Suddenly, I feel the sensation of the sturdy desk chair beneath me. I’m gazing at the letter, leaning over it, the pen in my hand. I am Meredith.

  Fear and worry prickle at my neck. Tension rides my eyebrows. What Adeline is doing isn’t right, and Lil and Evelyn are just ignoring it. Well, I can’t ignore it any longer. I have to do something, to let someone know, even if it means they’ll all hate me for tattling. I put my pen to the page and finish writing.

  Please know that I tell you this as a friend with the very best of intentions . . .

  And then I’m somehow in both places: watching from the closet and sitting at the desk signing the note.

  Sincerely, Meredith Simmons

  Watching Meredith fold and seal the note into a cream-colored envelope, I recognize her for who she is: someone who thinks she’s doing good but is actually about to wreak so much damage. I’ve seen it before. I’ve lived it. Because I was that person.

  I know where that letter is going. I know it will wind up on Chancellor Archwell’s desk. What happens after that, I’m not totally sure, but I can make a few informed guesses.

  Someone will be outed. Someone will be hurt. Someone will wind up disappearing from Archwell Academy.

  It’s no different from my installation in the bathroom. It’s misguided savior bullshit, done out of concern . . . and ignorance.

  I watch as Meredith stands, throws on her jacket, and heads for the door. The envelope for Chancellor Archwell is in her left hand. She doesn’t understand what she is doing. She doesn’t know that a ripple across the water can turn into a wave. She doesn’t know that her actions today will have consequences tomorrow, and the next day, and decades down the line.

  I know these things now, but what I don’t know is how I can stop her, stop it all from happening.

  The dorm room door closes with a heavy clunk and I’m alone again in the closet.

  The pattern repeats.

  Blythe

  You’re in your body, Blythe, I remind myself as the tunnel of light disintegrates around me, transforming into a dark brick room. You’re still in your body. I wrap my arms around myself and find that my blouse has been replaced with a green plaid dress that buttons down the middle. It’s an A-line cut, cinched at the waist with a thin leather belt. It’s a bit small, and my boobs feel like they might pop out of the top. It’s not exactly comfortable and I don’t understand what happened to my clothes. Or, more important, what happened to the others.

  I glance around the windowless room with the arched brick ceiling. The air is crisp and cold. The space is crowded with heavy marble-topped tables and cabinets. There are a few large basins with unusual crank-powered contraptions attached to their sides. Old washing machines? But somehow they look new. Brand-new, in fact. The room is lit by a single bare bulb, illuminating a doorway that leads to a stairwell. I know that stairway. I wish I didn’t.

  A chill passes through me as I fully realize where I am. I’m in the basement under the library again, the same room where Charlotte’s initiation took place. It’s where my and Rory’s initiation took place before that. But it isn’t dank and stale and packed with spiders, nor is it candlelit and jammed with fresh lilies. It’s a laundry room, but I don’t remember it like this. I’ve never seen it this way.

  Rory’s voice floats through my memory. The basement used to be servants’ quarters.

  That would mean that we did it. We got the loop to take us way back, long before any of us could say the word Archwell; before any of us were made. When would the basement have been used as a laundry room? It must’ve been back around the time when the Archwells first built the place. Back when Grandma Rose’s mama, Letty, would’ve walked these halls.

  “Ida called out sick.” Someone’s voice echoes down the stairwell. My body goes rigid. I have to hide. I duck under one of the work tops, praying that the shadows will cover me. I don’t know who’s coming down those stairs, but I’m sure anyone at Archwell in the 1950s would not take kindly to a stranger in their midst, a stranger who looks like me, even if I am dressed for the part.

  “So when will you get off?” A second voice, similar to the first but younger, bounces down the steps. They are closer now. They’re coming down to meet me.

  “I don’t know, Rose. I’m sorry. You can call your brother to come get you if you want. It’s gonna be a late night.”

  My ears prick up at the sound of the oh-so-familiar name.

