“The journal was Adeline’s,” Rory confirms.

  Call it a coincidence but I choose synchronicity. There’s something to this. The closet keeps giving us things, clues like little gifts. It’s too peculiar to ignore.

  I focus my eyes on the bottom of the page and point to the one paragraph I can decipher. I read, “‘I got Evelyn a bag last time I went to G-town . . . Told her I would lend her my piece . . . When I tell Mother and Father . . . They find her and Lil . . .’ Something . . . God this handwriting is bad.”

  Veró frowns. “From what we can make out, it sounds like some kind of—”

  “—setup,” Blythe finishes. “She’s talking about giving her something, and then telling her parents?”

  “Drugs,” Rory corrects. “She’s talking about drugs. She was an addict when she was young . . . into opium and some other stuff . . . I’m not really supposed to talk about it but—” Out of nowhere, she laughs. It’s more than a little unsettling. Rory sounds manic. Out of control. Especially for her. “Another family secret! We are bringing out all the skeletons tonight.”

  Rory’s hollow laughter continues. But a question drifts between us like sage smoke.

  Veró is the only one with the guts to ask. “Did Adeline try to drug her sister and Evelyn?”

  No one answers. None of us knows for sure.

  All of a sudden, the air in the closet is thick with dust. It’s hard to breathe, but Veró pushes further. “Did someone OD like Charlotte did?”

  The gravity in the closet shifts slightly. An alarm clock begins to trill, then another, then another. There’s something here with us. Something trying to push its way out of the closet. I listen for Death’s rattle but I hear nothing but the sound of alarms. Veró drops the journal.

  Bong . . . Bong . . . Bong . . . Bong . . .

  The grandfather clock is wailing again. We all plug our ears.

  The closet door flies open. I pivot, nearly dislocating my neck in the process. I don’t know what I’m expecting to see, but I’m surprised when there’s only darkness on the other side of the door.

  This feels like it might be the end. Like the loop is collapsing in on itself with us trapped inside.

  We didn’t escape. We didn’t save Charlotte. And we never found out what happened to Lillian.

  What a waste.

  You know what happens next, right? Death whispers to me. I don’t answer. I can’t.

  Grief and guilt rattle against my ribs. They threaten to break me from the inside.

  When I look into that darkness, all I see is a void. One that maybe Meredith, Adeline, and the rest of their so-called friends created.

  I won’t enter it.

  I won’t be another name spoken in grief and remembrance.

  But something in the closet lurches us forward. And we fall into the dark.

  Falling in love every day. Have you tried it? I would recommend it. It’s the best part of reliving a moment.

  Her smile brings the morning, and even in a twisted memory, it is glorious.

  There has never been anyone like Evelyn. There will never be anyone else like Evelyn ever again.

  We began trading notes years ago. We’d meet in the library but we never studied.

  Eventually, she gave me a pin to wear on my favorite gray cardi. I was saving up to buy her a ring.

  In the loop, I get to kiss Evelyn every day. Here, we don’t age and we don’t die. But my memory does fail me. Time finds a way.

  Sometimes the kiss is bitter. I pull away to find my love’s lips rotting away. Her eyes sink until all I can see are empty sockets.

  It’s a cruel joke that the loop plays on me. Memory erodes. Nothing is forever.

  Nothing except the infinite march of time.

  20

  Veró

  I’m going stop believing in time after all of this is over . . . if I make it through. It’s not that I’m starting to believe that time isn’t real. It’s just that I’m learning how violent and malevolent it can be. It pulls me out of the closet and through the darkness, and before I know it, it’s slamming me onto the stone floor of the library basement. My shoulder pops, nearly dislocating. The sensation brings me right back to the time when Papi yanked me away from La Revolucionaria at the Getty Museum. I push away the memory, rolling my shoulder around in its socket a few times, as I try to get my bearings.

  The basement is dim and quiet, candlelight flickering against the walls. When I finally catch my breath, I realize that there’s barely any smell of decay.

