A School for Unusual Girls

by Kathleen Baldwin

  Then there was the problem of getting past the dogs, or wolves. Whatever they were, they posed an obstacle. I groaned and sank deeper into the pillow, wishing it would swallow me up and spit me out at home in my own bed.

  I would never get to sleep. It didn’t help that one of the girls prowled through the dark like a sneaky fox. For all I knew, one of my fellow students might have a penchant for strangling people in their sleep. That might account for why there were so few girls in this supposed school.

  Tess scampered across the room, keeping to the shadows along wall. Like a ballerina doing an arabesque, she bent on one leg and peered under the thin gap beneath our closed door. She darted back and whispered, “She’s gone.”

  Sera rolled toward my side of the bed and spoke softly next to my ear, “Madame Cho stands guard every night until we are asleep.”

  Madame Cho had failed in her task.

  She flung back the covers and swung her feet over the side of the bed. “Come.”

  Come where? I didn’t move. Whatever they were up to, they could do it without me. I had plans to formulate.

  Jane popped out of the darkness and thrust her face next to mine. “Did you think to pack candles in that enormous trunk of yours?”

  Startled by her sudden appearance, I only shook my head. No. I hadn’t thought to smuggle a firearm into my luggage either, but it might’ve proved handy in dealing with this lot.

  “I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.” She grasped my hand and tugged me out of bed. “Come on then. We’ll have to make do without.”

  Normally, I would have demanded to know exactly what was going on and why, but given the odd inhabitants of this school and my precarious position among them, I decided it would be prudent to remain silent and cooperate. Tonight, I would emulate Captain Cook on his voyages to the aboriginal people of the South Pacific. For the sake of science, I would observe and analyze the natives in their natural habitat. Truth be told, I was curious.

  Jane tugged me along as we crept to the far side of the room. The others huddled near an ornate oak paneled wall. Tess pressed the top corner and a latch clicked. The panel scraped against the floor as she pulled it open. We tensed. Jane and Maya spun around and stared at the bedroom door, wary as deer fleeing a hunter.

  Maya exhaled and whispered, “She did not hear.”

  Tess disappeared through the opening and Sera followed. I balked, having seen quite enough of secret passages for one day. I didn’t relish the dust and mildew on my bare feet, or the spiders, or mice, or—

  “Come.” Maya took my hand and ended my standoff. “You will want to see this.”

  I don’t know why I let Maya persuade me. Baffling. Perhaps it was the musical quality of her voice, or her gentle nature. I only know I felt compelled to follow her. I ducked under the oak frame, into the wall, and a blanket of dense blackness engulfed us.

  Jane pushed me from behind. “Hurry.”

  I followed the others up the narrow stairway. Jane pulled the panel shut, and stale, musty, cupboard air closed around us. The tight quarters inside the wall magnified every sound; five of us breathing, ten feet padding on the crumbling stone stairs, and the whiskery tick-tick of mice chasing up the steps beside us.

  “Mice!” I warned the others.

  “Hush.” Jane patted my back. “Keep moving. Tess will deal with the rats.”

  “Rats?”

  Jane silenced me with a thump between my shoulder blades. I shivered, but not from the cold. I imagined dozens of gray, greedy-eyed vermin swarming around us, their hairless tails whipping from side to side, and their sharp teeth snapping at my heels. I tiptoed cautiously up the cold steps, hoping each splinter of rotting wood, every nubbin of broken plaster underfoot was not an angry rat’s tail.

  We climbed higher and higher, until at last, the air tasted less stagnant, and gray light filtered down from somewhere above us. “Ack!” I hopped aside as one of the rats, a fat dark fellow, scurried past me, racing up the stairs toward the opening.

  Jane shushed me again. So I kept mum and followed Maya out of the passage into a low-ceilinged attic.

  Large undraped dormer windows cut into both sides of the long garret, and moonlight bathed the room in wisps of silvery blue. Discarded paintings leaned against a monolithic old wardrobe. Crates and trunks, stacked in tall misshapen pillars, formed caverns and created weird shadows. In the center of this labyrinth, near one of the windows, sat several mismatched dilapidated chairs arranged in a semicircle. Jane lit a small tin oil lamp and placed it on the floor, but it barely illuminated the chairs.

  Sera hurried to the window seat and busied herself with a sailor’s spyglass. Unlatching the window, she focused it toward the east. I peered out, trying to determine our height and the distance to the edge of the property, wondering if Da Vinci’s kite might serve as a method of escape. But I couldn’t see a road in that direction. I wended through boxes and broken furniture to the window on the far side of the room, only to find it looked out over the sea crashing against the cliffs. No hope in that direction, not without a flying boat.

  A broken mirror leaned against the wall near my feet. I might not be able to build a flying boat, but I could do something about the gloom in the attic. Selecting two large pieces, I returned to the circle and used a vase and a small wooden stool to prop the mirrors at angles around the lamp. I adjusted them so that they amplified the feeble lamplight. Jane watched my efforts with interest, but any response she might have made was eclipsed by Sera’s exclamation.

  “I see him!” she cried softly. “He’s in the library.”

