Second Thoughts Read online

  “Hot! In leather pants with a whip…that would bring people to the circus.” We laughed for real before she said, “Seriously though? What’s he doing?”

  Ah, the current mystery of Northbrook Academy: why Cartwright Penrose hadn’t gone to college yet. Not that much of the student body minded, since it meant he still worked almost daily at the bookstore. It had a great lounge with couches, chairs, and a huge fireplace, and tall, handsome, devastatingly flirtatious Carter was a popular attraction. Lucky for me, he was my boyfriend.

  “He’s…seriously considering Boston too,” I said. Technically he’d been top of his class at Northbrook when he’d graduated two years ago and a full scholarship to pretty much anywhere was virtually guaranteed. “And, well, basically any city I’m considering, or close.”

  “Wow. That’s big, Lane. You’d actually go to college together?”

  “Not the same school, but…yeah, I think he’ll choose near wherever I do.” Actually, I knew he would. Over the summer, he told me so, reciting his list of potential colleges arranged geographically to coincide with mine. The idea of it both thrilled and scared me. I didn’t want to have a long-distance relationship, but then again, I was afraid he was following me instead of his dreams. Maybe I should have been overjoyed by that, because I did love Carter, totally and absolutely, but I also couldn’t shake the feeling that it was too much pressure.

  “Wow,” Amy repeated. “I wish Caleb would be so definite about it.”

  She was quiet after that, and before long I could tell she’d drifted off to sleep. I clicked off the reading light next to my bed and waited to fall asleep myself. I expected it would happen instantly, but it’s never that easy when you want it to be. I kept thinking about college, and Carter too.

  As always, the thought lingered in my mind that maybe I wouldn’t have to make any lasting decisions anyway. Carter was going to kill me, after all.

  Maybe, I reminded myself as I finally fell asleep.

  Chapter Two

  I woke with a start the next morning, surprised to find I was alone. Of the two of us, I was the early riser. Amy slept as late as possible whenever possible. I’d just gotten my roommate back and already she was gone.

  A hastily scribbled note on the board tacked next to our door told me she was helping Caleb with move-in over at his dorm. I smiled to myself as I slipped out of bed and over to the bathroom. Not that I ever questioned it, but this was just one more confirmation of how incredibly and crazily in love Amy was with Caleb Sullivan: she willingly got up extra early to devote her day to physical labor just to spend a little time with him. I understood though. I’d do the same just to be near Carter.

  In reality, I’d do just about anything to be near Carter, not limited to running, occasionally shelving books at the store, and learning to shoot a gun. I’d risk my own life. If it seemed crazy that I’d be so desperate for his company despite that he was—maybe—going to kill me, it probably was. I knew this. It just didn’t change how I felt about him.

  The first things I should have done, after I had the vision, were 1) tell him about the vision and 2) Divine what other death he’d somehow caused. My mind went back and forth over which should’ve been one or two. But what I did was neither. Despite the certainty from the vision that he’d caused a death before, not a single part of me could believe Carter would hurt someone—hurt me—intentionally. And having just been through a serious trauma at the time, I couldn’t handle another.

  I couldn’t handle being wrong.

  So the longer I didn’t tell him and didn’t try to Divine his past, through the whole summer and into the unofficial start of autumn, the less likely it seemed I’d do either. Instead, I spent every possible moment with him not doing either of those things. I liked to tell myself the more time I spent with him, the more chances I’d have to catch glimpses of that frightening future and be prepared to change it.

  That’s what I told myself anyway.

  Mostly, I was in love. Hopelessly, stupidly in love. And even though that was true, there was still one other thing we’d not been doing. Despite the long, romantic summer, and one almost-night, I was hesitant to take that next big step. In my mind, if I was hesitant it meant I wasn’t ready. Even if I might die before I was. Even facing the distinct possibility of dying, reckless abandon just wasn’t my style.

  Showered and cozy in my bathrobe, I sat down for the first time on our magnificent new-old divan. And was jolted out of thoughts of my own death by the visions of not one but two others.

