Odin's Murder

“No, he said he talked to Mom and everything is fine and he’ll be back here tomorrow.” She opens her bag. “Faye, before we get started, do you want to fill us in on what you were talking about in Dr. Anders’ class?”

“Yeah, what was the other book you were talking about?” I ask Faye. “The one that relies on the book by the Vander guy?”

She looks at us, and then her gaze falls to where Julian usually sits. “Ian Anders’ dissertation on the antagonist in folktales,” she says. Her voice is almost a whisper. “Julian thinks he plagiarized Johann Vanguard.”

“What, like word for word?” I ask. “He copied the book we have?

“No, like he found an unpublished manuscript or something. He said it’s the same language, the phrasing, the way he constructs sentences, it’s all the same. Like they could have been the same person.”

“That’s crazy. Julian couldn’t know that.” I stare at his empty seat. “I mean, he’s probably been influenced by his writing, sure, but stolen his work? That’s a pretty big accusation.”

“Writing has fingerprints,” Memory says. “That’s what Jules says. Like anyone can hear a Dr. Seuss book and know who wrote it.”

“Hemingway,” Faye says. “He has short choppy sentences.”

“Yeah, I get that,” I say. “Everyone who has read a Bachman book knows it’s really Stephen King, but I just can’t see Anders as a criminal.”

The girls look at me like I’d grown a second nose.

“You like to read?” Faye asks.

“What exactly does a criminal look like?” Memory asks. I shrug, nod once to Faye. There’s not a lot else to do in lock-up, except read. And pick fights. I ignore Memory, who turns back to the other girl. “What else did he tell you?”

“I don’t know more than that. He didn’t tell me much,” she mumbles. “We, I— Did he mention me at all? When he texted to you?”

Cherry shakes her head.

“Someone dropped his bag and laptop off in our room. I saw it on his bed last night when I got in,” I tell them.

“Do you have anything to share?” Memory asks me with a sigh. “That doesn’t accuse the biggest scholar in his field of being a fraud?”

I open my own bag and pull out my portfolio. “I printed out some photos in the art lab this morning. These are most of what I’ve taken since we arrived on campus.” I extract the stack from my bag and spread them across the table.

“There aren’t isn’t as many as I expected,” Memory says. “You’ve always got that camera in your face.”

“I’ve been told I’m a pretty good shot,” I say. The photo finish paper is expensive, and I hadn’t been sure how much money Mary had put into my student account.

Memory shakes her head but sifts through the images. She skips the ones of herself and Faye, picks up the ones from Sonja’s house. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says, holding up a picture.

“Nope. That’s the wallpaper in the dining room.”

“Look at all the names woven into the vines,” Faye leans over her shoulder.

“Weird. They’re handwritten. Like a giant family tree.” Memory glances at each one, moves onto the next, never lingering over any.

“It’s actually a fairly common practice, to paint your lineage on the wall. Especially in tombs, and nurseries. But this is too huge. Like it would have to be for thousands of years.”

“That whole house is weird,” Memory says. “I can’t believe Sonja grew up there, it’s so out of date and creepy. She’s always so put together.”

“Her mom is the one interested in the crows,” I tell them.

“It’s true,” Memory says. “Sonja’s room was a normal bedroom. All of the crow stuff was in the common areas.”

“Then maybe we should try to find her mother again. It seemed like she was only out for the day

or something—the door was unlocked,” Faye offers.

“We could, but I don’t know, it seems like a dead end.” I’m withholding the full truth, what Constance told me about Sonja’s mother and her fascination with the birds, but everyone seems on edge and the last thing I need is for one of the girls to go off campus again while Julian is gone. I grab another stack of photos, thumb through, split the pile and pass half to each girl. “Here.”