Sanctum (16 page)

“They missed one. Fall 1968,” Abby said, leaning over to read the spine. “It’s something, at least. Let’s hope Caroline published her article right after sending that letter.”

“And this, too. . . .” Jordan palmed something out of the dusty shelf space and handed it to Dan. He could guess what it would be even before his hands closed over the musty card stock.

A photograph, but this one was less composed than the others. Dan recognized the birdcage from the last picture, the one their follower had left on the ground outside Lucy’s house. But the cage wasn’t empty anymore. In this photograph there was a bird inside, but it was broken and bleeding, its eyes staring, red and white feathers torn and littering the floor under its claws.

Chapter 16

D
an’s phone chirped in his pocket, surprising him enough that he dropped his fork. It clattered noisily onto his tray, but that wasn’t enough to interrupt Abby’s host, who was in the middle of monologuing about her senior installation and the breakthrough she had made that afternoon.

“My brother finished his pre-med here,” Lara was saying, “but even that wasn’t good enough for my parents. They thought he would get into Berkeley, Princeton. . . . But the scholarship here was too good to pass up. Full ride.”

He groped blindly for his fork, glancing down at his phone to find a new text message. It was from Jordan, who apparently felt it necessary to text him from about two feet away.

Does she ever shut up?

Dan smirked, glancing down the cafeteria bench at Jordan, who kept a cool outward facade.

Dan’s smile didn’t last long. He could feel the weight of the photographs in his pocket. Who would be morbid enough to take a picture of a dead bird? He could see the parrot’s broken body whenever he lost focus and let his eyes close for a little too long.

“I think I might actually pass Psych 200 this semester,” Micah said, interrupting Lara’s story. He waited until Dan looked up to say, “Everything okay? I’ve hardly seen hide nor hair of you three today. Not sure you’re getting the full prospie experience . . .”

“We saw the library,” Dan deflected, picking at his mashed potatoes. The buzz of the dining hall rose around them, a constant blur of clanking silverware and laughter. “And the Commons . . . We got to wander quite a bit of the campus today, actually.”

“And Lara took me to her installation this morning,” Abby chimed in. “It’s exciting work.”

“You three coming to the carnival tonight?” Cal asked. He looked, in Dan’s opinion, exhausted, with dark bags under his eyes and a sickly cast to his skin. Jordan glanced everywhere in the cafeteria except in Cal’s direction, and Cal appeared to be doing the same, addressing every word specifically to Dan. “Probably going to be packed with drunk kids. Who knows what they’ll get up to.”

“Rowdy drunk kids aren’t exactly a rousing endorsement, Cal,” Micah said with another laugh. “But you’re coming, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jordan mumbled, swapping out his phone for his sudoku book and completely checking out of the conversation.

“Y’all are going to, uh, stick around this time, yeah?” Micah asked. Dan could hear the shift in tone, and shrank under the way he stared at each of them in turn.

“What are you talking about?” Lara reached across Micah for the pepper, then doused her food in it.

“They just . . . had an adventure on top of the party, that’s all.”

“Can’t blame ’em,” Cal said, shrugging. “That party was too packed. The carnival will be, too, I guess, but at least it will be outside. Let me know if you guys need anything to help keep you warm.” He stuck his thumb out and mimed drinking from it like a bottle.

Dan could see Micah’s face turning darker shades of red by the minute.

“A lot of students worked hard on this, Cal,” he said sternly. “The least you could do is show up sober. Anyway, there’ll be plenty to do. Midway games, food, a maze . . . The dance and theater kids have cooked up some skits.”

“The idiots in Student Affairs made me repaint the signs.” Lara tossed Abby a sarcastic glance. “Apparently my design was too macabre. Philistines.”

“Little kids come to this thing,” Micah replied. “I can kind of see their point.”

Dan’s eyes landed on Jordan’s sudoku puzzle, now half-hidden under his dinner tray, and he saw that he wasn’t even solving the thing, but simply coloring in the empty squares.

