Our Dark Unraveling

chapter 1

Lyssa

I haven’t heard from Jude in more than twenty-­four hours. We’ve never gone this long without speaking. Not even when we fight. From the truck’s passenger seat, I watch the close-­planted pines rise tall to shade the road ahead, and the bad feeling that’s been growing inside me intensifies. He should have called me back by now. I check my phone for what feels like the thousandth time since leaving Merton Bay, and my heart contracts when I see there’s a new message.

Kelso

Safe travels into the Void, oh Brainy One.

I swallow my disappointment and text back an alien face with a hand making a peace sign, but it fails to send.

No signal.

“Shit.” We must have already crossed into the dead zone.

“Language, Lissy,” Nan says, cutting me a sharp look and shifting to sit straighter behind the steering wheel as we approach the sandstone marker standing proud among the trees. The words Milford School are spelled out in brass letters, backlit against the stone.

As Nan turns down the drive, the pines form a guard on either side of us and the small, still-­healing scar over my heart prickles. I rub the tender skin through my T-shirt to ease the ache and remind myself that reception is patchy where Jude lives; he probably hasn’t seen my missed calls and texts. He isn’t angry. Has no reason to be. And when I see him tonight, he’ll kiss away the unease that’s been eating me up since yesterday afternoon. I can already hear the smile in his voice and feel the warm brush of his lips beside my ear.

It was just a bad connection, silly. I would never ignore you.

“I’ll drop you here and go find a spot in the staff parking lot out of the way,” Nan says.

“What? Why?” I blink and look up to see that the visitor lot is busy with students and parents hauling bags from new-­model four-­wheel drives and SUVs.

My heart twists when I notice the firm set of Nan’s jaw and the care she’s taking not to look at me. I usually insist on making my own way to school, catching the peninsula bus to the city and another to the airport, where the school has a shuttle to collect the kids flying in from overseas. It takes longer, but works out much cheaper than driving and saves Nan a seven-­hour round trip. She only brought me today because the peninsula bus wasn’t scheduled.

“No one cares about our car, Nan,” I assure her. “Least of all me.”

She doesn’t need to know that anyone paying attention to our rust-­spangled truck would assume it was our “run around” vehicle and that we were old money—­our name and wealth so long established that driving a flashy car for something as mundane as school drop-­off would be tacky. Nor does she need to know that no one will be paying attention because I am beneath their notice.

Jude is the only one here who sees me.

“I’m proud of you, Lissy,” Nan says, pulling into an open spot and patting my hand.

I follow her gaze to Milford House, the imposing bluestone admin building overlooking the parking lot. Beyond it, Daphne Milford’s prized azaleas grow tall around the dorms, flushing the same deep crimson as our uniforms and drenching the campus red.

“It’s just a school, Nan,” I say. After more than a year, I’m still trying to convince myself this is true, and that I’m worthy of my place here. But the words come out callous, as though I’m taking Milford for granted.

“It’s an opportunity,” she corrects. “One you worked hard for. But you need to stay focused.”

Given my summer uniform alone cost more than a year of school fees back home, Nan wasn’t thrilled when she found out that my extracurriculars at Milford included a boyfriend. According to her, I’d have plenty of time for love once I’d graduated high school, or better yet, college.

“My grades are good,” I tell her. “I am focused.”

“And be safe,” she says, with a loaded look.

I die a little inside. “Jesus, Nan.”

She purses her lips. “You need to look after yourself, Lissy.”

What I need is to get out of the car and away from this conversation.

“There’s food for families in the dining hall,” I tell her. “I could give you a tour?”

Nan squints up at the buildings. “Maybe next time. I’ll be driving in the dark as it is. And all these grand old buildings and fancy gardens—­I don’t know, Lissy, it’s a bit much for me.”

It’s too much for me, too. But I love it all the same.

After we’ve said our goodbyes, I head to the front office to join the line of students signing in. Mr. Maddson, our head of IT, is overseeing arrivals. As I wait my turn, my attention drifts to the Milford family tree displayed behind the reception desk. There are photos of each family member during their time at the school, and my eye travels from our founder Daphne Milford (née Price)—­her hair styled in glossy finger waves and her wide smile at odds with her piercing gaze—­down the generations to her youngest descendants, Clementine Milford-­Sinclair and her son, Jude. He looks haughty and aloof in last year’s school photo—­annoyed, I remember, at being made to wear his blazer and tie back his hair—­yet of all the Milfords, he bears the closest resemblance to Daphne. So much so, he could pass as her twin brother.

