Diana Peterfreund | Updates

YA Booksigning at Fairfax, VA Barnes & Noble

Diana Peterfreund — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Diana Peterfreund, in Conversation with New York Times Bestselling Authors Sarah Beth Durst and Shannon J. Spann.

1 p.m. at the Fairfax Barnes & Noble

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Diana partners with CloudCo and Running Press Teens for New Book Series About Edgar Allan Poe

Diana Peterfreund — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Announcing ELLEN POE, a contemporary paranormal mystery about a teenage girl who finds a coded journal in her family's basement that unlocks a world of adventure, and a few unruly ghosts.

Publisher's Weekly on Ellen Poe

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Dragon Con 2025

Diana Peterfreund — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Diana will be attending Dragon Con in Atlanta GA Labor Day weekend, 2025. Check back for more info on her panels and events.

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Balticon 2025

Diana Peterfreund — Sun, 11 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Diana's Appearances at Balticon (Baltimore, Maryland):
Sat 10:00 AM, Federal Hill (39): The Cat Really is out to Get You!
Sat 2:30 PM, Room 7029 (33): Love in Our Fiction
Sat 7:00 PM, Gibson (179): Making Readers Care About Your Characters

https://www.balticon.org/

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In Conversation With Kellan Mc Daniel in Baltimore

Diana Peterfreund — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Diana Peterfreund in Conversation with Kellan Mc Daniel, discussing his new vampire YA, Till Death at Greedy Reads in Baltimore.

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New Flash Fiction in NATURE

Diana Peterfreund — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Read all about the adventures of a "pediatric temporalist" in this flash fiction sci-fi story, published in the scientific journal Nature.

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Animal Rescue Friends Graphic Novel

Diana Peterfreund — Tue, 7 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Animal Rescue Friends gang is back with ten sweet tales about their furry, feathered, and flying friends!

Join Bell, Maddie, Noah, and the rest of the Animal Rescue Friends as they learn to love an affectionate rat named Whiskers, find Sergio the tortoise a forever home that’s just his speed, fall for the antics of a chatty parrot with a familiar name, and more! Along the way, they make a few new friends and learn that everyone—even insects—can sometimes use a helping hand.

Diana's story: "Houdini at Home"

Get Diana's First Graphic Novel

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Secret Society Girl: The Secret Stories

Diana Peterfreund — Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Think Amy “Bugaboo” Haskel has confessed it all? Au contraire! There are gaps in the written record, and now you can read all about them!

Here, you will find stories that fit between the lines of the Secret Society Girl books, when Amy wasn’t present to confess the events. Did you ever wonder what happened when Lydia met Josh? What did Felicity say to Brandon to get him to forgive her? How did that conversation about Amy go between Malcolm and Poe?

An exclusive, original story appeared every month leading up to the conclusion of the series, TAP & GOWN in May 19, 2009. And here they all are, together for the

List of Secret Stories

“Poe in D.C.”

December 2008

Pre-Req: Secret Society Girl

“Banned from the Tomb”

January 2009

Pre-Req: Under the Rose

“My Phi Beta Kappa Valentine”

February 2009

Pre-Req: Under the Rose

“Poe at the Gates”

March 2009

Pre-Req: Under the Rose

“A New Confession”

April 2009

Pre-Req: Rites of Spring (Break)

“Powerless”

May 2009

Pre-Req: Rites of Spring (Break)

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Secret Stories: Powerless

Diana Peterfreund — Fri, 1 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

[Please note: The events in this story take place at the end of RITES OF SPRING (BREAK) and are a complete spoiler for everything that occurs in that book. If you haven’t read that novel, you’re probably not going to follow anything that is going on here.]

Someone else’s feet pounded down the dock. Someone else ignored the calls of friend and foe. Someone else evaded Salt’s grasping hands and leapt for the deck of the yacht. Someone else pulled the ropes free of the moorings and pushed the boat away before his pursuers could climb on after him.

It had to have been someone else. James Orcutt, Knight Poe, Order of Persephone, Club of D176, Eli University graduate—he doesn’t do things like that. He doesn’t disobey the elder patriarchs, he doesn’t act impulsively, and he doesn’t steal yachts in the middle of the night without the first clue of what to do with them once he’s at sea.

At least, I didn’t before I met Amy Haskel.

First thing’s first. At the cockpit was a radio, and next to it, a list of handy-dandy emergency procedures. I tuned the radio to channel 16 and hailed the police, wondering if they’d expect me to speak in naval code. Which I could, if you’re curious.

“Hello? I’m calling the police. Lee County Sheriff’s Office or Coast Guard please come in. This is an emergency. I’m calling from a boat off the shore of Cavador Key. Lee County Sheriff’s Office or Coast Guard please come in.”

“Cavador Key, Cavador Key, this is the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Marine Division. Please switch and listen channel 17 OVER.”

Okay, maybe a little naval code. I switched to 17. “Sheriff’s Office?”

“Cavador Key, this is the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. Please state the nature of your emergency.”

Back on the island, I could see the others gathering on the dock. I couldn’t make out words, but the tone grew increasingly frantic and finally, a few of them boarded the other boat, including Salt. I had very little time.

“We have reason to believe that one of the guests here was forcibly taken off the island by rowboat. She doesn’t swim…”

The other boat zoomed by me and rounded the tip of the island. George and Demetria waved from the deck as they sped past. They’d convinced Salt to try the other island, then. I breathed a sigh of relief and gave the rest of the information to the police.

Alpha Mike Yankee. Golf Oscar November Echo.

Even in code, it sounded dire.

The police promised they’d send a boat, but not how quickly it would come. I avoided telling them that I was stranded out here as well. But as soon as I got off the radio, the enormity of my actions began to sink in.

I’d stolen a yacht. A yacht that probably cost more money than college and law school put together. Felons had an awful hard time passing the bar. Frank had better adhere to his oaths and not press charges.

Then again, I hadn’t set a very good precedent on that account just now.

I turned on all the lights I could find. Though I wouldn’t be able to help crashing into something, I could avoid someone else crashing into me. I was surprised how quiet it was out here. No boat motor rumbling beneath my feet, no sound of sails and lines straining in the wind, no chatter from the Myers or Malcolm. Just waves and the soft creak of the boat.

I was drifting farther and farther away from shore. I supposed I should turn on the motor and try to pilot the yacht, if not back into the slip—which I gathered was a rather tricky maneuver—at least closer in.

It was absolutely what I should be doing right now. And yet, I didn’t move.

This was becoming a rather familiar sensation. When I first realized that I felt something for Amy Haskel, I wondered if I’d become possessed.

The day I punched Micah Price, it was as if some force outside myself had moved my fist.
Had I been in command of my actions, I certainly would not have endangered my life by jumping off the boat after her on the way to Cavador Key.
And surely it wasn’t me that had tracked her down and practically attacked her in the shower house the other night.

James Orcutt doesn’t do things like that. You can ask anyone you like. So there was only one explanation. I was possessed.

Despite what you might think, given my habits, predilections, associations, and forms of dress, I’m not a big believer in the occult. I’ve never seen a ghost, I haven’t used a Ouija board since I was ten and learned that any answer was a result of my playmates pushing the pointer, and an entire year of chanting, robe-wearing, skull-cup-using and other nonsense in Rose & Grave failed to produce even the slightest otherworldly experience.

And yet, how else to explain my strange behavior? I became a different person around her, one I barely recognized. One over whom I had very little control. It was uncomfortable. It was uncanny. It was unwelcome.

Actually, no. The shower bit had been rather nice. Aside from that interlude, however, I was way out of my depth when it came to Amy.

Malcolm was signaling to me from the island, his blond hair shimmering in the harsh dock lights, his face deep in shadow. He waved wildly, then cupped his hands around his mouth to shout.

“Jaaaaaayyyyyyymeeeeeeee….” Floated lazily across the water.

“Baaaaaaaaack!” Followed shortly behind.

Easier said than done.

