Creepy Hollow 7

by Rachel Morgan

  “And if you need me,” Dash adds, “just tell Azzy. She knows how to get hold of me.”

  I blink. “Need you?” Now there’s a ridiculous notion. “You don’t have to babysit me anymore, Dash. I can get through the rest of this without you.”

  “I’m sure you can. Just tell Azzy everything that happened last night, okay?” He exchanges a glance with Azzy, then returns his gaze to me. “Everything. So she can help you.”

  I frown at him. “Obviously. What did you think I was gonna do? Pretend the whole thing didn’t happen? I’ve tried that already, and it didn’t make any of this craziness go away.”

  “We’ll have a good chat, don’t worry,” Azzy says, patting Dash’s arm before taking my hand and steering me toward the stairs. “Let’s get you settled in, Em. Can I call you Em, or do you prefer Emerson?”

  “She likes Emmy,” Dash tells her. I twist my head over my shoulder and imagine sparks flying out of my eyes straight at him. Unfortunately, magic doesn’t seem to work that way, and I’m left simply glaring at his smiling face. “Have fun,” he says with a small wave before turning and heading for the door. And despite the fact that I want to slap him—despite telling him I don’t need him—I have the sudden panicked urge to call out, “Wait, don’t leave me here!” Because even though I’ve always hated him, he’s the last tie to my normal life, and he’s about to disappear through that door.

  But I swallow my panic and don’t say a word. I face forward and let Azzy lead me up the stairs. Because I’ve survived everything life has ever thrown at me on my own, and this will be no different.

  Seven

  She isn’t your mother.

  She isn’t your mother.

  This piece of information keeps knocking on the inside of my brain, and now that I’m alone, nothing I do can distract me from it. I examine every part of my bedroom—almost as nice as the guest room in Dash’s parents’ house—but fluffed-up pillows, a luxuriously soft carpet, and a four-poster bed can’t keep the image of a mother who isn’t my mother from branding itself onto the inside of my mind.

  I open the wardrobe and discover, upon finding a mirror there, that I look terrible. My skin is pale, and my eyelids are smudged with dark makeup. I pick up some clean clothes from one of the shelves and, after peering both ways down the hall to make sure I’m not about to bump into anyone, I cross to the bathroom Azzy pointed out. What I find there is enough to startle me out of my upsetting thoughts for a time. I expected a bath or shower, but instead I find a small pool surrounded by pebbles and filled with steaming, scented water. It’s the most inviting thing I’ve seen in ages, and I’m more than happy to push aside every thought racing through my head, strip out of my dirty clothes, and sink into the hot water.

  But even this distraction doesn’t last long. So after dressing myself in clean clothes that somehow fit perfectly, I leave my room. I wander around the house, through a library lined with books from floor to ceiling, into a dining room with a long rectangular table at its center, and across a kitchen larger than Chelsea’s house. I explore the garden, ignoring every person—every fae … being … thing—I come across.

  But my thoughts keep going back to Mom. I try to hold onto the picture of her I’ve always had, to the place she’s always held in my life. The place and title of mother. But the idea is beginning to crumble as questions start sneaking in through the cracks of my defenses: How did she end up with me? Who do I really belong to? Why didn’t she ever tell me? Who the hell am I if I’m not her daughter? And despite the fact that it fills me with guilt, I try to imagine what my ‘real’ mother might be like. But my imagination comes up blank. I can’t picture anyone except the woman I grew up with.

  When I realize I’ve been standing motionless in front of the same weird polka-dot plant for several minutes, staring unseeingly past it, I decide I’m done with real life for today. I can deal with all my questions, doubts, confusions, and magic tomorrow. I return to my room, drag the curtains closed, climb into bed, and do my best to fall asleep. When Azzy knocks on my door and says something about dinner, I pull the duvet over my head and ignore her.

