Instrument of Peace (Symphony of the Cursed Book 1)

by Rebecca Hall

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You know, you could at least act as if you want to know who your parents are or as if you want to be here.” His voice was rising and the rest of the class had given up any pretence of not eavesdropping.

  “Why would I want to do that? I know the kind of things you say about me behind my back.”

  Finally a response, Mitch smiled. “Well maybe if you tried being human they’d stop saying those things about you.”

  “And maybe pigs will fly.”

  “If it’s flying pigs you want I’ll arrange a whole parade for you and you can ooh and aah like a proper human being.”

  “That’s abhorrent,” she cried, her eyes paling. Staring into those almost white eyes was unsettling but Mitch wasn’t about to stop now. He’d never seen anyone get this much of a response from her before and it felt good to be yelling at someone.

  “So are you.”

  “You have no idea what I am.”

  The library doors creaked open and Dr Henly and Mr Greeves came in, causing the rest of the class to become intensely interested in the carpet.

  “What is going on here?” Dr Henly asked. No one answered. “Mr Leiser?” he asked, picking out the only person in the room likely to give an unbiased account.

  “It seems as if Mitchell has forgotten one of the school rules,” Nikola answered with a small smile.

  “And which rule would that be?”

  “The one about the Academy not admitting non-human students.”

  Mitch stared at him, he hadn’t even known the Academy had such a rule.

  “They were having a philosophical disagreement sir,” Bates interjected before anyone could give into the temptation to shake Nikola until his teeth rattled.

  “What was the nature of this disagreement Mr Augney?” Dr Henly said, turning away from Nikola. Mitch kept glaring at him, he looked as if he were he about to start laughing and Mitch had no idea what the joke was.

  Bates shot him an apologetic look, “Mitch thinks that the way she acts is inhuman.”

  He actually thought she acted like a cold-hearted bitch but saying so wouldn’t do him any favours.

  “I believe Miss Lake saved your brother’s life at the start of the term,” Dr Henly said.

  She had certainly saved Miss Band’s life, but Cullum could have escaped with Belle.

  “Yes sir.”

  “I do not believe that that is an action that would be undertaken by someone who is inhuman, do you Mr Mitchell?” Nikola was definitely smothering laughter now.

  “No sir,” Mitch bowed his head.

  “I understand that you have been under a great deal of stress recently Mr Mitchell but I think you should think long and hard about what it means to be human.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I believe you all have work to do.” Some of the class had crept away as they spoke and now everyone broke apart and went upstairs save for Angel Girl who went straight to one of the computers.

  “You can be such a dick sometimes Mitchell,” Bates said, dragging him away from Dr Henly and Angel Girl.

  “Ow, what are you trying to do? Rip my arm out of its socket?” Mitch asked, hurrying after him.

  “She saved Cullum’s life,” Bates said, releasing his arm, “and the last time I checked the only abhorrent thing she ever did to you was get a better result in a maths test.”

  “I wish people would stop reminding me of that,” Mitch muttered, rubbing his shoulder. Bates was a lot bigger than he was and when Bates tried to drag you somewhere, you knew it.

  “Then I suggest you try remembering it on your own,” Bates said, leaving him behind on the stairs.

  By the time he got to the top, Bates was already sitting at a crowded table. Mitch sighed and looked around for an empty spot but the third floor didn’t have a lot of desk space.

  “May I?” he asked Nikola. His only other option was to work downstairs.

  Nikola shrugged and moved some of his books around so that his work wasn’t sprawled across the entire table.

  “Thanks.” Mitch sat down and pulled out his notes. “Does the Academy really have a rule against non-humans?” Mitch had thought the only rule he was breaking was the one about not shouting in the library and he was reasonably sure that one wasn’t written down anywhere.

  Nikola nodded, “Three generations of human ancestry.”

  “That seems a little extreme,” Mitch said, if it wasn’t for this project he wouldn’t know anything about his great grandparents.