I hoped my hunch was right, and that Darren had taken Amy to the other island. Who knew what the little shit was up to, though? If he’d laid a finger on her, I’d wring his neck, and I didn’t care if it meant I’d never pass the bar.

If he’d conked her on the head and tipped her overboard…

My hands tightened on the deck rail. What the hell was I doing here? What a stupid move! Trapped on this boat while everyone else went to go look for her, clueless as to whether she was dead or alive… What if the rowboat just slipped into the water? What if he had her on our island somewhere? Maybe the whole thing was just another elaborate ruse on Darren’s part, and he hadn’t kidnapped her at all. Maybe Amy was ignorant of all of this. Maybe she was just hiding out under the osprey nests, cooling off after our fight. Maybe she didn’t know that we were turning the world upside down searching for her.

She had a habit of not picking up on things like that, after all.

Or, maybe she’d simply gotten knocked over by a wave or dragged out by an undertow and drowned. Maybe the last sentence I ever spoke to her was a ridiculous accusation about her sleeping with George on the island—one I didn’t believe even when I hurled it at her. Maybe the last look she ever gave me wasn’t her usual smug smile, or haughty glare, or adorably annoyed frown, or even this new expression of cautious interest I’d caught on her face in the past few days. Maybe it was hurt, and confusion, and betrayal, and abandonment. Maybe she died wearing the same one.

And if I hadn’t said those things to her, if I’d chased after her when she ran from me this afternoon, if I had left her alone after dropping her off at her cabin when we’d first arrived on the island, if I’d never forced her into the water or kissed her in the shower house or admitted that for her I’d break more than plates—I’d break every rule that Rose & Grave had ever taught me—would any of this be happening?

Where the hell were those police boats? Hadn’t I been sitting out here for months by this point?

I paced the deck for a few minutes, then realized that perhaps the surface of an unmoored, aimlessly floating object was not the best place for a extended session of self-abasement. I turned the engine on again, and very gently started to steer the ship back toward the Cavador docks.

From the left—port—side, the island’s boat reappeared, skimming across the water at breakneck speed. I twisted the wheel and the ship shuddered beneath me. I pulled back on the throttle and the controls whined, and I heard gears grinding before my forward momentum slowed almost to a standstill. The engine was idling, but the controls seemed locked.

Great. First I steal the yacht, then I break it. I wondered if my father’s car insurance covered boat repair.

Salt’s boat whizzed by me, and I saw figures moving around on the deck, but try as I might, I couldn’t make out one that could be Amy. Under the glare of the dock lights a crowd had gathered—every person on the island was waiting to see what that boat brought back. Everyone but me.

From my angle, I couldn’t see anything on the dock once the boat pulled in. The odd shout floated back to me over the water, but mostly, the island was a black hole, swallowing all sound, all news, all hope that I could discover what was going on over there. I ran from one side of the deck to the other, hoping for a better view. Was Amy on that boat? Was Amy anywhere?

For a long time, I heard nothing but the boat engine and the sound of the waves slapping the sides of the ship, and then I heard sirens in the distance. A police boat whizzed up from the far end of the island and docked, and there was more hustle and bustle underneath the flashing colors. I seriously considered jumping overboard and swimming back, but I figured that Frank would kill me if I abandoned his ship.

Ages passed. Continents rose from the sea in a fiery inferno, then crumbled back into nothingness. Stars were born and died and got sucked back into themselves. I stayed on the boat and quietly freaked out in a way that Jamie Orcutt has never once done. Or at least, hasn’t done since I was six years old and my parents told me that my mother’s cancer was terminal.

Like every other kid in America, I’d studied Edgar Allan Poe in high school. Too bad no one in D175 had been imaginative enough to think through the details when they’d bestowed the name on me. It was surprising how well it fit. That guy had had a really tough life. Like me, he’d been born in Virginia, and his mom had died young. Like me, he had a stronger than passing interest in cryptography and the occult. The similarities stopped there, though. I’d never gone for a thirteen-year-old cousin, for example. However, Poe had been utterly destroyed when the woman he loved died at twenty-two years old.

Amy had better fucking be okay.

Eventually, the police got back on their boats and pulled out, and the crowd on the dock began to disperse. I could see Malcolm coming over to the edge of the dock and I waved at him. He lifted a large flashlight and flickered it at me.

Flaaaaash. Flash. Flash. Flash. Flash.

Morse code. Cryptography strikes again.

Flaaaaash. Flaaaaash. Flaaaaash. Flash. Flash.

Six eight.

Channel 68? I waved at Malcolm and turned to the radio as he hopped on board Salt’s ship.

“Malcolm Cabot to the Lone Ranger, come in,” he said through the speakers.

“Very funny. Is Amy okay?”

“She’ll be fine. They both will. Jamie, you have to get back here.”

What had happened? I was dying to ask. “I can’t. I screwed up the motor.”

Malcolm was quiet for a moment. “Okay, I’m coming to get you.”

I saw him jump off the dock and cut through the water like a pro. Alaska had been very good to my friend. Maybe that’s where I should run away to get my head on straight. This behavior—it was unacceptable. All of it was. I was completely out of control, utterly powerless.

It had to stop.

I released the ladder on the back of the boat and Malcolm climbed aboard, dripping from head to foot. I pounced. “What happened? Where were they? Did the police take Darren away? How is Amy?”

And then I clamped my mouth shut. I was even talking too much, just like her. That was it. When I got back to shore, I was getting a hold of myself. This couldn’t continue.

Malcolm looked at me for a long moment, then sighed. “Here’s the thing…”

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Secret Stories: A New Confession

Diana Peterfreund — Wed, 1 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Please note: This story takes place directly after the events on page 88, chapter 5 of Rites of Spring (Break), and includes spoilers through chapter 6 of that novel. Basically, if you aren’t familiar with the Brandon plotline of this book, you probably won’t understand this story.

My father, a tycoon of industry, lives by the following rule:

Know your enemy as you know yourself.

My mother, who married my father only days after he ended his engagement to her best friend, is also a devotee of The Art of War. Her favorite rule, however, has come in handy far more often:

All warfare is based on deception.

In high school, I watched my friends’ first romantic dramas, the lunchroom whispers of that hackneyed axiom, “All’s fair in love and war.”

I was baffled that my friends were only just discovering this now. Even more baffled to learn that they didn’t realize that love was war. It was self-evident to me.

My junior year in college, I was tapped into a secret society that, unsurprisingly, named me Sun Tzu. I called my parents to brag about that the morning after my initiation. When school ended, I left to spend the summer in Hong Kong.

And I fell in love, and my entire military strategist training went out the window.

Who needs strategy, I thought, when you have endless perfect days of being by your lover’s side, when you have yacht trips and sun-drenched afternoons in the South Pacific, when you finally, finally have a boyfriend who thinks games are for children and love doesn’t need battle formations or defensive tactics? Brandon had been defeated in the past, but he still refused to treat me as an opponent. He gave me the keys to the city of his heart without reservation, and also without surrender. I didn’t conquer him; I lived side-by-side with him in a mutually profitable peace.

It wasn’t until we returned to Eli that I realized how false our treaty was.

Amy Haskel had infiltrated our peace, set land mines in our conversations, and corrupted our relationship at the most fundamental levels. In Hong Kong, we could go out to a restaurant or spend a weekend in bed without the presence of Brandon’s ex. But here on campus, her ghost was everywhere, hovering over us like a spy satellite. If we went out for Thai food, I could see Brandon recalculating his order because he was used to complementing her meal —splitting spring rolls did not appeal to me as much as it did to the late, great Amy Haskel. If we spent the night in his room, I found myself wondering if he ever washed his comforter.

It was gross. It was disappointing. And more than any of these things, it was completely unexplainable. After all, I made a much better ally than Amy. She’d hurt him, used him, cheated on him. I’d healed him, loved him, entertained him, praised him. So why did Amy get most-favored-nation status? I was the girlfriend. I sat in my political science classes and pondered the problem when I should have been taking notes on the Vietnam War. I sat in my French classes and studied the etymology. Felicity meant happiness, but Amy meant loved.

