by Sarina Dorie
I followed Josie through the principal’s private rooms, down a set of stairs, and to Jeb’s messy office. She sat at his table and lifted a quill from its stand. “Shall I write him the note or would you like to?” she asked.
“You do it,” I said.
I paged through a stack of files on his desk, wondering if Jeb might have simply lost the answer keys in the mess of his office. If I found them, he’d be pleased with me. He wouldn’t dare fire the teacher who saved the school.
Khaba threw open the door a moment later, dressed in a long leopard-print muumuu that might have been a nightgown. His jaw dropped, and he looked from me to Josie.
“How’d you know we were here?” she asked.
“You triggered the alarms.” He straightened. “The more important question is how did you get in?”
I hadn’t heard any alarms go off. Maybe they were silent. I didn’t want to have to show him the mirrors and endure being sidetracked. I got to the point. “We need to speak with Jeb. It’s important.”
“We were leaving a note for Jeb,” Josie said. “Where is he?”
“Off campus, probably getting raked over the coals for losing the answer key. You know this isn’t going to look good for you.” Khaba tilted his head to the side, studying me. “Jeb’s already gotten it in his head Miss Lawrence is somehow behind the missing answer keys. I’m going to have to report that you broke into his office.”
I was going to get in trouble for doing the right thing?
Josie nudged me. “Tell him why we’re here.”
I started the story again.
When I returned to my room, I didn’t get much sleep. I tossed and turned most of the night. I used my cell phone flashlight to check the time on Vega’s clock on the wall. It was close to three, and I was still awake. The only thing that would have relieved my stress was slicing things in the guillotine.
I wanted to slice more than paper right now.
But it wasn’t fair to my roommate, bitch queen as she was, to wake her up with chopping noises just because I was miserable.
Eventually I did fall asleep. I dreamed I walked through a shimmery blue world. For the first time since practicing the exercises from the book on lucid dreaming, I was aware of myself. I knew this wasn’t my normal waking life.
At the same time, the dream had a surreal, otherworldly quality that made me suspect this was more magic than the subconscious at work.
The entire school looked like it was submerged underwater, like when Thatch had cast the spell in the tattoo shop. It must have been passing time between classes in the dream, because the halls were full of students. Yet, no one saw me. I glided up the steps and across the corridor as if I were a ghost.
The everyday shrieks and shouts of the students were muffled. I floated down to the boy’s wing and up to the teacher’s rooms on the level above. I didn’t even know how I knew where the boy’s dormitories were. I’d never been there. But that was the thing about dreams. Everything made a lot more sense when you dreamed them.
Soundlessly I floated through a door. Pro Ro sat on the floor in a circle of candles. They dripped into puddles of wax, as though he’d been chanting for hours. Tarot cards were laid out along with a dead chicken.
He stabbed a pink-haired voodoo doll with pins. Blood dripped out from the center of the doll. He chanted in some kind of satanic tongue. A fire flared up in front of him. Out of the smoke, a demon uncurled itself. The demon happened to look a lot like Julian, only with horns and covered in soot. The demon danced, and Pro Ro laughed.
Pro Ro unwound the dark blue turban on his head. I became more aware of my body, of the sharpness in my abdomen stabbing me like knives. My affinity grew and then shrank. The red light inside me fluttered uncontrollably, and I found myself panting and sweating from the lances of fire.
The blue strips of fabric around Pro Ro’s temples fell away. His head turned around like in The Exorcist, and on the top of his crown was Alouette Loraline’s face.
Everyone was always telling me how much I resembled my biological mother; it would have been logical to question how I knew it was her and not me. Her hair was darker, for one, but that might have just been a trick of the light. It had to be the glowing red eyes and the teeth filed to sharp points—both of which I lacked. Her mouth twisted into a wicked grin, and she bit the head off the pink-haired doll. Blood spurted from the doll’s neck.
I woke up screaming.
“Six o’clock already?” Vega asked. “That can’t be right.”
I sat up, panting and frantic with fear.
Vega tapped the oil lamp with her wand, and the room was lit in golden light. She looked at the clock on the wall. She sighed in disgust, turned the light out, and fell back asleep. I laid down, but I couldn’t rest. This was just my subconscious mind playing tricks on me because of all the things I’d seen the night before. Plus, the turban thing was so Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, it couldn’t be real.
I wanted to believe it was all a figment of my imagination, but my intuition told me it was more than that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Try This One Weird Trick That Worked for J.K. Rowling
I was on edge all Thursday morning. Between Pro Ro’s curse and Julian’s underaged womanizing, I could barely focus on classes. I wondered about that girl who had been in his room. I didn’t know her name. My worries flickered back to Pro Ro. What motivation would he have for cursing me?
During third period, Thatch emerged from the stairwell that led to my closet, skulking into my classroom like a shadow. He must have used the passage from the dungeon, but he remained free of spiderwebs. His hair was as immaculate as ever.
Never mind I was in the middle of helping a student with shading, Thatch interrupted. “Headmaster Bumblebub wants me to inform teachers there’s yet another emergency meeting after school. Three forty-five. Staff room. You know the drill.”
