The Scarlet Letterman (14 page)

“Miranda, you didn’t…” Hana says, sounding sad. She slumps in the chair next to mine and puts her head in her hands.

“Would you care to explain why you did not tell us of Heathcliff’s return? Or that you had the power to send him back?”

“I…uh…I think it’s the bad-boy mojo,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else.

“Bad-boy what?” Headmaster B asks, perplexed.

“Never mind.” I sigh. I doubt I can explain bad-boy mojo to Charlotte Brontë. “I have no justifiable explanation.”

“Very well,” Headmaster B says. “Based on this overwhelming evidence of deceit, I’m afraid the faculty board has no choice but to punish you, until such time as you agree to tell us what you or Heathcliff have done with the faculty members who are missing. Faculty, I ask for a vote. All in favor of figurative expulsion, raise your hands.”

As I watch with dread, most of the faculty in the room raise their hands.

“Miranda Earnshaw Tate,” Headmaster B continues, “I hearby sentence you to a semester of figurative expulsion. You shall not talk to or interact with any other students until deemed acceptable by the faculty. Your whereabouts will be monitored at all times. This punishment will be in effect until you decide to tell us what has happened to our fellow faculty members.”

“But I don’t know what happened to them —” I cry.

“Silence! You are no longer allowed to address anyone on this campus. From here on, you are invisible.”

Guardians rush at me then, and one of them roughly tugs a red sweater vest over my head.

Headmaster B slams down her gavel on the table, signaling the end of the hearing and my life as I know it.

Twenty-one

Figurative expulsion is
even worse than I thought. Hana isn’t even allowed to talk to me when I leave the library. Even as I shout that I’m sorry about the necklace, that I had been meaning to tell her, she’s held by a Guardian, so she can’t even look me in the face. I don’t know if she’s mad or not.

My red V-neck sweater vest that I now have to wear officially makes me the campus pariah. While I generally love not wearing what everyone else is wearing, this is different. I stand out like a red M&M in a sea of blue ones. And people part in front of me, like I’ve got a contagious disease. No one wants to make the mistake of even appearing to talk to me, and face the same punishment.

In the course of a month, I’ve gone from being the person that everybody stares at to the person everyone ignores.

I have to move out of my room with Blade, and into a single, barely big enough for a bed and a desk, all to myself. Since I can’t talk to people, I’m prohibited from playing sports or other school activities, so all I do is eat, sleep, and study. Normally I’m the queen of all couch potatoes, but getting barred from everything but sleeping and studying pretty much blows. Time ticks by at a glacial pace.

Every day at morning assembly, Headmaster B reminds everyone at Bard not to talk or look at me, and that’s basically the only time during the day my name is ever called.

I eat, sleep, and study completely alone, and it feels like the worst kind of solitary confinement. My only company is the new edition of the
Bard Weekly,
which just so happens to have Derek’s column in it.

The headline reads: “Miranda: Change Your Sinning Ways.”

While I’m eating at my own empty table in the cafeteria, I crumple up the paper, just in time to see a couple of juniors at a nearby table snicker. They’re reading the article and looking over at me.

This stinks.

I can’t even defend myself.

The no-talking rule extends even to teachers. I don’t get called on in class. And if I have a question and raise my hand, the teacher just ignores me, like I’m invisible. It makes asking for bathroom breaks during class pretty much impossible.

I have to find a way to squeeze them in between classes, which means I have to take the quickest pit stops on record, since my classes are placed at opposite ends of the campus. It’s like a drunk person made up my schedule.

On one of my hasty breaks in the girls’ room I discover I’m the subject of graffiti I find on the wall.

Ryan Kent plays ball,

His girlfriend has the gall,

To get to wear his jacket,

She let the whole team dunk in her basket,

And now she’s all alone

So she must atone.

“Dunk in her basket”? That’s the best they could do? That has to be the worst poem ever, even by bathroom graffiti standards.

Ugh. Can my life get any worse?

