Rites of Spring (4 page)

Immediately, the chatter and backslapping stopped.

“The following was delivered to Hale by the caretaker of Dragon’s Head.” He slipped two sheets of paper out of the envelope and laid them on the conference table. One was a grainy, shadowed photo of black-clad figures in ski masks climbing the wall around the Dragon’s Head tomb. The other was a page from our class’s Freshman Facebook. My photo was circled in red.

My heart sank into my sneakers and I pressed closer, trying to get a better look. “How did they know?” I whispered. Very few barbarians were aware of my involvement with Rose & Grave. There was Brandon Weare, my ex-boyfriend, but he’d have no cause to share the information with anyone. Lydia, my roommate, but she’d never do that to me—or to my fellow knight Soze, who’d been her boyfriend since the start of the school year. And finally, there was Genevieve Grady, the old
Eli Daily News
editor, whose place in Rose & Grave I’d inadvertently swiped last year. Could she have let it slip?

Soze pointed again to the photo, and I noticed a faint red pen circle around one of the figures’ footwear.

“How many seniors have yellow Chuck Taylors, Bugaboo?”

Oh, crap.

Everyone now leaned in to look.

“You gotta be kidding me,” said Puck. “How can they even tell the color in the dark?”

Angel put her hands on her hips and faced me. “We were
supposed
to wear all black!”

“Well, some of us don’t have your shoe collection,” I snapped. “I can’t exactly climb walls in sequined black pumps or knee-high black stiletto boots.”

“No, but I’d pay to see you try,” drawled Graverobber.

“Me, too,” said Puck. He winked at me. “Knee-high stiletto boots? You were so holding out on me.”

Lucky snapped her fingers in his face. “Focus.” She turned to Soze. “What do you think they mean by this?”

Soze sighed. “It’s a threat. They’re saying they know which society is responsible for the raid, and, more to the point, they know the identity of at least one of the knights involved.”

“So?” asked Thorndike with a shrug. “We want to negotiate with them anyway. Our statue for, uh, the location of theirs.”

“But that was before they could pick Bugaboo out of a lineup,” said Bond. “Now they could force us to return the dragon without giving up our statue in return.”

Man, and here I thought we’d make it through the end of the school year sans any more barbarian scandals. “How?”

“I don’t know,” said Bond. “But whatever it is, they’ll do it to you.”

The missive from Dragon’s Head dampened the mood of the evening, and no one felt much like hanging out once the meeting dismissed. After taking a rain check on a planned game of Kaboodle Ball (despite protests from George) the members of the club headed our separate ways. Josh accompanied me back to Prescott College, on a pretense of seeing his girlfriend and my roommate.

“Feeling okay?” he asked.

I shrugged inside my winter coat. Once again, I’d shown how very appropriate my society name was. I’d screwed up the raid for everyone. Poe had cracked his head open for nothing. “Do you think Greg was right, that they’ll come after me unless we give them what they want?”

“Probably,” Josh said in a hushed tone, as we passed the Dragon’s Head tomb.

“I hate the idea of capitulation.” I kicked the snow, caught sight of my sneakers, and grimaced.

“Really? Wait, you wouldn’t be Amy Haskel, by any chance, would you?” He grinned. “I’m inclined to say it’s up to you what we do. I don’t want to give in either, but then again, I’m not the one with the target on my back.”

“But what could they actually do to me?” I asked, swiping my proximity card at the Prescott College gate. “What would we do, if the situation were reversed?”

“The usual: murder, mayhem, total annihilation of our victim and anyone she’s ever loved.”

“That’s it? Piece of cake.”

We walked up the steps to the suite I shared with Lydia. Josh paused at the door. “Seriously, though, they’ll probably start by publicizing your Digger status.”

I twirled my finger in the air. “Whoop-de-doo. Worse things could happen. Heck, it might even help me get into grad school.”

“Or…” He hesitated at the door. “They might press charges against you for breaking and entering.”

