Then the second part began. She spread out the magazines and newspapers on the ground. She had collected them for weeks, pulling things out of the garbage, taking items from the library, snatching them from Gertie—Photoplay, Movie News, the Times, Life, the New Yorker. She removed the sewing scissors she had stolen from her mother’s maid while she was home at Christmas and a pair of tweezers. The paper and the envelope were from Woolworth. Magazines, scissors, paper, glue. Such simple, benign things.

They worked carefully, clipping each letter and word, dabbing it with glue, placing it just so on the page. It took several hours to find the right letters, to place them at the right angles. Francis insisted they wear gloves. It was unlikely the letter would be fingerprinted, but it was sensible to take precautions.

When it was done, they left it to dry and harden, and they busied themselves with each other, the thrill of the work pushing them on. There were certainly other couples who had had sex on the Ellingham campus—one or two. Those people did it giddy, bashfully, and wracked with terror. Eddie and Francis came to each other without fear or hesitation. When your future plan is a crime spree, getting caught together is of no concern, and the hideout was literally underground, under a rock. There was nowhere more private.

When they were finished and sweating, Francis picked up her clothes and shook them out before dressing.

“It’s time to go,” she said.

“I refuse.”

“Get up.”

Eddie got up. He was reluctant, but he did as Francis said.

When she was finished dressing, Francis repacked the supplies. Then, after putting on gloves, she folded the piece of paper.

“I have someone to mail it for us,” she said, lowering it gingerly into the envelope. “It will be postmarked from Burlington.”

“How will we know he got it?”

“He’ll probably tell Nelson. He tells her everything. Speaking of, I have to get back now. Nelson always has her eyes on me. She doesn’t trust me.”

“She’s right not to.”

The pair reemerged into the daylight. Francis blinked and looked at her watch.

“We’re late,” she said. “Nelson will be after me. We’d better hurry.”

“Once more,” Eddie said, grabbing her at the waist, “up against the tree, like an animal.”

“Eddie . . .” It was tempting, but Francis pushed him back. He growled a bit and gave play chase. Francis rushed ahead, laughing, gripping her supplies tight under her arm. The air was full and fresh. Everything was coming together. Soon they would be gone from here, she and Eddie, on their adventure. Away from New York, away from society—toward the road, toward freedom, toward madness and passion, where the kissing would never stop and the guns would blaze.

Once they were back in the more populated part of the campus, Eddie peeled off to greet some boys from his house. Francis continued on to Minerva. While there was more equality here at Ellingham than most places, there were still more rules for the girls. They had to come back earlier to rest, to read, to prepare themselves for dinner.

Francis pushed open the house door and found Miss Nelson sitting primly on the sofa, a large book on her lap. Gertie van Coevorden was there as well, smiling her idiotic smile and reading a movie magazine, the only reading she ever seemed to do. If Gertie van Coevorden had two brain cells, each would be amazed to know of the other’s existence. She did, however, have an uncanny sense of when someone else was going to get in trouble, and she made sure to be there to see.

“You’re a bit late, aren’t you, Francis?” Miss Nelson said as a greeting.

“Sorry, Miss Nelson,” Francis said, sounding not sorry at all. She was physically incapable of sounding sorry about anything. “I lost track of time at the library.”

“The library is a much dirtier place than I recall. You have leaves in your hair.”

“I read outside for a bit,” Francis said, brushing her hand lightly over her head. “I’ll go wash up for dinner.”

She shot Gertie a look as she passed, one that suggested that Gertie better wipe that smirk off her face if she wanted to keep all of her glossy blond hair. Gertie immediately turned back to her magazine.

In the safety of her room, Francis set her things down on her bed. While Albert Ellingham had furnished the rooms well, the furniture was plain. Francis’s family had sent her to school with an entire van of personal furnishings—bedding from Bergdorf, a silk dressing screen, fur rugs, tall mirrors, a French chifforobe, a small glass-and-walnut cabinet for makeup and bath oil, a silver dresser set and a dresser to go under it. Her curtains were handmade, as was the lace bed ruffle. She pulled off her coat and tossed it onto her rocking chair and regarded herself in the mirror. Sweaty. Dirty. Her blouse creased all over and the buttons all wrong. It could not have been clearer what she had been doing.

