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“I didn’t know that.” We hadn’t talked about what happened. I’d just never gone back to school. I’d wondered often how I could get away with not even seeing a psychiatrist or something when everyone thought I’d stabbed a girl’s eyes out with scissors.
“We are here to make sure that your return to Harrow is smooth. That you truly become a part of this place,” Iris said. “Which means that we will take things slowly.”
“We have ten months left until the Investiture,” I said. “That’s not a very long time.”
“In my experience, most teenagers consider the length of a single school term to be equivalent to eternity,” Iris said.
“Most graduation ceremonies aren’t life-and-death,” I countered. “If I at least knew what this Investiture ceremonywas, maybe I’d know how to plan for it.”
“It’s not that kind of test,” Iris said. “The year is so that Harrow can learn the shape of you, as you have learned the shape of Harrow. All the corridors of your soul. Either you are compatibleand the year gives you the time to adapt to one another. Or you are not.”
“And what if I’m not?”
“No one who has ever undergone the Investiture has been rejected,” Iris said. “If Harrow is going to reject you, it generally makes it clear well before then.”
Like by attacking me with crumpled-up monsters?I wondered. How much of it was Harrow that needed to accept me, and how much was the Other? And after so long, was there even a difference between the monster and its cage?
Both of them seemed to want to consume me.
Ten months was an eternity to survive. And no time at all to find a way out of this mess.
—
I was late getting to dinner, scurrying in after the bell—I’d been working on the fox skull, or failing to work on it, and I’d lost track of time. Everyone else was already seated. The only place setting left was at the head of the table—in front of a huge hideous chair with a carved back that made my eyes feel like they couldn’t quite focus. I gave Mom an are-you-serious look, and she winced sympathetically.
“Please, take your place,” Iris said, gesturing liquidly with one pale hand. I slunk over and lowered myself into the chair, letting its ridges dig into my back; it seemed impossible to get comfortable, to find a place for my fingers to rest. It was clearly designed to suit a particular vision, without concern for the organic shapes of a human body.
The first course arrived, carried by waitstaff who avoided meeting my eyes, just like everyone else who cycled through Harrow. I’d stopped trying to learn their names or faces—none of them lasted long anyway. Forks and knives clinked as we dug in.
“Not exactly an easy chair,” I said, wiggling to try to find a position that didn’t leave a hard ridge of wood biting into some piece of my anatomy.
“It is a piece of family history,” Eli admonished me. “Nicholas Vaughan had that chair built to his specifications.”
“He seems like maybe he had some control issues,” I said, stabbing at a piece of chicken that seemed determined to scoot across my plate, dragging a slimy trail of béchamel sauce.
“He had vision,” Eli said, sounding perturbed.
“What was it Dad called it?” Caleb asked, with a spark of mischief in his eye.
“Leopold had his opinions,” Eli allowed.
“ ‘A device as torturous in its aesthetics as its ergonomics,’ ” Mom said, quoting, and Eli sighed.
“You forgot ‘a crime visited upon this family for generations,’ ” Victoria added.
“ ‘Proof that Nicholas Vaughan had the mind of a mad genius and the taste of merely a madman,’ ” Caleb finished. The three of them laughed, and in their smiles, I could suddenly see how much they looked alike. “We only bring it out for formal occasions,” Caleb confessed.
“Your grandfather sat in that chair every day of his tenure,” Iris said. “It’s tradition for the Master of Harrow to use it.”
“Not every tradition needs to be preserved,” Caleb pointed out.
“Maybe if there was more respect for tradition around here, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Roman muttered.
“What mess?” Sandra asked, gesturing a bit too freely with her wine. “You’re just pissed you didn’t manage to kiss Leopold’s ass enough to get to sit in the ugly chair yourself.”
A muscle in Caleb’s neck twitched. Victoria sighed. “Come on, Sandra. The shtick is wearing thin,” she said. Celia stiffened, staring down at her plate. Desmond touched her wrist under the table.
“Which shtick is that? The one where I smile vacantly and pretend to be an empty-headed housewife without a negative thought in my head? The one where I forget I was partner in a prestigious firm until I quit because my husband’s fragile ego couldn’t handle it? Oh, wait. That’s you,” Sandra said brightly. The silence that followed was complete. Celia looked like she wanted to sink through the floor or throw herself out the nearest window. Desmond’s jaw flared. Simon and I cast each other half-panicked looks.
