If We Were Villains: A Novel

Halloween approached like a tiger in the night, with a soft rumble of warning. All through the second half of October, the skies were bruised and stormy, and Gwendolyn greeted us every morning by saying, “What dreadfully Scottish weather we’re having!”

As the ill-omened day crept closer, it was impossible to suppress a buzz of mounting excitement among the students. The morning of the thirty-first, whispers chased us around the refectory as we poured our coffee. What, everyone wanted to know, would happen on the windswept beach that evening? We were too restless to focus on our lessons, and Camilo dismissed us early, with the instruction that we “go and prepare our enchantments.” Back in the Castle, we avoided one another, slunk into corners, and muttered our lines to ourselves, like the inmates of a lunatic asylum. When witching hour arrived, we set off through the woods, one by one.

The night was eerily warm, and I struggled to follow the crooked forest path in darkness plush as velvet. Unseen roots reached up to snatch at my ankles, and once I lost my footing and fell to the ground, the damp smell of the coming storm swelling in my nose. I brushed myself off and proceeded more carefully, my heartbeat quick and shallow, like the pulse of a nervous rabbit.

When I reached the trailhead, I was afraid for a moment that I was late. My costume (pants, boots, shirt, and coat in culturally ambiguous military style) did not include a watch. I hovered at the edge of the trees, looking back up the hill toward the Hall. Dim lights burned in three or four windows, and I imagined the few students too cautious to brave the beach peeping timidly out. A twig snapped in the shadows and I turned.

“Someone there?”

“Oliver?” James’s voice.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “Where are you?”

He emerged from between two black pines, his face a pale oval in the gloom. He was dressed much the same as I was, but silver epaulettes glinted on his shoulders. “I had hoped you might be my Banquo,” he said.

“I suppose congratulations are in order, Thane of Everything.”

With my suspicions confirmed, I felt a little pinch of pride. But at the same time something prescient stirred, an indistinct disquiet. No wonder Richard wasn’t happy on the day of scene assignments.

Midnight: the low boom of the chapel clock rippled through the still night air and James gripped my arm hard. “The bell invites me,” he said, words light and breathless with excitement. “Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven, or to hell!” He let go and vanished into the shadows of the underbrush. I followed, but not too close, afraid of tripping again and dragging both of us to the ground.

The belt of trees between the Hall and the north shore was dense but narrow, and soon a dusky orange light began to filter between the branches. James—I could see him clearly by then, or the outline of him at least—stopped, and I tiptoed up behind him. Hundreds of people were crowded on the beach, some sitting in long cramped rows on the benches, others in tight little clumps on the ground, their silhouettes black against the fulgent glow of the bonfire. A murmur of thunder smothered the lap of the waves against the shore and the crackling flames. Excited whispers rose from the spectators as the sky overhead, oil-painted in furled foreboding violet, flushed white with lightning. Then the beach was quiet again, until a high, shrill voice said, “Look!”

A solid black shape was approaching on the water, a long rounded dome, like a hump of the Loch Ness Monster.

“What is that?” I breathed.

“It’s the witches,” James said slowly, the firelight reflected like red sparks in both his eyes.

As the bestial shape crept closer, it came slowly into focus, enough that I could tell it was an overturned canoe. Judging by the height of the hull on the water, there would be just enough room for a pocket of air underneath. The boat drifted into the shallows, and for a moment the surface of the lake was smooth as glass. Then there was a ripple, a shudder, and three figures emerged. A collective gasp rushed out from the audience. The girls looked less like witches at first than phantoms, their hair hanging sleek and wet over their faces, filmy white dresses melting from their limbs, swirling in spirals behind them. As they rose from the water their fingertips dripped and the fabric clung so closely to their bodies that I could tell who was who, though their faces remained downcast. On the left, Filippa, her long legs and slim hips unmistakable. On the right, Wren, smaller and slighter than the other two. In the middle, Meredith, her curves bold and dangerous under the thin white shift. Blood pounded in my ears. James and I, for the time being, forgot each other.

Meredith lifted her chin just high enough that her hair slid back from her face. “When shall we three meet again?” she asked, her voice low and lush in the balmy air. “In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

“When the hurlyburly’s done,” Wren answered, slyly. “When the battle’s lost and won.”

Filippa’s voice, throaty and bold: “That will be ere the set of sun.”

A drum echoed from somewhere deep in the trees and the audience shivered with delight. Filippa looked toward the sound, straight up the path to where James and I stood hidden in the shadows. “A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come.”

Meredith raised her hands from her sides and the other two came forward to grasp them.

ALL: “The weird sisters, hand in hand,

Posters of the sea and land,

Thus do go, about, about,

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

And thrice again to make up nine.”

They came together in a triangle and pushed their open palms up toward the sky.

“Peace!” Meredith said. “The charm’s wound up.”

James inhaled suddenly, like he’d forgotten to breathe before, and stepped out into the light. “So foul and fair a day I have not seen,” he said, and every head turned toward us. I walked close behind him, not afraid of stumbling now.

