Rites of Spring (6 page)

Brandon had yanked a wad of napkins from the dispenser and was trying to mitigate the worst of the mess. “Say you’re sorry, jerk, and give us a hand.”

The guy shrugged. “You probably shouldn’t have left your bag in the aisle.”

I held my sticky, frigid shirt away from my chest and tried to mop up the puddle in my lap. “My bag?” I looked down and discovered that the damage to my person was nothing compared to what had happened to all my newly bought books and school supplies. “Oh my God,” I wailed, reaching for the sopping straps. Everything was ruined. I touched one sodden, pulpy pile. “This textbook was eighty bucks!”

“You disparage my aim?” the guy drawled.

“You’re saying it’s
my
fault you tried to turn me into a human soda machine?” I snapped.

“What the hell were you doing with all those drinks anyway?” Brandon demanded, using up the last of our table’s supply of napkins and starting anew with those swiped from the table next to us. Some nearby diners had pitched in to help stem the flood, and I felt carbonated beverage seeping into my underwear.

“I get dehydrated,” said the guy. He craned his neck over my shoulder to look into my bag. “Look on the bright side: Your computer wasn’t in there. I’d say you got off lucky, Amy Haskel. This time, at least.”

My mouth dropped open and my eyes shot to the collar of my assailant’s jacket, where a tiny, gold reptilian face leered. He turned and walked off before I could push away the hands that were wringing out my scarf and go running after him.
Dragon’s Head!
It was starting already?

I rose and tried to follow him, but the move dislodged several wayward ice cubes that immediately found their way into my crotch. I attempted a subtle jiggle (unsuccessful, I might add), and stopped walking, for fear the ice would shift left and press against spots even more sensitive than my inner thigh.

“What an asshole,” Brandon said. “Look, let’s go. Our lunches are drenched, and you need some dry clothes.”

I nodded, poured the excess liquid from my bag into a nearby cup, and let Brandon bus our trays of ruined food while I prayed for the ice to melt as quickly as possible.

Of course, ice in my pants was the least of my problems. Even my gorgeous new camel coat—a Christmas present from my grandmother—was stained with starbursts of orange soda and…was that fruit punch?
Great. Just great.
I gingerly tried to slip my arms into the sleeves for the trip outside, but Brandon stopped me.

“It’s too cold for you to go out all wet. Come on, we’ll get to my suite through the basement.”

I followed him down into the tunnels that twisted below each residential college. This was where they kept all the goodies reserved only for their residents—everything from laundry rooms and student-run burger joints called “butteries” to bowling alleys and squash courts. We wound through the narrow, dimly lit hallways and I began to shiver.

Wait until the other Diggers heard about this! And where was I supposed to find the funds to replace the sticky mess Dragon’s Head had made out of my course materials? I wondered if Rose & Grave had any kind of emergency scholarships for knights who were victims of another society’s taste for vengeance, since I couldn’t picture explaining to my parents what I’d done with this semester’s book money. And let’s not start on my coat.

Ahead of me, Brandon stopped and turned. “Amy, you okay?”

“Aside from the obvious?” I wrapped my arms tighter around my torso.

I felt his fingers on my chin, and he tilted my face up to his. “Your teeth are chattering.”

They were. I clenched my jaw. “I’m fine. Just cold.”

He said nothing, just stared at me.

Um, hello, cold? Maybe we should keep going until we get out of these tunnels?
But I didn’t say that, because under his gaze, I didn’t feel chilly at all anymore. Nope. Downright warm.

“Amy—” he whispered.

I stepped back, and the—feeling, the moment, whatever it was—fell away. I hugged myself even harder, trying to quell the need to get close. “I could, um, really use some dry clothes right about now.”

“Of course. Come on.” He put his hand on my shoulder to guide me up the stairs to his entryway. I could feel humid, sticky heat burning through the material of my sweater and deep into the flesh of my arm.