  I leaped up from the soft silk upholstery and nearly fell backwards over the ottoman. I stared at the pretty green sofa with new eyes. No wonder Amy had gotten such a great deal on what should have been a several thousand dollar piece: it was from an insane asylum. Literally.

  The visions showed me the psychiatrist’s plush office in the otherwise dreary mental hospital where the divan had previously resided. As if that wasn’t creepy enough, two patients had died on it, after going into hysterics and being forced to swallow some kind of narcotics. Even worse, I couldn’t tell if their deaths were accidental or intentional.

  I shuddered. A Grim Diviner’s day could be full of unwelcome surprises. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to sit on our new couch anymore, or how I’d explain my reluctance to Amy.

  Perhaps the worst part, for me anyway, was that these were the first unbidden visions I’d had in weeks. Since I’d been working with my gift for nearly ten months, I’d obtained a significant amount of control over it. I thought of it like a muscle, my Diviner sense, one that the more I worked, the stronger it had become. Usually now it only did what I told it to do.

  Classes didn’t start for three more days, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to do. Summer vacation was over, even if the warm weather was not. I tied my long, dark hair up in a ponytail, donned my Northbrook Academy T-shirt and workout pants, and headed across campus to help initiate the new students.

  After enjoying a summer gig giving campus tours to incoming students, I’d volunteered this year to be the upper-class representative for a seventh and eighth grade dorm. Some of the student reps, including Caleb, actually lived in the bigger dorms in exchange for free room and board, much to Amy’s chagrin. His was the hardest one to sneak in and out of.

  Sanderson House, the dorm I was responsible for, wasn’t nearly so large, but just as challenging in its own way. I didn’t have to live with them, but I did have thirty mostly wealthy young teen girls to contend with. And, to make it even harder, most of those girls, like me, were part of a group of people who all had some form of what most of the world called extrasensory perception. Amongst each other, we simply called ourselves Sententia, and what we could do, we called that Thought. Besides helping the girls move in, I’d be the upperclassman they could approach with problems or for advice. Like getting along with roommates, or adjusting to living away from home…or how to deal with a newly developed ability to divine deaths. Just as an example.

  All day I helped talkative girls and their families haul boxes up and down the stairs of Sanderson, directed the first-time students to the bookstore to pick up their start-of-year packages and supplies, and helped dry up tears. I was enormously thankful it wasn’t raining or too hot. Even though it was almost a perfect late-summer day in New England, by the afternoon I was sweaty and exhausted.

  When all their parents were finally gone, and all their belongings had been perfectly arranged, we gathered in Sanderson’s first-floor lounge. I wanted a little time to catch my breath and try to remember all of their names before hitting the chaos dinner hours were sure to be. I decided to let the girls ask any burning questions they might have had while we were in the general quiet of our dorm. What they wanted to know surprised me, though it probably shouldn’t have.

  They stared at me blankly for a minute—maybe this hadn’t been the great idea I thought it was—before a cute seventh grader was first to raise a tentative hand. I smiled and nodded.

  “
Is it true that Carter from the bookstore is your boyfriend?” she asked. She was a little wide-eyed but not exactly shy. Several of the other girls giggled and nodded their heads.

  I laughed. “Well, I suppose this is the first lesson for the new girls: nothing is secret around here and word travels fast. Yes, it’s true. Who told you about it?”

  A different girl, another first-time student, chimed in. “He told me about it,” she said. “He asked where I was living, and when I told him, he said that you were his girlfriend. He’s really cute.”

  “Does he have a younger brother?” yet another girl asked, and they all laughed.

  Before I could say anything, a voice from the back of the room caught me completely unprepared. It came from a new eighth grader who I’d almost immediately given the label of future most popular girl in school. She was slim and blond, already beautiful in a sophisticated way even at only thirteen or fourteen, and, between her parents and her luggage, struck me as possibly the wealthiest girl in Sanderson. I was pretty sure her name was Amanda, maybe Mandi for short.

