Shaking off the thought, Ollie nodded to his comrades, wading out and sticking his head beneath the surface. He lay down, letting the muddy water pour over him. Binah had wanted him for his “coin-diving experience,” but it was impossible to see anything and he felt the water up his nose. It tasted of grass, not salt, and it wasn’t the crystalline liquid of the sea that he was used to. It struck him as a complete fluke that anyone could have found anything under this water, though he desperately didn’t want to let Binah down. The only thing he could see was the moon’s reflection, but there was something strange about the scene; it looked like there were two moons on the water’s face. One of them was significantly larger and raised slightly, glittering.
It was right there, just about hidden under the water’s surface. He bobbed back up. “I’ve found it!”
It was Raphael’s turn next, the muscle who made a great show of pulling up the hatch. Raphael gently lowered each of them down the secret passageway, the water gently lapping at its lip. Binah first, light as a feather with her tiny frame. Then Percy, only a little heavier but still skinny and easy to maneuver. Raphael was extra careful with him, constantly signing and reassuring him, and at once Ollie understood what he was seeing.
These people, Lottie’s friends, had experienced things that had bound them forever, things that had meshed them to each other, and he was an outsider, only able to look in, like an ornament in a snow globe, watching the world around him but never being able to engage.
“Do you trust me?” Raphael asked teasingly, holding his hand out in an imitation of Aladdin.
“It’s not you I don’t trust; it’s my girth.” He was sitting on the edge of the hatch, soaking wet, legs dangling over, preparing to lower himself. “I’m a lot heavier than those two.”
But even as Ollie spoke, Raphael wrapped his arms around him and helped him down, not even blinking at the embarrassing intimacy of it all—he was far too confident for that.
“Told you I was strong,” said Raphael as he dropped down and closed the hatch.
“Yeah . . .” Ollie trailed off, once again regarding this ragtag bunch, clothes soaked through, the heat around them making little tendrils of steam. They looked like magic in the dark of the tunnel, a pixie, an elf, and an Adonis.
So what was he?
They began to make their way down the tunnel, splashing over wet stone, with Percy leading the way, all in an expectant silence, none of them daring to make a sound above their soft footing in case they were discovered.
Occasionally Ollie could hear what sounded like steps above them, or the creak of a floorboard, and his heartbeat would thunder, warning his body to be silent, even though he knew it was probably his imagination.
Binah pointed where there was a crawl space and they each got low. It was intensely claustrophobic, and for the first time in Ollie’s life he had a vision of true fear, a breath-stealing image of the ceiling crumbling over them, leaving them trapped forever. When they finally reached their goal, a cutout in the wall with a tiny door just like Alice might find in Wonderland, he decided to cross caving off his list of things to try. Binah held her ear up and nodded to Percy that it was safe, and so began Percy’s part of the journey.
His acquired ability to get around quietly and unseen might have come from a less-than-ideal situation, but now they were going to use it to their advantage.
The pale boy carefully nudged the door open to reveal wood.
For a brief moment Ollie thought they were walled in. But Percy, with an almost unnatural quiet, pushed the wooden object out of the way to make just enough squeezing space for all of them.
And they were in! Ollie was in Rosewood Hall, that mysterious world that had eaten up his best friend and turned her into a fairy-tale princess. The place he’d heard so much about, that always seemed like a made-up land. Now it was real. And it overwhelmed him.
The scent of roses and lavender, honey and peaches gripped him, sucking the air from his lungs and replacing it with flowers. Pungent, heady flowers crawled inside him, wrapping him up in a spell.
It felt as if the school itself were a spirit, and it wanted to know who he was and if he were allowed to stay. He thought he might never breathe again—it was too much and it made his lungs ache.
Then at once, like emerging from the sea, he broke through the surface and became accustomed to the scent, his head no longer heavy with the intensity of it all, and he looked up to see the others staring at him.
Shaking his head, he signaled for them to continue, but he caught the flash of Binah’s smile, and the knowing glint had him questioning what he’d just experienced. Without a word, he smiled back at her, relishing the brief moment where he felt like the school had accepted him, that he was part of the team.
They followed Percy through the grand school, moonlight submerging the dark wood and golden wall carvings in a milky glow. There was a groaning, the wind slipping through cracks in doors and windows like murmured voices. It felt like walking through a museum, the whole school an ancient relic full of ghosts, and they were on their way to find some of them.
Percy seemed part of the magic, and Ollie didn’t know that stillness like his could exist. He moved through the grounds like a shadow, his footsteps making no sound, not a peep as he passed through doors and gates, and sometimes the silence was so intense