That couldn’t be correct.

For the first few months of the term, I was paralyzed, completely frozen in the face of this surprise attack. I’d been lulled into such a false sense of security that I’d forgotten the basic rules. And twice a week, when I was called by the name of Sun Tzu and praised by my fellow society members as their favorite strategist, I still failed to remember the truth:

Love is war.
War is deception.
Know your enemy as you know yourself.

I’d given Brandon’s disarmament strategy a chance, and had wound up ceding territory. The time for peace had passed.

I will not apologize for my actions. And though I regret the fallout, as anyone regrets the ravages of war, I am aware of its necessity. Love is war; war is deception; and Brandon brought this on himself.

Of course, there are setbacks in every campaign. The fight at Valentine’s Day was just such a setback. Or so I thought. Until my own operatives informed me of Brandon’s perfidy. That, I admit, I hadn’t expected. After all, Brandon had once been on the receiving end of a cheater. My action had to be immediate and decisive.

And if it looked like a white flag of surrender to the untrained eye, well, that only means I’m craftier than they thought. In point of fact, my coffee shop meeting with Brandon the day after his little snowed-in sleepover with The Enemy was nothing more than a reconnaissance mission. I needed to know what he felt, what he’d done, and how far the whole situation had gone. Were we dealing with scorched earth here, or just another land mine in a battlefield already littered with Amy-shaped holes?

For the relatively minor concession of an apology for screaming at him at the dance, I learned the following information: he didn’t sleep with her.

All was not yet lost.

But the question remained, how best to proceed with my campaign? The end goal remained: defeat The Enemy Amy, regain control of Brandon. But as I plotted my strategy, it turned a little hazy. The society didn’t help. Was I their brilliant Sun Tzu, or was I Brandon’s desperate girlfriend? Did I want to win Brandon, or did I want to win?

I retreated for a while, regrouped, and asked myself these questions.

It was a dangerous maneuver, and I knew it. I was giving Brandon an opportunity to slip even further out of my grasp, giving The Enemy some breathing room to launch a new attack on our shared objective. And yet, I had to know before I could proceed. If I didn’t know what I want, how would I know when I’d achieved my goals?

My mother knew. She wanted my father.

My father knew. He wanted to be in charge of a successful company.

And me?

Alone in my bedroom, I curled up on my comforter. I dimmed the lights. I sipped tea and listened to soft music. This was as close as I ever got to meditation, as close—despite years of trying—as I figured I could get. Around me were the mementos of my months spent with Brandon. Some volcanic glass we’d picked off the shores of Natadola Beach in Fiji, a picture of the two of us on my uncle’s yacht, the scarf he’d purchased from a street vendor in Victoria Harbor, dried flowers from the bouquet he’d sent me after the first night we spent together.

The presents had grown somewhat sparse since we’d returned to campus. My glittery bangle belt and his bowler cap from our Halloween costumes. A snapshot of the two of us (and about five of his college friends) at The Game. Brandon’s Christmas gift to me had been a cashmere sweater. I was wearing it now, but it chafed at the elbows and neckline, as if my skin knew that his heart hadn’t been in it when he’d picked it out. I pulled it off and leaned back against the pillow in only my bra, realization flooding my body along with the chilly February air.

Was I a summer fling? Were all those words of affection and respect and entreaties not to play games and to make love, not war… were they Brandon’s own form of deception? Had he ever loved me, or had he loved his rebound girlfriend only for what she gave him and not for who she—who I—was?

I followed that line of thought for a little while. It was painful, but then again, that was the nature of war. And my conclusion was: it didn’t matter. I loved Brandon. I wanted Brandon. So my goal must be to get Brandon.

My problem was I’d been approaching the situation as if I was on equal footing with the enemy. In my misguided strategy, viewed through a haze of love, we were both his equal lovers, his equal girlfriends, fighting from equal positions of power. In fact, I had even counted my foothold the stronger one, as I was the current girlfriend. Now, however, I understood the truth. He didn’t love me; never had.

But that was his own failing.

Brandon was not a fool, despite what his current behavior might lead some to believe. Like me, he was operating under his own haze of love, a haze which obscured the simple and objective truth that I was a far, far better choice for him than Amy was or ever would be. Leaving aside the obvious parameters of wealth and beauty—the former of which holds little pull with someone like Brandon, the latter of which is in the eye of the beholder—I had given him loyalty, commitment, security. I had loved him where Amy had not.

Now, Brandon might, like so many men, have an irrational lust for the chase. Perhaps Amy appealed to him precisely because she remained so unattainable. If so, the correct strategy would to become even more unattainable. The method had worked with my father when my mother tried it. But I did not think this was the correct tactic with Brandon. After all, he’d had Amy once, and given her up when she was at her most unattainable—when she had chosen her precious little secret society over him.

No, love of the chase was not what drove my boyfriend’s passions. But perhaps I’d never know. After all, I’d been wrong about him up until now.

I was still pondering this when my cell phone buzzed with a text message from the boy in question.

NEED TO TALK NOW.

My heart leapt. He needed me. Me!

Sun Tzu, I believe, would be ashamed of this reaction, so I tamped it down as best I could and texted back:

SURE. YOUR PLACE OR MINE?

There. That was better. Naturally, it would be ideal to meet here, where I had home field advantage. Additionally, Brandon would never summon me anywhere. If he needed to talk, he’d come to me, and we both knew it. But posing the question cost me nothing, and made me look generous for offering.

By the time he arrived, I’d girded for battle. My best underwear as a base layer, and everything else in pristine white. I was the innocent party, the wronged party, and every stitch on my body should scream it.

Brandon didn’t feel that way. Nor was he affected by the perfume I’d wafted near the threshold to remind his subconscious how he once craved my scent. He was already fuming when I answered the door.

“What have you been doing to Amy?”

“What?” I asked, making sure my face registered only puzzlement.

“Don’t play the fool, Lis,” he snapped. “You and your Dragon’s Head buddies. What have you been doing to Amy?”

Oh. That. “It’s really none of your concern.”

“My current girlfriend torturing my ex-girlfriend?” he asked. “I think I’ll decide what is and what is not my concern.”

“Torturing?” I spluttered. “I don’t know what she’s been telling you, but…”

“She told me enough,” he replied. “And I was there for some of it. I’m sure you remember the sodas.”

“Brandon, I assure you—” but the words caught in my throat. What? I couldn’t assure him of anything. It was war. I’d used every means at my disposal. My society. My boyfriend. Amy Haskel was going down, for whatever reason I could find.

I retreated into the room as Brandon advanced, his face darker and more closed than I’d ever seen it. I almost raised my hands in supplication, but caught myself just in time. I may be wearing a white sweater, but I wasn’t about to start waving it around.

“Don’t you see that it’s this jealousy of yours that is tearing us apart?” Brandon said. “You say I can’t get over her. Well, maybe it would help if you stopped telling me I wasn’t.”

“Excuse me?” I said. “You are placing the blame on me for how you spent the night in your ex-girlfriend’s room last week? That’s really your opening shot?”

He hesitated for a moment, but it was long enough.

“And you are conflating the issue. You come in here all riled up because of some society business. That it happens to contain some of the same parties…” I paused. “Wait a second. Did you tell Amy I was in Dragon’s Head?”

“No,” said Brandon. “Do you think I should? Make it even?”

I straightened. “Only if I’ve used Dragon’s Head to hurt you more than anyone has ever hurt you before. At least, that was the story you told me last summer.” I sat down on the couch. “Amy joined Rose & Grave, then promptly forgot about you. Isn’t that right?”

“And now you use my confidences to feed your own jealousy.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Actually,” I said, “I did no such thing. Yes, I knew Amy was a Digger. You saw to that. But she’s also a very clumsy Digger. And I played by the rules. When she broke into our tomb and stole our belongings, we caught her on camera. A mild acquaintance could have identified her after that. I merely suggested it to my friends, and followed up that suggestion with a little encouragement.” I picked some fluff from my sweater. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it had very little to do with whatever issues we have in our relationship. It wasn’t jealousy. More like…feud.”

