“Wild,” he breathes. She seems to pull back, as if his touch borders on painful for her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s a lot to take. Your skin feels hot and so . . . alive? It’s a little overwhelming for me.”

Colin winces, looking away as he drops her hand and mumbles an apology.

“It’s like I didn’t exist, and then suddenly I was there on the trail,” she says, explaining. “And that dress I was wearing? The thin flowery one? The little-girl sandals?” She grows quiet, and he looks up at her, waiting. “I think that’s what I was buried in.”

She’s afraid, he realizes. Her eyes are this rich, grinding violet, flecked with metallic red. Hope and fear, he thinks, but mostly fear. Colin squeezes his eyes shut. He can read her mood in her eyes.

“Colin, are you okay?”

He presses the heel of his palms against his brows and grunts, not a yes, not a no. He is most definitely not okay.

She steps closer. “After I saw you, I mean, I felt like I was supposed to find you, and I realize how that sounds. It sounds creepy. It’s why I ran away.”

“I almost went after you,” he mumbles, but immediately wishes he hadn’t. This conversation feels the same as barreling headlong into a sharp turn in the dark, on a new trail. He doesn’t know how to navigate it.

“After that first day, I felt drawn to the school. I would sit outside and . . .” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her look up at him. “You know when you hold your breath and everything gets tight and full and you wonder what’s causing your chest to burn? I mean, it’s only oxygen and carbon dioxide not being let in and out of your lungs, but it burns, you know?”

His eyes widen and he nods, barely. He knows exactly what she means.

“Seeing you was like being able to exhale and then inhale again.” She searches his expression. “I know it sounds lame, but when I’m with you—even though nothing else makes sense—I’m glad I’m back.”

She’s said too much, and Colin doesn’t know how to tell her that it’s impossible she’s dead, and this entire conversation is a figment of his imagination. But then again, if this is all in his head, should he even feel embarrassed for her that what she says can’t possibly be true? How does one fight the spiral into insanity? His mother certainly didn’t.

Rather, she fell into a depression so deep after his sister died that she wouldn’t eat or move for days at a time. Finally, she insisted she saw her dead daughter walking around campus, lost her mind, and drove the living members of her family off a bridge.

He stares at her, feeling as if he’s about to throw up. Her eyes are liquid metal infused with color. Her hair is whiteblond only to him. She tells him she’s returned from the grave, that she’s here for him. “I . . . I need—”

“This sounds insane. You think I’m insane. I tota—”

“I’m sorry. I have to—”

“Please, Colin, believe me. I would never—”

He stands as she’s midsentence, turning woodenly and walking as fast as he can back to the dorm.

CHAPTER 9 HER

SHE WATCHES COLIN WALK AWAY AND CAN almost feel the frenzy of his reaction. The air seems to cool with every step he puts between them, but the imprint of his palm burns against hers. The conversation went both better and much worse than she expected. Better, because she was actually able to explain. Worse, because he left the way he did, looking as if he thought she was making it all up.

Standing, Lucy wraps herself in Colin’s hoodie. She closes her eyes as she takes in his scent on the cotton. What else can she do but wait? She can’t blame him for his panic and for the fear she saw so plainly on his face. The only way she can earn his trust is to let him see that all she wants is to be near him. She has time. She may even have forever.

With one final look, she begins the long walk back to her shed.

She sits by the statue of Saint Osanna the next morning with her arms wrapped around her legs pulled tight to her chest. She’s grown used to the statue’s strangeness; it’s the only thing that feels as out of place in this living world as she does. The earliest risers shuffle past in the chilly air, talking, laughing, eating. Barely awake or focused. One with bright, flushed cheeks, one with wild red hair, and one with smooth, ebony skin. Despite this, Lucy is struck by how little there is to differentiate them. The space around each student feels dull and hollow.

Lucy thinks Colin must hate this weather, so drizzly and wet. Would he ride in this, hopping his bike from log to log, defying gravity on such simple engineering even in the rain? She wants to watch him like that—lost in something he loves.

Just as the sun finally reaches the tops of the buildings, Colin appears. He steps around the corner headed to work the morning shift in Ethan Hall, long legs, long strides, wild hair still too long. He pushes it off his brow and glances at his watch before starting to jog. Lucy ducks back into the shadows, pulling the hood of his hoodie up and over her head. Unlike every other student at Saint Osanna’s, the space near Colin seems so full; the air is heavy with him. It distorts as if heated, swirling inward, wanting to be as close to him as she does.

“Good morning,” she says into the cold, hoping it will pass along the message.

CHAPTER 10 HIM

HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY HOW AWESOME you are, Dot?” Jay asks, his mouth full and his second plate of French toast in front of him. They’re sitting at the secret table in the kitchen, watching Dot and the other cooks prepare breakfast for hundreds of students about to pour in through the doors. Back here, they can eat in peace and steal extra bacon.

But this morning, Colin picks at his breakfast.

“If I’m so awesome, then why do I always have to take your dishes to the sink?” she asks over her shoulder.

Jay immediately changes the subject: “You going out after work?”