It was a minute before the headmistress answered.
“Miss Ó Cuilinn, I understand Mr. Mac Craith has told you the significance of your hair and eye color?”
“Yes, yes, he told me the white colors shows I’m descended from a royal line. He said the black rims on my eyes show I was misborn. Born out of wedlock. That doesn’t really answer why over eighty percent of the student body is mocking me,” I said. I swallowed hard. I sounded whiney even to my own ears.
“Miss Ó Cuilinn, being misborn is much more significant in the faerie world than it is in the human world, I’m sorry to say. This is no fault of your own, and yet you are being punished for it, and that is wrong and a shame. But it is what it is. This has happened before, albeit rarely. You’re just going to have to win them over.”
“ ‘Win them over’?” I asked, incredulous. “Two girls just almost got me killed last night.”
“I understand that. But I have no other options. I cannot force the students to like you.”
I took a deep breath, increasingly frustrated by the conversation.
Sarah spoke then. “Headmistress, we could put forth a decree against any kind of bullying.”
“We could, although I’m not sure it would stop the truly dedicated,” the headmistress said.
“It wouldn’t hurt,” I said.
She nodded. “Very well, I shall have a decree drawn up.”
I stood up. “I have one more question, please.”
She looked at me expectantly.
“I’d like to know who my father was. Who my ‘royal ancestors’ were. I’d like to know the reason I’m being treated this way by the students.”
The headmistress nodded slowly. “I will get to work on an answer for you, Miss Ó Cuilinn.” She got to her feet and took off her eyeglasses.
The meeting was over.
Chapter Eighteen
Enough is Enough
The rest of our Saturday was crazy. I swear, word spreads at a school faster than lightning. Our first clue was when we were walking back up to the new dorm room.
We weren’t even halfway across the main hallway when we heard them.
The commotion was unreal.
“Hey.”
“Hey you two.”
“Stop right there.”
“Stop!”
“Hey!
“Hey there!”
“Who do you think you are?”
“Oh look, it’s the special kid.”
“The new kid we’re supposed to tiptoe around.”
“Hey, your royal highness, where’s your crown?”
“Why did you hurt Jessica? She’s my cousin!”
“Holly, wolly, you suck!”
“Yeah: you suck!”
“Creepy girl, creepy hair!”
“Why’d you attack Jessica??”
“Hey, why’d you lead Naomi into the woods?”
“Why are you so strange?”
“Why are you so different?”
A group of about a dozen upper classmen surrounded us. One girl stepped forward.
“You’re Holly, aren’t you?” She said in an accusatory tone.
I just stared at her.
“I’m Renée. I’m a third year. Naomi’s my sister.”
“Okay,” I said in a quiet voice.
“What did you do to her and Jessica?”
“Yeah, what’d you do?”
“What do you have against them?”
“What’s your problem, Misborn?”
“What happened? Are you jealous?”
“Yeah, jealous of Naomi and Jessica ’cause their parents are married?”
“Were you the product of a rape, sweetheart?”
Oh my God.
This last remark made me swing around and walk away fast. I pushed through the throng and ran, my face blazing red.
“Holly, wait up,” Liesl’s voice called after me.
No.
I had had enough with this school and these girls.
I ran, not paying any attention to where I was going. I came to a stairway and ran up it as fast as I could.
I could hear them jeering behind me, and it only made me run faster.
I ran until I was out of breath and had found a small, dark place to hide. I had gone up, away from everyone, and I didn’t care anymore.
I didn’t care about the Academy.
I didn’t care about the other students.
I didn’t care about being heard.
I didn’t care about the headmistress Professor Ó Baoghill or the dorm supervisor Sarah Goodheart.
I didn’t care about homework, or good grades, or learning anything.
I just wanted to go home.
I huddled in the cabinet I’d found in a dark room, at the end of a deserted corridor, and I fumed.
I hated those girls.
HATED THEM.
They didn’t even know me. They didn’t know one thing about me.
I hate this school.
Why had I even come here? I should have stayed with Aunt Clare.
Aunt Clare is dead.
I sobbed, tears flowing fast and hot.
I couldn’t believe how bad things were in this school. Granted it was my first school, the first I’d ever attended, but …
And it’s the last. I want to leave and never come back!
This was so hard. So hard.
I missed Aunt Clare so much. She’d been the only family I’d known.
And she’d been gone for less than a month.
So much had happened.
My life felt like it’d been turned upside down.
Turned on its head.
I was used to a life of anonymity, a life where I was basically invisible.
I was small and thin, and with my dark hoodie on, walking the streets of New York City, no one had ever paid any attention to me.
Even when I stole an apple or a loaf of bread, and had run, I was so fast and little that I got away, every single time.
No one could follow me, not when I scampered and slid between fences or ran down dark alleyways.
I was invisible.
