“Rory, your mom was way out of line,” Blythe continues. “And Veró, you straight up outed somebody. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know.” I can hear the tears in Veró’s voice. “I wasn’t thinking. Or I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sorry. I was trying to make things better but—”

  Rage swells in my throat. “It’s not just about that,” I fume.

  At once, the others are silent and I can feel their eyes on me. I take my hand and run it along the peach fuzz stubble growing on the back of my head. My mom used to do this whenever I buzzed my hair. Technically she buzzed it for me. The first time I asked her to do it I was in sixth grade. She finished the cut and cleaned me up, wiping away all the little bits of hair. “How’s that feel to you?” she asked.

  “Great.” My voice was breathy, light with relief. “Really, really great.”

  I pet the back of my head the way Mom did and take a deep breath. I remind myself that I’m lucky. I know who I am. I’m loved. And I’m allowed to be angry.

  “I don’t get it,” I finally say. “I don’t get this school . . . It’s like, how hypocritical can you be? If you’re really worried about ‘threats to the community’ shouldn’t you actually be worrying about protecting the students who go here, including the trans ones? I mean . . . c’mon.”

  I realize that I’m pacing only when I look up and find myself standing at the closet’s polished wooden door. It’s too cramped in here for this, but I have to move. I have to let this energy out.

  “Yes, what Veró did was messed-up. She should’ve known better,” I say. “And yes, the chancellor being a TERF is obviously . . . Well, it’s shitty. But we already knew that about her. Well, I guess some of us knew it and now all of us have proof.” I turn on my heel and let my hands run along the shelf ledge as I keep pacing. Dust collects on my fingertips. “But the real problem is that hateful people shouldn’t be school principals. Hateful people shouldn’t be making decisions for students. For anyone.”

  “You’re so right, Drew.” The way Blythe says my name makes me soften a little. At this moment, she sees me. And she’s with me. And that counts for something.

  My back is to Veró but I know she hasn’t left her spot on the floor yet. She’s crumpled in the corner and I can hear her sniffing back more tears. “Yeah, you’re right,” she says. “And I’m sorry. What happened is . . . Well, it’s my biggest mistake. The worst thing I’ve ever done.” Her voice is strained, as if the shame of the memory is blocking her windpipe. “But you all already knew that, I guess.”

  It’s hard to accept the apology . . . Veró made herself out to be an ally, a friend. Her betrayal feels personal, even if it was unintentional . . . The biggest problem was that her actions were so deeply unintentional. So reckless and unthinking.

  “What are you gonna do to make this up to Gabe?” Blythe says.

  I turn to face Veró now, eyes downcast as she shakes her head. She wipes her nose on the sleeve of her hoodie. “I dunno.”

  “You gotta apologize,” I growl. “And then you ask him how you can repair it. Don’t assume that you know anything. That’s how you got into all this.”

  “I realize that now,” she sniffs.

  I’ll admit she’s as pretty as ever, but this whole thing makes me look at Veró differently. Once the High Priestess from my tarot deck, she’s been transformed into the Queen of Swords. Beautiful, ambitious, but able to cause harm.

  On the opposite wall, next to the ticking grandfather clock, Rory is cross-armed. I know I’m not the only one who has noticed her silence, but I didn’t really expect much else from her. She probably thinks that shutting up is the best move right now. If her first instinct is to defend her mom, then she’s right to keep those glossy lips sealed. There is tension in her jaw and some strands of ombre blond have come loose from her braid. For the first time, I notice her hair is dyed the same color as the chancellor’s. Was that on purpose? Or was it some kind of messed-up subconscious thing? Either way, I don’t envy Rory for her shitty family’s grip on her.

  Thankfully, Mom is the total opposite of the chancellor. She’s spent my whole life worrying over me, always trying to keep me safe. But I don’t think my mom knew that Archwell would be dangerous like this.

  Friday was the last time I talked to her. Charlotte had booted me out of our dorm room so she could get ready for Founder’s Night. I heard her and Faith on the other side of the door as I closed it behind me.

