The Devil's Labyrinth

had fifteen minutes, he wanted to get out of here now.

She did. Managing to affect a look of utterly genuine horror, she offered her hand to Teri McIntyre. “We’ve got to run. It was nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, Melody,” Teri said, taking the girl’s hand warmly.

“I’ll catch up in a minute,” Ryan told her as she headed toward the dorms. “I gotta say good-bye to my mom.” Then, as Melody disappeared and Ryan looked at the ground, an awkward silence hung in the air.

“Cute girl,” Tom said.

Ryan shrugged, but made no reply at all.

“She seems very nice,” Teri said.

“She is.”

“So it’s all going well?” his mom asked.

Ryan shrugged again. “It’s fine,” he said. “I told you it was.” He wasn’t about to tell her about all the strange stuff that seemed to be going on, and at least if he was here he didn’t have to watch Tom Kelly putting moves on his mother.

“We’ll see you this weekend, right?” Teri asked. “I’ll pick you up on Saturday and you’ll stay through Sunday?”

Ryan shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess.” Another pause, this one even more uncomfortable, and he looked up just in time to see a look pass between his mother and Tom Kelly; the kind of look that told him there was something they weren’t telling him. And something he wasn’t going to like once he did hear it.

“Listen, I’ve got to get to class,” he said, cutting his mother off just as she seemed on the verge of speaking.

She hesitated, then let her breath out like a deflating balloon. “I know, honey,” she said softly. “I won’t keep you — I’ve just been missing you, that’s all.”

“And I miss you, too,” Ryan said. “Look, I’ve really got to go before I get in trouble.”

Once again his mother looked like she wanted to say something, but once again she seemed to change her mind at the last instant. “Okay,” she said, taking a step back, and Ryan was sure she wasn’t just backing away from him, but from what she’d been about to say as well. “It’s been good to see you, even if just for a few minutes.”

“Be good, Sport,” Tom Kelly said, and held out his hand.

“Sport?” What was Tom Kelly doing, calling him “Sport?” Only his father had ever called him that. Ignoring Kelly’s outstretched hand, Ryan kissed his mother’s cheek. “I’ll call you about this weekend.”

“Okay, honey. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” he said. Finally relenting enough to give Tom Kelly a curt nod, he hurried after Melody, hoping she was waiting just around the corner of the administration building.

What was it about Tom Kelly that rubbed him the wrong way? He seemed like a nice guy, and he seemed to make his mom happy.

So what was the problem?

But of course he knew what the problem was: Tom Kelly was not his father, and never would be.

He turned the corner, and sure enough, there was Melody, waiting for him, and suddenly all thoughts of Tom Kelly — and his resentment of the man — vanished.

CHAPTER 31

MELODY CLOSED HER textbook and pushed it to the back of her desk — what was the point of even trying to concentrate on it when she’d just read the same page three times and still didn’t know what it said.

No matter how hard she tried, right now all she could think about was Sofia, who lay motionless on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

Exactly as she’d been doing for the last two hours.

But the Sofia that Melody knew hated just sitting around the dorm room in the evenings. She was always the one who’d rush through her homework, and always had a scheme to go do something fun, which always seemed to involve both boys and at least bending — if not outright breaking — the school’s rules.

It had always been Melody herself who had been the quiet, studious, well-behaved one.

Yet now there was this new Sofia, who just lay there, not studying, not even talking. Melody turned her chair around so she was fully facing Sofia. “I’ve got an idea,” she said, leaning eagerly toward Sofia and doing her best to make her voice sound as excited as Sofia’s always did when she was about to set out on some new adventure. “Let’s call Ryan and Darren and see if they want to sneak out for a Coke.”

Instead of instantly seizing on the idea, as she would have on any other day Melody could remember, Sofia only shook her head. “No, thanks.”

Melody let the smile on her face dissolve into the worry that was a genuine reflection of her feelings. “Do you feel all right?”

“I’m fine,” Sofia replied, but with a flatness in her voice that belied the words.

Melody moved from the chair to the edge of her roommate’s bed, but Sofia didn’t even look at her. She just kept staring at the ceiling, though Melody was certain she wasn’t really looking at it any more than herself. She tried again, choosing her words carefully. “If something happened to you last night — I mean, something that your parents or…well, something the police ought to know about—”

Sofia’s eyes flicked away from the ceiling and fastened on Melody for a second, and in the light from the fixture overhead they almost looked like they were glittering like a snake’s. “I told you, I’m fine!” she said, spitting the words hard enough to make Melody flinch.

Flinch, but not give up. “If you’re so fine, then tell me what’s going on with you!” she demanded. “First you didn’t sit with us at lunch, which was good considering what you did with your food. Then you didn’t sit with us in the chapel, either. You sat in back like you were afraid of the place. But after the service you went up to Kip’s body, and did that weird thing.”

Now Sofia’s eyes locked onto Melody’s. “What weird thing?” she demanded.

“T-Talking to him,” Melody stammered. Sofia’s eyes were boring into her so hard she could actually feel them, but she didn’t stop. “And not just talking to him. You were touching him. Touching his dead body! It creeped me out — it creeped everybody out.”

Sofia’s gaze never wavered, and her eyes seemed to be glowing with a light from within, like those of an animal stalking its prey in the dark of the night.

Melody shrank away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. You’re — You’re just so different, and I’m scared.”

In a flash, Sofia’s eyes dilated until the irises vanished and Melody had the feeling she was staring into a vast dark emptiness. “Just leave me alone,” Sofia said, her voice little more than a rasp.

“No!” Melody shot back, even though her heart was suddenly pounding with a strange panic. “You’re my best friend, and if you won’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to call Brother Francis, and then I’m going to call Father Laughlin, and if I have to I’ll even call your parents. Something’s wrong with you!”

Sofia rose up on the bed, and as her face drew closer to Melody’s, her eyes glittered and her features seemed to warp and twist, her lips curling back from sharply pointed teeth. Melody recoiled from the hideous visage, springing from the bed and backing away a step or two. But as quickly as it had come, the evil mask was gone and Sofia looked once more as she always had.

And now she was smiling. “I keep telling you, I’m fine. Nothing happened to me, and nothing is wrong.” She flopped down onto the bed, and sighed heavily. “Actually, I feel really, really good!”

Melody, heart pounding, stared at Sofia. What had she just seen? But even as the memory of Sofia’s contorted face rose in her mind, she wondered if she’d actually seen it at all. It had all happened so quickly —