“Disappointed?” came Brandon’s voice, low, sardonic. “No, I’m flattered! Imagine being feuded over. I feel like Helen of Troy. Only next time you should inform the other party why you’re really attacking.”

“I was really attacking due to the trespassing and the theft,” I replied smoothly. “Much as my fellow society members may love me, they aren’t my own personal goon squad.” I rose from the couch and crossed over to him. “But I truly cannot believe you are going on the offensive here. After everything you’ve done to me!”

“After everything you did to her!”

I let that lie for a moment, long enough for him to realize how silly it sounded. I had answered for Dragon’s Head’s activities, revealed far more than I should of our campaigns. Look at me, Brandon, open and honest where Amy wouldn’t even tell you she was in Rose & Grave!

When his expression softened, I moved in again. “You just… ran back to her, B. Like we’d been nothing. Like I was just an obstacle. An interlude.”

“That’s not how it was.”

“I don’t know if I could bear knowing how it was.” I paused until I gained control of the catch in my voice. In some cases, crying could be a weapon, but there were drawbacks. Once employed, it limited your options. You could no longer be superior or seductive, and I was generally more skilled at those. “But don’t you see? It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what happened. I just want to get back to us, back to this—” I leaned in.

He pulled away. Far away. In fact, he whirled and paced toward the door as if he’d fling it open and stalk out. Okay. Seduction was clearly the wrong move. Perhaps I should have stuck with crying. It felt more natural at this moment, anyhow. If Brandon walked out that door, I’d start and maybe never stop.

But there, with his hand on the doorknob, he paused. “You used me,” he said. “All month. You used me to find out she was in Rose & Grave. You used me to find out her schedule—”

“And you know her schedule!” I exclaimed. “You don’t think that’s weird?”

“She’s a friend.”

“I don’t know my own roommate’s class schedule, B,” I said. And what of the way he’d used me, all summer long? All last semester? What of the way he’d used me to mend his broken heart, lying and whispering words of love when all along I was nothing but a Band-Aid?

“You can’t convince me that none of this was motivated by our history.” Brandon wasn’t yelling. He hardly ever yelled, but then again, he didn’t need to. Instead, something fundamental changed in his tone to signify fury. It was there now.

The thing was I wasn’t entirely sure if it was me he was mad at. As I said before, Brandon was no fool. That I had fooled him about Amy had to be grating. That both he and she deserved it had to be even more grating. And that, once again, his relationships were getting mixed up in the world of secret societies, a world he neither cared for nor understood—that had to be the most grating of all.

In that moment, my strategy spread out beneath me like a vista, like a vast plain of battle where each move of my forces shone perfectly clear. I knew how to proceed. It was a triumph that many, even those who called me Sun Tzu, would view as surrender. But, though they were my allies, they did not know the true nature of this war. It was a war for Brandon.

A war I was going to win.

I swallowed heavily. “I won’t deny that the fact it was her was a bit of a perk. There. Happy? But otherwise, no, I had nothing to do with it. I’m not a crazy jealous stalker. I knew what you were up to because we’ve all been watching her.”

He was listening now.

“And it breaks my heart. I can’t bear it. I can’t.” And now I let the tears come, the ones I’d been holding back since I discovered the awful truth. They clustered around my words and left me breathless. Brandon watched me, his expression becoming less guarded with each second. He may not love me, but he wasn’t heartless either. He cared. And perhaps, until this moment, he never realized how much I cared back. He’d cast Amy as victim and me as tormentor. Au contraire, Brandon. It’s you who have been tormenting me all along.

I took a deep breath, as if steeling myself. “What’s it going to take, B?”

Silence. He’d never been presented with an option like that. He’d always been the one begging for a relationship…from her. So much the better.

I launched my missile. “I’ll make them stop.”

“What?”

“I’ll make them leave her alone.”

An even longer silence. And then he said, very softly, “You’d do that?”

“Yes.” My voice overflowed with relief, with peace, with everything he ever wanted to hear a girl say. “Of course I would, if you wanted me to. I care about you—about what you think of me—way more than any of them.”

He’d see now. I know he would.

“You’re what’s important to me, Brandon. I love you.”

And then, when I’d won this war, we’d just see about Amy Haskel.

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Secret Stories: Poe at the Gates

Diana Peterfreund — Sun, 1 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

POE AT THE GATES

[Author’s Note: This story takes place about 3/4 into UNDER THE ROSE, specifically, after the first scene in chapter 18, Benefits (pg 301 if you wish to refresh your memory). The Diggers have just exposed Elysion; Amy and George have just left Poe standing at the gates of Prescott College.]

“Drop dead, Jamie,” she said and disappeared into the night with her lover. I wrapped my hands around the frigid iron bars of the Prescott College Gate, squeezed until the bones of my knuckles bit into my bruised flesh. But Amy was gone. With George.

His hand had splayed against the small of her back as they’d walked. Each finger claiming as much space as it could, proclaiming far more intimate knowledge. The only time I’d tried to touch her, she’d shoved me away, so hard I’d left the city we shared. The entire state.

Had some hapless undergrad approached at that moment, I would have stolen their prox card and run after her. I’d have ripped her out of George’s arms then and there and made her finish our conversation.

Fortunately for all of us, no one showed up. And finally, I pushed away from the gate and walked on.

Following procedure, I should be tracking down the other Elysion members and devising a plan to deal with the fallout of our discovery by the other Diggers. But the only person whose location was known to me was George, and there was no way I was about to interrupt him. I wondered if they were already naked. Probably, knowing George.

It figured that a girl like Amy would have no problem being furious at me and simultaneously ready to jump Prescott’s bones. If she needed help, I was the person she’d turn to. If she needed to get her rocks off, though…

I had never hated her more. Which is why I walked by those fucking gates two more times, just in case there was someone coming through that might let me in. But no one was out and about. Who would be, in this horrific weather?

They were definitely having sex by now. I whirled and headed resolutely toward the Law School. My apartment was too far to walk in this freezing rain without my coat, and the tomb was enemy territThere was no place else on campus where I was welcome.

My hand hurt. It had been hurting for two days, ever since I’d plowed it through that asshole Micah Price’s jaw. What had I been thinking? I was not the kind of person who did things like that. There were far easier, far more efficient, and far more damaging ways to hurt someone than with your fists. But a few hours with Amy Haskel and I was punching people, chasing people, seriously considering heading back to Prescott College and scaling the wall…

And then what? Breaking into George’s room and dragging her out of his bed by her hair? God, what was wrong with me? I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. Thank God none of my friends had been around these last two days to see the way I’d been acting. Malcolm would be on the floor laughing, no doubt.

He had this crazy idea that I—that Amy…

Here’s the thing: Malcolm is generally intelligent, but he has a severely warped view of romantic relationships. Figures he would, given his past. A guy who’s been forced for most of his life to convince himself that he’s not attracted or interested in the people he falls in love with is bound to develop some twisted ideas. I, for one, liked people I liked. I loved people I respected, who respected me, who I could have decent, lively, interesting conversations with.

Well, I’d had interesting conversations with Amy over the last few days. I’d give him that.

But it didn’t make a difference. I didn’t like Amy Haskel. She was a bitch. A flighty, ungrateful, disrespectful, paranoid, clueless…

Except she wasn’t really flighty. She was actually pretty dedicated to Rose & Grave. And she was determined to help that idiot Jenny, no matter what that cult-member moron had done to us. And her paranoia—well, I had to admit that, in the end, she’d been right not to trust me. So she wasn’t actually clueless, either.

Disrespectful, though. I had her on that one. And bitch, certainly. And given what she and George were probably doing right now, there were a few more choice adjectives I could add.

I really needed to get a hold of my imagination. It kept vomiting up images of Amy in George’s bedroom, in George’s arms. Images of George in Amy’s…

I blew through the doors of the Law Library, trailing autumn rain in my wake, and headed up the steps. I’d left my book bag in the secret sub-tomb, along with my coat and umbrella. There were enough course readings in the stacks to keep me occupied for a few hours, until I could be sure of sneaking back into the tomb undetected. There was no way I was willing to face the club of D177 tonight.

