Things were far from okay, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Not now, when everything still felt so raw. Avoiding her concerned gaze, I mumbled a noncommittal reply about being tired and climbed back into bed. Pushing all thoughts of August and my encounter with the mysterious Casimir Wrayburn out of my mind, I counted backward from a thousand until my eyes fluttered closed and sleep dragged me into darkness.
I awoke hours later,bleary-eyed and groggy, to the sound of Gwen’s soft snores.
Through the window, I watched as streaks of orange and crimson gilded the morning sky, gradually rising into a collusion of violet as the sun rose higher. My encounter with the strange boy called Casimir continued to haunt me. Each time I tried to drown out the thought of him, he stubbornly floated to the surface, bloated and obscene as a corpse.
Any remaining hopes of falling back asleep were shattered by the noisome cawing of crows outside of my window, so I decided to rouse Gwen and grab breakfast before the first block of classes began.
“C’mon Gwen.” I gave her a gentle shake and received a disgruntled growl in response. “GWE-EN!” I sang. “Aren’t you hungry?” As if on cue, my own stomach snarled noisily. “I know I’d just about kill someone for a waffle right now.”
At the mention of waffles, Gwen’s right eye peeled open.
“Come on,” I whined. “They’ll sell out if we don’t get down there.”
Gwen was many things, but a morning person was not one of them.
She unleashed a string of mutinous grumblings but then sat up and yawned.
I smiled.Victory.
As we neared West Campus, my eyes were drawn to a towering hemlock tree, its branches coiling upward like crooked gray tentacles that twisted starkly against the cerulean sky. A pair of rounded French doors that opened to the atrium greeted me. Ornate stone columns rose like cascading waves to support an architrave, adorned with botanical motifs and delicate floral details. The college was an ode to Art Nouveau in all its naturalistic beauty and imperfection. And yet, there was something grotesque in the immoderation of its design—untamed andunrestrained, wild and winding, replicating the natural landscape’s beauty and inherent danger.
Ouverham College and the eponymously named town were located on the Isle of Lorn, just off the coast of Maine. The campus itself skirted a slip of wilderness known to locals as the Lacunae Forest, a mile or so from the coastal bluffs. Aside from the college and a few grand manors dotting the cliffside, the isle consisted of a single pub, a few shops, and a seaside hotel primarily patronized by students’ families.
As Gwen gabbed at my side—something about an insipid fundraiser the college was throwing—my anxieties concerning Casimir returned with a vengeance.
What if he broke his promise? What if, right now, he was telling everyone who would listen that Arden Farrow got dumped? I groaned internally as I imagined the weeks of whispered insults and speculative glances I’d have to endure. Or worse, what if no one believed we’d been secretly dating in the first place? I gnawed on my fingernails as I hurried down a western corridor.
And why had Casimir been so fucking interested in my attending Ouverham? Asking all those questions… It was like he was determined to piss me off. But why? Was that just his sick idea of entertainment? The way his eyes had glimmered with amusement, his tone taunting… It almost felt like he’d been—but no. He definitely hadn’t been flirting; I was sure of that. But he’d gotten under my skin, which was probably his goal all along. The asshole.
I ground my jaw in irritation and resolved not to allow him a second victory.
We stepped through the wide doors of the Tusk in the hopes of securing a fat stack of waffles. Officially titled Norlander Hall, most students referred to the dining hall as “The Tusk,” a nickname bestowed for its curved, bone-like entrance doors, or for its notoriously hard biscuits, depending on who you asked.Two dozen long tables stretched the expanse of the hall, framed by arching windows, while wooden buttresses curved overhead like the ribcage of a whale.
With our waffles stacked high and our maple syrup secured, Gwen and I moved to sit at an unoccupied table to discuss last week’s Ancient Greco-Roman History class, taught by the odious Professor Skinner.
Bald, unpopular, and as prejudiced as he was power-hungry, Bartholomew Skinner had rubbed me the wrong way from the very first moment I set foot on campus, and I was certain the feeling was mutual. He was known for waxing poetic about the moral sanctity of rigid gender roles, often employing Greek mythology to support his outdated perspective. Enduring Skinner’s twisted, misogynistic versions of the stories I’d heard as a child was a special brand of torture.
During last week’s long-winded lesson, Skinner had droned on and on about Penelope, loyal wife of Odysseus, until half of the class was slumped over their desks. I think I heard Hugh Langburg snoring.
“He was practically salivating over Penelope,” Gwen grumbled as she drowned her waffle in syrup. “If Professor Tight-Ass had his way, all of us women would spend our days like Penelope—chastely dying of boredom while entertaining a host of unwanted suitors, waiting for our recalcitrant husbands to come home.Fuck. That.” She stabbed a section of waffle and brandished it with her fork for emphasis. “I mean, why do we have to studyThe Odyssey? Why can’t we read Sappho?”
It was no secret that Gwen harbored a deep passion for the ancient sapphic poet.
When I realized she was waiting for me to reply, I nodded in fervent agreement. “Oh, I know. I mean, he’s horrible. I’ve often wondered… do you think he gets off on the fact that we’re all forced to listen his misogynistic drivel?”
Gwen shot me a dark, conspiratorial glance. “Oh, hedefinitelygets off on it.” She popped a syrup-laden waffle into her mouth before continuing her fiery diatribe. “For those two hours, all I could think about was how Penelope was left to deal with her shit-excuse for a son, all while hosting dozens of suitorsandkeeping the entire kingdom together—” she swallowed thickly. “And what was Odysseus doing? Oh, that’s right, he was having a grand time on that island havingendless sexwith Calypso!”
“And after Odysseus finally deigned to return home,” I continued her thread, “He had theaudacityto doubt whether Penelope had remained faithful to him! He accused her of cheating with one of her suitors—when he didn’t even think to offer her the same fucking courtesy! How is that fair?”
“You know what?” Gwen said, her eyes alight with fury. “I’m going to say something next time. I’vehad itwith him.”
“With who—Odysseus?” I quipped. In that case, I’d say you’re about a few thousand years too late.”
“No, I mean Skinner,” she said seriously. “I don’t understand why the school still lets him teach here anyway. Like weget it, he wants to subjugate women like it’s 700 B.C.E. because he can’t find a single human female on the entire Isle of Lorn—or let’s face it, in the entire continental U.S.—that’ll have him?”
I laughed and nearly choked on my last bite of waffle.
But Gwen wasn’t finished. “If I have to suffer another moment of Skinner’s misguided vengeance against womankind…” Her threat disappeared into a grimace as she sipped from a cup of the Tusk’s poor excuse for coffee. “EvenIcan see the man has negativelevels of sex appeal.”