  “Sometimes I wonder how many people have been expelled because of this little project,” Nikola replied, “none of the other schools care what your parents are.”

  Mitch snorted, “Why would they? Mine are a researcher and a desperate housewife.” Without the house; Mum didn’t like gardening, even the pot plants were fake. He frowned at the family tree he had spread out in front of him. There was something wrong with it but Mitch couldn’t work out what.

  He glanced over at where Bates was working with the rest of the class and drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Do you...” Nikola whistled softly, “who did your family piss off?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Nikola leaned across the table and used a set of highlighters to mark off dates on the main tree.

  “Oh,” Mitch said staring at the dates. He wasn’t the only child of the Mitchell family to have lost his grandfather on the day he was born; the pattern repeated itself back through the generations. He checked the rest of the tree but the off-shoot and illegitimate lines were unaffected.

  “What happened to just cursing the first born son?” Mitch asked.

  “It’s boring,” Nikola said.

  Mitch glared at him, “You wouldn’t find it so entertaining if your family was cursed.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” Nikola said, going to retrieve another book. Mitch flipped through the book he was working from, it went back further than he needed for the report but he didn’t care. The pattern continued to repeat itself, the paternal grandfather dying when his first legitimate son had a legitimate son. At least it explained all of the illegitimate children he had found, thankfully none of them belonged to his parents; illegitimate children didn’t appear to trigger the curse. He guessed he knew what he was going to be writing his report on.

  He glanced over at the table where Bates was working only to find him standing right in front of him.

  “Nikola said you wanted to talk to me,” Bates said.

  “What do you think of this?” Mitch asked, gesturing at the family tree.

  Bates barely glanced at it, “That someone needs to explain contraception to your family,” he said turning away.

  “Just look at it,” Mitch said grabbing his arm. “I’ll apologise to Angel Girl later, alright, I know I was a dick to her.” Bates sighed but followed his pointing finger.

  “That’s a little creepy,” Bates said, “does it go back any further?”

  “Thirteen generations so far,” Mitch said. Some had died in magical duels or suffered heart attacks, some suffered a fatal fall or choked to death. Mitch wondered how much leeway there was. Did they die the instant their grandson was born or did they get to see the little brat causing their death?

  “You’re not planning on getting married and having kids any time soon are you?” Bates asked, pulling up a chair. Mitch would have to remember to thank Nikola later.

  “Hell no,” Mitch shook his head violently, he didn’t even have a girlfriend and there was no way he was getting married or having kids in high school. After seeing this he didn’t plan on getting married at all. It wasn’t as if anyone actually cared about the whole legitimacy thing any more.

  “That’s going to make for one Hell of a report,” Bates said, still studying the family tree. Mitch started rifling through his notes until he could write the cause of death under each name. There didn’t appear to be any pattern there, people just died in whatever fash
ion was convenient at the time.

  “You ever heard of anything like this?” Mitch asked.

  “Skeleton’s in your family closet mate not mine,” Bates replied with a shrug. “I can’t even imagine the amount of power that would be needed to pull off something like this, or why. Seriously, what’s the point of killing the grandfather?”

  “Originality,” Mitch suggested. On the other side of the table Nikola snorted, Mitch hadn’t even noticed him come back. He was just as baffled as Bates. What was the point of killing a decrepit old man? It wasn’t as if he would be missing out on anything. Mitch had never come across a more convincing argument for contraception before.

  “Ha ha,” Bates replied, “if that’s all, I have my own report to work on. I still haven’t found my angle, some of us have normal families you know.”

  “Sure,” Mitch replied, watching him go and trying to convince himself that Nikola was coughing instead of smothering laughter. “You can’t possibly find this amusing,” he said when that failed.

  “Normal families can’t do magic Mitchell, it’s what makes them normal.”

  “It is not, my family is... err bad example. I’m sure your family is normal though.” Nikola was definitely laughing now.

