by Eden Beck
I just lay for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling. “I like Sawyer.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” She snorts and goes back to getting dressed for a class I’m one-hundred percent going to be late to now. “Took you long enough.”
I roll back over on my side and point a finger at her. “This doesn’t change anything,” I insist. “I don’t have time for anything serious. You heard Luiza. I can’t have anyone holding me back.”
Erin just turns her back to me, but I swear I can hear the smug smile in her voice.
“Whatever you say, Avery. Whatever you say.”
Halloween, apparently, is a decently big deal at Saint M. I guess a holiday celebrating monsters would be. While most of the teachers seem to be on high alert for any activity that turns out to be actual monster activity, a few, like Professor Waldman, chose to dress up along with the rest of us. Her harpy costume is so convincing during creature studies that I have to keep a close eye on her, just in case she turns out to be an actual harpy just pretending to be our professor instead of the other way around.
I’m not the most crafty, but thankfully Erin managed to put together some sort of costume for the two of us to look like brownies, little fairies from England that clean houses. I try to protest at first, but she tells me it’s better than nothing—and I reluctantly have to agree.
It isn’t until Erin and I are headed back down to the dining hall for a costume party that I spot Sawyer emerging from his dorm room in a brownie costume of his own. I have to stop and point between the two of them.
“How long has this been going on?” I ask, feigning betrayal.
Erin shrugs and helps Sawyer re-adjust the floppy hat on his head. It looks like it was made of a dishtowel.
“I didn’t think you’d be interested. You’re not exactly the crafty type.”
“And Sawyer is?”
“You’d be surprised,” Sawyer says, holding up his fingers. This time, instead of being stained with black ink, they’re stained with something reddish brown. “And Erin, thanks for the tea-staining tip. Now, if you have any tips for how to get it out of my skin … it would be much appreciated.”
The dining hall is full of people in costume when we walk in. It’s much busier than usual, but the distraction is welcome. Sawyer’s knuckles keep brushing mine, and it’s keeping me from thinking clearly. I know I told Erin I didn’t want anything to change, but I can’t shake the way my stomach keeps tying in knots at his touch.
The students don’t normally all come in at once, as dinner isn’t at a set time. This might be the first time that I’ve seen everyone, or at least nearly everyone, all together in one place.
I spot Luiza de la Cruz at the same moment she spots us. She’s wearing a crop top and a tight-fitting, slinky, dark green skirt that looks a little like snake scales as she walks our way. Her hair is hidden beneath a hat sprouting with foam snakes that bounce when she moves, giving the illusion of life. It’s actually a really good gorgon costume, and with another, very different pang—it reminds me of the photo of my parents that started it all.
“Why, hello there,” Luiza says in her throaty voice. “Do I see some little brownies, come to clean my house?”
“Do I see a snake where it doesn’t belong?” Erin says, saltily.
Sawyer and I both look at her in surprise. Luiza whistles. I like this new Erin.
“Our little Singer is feisty today,” Luiza purrs. She pulls part of the hat away from her face and smirks. “You’re still a mystery to me, Singer. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since we met.”
This comment seems to return Erin to her normal self. Her whole face flushes red, and she looks away, mumbling incoherently. I step in front of her protectively.
“What’s up, Luiza?” I ask her.
“Just wanted to say hello. No need to be so defensive.” Her eyes flit from me, to Sawyer, to Erin. She twirls the wand of a matching green-scaled masquerade mask. “Enjoying the year so far? Doing well in your classes?”
“Doing just fine, thanks,” I say.
She looks over at Sawyer. “I don’t believe I’ve met your tallest brownie.”
“Sawyer, meet Luiza,” I say, not looking away from her. “Luiza, meet Sawyer.”
“Our Black-turned-brownie is so protective,” Luiza purrs. “I can see when I’m not wanted. Come see me sometime, Singer,” she adds, putting her mask back up to her face. “I’d love to have a little chat.”
And with that she turns and slinks away, hips swaying.
Erin grumbles and runs her fingers through her hair, leaving little wispy tendrils to fall over her forehead. “I don’t know what it is about her, but she just gets under my skin somehow. She saw me last night, when I went to go talk to—to Professor Helsing.”
I pat Erin’s shoulder. “You all right?”
“Yeah, oh yeah,” Erin says. “She was just sort of weird, that’s all.”
“How so?” I ask. I think I catch Sawyer glancing at that unmistakable way Luiza’s hips move when she walks, and I feel a pang of jealousy that prompts my next words. “I don’t trust her. Something isn’t right.”
Erin looks at me sharply. “What do you mean?”
I look back to her quickly and change the subject. “Never mind. Let’s get some food. I’m famished.”
We’re on our way to do just that when a loud bong! sounds from overhead. Confused, all three of us stop, and the dining hall falls silent around us.
“Attention. This is Headmaster Novac,” the PA system booms out over head. I’ve never heard it used before. It seems out of place in these old brick walls. “A monster—an al—has been spotted in the village. All first-year students are instructed to stay inside the school. Any upperclassmen who wish to hunt the monster may congregate in the entrance hall. Again, all first-year students—stay inside the school.” Bong!
