Chapter 186: Go Wash Your Face

Blair stood in the doorway with one hand on the frame.

Nobody had ever asked her that. She was usually the one asking.

"I don’t know," she said.

Olive laughed. It came out cracked. "Great."

She let her head fall back against the wall and shut her eyes. Up close it was worse. Mascara had dried in gray tracks down to her jaw. Lake mud stiffened the hem of the camel coat, and the diamonds had left a red line on her throat where she’d been pulling at them.

"I’ve been here since he sent me home," Olive said. "I didn’t know where else to go. He knows where my room is. If I go to it, he..." She stopped. "So. You own me. Tell me what to do."

Blair looked at her for a long moment.

She knew the rules for owning someone. Registration. A crest at the throat. Twelve hours on a bench before anyone else could claim you; she’d won a whole quad on that one. Nobody had ever written down what you were supposed to do with one.

Nine hours ago this girl had stood on her fingers.

"Go wash your face," Blair said.

Olive opened her eyes. "What?"

"The washroom’s at the end of the hall."

"That’s it? That’s your first order?"

"You look terrible."

Olive’s mouth fell open. For a second she looked like she might cry again, or throw something. Then she got up off the floor, stiff, one hand on the wall, and tugged her coat straight.

"Fine," she said.

She had gone three steps when Blair said, "Wait."

Olive stopped without turning around.

"At the lake. You read the name on that paper."

"So?"

"What was it?"

Olive turned. She studied Blair with red, narrow eyes, as if she were working out what the answer was worth.

"I walked this building with the dorm registry for two weeks," she said. "Every door. Every name. I remember names." She lifted her chin. "Ivy Marsh."

Ivy.

Blair said it in her head, and it fit. A pale face on her pillow. A hand that had gripped her sleeve too hard. Don’t let them take me.

"Can I go wash my face now?" Olive said.

Down the hall, a door opened.

It was the small girl. The one who had knocked once, weeks ago, and whispered Olive’s name through an inch of open door.

She wore the same too-big bathrobe. Her hair was flat on one side from sleep. She stood half out of her doorway, gripping the edge of the door, and looked straight past Blair at Olive.

"Did you say Ivy?"

Olive’s chin went higher. "What’s it to you?"

The girl flinched. She didn’t step back.

"She’s my roommate," she said.

Nobody said anything.

The girl came down the corridor in her slippers, her bare ankles pink with cold, and stopped a careful distance from both of them, nearer to Blair.

"I’m Nora. Nora Finch." Her voice was low and quick, the way it had been at Blair’s door. "They said she transferred. She didn’t pack. Her shoes are still under her bed. I asked at the council office. They handle all the transfer paperwork. They looked it up for me and said the new school provides everything." Her mouth twisted. "What school provides shoes?"

Olive snorted. Nora looked at her, then away.

"You came to our door," Nora said, not quite to her. "With the registry. You asked if anyone in our room was called Blair."

"And nobody was." Olive examined her nails. "So I left."

"Ivy offered you tea."

Olive didn’t answer for a moment. "I don’t remember," she said.

Blair didn’t believe her.

"How do you know her name?" Nora asked Blair.

Blair’s phone buzzed in her sweater pocket. She ignored it.

She could say I heard it somewhere. It would be easy.

"She slept here," Blair said. "In my room. She came in the middle of the night, and she was sick."

Nora’s face went very still.

"In the morning I made a call," Blair said. "A nurse came for her."

Her voice kept going, steady, and she didn’t know where that was coming from.

"She asked me not to let them take her. I let them."

It sat in the corridor between the three of them, and nobody picked it up. Somewhere below, a shower ran.

Olive was looking at Blair now with something new in her face. Not quite surprise.

Nora swallowed. "Was she okay? When she came here?"

"No."

"Did she say anything?"

"That she didn’t want to go back there."

"Back where?"

"I don’t know."

Nora nodded slowly, as if that were the answer she’d expected. She pulled the bathrobe tighter.

"She sings in the shower," she said. "Badly. The whole floor complains." Her eyes were wet. "It’s been so quiet."

The phone buzzed again. And again.

"Somebody wants you," Olive said.

Blair took it out to make it stop.

coach is showing my turnover in slow motion

for the FOURTH time

the whole team is booing me. my own team bunny

im not even watching. im thinking about this morning

what you did with my hand

Heat climbed her neck. She turned the screen against her stomach.

Olive leaned over anyway. Blair turned away from her.

come to the rink after? the video room locks ;)

She typed I can’t. She deleted it and typed Maybe, and sent it before she could think better of it.

MAYBE??

She put the phone back in her pocket. Both girls were watching her. Nora had gone pink. Olive’s eyebrows were very high.

Blair looked at the floor until her face cooled.

When she looked up, Nora was chewing the inside of her cheek. She glanced toward the stairs, the way she had the first time.

"Did anything happen before she went?" Blair asked. "Anything strange?"

Nora shook her head.

"I keep going over it. Nothing. We did our reading as usual. She even went to bed before me. When I woke up, she was gone." Her voice wobbled. "Her bed was made. Corners tucked, pillow straight."

Blair’s hand had gone still in her pocket.

"Ivy never made her bed in her life," Nora said.