In the mailroom, I find no letters from my friends or mom or even sister. I can’t expect them to write me every day (I just got two letters the day before yesterday), but still, I can’t help but feel a pang when I see a mostly empty mailbox. There’s only one letter in it. When I pull out the envelope, I’m immediately disappointed to see the return address is my dad’s office.

I should be glad that he’s finally written me, but I know it can’t be anything but bad news.

I open the letter. It says:

Miranda:

I’m glad you are making progress at Bard. However, neither Carmen nor I believe you are yet responsible enough to have the privilege of learning how to drive.

I don’t think I need to remind you that I’m still dealing with the repercussions of you stealing and wrecking my BMW. Not to mention taking Carmen’s credit cards without permission. You violated our trust. If your grades continue to improve this semester, we’ll see if it’s possible to revisit driving lessons at a later date.

Sincerely,

Dad

That’s my dad for you. He can’t even write “Love, Dad” because that would be showing too much emotion. I crumple the letter in my hand. My dad doesn’t write me at all for months and this is the first letter he gets around to bothering to write? One talking about how immature I am? He has no idea the kind of responsibilities I’ve had since coming to Bard. Um, hello — fighting Dracula and managing to save the universe? I think I can handle a stick shift, thanks.

And Carmen! Since when does Wife Number Three’s opinion matter? She’s barely older than I am, and the only decisions she’s well-informed enough to make involve shoe shopping.

Sometimes I seriously hate my dad. I know I shouldn’t care what he thinks. I mean, since he ran off with his secretary five years ago, abandoning me, my mom, and my sister, he pretty much gave up all of his credibility as a parent figure.

I try to be Zen about it, but there’s something about Dad that always manages to get under my skin.

I find at night that I can’t sleep well, either. After I toss and turn for what seems like hours, I fall into a fitful sleep where I dream of the horseshoe-shaped tree again, and hear Heathcliff shouting for help. I wake up to the sound of the bell tolling. It’s Sunday, and that means a late breakfast.

Once inside the cafeteria, I see that Parker has taken a seat right next to Ryan, which I could’ve predicted. What else would she do? I’m out of the picture.

I glance down at my red sweater vest and wonder what would happen if I just ripped it off and tore it to pieces.

After a lonely meal of questionable taste (something that looks like gruel), I don’t feel like going back to my dorm to study. I’ve never so badly wished for a TV. I need to take my mind off of things. If I were at home, I’d head to the mall for some retail therapy, but since I can’t do that, I have to settle for a slow walk on campus. Since I’m in no hurry to get back to my dorm, I notice a sign I hadn’t seen before. Near the woods, it’s a small wooden sign that says
TO THE RIVER
—
CREW TEAM AND SUPPORTERS ONLY
and an arrow pointing down a dirt trail that leads back into the forest.

It dawns on me that my recurring Heathcliff dream takes place near the river. I wonder, if I got a closer look would it help me make sense of my dream? I give a backward glance to the two Guardians who are following me at a distance, and decide to walk on ahead and see if they stop me.

They don’t.

I pass the sign and head down the trail, and they follow at a bit of a distance. I expect one of them to shout, or tackle me, but neither does. I thought the forest was off-limits, but apparently this trail is okay. Neither of the Guardians seems too worried that I’m going to run away.

Not that escape is really plausible. We are, after all, on Shipwreck Island, at least five miles away from the Maine shore. Even if I jumped in the river and took it all the way out to the sea, I’d die of hypothermia before I made it to shore. The Atlantic is freezing and the currents are too strong.

The trail is dark and the trees around and above me are thick and tall, blocking out nearly all sunlight. Something is wrong with the forest, and it’s not just because the trees seem unnaturally thick and tall. It takes me a while to realize that I don’t hear any typical forest sounds. There aren’t any birds chirping or frogs croaking. All around me is a distinctly eerie silence. The only sounds I hear are my feet on the gravel trail. I get the distinct impression I’m being watched, and not just by the Guardians behind me.