It wasn’t until I arrived at my reserved study carrel that I remembered who’d used it last: Amy, during her urgent all-nighter. Two days in a row, Amy had an emergency and she’d come to me. She’d eaten my Doritos, she’d organized the paperwork I usually kept piled up on the surface of the desk, and when I sat down, I discovered she’d switched out my old, squeaky chair with one of the nice new ones from the reading room.

Like she had any right to mess with my stuff.

I was surprised that she was even awake enough for sex with George. She’d looked exhausted all day long. On the Metro North train this morning, she’d curled up on the grody plastic seats underneath her winter jacket and tried to sleep. I’d never seen anyone look more uncomfortable. Her ankles had been sticking out from under her coat, dangling over the side, her brown hair with those faded, ridiculous red highlights spilling over her face. I’d almost given her my coat to use as a pillow. I’d almost given her my shoulder.

Malcolm would have had a field day with that one. Meanwhile, Amy would have simply wrinkled up that nose of hers and given me some kind of smartass rejection.

And then Malcolm would ask which part I minded more: the smartass or the rejection. And I would have no idea.

Shit. Shit. I pushed away from my desk and headed to the bathroom. I looked like a drowned rat, wandering through campus in the rain with no coat. I grabbed a few paper towels and tried to blot at the wet spots on my shoulders, to dry some of the excess water out of my hair. I did not like Amy Haskel. And I didn’t give a shit that she was fucking George.

And I would keep telling myself that until it became the truth.

I returned to my desk and studied. I studied for half an hour. That should give them plenty of time to… finish whatever it was they were doing. George might be God’s gift to women, but I doubted he was pulling any kind of marathon session tonight. Down in the student lounge, I called.

“Hello?” said George.

“It’s Jamie. Put Amy on the phone.”

“She’s not here.”

“Bullshit.”

“Dude, she’s not here. She chewed my head off about Elysion and left. Look, I have to go. I’m talking to Josh.”

I heard a male voice in the background. It was either the truth, or George was kinkier than I’d thought. “Are they pissed?”

“What do you think?”

“Do you need me to come over?”

“I think that would be a bad idea.” George paused. “I really have to go.”

Fine. I called Nikolos, but there was no answer, and Ben and Kevin were together, in deep conference with Odile. Odile Dumas, of all people! They didn’t want me involved, either. I wasn’t a knight, like them. I didn’t matter. I was on this campus, ready to jump whenever they wanted me, forced to sit on the sidelines according to their whim. Nikolos had used me to set up Elysion. Amy had used me to chase after Jenny, to get access to the Law Library. And when they were done with me, they shut me out. I’d been so desperate for even a taste of what I’d had my senior year, I’d taken the scraps and relished them. And pathetic as it was, I’d still take them.

I stared down at the phone for several long moments. Then I picked it up. Amy’s number rang and rang, then went to voice mail. I opened my mouth to speak, to apologize, to grovel…

And then I hung up.

No. It ended here. It ended tonight. I was done letting Amy Haskel have that much control over me. I was a patriarch of Rose & Grave, and this disorganized, faulty club’s problems were not mine. They could sink or swim on their own for a little while. Getting involved had done nothing but mess with my head. The more I jockeyed for their impossible esteem, the more confused I got about my own feelings. I wanted Amy to show me the proper respect as a Digger patriarch, that was all. I certainly didn’t need her friendship. I definitely didn’t want anything else from her, either.

The rain looked like it had stopped so I left the Law Library and trudged back toward the tomb. The path wound right past the door to Prescott College. I wondered where Amy was now. Back in her room? Had she gone to bed? Was she pow-wowing with the other knights, trying to plan their next move?

So she hadn’t slept with George tonight. Huh. That was an…unexpected discovery. I guessed she was mad enough to overcome whatever irresistible draw that kid seemed to have on the opposite sex. Perhaps she was, in fact, furious with both of us equally. I remembered the words Amy had shouted at me through the bars:

You’re destroying the society in your bid to cling to it.

I took a deep breath and stopped walking. Was she right? Had Amy Haskel been a better Digger than me? Had the loyalty and dedication and fidelity of the bugaboo trumped my own? Amy had been a last-minute replacement. I hadn’t wanted her, but the club had very little choice. And yet, and yet, she’d not once, but twice took charge during some of the more difficult controversies that Rose & Grave had ever faced. I’d hated her for it. I’d hated more that I couldn’t dismiss her fight. She was loyal. She was clever. She was constant. As much as I was—in this case, more than I. They were qualities that, in any other person, in any other incarnation, would shine out like a beacon, would call to me like a siren.

Malcolm wondered why I was so obsessed with Amy Haskel? Because of that. She was nothing like me; she was everything like me. How was that even possible?

I looked into Prescott through the bars. This was where she lived. She could walk through the gates any second and see me standing here. She would think I was waiting for her. I should go before anyone sees. Before anyone sees me and figures it out.

Maybe I’d told Amy the truth yesterday. I’d punched Micah because his insult to Amy was an insult to a Knight of Rose & Grave, not that pile of messy, infuriating, bitchy entitlement that I disdained in her. Maybe all these bizarre feelings were just more confusion about leaving Rose & Grave, about leaving Eli. Maybe Amy was nothing more than nostalgia. Maybe.

But I was too smart to believe that.

Fortunately, I was a good enough liar to sell it to her. And I’d keep working on Malcolm. And once I was positive that no one else would ever suspect the truth, I’d convince myself.

An underclassman passed me at the gates and swiped her prox card at the sensor. She looked at me –wet, bedraggled, haunted –as she pulled open the gates.

“Are you coming inside?” she asked, her face crossed with concern.

I walked on.

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My Phi Beta Kappa Valentine

Diana Peterfreund — Sun, 1 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Note: The events in this story take place at the beginning of Under the Rose, however, they contain spoilers for the entire book.

Lydia Travinecek had come to believe that certain things about her life were fait accompli. She would be named captain of her high school debate team. She would be accepted to Eli University Early Decision. She would subsequently be named valedictorian of her high school graduating class. That all of these things came to pass was greeted by Lydia not as any great shock, but rather as her just desserts. She worked her ass off, after all. Why should not she achieve the things she put so much effort into realizing?

How then, she wondered, as her senior year at Eli began, had everything gone so very wrong? Her grades were fantastic, and she had a nice group of friends here in Prescott College, but she’d failed to distinguish herself in all the ways that mattered. Freshman year, she’d eschewed rushing a sorority in favor of keeping her eye on the prize: a membership in a prestigious senior secret society. If she wasn’t going to join one of those, she might as well have gone to Harvard. Everything she did at Eli was designed to impress those robe-wearing schmucks: She’d been honored by the Eli Political Union, she’d won debate team tournaments, and she had a mile-long list of recommendations from her professors.

And yet, no secret society had come a-knocking at the end of her junior year. Worse yet, her roommate Amy had been tapped – and not by some little literary society like Quill & Ink, either. Rose & Grave! Rose & Grave, that no one even thought tapped girls! Rose & Grave, who usually only took members from the best and brightest on the campus. Rose & Grave, the society of senators and Presidents and Supreme Court Justices. Rose & Grave had looked at the members of her suite, and they’d picked Amy over Lydia.

Much as Lydia may have loved Amy, she couldn’t help be a little miffed that her roommate was the one chosen. Though a lovely person, Amy was hardly the Rose & Grave type – especially when compared to Lydia. If they needed a girl, couldn’t they have tapped her?

Consumed by envy and bewilderment and deprived of her usually practical nature, Lydia had made a mistake. A bad mistake. One that she was way too embarrassed to tell Amy about now, several months later. There was no choice but to keep it up. So now, not only did she have to suffer the secret humiliation of not being tapped into a society, she would have to spend the entire year, her entire senior year at Eli University, pretending in a rather annoyingly overt way that she was.