  “It’s gone!” Charlotte gleed. “The room is mine again!”

  I knew I was “it.”

  I went to hide in the stacks where no one would find me and video chatted Mom from there.

  “What’s up, Drew-bud?” she said. “I miss you. How’s that school?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want her to worry or make a fuss. After all, I’d chosen to be here. I had chosen Archwell and my grandmother’s ring and all the baggage that came with it.

  “Roommate problems,” I sighed. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, sweet. Want to talk about it?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Listen, Drew, if you need me to come get you—”

  “Gah, Mom, it’s not that serious.”

  “I’m just saying. You know I always have your back.”

  “I know.”

  She studied my face on the screen for a second before speaking again. Then she said, “I know I’ve said it before, but hurt people hurt people. All you can do when folks act like jerks is just set a boundary and move on. Usually, people’s jerky behavior has nothing to do with you.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know about boundaries, Ma.” In moments like this, Mom was always filled with platitudes. I’ll admit, though, sometimes it helped to hear them.

  “And when all else fails just say screw ’em. Put on your big-kid boxers and get out there and just say screw ’em, you know?”

  I looked down at my baggy trousers, realizing that I was wearing my favorite boxers underneath (the ones with the corgis on them), and I smiled.

  Mom always had a way of showing me how to tap into little joys. Here in the closet, joy seems hard to come by, but I try to feel it by scanning my body. I like the way my biceps feel against my oversized shirtsleeves. I look down at my hands and remind myself that I like the way they’re shaped. Then I notice the Lilies ring, an infinity of diamonds sparkling in the dim. Compared to all the others on the shelf, the gold is starting to look a little dingy. Still, I can make out the inscription: Ut sacram memoriam.

  I wear the jewelry, but I’m not a Lily. I was not given the opportunity. I don’t have their privileges. Unlike them, I will never be safe here.

  With my thumb, I turn the ring around so the diamonds are hidden.

  Then I lift my hand to my forehead and press the infinity shape gently against my skin. I don’t want to wrestle with memory anymore . . . not mine or anyone else’s.

  “I want out of here,” I mutter.

  “Well, we have that in common,” Rory tells me. “But as far as I know, there’s no way out as long as we’re wasting time in the closet.”

  “But there’s got to be, though,” I insist. “The loop can’t be this . . . this rigid.”

  Veró’s memory was super difficult to navigate, and it wasn’t even mine. But I suppose it taught me something about myself—I’d truly give anything to not have to relive my version of Founder’s Night.

  “What if we just stayed in the closet after all?” Blythe asks Rory.

  “We’ve been over this. It’s not an option,” Rory answers forcefully. “We’d wind up stuck in here forever. The only way out is to let the memories play out.”

  “But there’s got to be an escape hatch,” I say, pressing the diamond infinity into my forehead a bit harder. “There should be a way to short circuit everything.”

  “I’m telling you, the Lilies vow says the longer we wait around, the more memory erodes the mind. The loop turns to dust. It’s inevitable. We can’t stop it.”

  Handed down from the dreaded Lilies, the words reverberate in my mind. I close my eyes and I see the letters form behind my lids in an erratic scrawl. They circle around each other, a jumble of lines and swirls. They’re so familiar for some reason, but not because of Rory’s incessant recitation of them. I just can’t quite place them, though.

  Then I remember—these words are only a small piece of the bigger puzzle.

  “Rory, Blythe: Can y’all tell us the full Lilies pledge of allegiance?” I ask.

  “It’s called the vow,” Rory says. “And no!”

  I don’t know why I bother with her.

  I look at Blythe, who’s glaring at Rory. She keeps her eyes fixed on her as she speaks.

  “It starts: Ut sacram memoriam. Her memory is sacred—”

  “Don’t, Blythe!” Rory shouts.

  “Shut up, Rory,” Blythe says, and continues her recitation of the vow. “Beyond the bounds of time. But as the clock hands turn, memory erodes the mind.”