When their plates were empty, they followed Micah and Lara to the garbage line. Cal had already left, muttering something about pregaming, whatever that was.

“Well, us volunteers have to get on over to the carnival,” Micah said as they shuffled out of the cafeteria. “But you guys can wander by whenever you feel like it. Might want to get there early, before the lines get long.”

“We’ll be there,” Dan assured him.

They stepped outside into the cold, each pulling on a different combination of hats and scarves and gloves.

“Catch you later,” Lara said, waving to them, but primarily to Abby.

“Someone’s been busy,” Jordan observed, nodding to the path leading away from the cafeteria. The paved lanes crisscrossing the quad were lined with orange paper bags. A glowing votive sat in the bottom of each bag, throwing flickering, long shadows across the paths. Purple and black streamers decorated the dorms now, and plastic bats hung from the pillars and overhangs.

A few Halloween touches had been added to every building. Every building except Brookline. Dan stamped his feet, trying to coax warmth back into his legs. Behind him, he could feel Brookline there. He had to look, giving the asylum one quick glance over his shoulder. Just that was enough to send his legs wobbling.

“I’m wondering if we should ask Micah or Lara about the Scarlets thing. If it’s like a local legend or rumor, they might know something about it.” They ambled to the side of the stoop, avoiding the steady stream of students leaving the cafeteria. “Caroline’s article was pretty vague. . . .”

Dan had taken the copy from the
Fall 1968
binder, but it was hardly worth reading again. Caroline Martin must have edited the article sometime after writing her letter—or someone else had. Anything seemed possible.

Abby stuck her hands deep into her coat pockets and gazed out at the flickering lights along the paths. “If the Scarlets went to the trouble of going through the town’s mail, I’m sure their tracks are probably covered.”

“We have to find out where those archive binders about the warden went,” Dan said. He shivered, thinking of the boy leading him through the library. “Not just for what’s in them, but for who took them.”
And who left the dead bird behind.

“Maybe it’s our mystery computer programmer,” Jordan suggested. “If searches about the warden are locked, then it figures that those records would go missing, too.”

“I hate to point this out,” Abby said softly, sniffling from the cold, “but Professor Reyes is running that seminar on Brookline. The archives might just be checked out. It’s almost midterms, kids could be doing some extra studying, or the professor could be making copies for class handouts.”

“I know,” Dan replied. “It’s not much to go on. None of this is. We should keep following Felix’s map, otherwise we’re still at square one.”

A cold spike of anxiety lanced through Dan’s chest as they crossed to the academic side. The green in front of Wilfurd Commons had been transformed into a black-and-purple carnival. More tents had sprung up, filling the empty spaces between buildings. Students in costumes, reeking of cheap alcohol, pushed by them, stumbling and shrieking with laughter. The townie families stuck together, herding their costumed children away from the loud college students.

“Wow, did Tim Burton binge on Laffy Taffy and vomit all over this place or what?” Jordan whispered.

“It certainly is . . . whimsical,” Abby said. “I didn’t realize there would be so many people here.”

“Let’s try to blend in,” Dan suggested, which was harder than it first looked. The only other people not in ridiculous costumes were fellow prospies, who wandered through the Technicolor nightmare with their mouths open and chins tipped back, as they marveled at the tents, the wandering jugglers, the cotton candy vendors.

Midway games and popcorn stands lined the edges of the carnival, which seemed to be roughly in the shape of a circle. Lara’s repainted signs pointed the way to the maze, to a haunted campus tour, and to the juggling stage. Dan glanced down the wide lane to his right, spotting a low, basic stage where a few students in leotards balanced on one another to make a pyramid.

A bullhorn cut through the air and all three of them turned to see a plump blond woman shouting from the back of a parked pickup truck. Red streamers hung from the taillights, a white banner dangling between them that read “KELLY LANG FOR STATE SENATE!”