There’s a prolonged period of silence, and then several upperclassmen simply walk out of the dining hall. I see Luiza among them, reaching up to tug her snake-hat off and comb her fingers through her short hair. I glance at Erin to see that her eyes are following Luiza, too.
An al. I’ve never heard of it. From the looks on the faces around me, whatever it is, isn’t particularly friendly.
“I guess the plan is still to grab something to eat, then,” Sawyer says. He starts off toward the food and Erin and I follow.
I stick close to her side, my voice low. “This thing, what is it?”
“It’s nothing we have to worry about,” she whispers back. “The teachers will deal with it.”
Other bodies press close behind us in line, their words echoing my thoughts.
“I wish we could go hunt that thing,” says a familiar voice behind me. I know before I look that it’s Piers. He’s dressed as a vampire, complete with white face paint and fake blood dripping down the side of his mouth.
“Do you think any first-years would be able to do it?” Owen asks, reaching over him to grab at some food. I don’t know what he’s supposed to be. He just has a kid’s birthday party hat perched on his blonde curls. Beside him, Bennett shrugs, but as he does so, he meets my eyes. He’s shirtless and wearing torn pants, with some sort of horns made out of plastic cups protruding from his head.
Something about how stupid they all look in their costumes, standing here talking about how they could easily go out and hunt that thing on their own—it makes something primal in me snap. Not in an angry way. In a weird, macho, dick-measuring way that even I don’t understand as the next words tumble out of my lips.
“I could,” I say before I realize what I’m doing. “Don’t know about you three.”
“Avery,” Sawyer whispers, a warning in his tone.
Piers grins at me. “You think you could?”
“Yeah,” I say, my indignation growing. “I’m sure I could.”
“Tell you what, Black.” Piers sets down his plate of food. “You go down to the village and get something off that monster. What
did he say it was?”
“An al,” Bennett replies, almost mechanically. He’s looking at me again, and unless I’m mistaken, he’s worried. Bennett my tormenter, is worried about me.
Piers, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is relishing in the idea of my demise.
“Right. That thing that steals babies. Tell you what. You go get something off that al, and I and my boys will lay off you for a while.”
I realize that it’s gotten quieter around us. Some other first-year students are listening, their eyes on me. I look around at them, then back at Piers and Owen, who are smirking at me.
I deliberately don’t look at Erin or Sawyer.
“Fine,” I say. I grab an orange-iced cupcake off the table. “I’ll do it.”
“Avery, don’t!” Erin pleads, her voice strained. “Als are dangerous!”
I ignore her and step toward Piers. “You have to promise you’ll lay off. At least until after winter break.”
“That’s a long time.” Owen pouts a little, and reaches out to pluck on the collar of my costume. “I was just getting used to our little games.”
Erin underestimated the size of my bust, and I’m suddenly very aware of how much cleavage is showing between the brown folds of fabric. My décolletage flushes red as Owen’s finger brushes skin, however briefly.
Piers sticks out his hand. “Shake on it. Go get something to prove you saw the al, and we’ll lay off you until after winter break.”
“Avery!” Erin cries as I reach out and clasp Piers’ hand without any hesitation.
“Deal,” I say. I head toward the door, unwrapping the cupcake as I go. The other students start whispering as I walk off.
I hear Erin coming up behind me. “Avery, please, come on,” she says. I take a bite of the cupcake. “This is stupid.”
“I’ll get much more work done when they’re not doing shit to me all the time,” I tell her.
“You don’t have any weapons!” Erin follows me out of the dining hall, where I shush her so I can sneak around the group of professors and upperclassmen in the entrance hall. Once we’re out of sight, she starts up again. “Avery, please. You could be killed.”
“We’ve got those spears we made in PW in the dorm,” I reply. “Think those will work against an al?” I stop and stare blankly out one of the dark windows. “What exactly is an al, anyway?”
Erin is lost for words. “You—you don’t even know what it is?”
I’ve already started storming back up to our room at the top of the stairs. “Well then, at least I know where I stand.”
She argues with me all the way to the residence wing and even inside our dorm, where I ignore her as I grab the spear I made, testing its weight. I dig under my bed for the rope we made in survival a couple weeks ago.
“And all the doors are being guarded,” Erin continues fretfully, following me around the room as I change clothes and grab more gear. “How do you expect to get out? Avery, please, this is stupid.”
I calmly walk to the window of our room and slide it open. “Kinda chilly,” I say thoughtfully. Erin follows behind me as I go back to my dresser and grab my hoodie.
“Avery. Avery. Avery!”
“Erin!” I snap, and she falls silent. “I’m going. Now, are you going to tell me a little about this monster, or am I just going barging out there blind?”
She purses her lips and watches me tie one end of the rope to her bedpost. I give it a tug; feels secure. I throw the other end out the window.
“This is insane,” she mutters, pulling me back from the edge of the window and dropping to her knees to fish for her notes under the bed. She rifles feverishly through a few notebooks while I tap my foot impatiently. I’m about to give up and just slip out on my own anyway when she finds what she’s looking for.
