The fourth floor is the ghost floor.
It"s the only part of school, other than part of the bas.e.m.e.nt, that never got renovated. You instantly know where the bathroom is, because all you have to do is follow the thin trail of smoke. The thick wooden door has a little W tacked on like an afterthought. I press my ear against it, but all I can make out is mumbling, some laughter, more mumbling.
"Knock, knock." I push open the door slowly.
There"s a sudden rustle of kids gathering their things together and putting out their cigarettes.
"Chill. I"m not Quinn."
"Sorry, we thought you were Umberto," one of Maddy"s friends says. She relights the end of her cigarette, and the little red light flares with every pull. "He came by before to clean the bathroom and gave us a five-minute warning."
Umberto is pretty easy to bribe as long as he knows he won"t get caught.
Maddy sits between two other girls. One girl has a short black bob and wears tons of pearls around her neck. The girl on the other side is less dramatic, with long chestnut hair and rectangular gla.s.ses. She digs her hand into a bag of neon sour worms. I can smell the sour sugar from here.
Maddy stands, clearly uncomfortable that I"m in her s.p.a.ce. "Are you lost, Tristan?"
"I was looking for you."
"Why?"
"Because I need to speak with you."
The girls scoff and snicker and grin at each other. Am I really that bad?
She looks like a blond Wednesday Addams with that dress and those stockings. She shoves me with her shoulder on the way out.
"Guess I deserve that," I grumble.
We stand just down the hallway, where the cigarette smoke only lingers.
"So talk." She c.o.c.ks her head to the side, so her braids look like uneven weight balances. I wish I had practiced. I wish I knew what to say that would make her hate me a little less. I came to school to find her, and now here she is.
"How long have we been friends?" I start.
"Since we started high school." She doesn"t even hesitate. "Why?"
"I know what I did was stupid. It was wrong. It proves that I"m an a.s.shole."
There"s a tug of a smile at her lips. "Keep going."
"And I"m sorry I"m the reason-"
"Trist, don"t flatter yourself. I know it looks like I changed drastically after we broke up when you kissed that s.k.a.n.k at the beach, but that wasn"t why. Not entirely. I"m tired of being the Amish lady"s daughter, the girl no one can believe you"d ever date."
My stomach turns into nuts and bolts. "I wish I could change what I did, but I can"t. The truth is that you deserve better than me. I was so caught up in how sweet you are, and how honest and different from other girls. I thought, why not? Maddy"s pretty, thoughtful-"
"Plus, I blew you."
My voice cracks, "Yes, you did. And, thank you. It was nice. Great, I mean. But, you know-"
She sighs. "Spit it out, Tristan. Do you want to be with me again? Is that it?"
Fine, now or never. "The necklace I gave you. It wasn"t mine to give. It was my mom"s. A real important family heirloom, and she asked me about it yesterday. So I kind of need it back."
She stares at her Converses. They"re all drawn on with black Sharpie. The laces on her right side are untied. I bend down and tie them for her but keep my eyes on her face. She has no idea how much I have riding on this. How much I actually need her to help me now. How I really wish I"d never hurt her.
"Tell your mom I"m real sorry," she says. "I"ll pay for it. I lost it. I-" She doesn"t finish. She walks away.
It feels like the hallway gets longer and she"ll never reach the bathroom door again. When she does, she glances over her shoulder to make sure I"m still crouched here.
I am.
I take the stairwell down one flight of stairs, but it"s blocked by three couples making out. They don"t even budge as I step between them and down to the third floor. Someone slams into me, pushing me against the hallway door.
"Watch it!" Some guy holds on to his pants as he runs away from two bigger guys. The halls are filled with more students cutting cla.s.s than usual. A poke on my a.s.s cheek makes me jump. When I turn around, I see it"s a girl I hooked up with once at a party, maybe during freshman year-Samantha? She walks around me and stands in my way. She puts her index finger on my chest. Her eyes are glossy. Her smile is wide and manic. She leans close to my ear at the same time that I lean away.
"I haven"t stopped thinking about you, Tristan."
"Thanks, Sam."
"It"s Jessica."
"Thanks, Jessica. Listen, I have to go." I try to step around her, but she blocks my way.
"I was thinking we could, you know, hang. You"re always so busy that I never see you around."
The smell that comes from her is like rotting fruit and the spearmint gum she"s chewing. I try to cover my nose politely. "Okay, how about I call you tonight?"
"Okay!"
"Good. I"ll talk to you later, okay?"
