As I Descended. Robin Talley

a spirit, Maria supposed, and followed Maria away to school. To protect her from the dark spirits, like La Llorona.

      That all felt so far away now, sitting on the floor of her dorm room, surrounded by the people who made up Maria’s new world. The Truth or Dare game had gotten off track. Caitlin and Ryan were kissing on Maria’s bed. Austin and Mateo were telling dumb jokes. Delilah was wearing that idiotic look she always got when she was high and playing with her stupid plastic lip gloss tube.

      Maria peered down at her notepad. She should really double-check the math, but she was sure she’d gotten it right.

      That afternoon she’d gotten back her French extra-credit paper, an essay on the paradox of free will in L’Étranger. That paper counted as an extra test grade, and she’d gotten an A-plus. When she factored that in to her overall grade, it canceled out the quiz from the week she’d had bronchitis and brought her semester average up to a solid A.

      That made Maria’s GPA exactly the same as Delilah’s. As of today, they were tied for first in their class. If graduation were held right now, they’d be co-valedictorians.

      “Lo que es segundo sera primero,” the Ouija board had said.

      That which is second shall be first. Maria had only been behind Delilah in the class rankings by a tiny fraction of a point. Numbers three and four in their class, Lily and Mateo, were far behind them, out of the running.

      The spirit in the board had been right.

      Valedictorian. Maria could feel it. Standing up on that stage, clutching the podium with her fists, every set of eyes in the room on her. They’d all know she’d earned it. If she could talk her history teacher into letting her do one more extra-credit project, she could surge ahead in the class rankings when Delilah wasn’t even looking.

      But it was only November. Between now and graduation there would be more papers. More tests. More chances for Delilah to cheat and screw her way back into first place.

      And even if things stayed the way they were, being tied for first in the class wasn’t enough to push her over the edge for the Kingsley Prize.

      Being valedictorian wouldn’t make her soccer captain. Or class president. Or even homecoming queen. Not as long as Delilah Dufrey still reigned.

      “It’s all such bullshit,” Maria muttered.

      “Sorry, what?” Mateo turned back to her, raising his eyebrows.

      “Nothing.”

      She leaned back against the bed. It was a fight just to keep her eyes open. Until she spotted Lily smiling their private half smile at her.

      Lily was the only person here who actually mattered. The one Maria could honestly say was her equal. No, not her equal; Lily was better than Maria in every way that mattered.

      Lily drew her eyes away from Maria after a long minute. She was in the same spot on the edge of her bed where she’d been since the party began, talking to Tamika about how hot their French teacher, Monsieur Seyton, was supposed to be. Tamika was shooting angry looks at Caitlin and Ryan at the same time.

      “Hey, I have a story,” Maria said suddenly.

      Everyone turned to look at her. “What, another ghost story?” Mateo said.

      “Yeah.” Maria wasn’t sure what had made her want to talk about this. Now that she’d started, though, she couldn’t stop. “There was a huge fire here back in the sixteen hundreds. Everyone on the whole plantation died. The family that lived here, their slaves, even their animals. First, though, they all had to go into this dark tunnel underground. Everyone was packed so tight they couldn’t move. That’s where they died. It was pitch-black, and the smoke was so thick no one could see anything except the fire. All you could hear was screaming. Thousands and thousands of screams.”

      The room was silent for a long moment. On Lily’s side of the room, the candle flames danced in the darkness.

      “Did you make that up?” Caitlin finally said.

      Maria shook her head, though she couldn’t remember where she’d heard that story. She hadn’t realized she’d known it until just now.

      Huh. Something didn’t feel right.

      She took another long drink. Half a can, gone. Still, her alcohol haze was fading as quickly as it had come on.

      Lily looked at her pointedly. Telling her to act normal. She was right. Maria blinked fast, trying to shake off this feeling.

      “This is dumb,” Austin said. “Enough stupid stories. I dare two girls to make out with each other.”

      Everyone laughed, louder than they should have.

      “Which two?” Emily asked, giggling.

      “Any two!” Austin looked hopefully up toward the bed where Lily and Tamika were sitting.

      Maria and Lily locked eyes again. This was the only thing they still disagreed on.

      Maria had wanted to tell everyone the truth from the beginning. From the earliest days—those first kisses at the end of long nights of talking; the startling discovery that yes, she really did like girls, too, and this girl in particular—Maria didn’t see the point of keeping it a secret.

      Maria didn’t want her parents to know yet, obviously. Her mother was a state senator, and Maria didn’t think she’d take the news well, at least not until she quit politics. But no one bothered keeping secrets at Acheron. It was basically impossible when you lived on top of everyone you knew.

      Besides, this was good news, wasn’t it? Weren’t you supposed to share good news with your friends?

      Lily didn’t think so. After their fourth straight night of fooling around after lights-out, Maria mentioned that she’d told Brandon, and Lily freaked. She was positive word would somehow get back to her very conservative parents. She thought the guys at school would tease them and the girls would be grossed out. She was afraid Mateo would make them join the GSA and sit around every night talking about boring gay political stuff. She even worried it would hurt Maria’s mom’s reelection campaign.

      Maria didn’t think it would be so bad if their friends knew. No one outside of school would have to find out. But she’d agreed to keep the secret since it was so important to Lily.

      After all, it wasn’t as if Lily was being this way just to upset her. She knew how much Maria wanted to tell everyone the truth. There had been more than one night already this year when Maria had held Lily while she cried. Lily always said she wished she could come out, but she wasn’t ready. Maybe next year.

      Maybe in a few years.

      Maria promised never to rush her. She never wanted Lily to do anything she wasn’t comfortable with.

      Now they’d been together almost a year, and Maria was more in love with Lily than ever. She’d do whatever it took to keep the two of them together, here at Acheron and next year at Stanford.

      But she still hadn’t gotten used to the constant lying.

      Maria tossed her empty beer can into the paper garbage bag Ryan would smuggle out later and reached for a fresh one. Mateo, ever the gentleman, popped the tab for her and said, “You sure you want to keep going? You look kind of out of it.”

      “I’m fine.” Maria took a long drink of the cool yellow liquid and stood up. The room swayed. Ryan and Caitlin were on Maria’s bed, limbs squirming together like some water creature in one of Brandon’s manga books.

      Maria shook her head. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

      “You need help?” Mateo tried to catch her arm. “You going to puke?”

      Maria ignored him and caught Lily’s eye. Lily stood up to follow her, and Maria’s rapid heartbeat began to slow.

      They’d figure all this out. Together.