Here, I stood out like a sore thumb, as if there was a spotlight on me at all times.
And for some unknown reason, everyone hated me.
It was like my worst nightmare.
This was the opposite of what I was used to. The opposite of how my life had always been.
I hated it.
I put my face in my hands and cried silent tears. I felt a deep mourning in my chest. Not just for Aunt Clare, but for my life.
I felt my life had ended, my life as I knew it, had always known it.
This new life was so painful. So awful.
My shoulders shook with silent sobs.
I stayed like that for a long time.
Then …
A noise.
Huh?
I heard someone call out a long way away. I turned my head away from the cabinet door, and closed my eyes.
Then I heard it.
A howl.
AWOOOOOOOO!
It was close by. I think it was in the corridor I’d run down.
AWOOOOOOOO!
Or maybe in the room I was in.
“Down here, I hear them,” the voice sounded like it was down at the end of the corridor. Far away but close enough that I could make out the words.
I thought the voice sounded like Chance’s.
Then I heard the click-click of wolf paws on the shiny classroom floor.
Then a hot and wet pant, a wolf breathing against the crack in the cabinet.
“Go away,” I sobbed.
A scrabbling of paws, the shuffling of a furry body pushing against the cabinet doors.
Then.
A wet nose.
Pushing against my neck.
A wet tongue, licking my ear.
I couldn’t help it. I started to smile.
“Come here, you furry thing.” I reached out and hugged the wolf’s
neck.
It was either Aspen or Tundra, one of the two.
The other wolf was beside her sister, and getting jealous. She pushed her nose up into the crook of my arm.
I plopped down on a chair and grabbed both arctic wolves and buried my face in their fur.
A few minutes passed.
Then –
“Holly,” Chance whispered. “Oh, Holly.” He put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me.
“Holly, don’t listen to those idiots,” Liesl said.
“Idnttcre,” my voice was muffled, my face still buried in white fur.
I lifted my head just enough to repeat myself, “I don’t care. I want to go home.”
“Awww, Holly. Don’t say that,” said Chance. “Listen, things are going to get better. I know it. I just know it.”
“Holly, you’re my best friend,” said Liesl. “You can’t leave, you just can’t.”
I sat up.
No one had ever said they were my best friend. No one, not in my entire life. I looked at Liesl and Chance.
Liesl smiled at me, and I could see tears in her eyes.
Chance winked at me.
Oh, lord, Liesl was right, he was cute.
Really cute.
I took a deep breath.
“I don’t know how to deal with a crowd of people attacking me,” I said.
“You want to know how to deal with that?” Chance asked.
I nodded my head. I really did want to know.
“You pick the biggest, meanest, nastiest bully out of the crowd and you deal with them, as hard and tough as you can,” said Chance. “Just like you did with Jessica. She insulted you, and hurt Liesl, so you punched her in the nose, you made her bleed. You made her flee.”
Hmmm.
“Now, I really think we need to go tell the headmistress what happened,” said Chance. “This is worse than she realizes.” He got to his feet, and reached his hand out. “Come on.”
I took a deep breath and then took his hand, and he pulled me to my feet.
Liesl hugged me, then took my other hand.
We all walked back, holding hands.
All the way out of the classroom, all the way down the corridor, all the way down the three staircases I’d run up.
All the way down to the first floor. To where the mob had been.
My wolves followed me the whole way.
Chance glanced around as we walked through the main hallway, and to the headmistress’s office.
“Let me do the talking,” Chance whispered as he knocked on the door.
“Enter.”
He pushed the door open, and we all walked in.
The headmistress was not alone.
The third-year, Renée, was there. Naomi’s sister.
“You three, take a seat on the side, I’m almost done,” the headmistress said, then she turned back to Renée.
“So, Miss Page, do we understand each other?”
Renée nodded.
“And what a fortuitous turn of events. We have Miss Ó Cuilinn right here,” said the headmistress. “You may commence, Miss Page.”
Renée slowly rose from her seat in front of the headmistress’s desk and turn toward me.
With a start, I realized she’d been crying.
She slowly stepped toward me, until she was a few feet away, then she knelt, putting her face in her hands.
“Please forgive me, Holly.”
Chapter Nineteen
A Secret Kept
I stared at Renée, not believing my eyes.
What was going on here?
“Renée?” I whispered.
She raised her head and looked at me, her eyes stricken. I could not believe the difference in her from what she had been a few hours ago.
I could not think of anything to say.
“Miss Ó Cuilinn,” the headmistress said softly.
I looked up.
“Perhaps I need to do a bit of explaining. You see, when you and Mr. Mac Craith left my office, I waited a few seconds, and then followed you. I witnessed the students; I saw what happened. I was aghast when I heard their words, and I was not surprised when you ran off. I immediately called Miss Page into my office and demanded an explanation for her words.”
