Veronica and I stayed up whispering to each other, sitting on the hotel room floor between our two beds, talking about all the things we were going to do.
For a week, Veronica and I had belonged entirely to each other, fated best friends. Then Delphine arrived, wearing a painfully pretentious little tweed capelet, skirt, and red beret. Her black stockings had a run in them, splitting open at the back of her calf. Delphine had started following us around, trying to join our little duo. I wanted it to be just the two of us, forever. So I’d studiously ignored my prim and proper roommate, and when Veronica suggested we sneak out to jump the Narrow, I didn’t tell Delphine. I thought the jump would be something for just the two of us, to bond us together forever. I was right, in a way.
We sneaked out together, leaving Delphine asleep in her bed. Or so we thought.
We stood on the banks together and held hands. We counted to three, and then, as one, we jumped—and Atwood caught us. I could feel every inch of Veronica’s skin as if it was my own. And I could feel her feeling the threads of Atwood’s magic wrapping themselves around us. We turned to each other with wonder in our eyes.
“Did you feel that?” Veronica whispered.
“I felt it. What was it?” I asked.
She shivered. “Something wonderful,” she said.
That was when we saw her.
Delphine was standing at the very edge of the water, at a place where a boulder jutted out a bit more than the others. She wore flannel pajamas that were a touch too long, the sleeves engulfing her hands.
She must have followed us.
“Oh shit. She’s going to jump,” Veronica said.
“That’s not even the right spot. It’s too far,” I said, moving on instinct to intercept her.
But Delphine backed up two steps and set her feet. She launched herself forward. One step, two, and then she braced her foot against the rocks and pushed off.
It was obvious from the moment she left the ground that she wasn’t going to make it. Veronica screamed. I charged forward, as if I could cover the distance fast enough to stop what was happening.
Her jump almost took her across the gap. She landed half on the rock on the other side, her chest on dry land, her legs in the water. I threw myself toward her, splaying across the ground. My hand closed over the ends of her fingers. Her pale face looked straight into mine, and I saw the panic in her eyes in the split second before the current seized her.
Her fingers slid out from under mine. She was gone. No slow slip beneath the waves but a sudden vanishing. The dark water folded over her as if she had never been.
I would have screamed if my throat hadn’t closed up. Veronica pulled me away from the edge, sobbing, and we sat there huddled together in helpless, terrified paralysis. Maybe we should have run for help, but I’m not sure if it was the fear or the horrible knowledge that she was already dead that kept us rooted in place.
Once the Narrow had you, it was too late. There was nothing we could do.
I don’t know how much later it was when Veronica pulled me to my feet. Maybe a minute. Maybe twenty.
“We need to tell someone,” she said.
“We can’t. We’ll get in trouble,” I said. I was thinking of being kicked out, of being sent home, my newly claimed refuge snatched away as suddenly and thoroughly as Delphine had been stolen by the river. I was young and afraid, and maybe I should be forgiven for those words, but I won’t be the one to do it. Then shame flooded me. “We should find Mrs. Wheeler,” I said. Our housemother.
We half stumbled to the bridge, too weary to run.
“Her mother is Madelyn Fournier. The actress,” Veronica said after a while as we trudged through the woods. “She’s not even really French. It’s a stage name.” She said it like it meant something, but we were just talking to fill the silence.
“Do you think they’ll find her?” I asked. “What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know,” she said. It was all there was to say. We picked up our pace, as if it would matter at all.
Back at the dorms, we climbed through the window into the back hall we had used to sneak out.
Delphine was there.
She stood in the center of the hall, still in her pajamas. She was soaked through. There was mud on her feet and bits of rotting leaves in her hair, and her top had torn at the neckline. She stood there, shivering, staring at us without a hint of comprehension in her eyes.
I almost screamed. I clamped down on the sound and rushed forward instead, even as Veronica staggered back in shock. Delphine’s skin was cold, but she was alive. Alive and unharmed, as far as I could tell—not a bruise or a scratch on her.
We should have called for help then, of course. But we were thinking of how much trouble we would be in. They would send us home. We would lose Atwood. We would lose each other.
And Delphine was fine.
So we stayed quiet. Together, we led her back to the room. With fumbling fingers, I undid the buttons of her pajamas and slipped the sodden shirt off her shoulders. When I pulled down her pants and underwear, she stepped out of them; when Veronica handed me dry clothes, she moved with rote obedience to let me dress her.
We plucked the bits of detritus from her hair and walked her to her bed, and she never made a sound or put up any resistance. I pulled the blankets up under her chin.
“There,” I whispered. “Everything’s okay now.” I wasn’t sure which of the three of us I was trying to convince.
Veronica went back to her room. I could tell she wanted me to come with her, but instead I remained in my bed. I didn’t sleep at all that night. I lay there staring at her back, and the gentle rise and fall of the covers.
The next day I went down for breakfast with Delphine still asleep in her bed. Veronica sat next to me, tense. We mumbled to each other and didn’t say a word about what had happened.
Delphine Fournier eventually walked in. She got eggs and toast and a cup of tea and sat down at an empty table.
Veronica and I just sat there staring at her, not touching our food. Veronica’s nails dug little crescents into my palm, she was gripping my hand so tightly. We must have imagined it, I thought. Except we hadn’t. We’d both seen it.
Veronica turned toward me. Her lips parted as if to speak.
And Delphine collapsed.
5
DELPHINE NEVER CAME back to our dorm. It was the hospital and then Abigail House instead. Veronica and I never spoke about Delphine or what happened that night again.
And now I’m living in Abigail House.
I force away the memories of that night. The big welcome dinner to mark the beginning of the year is starting in only a few minutes, and I have nothing to wear.