Elite Prescott University junior Bella Swan never expected to be tapped into Midnight and Grave, the county's most powerful and notorious secret society

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Full Summary

Elite Prescott University junior Bella Swan never expected to be tapped into Midnight and Grave, the county's most powerful and notorious secret society. She isn't rich, politically connected, or … well male.

Whisked off into an initiation rite that feels as if she has been thrown into an Alfred Hitchcock film, Bella is forced into a new reality with a new group of friends that are connected and powerful. And that's when Bella starts to discover the truth about getting what you wish as her life spins out of control. Bella is way over her head. Not only could Midnight and Grave ruin her life and everything she has worked for, but why can't she stop thinking about her society "brother," Edward that is so dark and brooding?

It all began on a day in late April of my junior year. I was in my dorm room, for once, trying to squeeze in a load of laundry between my chicken salad sandwich in the dining hall and my afternoon lecture on War and Peace, as I like to think of it, WAP. (That's because every time I begin to read it I want to hit something and I imagine "wap" is exactly how the damn book would sound being slammed into a wall.) I was titling toward a B in my literature ethics class, which was unacceptable if I wanted to graduate with honors in my majors of English and Professional Writing. However, it was either laundry or rushing out that night to buy a new package of underwear.

But neither Tide nor Tolstoy was in the cards for me that afternoon. I'd just finished my first load when my phone rang.

Crap. It was probably my mom, Renee. The woman seemed to have a godly sense of when I'd be in my room and tended to annoy me.

I tossed my laundry to the side and tripped over a pair of pumps on my way to the phone. "God I'm such a klutz and my roommate seriously needed to pick up her crap." I thought. "Hello."

"Bella Marie Swan?"

"Yes," I said, separating my darks from lights.

"Your presence is required at 750 College Street, room 400, at two o' clock this afternoon."

Two o'clock was in fifteen minutes. "Who is this?"

"750 College Street, room 400. Two p.m." And then the line went dead.

I plopped back onto my prim couch (Thanks to my roommate's interior design skills). Talk about rotten timing. There was no question in my mind who it was on the other end of the phone. Quill and Parchment was the "literary" senior society on campus, the usual position for scribblers just like me. It prided itself on having several alumni that had become well known writers. Since I was the current editor-in-chief of the campus literary magazine, I knew I was a shoo-in, just like my predecessor Angela Weber had been before me. That is, I would be if I made it to my impromptu interview. I was going t have a long talk with Angela. I mean seriously, she was in the English Ethics class I was in! She knew I was struggling and yet scheduled my interview during lecture time. Ugh.

Society interviews were always arranged on super-short notice. Part of the test is to see if you could get there. I don't know what the heck they would have done if the tap didn't answer the phone.

Laundry forgotten for now I stumbled into my room. Societies are all about a spectacle so I thought I would play along and look formal for the occasion. I pulled out my one and only suit shoved into the back of my closet. I hadn't worn a suit since my internship interviews, during which I landed a sweet job (sarcastic grunt) playing secretary to Barnwell Literary Agency this summer. I pulled out a blue shell to go with the suit and desperately wished my fashion frenzied roommate, Alice was here to help me. After forcing hose unto my unshaven legs, brushed out my long brown hair from its ever present ponytail, and grabbed Alice's pumps that I had tripped over earlier, I was ready to go.

I clopped my way through my suite's common room. Did I mention how sweet our setup was… two large rooms connected by a wood-lined common room? Only downside was the frightening hardwood floors that I always managed to slide or trip over holes. Have I mentioned I am total klutz who hates heels of any kind? The door to my suite opened before I could reach the knob, in dances my roommate and best friend, Alice Brandon carrying a stack of books that is taller that her petite frame and her dry cleaning. Ha! Alice is always more put together that I am. She has time for lunch, homework, and pleats. She is a business major with a minor in fashion merchandising.

She looked me up and down. "Change that god awful top. Quill I assume?"

