

“I’m very glad.” She peers down at her clipboard and then, when she realizes I’m not leaving, clears her throat. “Can I help you with something?”

“Byatt’s up there,” I say, like she doesn’t know. “Can I go see her?”

“I’m afraid not, Miss Chapin.”

“I won’t even go into her room,” I plead. “I’ll just talk to her through the door or something.” I don’t care if I don’t see her. I just have to know that she’s okay. That she’s still her.

But Headmistress is shaking her head, giving me that smile adults always have in their pocket, the one that says they feel sorry for you in a way you can’t understand yet. “Why don’t you go downstairs for breakfast?”

This isn’t fair. This is my home as much as hers. I should be able to go where I like. “It’ll only take a second,” I say.

“You know the rules.” She locks the door to the infirmary stairs with one of the keys on the ring