Prologue
THE LETTERS IN THE WALLS
By C. And
Blackthorn Academy — October 17, 1964
The first time Evelyn died, she was eighteen years old.
It was raining, of course. Years later, she would consider that detail rather theatrical. A perfectly respectable young woman ought to be allowed to orchestrate her own demise without the heavens insisting upon a dramatic accompaniment.
But Blackthorn Academy had always possessed a flair for tragedy. The rain came down in silver sheets, turning the ancient stone buildings black and filling the gutters with rushing water. Beyond the chapel, the lake lay beneath a shroud of mist, its surface disturbed by the steady assault of the storm.
At eleven forty-three that evening, Evelyn stood in the narrow space between the walls of West House, holding a flashlight between her teeth. Her fingers were bleeding. The screwdriver had slipped twice, and the third time she’d caught the edge of a nail beneath her thumbnail. She’d barely noticed. There were more important things than a little blood.
Such as the fact that someone at Blackthorn Academy had committed murder. And someone else had spent seventy-seven years making certain nobody discovered it. Evelyn pulled the final nail free. The wooden panel shifted beneath her hand.
“Come on,” she whispered.
The panel came loose with a reluctant groan. Behind it lay a hollow space barely large enough to accommodate a shoebox. Perfect. She retrieved the bundle of letters from inside her cardigan. Twenty-three pages, written over the course of six weeks. Some on proper stationery, others on scraps torn from notebooks. One on the back of a dance invitation she’d never used. She had numbered them carefully. Not because she expected anyone to find them. Because she desperately hoped someone would.
Evelyn pushed the letters into the hollow, then hesitated. The final page remained in her hand. She unfolded it.
October 17, 1964.
If you’re reading this, something has gone terribly wrong.
My name is Evelyn—
She stopped. A sound came from the corridor beyond the wall. Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Evelyn extinguished the flashlight. Darkness swallowed her. The footsteps stopped. For one terrible moment, she could hear nothing but the rain.
Then a man’s voice spoke. “Miss?” Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Miss, I know you’re in there.” She recognized the voice. That was worse. Evelyn pressed one hand over her mouth. A key scraped against a lock somewhere beyond the passage. The man sighed. “You’ve made this unnecessarily difficult.”
She closed her eyes. Think. There were three ways out of the passage. One led toward the library. One opened behind the chapel vestry. The third descended toward the old boathouse. She had studied the plans. Memorized them. Walked the corridors until she could navigate them in darkness. Theodore had shown her the first entrance in September.
He’d been so proud of himself.
My grandfather showed me these when I was little, he’d said, grinning as he pushed aside a shelf in the library. Every Ashford boy knows Blackthorn’s secrets.
Evelyn had laughed. She hadn’t known then how very many secrets the Ashford’s possessed. Or how little Theodore would want to hear about them. The footsteps resumed. Closer.
Evelyn shoved the final page into the hollow, replaced the panel, and pressed it firmly into place. Then she ran. Not gracefully. Not like the heroines in the novels she loved, whose skirts somehow never caught on protruding nails and whose hair remained perfectly arranged despite mortal peril. Evelyn stumbled twice, scraped her shoulder against rough stone, and lost one shoe on the narrow staircase. She left it.
The passage twisted sharply. Behind her, someone shouted. “Evelyn!”
She ran faster. The stairs descended steeply, each step slick with condensation. At the bottom, she found the iron latch. Her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped it. “Come on. Come on.”
The latch lifted. Cold air struck her face. She emerged behind the old boathouse, where the rain was falling so hard the lake had nearly disappeared. For a moment, she simply stood there. Breathing. Alive. Then she looked toward the distant lights of the main building. Somewhere inside, Theodore Ashford was probably sitting beside the fire in the senior common room, surrounded by boys whose fathers owned half the state. Perhaps he was laughing. Perhaps he was worrying. Perhaps he was still trying to decide whether he believed her.
Evelyn had loved him since the first week of September. It had been a terrible inconvenience. He was handsome in the careless way of boys who had never been told no. Dark hair, blue eyes, a smile that made teachers forgive late assignments and girls forget perfectly sensible intentions.
But he had also been kind.
He’d carried her books when she’d sprained her wrist. Brought her tea when she’d been ill. Spent an entire afternoon helping her search the library for a book that had been out of print for forty years. He’d kissed her for the first time in a narrow passage behind the conservatory. She remembered the way his hands had trembled. Theodore Ashford, heir to one of the oldest fortunes in New England, had been nervous about kissing a scholarship girl.
She’d found that rather endearing. Until yesterday. Until she’d shown him the photograph. The ledger. The letter bearing his great-grandfather’s signature. Until she’d asked him to help her. And he’d looked at her as though she’d suddenly become someone he didn’t recognize.
You’re asking me to believe my family is capable of murder.
No, Theodore. She’d tried not to cry. I’m asking you to believe me.