I shrugged. "Who else?" Quill and Parchment wasn't a secret society in the traditional sense. I mean they didn't have one of those giant tombs that the larger societies had to hold meetings. They only met in a room above Starbucks. Alice nodded briskly and plopped onto the couch. "Good luck, not that you will need it. Hasn't every Lit Mag editor gotten into Quill since, like, the Stone Age?"

Pretty much. I was a little annoyed with Alice because she hadn't told me what society was courting her. It was silly, I knew that when Tap Night came around and she was picked by her society the secrecy routine would drop. "Well hurry up because you promised me a shopping trip!" says Alice. Ugh. I hated shopping with Alice. It felt like one of those shark feeding frenzy you saw on television. No mercy for the slow or wary because you will be shark meat before you left the first store with Alice.

"Gotta run." I waved good bye and practically fell out the door trying to get away, down the stairs into sunny April afternoon in Connecticut.

I just knew Alice would be tapped. She'd been fighting for a tap into one of the more prestigious societies since the moment she'd stepped on campus as a freshman. She honestly felt that it was the only way to get anywhere at Prescott. I thought the attitude was a bit out-of-date. This wasn't the twenties, when you were tapped into a society straight out of graduating from an elite prep school, and every student on campus was white, male, and rich.

In those days, failure to receive election into one of the big secret societies was equivalent to permanent social banishment.

But the world didn't work like that anymore. Now most of the societies had diverse membership rosters that reflected a modern student body composed of student from every walk of life. There was no doubt in my mind that come Tap Night, Alice (whose father was the governor of Pennsylvania and extremely wealthy) would be elected into one of the best societies on campus–Dragon's Head, perhaps, or Lock & Key. In fact, the only secret society I knew she would not get into was Midnight & Grave, the oldest and most notorious society in the country. But that was because all the members–known as "Diggers"–were men. Like I would want to be a member of one of their societies anyway, Quill would be just fine for me, thanks. The only reason I was joining Quill and Parchment in the first place was that it would look good on my resume. Networking was the key in my field and Quill and Parchment was a good outlet.

This was it, 750 College Street. And, I had a little over ninety seconds to make into the room. And yet, when I arrived, slightly puffing, at the darkened classroom, the first words out of the mouth of the person who laser-pointed me to my seat were: "You're late." The velvety voice I heard was so alluring, menacing, and dangerous.

I blushed like I always do when I am nervous, scared, or embarrassed and I felt all three at that moment. I looked at my watch again, "I-"

The Alluring Voice sitting at the nearest table pointed something at me that flashed 2:01.

The Alluring Voice says, "This is an atomic clock. You were forty-eight seconds late.". He sounds slightly frustrated.

"Are you joking?" I squinted, trying in vain to see his face through the gloom. I was surprised that they managed to pull this off. They'd draped the windows with black hangings, and though each of the dozen people seated about the room appeared to have a book light in front of their place, the most I could make out was a jaw here, the curve of a nose there. Wow, they'd gone all out. These writers' creative juices were flowing.

"Are we joking, Ms. Swan?" Alluring Voice said with what I swear was a sneer. I didn't even need to see it. "Do you believe there is anything about this process that is a joke?"

Not until now. But come on, what was this, The Da Vinci Code? "No, sir."

I strained my neck to see if I could recognize Angela's features amongst the group, but I couldn't make her out. Where was she?

"Let me assure you, Ms. Swan," Alluring Voice went on, "that we take our election procedure very seriously. Punctuality is of utmost importance to us. So is electing a person who can be trusted to obey the rules of the society, no matter how minor they might seem."

Whoa. So forty-eight seconds and I'd screwed up? I sat up in my seat. "I understand that, sir, and can assure you that I will take my position in the society very seriously." I paused, weighing the advisability of my next words. "I didn't know I was supposed to invest in an atomic watch. Do I get one of those when I join?"

No answer.

I giggled nervously. "What about a grandfather clock? I heard every member of Midnight & Grave gets one at graduation." Quill, however, didn't quite have the endowment for such bountiful presents. Maybe they could swing a Timex.