  The younger voice speaks again. “I don’t think Sean is gonna make the trip down from Baltimore just to pick me up and drop me off at home. He doesn’t get off until ten o’clock anyway.”

  The voices are in the laundry room now. I flinch as the lights come on. I’m still sort of hidden underneath the table, but the glare makes the green tiled floor gleam beneath me. Hopefully they won’t need to stoop down and get anything out of the lower cabinets. We’d all be in for a shock. I hold my breath, trying not to freak out. I don’t want to give in to false hope, to be carried away by the idea that these people might be my people.

  Someone sets something heavy on the table directly above me and I turn to stone. My eyes latch on to the feet at the table’s edge. One pair of white pumps, one pair of brown-and-white oxfords. Both feet are stockinged, off-white nylon shrouding brown skin. I know how Archwell used to be. I know that, in the 1950s, there was only one reason someone who looked like me would be on this campus.

  “Well, then you’re staying here,” the first voice says wearily to the second. “Mr. Thomas said he’d be willing to give us a ride home when his shift is done for the night. You got your books?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the second voice says. “They still got that cot down here? I’m not gonna study all night.”

  “It’s in the pantry over there,” the first voice says, striding away from the table toward one of the old-school washing machines. “If anyone bothers you overnight, just tell them your mother’s Mrs. Harris.”

  Hearing that name finally confirms what I suspected. All the puzzle pieces click together in my mind. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize their voices, although I guess they wouldn’t recognize me either even though I know we all look alike. Rose Harris, my grandma, and her mother, Letty, my great-grandma, are discussing the logistics of how to get home after a double shift. Grandma Rose used to get the bus to meet her mama at Archwell and then they’d get a ride back home together from Ms. Ida’s husband after he dropped her off for her night shift. Rose Harris is alive again, leaning against the tabletop that I’m cowering beneath. It takes every ounce of willpower in me to not wrap my arms around her ankles and just hug her legs against me.

  But it kills me that she wouldn’t know me. It tears me up that I have to stay hidden here. I can’t get a good look at the people who made me. I’ve only seen pictures of Mama Letty, and I’d love to see Grandma Rose at my age. I study the hem of her skirt. It’s a black-and-cream plaid, white petticoat underneath, all very stylish. I wish she’d hung on to this dress for me to keep. I know it’s not fancy, but holding anything of hers in my hand makes me feel whole.

  I dare to reach out and touch the dress’s hem, careful to be gentle so she doesn’t startle. The fabric is rough against my fingertip. It’s been starched and ironed. The skirt could probably stand up on its own. Then Rose pulls away. Quickly I yank my hand back, worried that I might have stirred the folds of her skirts, alerting her to my presence, but she just walks across the room over to the little gray pantry door.

  She turns and looks back at her mama, and for a brief glorious moment I can see her whole face. It’s so much like mine: same lips, same forehead. My brother Sean, named for Rose’s brother, would have called it a fivehead, but he is sometimes a shithead, so which is worse?

  “You ate already?” she asks her mom.

  “Haven’t had a chance yet.” Mama Letty sighs.

  “There’s half a sandwich in my bag if you want it,” Rose says, opening the gray door and retreating into the pantry with her schoolbooks. “Love you, Mama.”

  “Love you too, Rosie. Thanks for being patient.”

  I hear a metallic-sounding switch and the grinding of a machine coming to life. The water runs. Mama Letty is doing laundry. Rose is studying in her hiding spot. Suddenly, this place that was filled with such horror is now humming with love, and I feel the muscles in my body unwinding for the first time in what feels like forever. I’m safe here now. Finally safe. And even if they find me, I know I’ll be safe because Grandma Rose loved me. She still loves me. And she’s with me here, even in my darkest moments—especially in those moments. She’s the one who can bring me back to myself.

  You’re in your body. You’re here in this room. She taught me that.

  I close my eyes and fall into peaceful nothingness.

