Fantastic Schools: Volume 2

by Nuttall, Christopher G.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Valerie. “What does that mean, bwbach or bogle?”

  Rachel’s voice seemed to stick in her throat. “Bwbach are good fey. Helpful. But if things go all pear-shaped for them, they turn into bogle, which are a kind of malevolent sprite.

  “I could eat the pear,” Lucky offered hopefully in his gravelly voice, “if it would help.”

  “You mean the loinclothed, naked bloke is going to transform like the Hulk! Wicked! Can we watch?” asked Sigfried.

  “Can I eat the Hulk?” Lucky asked hopefully. “Is it a hulk of cheese?”

  “I don’t see what’s so bad about turning into a bog-whatsit,” Sigfried declared. He crossed his arms. “I’d pay to be more malevolent.”

  But Rachel understood. She understood, all too well. She herself had once faced a decision where, had things gone otherwise, she would have lost who she was. It would have been the same as death. That was not so different from what would happen to this Fenguth if he did not find the missing laundry.

  In that instant, she resolved in her heart that if there was anything she could do to help the little fey retrieve the stolen clothing, she would do it.

  Except…

  She was supposed to be practicing her flute.

  Rachel sighed. She wished she could understand why practicing was so difficult. It was such a beautiful instrument. She could recall her grandmother, the august Lady Amelia, Duchess of Devon, standing on Dartmoor playing the silver flute, her long fingers moving gracefully over the instrument as she called the horses in from the moors or the hounds in from the hunt through music alone. Her grandmother had spent nearly a century as a Vestal Virgin—the Wise lived longer than mundane folks—before she had left the order to marry Blaise Griffin. Rachel liked to picture Lady Amelia playing her silver flute as she stood with the other Vestals, defending the Eternal Flame.

  Rachel glanced over her shoulder, back the way she had come. If she returned to practicing now, would it really make such a difference? Wasn’t she going to fail her music final no matter what she did now? Wasn’t it better to keep one bwbach from turning into a bogle than to spend a fruitless few hours practicing an instrument that—if she was thoroughly honest with herself—she was never going to learn to play in time?

  “Come on,” she announced, turning back to the others. “Let’s help him. Let’s find the missing laundry.”

  “Hallo, there.” Rachel walked right by the bean-tighe who paid her no mind and sat down with her back to the wall near the sniffling bwbach. She was careful not to look right at it. She knew small fey of this kind hated that. So she looked up at the gigantic tub holding the laundry and the hot water rushing into it from the enormous pipe in the wall.

  Sniffle.

  “I’d like to help. Find the laundry, I mean.”

  Sniffle.

  “Can you show me where you last saw the laundry? Maybe my friend’s dog can catch the scent of the culprit—she calls it a perp—and we can track him down for you.

  Silence.

  Then his red turban-covered head turned toward her. Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel glimpsed large brown eyes, round as saucers, blinked rapidly.

  “Student-girl help Fenguth?” it inquired in a high reedy voice.

  “Student-girl help Fenguth,” Rachel replied, nodding.

  “Fenguth come.”

  The little bwbach in its strange red garments led the others down the round hallway until it came to a random spot that did not look any different from other random spots to Rachel and her friends. It was in the middle of one of the black obsidian lengths of hallway. Nothing particular marked it as distinctive, but Fenguth stomped upon the boardwalk once and announced that this was the spot.

  “What spot?” asked Valerie, forgetting for a moment and looking directly at the bwbach, which shrank away from her until she remembered and averted her eyes.

  “Where Fenguth last saw laundry.”

  “Very good,” Valerie nodded crisply. “Payback, do your stuff, girl!”

  Valerie made some hand gestures to the dog, who sniffed the area carefully, barked twice, and set off at a trot. The others, even Fenguth, exchanged glances, shrugged and followed.

  “Rather creepy to think that my laundry could be going through all this. Makes me want to wash my intimates in the bathroom sink,” muttered Valerie. She turned to Rachel. “Does this happen often?”

  “What? You mean losing laundry?” Rachel asked as she floated forward. “Not that I’ve heard of. Neither my parents, who attended Roanoke in their day, nor my older siblings ever mentioned losing clothing.” She glanced in the general direction of the little fey. “Has it happened before—that someone’s lost laundry?”