  I realize now that I know most of the words by heart already somehow, enough for me to start to make meaning out of them.

  “Okay, yes,” I say. “We’re beyond the bounds of time in the loop. And the memories distort and restart every time we hear the grandfather clock.” I gesture to our silent frenemy, the motionless timepiece at the back of the closet. “Keep going.”

  “Her secrets are best buried in a loop that turns to dust, where the present turns to past and past remains unjust.”

  “Yep, yep.” I nod. “Again, the loop. We’re stuck in a bunch of messed-up memories from the past.”

  “Okay, inspector.” Blythe smirks.

  Veró leans in, listening as closely as I am while Blythe continues the vow. “Therein lies infinity—a place where she survives—while we protect our sisterhood, our secrets, and our lives. For only when her sisters’ wrongs are once again made right will she escape anew and take her place within the light.”

  I think of the note on my grandma Simmons’s deathbed flowers. I know for sure now that the words in the Lilies vow are exactly the same as the words on the card. My grandmother was a cofounder of the Lilies—that, I already knew. But could she have known about the loop? Could Rory’s grandmother have known? Are the original Lilies trying to tell us something?

  “Escape,” I say. “When her sisters’ wrongs are once again made right will she escape. Are those the words?”

  “Yeah,” Blythe says, smiling a little as Rory fumes in the corner. “What about it?”

  “What if the Lilies vow isn’t telling us just about the loop but also about how to escape it?”

  “You take AP Lit, don’t you?” Veró says.

  I grin. “Yes . . . that and I like a good riddle.”

  “Fair enough,” Veró says. “Whatever butters your biscuit.”

  The phrase makes me smile. Seeing her memory bear out may have knocked Veró off a pedestal, but I can’t avoid the fact that I’m still drawn to her. She knows what she did was wrong, but she’s not groveling and she’s not swerving out of her lane. In fact, she’s gassing me up, propelling us forward.

  “Maybe to escape we have to make the wrongs into rights, like it says in the vow,” I continue. “We might have to change something about the past. Shift the history of what happened on Founder’s Night.” I fold my arms across my chest, satisfied. It feels good to have a possible solution to all of this, even if it feels like I’m grasping at straws.

  “Oooo,” Veró says. “I like it. Smash the time loop once and for all!”

  “But there isn’t any one thing that needs to be rectified, is there?” Blythe points out. “We all experienced different things that night. Wouldn’t there be different wrongs that need to be made right again?”

  “Well, you have to admit that there’s still a through line,” Veró points out. “I mean, don’t you think it’s weird that we all had some sort of contact with Charlotte on the night she disappeared?”

  I freeze up at the sound of Charlotte’s name on Veró’s lips. It seems that I’m not alone in this impulse. No one responds to Veró’s question. No one wants to go there.

  But the girl will pursue her version of justice at any cost.

  She presses me. “What’s that phrase about infinity?”

  I conjure the words: “. . . therein lies infinity—the place where she survives—while we protect our sisterhood, our secrets, and our lives. For only when her sisters’ wrongs are once again made right will she escape anew . . .”

  “. . . and take her place within the light,” Blythe finishes the phrase out for me.

  “All right, AP. Riddle me this,” Veró says, turning to me. “What if the ‘she’ they keep referring to in the Lilies vow isn’t just some girl, but is someone specific, like Charlotte? She disappeared, right? But the poem says she might survive in infinity . . . as in, she might be trapped in the loop or something. I mean, it really is all right there in the poem.”

  “It’s not a poem, it’s a vow,” Blythe and Rory say in unison.

  “Whatever,” Veró gruffs. “All I’m saying is that Charlotte is the common denominator here. Maybe in order to escape we have to change the past, like Drew is saying. We have to right the wrong of Charlotte’s disappearance.”

  “We can’t do that!” Rory groans. “I’m telling you it won’t work. I know way more about the loop than any of you ever will. The Lilies’ lore is clear: You have to let the memories bear out. What happened, happened. You can’t change that. None of us can.”