  It feels like I’m in this pleasant lull forever, but it also lasts only a split second. I open my eyes and the room is dark again, even the light over the stairwell. Maybe the loop has skipped forward? I glance toward the open pantry door and see Rose’s feet dangling from the edge of her cot, tucked just out of sight. She’s taken off her shoes. The light in the pantry is out. She must be sleeping. I wonder what time it is and whether I also fell asleep. From my spot under the table, I try to stretch my legs, but as soon as I stir, I hear a sound on the stairwell. The light over the steps flicks on.

  “Come with me,” someone whispers. I hear footsteps and pull my legs close to me so as not to be seen. I think of Grandma Rose on her cot in the pantry and whether she hears the footsteps on the stairs. I imagine what the cot must feel like beneath her, wire mattress springs digging into her pretty dress, legs dangling off the edge. I glance at the pantry door and notice that I can’t see her feet anymore. She’s awake. She’s heard something. She is hiding now too.

  The footsteps trail into the room. Thankfully they don’t get too close. They’re hesitant and careful: two people trying to not make a sound.

  “Is it okay to be down here?” a girl’s voice whispers.

  “Yes. It doesn’t get used at night,” says another. “No one comes down here after dark. Now hold out your hand.”

  There’s some rustling before anyone says anything. “Adeline,” the first voice whispers, “are you sure Lil will want all this?”

  “Trust me,” says Adeline. “She’ll think it’s very beat of you. And it is. Evelyn Smith is no square.”

  I hear Evelyn giggle in the dark.

  I realize now what is happening. There are more grandmothers in my midst: Rory’s and Charlotte’s. I try to get a good look at them, but the room is dark and they’re too far away. I can sort of make out the edge of Evelyn’s profile. Her hair is red like Charlotte’s but curlier. She’s wearing a green plaid dress with black buttons, exactly like mine.

  “Hold out your hand again,” Adeline whispers. “This dose is for you.”

  As she says the words, I remember the feeling of the sand hitting my cupped hands as Rory poured it from the little crystal bottle. I can see her doing it, except this time, she’s not in a robe and a flower crown. Her blond hair is pinned back, cropped and curled into a bob, like her grandmother’s. Her eyes are vacant as she gives me the dose. I trust her. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Not me or anyone else. But there’s something strange in her expression. Something that tells me there’s more to this story, more that I haven’t yet seen.

  Evelyn and I are the same. Too trusting, too naive. We’re doing what we can to protect ourselves in a place that isn’t made for us. And when someone promises loyalty, when someone gets close to us, we can’t help but love them. But we both were duped by different Archwells. Double-crossed.

  All that love from before is now dissolving into hot, sticky anger, spreading through my entire body.

  I know what happens now. Adeline gives Evelyn the drugs. Evelyn gives them to Lillian. Then her love is stolen from her. Her future, her hope, all destroyed in a single instant. And I know that it was all by design. Fury rises up from my core into the back of my throat.

  I look Adeline in the face. She is Rory. We are the same as the ones who came before us. We are all Lilies, whether we want to be or not.

  The pattern repeats.

  Rory

  It plays again and again in my memory. I reach out and pour the contents of the crystal bottle into her hand. Blythe takes it and hands it off. Evelyn does the same. It’s a mirror image, an echo of itself. The Lilies are everywhere, all around me. Lillian is all around me. She’s everything: the reason why all of this exists. Jealousy courses through me, taking ahold of my mind, muting the euphoria of my high.

  I can see the pattern now. I wish I had a pen and paper to write it all down because I don’t know if I will remember it when I’m sober again. Instead, I just repeat what I know in my head, hoping it’ll all imprint into my memory in the way the envy and the shame have.

  Adeline and I are shadows of one another, moving in tandem, repeating history. Addiction. Jealousy. Striving. Rejection. Pain. Then betrayal. We did it for ourselves. We were only thinking of ourselves. We weren’t thinking clearly, but that’s not really an excuse. What happened was because of us, and it is happening again.

  I watch from the shadows, just like Adeline, as Lillian joins Evelyn in the basement. She’s tall and beautiful with high cheekbones and red lipstick that perfectly complements her white gown. She’s been crying. Her father knows about her and Evelyn. He’s threatening to tear them apart.

