“I’ll try. What do you want to say?”
She told me. I stood next to Samuels and leaned over the table so the words would appear right before him. I focused intensely, channeled all my strength, and quelled the pain.
You looked me in the eyes.
Now he blinked. Several times. Rapidly. But, to my horror, he smiled as the words appeared. When he looked up, his face was less stricken than pleased, even awed.
I collapsed against the wall nearby, consumed from the effort. I looked down and saw my limbs were even more ghostly. I now looked almost as transparent as the others. It had cost me … and for what? The old man was delighted.
“It’s a sacrifice for good,” Samuels stated. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“For good?!”
“A ritual. The spirit is sealed in the bonfire, binding it to Wickham Hall forever.”
“The bonfire. Today?”
Mr. Samuels nodded. “You’ll be president, Malcolm. You’ll take Kent’s place. You’ll see the book. You’ll understand.”
“What book?” Malcolm demanded.
Mr. Samuels shook his head. “No more questions. I’ve already said too much. You’ll learn very soon, son.”
“We’re stuck here forever. That’s what he’s saying, isn’t it?” Ruth asked, nearly crying.
“We cannot be! I have to see my mother and father,” Mary sobbed. “I have to tell them I did not kill myself.”
Ruth turned to me. “But you are not bound forever. Not yet. The bonfire hasn’t yet happened. You have to do something.”
I nodded as Malcolm watched Samuels shuffle out the door. We had no more use for him. We had to get to Kent and that book.
WE FOLLOWED MALCOLM UPSTAIRS and found breakfast was over. The crowd had broken up and moved along to the next alumni event. As we passed through the entryway, I paused to look at the portrait of the Wickhams. I studied Wallace’s face. He looked different here than he had in the dream. I hesitated, trying to make sense of it, when suddenly Minerva manifested in front of her own image. I lurched backward away from her.
“I told you to stop asking questions,” she snapped.
“You also told me I was lucky to be dead.”
“No, I said you were lucky to be here.”
“What does that mean?”
“Leave it alone. It does not have a good end.”
I held her gaze. “I will not.” Then I raced to follow Malcolm out the front door.
TIME RUSHED PAST IN a troubling, hazy blur—was I losing more track of time the weaker I became?—and an instant later Malcolm was banging on Kent’s door. No one answered. Malcolm told the dorm master he’d left something essential for the bonfire celebration in Kent’s room. The dorm master handed him the key without further question. Membership really does have its privileges. It also meant that Malcolm’s reputation was still untainted. But that wouldn’t last long.
Malcolm ransacked Kent’s room, opening every drawer, kicking every heap of dirty laundry, but found nothing. Soon he worked himself into such a fury that he started overturning everything, even items that didn’t have the slightest chance of hiding a book. When he dumped Kent’s penholder onto his desk, a gold ring tumbled out and rolled across the floor.
Malcolm fell onto his stomach and inched himself under Kent’s bed, chasing after it. He finally clenched it and pulled it back out into the light. It was the gold Wickham Hall insignia band inscribed with B.A./V.P. 1885.
We both shuddered, now knowing for certain what Kent had done.
“It’s proof, Liv! Proof he killed you! You had that on when you died!”
But proof that Kent had murdered me wasn’t enough. There was something so much bigger we needed to prove, and fast. The infamous bonfire would soon be lit, and I didn’t particularly want to have my soul burning in it.
I wanted to do something important, man. I wanted to fix things. I wanted to change the world. The feminist movement was happening—I’d read Friedan and Steinem and Simone de Beauvoir—and I was on that bandwagon already, man. I knew my power. I felt my power and found my calling—the Earth. Our beautiful Earth was being used and abused. The birds were dying. Oil was spilling into our oceans. They were testing bombs there, too, you know. I didn’t want nuclear waste in my ocean. I didn’t want chemicals in my food. Acid in my rain.