  “So what are you going to do now?” Nikola finally gasped, “track it back to the origin or start looking up curses.”

  Mitch stared at the family tree for another second and then decided that he had had enough of the bloody thing and more than enough of Nikola’s laughter. He grabbed his notes and headed downstairs to the cursed section of the library. As far as he knew none of the books in that section were actually cursed, they were just deeply unpleasant. None of them were allowed to leave the library and Mr Greeves’ desk was carefully positioned so that he could watch the students who went in there. It made Mitch’s skin crawl; supposedly that was a good thing.

  Angel Girl was still on the computers, looking at pictures of a country church of all things. There was no sign of Mr Greeves or Dr Henly. Mitch scowled, she would probably be hard at work when they came back. Mitch wasn’t even sure why she bothered coming to class, it wasn’t as if she was actually trying to find her family. If he could use his blood ties to find his brother buried under a pile of rubble then she could use hers to find her parents.

  Mitch shivered as he stepped between the shelves of the cursed section, goosebumps rising along his arms. He would have sworn that it was a couple of degrees cooler in here. Given the summer heat that should have been nice, instead it was deeply unpleasant. He started scanning the titles. The cursed section wasn’t kept in any particular order; they didn’t want people becoming too familiar with the texts in here. There were rumours of an underground vault that contained texts to which they weren’t allowed access, but Mitch wasn’t sure he believed that. The basement storage under the classrooms was strange enough, no one in New Zealand built down.

  Most of the titles he scanned weren’t in English. The friendly books got translated but these were left in their original languages on pages that were enchanted to prevent decay. He ran his fingers along the rows of books. Some of them felt slimy while others felt as if they would try to bite him if given half a chance. One book looked as if it was written in dried blood and its letters crumbled under his touch only to reform when he glanced away. The title of the next book refused to stay still, writhing unpleasantly under his gaze until he was forced to look away or be sick. His head was beginning to pound and he still wasn’t any closer to finding something that would help him.

  He snatched his hand away from a book that radiated a burning chill and backed out of the cursed section. He’d wait for Mr Greeves to come back from whatever errand he was on, surely the librarian would be able to direct him to the right book. Perhaps he would get lucky and it wouldn’t even be in the cursed section.

  Mitch did get lucky. Dr Henly had come downstairs to check on Hayley and found her looking up religious icons. Mitch strained but he was simply too far away to hear what they were saying and there was no way he could get any closer without them noticing him.

  He hesitated, eavesdropping on a teacher was a sure way to get in trouble but only if he got caught. He took one last look at them and started with the spell. They weren’t supposed to use incantations but no one had ever said anything about not using them in the privacy of his own head. Even in his mind he used Welsh; he would have sounded like a dork saying ‘I have superhuman hearing’ in English – never mind that no-one else could hear him, telepathy was exceedingly rare.

  “...sure Theology is a fascinating area of study Miss Lake but it has very little to do with genealogy,” Dr Henly said. Mitch smiled, everyone was so convinced that Angel Girl walked on water, something that had proved to be surprisingly difficult, but Mitch knew the truth and now Dr Henly did too.

  “My parents did leave one thing when they... when they abandoned me, I thought it might give me a clue,” Angel Girl replied so softly that Mitch had to intensify his eavesdropping.

  “And this item was a religious keepsake of some sort?”

  “You could say that sir.”

  Mitch peered around the shelf he was hiding behind and saw Dr Henly standing over Angel Girl who stared up from her swivel chair, her hands clutched together in her lap.

  “You may be in luck Miss Lake. I believe Theology is a field of some interest to our Librarian. Harvey,” he raised his voice slightly and Mitch winced as Mr Greeves walked into view.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” Mr Greeves asked in his inside voice. Mitch wasn’t sure he had any other voice, he’d never heard Mr Greeves yell.

  “Miss Lake just informed me that her parents left her a religious keepsake of some sort, perhaps you will be able to assist her in identifying it and locating its past owner.”