  “Everyone, this is Emerson,” Azzy says the following morning after introducing the other seven people in the library: a faerie, an elf, and five half somethings. “Remember how uncertain you felt about everything when you first arrived here? That’s how Em feels right now. So remember to do your best to welcome her.”

  Everyone looks at me. I slide a little lower in my chair. If I knew how to open that gap I opened in the earth the other night, I’d be tempted to do it again right now and crawl into it.

  “Well then,” Azzy continues. “You can get better acquainted over lunch. For now, you all need to get back to whatever you’re working on at the moment. Em, you’ll be with me.”

  I stand along with everyone else. Two of my fellow weirdos move to a table together and chat quietly as they open several enormous textbooks. The rest leave the library through the door that leads into the garden.

  “So, Em,” Azzy says, ushering me over to another table. “As I’m sure you’ve realized, this isn’t like an ordinary school. We never know when someone will arrive, and everyone has a different story. Some fae have no previous knowledge of the magic world at all, like you, while others have had some exposure to magic, but haven’t formally been taught anything. So as you can see, we need to tailor our lessons and training to each individual.”

  “Um, yes,” I say after a pause, since it seems she’s waiting for a sign that I’m listening to her.

  “So we’re going to begin with a little bit of history about this world. Momentous occasions from the past, as well as more recent events that have played an important role in shaping our world.”

  “Fun.” I try not to sound bored, but I can tell I’m not doing a very good job. What happened to learning about actual magic?

  “It is fun. Especially since I’m going to get some of the other students to explain things to you.”

  “What?”

  Azzy gives me a knowing smile. “I thought that might get you to pay attention.”

  “So … that part was a joke?”

  “Oh, no, I was being entirely serious. This way you don’t have to listen to me droning on for hours. I’ve found it to be a wonderful way of learning. It helps the students who’ve been here longer to remember what they’ve learned, it teaches you the most important facts, and you’ll get to know each other in the process. I’ll supervise, of course, to make sure they don’t tell you a bunch of nonsense, but essentially it will all be a discussion.”

  Wonderful. So this is what I have to look forward to every day that I’m here. “So, um, when will I learn how to do some actual magic? I thought that was all I needed to know. Control the magic, then I can leave.”

  She smiles. “We’ll start this afternoon with something easy. After you’ve told me exactly what happened the other night when you accidentally used magic.”

  I sigh as I get up and follow her to the table with the other two fae. “Why does everyone want me to tell them exactly what happened? Isn’t every detail of the whole event written up in some boring Guild report somewhere?”

  “I’m sure it is, but it can’t hurt to explain it again. Now, you sit here with George and Aldo—” she pulls a chair out for me as the two boys look up “—and I’m going to get my tea.”

  I ease myself into the chair, my gaze moving warily between the two boys. “Hi,” says the younger one, who looks about ten years old. “I’m George. This is Aldo.”

  “Okay, let me see if I remember this correctly. You’re a faerie,” I say, pointing to Aldo, “and you’re a halfling?” My gaze moves to George.

  “Yep.” George nods and smiles.

  I remember Dash mentioned the word halfling and saying I couldn’t be one, but he didn’t explain any more than that. “So what exactly is a halfling? Someone only half magical?”

  “Not exactly,” Aldo says. He looks a little older, fourteen
or fifteen perhaps. Although age doesn’t seem to make sense in this world, so I could be totally wrong. “It means two different parents. So a faerie and an elf, for example. Or a human and a faerie, even though fae laws say interaction with humans is wrong.”

  “That’s what I am,” George says, sticking his hand into the air as if volunteering to answer a question. “Faerie dad plus human mom. Dad says he got bored with this world, so he went adventuring in the other one. He met my mom and he hasn’t come back here since. He thought I barely had any magic when I was little, but it started increasing after I turned ten last year. Things got a little out of hand last month when I accidentally set our shed on fire with enchanted flames that couldn’t be put out with water. I was sent here after that.”

  “Wow. Almost as dramatic as my story,” I say. “So how do you tell the difference between faeries and halflings? Someone told me I’m definitely a faerie, but what if he was wrong?”