So, I started the Environmental Club at Wickham Hall and arranged my first protest: an anti-nuke rally. I thought I was leading a revolution, man. I even borrowed a megaphone from the gym. But no one came. And the headmaster instructed campus security to remove me. Still, I did not despair. Like they say, keep on truckin’, right?
Then I heard they were gonna spray the nature preserve with DDT. Right here: our own nature preserve. I’d read Silent Spring, and I knew what that stuff did. I tried to talk to the authorities, but no one cared they’d be killing the wildlife. They said it was supposed to keep us healthy. Man, what bullshit.
But then finally one person joined my club. Aiden was his name. He didn’t seem like the type who wanted to save the world—and he clearly didn’t know much about the movement—but you can’t turn away a soldier, right? Plus, he was all I had. Together we organized another rally—this time in the nature preserve.
He suggested we meet at night. He said it’d be cool. We’d make a bigger statement that way, making lots of noise while the campus was dark and silent. And I fell for it. I thought I was so smart. But he was smart, too, man. He knew how to use my cause against me. I’d do anything for my cause.
I remember my last walk through the woods as I headed to the preserve—smelling the night smells, hearing the owls—thinking only about their imminent death. I never even considered my own death. I was powerful. I was going to live forever, man. Forever.
When I approached and saw Aiden was not alone—there was a small pack of shadows near him—I was so happy. People had come! It meant I’d finally cut through the bullshit. The apathy. It meant Wickham Hall might change. It meant all the bees and the owls and the foxes might live. But no, we now know how this story ends.
The three others pushed me onto my back and held me down. Aiden held a knife over my chest—it was like a dagger, man. I begged him to stop. I told him I just wanted to do good. And you know what he said? He said, “You are doing good. You’re dying an honorable death and doing more good in this death than you could ever hope to achieve in life.” And then he ripped the blade into my chest.
They found me a few days later when the plane went out to spray the DDT. They said it was hara-kiri—the hysterical actions of a suicidal protestor. Everyone found it so ironic that the very birds and owls and foxes I’d wanted to save had picked at my body until it was beyond recognition.
Celebratory music bled all over campus from the Art Center atrium. The string trio had been joined by a throng of other musicians to make a complete orchestra. As night fell, hundreds of alumni streamed toward the bonfire. But Malcolm charged in the other direction—back toward Old Homestead, hoping the Victors were assembled for a meeting he’d been excluded from.
The door was locked, of course. We knew the lock had been changed, but he tried his master prefect key again just in case. It didn’t work. Malcolm scoped out the perimeter. All the windows and doors were sealed. He looked up to the peak of the house and saw the curtain was drawn across the Victors meeting room window.
“That means a meeting’s in session. We have to get in.”
The others rushed through the door. When I hesitated, bracing myself for the pain, Ruth reminded me instead to release. I unwound my knotted hands and closed my eyes. I tried to summon that feeling I’d had as I let myself merge with Malcolm to enter his dream. I shook off the fear that caused my body to go rigid, and I tried to believe that there would be no pain. And there was no pain. I flowed effortlessly through the door. All this time, I’d been trying to force my way through things, when all I needed to do was let go.
Once inside, we realized it was of no
use. The door still couldn’t be opened. I stared at the lock. I attempted to grasp it, but my fingers went right through, stinging. It still hurt when I tried to reach into the real world. I concentrated on opening the lock, but no matter how hard I focused, I couldn’t turn it. I feared my energy had gotten too weak.
“I was never able to do such a thing, even when I had my full powers,” Ruth said, trying to make me feel better. The others echoed in agreement.
Suddenly, I had an idea. “What would happen if we put all our energy together? If we could somehow merge, just briefly? Have you ever tried anything like that?”
They looked at one another, unsure. They had not. They’d barely spoken to one another before I came along. I looked at the others, and we nodded in silent agreement. Each spirit would release herself into me with the hope some small vestiges of their energy might unite with mine, and we’d somehow become stronger together. In any case, we had no choice but to try.
“You might get our thoughts, too,” Ruth said, concerned.