  Fenguth shook his head. “Bwbach very careful with laundry. Guard with our life! None ever lost before.” He paused. “Except Moilpubh. One time, Moilpubh misplace whole load of boys’ underwear.”

  “What happened?” asked Rachel. “Did they forgive him?”

  Fenguth shook his head. “Got the boot. Marched off campus.” He shrugged. “It okay. No one like Moilpubh.”

  After a time, they saw a black lump on the walkway ahead of them. Fenguth let out a gulp and a cry of joy. He ran ahead and, sure enough, lying on the ground was a black robe. Fenguth snatched it to his chest and cradled it in his arms, cooing to it and rocking it while rubbing his cheek against the rough cloth.

  “Maybe Fenguth not become bogle!” he cooed in a hopeful tone.

  “Is that all of them?” Rachel asked.

  Fenguth’s shoulders slumped. “No. Fenguth took from boys’ floor seven robes. This only one.”

  “It’s a good start,” Valerie said cheerfully. “Payback, find the next one.”

  Payback led them down a tunnel and then a second tunnel. They reached a musty hallway that Rachel suspected was seldom traveled.

  “Oooff,” Valerie held up her arm in front of her face. “Dusty.”

  “Your wish is my command!” Sigfried produced a silky red handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.

  “Ugh! I don’t know where this has been!” She put her hand out, blocking him. “I don’t want some cloth you blew your nose on!”

  “Blew my nose!” Sigfried cried, outraged. “I would never blow my nose on a handkerchief! I keep a snot-rag for that!” From his back pocket, he pulled out a matted, yellowy something that might once have been a piece of cloth. Both girls backed away simultaneously. “Handkerchiefs are for ladies. That’s why we knights-in-training carry them.”

  Valerie gingerly accepted the red handkerchief and held it over her mouth. Underneath it, she said, her voice a bit muted, “Can’t one of you enchanters just blow and, poof, the dust is gone?”

  Whipping out his trumpet, Siggy blew upon it. Silvery sparkles gathered at the mouth of the trumpet and whooshed down the corridor in a dramatic, gale-strength blast. This produced a wonderful garden-fresh scent, but it also stirred up a huge amount of dust that must have been lying on the ground, making the air even dustier. It also blew away all the domestic will-o-wisps that had been providing light.

  “Thanks, boyfriend,” Valerie said wryly, as they stood in the dark. She and Rachel both began coughing.

  “Lux,” Rachel commanded, but nothing happened. The Word of Light was not one of the cantrips she had practiced assiduously.

  “Lux!” Valerie tried, but she, too, was not especially good at cantrips.

  “Lucks!” commanded Sigfried.

  Lucky the Dragon breathed a long plume of red-orange flame, lighting up the corridor. Valerie both chuckled and sighed.

  A few minutes later, they were back in a well-used section of corridor, surrounded by the pleasant golden glow of will-o-wips.

  “Okay, fey-guy,” Valerie pulled out her reporter’s notebook as they walked, “as a reporter for the Roanoke Glass, I have some questions.”

  “Questions?” Fenguth cocked his head, his turban wobbled dangerously.

  “When did you last
see all the laundry?”

  “Fenguth gather it. Bring into tunnel. Put down to shut door. Hear chuckle. Turn head. Laundry gone!” The little fey let out a heartbreakingly sad moan.

  “A chuckle?” Valerie noted this down. “I see. Did you recognize the chuckle? Any idea what made it?”

  The little man hung his head. “Bad fey.”

  “But you don’t know which bad fey?”

  Fenguth shook his head. Meanwhile, Siggy and Lucky began making faces at each other in the reflective surface of the shiny obsidian.

  Valerie shook her head at her boyfriend, amused, and then turned to Rachel. “Griffin, you’re the walking encyclopedia. What kind of fey might it have been?”

  Rachel tipped back her head, thinking. “Well, we have a lot of mischievous fey on Roanoke Island. Most of them live outside the wards around the campus and cannot approach the school; however, any of them might have snuck in back in February, that time that the wards were breached. So…a spriggan?” She turned to the bwbach. “Was there a wind?”