Still nothing. Um, was this thing on? "Though I suppose that a grandfather clock would be hard to lug around." Lame, lame, lame. "And probably not atomic." Shut up, Bella I was totally crashing and burning. Crap, her comes my infamous blush again.

We sat in silence for a full ten seconds. And then someone three rows back spoke up. "Ms. Swan, if you could answer a few questions for us." I saw a shuffling of papers. "I have here your transcript. It states that sophomore year you received a B— in Dust Pages: Ethiopian Immigrant Narrative of the Mid-20th Century West."

"Yes."

"Do you have an explanation for that performance?"

Yeah, beware of classes bearing colons. That class was viciously hard and I was thrilled with that B-.

The B— was my single black mark in my English major, or would be as long as I kicked all 1,472 pages of WAP ass!

"I'm more of a New Critic than a Freudian analyst," I, choosing the time-honored liberal arts tradition of if you can't beat 'em, confuse 'em. "

Ha, question that! I was an English major. I could bullshit with the best of them.

The third-row shadow smiled, and I could see that someone had a very talented orthodontist. His choppers were as bright and even as a movie star's. "Good answer." Then he cleared his throat.

All the lights blinked on and off. Twice.

Shadow-Who-Smiles shuffled a few more papers. "Do you remember Lisa Price?"

"My third-grade teacher?" I'd had to think about that one for a minute. Angela had not warned me of any of this. No doubt she was sitting pretty right now, taking notes about the bleak Siberian winter in her usual purple gel pen. And here I was, getting grilled by Quill & Parchment for heaven knew what reason. Wasn't I supposed to be a sure thing?

Furthermore, it was official: I didn't recognize any of these people's voices. Had they brought in alumni to conduct the interviews? "If we asked Lisa Price about you, what would she say?"

"That I was good with phonics." Enough of this. "Come on, it was third grade."

"What about Karthryn Bingham?" Fourth grade. "Kristin Lee." Fifth. "Robert Little, Shadow-Who-Smiles proceeded to name every homeroom teacher I'd ever had. It was more than a little freaky.

"Can I ask you a question?" I said, interrupting him asking why I fainted in my biology lab in the eleventh grade.

"Go ahead."

"Congressional confirmation hearings wouldn't care this much about my early childhood. Why do you?"

Quill was a second-rate society at best, more concerned with getting its members into grad school than taking over the world–the reported purpose of real secret societies. What was up with the act?

Alluring Voice spoke up. "What are your ambitions, Ms. Swan?"

I wanted to write the Great American Novel. But not even Quill & Parchment would find that an acceptable answer. Not goal-oriented enough. Not possible. Plus, I wasn't sure I had any Great American Ideas. So, once again, with the fallback plan. "To be an editor." There, that should hold them.

"You're lying." Shadow-Who-Smiles was no longer showing me his pearly whites.

"What makes you say that?" I folded my hands in my lap. And why did they care? I'd have bet each and every one of these people had a frustrated novelist buried deep inside. Shadow-Who-Smiles (though he wasn't right now) picked up another piece of paper and began to read aloud. It was the first page of my unfinished novel–the one that no one but Alice and I knew about. The one that existed only on my laptop's hard drive, back in my room.

"Hey!" I shouted, and he stopped. "Where did you get that? Did you hack my computer or something?"

Everything got really quiet. I thought I could hear the atomic clock whirring away. Who were these people? "We have everything you've ever done, Ms. Swan," Alluring Voice said. He lifted a manila envelope from the table in front of him. "This is your FBI file."

My mouth dropped open. I have an FBI file? Why would I have an FBI file? I'd never done a summer internship at the White House or the Pentagon. My dad was the chief of police in my small hometown of Forks, Washington, not a politician. I didn't need security clearance. And even if I did, how the heck did these people get their hands on it?

There was only one answer. They were playing me. I shook my head, leaned back in my chair, and laughed. "Right, my FBI file. Look, I'm glad I've given you guys a good laugh, but since you aren't the Men in Black, can we please get back to the interview now?" There was a long pause, then all the lights on the tables blinked again. This time, most of them blinked once, except for the one in front of Shadow-Who-Smiles.