Like she didn’t have enough on her plate with LSATs, law school applications, and her thesis. The demands of a secret society were onerous enough if they really existed. She’d have all the work, and none of the networking payoff.

Alternately, she could admit the truth to Amy. Amy, the Digger. Amy, who’d magicked up a summer job with a wave of her Rose & Grave-graced hand. Yeah. So not happening.

And it didn’t help that Amy was spending the lion’s share of time since her return to campus chilling with her fellow Diggers. She tried to pretend that wasn’t where she was, but no one took that many trips to the library before classes even started. She was at the Rose & Grave tomb on High Street and Lydia knew it. Well, fine. The Diggers were more important to her than her three-year friendship with Lydia? Wunderbar. Perhaps Lydia shouldn’t even be surprised. After all, last spring Amy had thrown over Brandon Weare when he got in the way of her Digger-oriented fun. Lydia had thought Amy and Brandon were a good match. A cute couple. Amy certainly had never complained about the sex. And yet, once Rose & Grave was in the picture, good ol’ Brandon got the heave-ho. Maybe Lydia was next.

Right now, though, she was just alone in their shared suite. Alone, again. Lydia sighed and started flipping through her dog-eared copy of the course catalog. She practically had the damn thing memorized by this point. She’d mapped out every course she wished to shop, and had even designed a flow chart based on her interest and the likelihood that she’d get into each one. (High. After all, she was a senior). Lydia planned to take five courses this semester, and four in the spring. She only needed three more class credits to graduate, and that was including her senior thesis, but since Eli didn’t charge by the credit, she might as well squeeze as much life as she could out of the exorbitant tuition fees. Despite her heavy course load, she maintained an excellent GPA – if she kept it up, she’d graduate with both honors in her major and summa cum laude.

See? Stupid secret societies. Had she not kissed the right ass? Why hadn’t anyone tapped her?

It was like being rejected by boys all over again. Lydia was actually taking a powder on the whole dating thing for a bit. She’d gotten burned something awful in a relationship with a grad student sophomore year, and none of the guys she’d met since had struck her as anything other than, well, little boys by comparison. She’d give the whole dating thing another whirl in law school, she supposed. At any rate, she’d better find someone before she got her J.D. Everyone knew that judicial clerkships were not famous for giving time off to develop a social life.

Then again, perhaps she shouldn’t assume that she’d get a clerkship, or even get into law school. Book & Key hadn’t wanted her. Perhaps the rest of her life would be a failure, too.

The phone rang. Probably for Amy. Probably one of her stupid Digger friends inviting her to another cool Digger event. Diggers only. Ugh. She hated how bitter she’d become. She hated feeling envious of her own best friend! Lydia picked up the receiver and clicked the “on” button. “Hello,” she said wearily.

“Lydia Travinecek?” said a woman on the other end. “This is Sally in the Prescott College dean’s office. Do you have a moment to drop by this afternoon? The dean would like to talk to you.”

Great. A guilt trip about volunteering, no doubt. Wasn’t he supposed to bother juniors with this? Then again, maybe the dean knew that she, unlike, say, her Digger roommate, had a surplus of free time to devote to the college. She hoped he didn’t want her to tutor or anything. “Sure,” she said. “I can come by now.”

Phi beta… kappa? Lydia stared at the dean in shock.

“Yes. Congratulations!” The dean clapped his hands in front of him.

“But… I thought that was conferred at graduation,” Lydia continued.

“For most students, it is,” said the PBK representative, whose name, Lydia was embarrassed to admit, she hadn’t paid attention to at first. “Less than ten percent of the graduating class are singled out for this honor, but we select a few juniors at the end of their junior year, and a few more at the beginning of their senior year. You’re one of those.”

One of those. Lydia nodded and tried not to feel disappointed in herself that she hadn’t been chosen last spring.

“It’s a very prestigious society, Lydia,” the dean was saying now. “Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most famous honor society in the country. And being chosen at the beginning of your senior year will be particularly beneficial to you – you can put the information on your law school applications.”

Lydia beamed. Phi beta kappa! She couldn’t wait to tell her mom! She couldn’t wait to tell… Amy.

Wait. Could she be in PBK if she was also in some other secret society? She opened her mouth to ask, but then thought better of it. After all, it was possible the phi beta kappa people already knew she was in no other society. Perhaps that’s why they waited until the beginning of her senior year to tap her. To make sure she was free.

And if she told Amy that she’d gotten into PBK, would that show she was lying about the other society? Would Amy call her out? Hmmm, she should look into that.

Until then… well, at least she finally had a secret to keep.

And a party to go to! All new inductees to phi beta kappa were being invited to a reception at the Office of the President. Lydia dressed in a pencil skirt and a boat neck blouse, swiped a pair of Amy’s strappy sandals and headed off, head held high for what seemed like the first time in ages.

The induction ceremony seemed relatively staid, more like a high school honor society meeting than the raucous initiations one heard about for secret societies. It certainly couldn’t compare with the blood-soaked extravaganza that Lydia, in a moment of envy-fueled temporary insanity, had cooked up for Amy’s benefit last spring. There were oaths, and phrases spoken in Latin. There was a handshake and a password, but no one really seemed to be paying much attention to all that. They just took their pins and their certificates and sat back down. She wasn’t sure what she’d been hoping for, but it hadn’t been… this.

Afterwards there was wine and socializing around a buffet table spread with sandwiches and crudités. Lydia wandered in and out of a few conversations. Her classmates who had been in since last spring were superior and rude, and held themselves above the new inductees as well as the grad students, who’d obviously only shown up for the free wine and food. As the buffet table, emptied, so did the room.

Lydia, never one to turn down a free sandwich, made a beeline toward the last of the tuna salad. She was stuffing her face when she heard someone calling her name. The sandwich instantly glued to the roof of her mouth.

“Lydia,” the guy repeated. His name was Joshua Silver. She knew him from Poli-Sci classes of course, but mainly from the Eli Political Union, where he spent a lot of time kicking a lot of ass. She’d even heard somewhere that he ran city alderman campaigns in his spare time. “Hey, I thought that was you. Nice bangs.”

“Mmmf.” Damn tuna salad. Curse her taste buds.

“So, phi beta kappa, huh?” he tried.

“Gungggf,” said Lydia. Should she spit it out? It was quite a large bite of sandwich, and she only had a cocktail napkin.

“How was your summer?”

Lydia nodded vigorously.

“Josh!” Josh turned around to look at the person calling him. A junior PBK pledge with silky hair and a low-cut blouse.

Lydia narrowed her eyes and worked at the obstinate bit of bread with her tongue. She could do this. If she could perform seventeen tongue twisters before a debate tournament and then tie strings of cherry stems at the after parties, she could unstick this damn tuna sandwich. After all, she had a—

“Very agile tongue,” she garbled aloud.

Joshua Silver spit out a mouthful of wine. Unfortunately, he did so all over her shirt. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” He grabbed another cocktail napkin and started dabbing.

“And you have very agile hands,” said Lydia. Josh snatched his fingers away.

“No, no,” said Lydia. “It’s not often a girl can brag about getting felt up by the president of the Eli Political Union in the office of the president of Eli University.”

Josh raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Well then, more girls should walk around bragging about their talented tongues.”

“There were extenuating circumstances,” Lydia began.

Josh waved around the damp napkins. “Oh, believe me, I understand.” They both laughed.

The girl with the silky hair called Josh’s name again, but he ignored her and moved closer to Lydia. He got them two new plastic glasses of wine and told her about his Fourth of July trip to Fire Island. He laughed at her jokes and ran his hand through his hair until it got all mussed. Lydia decided she liked it like that. She liked the mocking impression he did of his LSAT instructor, and she liked the way he made eye contact while she spoke to him, as if he was hanging on every word she said. It might be a public speaking technique, designed to put your subject at ease, but it worked. She was at ease.