  He shook his head.

  Rachel said, “Spriggans pop around, sometimes in the ground, sometimes flying.”

  Valerie asked, “Wouldn’t that not leave a trail for Payback to follow?”

  “Oh!” Rachel’s eyebrows shot up. “No. I guess not. So, not a spriggan.”

  “What other mischievous fey are known to live on Roanoke Island?” Valerie asked.

  “Let’s see. Hmm,” Rachel went through her memory. “A trow? Trow live in the meadows at the northwest end of the island. They are famous for tying shoelaces together. Anyone have their laces tied together?”

  They looked down. Rachel and Valerie were both wearing boots. Siggy’s feet were bare.

  “Hmm. That tells us nothing. Could be a trow, but…no proof.” Rachel said. “A phooka? Always a possibility. A Redcap? They are often more destructive, and a redcap probably would have stopped to taunt. Foidin seachrain? They trick travelers by looking like false sod…so probably not stealing clothing. I would say trow or phooka. Most likely a phooka.”

  “Does this help us find the clothing?” asked Valerie.

  Rachel sighed. “No.”

  Valerie turned back to the bwbach. “How often do the domestic fey here at the school lose their jobs? Often? Almost never?”

  “Almost never! We work hard!” the little man cried.

  “And if you don’t find these…” Valerie continued, “…boys robes from Dare, apparently? You get escorted off campus?”

  Fenguth nodded forlornly.

  “Don’t worry,” Rachel said encouragingly, “We’ll find them.”

  “Or Siggy can buy you new ones.” Valerie gave her boyfriend a friendly punch.

  “He’s rich,” moaned Lucky. “That’s my hoard of gold you’re eyeing. I know the name of every coin! Are you asking me to part with Huntington McCoffey the Third for this red-diapered…whatever it is…I just met?”

  Valerie rolled her eyes.

  Another fork brought them into a third tunnel. This third one was not round with sections of obsidian and conjured porcelain, like the first two, but was a regular, rectangular access tunnel such as one might find in mundane buildings. It was also rather musty.

  This time, Rachel whistled the three notes Sigfried had played upon his flute. She could not produce a gale wind like he could, but that was not what was needed. Silver sparks flew from her mouth, and a pleasant vanilla-scented breeze cleared the air of dust.

  “Thank you, Rachel,” Valerie said politely. She glanced at her boyfriend. “See, some people can freshen the air without plunging us into darkness.”

  “We can’t help if some people’s winds are inferior,” Sigfried replied magnanimously. “Right, Lucky?”

  “Right, Boss. Dragon-light is the best light!”

  Both girls sighed.

  The corridor they were following merged with another, which soon slanted upward to a trapdoor that opened into the menagerie.

  All around them were stalls for animals. Some were wooden. Others were made of metal or of the white porcelain of basic conjuring material. Yet others were of unfamiliar substances, perhaps meant to better constrain a specific type of magical beast.

  Through the bars in the stall doors, the students could glimpse a chimera, a grayhound, a sheep, a warthog, a giraffe, and a lioness. Sigfried and Lucky immediately ran to examine the chimera. Valerie gazed in puzzlement at the warthog with its big, curving tusks.

  “Who wants a warthog for a familiar?” she gawked. “Wouldn’t that be annoying to bring to class?”

  Rachel looked around, but there was no sign of Flora Towers Skaife, Roanoke’s Mistress of the Beast, nor of any of the three, blonde young women who worked as her student helpers. Turning around, she watched Payback. The elkhound sniffed around the doors of the stalls and paused outside one, sniffing more carefully.

  Climbing onto her broom again, Rachel floated up higher, so that she could peer down into the stalls. Inside the stall Payback had singled out, she saw a strange sight. A pile of dark robes seemed to be moving on their own. No, she was looking at a robe—or possibly two or three robes—being worn by a short, hairy man maybe two-and-a-half-feet tall. The creature had shaggy rust-colored hair, oblong ears, a long, protruding nose, and wide, bare feet. Tufts of bristly hair stuck out from its face, forming a beard of sorts or perhaps something that might better be called whiskers.