"I"ll be waiting!" She blows me a kiss as I run the other way, slowed down by the crowded hallway of students. Another girl calls out my name, but I keep moving forward. I make a left into the stairwell, where more couples are grinding against each other. I mean, d.a.m.n, there are plenty of dark corners in this old school without having to do it all together.
A loud pop crashes against the wall, right over my head, and breaks into itty-bitty pieces. It"s a peppermint ball. Or it was a peppermint ball. Then another. And another, until one finally hits me square on the forehead.
"I hate you!" she says. It"s Diana, from the tennis team. We dated briefly last summer. Her serving arm was impressive, but she never, ever stopped talking.
She"s holding a bag of a.s.sorted candy and chocolates, the big ones you get at Coney Island for $4.99. "Why didn"t you call me back?"
"Diana, look, I"m sorry."
"It"s Deanna!" She throws the bag of candy on the floor and runs up the steps.
Okay. I have to find my friends. This is beyond my level of strange.
I skid on the tiles when I round the corner to History. They"re gathered around the door. Layla is leaning against the wall. She smiles the way I haven"t seen in days. Her head is c.o.c.ked to the side, and she"s twirling a silky strand around one finger until it makes a coil of its own. She"s flirting. She"s flirting with Kurt, whose shoulders are relaxed and easy as he mimics the movement of throwing a lance. She laughs, but when she looks down the hallway to where I"m walking, her laugh goes away.
I"ve used the word killjoy plenty of times, but I never thought I"d feel like one.
"Well?" she says. I have her and Kurt"s undivided attention. For the first time, I notice that the couple making out in the corner is Ryan and Thalia. Guess he can"t ask too many questions if he can"t form a coherent sentence. Not that either of them seems to mind.
"She says she doesn"t have it."
"Oh," they both say.
"Yeah." I walk past them. I"m not going to add to my recent Strange Encounters of the Mer-Kind, because that"ll just add to the list of things I haven"t figured out. I can smell their disappointment, like flowers wilting in heat. An outstretched hand stops my forward motion.
"Must be careful, Mr. Hart, or you"ll walk right past my cla.s.sroom for the third time since your miraculous return." Mr. Van Oppen stands in white slacks and a dark green blazer over a crisp white shirt that looks like it resists wrinkles. He"s the only dude I know who can pull off all of that, plus a blue scarf tucked just so around his neck and into his collar. When he smiles, it"s sort of slanted, revealing teeth that look like he drinks too much coffee. His blue eyes are ringed with dark circles. I can picture him walking around his apartment, smoking cigarettes that he rolls himself and wishing he could burn our weekly essays.
I take my usual seat against the wall. This is the whitest of all the cla.s.srooms. The shutters are pulled tight, and there are curtains that don"t let in any light. It"s one of the few rooms that"s air conditioned, so it always gets the most requests for transfers.
There"s a small gasp behind me; it comes from Thalia. I guess even mermaids can"t resist his strange charms. She uses Ryan as a shield and pulls him to the back of the cla.s.sroom. Van Oppen is ruffled himself, like he can"t resist her mermaid charm.
The last time I saw Mr. Van Oppen was in my dream, something I would never admit to anyone. Layla sits in front of me, right at the front. I can smell her lavender shampoo and something else.
"I forgot your cousins were joining us, Mr. Hart," Mr. Van Oppen says.
Kurt walks in slowly. He sits beside me. He sniffs the air, and by the subtle growl on his lips, I can tell he smells something he really doesn"t like. Everything about him, from his shoulders to the way he b.a.l.l.s up his hands into fists, screams tense.
"Where was I? Oh yes, Helen of Troy." Van Oppen clears his throat and looks paler than usual. He stands over his desk and rifles through a stack of papers.
Bracelets jingle all over the cla.s.s as hands fly up. The girls know to answer just by the way he looks at them, all Yeah, that"s right, I"m calling on you.
A girl with purple-rimmed gla.s.ses leans forward so hard that I think she might teeter toward him. "Well, there was this thing on the History Channel about how this lady was trying to prove Helen of Troy was really real. But some text is missing. Or was it a building that was missing? I can"t remember."
"Ah, yes, the best thing about history is perhaps also the most frustrating. There are some things you can"t prove. Because the evidence has crumbled or washed away, or in some cases, it"s been hidden."
"So was she real or what?" a girl in the back asks sweetly.
The girl beside her says, "I"d like to think she was. It"s romantic that they went to war over her."
"Kingdoms go to war over less," Kurt says darkly.