  I’m surprised that the odor is gone. I’m not sure what it means yet.

  We’re in the loop again but the initiation has ended and the crowd has thinned out. Smoke hangs in the air. Half of the candles in the room have already been snuffed. Only a few of the Lilies remain, silently ascending the stairway on the other side of the room.

  I glance around and find myself wishing that I had my camera. Not the one on my phone. The fancy one that Mami got me for Christmas with the wide-angle lens. Malcriada would have been able to do some fire installations with images from the Archwell basement. A long exposure photograph in this low candlelight would be perfection, especially with the creepy girls in robes milling around.

  “Psst, over here.” Rory motions to the rest of us. She’s crouched behind a long drop-leaf table, doing her best to stay hidden. I realize that we don’t have our robes this time. I feel exposed without the green velvety shroud. I duck behind the table with Rory and Blythe.

  “What’s happening?” I ask. “I didn’t expect the closet to force us out like that . . . I thought that maybe the loop was collapsing.”

  “No,” Rory says. “I think we’re in a new memory all together.”

  “Whose memory?” I ask.

  Rory and Blythe share a look, each waiting for the other to volunteer an answer.

  “At least we’re at a new starting point,” Blythe whispers. “If we get this one right the first time, maybe it’ll buy us some more time.”

  “But we’re back in the same spot,” Rory says. “How are we supposed to—” She cuts herself off just as two figures sweep past our table. They are moving slowly, stooping every few feet to blow out the candles. The smoke in the room thickens. I try not to cough.

  “You did good,” one of them says to the other. “That went as smoothly as it could have.”

  “Did you see where Rory went?” This voice is strained and raw. The girl’s tone is familiar, nearly identical to the voice of the girl at my right. Blythe shudders against me.

  “She left already I think,” the first figure says. She blows out the next candle and coughs several times after it goes out. Again, I wish for a camera. The glow of the remaining flames battles against the gathering smoke—it feels symbolic.

  “I have to talk to her,” the second girl says in Blythe’s voice. She pauses close to our table and holds the edges of her hood back, protecting her hair, as she blows out a nearby flame. The candlelight illuminates her face momentarily: rich brown skin, luxurious long eyelashes, glossed lips.

  Blythe’s double.

  I think back to the memory of the party when I ran into myself. The loop creates echoes. Some girls disappear and some girls multiply. If there are two Blythes, that means this can’t be part of her memory. If that were the case, there would be only one Blythe, so she could reenact it.

  The nearby Lilies carry on their conversation.

  “Have you tried texting her?” The first girl moves away from us. She’s by the candles next to the stairwell.

  “Not yet,” the other Blythe says. “I’d rather just find her if she’s around. It’s important.” We all freeze for a second as Other Blythe hovers nearby, mere inches from our hiding place in the dark. If she sees us then . . . Well, we’ve all been through it before, but none of us wants to go through a reset again if we don’t have to.

  Instinctually, I hold my breath like I used to do when I played hide-and-seek at Tía Yasmine’s house. Back then, I liked to hide in the closet across from Yasmine’s Diego Rivera poster: a reproduced image of a woman with a bundle of calla lilies. Through the slats of the closet door, I could make out the curvature of her hands. I liked the way her braids gathered behind her back. She was always facing away from me, perhaps playing her own game. But one day, she turned and looked at me over her left shoulder. I was surprised to see that her face was identical to mine. At first, I didn’t like it.

  It’s always been hard to look at myself in the mirror and meet my own eye. When I look at myself I see a girl who can’t be trusted . . . someone who hurts people. After what happened with Charlotte, Gabe, and the chancellor, that feeling nearly consumed me. Even now, it won’t leave me alone.

  But now that I’m remembering how the girl with the calla lilies looked at me, I’m starting to reconsider if I’ve really earned all this self-hate. She looked at me like a friend, a sister. Thinking about it now feels . . . oddly reassuring.

