If We Were Villains: A Novel

Everything was canceled. The remaining performances of Caesar, and all of our regular classes before Thanksgiving. We had tea with Frederick twice at Hallsworth House, and Gwendolyn ate dinner with us once, but in the two remaining days before break, we saw no one else. On Tuesday we returned to the Castle to collect our things. Richard’s death had been officially dismissed as an accident, but this revelation did surprisingly little to allay our unease. That evening, we were expected to attend his memorial service, where we would see—and be seen by—the other students for the first time since Saturday night.

The Castle was empty, but something in the surrounding woods had changed. There was a foreign smell in the air, of chemicals and equipment, rubber and plastic, the trace odors of a dozen unseen strangers. The stairs leading down to the dock were cordoned off by a bold yellow X of police tape. Up in the Tower, I dragged my suitcase out from underneath my bed and packed without paying attention, piling shirts and pants on top of mismatched shoes and socks and rolled-up scarves. For the first time, I was looking forward to a few days at home for Thanksgiving. Normally Filippa and Alexander and I stayed on campus over break, but Dean Holinshed had informed us that the school would be closed for the holiday, for the first time in twenty years.

I bullied my suitcase down the helical staircase to the second floor, swearing and grunting as I pinched my toes under the wheels and crushed my fingers against the banister. I emerged into the library, sweating and irritated, dragging the suitcase behind me. The others had already gone except Filippa, who stood alone in front of the fire with the long brass poker in her hand, pointed down at the floor like a sword. She looked up as I clattered in and threw myself into a chair—deliberately avoiding the closest one, which I still thought of as belonging, somehow, to Richard.

“Has the fire been going all this time?” I asked.

“No,” she said, lifting the poker to stoke the two skinny logs there. “I lit it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It just felt wrong.”

“Everything feels wrong,” I said.

She nodded absently.

“Are you coming with us to the airport?”

“Yes,” she said.

Camilo had offered to drive the fourth-years to O’Hare. From there, Meredith would fly to New York, Alexander to Philadelphia, James to San Francisco. Wren would ride with her aunt and uncle and fly with them to London. (They had arrived the previous day, and Holinshed had arranged for them to have a room in Broadwater’s only nice hotel, Hallsworth House being occupied.) I was bound for Ohio. When pressed, Filippa told people she was from Chicago, but I had no idea whether she had family there.

“And after that?” I asked, trying and failing to make it sound offhand.

She didn’t answer, just watched the fire, eyes hidden by the reflection of the flames on her glasses.

“Pip, I swear I’m not trying to pry—”

She stabbed at the embers again, a little savagely. “So don’t.”

I shifted in my chair. What I wanted to tell her seemed nonsensically important. “Look, you know you could come home with me if you wanted to, right?” I said, abruptly. “I’m not saying you do or you should, just—if you needed somewhere to go. I mean, they’d all freak out because I’ve never brought a girl home and they’d completely misinterpret it, but just—in case. That’s all, I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now.”

She turned away from the fire, and I was relieved not to find her frowning. Instead, she looked at me with a sad, stricken expression. I was seized by the strange unfounded idea that she was debating whether or not to say I love you. But the difference between us was that she assumed people just knew those sorts of things, while I was always worried that they didn’t.

“Oliver” was what she did say. She sighed my name out like it was a breath of something warm and sweet, then leaned back against the mantel, maybe too tired to stand up on her own. “I’m scared.” She said it with a wry smile, as if it were somehow embarrassing.

“Of what?” I asked, not because there was nothing to be scared of, but because there were so many scary things to choose from.

She shrugged. “Of what happens now.” Neither of us spoke again before the clock on the mantel chimed. Filippa glanced up. “It’s five.”

The memorial service was scheduled for five thirty.

“God,” I said. “Yeah. We should go.” I heaved myself out of my chair with great reluctance, but Filippa didn’t move. “Coming?” I asked.

She blinked at me with a look of blank puzzlement, as if she’d just woken up from a dream she already couldn’t remember. “You go ahead.” She plucked at the front of her sweater, which was streaked with soot. “I ought to change.”

“All right.” I hovered, half in and half out of the doorway. “Pip?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t be scared.” It was a selfish thing to say. If she lost her nerve, I couldn’t imagine what would become of everyone else. She was the only one of us who never flinched.

She gave me a smile so fragile I might have imagined it.

“Okay.”