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retorted. “Why aren’t you at home in Shadow Hills?”
    “I’m dropping off some papers for Ms. Moore.” Corinne drew herself up to her full height, as if she didn’t already tower over me. “Besides, I belong here a hell of a lot more than you do, even if I don’t live in the dorms. Proximity isn’t what makes a Devenish student; merit is.”
    “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for my badge,” I replied. “It should be arriving in the mail any day now.”
    “I know you think you are just unbelievably cute and witty—but you’re no different from the rest of the boarding students.” Corinne’s gaze was so intense I wanted to look away, but I had no doubt that would give her some perverse satisfaction. “You’re an outsider, and that’s who you belong with. We’re a very tight-knit group, and we don’t like people coming in and screwing everything up.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” Frustration bubbled up in me. “You don’t know me, and, news flash, I have absolutely
no
interest in trying to invade your snobby little group!”
    “I’m not an idiot—I know Zach well enough to sense when something’s going on with him. And I think that something is you.” Corinne took a step closer to me, and before I could stopmyself, I instinctively stepped back. “Zach doesn’t belong with you, and he knows it, so don’t even bother.” Corinne threw her long straight hair over her shoulder—narrowly avoiding hitting me in the face with it—and stalked out of the dorm.
    There wasn’t time for me to think of a retort before the front door swung shut behind her.
    Why in the world would Zach’s sister care so much about who he dated? What could possibly be so awful about a boarder and a townie hooking up? And if Corinne thought she’d deflected my interest in Zach, she was dead wrong. If anything, it was stronger.
    I stepped outside and checked my map, before heading over to the cafeteria.
    After some cereal and fruit, I went to the hospital for the second time. The museum area was easy to locate, what with all the signs pointing me toward it. The first thing that caught my eye when I walked in was a large metal table behind a glass enclosure. As I got closer to the display, I could see there were heavy-duty straps on the table. Restraints. I read the small information plaque on the glass. According to it, when the hospital was still an almshouse, it had been made of wood, and the only thing left of the original structure was a crude stone basement where they had housed the mentally ill. My chest felt tight as I thought back to the cell from my dreams.
    I continued to the wall that showcased pictures of the Gene Research Wing being built. Below the photos were small artefactsthat had been dug up during the renovations. A drawing of the almshouse as it had looked back in the 1700s showed a plain, shingled, boxy place. There was something dark and foreboding about it. I scanned a nearby plaque. Shadow Hills was founded in 1708 by a group of people from a town in Derbyshire, England. Apparently the village had grown during the following years to include Puritan settlers from neighboring towns, and they had built the almshouse for the large number of orphans and widows who had resulted from the battles between the early settlers and the Native American population.
    But these little tidbits were not what I was looking for. I moved to the next wall. And there it was:
    In 1736 an epidemic swept Shadow Hills, and the almshouse had a new responsibility: housing the sick and the dying. By 1737 almost three hundred people—roughly half of the town—had died from the mysterious disease. The cause of the epidemic was never determined, and the almshouse stood empty for years. Eventually, the structure was burned, possibly in an attempt to disinfect the area, and the almshouse was rebuilt in stone
.
    I moved to the next wall hanging, but the only information it offered was that the original town of Shadow