Page 10 of House of Hearts

Helen Hall has no business looking like it was plucked out of a Shakespearean tragedy, but that’s the impression the dormitory gives off with its infestation of ivy, dreary granite walls, and antiquated parapets.

I’ve been here for nearly a week now, and I still feel like I should be holding a random jester’s skull and reciting soliloquies about death.

Instead I’m picking out my nail polish for tomorrow night.

“Once in a Blue Moon or Meet Me at Midnight?” Birdie asks, thrusting two identical shades of navy at me like a manicure morality test. I pick the first choice, and she nods sagely like I’ve made a wise decision.

“Knock, knock—can I come in?” Amber asks in our doorway, not bothering to knock or wait as she waltzes right in. By the time the question is out of her mouth, she’s already sitting next to me on the bed and dumping a suitcase’s worth of clothes on my mattress.

My mattress. Huh. Nothing in this school feels like my anything, but it’s weird how quickly our brains can adjust to new environments.

Less than a week has flown by, and this room has become a paradox: It’s a sanctuary when the lights are off and the covers are draped over my head, but a prison when it’s the three of us—Birdie, me, and the dead girl we don’t speak about.

I turn my attention back to Amber and immediately notice the matching set of black bags beneath her eyes.

She’s usually so well put together, but right now it looks like she’s pulled two consecutive all-nighters and still found the time to participate in the Boston Marathon.

Exhaustion sours her features, making her dewy skin sallow and her sparkling eyes shadowed.

“Hey, Amber, you look…” I struggle to finish that thought, but luckily I don’t have to.

She groans and collapses on top of the mountain of satin and chiffon she dragged in with her. There’s a boutique’s worth of dresses and skirts and corset tops, all haphazardly spilling across my plain blue Walmart duvet.

“Like shit?” she guesses with a telling twitch. “Yeah, I know. I feel like it, too. I had two hours of homework to get done before I came over here. Who assigns homework the first week of school—especially before Joker Night?”

With Amber here, Birdie scrambles to turn the fairy lights on to complete the “sleepover ambience” we’ve got going on.

The outside of this building might be borderline medieval, but the lights illuminate all the ways this school has been gutted for the current century: The old fireplace in the corner is entombed in white plaster, the scratches in the furniture have been buffed out, and the walls are slathered in a fresh layer of paint like a corpse dressed for a wake. Not quite alive but pretending to be.

“I’m only here right now because I’m running on two cans of contraband Celsius,” Amber drones on. “It’s basically off-brand cocaine. Here, can you feel my pulse and tell me if I’m dying?”

She throws her wrist in my face, and I dutifully press three fingers to her expanded artery. “The good news is you’re not dying,” I say with a smirk. “The bad news is that you’re probably going to be jittery until it works its way out of your system.”

She groans but accepts her fate with a dramatic flourish of her hand. “Well, that’s fine, because we’re going to be up all night figuring out what the hell we’re going to wear. I don’t know about you guys, but I still have no clue.”

It’s Birdie’s turn to balk at the sight of all the outfits crumpled behind Amber’s back. “You might have more clothes than I do, and that’s saying something.”

“I raided my wardrobe before I left home.” Amber sifts through her assortment of gowns and pulls a sequined piece to her chest before scrunching her nose and tossing it aside.

“Birdie and I waited all three years so that we could go out with a bang our senior year. I was not about to be caught off guard by the Joker Night theme. You don’t show up underdressed to a masquerade ball. ”

I toy absentmindedly with the hem of my pajama top. “I was going to wear my uniform.”

“Like hell you were,” Amber says with jumpy adrenaline. “No ifs, ands, or buts. You’re taking something. Unless Birdie or I get super into layering in the next twenty-four hours, there’s no way either of us could wear all these clothes at once.”

Speaking of Birdie, she’s busy squawking over my smudged my nail polish.

She snags my hand back to reapply a coat of Once in a Blue Moon to my pinky while Amber gestures again to the national landmark she’s made of couture.