I glared at him.
“What’s with you?” He looked me up and down. “You look like death warmed over. And I don’t mean that in a good way.”
If we’d been alone I would have chewed him out. Why hadn’t he told me Julian had been sleeping with students? Why did he let him get away with it? He should have told Jeb. I hated him.
He lifted his hands, in a gesture of feigned innocence. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
I crossed my arms.
“Aren’t you at all curious what the meeting is going to be about?” he asked.
“No.” If it wasn’t because we needed a new history teacher, I didn’t care.
“I want to know!” one of the students said.
Thatch leaned closer, his tone conspiratorial. “The missing answer keys.”
Maybe. That note I had left for Jeb had explained enough to warrant an emergency staff meeting.
Students gasped. “Did they find the answer keys?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” The smirk on his mouth faded as he looked to me. “One would think someone in your position would be more … interested in the outcome of today’s meeting. The quarter ends tomorrow. If we don’t find the answer keys by then… .” He raised an eyebrow. “Let’s just say, the dark arts and crafts are always the first to be cut.”
Students shrieked and cried behind him. “Not art! They can’t cut art! It’s my only fun class.”
Thatch shrugged, a malicious smile on his face.
“Get out.” I pointed to my closet.
He straightened. “I was only jesting. They probably aren’t cutting your position.”
“Miss Lawrence is in a bad mood today,” one of the students whispered.
“I am not!” I shouted.
Ophelia Maker, a pixie-ish girl whispered, “Maybe it’s her time of the month, like that werebear teacher we used to have.”
Thatch shook his head at the student. “I highly suggest you close your mouth before your teacher does it for you. I hear Miss La
wrence is highly formidable when it comes to the magical Heimlich maneuver.”
I didn’t answer. I gave three detentions that day. Obviously, it wasn’t my best day.
One day. I had one day before my job might end. I wanted to care, but I was numb inside. Whenever I thought of Julian and what I’d seen, I wondered if I wanted to work at a school where everyone turned their heads the other way every time a teacher behaved with such gross misconduct. No wonder Loraline had gotten away with so much. They were negligent at this school.
My fairy godmother had been right about the rules to this world. The Unseen Realm wasn’t a fair place. They didn’t value human life here. I would never fit in or agree to the way things were.
After school was over, I trudged up the stairs toward the staff meeting.
Pro Ro caught me in the corridor on the way. “Miss Lawrence, you must come with me. I need to speak with you alone.”
I glanced at his blue turban, experiencing déjà vu. My mother was not under there. Nor was anyone else. Even so, everything in my body told me to run from him.
“We have a meeting in three seconds,” I said.
He grabbed my wrist. “This is more important. It’s about you and Julian Thistledown. I had a vision.”
His touch sent a spasm through my core. I wrenched my arm away. “Oh really? Well, I’m guessing you saw me breaking up with him.” I thought better of that statement and quickly added, “Not that we were ever dating.” I started up the stairs to the next level where the staff meeting would be.
He took the steps, two at a time. “Both your lives are in grave danger.”
“Sure, they are. And if I just follow you alone into the forest, you’ll make sure I stay safe.”
His brow furrowed. “I’m not joking. This is serious. I saw you murdering Julian this very day.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Psycho Ex-Girlfriend
I was crabby, but I wasn’t crabby enough to murder someone. I hated Julian, and I wanted him fired for his unprofessional conduct with a student, but I didn’t want him dead. Much. Yes, I had an evil witch of a mother who had killed and tortured multiple people and blew up the school. But I had no intention of following in her footsteps.
“Baloney.” My laughter came out as a wicked shriek that rivaled the Wicked Witch of the West. That didn’t help my case of not being evil.
Pro Ro tried to say more, but I wasn’t listening. I bent over, cackling so hard I wiped tears from my eyes.
Vega poked her head out of the doorway of the conference room. “Would you two fucktards hurry up? Principal Dumb-ass won’t start until everyone is here. Some of us have places to be this evening.”
A seat at the conference table was open next to Julian. He waved at me and smiled cheerily. I ignored him and took the seat between Vega and Jasper Jang. That put me across from Julian. I looked everywhere but at him.
My blood felt like it was about to boil. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep, my coffee was wearing off, and I wished I had asked Khaba for a special candy.
Now that I was in the room with Julian, I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t kill him.
“Attention, y’all. Attention,” Jeb said. “We ain’t got time to waste. We need to discuss the stolen answer keys.”
The room quieted.
“Darshan, would you kindly apprise us of anything new since we last spoke?” the principal asked.
Something slid against my ankle. Julian was slouched low in his chair, probably so he could reach me to play footsie. I kicked him as hard as I could.
He grunted and moved his foot away. He glanced at Vega as if he thought she had done it. I smiled pleasantly. Thatch’s head snapped up from where he sat farther down the table, looking from Julian to me. I wondered if Thatch had gotten a dose of pain magic just then.
Pro Ro coughed and tugged at his tunic. “I’m sorry to say, not much. For hours each night, I have divined using every method I know. Nothing new has resulted from my attempts.”
My eyes narrowed. If only he spent half the time divining for answer keys as he did casting spells on people.