I remember the first night I spent at Bard Academy. I marched straight into these very woods, thinking I’d escape. I found out then they weren’t like normal woods. Then again, what would I expect from a forest in purgatory?

I walk a little farther and I hear the sound of the river, a soft, bubbling water sound. The river comes into view and it’s dark and wide; the water seems nearly black. There’s a boathouse on the shore, where I assume the crew team keeps their gear. I pick up a smooth rock from the ground and try to skip it across the river, but as soon as it touches the water, it sinks. I throw another one. This one skips once, and then an enormous black fish leaps up from the surface of the water and swallows the stone — whole.

I take a surprised step back.

What the hell was that?

Before I can figure it out, I hear a faint shouting. It sounds like someone calling for help. In fact, the voice sounds a lot like Heathcliff.

I stop and turn.

The Guardians are standing several paces behind me. They don’t seem to have heard the shouts. Maybe I imagined it.

I crouch down, pretending to look for skipping rocks, and I listen. There. That’s definitely Heathcliff. And he’s in trouble.

I try to zero in on Heathcliff’s voice, but I can’t figure out where it’s coming from. Just when I think I’m sure it’s coming from the river, then it sounds like it’s off in the woods.

The Guardians keep their distance as I move away from the shore. When one of them turns to the sound of a tree branch cracking, I take the opportunity and make a run for it.

I dive straight into the heavy brush of the forest, zigzagging back and forth through the trees. Behind me, I hear the clamber of Guardians’ footsteps, and their grunts and shouts as they try to follow me. I dive into a hollow tree and wait there, my chest feeling like it’s going to explode from the sudden sprint. I wait there until my heart returns to normal, and I can’t hear the sounds of the Guardians any more. When I’m sure the coast is clear, I backtrack, toward the river, and the boathouse.

And then, suddenly, I stop.

I find myself staring at a big boulder and the horseshoe-shaped tree. The very same boulder and tree that I’ve been dreaming about for weeks.

I glance around, looking for the church that’s also in my dream, but it’s not here. Instead, I see what looks like an old foundation, a series of brick stones set into a large square. This is where the church must have been.

The hairs on my forearms stand up and I get goose bumps on my arms.

Maybe my dream was
real.
Maybe I had been dreaming of this place. And maybe Heathcliff really is in trouble. I turn my attention to the boathouse, which isn’t the church from my dream, but it’s the only building standing here.

I walk around the boathouse, looking for a way in. I find one and step into the dusty boathouse, my mouth suddenly dry.

“Heathcliff?” I whisper before I can stop myself. The boathouse is so quiet, my whisper sounds like a shout.

Inside there are white crew boats hanging upside down on top of one another on ledges. It’s quite a big storage house, even bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside. Sunlight slashes through the dust on the floor in front of me, and I get the sudden, distinct impression that I’m not alone.

“Heathcliff? Are you in here?” I whisper again, this time a little louder. My heart is beating faster in my chest. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t be afraid of Heathcliff. He saved me more times than I can count. Still, I think about the faceless Hooded Sweatshirt Stalker and shiver.

“Hello? Anyone here?” I say again, this time louder. I hear what sounds like a muffled groan from above my head somewhere. I look up, but all I see are rafters. I take a few more steps and see a staircase, leading up to a loftlike office. I hear a clatter coming from the office. Someone is definitely in there.

As I head to the stairs, I hear a clatter behind me. Something has knocked into the row of boats hanging on the wall.

Something big.

I whip my head around and see a black-and-orange flash between the crew boats. I freeze. The tiger!

And then I hear Heathcliff’s voice again, muted this time, but distinct, coming from the top of the stairs.

I pause on the staircase landing, my hand on the rail. Can I make it to the top of the stairs before the tiger sees me? I wish my sister Lindsay were here. She watches every Animal Planet special known to man. She’d know about the land speed of a tiger.