New Girl, Old Rules

The acceptance letter to Thornfield Academy had arrived on cream paper, sealed in wax, three weeks after Wren had stopped believing anyone would take her.

Her mother called it a fresh start. Wren called it exile with better architecture, though she kept that particular observation to herself as the car wound up the last mile of forest road and the school came into view — spires first, then the impossible sprawl of ivy-covered stone that looked older than the country it sat in.

"You'll fit in fine," her mother said, in the tone of someone who had clearly never had to fit in anywhere in her life.

Wren didn't answer. She was too busy watching the girl on the front steps — poised, composed, watching the car arrive like she already knew exactly who was inside it.

That was the first time Wren saw Evelyn Ashcroft. It would not be the last, and it would not, she'd later realize, be anywhere close to the strangest.