“So everyone just focus on turning the lock. Just only think about that. Okay?”
The idea of having other people’s thoughts in my head was frightening—but, then again, so was the idea of being a ghost. I looked at every face to make sure they all agreed. Lydia seemed distracted.
“Lydia, did you hear me? Will you be able to focus?”
“I’ll try.” Poor thing. Who knew what was going in her mind? I stood at the lock, my finger poised. Ruth merged with me first—I could feel a surge, a kick, like I’d just slammed three Red Bulls. Then Lydia, Florence, Brit, Mary, and Clara. I felt more and more substantial as each spirit merged with mine. I touched the lock. It felt more solid but was still hot as a burning coal.
When we were all aligned, my body felt strong, but my mind was cluttered. I could hear the other girls’ thoughts as if they were my own. Words I never used and old-fashioned phrases:
Golly, do you think she can do this?
Don’t flip your wig, Mary, don’t flip your wig.
And even the chorus from a song I’d never heard before swam through my head (courtesy of Ruth, I’m sure):
Always look for the silver lining and try to find the sunny side of life …
Now I understood why Gabe felt so crazy: to hear disembodied voices makes you feel like a certified lunatic. But I could feel the lock firmly in my grasp, searing. I took a deep breath. It felt like an actual breath! I almost felt like a real body. Then I or we—or whatever pronoun describes a spirit unified with multiple other spirits—turned the metal over. Click. Nothing had ever sounded as beautiful.
Malcolm dashed inside. “Thank you,” he gasped.
The spirits and I separated immediately. I paused for a moment, drained from the pain and effort. Reluctantly, I looked down and saw, yes, I was fainter still. And Malcolm’s drawing on my forearm was fading with me.
As we followed him up the three sets of stairs, I looked around for Minerva. I knew she was there. I caught a glimpse of her receding into one of the upstairs bedrooms. Malcolm ascended the final steep flight of hidden stairs silently, clutching the complex skeleton key for the Victors meeting room. He knew they’d probably never change the original lock. As we approached, we heard deep-voiced chanting. Malcolm briskly slipped the key in and turned it.
The door opened.
Seven men, all in large hooded cloaks, sat around the round table. Some kind of ritual was set up on the table. Candles. A bowl of dark liquid: blood. A thick, old leather-bound book clenched with a lock. I almost laughed at how unoriginal the scenario looked, until I saw, right in the middle of the table, my necklace—the locket I always wore. I hadn’t even known it was missing. I shuddered. This was not a joke. It was very, very real.
The men stopped dead and looked up. Chanting halted. Their hoods made their faces shadowy and sinister. Or they just were sinister. They were neither alarmed to see Malcolm nor angry. Kent, sitting in the center, smiled. “Malcolm, we thought you might pay a visit. Please come in. Close the door.”
And they all smiled—warmly, welcomingly—from beneath their cloaks. Smiles had never held such horror. They were inviting Malcolm, including him. They wanted him there. I whispered for the others to wait outside, and before they could protest, I rushed in behind him.
The door closed behind us, disappearing into the wall of books.
“What is this? Who are you people?!” Malcolm demanded.
“Your family.” It wasn’t until then that I noticed the man speaking was Malcolm’s father. “You’re one of us.”
“I am not!”
“True. You haven’t been acting like family lately. I wasn’t sure what to do about that,” Kent remarked.
“You tried to kill me. You tried to drown me, that’s what. My scull, remember?”
Kent ignored him. “But I discussed the matter with these kind gentlemen, and we decided rather than get rid of you, we should promote you.”
“You demonstrated scruples, son—misdirected, but noteworthy,” Mr. Samuels added. “And a drive that proves you capable of taking charge.”
“We’ve voted you Victors President for next year,” Malcolm’s father said, so pleased and proud. “This way we can tell you everything. Finally.”
“You’re lucky, my son. You’re the next heir,” another offered. I recognized him; in fact, they were all strangely familiar from the Ball.
