to say,” Emmy continues, “I hope you’re okay. After what happened with Byatt.”
“Thanks,” I say, and I hope that’s it, but she keeps talking.
“She’s in our prayers.” Emmy says it just the way Landry would, the same polished tone and rounded corners.
“I’m sure she appreciates it,” I say, rolling my eye. None of this is helping my headache, now dulled to a constant hum of pain. I’m used to it, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t rather have quiet than Emmy playing at being Landry.
Footsteps pull our attention to the door, and finally, there’s Welch, hastening into the kitchen, already fussing with the ring of keys on her belt. Where did she come from? Was she with Byatt? She doesn’t look any different than she did yesterday, doesn’t look like she’s hiding something. But after the pier, I know she’s better at that than I expected.
“Sorry,” she says as we crowd around her. There’s a crust at the corner of her mouth, something yellowing, the smell sour. Probably from one of those sores she and Headmistress get. “Bit of an issue. All right, who’s first today?”
Passing out food used to be oldest first, the way it is at every other school, the way it was before. And then we realized the oldest would always be the oldest. None of us could leave. Now we rotate through, year by year, day by day, and it’s youngest first today, which is why Landry’s sent Emmy. She picks it just right, so she always eats first. Cat and I are near the middle, with Julia and a few girls from Carson’s year behind us.
It comes to my turn, and I duck under the lintel into the pantry and step aside to make room for Cat as she joins me. She seems okay today, her skin mostly healed. For the first season we thought maybe that meant she was better. But the blisters keep coming back, bigger and deeper each time, a flash of bone visible at the bottom of them.
The pantry is built off the back of the kitchen. Boat Shift carry everything that isn’t taken immediately, back here after each trip, unpack and unload it into the trash cans for storage. Every day Welch drags one to the middle of the narrow room for us to root through. She counts what we take and writes it down.
Cat brushes some cobwebs off her jacket and sighs, looking at sugar cubes spilled on the floor from where Emmy probably snuck some out with her.
“We’ll get ants.”
“We’ve got worse.” I lean over the trash can, root through to the bottom where some girls try to bury things for themselves. There’s a pack of jerky—just what we need, but I hesitate. I watched the rest of Boat Shift throw away enough food for all of us. I shouldn’t take anything. I don’t deserve it.
But it’s not just me I’m here for. It’s Reese too. And we both need to eat if we’re going to make it to the Harker house tonight. “I’ll take the jerky, and that thing of honey mustard nobody wants.”
Cat grabs a box of melba toast and a packet of rice. She waits a moment before sneaking a minibox of raisins into her pocket.
“It’s Lindsay’s birthday,” she says quietly. “Please don’t tell.”
I check over my shoulder, to where Welch is leaning against the doorway, fiddling with the keys. She doesn’t seem to have heard.
“Sure,” I say. It’s the least I can do after the pier.
I show my pickings to Welch as I leave the pantry, do my best to keep my hands steady. How can she just stand there like nothing’s wrong? Like she’s not keeping my best friend locked up somewhere? I put on a smile, try to keep from wondering what’s happening to Byatt while I stand here in the kitchen, flecks of her blood still dotting the floor.
“All right,” Welch says absently. “You’re fine.”
I bite back the urge to rip the answers out of her, hurry out of the kitchen, back to the main hall, where I’m startled to find Reese sitting with Carson. She’s staring at her boots, and Carson is watching helplessly with that look I recognize, the look of someone beaten almost into submission by Reese’s impassive silence.
“Hi,” I say as I approach. “Carson, this is a nice surprise.”
“ ‘Surprise’ is the right word,” Reese says. I frown at her—it isn’t fair to snipe at Carson, who never knows it’s happening—and she shrugs.
“Morning” comes Julia’s voice