  A simmering pain shoots up my left side. My great-grandfather has hurt my great-aunt. He’s helped her, yes, but he’s hurt her even more. I never knew my own father, but I know what they say about patriarchs. They make the rules. They protect. But now I’m starting to wonder who it is they’re really protecting? Archwell Academy was supposed to be safe for Lillian, but it isn’t. If it isn’t safe for her, who is it safe for? There’s so much more that Lillian wants to be, but her father won’t let her. Time won’t let her.

  Evelyn and Lillian escape into another world, each inhaling a dose of fantasy. Evelyn gives Lillian the lion’s share, just like she was told. She doesn’t know any better. I want to fly away with them. The three of us could be safe together in that other world, but instead I face the horror of Lillian’s choking, her blood emerging from the corner of her beautiful mouth, dripping onto the prized white dress. She falls to the floor, her head smacking against the shiny emerald tiles.

  I know now that what I’m witnessing is pure malice taking hold. Adeline and I have done evil. We have hurt the ones we love. And we will be punished for it because we will never be able to forget this. We will never be able to let go of the shame. Its grip on us will only tighten, the roots will dig deeper and deeper until we think that’s all we are. We are our shame. We are the horrible things we’ve done. All we can do is pretend that it isn’t all happening again and again in our minds. But the horrors we’ve done will always haunt us . . . unless we see them for what they really are.

  The pattern repeats.

  Drew

  I’m a decent spy. I’m good at hiding. But hiding in this place—behind a door in the room where everything happened—is difficult. Every fiber of my body is telling me to get out of this basement, get away from this memory. I manage to remind myself that the memory isn’t mine, even though it happened in the same exact spot.

  The gray pantry door shields me from Rose’s view as she perches on the nearby cot, completely motionless. I peer at her from the crack between the door’s hinges. She’s barely breathing, straining to listen to what’s happening outside. So am I.

  “Lil,” Evelyn whispers in the next room. “Lillian? What’s going on?” Her voice is a handful of glass shards. She’s shaky and scared. Lillian’s breath is ragged. She coughs, chokes. I hear something splatter on the floor.

  “Oh god,” Evelyn says. “I have to get Adeline, don’t move.”

  I listen for Death’s rattle and brace myself for its demands. There’s so much about this moment that is known to me. Charlotte was left alone here, in this room, slowly suffocating under the weight of being a Lily. Now, through the slit between the door and the wall, I watch the same thing happen to Lillian as Evelyn staggers to the stairwell and rushes to find her false savior.

  Rose and I sit in silence and listen to Lillian’s unsteady breath. We’re both scared. We’re not supposed to be here. If we go out there, maybe the people who run this place will think we did this to their daughter. It’s not beyond imagination, but it is agony to sit here and try to keep still. Rose pulls her green velvety blanket closer to her body. In an instant, I can feel the covering around me. I am her. I’m waiting motionless on my cot, praying for all of this to be over.

  Lillian stirs on the floor.

  “Help . . .” she croaks. “Help me.”

  I can’t bear it anymore.

  I stand and round the corner of the doorway, my blanket still wrapped tightly around me. I approach the body on the floor, careful not to make a sound. But then a wave of darkness swirls around Lillian, extending its smoky tendrils around her wrists and ankles.

  “Oh my god,” I mutter.

  From behind the gray pantry door, I watch as Rose drops to her knees. The green blanket falls to the floor beside Lillian’s face. She gags and then coughs up something black and thick. Then the darkness wraps itself around her face, devouring her.

  Rose stays frozen. She doesn’t believe her eyes. She doesn’t trust herself and she knows that no one will trust her, even if she were to tell the truth. I know because, in this way, we’re the same. We are bystanders, paralyzed by fear and resentment for this place and everything it represents. We do nothing. We can only watch in horror as time swallows those who seek our help, and the loop distorts our memories.

  But I can’t let this happen again. I won’t let Death haunt me anymore. I’ve had enough.