“We could check out the maze,” Abby said, trotting ahead. “It doesn’t look too big, might just take us a minute.”

“Do we need tickets or anything?” Jordan wondered, eagle eyeing a cotton candy seller.

“Looks like everything but food is free,” Dan said. He recognized a few prospies hanging around a fenced-in area where a professor dunk tank had been set up. Luckily for the poor professor shivering on the bench, most of the students trying to dunk him were having a hard time aiming properly, which Dan guessed had something to do with whatever was in their plastic water bottles.

“All right, I’m up for the maze, but let’s not get separated—these things always make me dizzy,” Jordan said, hooking arms with Dan and Abby.

They queued outside the biggest tent at the carnival. Masked students—no skulls, Dan noted—wandered up and down the line making halfhearted zombie noises.

“Are we scared yet?” Dan said, chuckling.

“At least it will be warmer inside,” Abby said.

When they reached the head of the line, a girl in a convincing bearded-lady costume led them into the tent, where it was, sadly, just as cold. Hay bales marked out the maze, stacked high enough that even the tallest person wouldn’t be able to see over and cheat.

“Good luck,” the bearded lady said, closing off the tent flap behind them.

It was dark, darker than Dan expected. Abby took a few nervous steps forward, herding them along.

“I’m already dizzy,” Jordan mumbled as they rounded the first corner. The only lighting came from above, a few fake lanterns anchored to the hay bale. A moist grassy smell drifted through the narrow lanes, dirt and strewn wood chips scattering as they ambled clumsily through the corridors.

Something zipped by to Dan’s right, brushing his shoulder. It disappeared around the next corner before he could get a good look, but the only glimpse he
had
gotten made his jaw tighten.

A red cape.

“What was that?” Abby whispered.

“I’m going on ahead,” Dan said, breaking off from the other two.

“Dan, no—don’t!”

Jordan’s voice faded behind him as he ran. Of course, the moment he went around the next turn he was met with a fork and had no idea which way the red cloak had gone. From the darkened passage to his right he heard a low laugh. His skin prickled, but he followed the sound, carefully tiptoeing around one sharp corner and then another. Very quickly, he was lost. Looking up, he hoped the shape of the tent above could help him orient, but a black swath of cloth hid the pattern in the ceiling.

“Lost?”

Gasping, Dan turned, coming face-to-face with the same red-and-black skull mask that had watched them before. He rocked back onto his heels, caught off balance by just how close the mask loomed to his face. In a moment of panic, Dan grabbed for the mask, but his balance tipped backward as the masked figure lunged forward, slamming into his shoulder and knocking him to the ground.

Dan scrambled to push back to his feet, dazed.

Another caped figure appeared next to him, and then another, and a fourth. They swarmed around him, laughing, close enough that he could feel the whisper of fabric as their cloaks brushed his face. Girls laughing, boys laughing . . . Dan couldn’t make out one from the other. He curled onto his side, shivering, but not before seeing a flash of rubbery white, a flash of blue. He recognized the shoe just before it landed in his ribs.

Dan winced. He knew those shoes.

“Cal?” he whispered, finding the strength to climb to his knees. The moment he said it, the red cloaks vanished, rushing off down the maze and out of sight.

He felt a hand clutching his arm and looked down, strangely detached from the physical feeling of the fingers there. The hand belonged to Jordan. Dan looked up, puzzled, feeling everything swimming in slow motion. Then Jordan pulled, hard, and Dan slipped to the side, back to the ground. He felt the world spin once and then he couldn’t feel Jordan’s hand on his arm anymore.

The carnival darkened, not just the light but the colors. Everything looked dim. He wasn’t staring up at a stilt walker anymore, he was staring up at everyone. The grown-ups made him feel so small.

Funnel cakes and popcorn. His stomach growled, but he had only a few dimes and he knew where he wanted to spend them.