It pleased her. Let them see.

She turned back to the items on the bed. She made sure the magazines were all stashed in the paper bag. She would burn them later. She shoved this under the bed. The notebook was the important thing. It always had to be secured. She scanned their afternoon’s work, reading through the riddle with satisfaction and checking the envelope that she had tucked between the pages. But something . . . something was missing. She flipped through the book in a panic.

“Francis!” Miss Nelson called.

“Coming!”

More frantic flipping. Her photographs were in this book. The ones Eddie took of them posing as Bonnie and Clyde. Their secret images. They had come loose from their photo corners and were gone. They must have fallen out in the woods when she ran. Damnable, stupid Eddie! This was why she needed to be in charge. He had no discipline. When you rush, you make mistakes.

“Francis!”

“Yes!” Francis shot back.

There was no time now. She opened the closet door and got down on the floor and pulled back a bit of molding. She shoved the notebook into its place inside the wall and pushed the piece of wood back. Then she smoothed herself as best she could and went back to face the world.

4

THE BURLINGTON ART COLLECTIVE ACTION HOUSE WAS A TEN-minute walk from the coffee house on Church Street, or a seven-minute race-walk with a giant bag of coats and boots. Stevie was very careful not to check the time, because it would inevitably be too short. She had no clearly articulated reason for going, except that something needed to be done, so the fewer impediments (like practicality and basic self-preservation) the better.

She didn’t have to check the house number to know she had arrived in the right place. The Art Collective was in the same general area as Fenton’s house—a neighborhood of large Victorians in various states of repair, some owned by the college, some turned into apartments. While the basic size, shape, and style of the Art Collective house matched that of its neighbors, everything else singled it out. The house was painted in a deep, somewhat dirty lilac, with a sunbeam of purples on the gabled roof. The front porch sagged. A dozen or more mobiles hung from the porch roof beams; these were made of tin cans, broken bits of glass and pottery, rusty cogs and machine parts, and, in one case, rocks. There was a macramé plant hanger that suspended a mannequin head, which spun gently in the wind. The leg part of the mannequin stood alone in the far corner of the porch and was used to support an ashtray. A wooden box by the door contained a snow shovel and cat litter.

Stevie pulled back the screen and knocked on the inner door, which was painted wine red. A shirtless guy in a pair of patchwork pants and a massive knit hat opened it.

“Hi,” Stevie said, almost blanking for a moment as she realized that she had come to a very strange house to talk to strange strangers about something she had not clearly defined in her mind. Having no prepared statement, she held up the flyer and pointed at Ellie in the photo.

“Ellie was a friend of mine, and I think she came here. . . .”

The guy said nothing.

“I was wondering if . . . I . . . I just wanted to find out . . .”

He stepped back and held open the door for her to come inside.

The Burlington Art Collective Action House was a big place. One wall was full of bookshelves from floor to ceiling, packed solid with books. There was a small stage in the back, with an old piano and a pile of other instruments. In every direction, there was stuff. There were feather boas and top hats, half-formed pieces of pottery, drums, yoga mats, art books, a stray flute sitting in an empty fish tank . . . Off to the side, there was a mattress on the floor with loose bedding; someone called this living area their bedroom. The second floor was open, with a large balcony sealed off with a white wrought-iron rail, from which several painted sheets were hung. The smell of sage lorded over the space.

Also, there was a tree in the house. It didn’t seem to be a live tree—rather one that had been cut down and somehow brought into the house whole. It dominated one corner of the first floor and stretched up over the second floor. Stevie had no question in her mind that these were Ellie’s friends. This was what the inside of Ellie’s head must have been like.

“So, I . . .”

The guy pointed at the second-floor loft. Stevie cocked her head in confusion.

“Should I . . .”

He pointed again.

“Up there?” she asked.

He nodded.