“Be careful,” she says, pressing the papers into my outstretched hand. “And whatever you do, find it before it crosses the river.”
I nod, take the paper, and squeeze myself out the window and into the night.
Chapter Twelve
Saint M is situated up in the mountains a few miles away from a local village. I haven’t been down there since I arrived at the school. I’ve been too busy, and the last time I was there the residents weren’t exactly the friendliest. I distinctly remember owing the taxi driver some cash, and would rather avoid another conversation about why I still won’t have it.
Normally, there would’ve already been several teachers down in the village. Tonight, however, most of the staff was up at the school for Halloween. By protecting their students, they left the town vulnerable. Now most of the professors are walking that direction, leading the students that elected to hunt alongside them.
As soon as my feet hit the frosty ground outside, I duck into the shadows and stay hidden. I stick around outside the school long enough to overhear a professor giving the students directions, and now I’m off on my own.
I read the notes Erin gave me between snippets of moonlight. Ideally, I would’ve had time to study these creatures and their patterns, their tracks, the distinct markings they leave. All I have are notes about how als steal babies from new mothers, and that, according to the illustrations, they’re gray, vaguely humanoid beasts with hunched shoulders and faces that look like a cross between a bat and an ape.
The ugliness of their faces are outmatched by the long, hooked copper claws sprouting from their fingertips. I don’t want to end up on the wrong end of those. I’ll have to be careful.
Armed with only my limited knowledge and a hungry need to prove myself to Piers, once at for all, I pick my way to the village. It’s very cute, I guess; a weird mix of ancient and modern. There are normal brick buildings with sloping roofs alongside little thatch-roof huts, and cars share the road with horses pulling carts. The whole place is decorated for Halloween. People in costumes roam the streets. I slip into a crowd of costumed people chattering in Romanian—which I’ve learned only a little of in survival class so far—and keep my eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.
Even if I did speak Romanian, I couldn’t just go around asking people if they’d seen a monster, as few people can actually see them—or would recognize one if they did. It’s a little different here, in the old country. Some of the older generations still believe, and even claim to see, the creatures still. They know what we are, what Saint M does. But everyone else … I wonder what they think all the gruff-looking people do up at the academy.
Travelling alone means I get to the town faster than most of the other hunters. I’m lucky to come across some school-age kids practicing their English down one of the alleys. Heavily accented, one tells the other that the “strange lady” living on the outskirts of town near the forest claims she saw a hunched, long-haired creature pass by her window. Bingo. A couple dollars buys me directions to the cottage.
I’m about to head for the outskirts of town when, at the end of that same alley, soft footsteps overtake me and one of the other kids pulls me to the side into the shadows.
His eyes are shifting nervously, darting back down towards his friends and then back up the empty end of the street.
“What is it?” I ask, then again, in broken Romanian.
He glances up at me and licks his lips. His eyes are wide and terrified.
“The old lady, she lies,” he says. His eyes dart back down towards his friends and stay trained on there as he continues. “She does this every Halloween.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask.
I hear more footsteps and pull the boy further down the alley and into a doorway. We can’t see his friends from here, but I can hear more voices echoing our way. The other hunters are here.
“I can see them too,” he says, suddenly. He’s looking back up at me, with those wide, staring eyes of his. I can see the terror in them, and I know exactly what he means. “You believe me?”
I put a hand on his shoulder. Any other sane adult would tell a small child that monsters aren’t rea
l, that they have nothing to fear.
I ask him where to find it.
He points me in the opposite direction of town. “There’s a bad forest there. You’ll find monsters.”
The flicker of lights has died down in the alley. From the sounds of it, the other hunters got the same information I did and are already heading off to investigate the old woman. Even if I try heading that way, I’ll likely be too late now.
I look out towards the stretch of forest the boy pointed out. That area of town is dark. It’s the old part of the village, all thatched roofs and old women in scarves. I close my eyes for a moment, recalling a map of the area. The southern part of the village tapers off into a thick woods, with nothing beyond for miles and miles until …
Until the river.
Erin’s warning comes back to mind. The al will be heading towards the river. I gather up my things, thank the boy, and hurry down the alley as fast as I can.
Before I disappear, I stop and glance back.
“One day, you won’t see them anymore,” I say. “I promise.”
The boy just looks at me with those wide, terrified eyes. My promise doesn’t matter. I’ve seen that look before—on Professor Waldman’s face when she mentioned the Wendigo. One day he might not be able to see the monsters, but he’s never going to forget them.
This part of town grows quieter with each passing moment. Far removed from the lights and festivities of the holiday, the old buildings practically advertise nooks and crannies for the creatures of the night to hide. I find myself alone, the streets barren—no sign of monster, stranger, or hunter to be found.
I get to the edge of the forest, to the place where the road abruptly ends and the thick mass of pine begins, without so much as a claw mark to examine.
The al. Snatcher of babies. If there was an al sighting, there had to be a baby … right?
I have an idea. I pull my phone out of my back pocket and, using the spotty reception I’m able to wrangle up, start looking for any breaking news on missing babies in the area. If I can just find out where the baby was stolen from, I might be able to track the al from there.