  “I can certainly try. Do you have it with you Miss Lake?”

  “Yes sir,” she sighed and reached into her sleeve, pulling out the mutant peacock feather. Mitch thought Mr Greeves’ gasp would have been audible without magic. Mitch wished he could see his expression but from where he was hidden he had a fine view of Mr Greeves’ back.

  “Do you know what this is Harvey?” Dr Henly asked when Mr Greeves gave no further response. Mitch imagined him gaping like a fish.

  “I... Yes... I ne– never imagined I would see something like this. I’ve only ever heard of two before and...”

  What was so exciting about a mutant peacock feather Mitch wondered as Mr Greeves continued to blabble in incoherent half sentences.

  “Harvey... Harvey!” Dr Henly yelled, almost shattering Mitch’s concentration. “What the Hell is that thing?” he asked as Angel Girl wound it around her arm once more and hid it beneath her sleeve.

  “Not Hell,” Mr Greeves said, “Heaven, that’s an Archangel feather.”

  #

  Gwen and Richard were sitting with Bates and Mindy at dinner. Mitch considered finding somewhere else to sit before realising that that would be stupid. They were all his friends, even Mindy. God, he wasn’t even sure why they weren’t talking to each other. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to sit, most of the tables were full and those that weren’t... Well there was no way he was going to sit with Angel Girl and Sven and Sam were definitely out of the question. They were even more sickeningly sweet than Bates and Mindy.

  Right then, he could do this. But not before he grabbed a cup of hot chocolate. Today’s magic lesson had been ignoring heat fluctuations and he was frozen to the core. The school freezer was warmer than that classroom had been near the end of class. He almost dropped the cup as the warmth radiated through the glass, and resigned himself to holding it by the handle instead of cupping it in his hands until he had feeling in his fingers again.

  Eating was going to be fun. Mindy would probably laugh every time he dropped his fork. The kitchen staff had already taken pity on him and piled his plate high with steaming vegetables and chicken. His attempt to use the tongs had ended with more food on the flo
or than on his plate, he didn’t like broccoli that much anyway. He set his tray down and slid into the empty chair between Gwen and Bates.

  “You apologise to Angel Girl yet?” Bates asked.

  “Forget about that,” Gwen said before Mitch had to confess that he hadn’t or pretend that his mouth was too full to talk. “Is your family really cursed?”

  “Well they’re stuck with him aren’t they?” Richard said, “sounds cursed to me.” Mitch glared at him, which he ignored, but he couldn’t ignore Gwen stepping on his foot in heeled boots.

  “Looks like it,” Mitch said around a mouthful of cauliflower with cheese sauce. “I haven’t found anything useful yet.” By the time Mr Greeves had stopped helping Angel Girl there had only been five minutes of class left. The librarian had given him a list of titles to check out next time and sent him on his way.

  “At least one of us has something interesting to write about,” Gwen said.

  “But you’re a FitzGerald,” Mindy said, “your family is famous.”

  “In the sixteenth century, the last ten generations have been frightfully dull and respectable.”

  “What about Nikola?” Richard asked.

  “What?” Mitch almost choked on a carrot, caught off guard by the abrupt change of subject. Nikola wasn’t related to Gwen was he?

  Richard rolled his eyes while Bates clapped him on the back.

  “You were sitting with him weren’t you, what’s his family tree look like?”

  “Who cares?” Mindy asked.

  “I do, he broke my nose remember?” Richard asked, rubbing it. He still claimed it ached sometimes though the doctor had given him a potion that had healed it within an hour.

  “So?”

  “So, I’d made some crack about his family, he must have some skeletons in the closet.”

  “I didn’t see any,” said Mitch who had been too busy worrying about the state of his own family tree to try and read Nikola’s while it was upside down and on the other side of the table. Nikola probably would have objected in any case and he liked his nose the way it was.

  “Where is the little bugger anyway?” Richard asked, “I don’t think I’ve seen him at dinner all term.”