“No. That’s the other weird thing. I’ve been asking around, but no one seems to know what she would’ve been doing there that morning. No one knows what was up with her at the dance last night, either.”

“You’ve been asking people about Maria?” Mateo didn’t like that idea. Maria seemed kind of unpredictable.

Felicia nodded. “Some people think she even had something to do with what happened to Delilah Dufrey.”

Mateo’s phone buzzed, but he reached into his pocket to silence it. He owed it to Felicia to listen to her, no matter how crazy her story sounded.

“There are stories about this place,” she said. “You’ve heard them. Everyone has. My brother’s been seeing weird stuff for as long as he’s been here.”

Mateo sighed. “Look, your brother’s a nice guy, and I know he and Brandon were friends, but—”

“Austin isn’t stoned all the time, if that’s what you’re going to say. In fact, he only sees things when he’s not high.”

“Okay.” Mateo decided to try reasoning with her. “If there really were, like, ghosts on campus, and if they really did cause all this bad stuff to happen, there wouldn’t still be a school here. What you’re talking about are urban legends.”

“No one swims in the lake, ever,” Felicia said.

“Well, yeah, but that’s because of those kids who drowned.”

“I thought you said that was an urban legend.”

“Well, some things are urban legends, but there can still be other things that are true.”

“What if all of it’s true?”

Mateo sighed again. “Ghost stories are just things parents make up to scare their kids into behaving. There aren’t actually any—”

“Do you know what happened in the fire here?” Felicia interrupted him. “The one before the Siward family bought the place, I mean? This guy Joseph Lennox used to own everything from here to the river. He spent decades building the plantation—and he was completely crazy. One night, out of nowhere, he made everybody go into the church—his wife, his kids, his slaves—and then made them go down into a tunnel that he blocked off from both ends. Then he poured a trail of oil through the whole thing and set it on fire.”

Mateo stared at Felicia. That was the same story Maria had told back at that room party, right before everything started happening. She’d had this creepy tone to her voice that night. Almost robotic.

“You learned this in your student ambassador training?” he asked Felicia.

“Some of it. I read all the material they gave me, and I supplemented.”

“Supplemented with what?” Mateo’s lip curved up. “Stuff you read on the internet?”