  “So, you want to stay the course? Qué sorpresa,” Veró says flatly. “If we keep moving forward as planned, won’t it all get progressively worse?”

  Possibility stirs in my chest. Maybe Veró’s onto something here. If we can just pause time, shift gears, change what happened to Charlotte, maybe I won’t need to face my own memory at all. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I might have a real way to make things better—to undo what I did and get the hell out of here.

  “Veró has a point,” I chime in. “Won’t the loop keep deteriorating as it repeats?”

  “Won’t it just reset and corrode if we try to intervene in what happened to Charlotte?” Rory responds. It’s not really a question. She’s trying to prove her point.

  “I don’t want the memories to keep deteriorating,” Blythe mutters. “It’s hard enough just wandering through them.”

  Blythe looks genuinely scared. I suppose it’s not surprising that we’re all meeting at this impasse. After all, we are four very different humans.

  “Look. I don’t know exactly what happened to Charlotte, and I’m pretty sure none of you wants to weigh in on how much information you have on the topic,” Veró says. “But we should at least give it a shot, right?”

  “Have you met Charlotte Vanderheyden?” Rory says. “It’s no great loss not having her around. She just . . . didn’t fit, you know? We can’t change the past, so why don’t we just try to move on and get through this.”

  Rory’s words sit on top of my stomach like really old leftovers. Charlotte didn’t fit. Just like I don’t fit . . . but for different reasons. Reasons that are invisible to me. The notion knocks around the inside of my head as Blythe speaks.

  “You better take that back, Rory. You’re starting to sound like your mom . . . and not the way you would want.”

  Rory looks sad all of a sudden. She says nothing, but in the midst of her silence I get a whiff of regret. I consider whether that’s possible.

  Blythe brushes against something on the shelf across from me, and it makes a soft rustling sound as it falls to the floor.

  She stoops to pick it up, then pauses.

  “What is it?” Rory asks.

  “This fell off the shelf. The one with all the rings. I didn’t notice it there before.”

  “Need help?” I ask, and stoop down to join her, but Blythe doesn’t move. She’s holding an old, rumpled newspaper up to the light, studying the headline.

  “I doubt that’s more up to date than your news app,” I say.

  “Very funny,” she says, not laughing. Then she lifts her head and meets Rory’s eyes. “Is there a reason why your mom would keep this paper in here?” she asks. She holds up the paper for Rory. All four of us gather around to see.

  The page is yellowing and has a slightly musty odor. It’s definitely from a long time ago. Near the top in black and white is a picture of a girl with softly curled hair. It brushes her shoulders just beneath her string of pearls, complimenting her white off-the-shoulder cocktail dress. Her face is shaped a little like Rory’s, but the two don’t quite look alike. One big difference is the girl in the picture is smiling.

  I read the headline accompanying the photo. Local Headmaster’s Daughter Disappears.

  “Is this your grandma?” I ask Rory, pointing to the headline. “Your great-grandfather was the original chancellor of Archwell, right? Wouldn’t the local headmaster be her dad?”

  “My grandmother never disappeared. She took over the school from my great-grandfather and ran it until my mother took over.”

  “Yeah, remember?” Veró asks under her breath, with more than a hint of snark. I crack a smile at her. It’s my subtle way of saying We’re gonna be all right, even after everything that has happened.

  Blythe reads a section of the article aloud. “‘Lillian Archwell, the oldest daughter of the Archwell family, was last seen on October sixth, at a senior class celebration for Archwell Academy. Her parents, having founded a school for girls in part to ensure their daughters’ safety and propriety, are distraught over the disappearance.’”

  “What year is this article from?” Veró asks.

  Blythe rustles through the paper to find the front page. “It says it was published on October ninth, 1958.”

  “That’s so weird,” Veró says. “That’s the same day and date as today . . . But I guess ‘today,’ the day we’re reliving, isn’t Monday the ninth. It’s Friday, so that makes it—”