“Welcome, Malcolm,” they muttered from under their hoods.
“Please sit,” Kent insisted. But Malcolm stood.
There was a man even older than Mr. Samuels, overweight and shaky. He spoke with a quaking voice. “The Victors were founded one hundred and forty years ago, in Wickham Hall’s tenth year.”
Malcolm’s father took up the sales pitch. “The school had incredible potential, but the founders didn’t have the necessary discipline or focus.”
“They were a little lost amid the Romantics, Spiritualism … séances,” Samuels offered.
“They understood there was another realm—and one with great power—but didn’t know how to use it to benefit their school,” another chimed in.
“But their son, Elijah, understood this school could be the best institution in the country,” Malcolm’s father continued. “And that it should be. Elijah had a long-standing interest in Spiritualism fueled by his parents.”
“But he was also a Latin scholar,” Kent added.
My eyes flitted from Kent to Malcolm’s father to Samuels to the others. They were all uncannily the same—it was like looking at one man at different stages of his life.
“And in reading the writings of Julius Caesar, he became acquainted with some Celtic and Gaelic traditions,” Malcolm’s father said. “Such as the worship of darkness.”
Samuels spoke again. “Samhain was the Gaelic autumn festival that heralded in the ‘darker half’ of the year. Sacrifices were made to ensure a fruitful year. They made human offerings. Burning them. Elijah believed if an offering was made to Wickham Hall, Wickham Hall could reach its true appointed potential. So he established the Victors, and in 1885 Elijah’s protégé Balthazar Astor made the first offering: Clara Dodge, a sad commoner who’d managed to finagle her way into the school.”
“It was hardly a loss,” Kent said. “And Elijah was right. Wickham Hall and its students thrived. Thus, he created this book and established the ritual.” He gestured to the large leather-bound book. I noticed that its cover was embossed with the same strange imagery from the dream and the Wickham objects and the woodwork downstairs.
“And the Victors were designated to preside over this precious tradition. Every ten years, the president oversees the sacrifice, then seals that sacrifice in the annual bonfire.”
“What does ‘seal the sacrifice’ mean?” Malcolm finally asked.
“The soul is offered to Wickham Hall.”
“You’ve mentioned ghosts,” Kent said. “If you’re telling the truth, that’s proof. The souls were captured. And we benefitte
d. So, your little girlfriend proves what we do is real. It works.”
“Son, it has made Wickham Hall the most successful school in the country. What we do benefits so many.”
“We lead countries. We wage wars.”
“And we bring prosperity and work to so many.”
“We heal the world,” Samuels added with a smile.
“We are the proud men who have carried on the sacred tradition.”
Malcolm turned to his father. “You, too?”
His father was silent but held his gaze.
“You’re a murderer?!” Malcolm snarled at him.
“We don’t look at it that way,” Samuels interjected. “It is a privilege to serve our country, our school, and our classmates.”
“A privilege and a duty,” Mr. Astor added.
“All students are guaranteed success, but the Victors enjoy privilege beyond imagination. And the Victors President can have anything he wants in life.”
“Anything, son,” Malcolm’s father emphasized.
Kent continued. “This year was my year. I had picked someone else—another expendable—to sacrifice, but because of your interest in Olivia, I changed plans. She became the sacrifice.”
Malcolm’s demeanor withered as he absorbed the truth. “An expendable?” he finally asked.
“A lesser person,” Samuels offered.
“The dregs and drags on society.”
“The dead weight,” Kent explained.
“It’s our responsibility. Our mission.” Samuels was practically beaming with pride.
“And you will be president next year, son,” Mr. Astor finished.
“I will not.”
“You will do it. You will not have to kill, but you will be Victors President—the seventh Astor to hold such position,” his father said forcefully. “It ensures your success for life. God knows you need the help.”
Malcolm looked down. He shook with rage but swallowed it. He looked up, all of a sudden eerily placid. “Success at anything? Anything I desire?”
Liv, Forever Page 19