That one stopped me in my tracks.

“And the related theft,” Josh added. “They have a picture with identifying features, you probably left fingerprints somewhere in the building, and I don’t want to know how valuable that dragon is.”

“That probably
wouldn’t
help with my grad school apps.” I could feel a headache coming on. “But wouldn’t they have to let the police into their tomb, let all sort of stuff become public?”

Josh sighed. “I really don’t know how the rules work at Dragon’s Head. I know the policy of the Diggers is to keep as many of our activities below the radar as possible—not to involve the barbarian world in whatever happens on the inside of our organization. We wouldn’t risk opening the tomb up to scrutiny to get a statue back. We’d find another way to deal with it. But Dragon’s Head? Who knows?”

“Okay, okay,” I said, grasping at straws. Orange jumpsuits weren’t really my thing. “But I thought the cops tended to look the other way when it came to society pranks.”

“Yes.
Tend.
”

“Josh, I must say, you aren’t exactly the embodiment of comfort at this moment.”

The door flew open and Lydia stood on the other side. “I beg to differ,” she said. “He’s my favorite bodily comfort. Now, exactly how long have you guys been standing here, hatching secret plots?”

Josh kissed her on the forehead. “The real question is how long you’ve been standing here listening to us hatch our secret plots.”

“Not long enough, unfortunately.” She pulled his head down for a real kiss.

I trailed the sickeningly sweet couple into the wood-paneled common room, dropped my coat on the couch, and followed after it. Josh took the recliner on the other side of the coffee table, and Lydia perched on its arm, resting her hand on the back so as to be in easy finger-twirling distance of her boyfriend’s hair.

Do I sound bitter? I don’t mean to. But here are the things you need to know about Lydia:

1)
She’s been my best friend and roommate for years, and we’ve seen each other through everything—I mean
everything
—from highly inappropriate relationships with T.A.s (not mine!) to regrettable anonymous one-night stands (guilty as charged).

2)
Up until this past fall, her love life was every bit as disastrous and strewn with little pieces of ventricle and aorta as mine. Then she met Josh, a man whose own romantic history left much to be desired, and they both fell hard.

3)
Ever since, she’s been engaging in the type of coupley behavior we used to scoff at: hair-twirling, lap-sitting, “honey-bunny-ing,” and other nonsense.

4)
Once, during exam period in December, I even caught her laundering his boxer shorts.

I love the girl, but she needs to remember that this is New Haven, not Stepford. As they cuddled, I put my feet up on the coffee table and toed off my sneakers. Josh cast them a pointed glance.

“Perhaps a change of footwear for the time being?” he said. “No point making it worse.”

I sighed and looked at Lydia with imploring eyes. “Josh says I can’t wear my sneakers.”

Lydia traced her fingertip around his ear. “Since when do you get fashion advice from Josh?”

“Since now. Can I borrow your fabulous brown boots?”

“No, because they
are
fabulous and I want them to stay that way at least until Easter. The slush outside will ruin the finish in a day and a half.” She looked from me to Josh and back again. “Is this one of your new rules? No metal, no sulfur, and now…no sneakers?”

“Could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” Josh replied with a smug smile.

This was par for the course in our suite since the big reveal in November. Lydia teased Josh and me mercilessly because she knew we were in Rose & Grave, and we, for her amusement, played the parts of obnoxious, secretive society types. At times, Josh even affected an accent he said was James Spader–esque but I insisted was a lot closer to adenoidal.

On the whole, however, I considered myself pretty lucky that Lydia had picked Josh as my roommate-in-law. I had friends whose inter-suite romantic trauma had been so intense, they’d actually made their bunkmate choose: either the suite, or the significant other.

“Speaking of Easter,” Lydia said, tiring of the game a little early tonight. “We need to finalize those plane flights before the prices go through the roof.”

“Flights?” I asked.

Lydia looked a little guilty. “Yeah. Josh and I are going to Barcelona for Spring Break.”

