Several girls began squealing loudly, excited about the upcoming event. Their exuberance was greeted with a stern look from Sarabeth.

“Decorum, please,” she said. She waited until a sufficient number of heads turned downward, appropriate looks of contrition on their faces. Sarabeth raised one eyebrow. “You are dismissed.”

I suspected this place was full of ritualistic behavior. Stalling, I pretended I’d dropped my spoon to observe the procedures for leaving the dining hall. Girls stood, silently pushed their chairs under the table, and then placed their cloth napkin beside their plate. There was no further conversation as we filed out of the room. I looked for Sarabeth, hoping she’d lost interest in me, and was surprised she had already gone.

“Secret door,” Calla said. “The whole house is full of secret doors and passageways.”

“Have you ever checked them out?” I asked, hoping there was a way out of here.

“No,” Calla said. “It’s forbidden.” She squinted at me quizzically, as if I should already know this. “There’s a rumor that one of the girls got lost in the passageways a long time ago. They found her body a few months later.”

“Months later? They didn’t try too hard, did they?” I said sarcastically. I sensed this was wasted on Calla, so I changed my tone. “Should we get to the fitting?”

“We have our fittings after everyone else,” she said, her eyes downcast, her voice solemn. “Always last. We have exercise next.”

“Don’t we need to change?” I asked, indicating my delicate dress.

Calla’s eyebrows knitted together. “What kind of exercise do you think we’re going to be doing?”

“Not sure,” I said. “New. Remember?”

Calla’s laugh sounded as beautiful as the tinkling of the drinking glasses. “Well, sometimes we do put on aprons if we’re going to bake, but baking was yesterday. Today, it’s our turn to help with the dusting, so we’re dressed appropriately.”

Dusting is exercise?

I didn’t know what was in the water here, or what drugs these girls had been fed, but whatever it was would never have been enough to tame me. My childhood was spent playing basketball with Victor. By middle school, I’d moved on to flag football with Victor and his friends. I doubted any outside influence could possibly turn that out of me and make me the complacent girl Calla was.