“How far is’t call’d to Forres?” I said, and then stopped dead. The three girls stood side by side, staring up at us. “What are these / So wither’d and so wild in their attire, / That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth, / And yet are on’t?” We descended more slowly. A thousand eyes followed us, five hundred pairs of lungs holding their breath.

Me:           “Live you? or are you aught

That man may question? You seem to understand me—”

James: “Speak if you can.”

Meredith sank down in a crouch in front of us. “All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!”

Wren came to kneel beside her. “All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”

Filippa didn’t move, but said, in a clear ringing voice, “All hail Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!”

James twitched backward. I caught his shoulders and said, “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair?”

He looked sideways at me and I let him go, reluctantly. After a moment’s hesitation I slid past him, stepped down from the last sandy stair to stand among the witches.

Me:            “I’ the name of truth,

Are ye fantastical or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner

You greet with present grace and great prediction

Of noble having and of royal hope,

That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.

If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow and which will not,

Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear

Your favors nor your hate.”

Meredith was on her feet in an instant. “Hail!” she said, and the other girls echoed her. She darted forward, came too close, her face only an inch from mine. “Lesser than Macbeth and greater.”

Wren appeared behind me, fingers drumming on my waist, peeking up at me with an impish smile. “Not so happy, yet much happier.”

Still, Filippa stood off. “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none,” she said—indifferent, almost bored. “So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo.”

Wren and Meredith continued to pet and paw me, plucking at my clothes, exploring the lines of my neck and shoulders, pushing back my hair. Meredith’s hand wandered all the way up to my mouth, fingertips tracing my lower lip, before James—who had indeed been looking on with a kind of rapt revulsion—started and spoke. The girls’ heads snapped toward him and I swayed on the spot, weak-kneed at the loss of their attention.

James: “Stay, you imperfect speakers! Tell me more.

By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis;

But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,

A prosperous gentleman; and to be King

Stands not within the prospect of belief.”

They only shook their heads, put their fingers to their lips, and slunk back into the water. When they had completely disappeared beneath the surface and we had recovered most of our wits, I turned to James, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Your children shall be kings,” he said.

“You shall be king.”

“And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?”

“To the selfsame tune and words.” Footsteps approached from the trees and I looked toward them. “Who’s here?”

The rest of the scene was short, and when I wasn’t speaking, I kept a watchful eye on the water. It was still again, reflecting the tempestuous purple sky. When the time came, I and the two lucky third-years playing Ross and Angus exited right, out of the firelight.

“We’re done,” one of them whispered. “Break legs.”

“Thanks.” I ducked behind the shed on the edge of the beach. It was no bigger than an outhouse, and if I glanced around one corner I could see the fire, the canoe resting on the water, the stretch of sand where James now stood alone.

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” He groped into the empty air before him. “Come, let me clutch thee.”

It was a speech I had never expected to hear him give. He was too spotless to talk of blood and murder like Macbeth, but in the red glare of the fire he no longer looked so angelic. Instead he was handsome the way you think of the devil as handsome—forbiddingly so.

James:            “Thou sure and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

The very stones prate of my whereabout,

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

I go, and it is done.”

He condemned Duncan once more, then stole away to meet me on the edge of the firelight as the audience waited, whispering to one another, for the next scene to begin.

“What now?” I said when he was close enough to hear.

“I think—wait.” He shrank back, bumped against me.

“What?”

“Hecate,” he hissed.

Before I could even catch the substance of the word, Alexander exploded out of the water. Little shrieks of surprise went up from the audience as waves crashed back down around him. He was soaking wet, naked to the waist, his curls loose and wild around his face. He threw his head back and howled up at the sky like a wolf.

“Literally wicked,” I said.

The girls emerged from the water again, and no sooner had Meredith said, “Why how now, Hecate, you look angerly!” than Alexander grabbed her by the back of the neck, flinging water everywhere.

“Have I not reason, beldams as you are,” he snarled, “Saucy and overbold? How did you dare / To trade and traffic with Macbeth / In riddles and affairs of death?”

James seized my arm. “Oliver,” he said. “Blood-bolter’d Banquo smiles upon me.”

“Oh. Oh, shit.”

He bullied me into the shed, the door squealing treacherously behind us. Inside, the floor was cluttered with oars and lifejackets, leaving barely enough space for the two of us to stand face-to-face. A gallon bucket waited on one low shelf.

“Jesus,” I said, hastily unbuttoning my jacket. “How much blood did they think we needed?”

“Loads, apparently,” James told me, bending down to wedge the lid off. “And it reeks.” A sweet, rotten odor filled the room as I wriggled out of my boots. “I suppose we have to give them points for authenticity.”

My arm was tangled in a shirtsleeve. “Shit shit shit, I’m stuck, ouch, fuck—James, help—!”

“Hush! Here.” He stood, took my shirt by the hem, and yanked it up over my head. My head got caught in the collar and I crashed against him. “Can you get blood on those pants?” he asked, catching at my waistband to steady me.

“Well, I’m not going naked.”

