Page 19 of Divine Oaths

“No one goes to campus unescorted,” she said, taking a breath as if to calm herself before continuing. “Look, the fan boats were late. You all had the option of having your luggage sent to your dorms ahead of time. Most of the legacies and regular admits did. You didn’t. If you had, we wouldn’t have needed this stop in the first place, and you could have joined their tour too.”

Of course, Honey didn’t mention that Westfield charged half a grand just for moving our things into the dorms ahead of time, an amount that our scholarships didn’t cover.

Honey smiled, her voice light and airy again, but forced. “Don’t worry,” she continued. “You’ll get to see all of Westfield in a bit. There’s also when your classes start. Think of it as an adventure.” If the words were supposed to be a consolation, they were a poor imitation of one. “Now, does anyone have any questions before we meet back here for orientation?”

Her answer didn’t appease the group, and there were more rumblings, more questions.

Honey rubbed her forehead. “You’re asking, like, so many things. Look, if you have a complaint, talk to your academic adviser or the dean of your school, okay?”

This time, no one else spoke.

“Great,” she said, beaming at us. She pulled out her phone and dialed a number and began walking back up the trail, not seeming to care that her conversation was projecting. “Hey,” she said, “I brought them to Poppy House. Can you pick me up? This place is such a dirt hole and I think I just ruined my new Loubs.” Honey covered the phone with her hand, glancing between the now mud-stained red-bottom heels she wore and our group. “No offense,” she whispered with an apologetic smile. “I promise I’ll donate them to your dorm’s take shelf.”

Then she retreated to the path that she’d brought us from, not looking back as she disappeared into the foliage.

The group of us stood there. Then, one by one, people started grabbing their suitcases and book bags and ascending the steps to the entrance of Poppy House’s freshman dorm.

CHAPTER SEVEN

If there were a sympathy in choice

AT POPPY HOUSE, A STUDENT volunteer and a security guard screened us before we were let upstairs. When it was my turn to swipe my key card, the guard gave me a curt nod when the scanner flashed green.

I walked through to the other side, where a student volunteer with Joseph on his name tag waited for us. He didn’t look as refined as Honey, but there was something more subtle about his pristine blazer and trousers that gave me the sense he was an upperclassman too, and one of the rich ones.

“Welcome to Westfield,” Joseph said, gesturing for me to follow the other freshmen inside. “The elevator’s broken, so you’ll have to take the stairs. Make sure to swipe your Westfield ID card between stairwells. It’s a one-way lock system, meaning that you’re able to leave without having to swipe for access.” He was reading off his phone as he spoke. “In the case of an emergency where the system shuts down, you’ll die inside. Damn, I meant ‘you’ll still be able to get outside.’” He gave us a sheepish smile. “I’m covering last minute, so I’m getting used to the new security procedures.”

Honey had said that too. That she was covering for someone else.

“Your ID cards are also key cards, and they give you access to other buildings on campus. In the morning, no key card activation is required for campus buildings,” Joseph continued. “Most professors will have you scan into the lecture halls to take attendance. All buildings require key card access from ten in the evening to seven in the morning the next day. As freshmen, you’re cleared for your school building, your dorm, the medical center, and the lunch halls. But you can only access the other buildings, like the libraries and recreational halls, during public hours, when key cards aren’t required. If you’re caught in a restricted location after hours, your access will be revoked. You’ll also lose merit points.”

To demonstrate, he walked over to someone who’d been examining their key card as he explained the university’s policy.

“Merit points are associated with your student profile. They’re linked to your ID card, and faculty, staff, and student leaders like Honey and me are able to deduct or reward points based on achievement, disciplinary behavior, or anything related.” He tapped the girl’s card over his phone, and both of their profiles, along with the symbol for Poppy House for the freshman girl and the symbol for Rose House for him, appeared on the screen. “On your student profile, you’ll see how many merit points you have.” Below their photos and names, floating bubbles indicated how much merit they both had. Joseph’s was at 8,505. The freshman was at 500.

“All first-years start with that amount,” Joseph explained. “At the end of the year, when they give awards for dean’s list, there are also awards for merit. The highest earners get a dinner with the president of Westfield, the dean of your school, the provost, and the board of trustees.” He swiped up on her screen and the freshman’s merit went up by five points, while his decreased by five. “Since I’m a student leader, giving merit decreases from my pool. But we’re encouraged to give merit points. Charity is one of the pillars of Westfield.” He swiped down on her phone and the girl’s merit went back down. Joseph’s points remained the same, with the five points deducted from his merit pool. “And we don’t gain points when we take them away.” He handed the freshman her key card and put his phone away. “At the end of the semester, your merit should be around fifteen hundred points. And if you’re wondering what happens if you’re under the merit expectations… Well, that’s when you’re sent to Provost Henning.”

I wondered how long Westfield had had this “merit” system. And the key card requirement for every building on campus; we were supposed to be students, but it felt like we were one step away from being in a maximum security prison.

“If you’d like to wait in the lounge until orientation starts, feel free,” Joseph continued. “That would be on the second floor. There’s a new TV set up, and the pantry room on the other side. First-years don’t have access to kitchens, but your ID card will get you campus food.”

One by one, we stepped through the metal detector. When it was my turn, I had to walk by twice. The gold ring on my bracelet set it off. Eventually, I was let in with the others. Inside, the musty scent of old oak and carpet assaulted my senses. Even though I wasn’t channeling my powers at the moment, it felt like I’d stepped back in time, back to the haunting days of the antebellum era when candlesticks lit homes and the horrors of slavery loomed. Poppy House creaked with age. Everything, from the worn wooden floorboards to the scored walls and layers of chipped paint, spoke of the decades in which the building had been used, perhaps as far back as Westfield’s establishment in 1830.

The only sense of technology and the modern age was that at every stairway, just like Joseph had explained, there was a blinking key card scanner. Students on the first floor could only access the first two floors with their key cards because everyone had access to the main floor and the second-floor lounge. But they couldn’t access above that, and students on the third floor only had access to the three floors. And so on, and so on. My room was on the fifth floor, which meant I had access to every stairwell floor, but from each scan, I could tell that the system was recording how much time I stayed on each floor.

“They really don’t want us on campus,” I observed as Vivian and I climbed the stairs. She didn’t say which floor she was on, but she also didn’t have any of her things, so I figured she’d arrived with an earlier fan boat group and unpacked them at that point or had paid for luggage drop-off services.

“Westfield is huge. It’s easy to get lost,” she said simply.

“But we need to swipe in our IDs at almost every entrance. They could have done anything to renovate the old buildings, but they only did the security access?” And then there was the tour. “We’re not allowed to move freely on campus, but legacies and regular admits are? Doesn’t sound like a security measure to me.”

“I know. They used to do separate tours for each house. Poppy House had their own, and so did Rose House and Ivy House,” Vivian said, walking up with me. “Rose House being regular admits, Ivy being—”

“Legacies and rich kids.”

Vivian nodded. “Exactly. They used to let us go on combined tours after some protests a bit ago, but I guess there’s still some reluctance to have the Poppies with everyone else. I know there was a huge backlash when Westfield started its scholarship program. A lot of the old families and alumni worried that it’d ruin Westfield’s heritage and competitive edge. Westfield is progressive now, but it hasn’t always been.”

I laughed at the irony of her words. The moment Honey had divided us scholarship students from the legacies and regular admits, the class makeup of first-year students looked like something out of a segregated history book.