Some might be surprised to learn that the look of betrayal on my face was not directed at my roommate and best friend, with whom I had spent my last three Spring Breaks. I’d told her back in the fall semester that I’d be occupied.

But
Josh
was supposed to be occupied right along with me.

“But…” I began, then broke off. What could I say?
Oh, Lydia, don’t be silly. Of course Josh isn’t going with you, his loving girlfriend, on a romantic getaway to Europe to consume gazpacho and rioja and dance to guitars on streets covered in bougainvillea and orange blossoms. He’s got to go hang out in an undisclosed and possibly underground location with the Diggers, none of whom is giving him sex
or
rioja, and discuss those secret world domination plots of ours. Sounds fun, huh?

“Wow,” I said at last. “How exciting.”

Apparently, Lydia wasn’t entirely convinced by my ecstatic tone. “Well, you said you couldn’t—”

Yeah, but I didn’t realize how much the idea of my best friend jaunting off to Spain with her
lovah
was going to hurt. All of a sudden, I felt very hot inside my turtleneck sweater. I wanted bougainvillea and orange blossoms. I wanted rioja and gazpacho. I wanted to know why the hell Josh was ditching the Diggers. Wasn’t he supposed to place us above all others?

“What, I’m not enough for you, Lydia?” Josh cut in before I could grill him. “I thought this was supposed to be a
romantic
getaway you were dragging me on.”

“With all the museum trips you have planned?” Lydia rolled her eyes. “Guernico is not romantic.”

“It’s
Guernic
a, and that’s in Madrid, so don’t worry about it.” Josh pulled her onto his lap. “You’re thinking of Gaudi, whose art we will be seeing a lot of, and whom you shall learn to love, my sweet.
La Sagrada Familia. Colegio Teresiano. Palau Güell…
” He began to nuzzle her neck.

Hint taken. Plus, if possible, I was even less interested than Lydia in a lecture about Spanish art, so I chose that moment to adjourn to my room. No sooner had the door shut behind me than I heard Lydia hiss in a whisper to Josh, “Don’t do that in front of Amy.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” She hesitated. “I feel bad. She hasn’t had a boyfriend in a while…”

Oh, no. I sank into my desk chair. They weren’t going to be one of those couples who liked to gossip about a single friend’s lack of love life behind her back, were they? Of course, Josh knew exactly how long it had been since I had a date—he’d even warned me against my short-lived affair with George last semester. But still, it rankled. Especially if they were going to talk behind my back
within earshot
.

“She’s got bad luck with men,” Lydia continued.

“I beg to differ,” said Josh. True. A lot of women I knew would think I’d been very lucky indeed to snag George, even for a little while. I rolled closer to the door to listen in.

“Don’t you know any nice guys for her?” Lydia was asking. “We could double date.”

“Look,” Josh said, a note of annoyance creeping into his voice, “it’s not my responsibility to play Cupid for my—er—girlfriend’s roommate.”

“She’s not
just
your girlfriend’s roommate, though, is she?” Lydia cajoled.

“This conversation is officially over.”

Hey! No! It was just getting good! Why didn’t Josh want to set me up with anyone? Didn’t he think I was cute enough for any of his friends? Or did he have another problem with me? Was it my, um,
experience
with George? I was ready to burst back out and ask him what he meant, when Lydia spoke again.

“No need to get bent out of shape. I can understand your concern. She does have a tendency to self-sabotage all of her relationships. Like last year, she was seeing this great guy—”

“Brandon.”

“Right, of course you know.”

And he had made several vows to the effect that he wasn’t supposed to let anyone
know
that he knew! Josh! Man, I had him so bad. The fines I’d level on him at the next meeting—he’d better hope flights to Barcelona weren’t pricey!

“Anyway, you should have seen them together. They were so perfect. But of course she botched it up,” Lydia added. “Oh, that reminds me.” She shouted, “Amy!”