Lake of Bones

Part One: Sapphire

"Death is the mother of beauty," said Henry.

"And what is beauty?"

"Terror."

-The Secret History

(Donna Tart)

Autumn was early this year.

It killed summer with the softest kisses, burying the long, hazy days full of sticky heat and gadflies buzzing around your ears with a cold shovel and five pennies for the ferryman. Before the dust could even settle, suddenly the air had a chill that you'd never notice before unless you were sleeping with your window open. Autumn sneaked up on me like a thief in the night, swooping in on its poor, unsuspecting victim. Suddenly, the smell of burning leaves from bonfires and the sweet rot of fruits were all I could smell. I watched with faint apprehension as geese flew past in their familiar migratory pattern much earlier than I remembered and before I knew it, the calendar on my mahogany desk had flipped to September, yellowed pages fluttering in the crisp air.

I suppose this isn't a good sign. This morning, I awoke in a cold sweat, my heart racing a million miles a minute like a fox being chased by a dozen hounds. I could see his smile like a knife in the dark, glinting with slyness and terrible importance and I knew with terrible fear that I could not move away. Not even as he glided closer like an avenging ghost, hands outstretched and ready to wrap around my neck. I could not move away anymore than a rabbit could move away from a glittering, shimmering snake.

All beautiful things are terrible, especially when they are already so deadly. Absinthe in a bottle, glinting like stolen emeralds. Foxglove. Belladonna berries and bright poisoned apples and copper knives buried in tombs long forgotten. I loved them all and this was what got me into so much trouble in the first place.

amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus. Love is rich with both honey and venom.

The cramped space of my home made me long for the ivy-covered halls of Pinewood and I felt almost sorry for Marie Antoinette waiting for her executioner's axe to fall. My room was littered with brochures of my dream colleges and safety schools. Rushmore. Harvard. Rosemary Hall. Berkeley Academy. But on my cork board, I had already made up my mind months ago and the famous Pinewood crest (four ravens circling a throne) hung proudly from a thumbtack. I had cut it out of the glossy brochure that smelled of expensive printer paper and gazed at it for nights, longing and wishing so hard I felt I could have burned my application letter with my intensity. I wanted to get in so badly.

And now, you're in, Sapphire. So what are you so upset about? Surely, you won't let nightmares ruin your first year at the most prestigious Vermont academy in the country? People talked about Pinewood like it was the school you went to if you were too rebellious and radical for Harvard. It was for revolutionaries and forward-thinkers. Those who were brilliant and weird and wanted to change the world. I got the acceptance letter months ago and I could not shut up about it to my mom who was already sick of me talking about it.

"Well, if you're going to leave us, just get a job and move somewhere nearby town, won't you?" my mother raised an eyebrow at me, sceptical that I could even live on my own in a boarding school. I gritted my teeth and kept a calm smile on my face as I ate grilled beef I had helped her to cook this afternoon. She never really knew how to trust me but I couldn't live under her wing forever. My mother was always questioning my decisions and asking why I would move to an expensive school so far from home when I could have a perfectly normal life here...preferably working and married.

"I'm 18, mom. I can't just get a job like that. It's not like when you were young last time." I tried to explain to her in vain but she just shook her head and dried her hands on her tattered apron. Another reminder that I would be worlds away from my Pinewood classmates who probably grew up in mansions with five cooks and an army of servants. We were not even rich enough for me to afford the school if it weren't for the scholarship.