"I think," said Alluring Voice, "that the interview is over."

"No!" said Shadow-Who-Smiles.

"She's not what we're looking for."

"I don't agree."

Hold up. I sat forward. "Guys, I'm not really sure what the hell is going on here. Where's Angela?"

Alluring Voice tilted his head until I got a glimpse of pale cheekbone. "Angela?"

"Yeah, Angela. Angela Weber, the old Lit Mag editor? The girl who is sponsoring me for this society?" Again with the silence, though this one was punctuated with a few snickers. Finally, Shadow-Who-Smiles (and he was definitely doing it again!) spoke up. "Angela Weber is not a member of this organization."

Holy shit.

Who were these people?!

Okay, to be fair, there was still one little corner in my mind that was shouting that Angela had been lying to me all year, and that she wasn't a member of Quill & Parchment after all. But it was a pretty small corner, the one where all of my most paranoid tendencies live. The rest of my head was busy spinning. I'd been taking this interview rather lightly because, hey, it was Quill & Parchment. Not a big deal, and I was a sure bet anyway. But they obviously weren't Quill & Parchment. I was out of my league, for one of the first times in my life. And I didn't have a clue what I was supposed to do.

"I think we're done here," Alluring Voice said.

"No, we're not," insisted Shadow-Who-Smiles.

Alluring Voice turned around and I caught a glimpse of perfectly shaved pale neck. "She's not what we want. We have to be serious about this."

"I can be serious!" I leaned forward and smacked my hand down on Alluring Voice's notes. I saw his mouth drop open. Whoa he has amazing lips. Where they heck did that come from. Oops. "Sorry," I said, sitting back and folding my hands demurely.

"I was a little–confused."

"Clearly."

"Can I ask who you people are?"

This time, they all laughed, before Alluring Voice said, "No."

"So you get a list of my middle-school homeroom teachers and I get nothing?"

"That's why we call it a secret society." Shadow-Who-Smiles cleared his throat.

"Fair enough."

Shadow-Who-Smiles flicked his light on and off a few times, and all the members began shuffling the papers on their desks. I wondered what the signal meant.

Alrighty. I figured I'd humiliated myself enough for one afternoon. I rose from my seat. "May I leave now?"

"One moment, Ms. Swan." Shadow-Who-Smiles put his hand out, and I was surprised that I could see it. Apparently, my eyes were adjusting to the dark. "Tell us. What do you have to offer this organization?"

I bit my tongue to keep from snapping back with, And what organization is that? Okay, so they weren't Quill & Parchment. Someone else was courting me, and I'd royally screwed up any chance I might have had to impress—whoever. The real question was, did I care? After all, this wasn't my thing. Alice was the one who wanted to get into a secret society—any prestigious secret society. I just wanted to be in Quill & Parchment, so I could keep tabs on which literary agents were hiring assistants and whether or not Cosmopolitan needed interns. And finally, the absurdity of the whole situation hit me. No junior had the foggiest clue to whom they were spilling their guts. Alice, for all her secretive, superior smugness, didn't know if she was being courted by Dragon's Head or punk'd by a bunch of rowdy frat boys. And neither did I.

What did I have to offer this mysterious, unidentified organization?

I straightened my skirt, stuck out my chin, and laughed. "You already know what I have to offer. Straight As in the major, except for that little snag with Ethiopian Immigrant Narrative; the editorship of the Lit Magazine; participation and leadership in any number of other small campus publications; and thirty pages of a badly written novel. I don't do drugs, I've never been arrested, and from what I hear, I'm not too shabby in bed. (Even though I had only been with one person but the did not have to know that) Not that any of you people will ever have the opportunity to discover that firsthand

Then I turned on my heel and marched out. And as I exited into the hall, head held high, I thought I caught the flicker of a dozen tiny book lights.

Okay, finished with first chapter. This story is a cross between Twilight and another series called Secret Society Girl. Review and let me know what you think.