“Phone please, Lyssa,” Mr. Maddson says. “Preferably today.”

“Sorry,” I say, realizing I’m holding up the line.

I switch off my phone and place it in the bag Mr. Maddson holds open for me, labelled with my name and student number.

“Any other SIM or Wi-­Fi-­enabled devices I should know about?” he asks.

I shake my head and he indicates for me to load my bags onto the airport-­style screening machine and step through the metal detector. From here on, my only point of contact with the outside world is the bank of ancient landlines in my dorm’s foyer. The school brands its digital communication ban as “a uniquely immersive and focused experience.” It was one of the things that first drew me to Milford. I loved the thought of being cloistered away behind that imposing wall of pines with my imagined group of friends and our books, a world unto ourselves. But among my classmates, Maddson’s security setup is jokingly referred to as Hell’s Gate, and Jude’s voice is in my ear again as I cross over: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

“An honest customer.” Mr. Maddson grins, handing me my tablet and laptop once my bags clear. Both are heavily firewalled and only useful for schoolwork. “You’re good to go, Ms. Davies.”

I detour past Jude’s dorm, hoping we can talk. But no one’s seen him and there are uncollected papers in his mail cubby, so he must not be back yet. I leave a coded note, asking him to meet me at our place once he’s unpacked, and by the time I reach Henley House—­the dorm for twelfth-­grade girls—­I’m one of the last to arrive. The corridors are an obstacle course of suitcases and duffel bags, and a dozen songs in clashing genres blare from open doorways. My classmates zigzag between each other’s rooms, crash-­tackling friends onto their beds and demanding their holiday gossip while Drag Race plays on the common room TV. A handful of girls scream-­sing the lip sync and cheer on Aisha Zendakis as she attempts a death drop from one of the tables. Zinzi Leigh is sobbing over the untimely demise of Bruce, her beloved monstera plant, and I almost trip over Verity Kingfisher and Mia Dao, who are sitting on opposite sides of the stairs with their legs outstretched, surrounded by cotton balls and a haze of acetone as they clean nail polish from one another’s toes. They say hi, but in a distracted way; Mia saw Aisha’s boyfriend kiss another girl at a party over the break and she and Verity are debating whether they have a responsibility, as her friends, to tell her. My heart pangs for Aisha as I make my way past them to my room.

My roommate, George, is sitting on her bed, already in her pajamas and Oodie, and doesn’t so much as glance up from her Switch when I come in. Over the break she’s dyed her hair a violent red that makes me think of congealed blood and is clearly a shot fired at the school’s “three shades from your natural color” rule. Not that anyone will call her on it. Her nails are dark with chipped purple polish and her eyes are bruised with yesterday’s eyeliner. The overall effect is of a grouchy goth bear just woken from hibernation.

“Hi!” I say, bright as I can manage.

George scowls at her screen and mashes what I can only assume is the “attack-­with-­fire” button.

“You’re back.”

“Good break?” I persist, stepping over a pile of her clothes to reach my bed.

She rewards me with a full eye roll and mimics the slightly lisping way Milford people speak, as though holding a large pearl on her tongue. “Oh my God, the best! And you?”

“Yeah, the surf’s great back home this time of year, so we—­”

But she jams on her headphones before I can finish. I used to think I must have done something to upset her, but George is rude to everyone.

I scrunch my nose against the waft of chicken stock from the half-­eaten ramen cup on her desk and make quick work of unpacking: plugging in my laptop to charge and adding my winter uniform and warm clothes to my wardrobe. Before the break, Jude lent me his favorite sweater—­a deep gray-­green crewneck, worn soft with washing. I find it at the bottom of my duffel and pull it on, breathing his woodsmoke-­and-­pine-­needle smell.

“I’m heading out,” I tell George. “Could you—­” I clear my throat, hating to ask her for anything, and raise my voice to make myself heard through her headphones. “Could you cover for me, if Ms. Fennec comes by?”

She looks up from her game, annoyed, and her frown deepens when she sees Jude’s sweater.

“Romantic relationships between students are strongly discouraged,” she says, in scarily accurate imitation of our principal, Dr. Woodcroft.

“As is supermarket hair dye,” I hit back.

Her mouth quirks in an almost smile. “Touché. But isn’t there a good-­conduct clause attached to your scholarship?”

I wrap my arms around myself; she never misses an opportunity to put me in my place. “What’s your point, George?”

“The rules apply to some of us more than others.” She nods at Jude’s sweater. “He can afford to get in trouble.” And you can’t, her spearing look reminds me.