Birdie relinquishes my hand, and I carefully hover my navy blue nails in the air.

“I couldn’t possibly—”

“Yes, you could possibly ,” Amber says, throwing my own words back at me before peering over my shoulder at my roommate. Birdie’s since wandered over to her own wild pile of clothes on the floor.

Before today, Birdie’s closet was enviably organized—she might be a mess when it comes to cleaning up her makeup vanity or making her bed, but she’s meticulous when it comes to color coding her wardrobe.

It’s a blend of school-uniform staples and weekend fits, bold accessories and colorful coats.

Tonight, it’s become a scattered collection of maybe s and no s and why did I even pack this in the first place s.

“No seriously why did I pack this?” Birdie asks us, brandishing what appears to be a zebra-print vest with peekaboo side cutouts.

Amber squints at it and crosses one silk pajama leg over the other. “I see the vision.”

Birdie looks back at it with renewed hope. “Would you wear it?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t be caught dead in that.” Amber snorts, and that has Birdie chucking the hideous vest at her head.

“You’re the worst, you know that?”

She blows a kiss in return. “And yet you invite me everywhere.”

It’s true that their styles couldn’t be any more opposite. Amber is all old-school prep, and Birdie is an eclectic hodgepodge of vintage bomber jackets and yellowed Dad-Star sneakers. I’ve never had enough money to care about fashion, but even I can’t help the silly surge of excitement.

The dorm hall comes alive on a Friday night. There’s a low thrum of chatter bleeding through the walls and the ever-present thumping of feet on the second floor; beyond that is a combination of music drifting through ancient vents and the quiet tone of Birdie’s TV playing in the background.

Birdie—who I’ve learned is unable to be left alone with the sound of her own thoughts—has always got something playing.

Today it’s the remastered version of Sleeping Beauty .

I look up in time to see Aurora get cursed.

Maleficent storms in with a ragged gust of wind, damning Aurora for the petty hell of it all.

By the time we make it through the first thirty minutes of the film, we’ve eliminated a third of the clothes on the floor from the running.

“Oh my God, I forgot I had this. Thoughts?” Birdie asks from her spot on the floor. She’s got a leather skirt with a fire-breathing chain-mail dragon up one side hanging in her hands like a prize fish.

She gets a thumbs-up from Amber with her free hand.

Her other hand is busy painting her toenails a bright, bloody red, the perfect shade match for her dress choice.

She’s “settled” on a Mirror Palais number; a crimson minidress that sweeps romantically off her shoulders, the bodice cinching tight at the waist.

“Here, Violet. Try this on. I think it’ll be a good match for your skin tone,” Amber tells me as she caps her nail polish and tosses a dress for me to try on.

With foam separators between her toes, she carefully bends over and scoops up a handful of rejected gowns.

“Bird, help me, please. We’re drowning over here, so let’s drag this back to my room while Violet tries that on. ”

Oh thank God.

It’s not like Birdie and Amber aren’t nice. They’re way nicer than they ought to be, but there’s nothing quite like being alone. Letting the mask slip and feeling the tension flee my body.

I swap my smile for a horrified grimace as I check the price.

I can hardly afford to look at this thing, let alone wear it, but while I’m looking anyway, I can’t deny that it’s beautiful.

The bodice is a stitched depiction of the Ionian Sea, a deep, resplendent blue with a tidal wave of embroidered mermaids.

At the waist, the skirt extends in an exaggerated flapper silhouette of bright blue ostrich feathers.

I fiddle with the back zipper, and I’m this close to shedding my pajamas and trying it on, but I don’t get the chance.

My phone beeps, and my mother’s face flashes next to her text.

Doing anything fun this weekend? Miss you lots , it reads, complete with a hyphen-nosed smile. :-)

I consider sending a selfie because it seems like the kind of thing you do when you’re playing dress-up and your mom texts you.

Except I’ve been on the receiving end of those kinds of texts.

I remember the blue halo of my phone in the break room.

