Page 3 of Flickerstate

Mom thinks I applied to the Academy because it’s tuition-free. Now that Dad’s too sick to work, we can’t afford to send both me and Jo to Saint Cat’s. But I can’t just say I’m interested in money. That doesn’t sound like a self-doubting yet supertalented main-character girl who gets the coveted spot at the school for special people. “Well, the Academy…you guys have the best navigation program in the world.”

“True enough,” Dr. Langmore says. “Is there anything on campus you’d like to see before your navigation demo? Any questions you’d like to ask?”

I’d like to ask why she’s interviewing me in the hallway, but I shouldn’t piss this woman off. I take a breath. “Actually, I was wondering… Could we visit the Highwall Archive?”

I’m not delusional. No one’s going to let a lowly interviewee riffle through Highwall’s precious papers. But I want to see the Archive—touch the walls, sniff the air—so I can hope. I need to believe there’s a chance I can find a cure for Dad.

And myself.

“Only senior Archive assistants are allowed in the Archive,” Dr. Langmore says in a tone that discourages follow-up questions.

I swallow. Ever since Highwall bequeathed her papers to the Academy, journalists, navigation researchers, and conspiracy theorists have been complaining about her will, which forbids anyone unaffiliated with the Academy from nosing through her stuff for fifty years after her death.What’s she hiding?they ask. Which is what I want to know. I’d been assuming students got access. Students are,after all, affiliated with the Academy.

“How do you become an assistant?” I ask, faux casual.

“There’s a…rigorous selection process,” Dr. Langmore says, waving a hand and dismissing the subject. “Shall we proceed to your demo?”

***

We exit Admissions into the April sunshine and cross the lawn onto a paved footpath. “Are you close with your siblings, Norah?” Dr. Langmore asks.

“Sure,” I chirp.

“And you get along with your parents?”

Mom laughs.

Dr. Langmore’s thin lips curve downward. “Is something funny?”

“Well,” Mom says, “it’s funny to ask her in front of me. But yes, we get along. Norah watches her siblings when we need her to, and she’s never once lost her homework. These days, what more can a parent ask for?”

While Mom and Dr. Langmore sigh over the low standards for today’s youth, I survey the campus. The path loops around an oval of ivy-festooned granite buildings. Beyond the footpath are athletic fields—a soccer pitch, basketball courts—and beyond that, forest.

This weekend begins the Academy’s spring break, so I haven’t seen any students except the stunner in Admissions.

But as we’re walking past a Gothic monstrosity toward what I think is the navigation building, a dorm becomes visible between them. A boy sprints around the dorm and disappears. I don’t catch his face, only dark hair and pumping fists.

He was limping. His shirt was red.

Dr. Langmore sees him too. She stops. Her spare profile shows cold, complete shock. “Excuse me. I’ve remembered I need to make a call.” She whips out a phone and hurries off the path toward the athletic fields. Her heels stab the turf. In no time she’s hissing something, too low for me to make out words.

Um. Weird?

Abandoned by our guide, Mom and I wander toward the navigation building, a twelve-sided structure of dark stone. Granite lions guard every door.

Mom rises on tiptoe to pat a lion’s cheek.

My hands are shaking. We’re coming to the interview’s demonstration stage, and I don’t know what I’ll have to do. Disaster scenarios flood my mind: I’ll forget how to navigate at a crucial moment, or Dr. Langmore will ask me to do something impossible, or—

“Good. We’re here,” Dr. Langmore says behind me. “Shall we?”

I startle. I wouldn’t have thought she could move so quietly in those pumps.

We pass between the lions, which eye us unkindly, into the building. The interior is one massive room, a cross between a lab and a casino, all sterile surfaces and steel tables bearing dice, cards, and roulette wheels. Over each of its twelve doors, one for every wall, a Roman numeral is carved in the stone, like we’ve steppedinside a geometric clock.

“Your training should have started with straightforward navigation,” Dr. Langmore says, “so we’ll begin there. Definenavigationfor me.”

I hesitate. I didn’t realize the demo would test my knowledge as well as my abilities, and I don’t know what kind of definition Dr. Langmore wants.OED,Merriam-Webster,Urban Dictionary? Probably notUrban Dictionary. “Navigation is when you enter flickerstate and—”