He reached for the bucket. “Fair enough. Close your mouth.”

I clamped my mouth and eyes shut and he poured the blood over my head, like some kind of perverse pagan baptism. I spluttered and coughed as it ran down my face. “What is this shit?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know how much time you have.” He grabbed my head. “Hold still.” He smeared the blood around my face and chest and shoulders, raked his fingers through my hair to make it stand on end. “There.” For a split second he just stared at me, somehow looking impressed and completely revolted at the very same time.

“How do I look?”

“Fucking incredible,” he said, then nudged me toward the door. “Now go.”

I stumbled out of the shed and sprinted into the trees, swearing as sharp stones and pine needles jabbed at my bare feet. It was certainly spooky, showing up at midnight with no idea who we’d meet in the dark, but it was troublesome, too. I only knew my scenes, so I could hardly guess how much time I had before I was due to enter as Banquo’s ghost. A branch whipped across my face but I ignored it and clambered up the hill, over roots and rocks and creeping vines. Another scratch on my cheek wouldn’t matter; I was already covered in blood. My skin felt sticky as it cooled in the raw night air, and my heart was pounding again—half from the effort of climbing to the trailhead, half from petty fear that I would miss my second entrance.

As it turned out, I made it back to the tree line in plenty of time. I arrived slowly and clumsily, twigs cracking under my feet, but the audience was watching James’s second conference with the witches with anxious attention and paid me no mind. I lurked under a low-hanging branch, the keen scent of pine cutting through the ripe stench of stage blood on my skin.

Wren: “By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes!”

James: “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!

What is’t you do?”

The girls danced in a ring around the fire, hair loose and tangled, green lakeweed clinging to their skirts. Every now and then one of them tossed a handful of sparkling dust in the fire and a cloud of colored smoke burst above the flames. I shifted in my hiding place, waiting. I was the last in a series of visions, but how would they appear? I searched the crowd of spectators for familiar faces, but it was too dark to make out many distinguishing features. I spotted Colin’s blond head on the house left side, and the firelight glinted on a coppery curl that I thought might belong to Gwendolyn. I couldn’t help but wonder—where in the world was Richard?

An unearthly shriek of laughter from Wren pulled my attention back down to the beach.

Meredith:            “Speak!”

Wren:                      “Demand!”

Filippa:                              “We’ll answer.”

Meredith: “Say, if thou’dst rather hear it from our mouths,

Or from our masters?”

James:              “Call ’em; let me see ’em.”

The girls’ voices rose in a high, discordant chant. James stood looking on, brooding and uncertain.

Meredith: “Pour in sow’s blood, that hath eaten

Her nine farrow; grease that’s sweaten

From the murderer’s gibbet throw

Into the flame—”

ALL:            “Come, high or low;

Thyself and office deftly show!”

Filippa threw something on the fire and the flames roared up above their heads. A voice bellowed across the beach, tremendous and terrifying as some primordial god. Unmistakably, Richard.

“MACBETH. MACBETH. MACBETH. BEWARE MACDUFF.”

He was nowhere to be seen, but his voice pressed in on us from all sides, so loud it rattled in my bones. James was no less alarmed than I or anyone else and stumbled over his words when he spoke. “What’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks; / Thou hast harp’d my fear aright: but one word more—”

Richard interrupted, deafeningly.

Richard: “BE BLOODY, BOLD, AND RESOLUTE; LAUGH TO SCORN

THE POWER OF MAN, FOR NONE OF WOMAN BORN

SHALL HARM MACBETH.”

James: “Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?”

Richard: “BE LION-METTLED, PROUD; AND TAKE NO CARE

WHO CHAFES, WHO FRETS, OR WHERE CONSPIRERS ARE:

MACBETH SHALL NEVER VANQUISH’D BE UNTIL

GREAT BIRNAM WOOD TO HIGH DUNSINANE HILL

  SHALL COME AGAINST HIM.”

James:                        “That will never be—

Who can impress the forest, bid the tree

Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements! good!

Rebellion’s head, rise never till the wood

Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth

Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath

To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart

Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art

Can tell so much: shall Banquo’s issue ever

Reign in this kingdom?”

The witches all cried out at once, “Seek to know no more!”

James: “I will be satisfied: deny me this,

And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.”

ALL: “Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;

Come like shadows, so depart!”

Eight cloaked figures rose in the back row of the audience. A girl sitting beside them squealed in surprise. They glided toward the center aisle and began to descend (more third-years? I wondered) while James watched in wide-eyed horror. “What,” he said, “will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?”

My heart leapt up into my throat. I stepped into the light for the second time, blood slick and gleaming on my skin. James gaped up at me, and the audience all turned together. Stifled screams fluttered on the surface of the silence.

“Horrible sight,” James said, weakly. I started down the stairs again, raising my arm to point and claim the eight cloaked figures as my own. “Now, I see, ’tis true; / For the blood-bolter’d Banquo smiles upon me, / And points at them for his.”