  “Is it true that his ex-girlfriend kissed him in front of everyone at the Winter Ball last year and then later she died, until you saved her anyway? Even after she kissed him?” She sounded not curious but…almost smug. The other new girls looked shocked and murmured among themselves at the scandal of it.

  My mouth opened and closed once before I gathered my wits to respond. “Er. Yes, I guess all of that is true too, and I did save Jill. But I don’t think Carter told you about it…”

  She shook her head and smiled at me, a knowing smile that caused my stomach to twist and put me on guard, which I should have been on since I first met her, had I known. “No. My cousin Alexis did.”

  Ah ha. That explained a lot. I could see some family resemblance now despite the different last names and hair colors. I wondered if Alexis had also told her little cousin that she’d kissed my boyfriend on the night of the Winter Ball too, and that I’d slapped her for it. Probably not. And obviously, I still had the guy, despite that Alexis was the hands-down most beautiful and popular girl on campus and had been making her play for Carter for years. Now I knew I’d have to keep my eye on Amanda just as much as her cousin.

  “Well, Alexis would know about those things,” I said, and I applauded myself for being polite. “I’m sure she’s told you all about Northbrook.” Amanda just smiled sweetly and leaned over to whisper to the girl next to her. I resisted the urge to sigh. I didn’t want a girl rival in my own grade, let alone her Mini-Me to contend with in my group of advisees. But I didn’t have any choice about it either, so I just continued our get-to-know-each-other session with a smile of my own and an enthusiastic, “So, any more questions?”

  We made it through the rest of the evening without any more awkwardness, but truth be told, I was a little distracted. Once Amanda had mentioned her, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jillian Christensen. Jill.

  Yes, it was true, she’d kissed Carter at the Winter Ball. She wasn’t his ex-girlfriend though, actually more like his cousin. She was Daniel Astor’s daughter and had been in love with Carter for years. Also, little -known fact about her: she’d tried, and nearly succeeded, to kill me. The only reason she’d died and I saved her was because I used my Hangman gift—the one that let me stop a person’s heart with just a touch and a Thought—for the first and only time. It was that or die myself, and I really didn’t want to die.

  I thought about Jill a lot. That tended to happen when you killed someone. Or she tried to kill you. Despite knowing I’d do it again if I had to, I felt incredibly guilty about the whole thing. It was difficult carrying so many secrets around all the time, and this was the biggest one. My exterior bruises had healed in a few weeks, but the ones inside were the most difficult to deal with. Amanda’s comment had picked the scab and made it bleed all over again.

  I WAS STILL thinking about her in the morning as I made an early trip to meet with Headmaster Stewart. To get there, I followed the same route I’d once watched Jill take as she scurried away from my dorm, where she’d been spying on me. And Carter, having our first kiss. Sometimes I forgot that moment wasn’t as private as it should have been.

  Administration was one of my favorite buildings on campus, with its improbable lavender siding and mix of a modernly functional office with a quirky collection of antiques. It was early, so the building was as quiet as a centuries-old Victorian ever is. I climbed lightly up the stairs to the headmaster’s office, where I found her in the anteroom, sipping her customary tea and waiting for me. She looked the same as always—tall, imposing, unflinchingly alert and in command.

  “Good morning, Lainey. Prompt as always.”

  “I heard you have croissants if you get here early enough and I didn’t want to miss them.”

  She actually smiled before gesturing to the breakfast spread laid out on her sideboard. “Help yourself.” There was always the best food in Dr. Stewart’s office, no matter the time of day.

  My relationship with the headmaster was…different from other students. Not that we were friends or anything, but I liked her. I was pretty sure she liked me. We’d come to understand each other a lot better after what I called the Jillian Incident. Usually I wouldn’t be so casual with her, but this was a casual meeting. A formality, really. Every student met privately with the headmaster at least once at the beginning of the year, for introduction or reacquaintance, but I’d seen her all the time over the summer.

  Though just because it was casual didn’t mean it wasn’t important. After we’d settled into chairs in her office, she said, “I’ve reviewed your schedule, of course. It’s appropriately rigorous, as I expected. How are you feeling about this year?” She watched me over the rim of her china cup.

