The door of room 114 in Seward Hall had pottery shards and small rocks glued to it, spelling out the words INNER SANCTUM. The door was locked, and no one responded to my knocking, so I used the key we’d picked up at the admissions office. The door creaked as it swung open.
The room had two windows covered by black drapes, and it was lit by a bare bulb in a ceiling fixture. Twin beds stood along facing walls, with battered wooden desks at their feet. Four suitcases were piled next to one of the desks. A girl with long, dark hair sat cross-legged on the floor, sewing tiny pleats into a shirt. She looked as surprised to see us as we felt to see her.
“You must be”—I pulled a form out of my backpack pocket—“Bernadette.”
She stared at us without speaking. She had enormous dark eyes and ears that reminded me of seashells, which she used to hold back her hair.
“I’m Ariella. Your new roommate. And this is my mother.”
Her eyes went from me to my mother and back to me.
“Um, you can call me Ari,” I said.
Slowly she uncrossed her legs and stood up. “I thought I was finally going to have a single,” she said. Her voice was low and musical, lacking the resentment that the words implied. I noticed a poster of Edgar Allan Poe over one of the twin beds, and for a moment I wondered, Can she be one of us?
“You can call me Bernadette,” she said. “Only my enemies call me Bernie.”
I don’t like to think about saying good-bye to my mother that day. After we’d carried my trunk, four boxes of stuff (including Sangfroid and Picardo in bottles with prescription labels, thanks to the helpful doctor in Orlando), I followed her back to the truck.
“It’s probably safer if you don’t come home for a while.” Mãe turned her face away from me, and I knew she was trying not to cry. “But write me. Call me. If you get homesick, I’ll come and visit.”
I nodded.
“It’s only two and a half months until spring break.” She tried to make her voice cheerful. “I’ll come and pick you up then, okay?”
I tried to say “Okay,” but my voice cracked. We hugged each other quickly, and I felt her press something into my right hand. Then I turned and headed back to the dorm. I didn’t want to watch her drive away.
Inside the dormitory’s lounge I opened my hand and unwrapped a square of red tissue paper. At its center lay a small greenish-gold cat strung on a black silk cord, and beneath it was a slip of paper reading: “This amulet was made in Egypt around 1170 BC. Wear it, and be safe.”
Mãe’s handwriting slanted to the right, as always. Ever the optimist, I thought. I slipped the silk cord over my head, and the cat nestled below my collarbone, as if it belonged there.
Back in the room, Bernadette was holding a bottle of Sangfroid, reading its label. “Are you a sicko?” she said.
“I have lupus,” I said—the same lie my father had told the world in order to pass as mortal. Mãe and I had decided it was the easiest way for me to get by.
“Some of them may make fun of you,” she’d warned. “But most of them have been taught to be tolerant of people with chronic physical ailments.”
Bernadette was more than tolerant; her face lit up at the word “lupus,” and she pulled a medical dictionary from the bookshelf next to her desk. “‘Lupus erythematosus,’” she read. “‘A chronic inflammatory disease that can target joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, heart, and lungs. Lupus develops when the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues and organs.’” She looked up from the dictionary. “Wow.”
“It’s not contagious,” I said.
“That wasn’t a negative ‘wow.’” She was reading further. “‘Signs and symptoms include a butterfly-shaped rash, arthritis, kidney problems, and photosensitivity.’ Not to mention those issues with the brain, heart, and lungs.” She shut the book. “I have asthma, and I’m hypoglycemic. Nothing as interesting as your condition. Will you show me your rash?”
“I don’t have one.” I reached for the bottle of Sangfroid, and she handed it over. “You think illnesses are interesting?”
“More than that. They’re marks of distinction.” She gestured toward one of the curtained windows. “The world out there makes us sick. Big surprise. We’re the sensitive ones—we’ve evolved beyond the so-called healthy people. They’re the ones who scare me. Like my last roommate, Jackie. She was so healthy I couldn’t stand it—she ate sugar and fast food and red meat, and they didn’t even bother her. She hasn’t developed the sensitivities we have, and if she ever does, they’ll probably kill her.
“You and me—we’re the lucky ones.” When she smiled, Bernadette had an elfin charm. Then I noticed her shadow, cast by the overhead bulb onto the carpet. I tried not to show how disappointed I felt.
“What happened to Jackie?” I looked at the bare mattress about to become mine.
“She went back home, to Hilton Head.” This time, Bernadette’s smile was condescending. “She missed her mommy too much.”
Bernadette insisted on helping me unpack. She put a CD on the stereo and told me the band was called Inner Sanctum. As she lifted sweaters and jeans out of the trunk and placed them in bureau drawers, she danced to the music, which was mournful. In her black jeans and ruffled white shirt, she looked like a Spanish dancer.
“I’m doing a minor in dance,” she said. “Majoring in lit. What about you?”
I told her I was considering a major in interdisciplinary studies.