I lowered my hand again and they disappeared, melted into the surrounding shadows as if they had never existed. James and I stood ten feet apart before the fire. I gleamed crimson, grim and bloody as a newborn baby, while James’s face was ghostly white.

“What, is this so?” he said—it seemed—to me. A strange, swelling silence followed. We both leaned forward without moving our feet, waiting for something to happen. Then Meredith came between us.

“Ay, sir,” she said, and dragged James’s gaze away from me. “All this is so: but why / Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?”

He allowed himself to be led away, back to the fire and the tempting attentions of the witches. I climbed to the top of the steps, stopped there and lingered, to haunt him. Twice his eyes wandered my way, but the audience was watching the girls again. They reeled around the fire, cackling up at the stormy sky, and began to sing once more. James looked on for a moment, aghast, then turned and fled the firelight.

ALL: “Double double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble—

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf…”

While Meredith and Wren carried on the dance, their movement wild and violent, Filippa lifted up a bowl that had been hidden deep in the sand. A red and viscous liquid sloshed against the sides, the same false blood that prickled on my skin.

ALL: “Double double, toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.”

Filippa upended the bowl. There was a sickening splash, and everything went black. The audience surged to its feet in a roar of glee and confusion. I sprinted back into the cover of the trees.

When the lakeside lights came on—weak orange bulbs flickering weirdly at the edges of the beach—the shore was alive with shouts and laughter and applause. I doubled over in the cool forest darkness, hands on my knees, breathing heavily. I felt like I’d just outrun a landslide. All I wanted was to find the other fourth-years and share a sigh of relief.

But quiet celebration was not to be had. Halloween demanded a party of bacchanalian proportions, and it didn’t take long to begin. As soon as the faculty and the more timorous first- and second-years had gone, kegs appeared as if conjured by some lingering magic, and music came thudding through the speakers that had so eerily magnified Richard’s voice. Alexander was the first of us to emerge, staggering out of the water like a drowned man reanimated. Admirers and friends from other disciplines (there were many of the former, few of the latter) surrounded him, and he regaled them with a thrilling tale of treading water for over an hour. I waited in the safety of the trees a little longer, well aware that I was covered in blood and it would be impossible not to draw attention to myself. Only when I spotted Filippa did I venture back out onto the beach.

As soon as the light hit me, people shouted congratulations, reached out to slap my back and tousle my hair before they realized how sticky I was. By the time I made my way to Filippa, two plastic cups foaming over with beer had been forced into my hands.

“Here,” I said, and passed one to her. “Happy Halloween.”

Her eyes flicked from my bloody face to my dirty bare feet and back again. “Nice costume.”

I plucked at the sleeve of her dress, which was still damp and mostly transparent. “I like yours better.”

She rolled her eyes. “Think they’ll try to get all of us completely naked this year?”

“There’s always the Christmas masque.”

“Oh God, bite your tongue.”

“Seen the others?”

“Meredith’s off looking for The Voice. No clue about James and Wren.”

Alexander excused himself from his audience and barged between us, hooking an arm around each of our necks. “That went about as well as could be expected,” he said. Then, “What the fuck? Oliver, you’re filthy.”

“No, I’m Banquo.” (He had been back under the boat for both of my scenes.)

“You smell like raw meat.”

“You smell like pond water.”

“Touché.” He grinned and rubbed his palms together. “Shall we get this party properly started?”

“How do you propose we do that?” Filippa asked.

“Get drunk, get loud, get lucky.” He pointed a finger pistol at her. “Unless you have a better idea.”

She put both hands up in surrender and said, “Lead on.”

Halloween seemed to bring out a sort of sybaritic hysteria in the Dellecher students. What I remembered of it from my first three years was quickly forgotten, as being a fourth-year was a little like being a celebrity. People I didn’t know, barely knew, barely recognized, heaped compliments on me and all the others, asked how long we’d been rehearsing, and expressed appropriate amazement when they learned that we hadn’t, at all. For an hour or so I accepted proffered drinks and drags on spliffs and cigarettes, but the close press of people soon began to suffocate me. I scanned the crowd with some urgency, in search of one of my fellow fourth-year thespians. (I’d been separated from Alexander and Filippa, though at that point I didn’t recall when or how.) I shook off a desperately flirtatious second-year girl by saying I needed another drink, found one, and wandered toward the edge of the light. I breathed a little more freely, content to watch the debauchery for a while without participating. I sipped slowly at my beer until I felt a hand on my arm.

“Hello there.”

“Meredith.” She had detached herself from a group of studio art boys (probably begging her to pose for a drawing class) and followed me to the periphery of the party. She was still in her witch dress, and in my foggy state it was impossible not to stare at her through the fabric.

“Tired of hearing how fabulous you are?” she asked.

“Mostly they just want to touch the blood.”

She smiled and walked her fingers from my elbow up to my shoulder. “Sick little freaks.” She’d definitely been drinking, but she held her liquor better than the rest of us. “Then again, maybe they just want an excuse to touch you.” She licked a spot of stage blood off the tip of one finger and winked, thick black eyelashes like ostrich-feather fans. It was unbearably sexy, which irritated me for some reason. “You know,” she said, “the bare-chested, covered-in-blood look, it’s working for you.”