  “No, you’re definitely a faerie,” Aldo says. “It’s easy to tell because faeries have a color.”

  “A color?”

  “You haven’t noticed?” He leans forward and rests his elbows on the table. “You have blue in your hair and eyes. I have red. That guardian who brought you here has green. Azzy has pink, although she prefers to call it cerise.”

  “It is cerise,” Azzy says as she walks back into the library and comes toward our table with a teacup and saucer floating through the air beside her. She takes a seat. “Now, Em, have you thought of your first question?”

  I clear my throat and force myself to look away from the levitating teacup. “Oh, I thought they were just going to tell me stuff.”

  “But how will they know what to tell you if you don’t ask a question?”

  I raise an eyebrow. This style of teaching seems questionable, but I’m no expert, so I probably shouldn’t point that out. “Um … let’s see …” What do I want to know? I want to know if it’s absolutely certain that Mom isn’t my mom. I want to know how I ended up living with her. I want to know how I’m supposed to look at life and myself when I’m suddenly not the person I’ve always thought I was. I want to know if it’s possible to have an identity crisis at the age of seventeen.

  But I’m not going to ask any of those questions, of course. They’re far too personal, and these kids won’t know the answers anyway. “Um, well, Dash explained the faerie paths, but is that the only way to get to the other world? What if someone doesn’t have one of those stylus things?” What worries me is that I don’t have one of those stylus things, and I need a way to get out of here if things end up going badly.

  “Ooh, okay, I’ve got this,” George says, his hand shooting into the air again. “So there are gaps here and there in the veil between the two worlds, and fae can get through those gaps. I don’t remember exactly where they are, though, or where they came from. I think they’ve always existed. Oh, and there’s the tear in the veil over Velazar Island,” he adds. “That’s not natural, though. It shouldn’t exist. Some witches created it years ago.”

  I glance at Azzy. “That sounds like it might have been an important event.”

  “It was,” she says, looking pleased. I can tell what she’s thinking: this group learning thing is working out just as she planned. “Can you tell us more about that event, Aldo?”

  “Uh, sure, okay.” He taps his stylus on the desk. “Well, there was this guy called Draven. Okay, wait, let’s backtrack a bit.” He frowns, then continues. “It was about, um, twenty-eight years ago when one of the Unseelie princes was trying to take over his mother’s court. Instead, he and the Unseelie Queen were both killed by Draven, who was this insanely powerful halfling, and Draven ended up taking over the Unseelie Court. There was lots of fighting and brainwashing and stuff, and eventually Draven was killed. At least, that’s what everyone thought.”

  “Dun, dun, duuuuun,” George says in dramatic tones, making Azzy chuckle.

  “Ten years later, the Seelie princess who’d been in prison all that time for helping Draven—because he was actually her son—”

  “Super complicated,” George adds.

  “Yeah, so the Seelie princess found out that Draven was actually still alive and in hiding,” Aldo continues, “and she betrayed him and handed him over to the Guild in exchange for her freedom.”

  “She wasn’t the best mother,” Azzy says with a shake of her head.

  “Then the princess killed her mother and sister so she could claim the Seelie crown. So that kinda backfired on the Guild—because, you know, the Guild and the Seelie Court work together, so they lost their queen and got a horrible new one. And then it turned out that the Seelie princess was working with some witches, and they wanted to rule over the human world too. They decided it shouldn’t be separate from this world anymore. So they used an ancient spell and horrible dark magic to tear through the veil, but what ended up happening was that as the hole tore wider and wider, it started consuming both worlds.”

  “I don’t think they knew that would happen,” George says.

  “No, obviously not. Anyway, Draven ended up at the scene—probably to get revenge on his mother—and he was killed. For real this time. There was more fighting, and somehow the hole in the veil stopped getting bigger.”

  “The monument,” Azzy prompts.