Actually, she was entranced. She’d seen him at events for three years, but it’s like she’d never really looked at him until tonight. And the way he was looking at her, Lydia gathered he felt the same. Perhaps it was the magic of phi beta kappa pins. She was glad that Josh was another new inductee, like her. Put them on the same level, as it were. She doubted she’d be flirting so much with a junior inductee. She wondered, idly, if it was her being in phi beta kappa that had suddenly turned her into an object of interest for him. Or if it was what had turned him into an object of interest to her.

She wondered if their society kinship was anything like what Amy felt for her Rose & Grave friends. Well, Amy would never know what this was like. She could have the stupid Diggers. Lydia would hang out with Josh.

When enough people had cleared out, Lydia and Josh even got a chance to talk to the Eli president and, then, party over, they walked back to their colleges together. They spent another fifteen minutes chatting outside Josh’s gate, talking about law school and the classes they’d taken together and what they were planning to write their senior essays on. Funny. She’d known Josh for year as a formidable speaker, a political mastermind. He’d annoyed her in T.A. section with his ready answers and infuriated her across the debate table. Why hadn’t she ever thought of him as, you know, cute?

And cute he was, in a kind of skinny, preppy way. She’d continued to think of Josh as the slightly nerdy kid he’d been freshman fall, and had somehow missed the way he’d grown into his lanky frame and stopped wearing his hair so severely combed and finally gotten a pair of pants that fit. Fit well, she might add.

He didn’t ask for her number, but he didn’t need to. She lived on campus; she was listed. He said he would call her and then he kissed her, right there by the blue emergency phone. It was the first time Lydia had been kissed in the sunlight in years. This was no post-party hook-up, no obligatory end of night snog. He was kissing her at five p.m. in front of the main gate of his college, for all the world and Eli to see. She should have thought it was weird, and abrupt, and uncalled-for. They’d never even been on a date. They’d never been anything, but classmates and acquaintances for three years. Today, they’d been inducted into phi beta kappa, and it was as if scales had fallen from their eyes.

After a minute, he came up for air. “Very agile,” he said, and went inside.

Lydia couldn’t wipe the grin off her face as she walked back to Prescott. She bounced up the steps to her entryway, bursting with news for Amy, and then froze. Wait. How could she tell Amy about Josh without explaining how they’d met? Hmmm, conundrum. Well, it was early yet. Maybe keep it to herself until she knew if anything came after that kiss.

That killer, killer kiss.

And here she thought she’d weighed the romantic potential of every guy in her class. Just this afternoon, she’d been convinced that her senior year would be a dud in the dating department. She wondered how many other guys she’d inadvertently crossed off her list. Perhaps, like Josh, they were just dreamboats in disguise, folks she’d known so long she’d stopped thinking of them as possible partners in more than just debate tournaments. Perhaps she should do a little more research into the hidden treasures of Eli’s senior class.

Joshua Silver had better call soon if he wanted to catch her before her dance card filled up. After all, with Lydia Travinecek, some things were fait accompli.

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Secret Stories: Banned from the Tomb

Diana Peterfreund — Thu, 1 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Note: This story takes place in the middle of Under the Rose, specifically, after the events on page 84.

It had been three hours and I still hadn’t calmed down. I’d tried the library, but I was far too agitated to deal with ConLaw, and the guy in the next study carrel had a serious headphone-leak issue. What I didn’t understand was how he could concentrate on his reading while blasting Weird Al Yankovic.

Back in my apartment, I paced, then took a shower, then made some ramen noodles, then threw them away uneaten.

Bitch was too good a word for her, I think. I contented myself with a litany of others, mostly four letters. How dare she kick me out of my own fucking tomb? She wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for me. None of them would. And everything I’d sacrificed for them, too. Ungrateful bastards.

Like I even cared who Amy Haskel slept with. Like I didn’t know, already, what with all the research that I had done when Malcolm had put her name forth as a possible tap. What right did she have to be so fastidious all of a sudden? I mean, what did she think I’d do with the information, anyway? I was under the same oaths that the rest of the club were when it came to C.B.s. I certainly wouldn’t use the information against her, which was more than I could stay for George Prescott.

George Prescott, who’d spent the whole fucking night taking her clothes off with his eyes. This is what comes of putting girls in the club. I knew this was going to happen. I knew it. And Malcolm had been all, “how is it any different than having gay men in the club?”

But Malcolm hadn’t gotten together with any of the other knights, as far as I knew. And I knew quite a lot about what went on in that tomb. More than most people in the society, at the very least. It never ceased to amaze me how disinterested half the knights were in our own history, in taking advantage of the extraordinary gifts we’d been handed the night we were tapped into Rose & Grave. To them, it was just another privilege they’d been born into, like admission to Eli or their Long Island mansions. Did they have any idea how much more it was to…other people?

I got Voldemort out of his cage and let him slither around on the floor while I sat on the couch and returned to the books. Of course, given the weather, he preferred not to stay on the hardwood and soon found the warmest spot in the room – under my sweater. He coiled around my body and down my sleeve.

I picked up the phone.

Somewhere in Alaska, Malcolm answered. “Hey, dude! Pretty late back east, huh? You just get out of the meeting?”

“Something like that,” I replied, and told him the story.

“You’re kidding! Why?”

“You tapped the bitch,” I said. Voldie stuck his head out of my sleeve, flickered his tongue into the air, then ducked back inside.

“Please don’t call her that,” Malcolm said. “I know you don’t get along and—”

“So you approve of her actions?” I growled.

“Of course not,” said Malcolm. “But she’s my friend and my fellow knight—”

“She’s my fellow knight too, but she can bite me. Every time I see her, I have to put up with more of her bullshit. Where do you think they are going to end up, if they keep treating the patriarchs like this?”

Malcolm sighed. “Are you aware that this is the third conversation in a row we’ve had about Amy?”

“Well, she’s a problem.” Voldie unraveled himself from my body, sufficiently warmed, and coiled up in my lap. I traced my hand down his spine.

“She certainly seems to be a problem for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked a second too late. Or maybe a second too early. Or maybe at all. Shit.

He hesitated. “Nothing, man. What are you doing right now?”

I looked down. “Petting my snake.”

Malcolm laughed. “With anyone else, that would be a metaphor. Good thing I can always count on you.”

“What, to not jerk off with you on the phone?”

“I’ve been told I have an extremely sexy voice.”

“I’m going to take your word for it on that one.” Time for Voldie to go back into his tank. I carried the snake back across the room and he curled up instantly on his heat pad. “But back to the issue at hand. I don’t see how they can possibly think it’s appropriate to disrespect their elders that way. Is it because their first act as a club was to go up against the board? Now they just want to salt the earth and be done with it?”

“I don’t think you should look at it that way. They didn’t deny you dinner. They were being hospitable. And it wasn’t like they had a guest speaker. It was a C.B. She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t feel comfortable. The whole tap process makes for a very weird, one-sided relationship. Because of the research you did, you know all of them way better than they know you.”

“She wouldn’t have kicked you out,” I grumbled.

Malcolm, to his credit, chose to act as if I’d not spoken. “And besides, they do want to have their own club. Their own events. You had your own time, they should have theirs.”

I frowned. Rose & Grave had been such a huge part of my life for so long. I didn’t think I could just turn it off.

“Do you know what you need?” Malcolm was saying now.

To get laid, I thought.

“To get laid,” Malcolm said.

Shocker.

“Any cute girls in your section?”

“No.”

“How about fresh meat among the undergrads?”

I shuddered. “I am not going to pick up a teenager. That’s gross.”

“They’re eighteen,” Malcolm argued. “Fair game.”

“Maybe for you. Perv.”

“Fine, what about upperclasswomen of note?”

This time, I had the presence of mind to keep my mouth shut. I fit Voldemort’s screen back on top of his tank, then weighed it down with rocks. “What about you?” I asked.

“About time you asked!” Malcolm chuckled. “Pretty good, actually. There’s this one guy—”

My call waiting began to beep. Hmmm, the tomb line. Curious.

“—two summers working for an Iditarod team—”

What if it was Amy, calling to apologize? Wouldn’t that be something?