Fluorescent light flickering and my thumb brushing against Emoree’s rags-to-riches life.

Wanting her to be happy but also looking around miserably at my own life.

I drag my phone to the window instead, snap a photo of the sunset in the courtyard, and type a quick not much 3 just having a night in with some friends before abandoning my phone on the bed.

“ Violet ,” a girl’s voice calls on the other side of the door. “Violet…Violet…Violet!”

I make a playful show of grunting and padding my feet noisily against the carpet. “All right, jeez,” I sing, playing up the theatrics. “I’m on my way, you guys. Please tell me that you didn’t come back with even more clothes.”

I can already envision it in my head: Birdie and Amber will throw me sheepish grins and pass me a bundle of dresses, and Amber will mutter something about forgetting she had a fifth suitcase packed under the bed.

Already rolling my eyes, I grip the door handle and swing it open.

Except when I look out into the hallway, I don’t see anything.

Not a second avalanche of outfits and certainly not a pair of students knocking to be let in.

Despite the earlier chaos of girls running all over the place, the hallway is now completely empty. From one long stretch to the other, I see nothing but outdated carpeting and shadowed walls. I did hear my name, right? Not once or twice but four distinct times on the other side of the door.

It’s only after another dumbfounded minute of me standing there that Amber and Birdie finally make their appearance. Birdie is empty-handed, oblivious, and chatting to Amber like nothing is wrong and her roommate isn’t actively hearing things.

She meets my eyes and lifts a brow before I can even blurt out my question. “Were you guys calling for me?” I ask, cracking my knuckles one handed as I shift in place.

She exchanges an uneasy look with Amber before shaking her head. “Uh, no? You might’ve heard bickering, but that’s it. Amber here was second-guessing her entire outfit and wanted to try things on again.”

I shift my weight back and forth and swallow down my paranoia. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Aside from them playing a dorm version of ding-dong ditch with me, there’s really no logical explanation otherwise, right?

Amber’s eyes cut to my pajamas instantly, and she groans as we make it back into the room. “Don’t tell me you already changed out of it!” she sputters, glancing between me and the dress still bundled in my hands. “I wanted to see!”

I offer them both an apologetic smile and mumble a quick sorry, not wanting to fuss with a fashion show.

It’s not like it matters all that much what I wear tomorrow.

Anything is an improvement from the clothes I brought.

Plus, if it looks this good in my hands, I’m fairly certain there’s no way it could look bad on me.

There’s more complaining, but thankfully they don’t push me. Instead, they take the dress and hang it next to their outfits on the rack.

who is that?

Huh? I squint at my mother’s message and return to the hastily snapped photo I sent. I’d meant to capture a pretty, if boring, image of the courtyard at sunset, but a lone figure stands on the hill. It’s Calvin, caught mid-step on an obvious path to the girls’ dorms, his blond hair windswept.

I snicker to myself at the very thought of him red-faced in the hallway.

You told everyone our fake kiss was that bad?

If the voice at the door hadn’t been a world away from his own, I might’ve assumed it was him after all.

He was probably just here to hook up with someone.

I have no problem imagining him slinking into the dormitory and a girl beckoning him quietly into her room. What a player.

No one , I text back like the liar I am. Not only is he a very irritating someone , but my entire plan hinges on him. I need to weasel my way into the Cards’ lair and dig up as much dirt as possible on his brother. Joker Night is quite literally my one and only chance here.

“This is my favorite part,” Birdie says, and it takes me a second as I set my phone down to realize she’s talking about the movie. Amber snickers about her being a Disney Adult, and her quip is met with a playful jab to the ribs.

The scene plays out like a medieval tapestry.

Aurora spellbound in Maleficent green, her bright figure creating a chiaroscuro against the blackened staircase.

She scales the spire in measured, dreamlike steps, up and up until she’s fully engulfed in the curse.

One tiny prick of the spindle is all it takes for her to be cast in perpetual twilight.

Stuck in a beautiful limbo between life and death.