  Never lie to Headmaster Stewart is the first thing new students learn at Northbrook. If they’re Sententia, they know it’s because you, literally, can’t. Her gift tells her whether she’s hearing the truth, so I considered my answer carefully. “Excited, but nervous,” I finally said.

  She nodded. “That’s understandable. Most seniors feel the same way, you know.”

  I did, but, “I’m not sure they’re nervous about the same things. Or all the same things.”

  “Elaborate.”

  I took a bite of the famed croissants, swallowed. “Well, Jill, for one.”

  Dr. Stewart lowered her tea and looked at me. “Surely you know Jillian won’t be returning to Northbrook.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know. Maybe I should have suspected, or Carter should have told me, if he even knew. None of us liked to talk about the Jillian Incident, least of all him. I wasn’t sure if it made me feel better or worse that she wouldn’t return, but at least I wouldn’t have to see her on campus. Now I had a feeling I’d never see her again. “But her Legacy?”

  “Elaine,” she said. Just the way she pronounced my name reminded me of her authority and my inexperience. Even though we got along, I was still a student, sometimes a foolish one. “Jillian is…not well. Regardless, she couldn’t return to this school, where she attacked a student—-you. No matter how few people know or who her father is.”

  I swallowed again. “Does Senator…is Senator Astor okay with that?”

  “It was never a question.”

  I wouldn’t have long to wait before I was finally introduced to Senator Daniel Astor in person, since, besides my aunt, he’d be the guest of honor in a few weeks at the debut of her sculpture installation. He’d been very understanding after what had happened between his daughter and me, but I still couldn’t shake my dread over meeting him. If I couldn’t forgive myself, how possibly could he?

  And then a small voice inside me, one I tried to ignore but couldn’t, kept telling me I couldn’t trust him. I hated that voice, but it wouldn’t go away. Sometimes when I heard it, it sounded like Jill and her crazy ramblings while she strangled me. Other times it sounded like me, asking why had everyone believed Jill and her father had no contact with each oth
er when it wasn’t true? I knew I’d caught him in a lie. I wondered if Dr. Stewart ever had.

  I set down my breakfast plate, no longer hungry, and shifted in my chair. Outside, the rising sun played peek-a-boo through the trees, throwing patterns of shadow on the floor below the windows. “What’s he like?” I asked.

  Dr. Stewart thought for a few seconds. “He’s our leader.”

  “I know, but—” A slight narrowing of her eyes told me she hadn’t been finished. I shut up and listened.

  “He’s patient. A fine virtue,” she reminded me with another pointed look. The headmaster tapped one finger lightly on her teacup while she chose her words, and I could see a worn spot in the glaze that told me she did it often. “I think you’ll find the senator much like his nephew, minus the impetuousness that makes Cartwright so difficult sometimes.”

  I smiled into my own cup, swirling the remains of my coffee. She knew Carter well. Without taking too much time to think about what I was going to say, I blurted out, “Does Senator—do the two of you still talk about me?”

  “Of course. You know how important you are. For a number of reasons.”

  “That’s another thing I’m worried about.”

  “The Perceptum, you mean,” she said and I nodded. I was glad I didn’t have to explain for her to understand. I worried about the Perceptum and, specifically, its Council—the unofficial but very real and very serious governing body of all Sententia—often, almost as often as the man who headed it. For the other Sententia students, it was basically a given that they’d become members after graduation. But for me, it was different. As the last known Hangman, or Carnifex in the old Latin, it was my talent they wanted most. “We don’t choose our gifts, Lainey,” Dr. Stewart continued. “Only how to use them.”

  “That’s just it. What I’d have to do…” I trailed off, unsure exactly how to finish. It was a lot of things, most of which I was sure I couldn’t stomach. The Perceptum Council protected the most important and pretty much only code Sententia followed: to be discreet with our abilities. Occasionally the Council determined a person, and their abilities, were too big a threat to do anything but “eliminate” them. Or in other words, kill them. That’s where I’d come in. “Don’t you think there’s another way?”