This was not a paint set. Or a makeup set.

He didn’t waste time. He put the bottles and beakers into his satchel, pulled a pair of trousers on over his nightclothes, and walked downstairs as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

10

STEVIE HAD GREAT HOPES FOR THE BOARDING SCHOOL DINING HALL. She knew better than to hope for floating candlesticks and ghosts, but long wooden tables didn’t seem out of the question. Long tables were also featured in so many murder mysteries, when all the guests of the house were arranged, eyeing each other over their wineglasses, wondering who Lord Dudley was going to put into his will or who might have killed Ratchets with the golf club.

What she actually got was something that looked a bit like the buffet area in the conference hotel she stayed in with her high school forensics club when they did a tournament in Hershey, just a little more artisanal and maybe crossed with a bit of ski lodge. (Or what she understood ski lodges to look like. She had never been to one.) It had a high, peaked ceiling made of bright pine-and-stone walls, scattered with tables of varying shapes and sizes—round ones that could fit a large group, square ones for four, and quite a large number of small ones that could fit only one or two people. There were also some plaid sofas and beanbags along the wall farthest from the food, with a few low tables—clearly some kind of coffee shop area for people who were too far up a mountain to get to a Starbucks.

The chalkboard menu really seemed to emphasize that everything was local and that everything had maple syrup in it. The BBQ beef was in maple syrup BBQ sauce. The mac and cheese was made with smoked maple cheese. There was maple tofu and maple-syrup dressing for the salads.

“Did you forget you were in Vermont for a second?” Stevie said to Janelle as they took their trays. “Look down. You are standing in maple syrup.”

“Yeah,” Janelle replied, a bit dispiritedly, as she took some tofu and vegetables. “It’s not my favorite.”

Nate stared down the sneeze guard at the mapleized meats.

“I’ll drink the living blood of trees,” he said. “Hit me.”

The drinks area had sparkling water on tap (fancy) and a cooler full of expensive natural sodas that were free to take, including one maple-lime-spruce-flavored one that Stevie examined out of intense curiosity. This was the kind of stuff she never saw and wouldn’t have had the money to buy, and it was just sitting here. This, more than anything else, seemed to indicate what kind of place this was. Free fancy sodas full of maple.

She took one. She had to.

Since it was still warm and bright, there were tables set up outside. Ellie had commandeered a picnic table and began waving at them to come over. Hayes sat across from her.

Janelle and Stevie started for the open door but Nate hesitated.

“Eating outside is the worst,” Nate said, waving away a fly from his plate, which seemed to be full of nothing but various meats.

“Vitamin D,” Stevie said. “You need it.”

“You don’t know that,” he said. “I want to eat my meat in my room with the lights off.”

“As a writer, are those really the words you want to use?” Stevie asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Let’s just sit with the others for today?” Janelle said. “We’ll sit inside next time.”

Nate sighed and went along.

“So how was it?” Ellie asked as they sat down.

“It was great,” Janelle said. “They’re giving me access to the workshop and I’m getting space in the art barn to work on my Rube Goldberg machine for the Sendell Waxman competition. That’s the high school version. There’s even budget to get supplies. This place is amazing.”

“Mine was okay, I guess?” Stevie said. “I’m supposed to come up with some project this week about putting a human face on crime.”

Nate was quiet.

“Well?” Janelle said.

“She hates me,” he said plainly.

“Come on,” Janelle said, shaking her head. “Stop it. You can’t be like this on the first day.”

“Yeah, I’m not kidding.”

“She said she hated you?” Janelle said.

“She never looked at me. She said something about how it’s so easy for anyone to be published now and then read me a list of classes and told me to go.”

“That doesn’t mean she hates you.”

“You had to be there,” Nate said.

Stevie felt eyes on her back. Eyes to the side. She glanced around as subtly as she could and realized that no one was looking at her—people were looking toward Hayes. He was like a weak center of gravity.

“What the hell are you drinking?” Nate said, turning the soda bottle to look at the label.

“Natural soda,” Stevie said. “It was there. I decided to try it.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know.”

“It’s going to be bad,” Nate said. “What is there to know?”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh my God.” Janelle drew a hand over her face. “Seriously, Nate. You have to like something. You can’t go around being miserable about everything.”

Nate indicated that Stevie should drink and folded his arms. Stevie took a long swig. As soon as the drink hit the back of her throat, it attacked her palate with a woody, biting, cleaning-fluid type sensation that shot up the inside of her nose. She lurched forward, clasping her hand to her mouth just in time to avoid spraying Nate with a maple-lime-spruce fountain. She coughed so loudly that people at the adjoining tables stared.

“Yes,” Nate said. “I see.”

“Tell me more about your book,” Stevie replied when she could speak again.

Nate returned to studying his plate of meats.

Janelle suddenly half stood and waved. “Vi!” she said. “Come sit here!”

Vi was back, with her tinted glasses, wearing an overall short set, a red tank, and striped knee socks. Her hair was perhaps a little spikier than the day before. She slid in beside Janelle.

Again, a tiny panic bubble glurped inside. What if Stevie was going to be completely friendless? What if Janelle didn’t pair bond with her and Nate never talked and that was it? Maybe she had given up her life before and come up this mountain and no one would like her and she would have to go home an abject failure.

That was anxiety talking. Janelle did like her. All she did was ask Vi to sit with them, and that was because she wanted to flirt with Vi. And Nate, he was there. He was just a tough nut to crack.

Things righted themselves for a moment, until David came out of the dining hall, his unruly hair sticking up at odd angles. He still hadn’t changed out of the clothes from the night before. Stevie had that same quiver of recognition, like he was someone she knew well. But there was no way they could have met before.

“Hello,” he said much too loudly as he sat down. “You love looking at me. I get it. You didn’t drink that, did you?”

He pointed at the bottle of soda in front of Stevie.

“I got it for you,” Stevie said, pushing the bottle his way.

Ellie smiled and stretched out on the bench, putting her bare feet in David’s lap.