I took a deep breath. I did not know what was coming, but I knew the other students, or most of them, hated me for some reason.
I was curious as well as hurt.
The headmistress continued. “I owe you an apology, child. I had not realized the bullying was so bad.”
I couldn’t help myself, although I tried. I’d been able to keep a straight face for most of the conversation, but now tears, hot and angry, spilled out of my eyes and ran down my face.
The room remained silent.
To my horror, my nose started running.
The headmistress handed me a tissue.
I took it gratefully and blew my nose.
She handed me another.
Chance took the liberty of lifting the box from the headmistress’s desk and placing it beside me on a small table.
It was a while before I could get hold of myself. I think I went through a half dozen tissues before I could look up at her again.
She smiled sympathetically.
“I was very upset at what’s been happening to you, especially because of your ... extended circumstances,” the headmistress said. “I made a decision I would not normally make, but I could in this instance because Miss Page is a singularly odd member of the fae.”
She glanced at the girl, who was now sitting on the floor at my feet, looking sodden and miserable.
“Miss Ó Cuilinn, Miss Page is a member of a rare strain of woodland fae who are receptive to an ancient form of faeborn magic. Because of this, I was able to lay a secrecy spell on her. This was all with her consent, I assure you.”
I was puzzled.
“What is a secrecy spell?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
The headmistress looked pleased, and I remembered that she was, in essence, a professor, and so would be happy in teaching.
“A secrecy spell is a magic, performed by the secret speaker, that binds the person to an oath. In effect, they are told a secret, and they cannot expose that secret in any way, on pain of death.”
I felt an immediate shock. I stared down at Renée.
“I don’t want anyone to die,” I said quietly.
Renée looked up at me and smiled gratefully.
“Miss Ó Cuilinn, she is not going to die. She agreed to accept this magic, in exchange for knowing what your secret is,” the headmistress explained.
I looked up at her sharply.
“You told her a secret about me? How could you do that without my consent?”
This is not good.
“I realize I was making a decision that you might be angry with, and if you are, I don’t blame you. But I needed to get to the bottom of this hazing, Miss Ó Cuilinn. Your safety is at stake.”
I wiped my tears away hastily; they burned hot against my face. “My safety has now been put in more danger because you told Renée a secret about me, and now ...”
The headmistress held up her hand. “You were not put in danger, Miss Ó Cuilinn. Remember: the magic of the secrecy spell. I performed the spell before I revealed the secret.”
From the floor, I heard Renée sob.
I tried to calm myself down.
Breathe, Holly. Just breathe.
I looked at the headmistress Professor Ó Baoghill and tried to not get more upset. I needed to be calm.
“Headmistress,” I asked.
She leaned and looked at me, all her attention on me.
“What information did you get from her, that you found so valuable that you had to reveal secrets about me to her, without getting my permission?”
The headmistress took a deep breath. “I learned that because of your lineage,” here she nodded toward my hair and gestured toward my eyes, “the students can tell you are descended from a royal
line, and they can tell you were conceived outside of marriage.”
Couldn’t she have figured this out by simple deduction?
There is was again.
“Conceived outside of marriage? Why on earth was this such a big deal?” I said. “I know Chance had said the fae world was much more traditional, but, I mean, life happens. Everything is not always how we want it to be. An it’s not always our fault.”
“I agree with you on this, Miss Ó Cuilinn, said the headmistress. “But I cannot change how our fae society is, although I can push back against dangerous tendencies whenever I have the opportunity.”
She sat back.
“One more thing,” she said, steepling her fingers and speaking slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Most of the student body understands you appear of human and magical royal fae heritage; that is a large part of the anger they feel. Miss Page explained to me the combination of royal fae lineage and human lineage makes them angry.”
“Most of the students here at Titania Academy are descended from not only the common lines of fae heritage, but from the poorer lines as well. The badger, the rabbit, the faun ...”
I noticed Chance shuffling his feet.
The headmistress went on: “Now, that does not mean they are any less worthy, but it denotes something less, however incorrectly, in our fae culture.” She looked at me. “Something similar occurred back one hundred, to one hundred and fifty years ago, in the city you grew up in.” She looked at her papers, then back up at me. “New York City. In the late 1800s, with regard to the Irish immigrants. Do you know about that?”
I shook my head.
“Irish immigrants were treated very poorly back then.” She consulted another paper. “And apparently, back then and more recently, Africans.”
I took a deep breath. I’d had enough of the history lesson.
“I understand, headmistress. That doesn’t make it right. These people have been vicious toward me. It began as I pulled up to the school on that very first day.”
The headmistress looked sad and bowed her head. “I understand, and I apologize that I did not realize how bad it had gotten. I am taking steps to make things better for you.”
I shook my head. “I am not even sure I want to stay in this school, to tell you the truth.”
The headmistress’s face went white.
Faerie Misborn Page 14