  Here in the basement, I try not to move a muscle. I don’t want to catch Other Blythe’s eye. Still, I can’t look away from her. I stay motionless until she falls back, thankfully moving away from our hiding place. With most of the candles in the room out now, we’re shrouded in darkness.

  I peek around the edge of the table and check to make sure no one is nearby before I whisper to the others. “Did y’all see who that was?” I ask.

  The others nod.

  “We just saw Blythe’s double, right? That means this isn’t a replay of her worst memory anymore, otherwise she would be out there, reliving the worst parts.”

  “If it isn’t hers, whose is it?” Rory breathes. “I wasn’t in the basement after initiation.”

  “Hold up,” Blythe says. “Where is Drew?”

  I suppress a cough. The basement is filling with smoke. I look behind me, noticing for the first time that Drew isn’t right there.

  I scan the open room, now empty except for one shadowy figure bending over the massive infinity symbol of lilies arranged in the center of the floor.

  “They were right behind me before,” Rory says. “There’s no place to really hide without getting caught.”

  Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . .

  The fire alarm blares at us, thundering off the brick arches.

  I glance at Blythe. “Don’t look at me,” she says. “I didn’t pull the alarm. I’ve been here with you the whole time.”

  A loud crackling draws my gaze. A flaming infinity symbol is consuming the basement. The flowers are all on fire. And standing over it, candle in hand, is none other than Drew Simmons.

  “This didn’t happen before,” Rory chokes.

  “No, it didn’t,” Blythe breathes.

  Without their hooded robe, I can see all of Drew in the firelight. Their hands are curled into fists. Their head is bowed, welcoming the flames. Their eyes, glassy and green, reflect the growing destruction in a low glow.

  They know what they are doing. They know what the loop will do now.

  This is their memory. It has to be. And they chose to burn it down. Burn it to the ground.

  It’s at this moment that I know without a doubt they have something to hide.

  Betrayal runs in Drew Simmons’s blood.

  21

  Blythe

  My cuticles are bloody. My gel polish is long gone. It’s a funny thing to notice in the midst of all this. There was no fire that night. So, of course, the memory has reset and we’re back in the closet, and yet here I am, picking at myself without realizing it again. It’s not surprising. I’d like to rip myself away from this place, to pull myself out of this stupor of memories.

  The blood first collects in my nail beds, then drips onto the mess of papers strewn across the closet floor. Veró really ransacked the place when she had her fit. It’s utter chaos in here—the closet doesn’t reorganize itself like the loop does.

  I grab a piece of scrap paper and tear off a bit, wrapping the strip around my index finger to stop the bleeding. Looseleaf isn’t great for blotting up liquid, but at least the pressure of my makeshift bandage will help. I glance back at the scrap paper, assessing whether there’s enough of a margin for me to make another bandage for my pinky finger. My eyes fall over the scribbled notes on the page.

  “What did you do?” Veró’s voice is muffled. I’m not sure who she’s talking to. I study the scrap paper more closely.

  125–165 lbs—10 mgs

  165–200 lbs—15 mgs

  Over 200 lbs—18 mgs

  Under 125 lbs—8 mgs

  . . . for blood toxicity 50 mgs

  I blink. Then I focus in on the last line.

  . . . for blood toxicity 50 . . .

  How much sand did Rory pour into my hand that night? How much sand did I give to Charlotte?

  No. How much of it did Rory give me to give to Charlotte?

  “You like to play. But I’m not playing right now. What did you do?” Veró’s on her feet, towering over the three of us still sprawled across the closet floor.

  I hold the paper close to my face.

  How much did Charlotte weigh? How much did Rory give me? How much of this was planned?

  “What’s that, Blythe?” Drew murmurs. “Did you say something?”

  I look up. Their face is lined with worry. Veró is back in her warrior stance. And Rory, oh Rory, she has that look of painted-on innocence. She had us all fooled for so long.

