Free Under the Rose by Diana Peterfreund Page A

within. What if it’s not a nonsense rhyme?”
    Soze considered this. “Do you want to look into it, Lucky? You can track down users and stuff, right?”
    She scowled. “Like I have time for another project?”
    I smiled at her. “That will teach you to volunteer.”
    But Lucky closed down. “It’s a lesson I’ve already had, thanks. And if no one here thinks it’s important, then why should I spend my time on it? You can all go to the devil just fine without my assistance.”
    Um, okay. This chick PMSes like no one’s business. One second, she’s fun and kind of snarky, and the next second— boom —the bitch is back. I never knew what to expect from her. It was all Dr. Jenny and Ms. Hyde.
    “Are we all done with dinner?” Thorndike asked to diffuse the tension. She pointed at the grandfather clock (no, not an atomic one) in the corner of the room, which was nearing the all important VIII marker. “I think Bugaboo here has some juicy stories for us.”
    There was a ripple of chuckles around the table, and I felt a corresponding turbulence deep in my stomach as we adjourned from the dining room and filed up the stairs to the Inner Temple. The round, domed room had become one of my favorite places on campus in the few short months since I’d been tapped into Rose & Grave. Eli had some gorgeous architecture, but this secret room thrilled me more than all of the Gothic glory of the library or the carved marble starkness along the Presidential Plaza or Memorial Hall. This room was mine—or ours. I was one of the few people who ever got to appreciate its deep blue ceiling, dotted with tiny gilt stars, the rich wood paneling scarred by centuries of Diggers scraping their chairs against the walls and regularly decorated with art, relics, and trophies the members had “crooked” from the college over the years. I was one of the few given the privilege of sinking into the cushy couches we’d been using during the C.B.s. Today, they were arranged in a semi-circle facing the large oil painting of the voluptuous nude we called Connubial Bliss. It was before this portrait I would stand as I spoke about my experiences.
    I stood to the side a bit as my brothers got ready to call the meeting to order. Thorndike, this evening’s Uncle Tony, donned a long black hooded robe, took her seat on the dais at the top of the room, and turned a pedestal so that the wooden engraving of Persephone faced the room. She struck a small gong thrice, once, and twice. “The Time is VIII. I hereby call to order this, our Seven thousand, one hundred, and twenty-ninth meeting of the Order of Rose & Grave.”
    Keyser Soze, our club’s Secretary, took his seat to the right of the dais, and the other Diggers, including me, followed suit, each perching on one of the couches.
    “In honor of Persephone, the Keeper of the Flame of Life and the Consort of the Shadow of Death, we, her loyal Knights, salute and honor her image.”
    “Hail, Persephone,” we intoned. Well, most of us. I was sitting next to Lucky, and I noticed she didn’t intone a thing. She didn’t even whisper it. She noticed me staring and rolled her eyes. Clearly, we’d entered the Hyde phase.
    “Omni vincit mors, non cedamus nemini,” Soze said.
    Thorndike continued with the rather arcane calling-to-order ritual, which included a list of fines incurred in the previous week by members for various infractions:
     
    Lil’ Demon: cursed before the altar of Persephone—$3.
    Puck: used barbarian names when Bond had beat him in Kaboodle Ball last Thursday—$2.
    Graverobber: twice caught without his society pin—$10. (“Get a tattoo like ours and you’ll be golden,” Angel suggested.)
     
    After that, there was a sort of group-bonding activity in which we turned to our fellow knights and messed up their hair. I liken it to that moment in church where you shake hands with the people next to you in the pew. We sang a few traditional songs (singing is really big at Eli, no matter