“The braless, wearing-a-bedsheet look, it’s working for you,” I said, without thinking, and only half sarcastic. A slow-motion movie of Richard kicking my teeth in reeled through my head and I added, loudly, “Where’s your boyfriend? I don’t think I’ve seen him.”

“He’s sulking, trying to keep me and everyone else from having fun.” I followed her gaze back to the beach, where Richard was sitting on a bench by himself, nursing a drink and watching the revelers as if he found their partying profoundly offensive.

“What’s wrong with him now?”

“Who cares? It’s always something.” She tugged my fingers and said, “Come on, James is looking for you.”

I pulled my hand away but followed obediently, downing most of my drink in one gulp. I could feel Richard glaring at me.

Someone had built the fire up to blazing again, and James and Wren stood beside it, talking to each other and ignoring everyone else. As we approached he offered her his coat; she pulled it close around her shoulders, then looked down and laughed. The hem hung halfway to her knees.

“How on earth did all four of you fit under that canoe?” James asked, when I was near enough to hear.

“Well, it was very cozy,” she said. “I must’ve accidentally almost kissed Alexander five times.”

“Lovely. Give him a few more drinks and he’ll be telling everyone how badly you want him.”

Wren turned toward us and gave a little gasp, clutching the collar of James’s coat with both hands. “Oliver, you startled me! You still look frightful.”

Me: “I’d love to wash off, but that water looks very cold.”

Wren: “It’s not terrible once you’re in it up to your waist.”

Me: “Says the girl standing by the fire, wearing someone else’s coat.”

“Wren,” Meredith said, glancing over her shoulder toward the benches, “will you please talk to Richard? I’ve had enough of him.”

Wren offered the rest of us a wan smile and said, “My gentle cousin.”

James watched her pick her way through the crowd. Meredith peered into his half-empty cup, took it from him, and reached for mine. “You two stay here,” she said. “I’ll be back with more drinks.”

“Oh good,” I said. “I can’t wait.”

When she was gone, James turned to me and asked, “All right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Fine.”

I could tell from his skeptical smile that he didn’t believe me, but mercifully he chose to change the subject. “You know, you do look frightful. Scared me half to death coming out of the trees like that.”

“James, you did this to me.”

“Yes, but in the dark in that tiny little shed, it wasn’t the same. With all the light on you and that look on your face…”

“Well,” I said, “blood will have blood.”

“Well, I plan never to get on your bad side.”

“Likewise,” I said. “You make a surprisingly convincing villain.”

He shrugged. “Better me than Richard. He looks really murderous.”

I glanced toward the benches again. Richard and Wren sat side by side, heads bent together. An ominous frown darkened his face as he spoke, looking down at his hands. That half-buried unease pushed up toward the surface again. I told myself it was just a stomachache, too much booze drunk too quickly. “Sound and fury,” I said, “signifying nothing. Don’t mind him.”

Another hour went by, or maybe two or three. The sky was so dark that it was impossible to tell how time was passing, unless you measured the minutes by the number of drinks you had. I lost count after seven, but my hand was never empty. The younger students retreated to the Hall, weaving through the trees, laughing and swearing as they tripped over protuberant roots and spilled what was left of their beer on themselves. Fourth-years of every discipline and a few precocious third-years lingered. Someone decided that the night couldn’t end without everyone soaking wet, and slippery, wobbling chicken fights had begun.

After a dozen rounds, Alexander and Filippa were the reigning champions. They looked more like one creature than two, Filippa’s long legs wound so tightly around Alexander’s shoulders that they could have been a terrifying set of Siamese twins. He stood waist-deep in the water, barely swaying, gripping her knees. Unlike Meredith, his drunkenness was obvious, but it only seemed to make him invincible.

“Whozenext?” he yelled. “Undefeated, that’s what we are.”

“If someone defeats you, will you call it a night?” James asked. The rest of us sat in the sand, our bare feet at the edge of the water, forgotten drinks hanging heavily from our fingertips. The air was unseasonably temperate for October, but cold waves nipped at our toes, a forewarning of approaching winter.

Alexander listed to the left and let go of Filippa’s leg to point at us; she grabbed for his other hand to keep from falling off. “’Sgotta be you guys,” he said.

I shook my head at James. We had been happy to heckle and cheer them on as they thrashed the remaining third-years.

Meredith: “Well, I’m not getting back in the water.”

Filippa: “What’s the matter, Mer? Afraid of a little rough play?”

The thirty or so onlookers hooted and whistled.

Meredith: “I know what you’re doing. You’re baiting me.”

Filippa: “Duh. Is it working?”

Meredith: “You bet, bitch. Bring it on.”

People whooped and Filippa grinned. Meredith stood, brushed the sand from her backside and called over her shoulder, “Rick! Let’s teach these morons a lesson.”