  “Let me.” Tess rushed to the window and took the telescope.

  “Who? What library?” I asked, forgetting my resolve to observe silently.

  Jane pointed. “Look past our grounds, beyond that stand of trees. There. Do you see the neighboring manor?”

  Our window jutted out from the peak of the house affording us an unimpeded view of the property to the north and east. The moon peeked through the mist and I saw where Stranje House’s tangled woods ended and opened out onto a smooth manicured park. Farther east stood the profile of a large manor. A window on the second story glowed with orange firelight.

  I nodded.

  “It belongs to Lord Ravencross,” she said, as if his name held some special significance. Then she whispered, “Very mysterious fellow. He returned from the war and reduced his staff to only two servants for that entire manor house.”

  Jane squinted at the neighbor’s mansion as if she was counting the number of rooms. “He must keep most of it closed up and in covers.” She shook her head. “He refuses all visitors, never pays calls to anyone in the neighborhood. Rarely does anyone go in or out.” With a wry smirk she added, “We play guessing games about him. What do you say, Georgiana? Is he so horribly disfigured he cannot abide company?”

  “You are the only one who plays those guessing games, Jane.” Sera tugged the spyglass away from Tess. “And I do wish you would stop. The poor man is in mourning. His only brother is dead. He deserves our sympathy not your mockery.”

  Maya stood beside Sera straining to see across the park. “You must think we are dreadful busybodies.” She turned to me with a probing gaze and awaited my answer.

  I hedged. “I suppose it’s only natural all of you would be curious about a neighbor.”

  Sera shook her head. “No. It is much more than mere curiosity. He needs us.”

  I didn’t see how that could be true, but I held my tongue.

  “You’re skeptical, but I assure you it’s true.” Sera sighed deeply and dove into an inscrutable explanation. “Tess had one of her dreams, a nightmare really, about a young man being brutally injured in a horrifying fight. She woke up screaming. We were all quite alarmed because she isn’t like me. I only see what is. Tess has dreams and she sees—”

  Tess pinched her.

  “Ow!” Sera rubbed her arm and glared at Tess. “The upshot of it is, three weeks later we witne
ssed Lord Ravencross returning from the war, and he was limping.”

  Jane shook her head. “Sera fancies he is a wounded hero. She, of course, is the heroine who must heal him from his tragic past.”

  In lilting accents Maya explained, “Seraphina has a poet’s heart.”

  Jane gave Sera’s shoulder a teasing shove. “Because she reads too many novels.”

  “Either way, it’s all rubbish.” Tess stretched like a cat and leaned out of the window, letting the cool breeze ruffle her hair. “He’s healed from his injuries well enough. I saw him this morning, riding his horse at a bruising pace.”

  Sera’s elfin-like features widened with surprise. “You kept this news to yourself?” Moonlight illuminated her pale blue eyes and made her hair glimmer like spun silver. She pulled Tess back inside the window.

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “How near to him did you get? How does he look?”

  We scarcely breathed waiting for Tess to tell us about the man in the golden window. She slumped against the window frame and fidgeted with the fabric of her nightdress. Clearly, she did not wish to tell about the encounter. Finally, she answered, “What do you wish to know? He looks very like his older brother did, except his hair is long and wild.” She shrugged. “One can assume his sole purpose for riding was to exercise the horse, because he wore neither coat nor hat. His shirt was damp with sweat, and he had worked his poor stallion into a lather. There I have told you all about the infamous Lord Ravencross.”

  “Were his features twisted in pain?” Sera asked.

  Tess glanced toward Lord Ravencross’s manor. “Not with pain.”

  She peered sideways at Tess. “Is he badly scarred?”

  “Not as much as we’d expected.” Tess shook her head. “There’s a jagged mark across one cheek.”

  Jane lost all patience. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  Tess stiffened. “I meant to spare you. You won’t like it. But if you must insist on knowing…” The edge on her voice softened. “Sera, you ought not waste your pity on him. He’s nothing like the hero you imagine him to be. Lord Ravencross is an angry heartless scoundrel.”

  Sera drew back. “Don’t say such things.”

  “What’s more, he’s rude.” Tess slid out of the windowsill and paced. Her straight brown hair fell across her cheek as she counted out more of his sins. “He’s callous and unfeeling.” She stopped and looked into each of our amazed faces. “It’s the truth.” Chin in the air she pushed past us and flopped into one of the chairs.

  “Unfeeling? Why would you say such things? After everything he’s been through?” Sera tilted her head and squinted at Tess. “Something happened between you, didn’t it?”

  Maya sat beside Tess. “Whatever occurred, it seems to be troubling you. You must tell us.”

  Tess crossed her arms and sank deeper into the chair. “He nearly trampled me to death, that’s what happened.”

  “You were running in the fields again, weren’t you?” Jane chided.

  “Don’t fuss at me. You know perfectly well, I have to run,” Tess snapped. “As long as I go early in the morning and no one sees me there’s no harm in it. There’s never anyone out at dawn.”

  “Apparently, there is,” Jane scoffed.