The first time Brandon and I slept together had been Valentine’s Day, almost a year ago. There’d been none of that weird, first-time-with-a-new-girl fumbling on his part. Like I said: The guy was a natural. Such a natural, in fact, that I’d put up little resistance when he’d repeated the persuasion act several times over the next few months. But he’d wanted a real relationship, and I’d resisted. Logical as the Applied Math major was, he had a mental block regarding my deplorable girlfriend potential, probably because we got along so well as friends. And yet I had no problem with the sex; bed was the one place where all the Brandon/Amy equations balanced perfectly.

He showed me into his unfamiliar suite and made a beeline for what I assumed was his bedroom. “I think I’ve got some spare sweats it wouldn’t embarrass you too much to wear,” he called back.

“I appreciate you doing this for me.” I stood in the center of the room, recalling the odd bit of furniture and some of his posters from before. Though tempted, I tried not to touch anything. My fingertips were sticking together. My hair was plastered to the back of my neck. My soft, makes-my-eyes-green cashmere scarf was hopelessly destroyed. I also tried not to think about Brandon’s bedroom. Instead, I started making a list of what I’d do to Dragon’s Head. They wanted a war, they’d get one.

As Poe was fond of saying, I had a way of making trouble for people.

Brandon popped his head out of his room. “Do you want to hop in the shower first and wash some of the stickiness off?”

I hesitated. “Maybe I should just run home…”

“Don’t be silly. You’re still shivering. You’re not hiking all the way back to Prescott like that. It’s not a big deal.”

“Getting in your shower isn’t a big deal?” And
all the way back
? It was a block and a half.

“Well, it’s not like I’ll be there.” He checked his smile. “Is this too weird for you?”

“No.” It wasn’t weird
enough
. I put my bag down and held out my hands. “Fine. Toss me some towels.”

But I did little more than rinse. Brandon’s shampoo and soap smelled too familiar to risk; I remembered too many other showers, too many other afternoons spent smelling like him. I dried off and headed back to the suite, praying his suitemates wouldn’t see me in towels.

The common room was empty, even of Brandon, but I saw that he’d cleaned out my bag and hung it to dry over the radiator. A pile of used paper towels sat next to a neat stack of my ruined textbooks. Beyond, his bedroom door was open, but I couldn’t see anyone inside. Perhaps he’d gone to a bathroom on another floor to wash his hands.

I closed the door behind me and sat on his bed. I knew this comforter well. He’d laid out a worn Eli T-shirt and a pair of drawstring sweatpants for me to wear. I picked up the shirt and held the softness against my skin. Forgoing the soap had been a useless effort. His clothes smelled like him, too.

And I’d have to wash them before I returned them, even though I’d only be wearing them for the trip back to my place. Not to get too blunt about it, but my underwear was in the same condition as the rest of my clothing: covered in soda. I had no choice but to go commando.

I dressed, then stuffed my sticky outfit into an empty shopping bag. Shouldn’t he be back by now? As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Brandon was always so polite.

“Come in,” I called.

Of course, it wasn’t Brandon. Felicity stopped dead on the threshold and gaped at me. In her boyfriend’s clothes. On her boyfriend’s bed. With my hair leaving wet rivulets all over her boyfriend’s shirt.

This isn’t what it looks like
is so cliché, but it’s the only phrase that popped into my head at the moment. Luckily, I was spared speaking it aloud, as Felicity regained her composure and asked, in a surprisingly reasonable voice, “Why, hello, Amy. Brandon around?”

I rose. “I think he must be using a downstairs bathroom. I’m sure he’ll be right back.”

And then, because the room didn’t seem large enough for both of us, I squeezed out into the common room. Felicity stood by the door, watching as I assessed the damage to my schoolbooks. “What happened?”

“Some guy spilled a bunch of drinks on me at lunch.”

“A
bunch
of drinks?” She raised her eyebrow. “How…odd.”

Chick had no idea.

Brandon returned to rescue me. “Lis,” he said, his eyes wide.

Lis?
What kind of nickname was that? Better than “Fell,” I suppose. And man, that was a guilty tone he was using. Curious. Brandon wasn’t the type to expect anyone else to see impropriety where he saw none.