Richard, who had deigned to come down to the beach but was sitting a yard or so behind the rest of us, said, “No. Make a spectacle of yourself if you want. I’m staying dry.”

Another round of laughter, meaner this time. (Meredith was much admired but also much envied, and any misstep of hers was jealously savored by at least a few.)

“Fine,” she said, coolly. “I will.” She grabbed her skirt and tied it up in a knot high on her hip. She waded into the water, turned, and said, “Coming, Oliver?”

“What, me?”

“Yeah, you. Someone has to help me sink these idiots, and James sure as fuck isn’t going to do it.”

“She’s right,” James said, blithely. “I’m sure-as-fuck not.” (Unlike the rest of us, who were all attracted to Meredith in some biological, unavoidable way, James seemed to find her overt sex appeal somehow repulsive.) He smirked at me. “Have fun.”

Meredith and I stared at each other for a moment, but the fierceness of her expression didn’t make refusal feel like an option. People I didn’t even know shouted encouragement at me until I climbed, a little sloppily, to my feet. “This is a bad idea,” I said, mostly to myself.

“Don’t worry.” Wren nudged James with her elbow. “I’ll make him fight the winners with me.”

He protested, but I didn’t hear what he said because Meredith had grabbed my arm and was dragging me into the water. “Get on your knees,” she ordered.

“I bet she says that to all the boys,” Alexander said. “Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, / No touch of bashfulness?”

I glared at him as I crouched down in the water. The cold nearly knocked the wind out of me, seizing onto my stomach and chest like a sheet of ice. “Jesus,” I said. “Hurry up and get on!”

“I bet he says that to all the girls,” Filippa said, with a wink. “Perforce I must confess, / I thought you lord of more true gentleness!”

“Okay,” I said to Meredith, as more lewd laughter bubbled in my ears. “Let’s kill them.”

“That’s the spirit.” She swung one leg over my shoulder, then the other, and I nearly toppled her right off. She wasn’t heavy, but I was drunk, and I hadn’t realized quite how drunk until just then. She hooked her feet under my armpits and I straightened up slowly. There was a smattering of applause as I tried to find my balance, wishing the water would stop pushing and pulling at me. Some of the stage blood loosened from my skin and snaked down my abdomen to my waistband.

Colin, our cocky young Antony, seemed to be the acting referee. He sat straddling the overturned canoe, double-fisting Solo cups. “Ladies, keep your claws to yourselves,” he said. “No plucking out of eyeballs, please. First to knock a girl in the water wins.”

I struggled to focus on Alexander, wondering how to upend him. With Meredith’s thighs wet and glistening on either side of my face it was difficult to concentrate.

“Fie, fie!” Filippa said, delightedly. “You counterfeit, you puppet you!”

“Ay, that way goes the game,” Meredith said. “How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak!”

“Oh, when she’s angry she is keen and shrewd!” Filippa replied. “She was a vixen when she went to school!” More scandalized laughter.

“Will you suffer her to flout me thus?” Meredith said. “Let me come to her!”

And we lurched forward. I wove underneath Meredith, fighting to stay upright. The girls grappled violently, the churning water and Alexander’s manic laughter loud and disorienting. Meredith lost her balance, and the shift of her weight pulled me sharply backward.

I threw my body in the opposite direction and slammed against Alexander. Filippa nearly kicked me in the face and the whole world reeled, but an idea sparked at the very same time. I lunged headfirst at Alexander again, and when I saw the white flash of Filippa’s foot, I risked letting go of Meredith’s leg to grab it. We leaned hard to the side but I shouted, “Meredith, now!”

I flung Filippa’s foot upward and Meredith shoved her hard. She tilted immediately backward, pulling Alexander with her, and after one brief suspended moment, arms windmilling at their sides, they both crashed down in the water. Meredith and I careened to the right and I clamped my free hand on her thigh again. The spectators clapped and hollered, but I could barely hear them because Meredith was hugging my head with her legs, one hand clutched in my hair. I turned dizzily on the spot and tried to smile.

Filippa and Alexander came up from under the water, choking and sputtering.

“Right,” Alexander said. “Some’n gimme a drink, I’m done.”

“I think we’re all done,” Filippa said.

“Oh no,” Meredith said, to my dismay. “Wren said she’d play winner.”

Colin smacked the side of the canoe. “Hear hear!”

“I’m up for it if James is,” Wren said.

I wiped the water from my eyes and looked at him. He sat fidgeting in the sand with a sheepish half smile. Suddenly I wanted him to play. “C’mon, James,” I said. “Let us make a fool of you and we can all go home.”

“Go on, get some revenge for us,” Filippa said, standing on the beach, wringing the water out of her skirt.

“Well,” he said, “if I must.”

Wren climbed to her feet and offered James her hands to help him up. She tied her skirt in a more modest knot than Meredith’s and started into the water. Some of the spectators had wandered off, but there were about ten of them left and they called out reassurances. Meredith had begun to feel heavy on my shoulders, so I jostled her a little farther forward. She combed my hair back out of my eyes with her fingertips and said, “You okay down there?”

