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“He’s beautiful. They come in the yard all the time, but I’ve never seen antlers like that.”
Saber took a deep breath and looked around at the towering trees contoured across the moonlit sky like skeletal figures. She hadn’t wanted to be here, in this unfamiliar, damp, mossy place, but there was something about it that was starting to tug on her imagination, opening her up, and pulling her into its alluring darkness.
3
The first thing Saber noticed in the Bainbridge Island High School parking lot were the European cars. Late model Land Rovers nestled beside old Mercedes wagons in neat rows, more than she could count.
Her dad had already preregistered her. Saber went through the excruciating, cliché ritual of being walked by an administrator to her new classroom, then standing in front of everyone to be introduced. Two-dozen faces gazed up at her, and, looking back at them, she saw that they were almost all white, many were blond, and most wore some blend of high-end athletic jackets, Patagonia hoodies, or frayed sweatshirts from colleges in California. They were remarkably like the “preppy” kids in ’90s teen comedies, set in a generic, monied West Coast that she’d thought only existed in film. They all looked like they were about to jump up from their desks to go hiking, catch a football, or take out their parent’s sailboat.
She, on the other hand, wore black jeans, a black T-shirt with the neck cut out, her frayed denim jacket, and red lipstick that she thought looked very French with her jaw-length bob and bangs. She had never thought herself particularly girly, but she was, perhaps, the only girl in the room wearing lipstick. Sheinstantly felt a full-body self-consciousness, like a cringe that wouldn’t subside.
“Welcome to AP Lit,” said the redheaded, riotously freckled teacher Mrs. Harbin. Saber nodded and smiled her shy thanks before slipping as silently as she could into the indicated desk. Glancing at the huge window (they were everywhere, she noticed, providing natural light), she saw a telephone wire strung with a half-dozen of the ink-black crows that seemed to be everywhere, all the time, watching and waiting.
At lunch, she was met with an uncomfortable surprise.
Everyone was really, really nice to her.
“Come sit with us!” a clutch of mostly blond, clean-faced girls called out, waving her down as she looked around furtively for a seat in the outdoor courtyard.
“Oh, ok,” Saber murmured, and slipped onto a bench beside them. Elise, a petite girl who had a round, childlike face and wispy wheat-colored hair pulled back in a ponytail, asked patient, friendly questions about where she was from and why she had moved to the island.
Saber ate her apple and some slices of cheddar cheese with the three girls, and smiled a tight, anxious smile, nodding as they chattered around her. They all went to the gym a few times a week, usually together, they all seemed to travel over the summer, and they all played some kind of sport, but weren’t even remotely bothered that she didn’t.
“You’ll find something,” Elise said. “Did you know pickleball was invented here? Maybe you’ll get into pickleball!”
They all laughed like that was the funniest thing ever.
Saber did not think she would “get into” pickleball, but she smiled and nodded anyway.
They told her about a party Elise was having that Friday night and insisted that she should go with them.
“It’s going to be so fun,” said Laurel, whose thick auburn hair was braided into two preppy French braids. She had perfect skin and was wearing an emerald-green sweater, a gold necklace with a tiny diamond pendant, and a gold-and-diamond tennis bracelet that couldn’t possibly be real.
“Yeah, I can probably do that,” Saber said, nodding, thinking that a party wasn’t such a bad idea.
“You really should,” said Sophie, a sun-streaked blond. She was wearing sunglasses and sipping out of a huge metal water bottle. Saber thought she might be sick or hungover, but that seemed unlikely.
Walking back to class, she thanked the girls for the invitation, and headed back into the main building.
“Don’t forget about Friday!” Elise shouted, and Saber turned to wave.
“I wo—”
Then she slammed into someone.
“Hey, what thefuck!”
A girl’s voice, angry. Saber startled and turned to look at who she’d run into with wide, already-apologizing eyes.
“Sorry,” she stammered, her heart racing. “I’m so sorry, I just—”
Then the other girl laughed. She threw back the longest, blackest, silkiest hair that Saber had ever seen and her dark eyes sparked in an elfin, mischievous way. She was wearing an oversized white T-shirt and faded, boy-cut jeans, a striking contrast to the girls at the lunch table.
“Woah, shit, I’m just messing with you,” she said. “Sorry, I figured you were someone I knew.”
“Nope,” Saber said, calming down a little.
“Oh my god, I must seem like such a bitch now! I’msosorry,” the girl said, laughing even harder. “My name is Lozen.”