“Hi, sweetie.” Felicity crossed the room, placed her hands on his chest, and kissed him like she hadn’t seen him in months. “Amy was just telling me what happened to her. It’s so awful. Do you know who it was?”

Brandon shook his head. “He’s not in Calvin. Amy, did you know him?”

“No,” I said. But I knew where he could be found on Thursday and Sunday nights.

“Sucks,” Felicity went on, moving closer to me. “You should try to track him down if you can. He should be forced to pay you for those books.” She toed at one of my stickier texts. “They’re unusable.”

Thanks for the tip, bitch. Never would have figured that out myself.

She straightened. “It was good to see you again, Amy. I just have a short break before my next class. I was hoping to duck in here and take a nap.” She smiled at Brandon. “Maybe you could join me.”

Brandon restrained his male hormones long enough to look momentarily taken aback by her audacity.

I swallowed. “I have to get out of here anyway.”

Felicity smiled, sweetly. “Of course.”
Of course, because
I’m
the girlfriend here. Of course, because I’ve made the fact that you’re not welcome abundantly clear. You may have the sweatpants, but not their owner. Scat.

I grabbed my still-damp bag and shoved my books inside. “Thanks for the clothes, Brandon. I’ll get them back to you ASAP.”

“Amy, we haven’t even talked about these applications.”

Or eaten lunch. “Rain check,” I insisted, and ran.

I’m sure I hadn’t reached the ground floor before she had him in her clutches.

I reported the soda dump to some Digger friends over pizza that night and basked in their appropriately appalled response. They vowed revenge, promised to protect me, and started up a pool to replace my books. We talked about letting Dragon’s Head know the location of their missing statue, lest this incident was only the opening volley in a full-scale war on
me
. I liked having it as an option, but if anything, their little game made me even more determined to stand my ground and protect Rose & Grave—with my body, my textbooks, and my new camel coat.

Besides, there, in the bosom of my brothers, the whole affair seemed like a singular event, an isolated incident that would be immediately snuffed out now that the full weight of the society was bent on avenging the wrongs perpetrated against one of their own. Except, they couldn’t keep their eyes on me at all times, and it seemed as if whenever the Diggers weren’t watching, the Dragon’s Head members were. And thus, over the course of the next few weeks, we had as many failures as successes.

The Eli Library suddenly reported that I owed fines in the thousands on library books whose due dates went back to my middle school days. Jenny Santos, computer whiz that she was, managed to fix the “problem,” but lo, when the hold on my lending privileges was lifted, I discovered that all of the volumes I’d reserved had mysteriously gone missing in the stacks. So much for my research paper.

Two days later, I turned my back for five seconds in the dining hall and someone covered my salad with a spray of habanero pepper. A day after that, I was following my usual route home from class and passed underneath the Hartford College arch. When I emerged on the other side, I was met with another icy shower. (Luckily, I’d taken to keeping my valuables inside Ziploc bags inside my satchel.) By the time I looked up, I saw little more than two hooded figures disappearing back into their window, dragging a large empty tub behind them. Dragon’s Head sure liked their liquids.

Greg Dorian said he admired the ingenuity of their multilateral attacks. (I thwapped him with the Kaboodle Ball in response.) Josh wondered if we should be keeping tabs on my transcripts, to avert any bizarre clerical errors, a possibility that kept me up all night. Jenny was constantly monitoring my computer, and reported three different attempts to send me a virus through bogus announcement e-mails from the Prescott College master’s office. I only hoped she was good enough to catch them all.

And then came the superglue incident. And the Great Cricket Invasion of January 2008 (Lydia still won’t sit on our couch). What was next, locusts to eat all my homework? I began to wonder if Rose & Grave pride was worth ruining my last semester at Eli. Nothing against taking one for the team, but it’s not as if I could explain to my thesis advisor, the dean of the Lit department, or any potential graduate schools that the reason my work took a sudden nosedive was because I was fending off a secret society hell-bent on using me as a scapegoat for all the crimes the Diggers had committed over the past centuries. And even if I did manage to make this point without forswearing my own society’s vows of silence, I doubt the faculty would believe me, or even care.