forgetting that Evernight was around even before the automobile.” Balthazar glanced down at me, in one of those odd moments that reminded me he was almost a foot taller than I was. “When the school was founded, everyone would’ve had horses and carriages, which are a lot more trouble to store than cars. Horses have to be fed, and their stalls have to be mucked out.”
“We have horses in the stables.”
“We have six horses. Not three hundred. It’s a big difference when it comes to feed—”
“And mucking out stalls,” I finished for him, making a face.
“Exactly. Not to mention that there were a lot of hurt feelings when people got hungry and snacked on other people’s transportation.”
“I bet.” Poor horses. “Still, it’s not like anybody would be in danger of chowing down on a Toyota. And there’s plenty of room around here where people could park. So why hasn’t Mrs. Bethany changed the rules?”
“Mrs. Bethany? Change a rule?”
“Good point.”
Mrs. Bethany presided over her classroom like a judge presided over a courtroom: peering down at everyone around her, dressed in black and unquestionably in charge. “Shakespeare,” she said, her voice ringing throughout the room. Each of us had a leatherbound edition of Shakespeare’s complete works in front of us. “Even the least educated of you will have studied his plays in some context before now.”
Was I imagining things, or had Mrs. Bethany looked at me when she said “least educated”? Given the smirk on Courtney’s face, maybe I wasn’t imagining. I shrank down in my desk and stared at the book’s cover.
“As you are all familiar with Shakespeare already, you might justifiably ask—why here? Why again?” Mrs. Bethany gestured as she spoke, and her long, thick, grooved fingernails reminded me of claws. “First of all, a deep understanding of Shakespeare has been one of the foundations of Western cultural knowledge for centuries now. We can expect it will remain so for centuries to come.”
Education at Evernight wasn’t for college prep, or even just to make you smarter or happier. It was meant to carry its students through the impossibly long lives of the undead. That lifespan was something I’d tried to imagine ever since I was a little girl and first learned how I was different from the other kids in kindergarten.
“Second, these plays have been interpreted in a number of different ways since they were first written. Shakespeare was a popular entertainer in his own time. Then he was a poet and artist whose works were meant to be read by scholars, not enjoyed by the masses. In the past one hundred fifty years, Shakespeare’s plays have reemerged as drama. Even as their language becomes more foreign to the modern ear, the themes speak to us strongly today—sometimes in ways Shakespeare himself could perhaps not have guessed.”
Although Mrs. Bethany’s voice always set my nerves on edge, I couldn’t help feeling encouraged that we were going to concentrate on Shakespeare this year. My parents were huge Shakespeare buffs; they had named me after a character in The Taming of the Shrew, telling me that they’d been certain any name from Shakespeare would be familiar for hundreds of years to come. Dad had even gone to see him act in a few plays, back in the days when William Shakespeare was just one playwright among many fighting for audiences in London. So I’d memorized the dirge from Cymbeline before my tenth birthday, seen Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet on DVD about twenty times, and kept the sonnets on my shelf. Mrs. Bethany might give me a hard time this year, too, but at least I’d be prepared for anything she could throw my way.
Again, she seemed to have overheard my thoughts. Strolling beside my desk, where I could smell the lavender scent that always seemed to surround her, Mrs. Bethany said, “Prepare to have any preexisting assumptions you may hold about Shakespeare’s works challenged. Those of you who think you can learn all about it from modern film adaptations would be well advised to think again.”
I mulled the potential need to reread Hamlet until class was dismissed. As we all filed out of the classroom, I saw Courtney sidle up to Mrs. Bethany, saying something in a low voice, obviously hoping she wouldn’t be overheard.
Mrs. Bethany wasn’t having it. “I will not reconsider. You must resubmit your report, Miss Briganti, as yours was inadequate.”
“Inadequate?” Courtney’s mouth was a perfect O of outrage. “Finding out how to get into the best clubs in Miami—that’s, like, really important!”
“Under some dubious standard of importance, I suppose that may be true. You may not, however, submit your report in the form of phone numbers scrawled on cocktail napkins.” With that, Mrs. Bethany swept out of the room.
Courtney stomped after her in a huff. “Great. Now I have to type.”
I wished I could’ve told the story to Raquel, who loathed Courtney as much as I did and would probably be in a crummy mood after our first day at the school she hated so much. Instead, we just hung out in our dorm room that evening, talking about pretty much anything except what had happened in classes.
Unfortunately, that whole night, Raquel only left the room once. Her bathroom trip gave me enough time to gulp down about two swallows of blood, not nearly enough. I became hungrier and hungrier, and finally I insisted that Raquel turn off the lights early.
Once she finally seemed to have fallen asleep, I kicked off the covers and slipped out of bed. Raquel didn’t stir. Carefully I withdrew the thermos of blood from its hiding place. Tiptoeing into the hallway, I glanced around to make sure nobody else was up either. The coast was clear.
I considered my options before I hurried down the hall toward the stairwell. The stone stairs were chilly at night, particularly considering that I was only wearing boxer shorts and a cotton camisole. But the cold was one reason nobody was likely to come that way in the dead of night and find me drinking blood.
Lukewarm, I thought with distaste as I took the first swallow. I’d nuked it earlier that day, but even the thermos couldn’t keep it piping hot forever. Didn’t matter. Every coppery mouthful flowed into me like electric power. Yet it wasn’t quite enough.
I wish the blood were hotter. I wish it were alive.
Last year, Patrice used to sneak out all the time to catch squirrels on the grounds. Could I do that? Just, like, chomp into a squirrel? I’d always thought I couldn’t. Every time I’d pictured it, I’d thought about the fur getting stuck in my teeth. Blech.
When I thought about it now, it felt different. I didn’t think about the fur or the squeak or anything like that. Instead, I thought about that tiny heart beating so very fast, as though I could feel that thrum-thrum-thrum against the tip of my tongue. And it would sound so good when I bit down and all those little bones snapped, like popcorn popping in the microwave—
Did I just think that? That’s disgusting!
That is, I thought it was disgusting—but it didn’t feel disgusting. It still felt like a live squirrel would be just about the most delicious thing on earth, short of human blood.
Closing my eyes, I remembered what it had been like to drink Lucas’s blood while he lay beneath me, clutching me in his arms. Nothing could compare to that.
Something crackled down in the stairwell.
“Who’s