“—do you have any idea how strong you have to be to drive a dog sled?”

“Hmmm…” Not that I was going to forgive her. But I’d enjoy watching her squirm. Or writhe. Or just wiggle a bit.

Call waiting beeped again, cutting off Malcolm’s description of his conquest’s puppies and pecs.

“Hey, Mal,” I said. “I gotta run. My line’s beeping and it’s the tomb.”

“Okay, talk to you later!”

I clicked over and adopted my haughtiest tone. “Yes.”

“I have a proposition for you,” said Nikolos Kandes.

Well, hello to you too, Graverobber. “I’m listening.”

Not Amy. I tried to swallow my…was that disappointment?

Nikolos began, “I’m not happy with the status quo around here either, and I think you’re just the man who can help me. Plus, it would get you back in the tomb in a more...official capacity.”

“Still listening,” I said, intrigued.

“What do you know,” Nikolos said, then lowered his voice to a whisper, “about Elysion?”

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Secret Stories: Poe in D.C.

Diana Peterfreund — Mon, 1 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Please note: This story takes place after the end of Secret Society Girl

The guy across the street went to Eli, and he’s throwing a party. At least, that’s as much as I can discern from the line of cars now crowding his driveway and taking up space along the curb for a block in either direction. Most of the cars bear Eli window stickers, which jump out at me like neon lights. Some of the people heading into the party are wearing Eli T-shirts.

There are four of us working in the clients’ yard: my dad, me, and two day laborers—one who, in my opinion, is entirely too old to be out in the August heat. My gray T-shirt is almost soaked through, and I can feel the beginning of a burn on the back of my neck. I refuse to stick a handkerchief under my cap like Dad does, but I pay for it.

The baseball cap in question has the “E” for Eli sewn into the brim, but not one of the party attendants seems to notice that as they traipse by. Gardeners, you see, are invisible. If I were playing Frisbee on the National Mall or hanging out at a sports bar in Georgetown, they’d notice. They’d come over, say hi, maybe ask me what college I was in. But no gardener is an Eli graduate. Their eyes glaze right over the insignia on my hat.

This is useful information. Perhaps I should inform the CIA.

Not that they’ve been returning my calls of late.

I’m leaning on my spade, watching, when my dad comes over. He’s got a thermos in one hand and a filthy towel in the other that he uses to wipe the sweat off his face and neck.

“You’re quieter than usual,” he says, which is one of his older jokes. I’m always quieter than usual.

“Eli party across the street,” I say, and take the thermos from his hand. Lukewarm Gatorade, but it keeps you hydrated.

“Oh, why didn’t you tell me? Do you want to get off early and go?”

I almost laugh at this. I’m not invited just because I went to college there. If it were an Eli Club event, I’d probably have gotten an email about it. Though I don’t know if I’m still on the DC listserv. And even if I was, and there was an email, I probably deleted it. I’m not much for the picnics or the kayaking or the softball games against Harvard.

And the one event I would have attended—a cocktail party for Diggers at the house of one of the patriarchs—well, I skipped that one, too. No point being reminded, right? I’m a pariah on both sides, now.

And I can’t tell my dad that there’s no way I’m crashing some collegiate party covered in sweat and dirt. I look like a ditch digger, not a Rose & Grave Digger.

“I’m pretty wiped,” I say instead.

Another car with Eli stickers pulls up and parks right behind Dad’s trailer. The passenger door opens and out bounds none other than Amy Haskel.

I bend my head over my spade. Here’s someone I don’t want noticing my hat.

Amy is focused on the driver, whom I believe is her Prescott roommate, Lydia someone. They are doing that thing girls do where they shout the lyrics of a song so loud you can’t tell if it’s oldies, R&B, hip-hop, or that old Alanis Morrisette song girls like so much. Amy is shimmying and tossing her hair. She’s dyed red streaks in it over the summer. It looks ridiculous. Does she think she’s a rock star?

“Come on, Lyds,” she calls to the driver, still dancing in the street. So I was right. Lydia seems to have come to the party directly from her job. She’s wearing an Eli t-shirt and a dress skirt and heels. She’s still inside the car, doing that other thing girls do, where they try to change clothes without removing their old clothing first. Her efforts are stymied by the fact that there are four strange men in the yard. To her, we’re not completely invisible.

But I’m not paying attention to Lydia and her clothing contortions. No, I’m looking at Amy. I bet she went to the Digger cocktail party, rock-star red streaks and all. She got a job from a patriarch, in the end. Lucky bitch. She’s wearing a halter top, a short denim skirt, and sparkly flip-flops. I don’t see her pin anywhere, but then again, I bet Malcolm taught her to put it someplace discreet.

Not that her outfit has much yardage for hiding spaces.

I suppose I know now what Malcolm saw in her. She’s decent enough on paper, but it’s the attitude that really makes the difference. I thought it was a liability. I was wrong; it’s the opposite. The way she spoke in New York… I couldn’t stop myself. My mouth moved on my own and ruined everything.

I stab my spade into the dirt. Stupid, lucky bitch. And now she’s the one with the nice summer job, and the invitations to the Eli parties. And next year I’m going to have to watch her in the tomb. In our tomb. My tomb.

“Well, I’m heading in,” Amy says. “It’s sweltering out here.”

No kidding. My mind fills with words far nastier than bitch before I catch myself. She’s my brother, now. I took an oath.

And so did she. I wonder what would happen if she noticed me out here in the yard. Would she remember her oath? Would she take me into the party with her?

Would I want her to?

And then she’s off, flitting across the street and up the walk. She seems incapable of walking anywhere like a normal person. She’s more like a puppy—everything is skipping or plodding or bounding or sprinting. And why not? She lives a charmed life. First a Digger without any real qualifications and now a happy little DC intern who lives in air conditioning and runs around in sparkly flip-flops.

Her friend is still in the car, trying in vain to pull her shorts up without showing us all her ass. Which reminds me: Malcolm said all the new taps got tattoos, but I didn’t see Amy’s. I wonder if it’s on her ass. If she were the one changing in the car, I’d know for sure.

I lift the sapling from the pot and place it in the hole I’ve dug, packing loose dirt in around the root ball. My fingernails have turned black these past few months. Every time I catch sight of them on a keyboard, I almost don’t recognize my hands. They look like Dad’s.

I look up again and my eyes meet Lydia’s. She waves at me.

Shit. I wave back. Does she notice the hat?

“Hot out here, huh?” she says.

I grunt. Maybe she’ll think I don’t speak English. Or that I found the hat at a thrift store. I don’t want to get into a conversation with the roommate of Amy Haskel.

“Lydia!” the shout comes from across the street. Amy is standing on the front porch, waving like a maniac and grinning like two. “Help me with these!”

Malcolm is a moron. She may be incredibly strong-willed, but she’s not a Digger. Just look at her. Zero self-control.

If it were any of my fellow knights other than Malcolm, I’d say he’d been thinking with his dick. She’s cute enough. Not beautiful like Clarissa Cuthbert or Odile Dumas, but then again, she doesn’t have their pedigree, either. But certainly cute enough. I heard she had a thing with George Prescott after Initiation. Shocker. Is there a girl at Eli he hasn’t banged?

Now she’s sashaying across the street with a clutch of frost-soaked water bottles in the crook of her arm. She hands one to the nearest laborer.

Shit. Shit. I grab my spade and head for the backyard.

I am not taking charity from Amy Haskel.

My dad finds me a few minutes later and hands me the bottled water. It’s covered in condensation, the label peeling off and grubby after passing through my father’s hands.

“You’re right,” he says, as I twist off the cap and start chugging. So much for my pride in this heat. “It’s an Eli party. Girl dropped by with some drinks for the crew. When I told her my son was here and went to Eli, she said you should come on over.”

That’s because she doesn’t know it’s me. “You told her who I was?”

“Yeah. She’s a senior next year, but she said she doesn’t know you.”

I almost choke on the icy water. Doesn’t know me?

Guess Amy can keep a secret after all.

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