  “Right. There was an ancient monument from the mer kingdom, and when the tear in the veil tried to pass it, the monument’s magic was strong enough to hold the tear in place and keep it from getting any bigger. So now it’s just there, this giant hole in the veil over Velazar Island—”

  “Which is a floating island,” George adds with a grin. “Well, two islands now, because there was a prison on the other side so the Guild chopped the island in half after the veil thing happened.”

  “And guardians are stationed by the hole at all times,” Aldo continues, “hiding it with a glamour and making sure no one gets close enough to touch the monument.”

  “So there’s no way to close it?” I ask.

  “Scholars have been working on it ever since,” Azzy says. “And I hear there’s finally been a breakthrough, actually.”

  I vaguely remember Jewel saying something yesterday about a spell for a veil. “I think I heard about that. The Guild had a meeting about it yesterday.”

  “Yes, so that’s quite exciting.” Azzy smiles at us before picking up her teacup. “Anyway, are you keeping up so far, Em?”

  “I think so. Not sure I totally understand the Seelie and Unseelie thing, though.”

  “Oh, the different courts.” Azzy nods toward Aldo before taking another sip of her tea.

  “Um, the courts rule over different parts of our world,” Aldo says. “The Guild and the Seelie Court work together to kind of maintain order and peace and keep the world running. They decide on laws, and they prohibit magic that involves hurting other people. Unseelies tend to keep to themselves. They also like to ignore laws and use whatever dark magic they feel like, and the Seelie Court can’t always do anything about it. I think.” He looks to Azzy for confirmation.

  “Essentially, yes. It’s a complicated balance.”

  “So what happened to the Seelie princess?” I ask. “The one who killed her mother and sister and was working with the witches? The Guild didn’t allow her to continue ruling, did they?”

  Azzy shakes her head and places her teacup on its saucer. “No. After the veil-tearing spell, the death penalty was reinstated, and Princess Angelica—who I suppose was actually Queen Angelica at that point—was sentenced to death.”

  My eyes widen. “Wow. So who was left to take over the court?”

  “Her sister’s son. So currently we have a king in both courts. King Idrind in the Seelie Court, who is quite a young king, and King Savyon in the Unseelie Court, who’s been ruling ever since Draven’s first ‘death.’”

  More weird names, I think to myself. Out loud, I say, “This is all very interesting, but it doesn’t help me get my own magic under control. That�
��s all I really need to know, right?”

  “If you decide to stay in this world,” Azzy says, “then you need to know how it works.”

  “But I won’t be staying here.”

  She smiles. “No need to make that decision now.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’ve already made the decision.”

  Azzy laughs. “Okay, okay. That’s absolutely fine, but I’m still required by the Guild to teach you some history. But I promise we’ll get to the actual magic straight after lunch, okay? Now.” She leans forward and watches me intently with her dark pink eyes. “Have you been told anything about Griffin Abilities?”

  I remember Dash mentioning them yesterday. “Um … faerie superpowers?”

  “Kinda, yes,” Aldo says. He looks at Azzy.

  “Well, go ahead,” she says to him. “Tell Em all about them.”

  I sit back in my chair, and the rest of the morning passes by with explanations of what Griffin Abilities are (additional, unnatural magical abilities), where they originally came from (metal discs containing the magic of a super powerful halfling from centuries ago), and how they’re passed on these days since the discs are all gone (when two Griffin Gifted have a child, although sometimes the child will come out normal).

  After a few more rounds of questions and answers, Azzy finally lets us break for lunch. I stand and stretch, and am about to follow Aldo and George when I notice Aldo’s stylus on the table amongst the books. After a brief glance around the room to make sure no one’s watching me, I casually reach forward and pick it up. I lift my T-shirt and stick it into the waistband of my jeans, then hurry out.

  The stylus digs into my chest the whole time I’m sitting at lunch, and I’m afraid it’s going to suddenly open a doorway on my body or set me on fire or cast some other spell of its own accord. But I manage to make it through lunch in one piece.