"You"re right," Van Oppen says. He stands in front of Layla and lifts her chin with his finger. If he weren"t my teacher, I"d shove him off her. "Was this the face that launch"d a thousand ships, / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? / Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. / Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!" He hands her the handouts to pa.s.s along, and I can swear I can hear their tiny hearts fluttering all over the cla.s.sroom.
"That wasn"t in the reading," someone says.
"No, it was written by Christopher Marlowe. This story has fascinated people so much that they"ve spent their whole lives trying to prove it could"ve been true. They don"t have much to go on, but they chase all over the world for clues. Sometimes it"s something as small as a rumor about a distant island claimed to be the home of the oracle that warned Menelaus about protecting Helen."
That"s a thought. I raise my hand. "What do you mean, Menelaus and the oracle?"
"I"ll forgive the question, since you had a concussion for a few days. I"ll a.s.sume that"s the reason you don"t remember the reading on it."
"Uhm, thank you?" I go. "So what did Menelaus do to talk to the oracle?"
Mr. Van Oppen bares his teeth in a curious smile. "I do not wish to fill your head with fodder, Mr. Hart. The Greek oracles were girls chosen for their beauty. It was their burden, but it also was a great honor. The oracles would sit in a room with burning herbs and stones, the smoke so potent it would make them hallucinate. This would be translated as the prediction or sight. Hardly more than a girl"s delirious ramblings. It"d be like the president taking advice from a socialite tripping on acid, which, well-never mind."
"So you believe Helen might be real but not oracles?"
"I did not say that, Mr. Hart. I merely stated what I know about village oracles in ancient Greece." I just remembered why I always fall asleep in his cla.s.ses or take extended bathroom breaks. "Now, if you"re asking me about real oracles, that"s a different story."
Maybe it"s his sharp blue eyes, maybe it"s that he dresses like something out of a Jane Austen novel, or maybe it"s the slightest trace of an accent. Whatever it is, the cla.s.s is transfixed by his words.
Kurt shakes his head at me. It"s not like I"m going to pull off clothes to show my Spider Man costume and reveal my true ident.i.ty or anything.
Thankfully, Layla asks for me: "Did he just go up to an oracle and ask?"
"If only it were as easy as that. It"s not the high-school cafeteria where you ask Lourdes for extra fries and she gives them to you. You present the oracle with a tribute, and if she"s in a good mood, then she may give you an answer."
"What kind of tribute?" I go. And they say you"ll never learn anything useful in high school.
People start to whisper. He"s so weird. Good thing he"s cute. Can you believe those are his cousins? I don"t care what anyone says, green hair is so cliched.
"Half your herd of cows. Your second wife. The blood of a virgin. The usual."
The sharp whistle of microphone feedback slices through the loudspeaker. A small voice announces that all after-school activities are canceled. I know we have a meet tomorrow and all, but my head"s not in it right now.
Just then a sweet, soft hum fills the room. At first we look to the speakers, because it"s not the first time the announcer has left on the microphone while he"s jamming to his new-millennium pop collection. This time it"s different. The temperature in the room rises. The sound is like a lullaby, a pitch that wraps around you and leads you wherever it wants.
Van Oppen smacks a book against the desk. "Whoever that is, please turn it off. Now!"
But it isn"t coming from in here. It"s coming from the hallway. There"s a hole in my stomach when I fear that somehow Nieve has found a way to get me, that my dream after I fought Elias is coming true. I grab my bag for my dagger at the same moment that the door flies open.
My breath is caught in my throat.
I hold on to my desk, because I feel as if I"m trying to wake up from a nightmare.
She fluffs her messy white-blond hair, stepping into the room in a slinky black dress under a bright pink motorcycle jacket and heels that look like they"re made of sequins and glitter.
Elias"s fiancee.
"Hi." She leans against the doorframe. Her gray eyes find mine without even searching the room. "I"m Gwen. Tristan"s cousin."
They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.
-D. H. Lawrence Gwen.
So that"s her name. So sorry about your future husband, Gwen. It wasn"t my fault. There"s this sea witch, you see?
"Don"t forget about us." A sharp soprano voice echoes through the hallway. Behind Gwen is a cl.u.s.ter of girls, girls I"ve only seen as mermaids.
The court princesses are at my school. It"s one thing for me to have this secret I can barely keep from my friends; now I have to deal with the rest of the school. I"m halfway sitting, halfway standing. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Come, now, Tristan." Gwen steps forward. "That"s no way to treat your family." She hands Van Oppen a piece of paper, along with a smile that would have most men on their knees pledging their love for her. Not me, of course.
From where I stand, it"s just a blank piece of paper, but he nods with a tense smile and tucks it in with his other papers mumbling something that sounds like "more of them."