Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Author:Elisabeth Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

Omens

The house’s heating had been malfunctioning all week. Mornings had turned black cold and harsh as wind whistled against the windows and through the cracks in our doors. It was hard enough getting out of bed; a long night in the chasmal great hall sounded unbearable. So we decided to bring our beds to dinner. Yaya, Anna, Diego, Nick, Theo, and me, we all bundled up our blankets and pillows and dragged them down the stairs. Our table became a sleepover nest. We snuggled in.

“What’s the difference between leopards and panthers?” Anna said. She struggled to butter the slice of white lemon bread in her hand, wrestling with the blanket draped over her shoulders.

“Panthers are black,” Diego said.

“Black panthers are black,” Nick said. “What about other panthers?”

“All panthers are black,” Diego said. “Panthers are black leopards.”

Anna said, “That doesn’t seem right.”

“What about jaguars?” Nick said.

“What about jaguars?” Diego said.

“Aren’t jaguars something else?”

“Everything else is everything else,” Yaya said. “Oh my God.”

I put my head down on the table. Yaya petted my hair.

“I thought mountain lions were bobcats,” Anna said through a mouthful of lemon bread.

“Ugh,” Diego said. “Look at them.”

A group of Molina first-years was sitting down the table from us. One of them, a tanned, golden-eyed girl with a compact gymnast body, had the most obvious crush on Nick. She always tried to sit near him at breakfast and laughed too hard at whatever dumb shit he said. Now she was staring at him with her chin lifted, her lips painted glossy red.

“That lip stuff cost her a fortune in points,” Yaya said. “I saw it in the commissary last week. Oh, Nick, take pity on the girl.” She shook our empty platter. “Go get us more bread. She’ll be right behind you.”

“She does not need any pity,” Anna muttered. “I know that kind of girl. Looks cute, but watch out.”

“How awful.” Nick winked at Anna. He slunk out of his blanket.

The girl followed Nick as he loped over to the dessert service, smoothing her hair into place before scurrying up to him. In that moment, in one quick flash, I saw Nick as the first-years did: one of the house’s happy golden princes, tall and rich and laughing and bright.

I wondered if I would remember this feeling after Catherine. The feeling of seeing a friend—someone I knew and who knew me, too, someone who cared about me—walking in through a door or waving from across a hall or bending to whisper in another friend’s ear. Of being inside, so inside, such an intimacy, and at the same time seeing it from outside. A feeling of being seen, beautiful and young, seated at a mythic table.

It was a nice feeling.

I took a bite of the white lemon bread. It tasted sweet, with a tart bite. The wine warming my insides was good, too. I had to study later tonight, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was being a good friend. I was doing okay.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.