“I’m too drunk for this.”

“You’re my hero.”

“Just what I’ve always wanted.”

Wren waded out to where we were and said, “God, it’s cold!”

“’Tis a naughty night to swim in.” James winced as he trudged in after her. “Let me help you up.” He crouched down as I had done, taking one of her hands as she put her leg over his shoulder.

But before she could finish climbing on, a voice we’d barely heard all night said, “Actually, I think there’s been enough of this.”

I turned, slowly and carefully. Richard stood on the beach, scowling.

“You didn’t want to play,” Meredith said. “Why do you get an opinion?”

“It’s just a bit of fun,” Wren said. She had only made it halfway up and was perched, parrot-like, on James’s shoulder. His eyes were fixed on Richard.

“It’s fucking stupid and somebody’s going to get hurt. Get down.”

“Come on, Rick,” Alexander said from where he was sprawled in the sand with another drink. “She’ll be fine.”

“Shut up,” he said. “You’re drunk.”

“And you’re not?” Filippa said. “Mellow out, it’s just a game.”

“Fuck off, Filippa, this has nothing to do with you.”

“Richard!” Wren said. Filippa glared up at him, mouth slightly open in surprise.

“Okay, I think the show’s over,” Colin said, sliding off the canoe. “C’mon guys, clear out.” The few onlookers left grumbled their disappointment and began to trickle away. Colin hesitated, looking from Richard to the rest of us like he wasn’t sure whether we still needed a referee.

“Would you both stop screwing around?” Richard said, his voice carrying across the water as if it had once again been magically magnified.

“Oh, I see,” Meredith said. “You can’t stand us having a good time because you’re busy pouting? Because you didn’t get the last bow for once?” His face went white—livid—and I squeezed her knees hard, trying to warn her not to say too much. She didn’t feel it, didn’t understand, or didn’t care. “Fuck that,” she said. “It’s not always about you.”

“That’s rich coming from a world-class attention whore.”

“Richard, what the hell?” A flash of anger made my head feel suddenly hot. My grip on Meredith’s legs tightened reflexively. The instinct to defend her was unexpected, unwarranted, but I didn’t have time to be confused about it. She was dangerously quiet.

Richard started to say something else, but James interrupted. “That’s enough,” he said, and there was a bite in his voice I had never heard before. “Why don’t you take five, and come back when you’ve cooled off?”

Richard’s eyes burned black. “Take your hands off my cousin and I’ll—”

“And you’ll what?” Wren splashed down but stayed close to James. “What is the matter with you? It’s just a game.”

“Yeah, okay,” Richard said, striding into the water. “Let’s play a game. Wren, move, it’s my turn.”

“Richard, don’t be an idiot.” Meredith swung one leg off my shoulder and I grabbed her around the waist to help her down. Without her extra weight I felt like I was filled with helium. I blinked hard, trying to clear my head.

“No, I want to play,” Richard said again. How much had he drunk? He was speaking clearly, but his movement was loose and reckless. “Wren, get out of the way.”

“Come on, Richard, he hasn’t done anything,” I said.

He rounded on me. “Oh, don’t worry—I’ll be with you in a minute.”

I leaned back. I didn’t like my odds if he was determined to start a fight with someone.

“Leave him alone,” James said, sharply. “He only played because you didn’t want to and he was trying to be nice.”

“Yes, we all know how nice Oliver is.”

“Richard,” Meredith said. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“I’m not, I want to play now. Come on, I thought you wanted one last game.” He reached around Wren and shoved James backward. There was a soft splash as the water caught him.

“Richard, stop!” Wren said.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “One more game!” He pushed James again and James knocked his arm away.

“Richard, I’m warning you—”

“What? I want to play.”

“I’m not playing,” James told him, every muscle in his body taut and rigid. “Don’t fucking do that again.”

“So you’ll play with the girls and Alexander and Oliver but not with me?” Richard demanded. “COME ON!”

“Richard, stop!” We yelled it all together, but we’d waited too long. He shoved James again, and there was nothing playful about it. James hit the water hard, arms smacking the surface as he tried to catch himself. As soon he was back on his feet, he lunged at Richard, hit him with all his weight, plowed him backward. But Richard was laughing as the water seethed around them—he was so much bigger, it was impossible for the fight to be fair. I was moving toward them, my legs dragging, when Richard’s laugh turned into a snarl and he plunged James face-first into the water.

“RICHARD!” I shouted.

Maybe he didn’t hear me over James’s thrashing, or maybe he just pretended not to. He kept him under, one arm locked around his neck. James beat one fist on his side, but I couldn’t tell if he was fighting back or just fighting to get loose. The girls and Colin and Alexander crashed toward them, but I got there first. Richard shook me off and the cold water slapped me across the face, jumped into my mouth and nose. I threw myself at him again, latched on like a parasite.

“STOP! YOU’RE CHOKING HIM—” His shoulder hit my chin and I bit my tongue hard. Colin appeared out of nowhere, hauled on the arm keeping James under as I yelled, “YOU’RE GOING TO FUCKING DROWN HIM, STOP!”