He’d asked for time. Time to think. Time to speak with his father. Time to understand what she was accusing his family of doing. Evelyn had given him until morning. Then she’d returned to her room and discovered that someone had searched it. Her drawers had been emptied. Her mattress overturned. The photograph was gone. And pinned to her pillow was a single sheet of paper.
Some things are better left buried.
That was when she’d understood. Theodore might have the luxury of time. She did not.
A light appeared in the boathouse window. Evelyn ducked behind a stack of overturned rowing shells. The door opened. A figure stepped into the rain. “Evelyn?”
Not the man from the corridor. A woman’s voice. Evelyn rose cautiously. “Mrs. Finch?”
The older woman hurried toward her, clutching an umbrella that had surrendered entirely to the wind.” Good heavens, child. You’re soaked.”
“I lost my shoe.”
“Well, that will certainly complicate matters.” Despite everything, Evelyn almost laughed. Mrs. Finch was the academy’s assistant librarian, a small, formidable woman with steel-gray hair and a remarkable talent for appearing wherever she was least expected. She had also been the only adult at Blackthorn who’d believed Evelyn from the beginning. “The car is waiting,” Mrs. Finch said.
Evelyn looked toward the lake. “And the rest?”
Mrs. Finch’s expression tightened. “Are you certain?”
“No.” The answer came immediately. “No, I’m not certain. I’m eighteen years old, and I’m about to abandon my education, my friends, and the only boy I’ve ever loved because someone murdered a woman seventy-seven years ago and apparently intends to do the same to me.” Her voice broke. She hated that.
Mrs. Finch reached for her hand. “Evelyn—”
“But I am certain,” Evelyn continued, swallowing hard, “that I would very much like to live long enough to regret this decision.”
Mrs. Finch squeezed her fingers. “Then we’d best hurry.”
Together, they walked toward the water. Evelyn stopped at the edge of the dock. Her school blazer was folded beneath her arm. Inside its pocket lay a small silver locket. Theodore had given it to her on her eighteenth birthday. There was a photograph inside. Two ridiculous, smiling young people standing beneath the apple trees behind the chapel. She opened it once. Looked at the photograph. Then closed it.
For a moment, she considered keeping it. Perhaps she could carry one small piece of him into whatever life came next. But the locket was recognizable. And the girl who wore it needed to disappear. Evelyn placed it inside the blazer. Then she set the bundle carefully on the end of the dock, where it would be found when the storm passed.
Mrs. Finch waited beside her. “You understand what they’ll say?”
Evelyn nodded. “They’ll think I drowned.”
“Yes.”
“And Theodore?”
Mrs. Finch hesitated. “He’ll grieve.”
Evelyn looked across the dark water. She imagined him standing on this very dock tomorrow morning. Calling her name. Looking for something the lake would never return. The thought nearly undid her. “Perhaps,” she whispered, “he’ll finally believe me.”
Mrs. Finch said nothing. Evelyn straightened. There would be time for crying later.
There would be time for anger, too. Tonight, she needed to survive.
She took one final look at Blackthorn Academy. The chapel bell tower rose above the trees. The library windows glowed faintly through the rain. Beyond them, West House stood dark and silent, guarding the letters she’d hidden inside its walls.
Someday, someone might find them. Someday, someone might finish what she’d started. And perhaps, when that day came, Blackthorn’s oldest families would finally learn that their names were not the same thing as their honor.
Evelyn turned away. “Mrs. Finch?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Do you suppose Paris is very cold in November?”
Mrs. Finch blinked. “Paris?”
“Well, I shall need somewhere to go.”
“I had rather thought you’d stay with my sister in Vermont.”
Evelyn considered this. “Vermont sounds terribly dull.”
“Vermont is considerably safer than Paris.”
“Yes, but Paris has the Louvre.”
Mrs. Finch stared at her. Then, quite unexpectedly, she began to laugh. “Oh, Evelyn.” The girl smiled. It was a small smile. A frightened one. But it was hers. And for the first time that evening, she felt something other than terror. Possibility. “Come along,” Mrs. Finch said. “Let’s get you somewhere warm.”
Evelyn followed her into the darkness. Behind them, the rain continued to fall. By morning, the lake would be searched. By afternoon, Blackthorn Academy would be in mourning. And by the following Sunday, Theodore Ashford would place the first white roses beside the water.
He would return with flowers every October for the next sixty-two years. Never knowing that the girl he mourned had crossed an ocean. Never knowing that she would learn seven languages, earn degrees, fall in love with foreign cities, and once spend an entire summer in Italy with a man named Marco who possessed extraordinarily beautiful eyelashes and absolutely no interest in discussing the Ashford family.
Never knowing that she would someday return to Blackthorn Academy.
Not as Evelyn. Not as the frightened scholarship girl who had fled through the rain. But as a woman who had learned precisely how much power could be found in keeping one’s own counsel. And who had developed a particular fondness for excellent brandy.
Her name would be Dr. Eleanor Vale.
And she would become the most formidable headmistress Blackthorn Academy had ever known.
But all of that lay ahead. Tonight, Evelyn was eighteen. Terrified. Heartbroken. And alive.
For now, that was enough.
