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“What?” jumped Claudia. “You don’t mean that.”
Delyse sighed and moved back to Avelyn’s bed. “You know that’s not going to work, Ave.”
Avelyn looked into her friend’s sad eyes and felt a sharp pain cut through her chest. She realized how selfish she was, thinking only of
how her life had been destroyed. What would Delyse do now? Would her father understand it hadn’t been her fault?
“I am so sorry. I swear I never meant for this to happen. I never thought that idiot would do something like this.”
“Don’t,” Delyse stopped her. “Let’s not talk about this. You don’t have to tell me what I already know.”
“If I get away tonight you might still have a chance to be chosen.”
Delyse entertained that thought for a second, but she immediately came back to reality. “You’ve already tried two times, and they both ended badly.”
“I was young then and I had no idea what I was doing.”
“Do you now?”
Avelyn changed her position. Her back had started to hurt, so she pulled the blanket off and crossed her legs. No, she had no idea what she was doing. If she did manage to make it beyond the gate, she had no idea what she would do next. The only solution that crossed her mind was to go straight to the train station and get on the first train that made a stop in Myrtle Valley. Later, she’d find a safe place where she could take her time to make a plan and travel to Italy. She realized that once she’d be on the train, things would be easy. The hard part was to get out of Alma Venus. Just as Delyse said, Avelyn had tried twice already. The first time, she was only 10. She remembered she had a fight with one of the teachers and she was so angry that she decided to run away. It was intended more as a punishment for those who had wronged her, than as an attempt to truly escape the boarding school. She had managed to trick the gate-keeper into letting her out. She had told him that the wind, which was blowing hard that day, had blown away her hat and taken it beyond the fence. The gate-keeper told her he couldn’t see it, but she swore it was somewhere among the trees. She looked innocent enough, so he allowed her to go look for her hat. When she didn’t return in ten minutes, he went after her, and he found her almost at the edge of the forest. But Avelyn hadn’t known she was so close to freedom. She thought she had lost her way. The second time she tried to run away she was 17. This time it hadn’t been on impulse, and she had made a serious plan. The idea was to climb over the fence, so she chose a good spot somewhere behind the school, where she thought that no one would see her. Only a couple of dorms faced that part of the fence, and the trees in the garden covered most of the view anyway. But, as she was struggling to climb the iron fence and drop on the other side, the gate-keeper and one of the Guardians flashed their lights on her back. They screamed at her to come down, and for a second she considered pushing forward, but she knew they would catch her later in the forest. That damn forest she knew nothing about. She always believed that someone had tipped them off that night, but she had no idea who it could have been. The only ones who had known about her plan were Delyse and Claudia.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “No, actually, I have no idea, but I have to do it. I have to try.” Avelyn looked at Delyse and then at Claudia. Amelia turned her eyes back to all of them and was studying Avelyn intently. Avelyn cursed herself for talking about running away in front of her.
Amelia saw the fear and insecurity on Avelyn’s face, and smiled. “All right. You can’t trick any gate-keeper, and I don’t think you can climb over the fence. Maybe you had a chance at 17, but now… I really don’t think so. No offense.”
Amelia knew all the details because Miss Delacroix had made it a point to not only punish Avelyn for her silly attempts, but also to tell the entire school about them to make an example of her.
Avelyn took a clean tissue to wipe her sweaty palms. “I know. I’ll have to come up with something different.”
“You’d better not tell anyone about this,” said Claudia giving Amelia a threatening look.
“Relax, I won’t,” said Amelia. “What kind of person do you think I am? And, anyway,” she turned to Avelyn. “You don’t stand a chance.”
There was silence again because none of the girls could contradict Amelia. They all knew Alma Venus was well guarded by two gate-keepers, and since Avelyn’s last attempt, Miss Delacroix had installed cameras to survey the fence around the whole school. She even considered installing some cameras inside the building, but then changed her mind, deciding that it wasn’t necessary. There were rarely any conflicts between students, as they were all girls, and the investment was not justified. Avelyn had been the only student who had tried to run away in the past 40 years, and she thought the cameras outside were enough to prevent that from happening again. So, there was no way of sneaking out without being seen, and all four girls knew that.
“Unless…” added Amelia, a wicked grin on her lips.
“Unless what?” asked Avelyn.
“Unless there’s another way out.”
“And is there?” intervened Delyse. Amelia’s weird behavior and unexpected words had grabbed her interest.
Avelyn considered her roommate’s words. She thought about them and, for some reason, Amelia’s suggestion made sense. The problem was that she couldn’t quite figure out how. There was something that she was missing, like the last piece of a puzzle which had somehow ended up under the bed and she couldn’t find it. She knew exactly where it fit, and she knew that if she found it she would have the solution. Then it dawned on her.
“There was this story… This medieval story about a girl who disguised herself as a boy to study here when Alma Venus was a cathedral school. Then, she fell in love with a monk and got pregnant. Her lover took her…” a bright smile lit her eyes and her whole face when she realized the legend made sense in the light of Amelia’s words. “… he took her in the secret tunnels beneath the monastery to give birth to her child.”
Claudia looked dumbfounded. Delyse eyed Avelyn incredulously and was ready to tell her the story sounded like fantasy, but Amelia was faster.
“So, you’ve read the legend.”
“No. Actually, someone told it to me. At that time I thought it was stupid, but now…”
“It is stupid,” said Delyse. “I’ve never heard of such a story, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I haven’t heard of any secret tunnels underneath the school either.”
“Yeah…” said Claudia. “They would have mentioned them in History, don’t you think?”
“Or, maybe, they wouldn’t have mentioned them anywhere,” said Amelia, “given that there had been other girls who tried to escape Alma Venus before Avelyn.”