  “Did you murder Charlotte, Rory?” I interrupt Veró, holding the scrap paper out for all to see. “Did you try to make it seem like I overdosed her when it was really you doling out the sand? You who knew exactly how much would kill her.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rory’s voice is wounded but I can hear a twinge of panic underneath.

  “Look,” I say to the others. “These are notes on sand dosage by weight. Rory is the one who brings sand to initiations. She’s the one who keeps the stuff in her dorm room year-round. She knows all about it. So what the hell? How much sand did you give me the night that Charlotte ODed?”

  Rory screws up her face, leaning in to study the scrap paper. “That isn’t even in my handwriting. And you’re the one who was dosing girls at initiation.”

  “You told me to do it. So you could make what happened to Charlotte seem like it was my fault!”

  Drew takes a peek at the note and manages to squeak out an observation. “Rory is right though, Blythe. That scrawl—it looks like the handwriting from Adeline’s journal.”

  “It doesn’t fucking matter,” I spit. “Charlotte’s gone. And Rory covered it up.” I turn to her now. “Exactly like your grandmother did when Lillian disappeared.”

  Rory is as cold as ever. “You’re not making sense, Blythe. Do you hear yourself? You sound hysterical.” She climbs to her feet, choosing to tower over me and Drew beside Veró. “Don’t you dare talk about my family like you know anything about us. You’re way out of line.”

  “Why did you do it?” I demand. “Why did you do this to her? To me?”

  “Wait a second,” Veró barks. “We don’t know for sure who’s responsible for what happened to Charlotte. We might know more . . . if Drew hadn’t reset the loop on their memory.”

  All eyes shoot over to Drew, sitting cross-legged in their white undershirt and loose brown corduroys. Their gaze is glued to the closet floor. From where I’m sitting, I can see that their mouth is twisted into a grimace. They look like they’re in physical pain. I recognize that feeling: that mixture of shame and regret. It rises to the surface when the memory loop has trapped you, the moment you realize that you can’t ever escape the past.

  I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but now I understand where the flames came from. Who set everything ablaze and landed us back in the closet.

  “Exactly what were you doing the night that Charlotte disappeared, Drew?” Rory asks. “How and why were you in the basement?”

  Drew’s body has grown rigid. Their eyes have darkened: no longer the color of fir trees, now nearly black. They keep staring at the floor as if they’re being scolded, flinching away from something . . . a sound that the rest of us can’t hear.

  They know something that we don’t. But they remain as silent as a corpse. As stern and final as death itself.

  It always starts and ends with the sound of the alarm. Not the one for fires. The one for bombs.

  Duck-and-cover drills, we called them. They happened all the time. It was a ritual reminder that we were never really safe.

  The drills never happened late at night. Mother and Father didn’t want to stir hundreds of young ladies from their beds. They didn’t want angry calls from pearl-clutching parents. They had other things, bigger things, to worry about. They knew the danger was closer and more present than a missile from the other side of the world.

  The first time the alarm sounded at midnight, I should have known. It was a clue about what would happen next. What would keep happening over and over. A clue that time could tear open and swallow me whole. It could do that to anyone . . . if the conditions were right.

  The alarm used to inspire only dread, but now it makes me hopeful. Maybe this time they’ll have found a way to understand. Maybe this time they’ll have pieced it all together. Maybe this time we will move past survival and on to something else.

  22

  Drew

  When I woke up on Saturday morning, the day after it happened, I shuffled my deck and pulled a card. Death.

  I spent the day alone in our dorm room, half expecting Charlotte to rematerialize between her green polka-dot sheets. The bedside clock ticked away the hours. I didn’t reach for my phone. My computer stayed in my bag. Instead, I watched the sunlight shift on the windowsill.

  By afternoon, I had eaten a whole bag of Cheetos, washed my hands, and shuffled the deck again. I pulled another card. Death.

  That night I tried to sleep but I couldn’t.