Meredith grabbed Richard around the neck, then Filippa seized his elbow, and by the time he finally let go of James we were all tangled together, the water surging around us, icy and vicious.

James burst through the surface with a gasp, and I caught him before he could sink again. “James,” I said. “James, are you okay?” He hung on my neck with one arm, choking, water and bile coming up together and splashing down his front.

Meredith was pounding on Richard’s chest with her fists, screaming at him, forcing him out of the water and onto the beach. “Are you out of your mind? You could have killed him!”

“What is wrong with you?” Wren yelled, her voice cracking, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“James?” I propped him up as best I could, my arms in an awkward loop around his ribs. “Can you breathe?”

He nodded feebly and coughed again, eyes squeezed shut. The back of my throat felt tight, stretched like a bowstring.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Colin said, quietly. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Filippa said, from where she stood between us, gaunt and shivering. “Let’s get him out of the water.”

Colin and I helped James to the beach, where he collapsed in the sand on his side. His hair hung limp and wet in his eyes, his whole body trembling as he breathed. I crouched beside him and Filippa hovered over us. Alexander looked dumbstruck. Colin, absolutely terrified. Wren cried silently, little hiccups making her shoulders jerk and twitch. I’d never seen Meredith so angry, cheeks burning crimson even in the weak moonlight. And Richard just stood there, bemused.

“Richard,” Alexander said, carefully. “That was fucked up.”

“He’s all right, isn’t he? James?”

James stared up at him from the ground, eyes bright and hard like steel. Silence settled, and I was struck by the senseless idea that we and everything around us were made of glass. I was afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid something might break.

“We were just playing,” Richard said, with a thin smile. “Just a game.”

Meredith took one step to put herself between Richard and the rest of us. “Walk away,” she said. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. “Go back to the Castle and go to bed before you do something dumb enough to get yourself expelled.” She looked like a fury, eyes blazing, hair hanging in wet tangled ropes around her shoulders. “Go. Now.”

Richard glared at her, looked around at the rest of us, then turned and trudged back up the beach. Relief rushed through me and made me light-headed, like blood flooding back to an unfeeling limb.

As soon as he was out of sight, fading into the shadows of the trees, Meredith deflated. “Jesus.” She bent halfway over, pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, mouth twisted up like she was trying not to cry. “James. I’m so sorry.”

He pushed himself up so he was sitting cross-legged in the sand. “It’s okay,” he said.

“It’s not okay.” She still had her hands over her face.

“It’s not your fault, Mer,” I said. The idea of Meredith crying was so bizarre, so unsettling, I didn’t think I could watch it.

“You’re not responsible for him,” Filippa said. She glanced at Wren, whose eyes were fixed on the ground, tears running down her face, clinging to her chin before they dripped down into the sand. “None of us are.”

“The night has been unruly,” Alexander said, significantly more sober than he’d been half an hour before. “God, what a shitshow.”

Meredith finally lowered her hands. Her eyes were dry, but her lips were cracked and colorless, like she was about to throw up. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want to get cleaned up and go to bed and pretend this didn’t happen for like at least eight hours.”

“I think some sleep would be good for everyone,” Filippa said, and there was a murmur of agreement.

“You guys go,” James said. “I just—I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You sure?” Colin asked.

“Yeah. I’m fine, I just want a minute.”

“All right.”

Slowly, we straggled up the beach. Meredith went first, after one last apologetic look at James—and one, for some reason, at me. Filippa followed, one arm around Wren’s shoulders. Colin and Alexander wandered up the trail together. I lingered, under the pretense of getting the rest of my costume out of the shed. When I came out, James was sitting right where we’d left him, looking out at the lake.

“You want me to stay?” I asked. I didn’t want to leave him.

“Please,” he said, in a small voice. “I just couldn’t deal with the rest of them, for a while.”

I dropped my stuff in the sand and sat beside him. Sometime during the party, the storm had passed over. The sky was clear and quiet, stars peering curiously down at us from a wide dome of indigo. The water, too, was still, and I thought, what liars they are, the sky and the water. Still and calm and clear, like everything was fine. It wasn’t fine, and really, it never would be again.

A few stubborn drops of water clung to James’s cheeks. He didn’t quite look like himself, somehow. He seemed so fragile I was afraid to touch him. He started to say something—maybe my name—but only the ghost of a sound slipped out before he stopped, pressed the back of his hand against his mouth. My chest ached, but the ache went deeper than muscle and bone, like some sharp thing had ripped a little hole right through me. I risked reaching toward him. He let out a small shuddering sigh, then breathed more easily. For a long time we sat side by side without speaking, my hand on his shoulder.

The lake, the broad black water, lurked in the background of every scene we played after that—like a set from a play we did once, shuffled to the back of the scene shop where it would have been quickly forgotten if we didn’t have to walk past it every day. Something changed irrevocably, in those few dark minutes James was submerged, as if the lack of oxygen had caused all our molecules to rearrange.