Pro Ro licked his lips. “As far as I can tell, the answer keys aren’t missing at all. The students don’t have them. I can’t even see who stole them.”
“So much for our divination teacher being able to divine,” Vega muttered.
Khaba fiddled with the long line of his open shirt. “It could be powerful Fae magic.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Magic so powerful I can’t detect it.”
I remembered my previous conversations with the kids. Hailey had insisted they didn’t have the answer keys. Thatch and Khaba couldn’t get any information out of them. I raised my hand and spoke before anyone told me not to. “Maybe the students don’t have it because they never had it. Is it possible it’s somewhere in your office? Or that a staff member like a brownie might have accidentally grabbed it, Headmaster?”
“Principal,” someone corrected.
“What? That’s plumb crazy.” Jeb said. “We’ve looked multiple times.”
His office was also extremely messy. It wouldn’t surprise me if it had gotten lost in there.
Khaba wrote something down in a notebook. Maybe he would check into the brownies.
Jeb went on. “Besides that, I know where the answer keys have been hidden, thanks to Professor Thistledown. It’s in the forest! Darshan, now that you know where to concentrate your efforts, you’ll find it by hook or crook.”
Thatch rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “Pray, Professor Thistledown, how did you come across this information?”
Julian squirmed under Thatch’s scrutiny. “One hears things from students.”
Josie and I made eye contact. Was this pillow talk between him and a specific student? I studied the principal. He didn’t look in the least bit suspicious of Julian. Hadn’t he read my goddamned note? Maybe he just had a good poker face, and he was going to take me aside after the meeting and talk to me about Julian. I fidgeted, kicking my foot against my chair in agitation until Vega turned to glare at me.
Pro Ro shook his head. “It isn’t in the forest.”
“Julian, will you share what you overheard?” Jeb asked.
“Tonight during the big game—during the pegasus polo tournament—some of the students are going to sneak away from the stadium and go into the woods. They will head toward the Morty Realm—away from the village. That’s where we went wrong in our previous searches. We were looking toward Lachlan Falls. If we follow the students as they leave the game tonight, we’ll be able to find the answer keys.” Julian sat back in his chair, his grin a little too satisfied. His gaze settled on me.
Teachers all started talking at once. Anger exploded in the room, and this time it wasn’t coming from me. I kicked at my chair, no one hearing the thuds now. The charge of emotions from the staff stoked my affinity like kindling to a fire. It took everything I could not to fracture into a storm of rage.
Jasper Jang threw up his hands in disgust. “Not another wild-goose chase.”
“I already have plans tonight,” Vega said.
“We need to organize teams posted at intervals in the forest and outside the stadium to apprehend them,” Khaba said.
“Not apprehend. Follow them,” Julian insisted.
“Are you saying we can’t attend the game? This is the last one of the season!” Silas Lupi said.
“How do we know this is a real tip, unlike the last one?” Grandmother Bluehorse asked.
I should have been more invested in the outcome of the answer keys considering the fate of my job rested in finding them. A low murmur caught my attention. Pro Ro closed his eyes and chanted. A funny, fluttery feeling swelled and then died in the pit of my stomach. I focused on the energy in my core. It felt like an invisible string was attached to me, tugging at my affinity. A prick like a needle stabbed into my belly.
“Stop it,” I said, my voice barely audible over the di
n in the room.
Pro Ro didn’t stop. He chanted faster, louder. Jasper Jang and Vega turned to look at me.
I stood. “Stop it! I know you’re casting a spell on me.”
His eyes remained closed. He ducked his chin down. Josie stood, her wand raised and pointed at Pro Ro. The air crackled with static electricity. Red pain roiled in my belly.
Jeb’s hair stood on end. Wind rustled the papers on the table and the robes of staff. Jackie Frost’s witch hat went flying from her head. The breeze was warm, like it had come from the bowels of hell. My affinity threatened to burst.
A witch followed her instincts. The lucid-dreaming book had said I needed to decipher the truth in my heart from what my head told me not to believe. I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. I had to show everyone what I knew in my heart.
“It’s under his turban!” I said. The commotion of the teachers died down. “Her face is under the turban, and I’ll prove it.”
I launched myself across the table and tackled the turban like a football player. Pro Ro cried out as I wrestled it off him. It was attached better than I would have thought.
Pro Ro raised his hands, trying to defend himself. Julian grabbed onto my wrist. I got in a good punch to Julian’s eye. Teachers unleashed a jumble of spells as they tripped over each other to get to me. Julian got the levitation spell probably intended for me, Vega received a restraint spell—which I suspected she secretly liked—and Jeb ended up domed off from everyone. My flailing arms and legs kicked a few wands out of nearby hands and knocked people into each other.
Thatch sat at the end of the table, drumming his fingers against the table with a look of bored indifference on his face.
“Look!” I said, still sprawled across the table as I tore the turban free of Pro Ro’s head. “Loraline is under here.”
Everyone froze. Wide-eyed horror spread across the faces of my colleagues.
On the top of Pro Ro’s head was a bald spot. Not my mother’s face. Fucktacular.