“That means you make it up as you go along.” She deposited three shirts in a drawer, did a twirl, and ended up back at the trunk. “Hillhouse is a haven for kids like us. The ones who don’t last are the more traditional types—you know, business majors and pre-laws and premeds. The ones who want every question to have only one answer. We get a few of them from time to time, but they tend to transfer or drop out.”
“Drop out completely?”
“Some of them do, yeah. They’re demoralized by this place. Some people can’t handle freedom, you know?” She picked up a jacket and danced it to the closet. “Your clothes are cute, but they look very, very new. We can soon fix that.”
I arranged books on a shelf near my desk. Bernadette’s bookshelf held feathers, rocks, small pieces of glass, and a spectrum of spools of thread.
She was rubbing an emery board against the knees of my new corduroy jeans. When I asked why, she said she was “distressing” the jeans to make them look “lived-in.”
“Why did you decide to come for the spring term instead of waiting for fall?”
Mãe and I had discussed how to handle such questions. “A girl disappeared in my hometown,” I said. “My parents decided it was a good time for me to leave.”
(Later, when I told her my best friend up north had been murdered, she seemed impressed. “Your life is so dramatic,” she said.)
Now she said, “Your mom’s beautiful.” Back at the trunk, she pulled out my metamaterial trouser suit. Mãe had relented and let me have it after I made a strong argument that I might need to turn invisible in my new environment. “This looks like something you’d wear to a job interview.”
“It’s for special occasions.” I watched her carry it to the closet and hang it up. I didn’t want that suit distressed.
“What does your dad do?” she asked.
“He’s a researcher.” I put socks and underwear into a bureau drawer. “He’s not around much. He sort of comes and goes.”
“I know all about that. My parents divorced three years ago.”
I took a large parcel from a box brought from the storage unit in Saratoga Springs, cut away sheets of bubble wrap, and lifted out my lithophane lamp. Its porcelain shade appeared unornamented, but when I plugged the lamp in and turned its switch, brightly colored birds emerged on the panels of the shade.
Bernadette said, “Ooh.”
“My mother bought it. It’s been by my bed since I was a baby,” I said, setting the lamp carefully on the table next to my cot. “If I woke up at night, I’d turn it on and talk to the birds. I had names for them.”
“What were their names?” Bernadette came over and ran her hand over the shade.
“Not telling.” I didn’t want her to make fun of me. The names had come from fairy tales; the dove was Cinderella, and the cardinal was Rose Red.
“At least you trusted me enough to tell me that you named them.” Her voice was wistful. I gathered that not many others trusted her that well.
When we went to dinner that night, Bernadette stood on top of the cafeteria table and said, “Announcement!” in a voice so loud the whole room went quiet.
“We’ve got a new one,” she shouted. “Stand up,” she said to me.
Close to a hundred students were sitting in the basement cafeteria, which smelled of cabbage and stir-fried vegetables. I didn’t want to stand up.
I stood up.
“This is Ari Montero,” Bernadette said. “My new roomie from Florida.”
Some people clapped, others made comments that blended into an indecipherable noise. Two or three whistled and howled, which I took as a compliment.
A boy with short blond hair said, “How long will this one last, Bernie?”
“Shut up, Richard.” Bernadette sat down next to me. “He’s president of the Social Ecologists Club,” she said. “Membership one and a half: Richard and his girlfriend.”
I didn’t ask which one was the half.
The next morning I took part in a brief orientation session. There were only three of us new enrollees, and our “facilitator,” a young man called Jack, said, “If this was fall term, I’d tell you to look to your left, and look to your right, and ask yourself which two of you won’t be here in four years. But with only three of you here, that felt kind of cruel.”
One of the other newbies asked, “Is the dropout rate that high?”
I didn’t hear Jack’s response. I was looking at my fellow newcomers, wondering which two of us would disappear.
Jack went over our class and work schedules. I’d already decided to register for courses in literature, philosophy, and physics, and the night before Bernadette had talked me into signing up for American Politics, a class she was taking. “The American Politics prof can be a bore, but we get to go on field trips,” she said. “You should sign up for Environmental Studies, too—that class goes on an overnight trip to the Okefenokee Swamp.”
“Maybe next term,” I’d said.
Jack told me my work assignment was with the recycling team. “The stables crew is full,” he said. “Everybody loves horses, nobody loves trash.”
I looked over the list of students signed up for the recycling team, lingering over the name Walker Pearson. I thought of the boy who jumped out of the pile of leaves. How many boys named Walker could there be at Hillhouse?
“I don’t mind working with trash,” I said.
My first week at Hillhouse went so fast I had no time to feel homesick. The literature and philosophy classes were my favorites from the first day, because the professors were bright and clearly loved teaching. My American Politics professor seemed bright, but she spoke tentatively and had a hunted look in her eyes that made me wonder about her personal life. My physics professor, on the other hand, acted utterly confident, but I soon found out that he wasn’t as smart as he thought.