  It was a fenoderee, a fey known for helping with domestic chores, particularly around the barn—a fenoderee wearing some of Fenguth’s missing laundry. Was that a pair of boys boxer shorts upon its head like a hat?

  Rachel could not help herself. She blurted out, “But I thought fenoderee disdained clothing.”

  The legends all claimed that one would reject clothing in a huff.

  The fenoderee spoke in a surprisingly deep voice. “Much colder in New York than back on the Isle of Man.”

  Rachel looked at the fey for a time. This was a bigger one, so she dared looking it in the face. It stared back.

  “I don’t think those belong to you,” she said slowly.

  “Mine now,” muttered the fenoderee.

  “Fenguth’s laundry! Fenguth’s laundry!” cried Fenguth, jumping in the air in an attempt to see over the stall. The little thing did not come close. “Give back, you bully! Why steal it?”

  “I didn’t steal it,” grunted the fenoderee.

  “Where did you find them?” Rachel asked kindly.

  “Lying in front of my hidey hole.”

  “Those robes belong to students,” Rachel said gravely. “If we don’t get them back, Fenguth will lose his place and turn into a bogle.”

  The hairy fey shrugged. “Don’t matter to me. Bwback, bogle.” It paused. “Though bogles are trouble. One tore through here several years back, throwing feed everywhere. Took hours to clean up.”

  “So, you don’t want more bogles, right? More feed thrown around?”

  The fenoderee pouted.

  Valerie called from where she stood looking up at Rachel, “Ask it if we could buy them back. Give him something else instead.”

  The creature paced around the stall, the long robes dragging behind it through the hay. Then it let out a high-pitched screech.

  Lucky hung over the stall wall, gazing down at it. The fenoderee gawked at the dragon, alarmed.

  “Get that one out of here! No fire in the menagerie! No fire!”

  “I’ll take it away,” Rachel countered, “if you give me back the robes.”

  “I’ll give you back the robes,” it replied, “if you deliver this week’s feed to the dorms.”

  “Feed. You mean for familiars? The ones that don’t live in the menagerie or eat in the dining hall?” asked Rachel.

  It nodded its head, the boxers bobbing up and down.

  “All seven dorms?”

  “All seven, even Raleigh,” replied the fenoderee. There was a gleam in its eye that Rachel did not like.

  Siggy, who was
still over by the chimera, could not see the gleam. He cried, “Sure! Deliver feed. How hard could it be? We deliver the feed. You give us the clothing back. Capeesh?”

  “Capisce,” growled the fenoderee.

  “We go!” Fenguth cried joyfully.

  The pallet of various kinds of meats and feeds was enormous. Rachel tried lifting it with the tiathlu cantrip but could hardly get it off the ground. Even using charges from her wand, a slim length of silver that had once belonged to her grandmother, she found herself groaning with the effort of keeping it afloat.

  “Hang on, Griffin,” Sigfried gave her a brotherly bump with his shoulder and picked up the rope hanging from the front of the pallet. “Heave ho!”

  With a grunt, he started pulling.

  The pallet that was so heavy that Rachel could not lift with magic, that pallet, Sigfried pulled with the strength of his muscles alone.

  Rachel watched, gaping.

  Valerie looked on with that happy look that girls get in their eyes when they are proud of their boyfriends. Lucky flew along overhead, gazing down at his boy with fondness. Fenguth jumped onto the top of the pallet and let Siggy pull him along, like a child on a hay ride.

  They made their way down a tunnel that ran along the west side of the campus. The others seemed to be in merry spirits, but Rachel found her feet dragging.

  The truth was, she was heartbroken.

  She had spent hundreds of hours, literally as she had kept careful count, working on three spells: two enchantments, the wind spell and the paralysis hex, and a cantrip—the lifting cantrip. Yet, after a year of hard work, she still could not lift something that Sigfried could carry with muscle power alone. True, Sigfried was amazingly fit, but magic was supposed to be able to do more than muscles could do. She should be able to lift more with a cantrip than a boy—even an amazingly strong one—could pull by brute strength.

  But a year of work, and she couldn’t even do that.

  If she couldn’t play the flute and she couldn’t master cantrips, like lux and tiathlu, what kind of sorceress was she going to be?