  “I always have that hour to myself. How could I have known we’d cross his paths and I’d startle his horse.”

  “Of course not,” Maya soothed.

  “What about the wolves?” I asked. “How did you keep from being attacked?”

  “Wolves?” Tess tilted her head quizzically. “Do you mean the dogs?”

  “They don’t look like dogs,” I said, remembering their yellow eyes.

  She shrugged. “I suppose they might be wolves, but—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Either way, they would never hurt Tess. No animal would.” Jane returned to the matter at hand. “What happened when you startled his horse?”

  “It reared, and I stumbled backward into the mud.” Tess smacked the torn armchair. Wadding and dust puffed out. “It was so stupid. I never fall. And I wouldn’t have today if he’d controlled his mount.”

  Having fallen once or twice that very evening, I pointed out, “All of us fall from time to time.”

  “I don’t.” Tess pressed her lips tight and stared intently into the dark side of the room. “He swore at me.” When she turned back to us, her cat-shaped eyes had hardened against the sympathy we offered. “His horse reared again. They always do, don’t they, when someone shouts.”

  “Especially where you’re involved,” Jane said softly.

  I didn’t comprehend her meaning, but the others seemed to. They gathered closer to Tess, except for Sera, who hung back staring out the window as if she longed to hear Lord Ravencross’s version of the events.

  “He called me a bothersome little demon.” Tess sank deeper into the chair. “Or something equally hateful. Exactly as my uncle would’ve done.”

  “It was said in the heat of the moment. He could not have meant it,” Maya said in a low, calming voice.

  “What happened next?” Jane demanded, like a governess expecting a child to spill all the facts of the matter onto the table.

  Tess’s jaw tensed. “He pointed his crop at me and told me to stay clear of his property or he would bloody well take a horsewhip to my backside. Then he galloped off and left me flat on my bottom in the mud.”

  “Oh, dear.” Maya shook her head mournfully. “That was badly done.”

  “Appalling.” Jane rendered her verdict. “You’re right. He’s rude. That explains why he carries on like a hermit.”

  “It certainly wasn’t gentlemanly behavior,” I said.

  “He must be terribly sad.” Sera peered through the spyglass again. “Look there. See how he limps as he paces in front of the fire. He wouldn’t have treated you so poorly if he were not wracked with pain.”

  “Pain does not excuse him from common decency.” I might’ve said more, if I hadn’t noticed something stirring in the shadows near Tess’s feet. “Don’t move,” I warned. Two tiny rubies glowed in the darkness. I knew immediately what creature lurked beneath her chair. “Rat!”

  I did not shriek. At least, I prefer to think I didn’t shriek. I snatched an old shoe out of a nearby box, lunged, and slapped wildly at the fiend. One knock on the head with the chunky Georgian heel and that horrid rat would cease to exist.

  “Stop.” Tess grabbed my arm and snatched the shoe out of my hand. “They’re only hungry.”

  “Yes, for your toes.”

  Jane laughed.

  Then, I registered the plural pronoun in Tess’s plea. “They?”

  To my horror, she pulled two scraps of bread from her pocket, stooped near the bottom of her chair, making ridiculous kissing noises, just as one might use to call a kitten. A pair of rats skulked out, scowling in my direction.

  Tess held out the bread to them. “Don’t be afraid. It’s all right. The big, bad, new girl didn’t know you’re our friends.”

  Jane said, “Don’t lump me into that category. They’re your friends, not mine.” She tossed a cynical smirk in my direction. “Miss Fitzwilliam, allow me to do the honors.” She waved me closer. “May I present Messieurs Punch and Judy.”

  I cringed. Two plump rats, one dark gray and the other a white albino, greedily tore into the morsels of bread Tess doled out.

  Jane shook her head at my distress. “Poor Georgiana, sent away to a school inhabited by thieves, liars, and rats.”

  The gray rat gobbled his crust down and then tried to snatch his cohort’s bread. Tess tapped him lightly on the back and scolded, “Don’t be so greedy.” But she indulged him with another crust.

  Jane leaned close to my ear as if confiding a secret. “The gray one ought to have been named Jack rather than Judy. Tess says they’re both males. I suggested we keep the name, but think of it as a nickname for Judas. As you can see, he’s a rather disloyal thief.”

  Sera nodded sympathetically
at me. “You’ll get used to them. But guard your ribbons well. They’re his favorite.”

  Her olive branch of kindness intensified my curiosity. Why was Sera here? Why had any of them been sent to this awful school? I couldn’t figure it out. Unlike me, all of these girls were beautiful. Which meant they were marriageable. There was always a gentleman willing to marry a pretty girl, as long as she was moderately well behaved and had an enticing dowry. I doubted they would be here if their families didn’t have money.

  My question was impertinent, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. I turned to Jane and asked, “Why are you here?” When she didn’t answer immediately I tried to clarify. “What I mean to say is, why are you at Stranje House? You don’t seem in need of … er … reforming.” I couldn’t think of a way to ask that wouldn’t insult her.

  An emotion splashed across Jane’s face, but vanished so swiftly I couldn’t identify it. Was it anger? Sadness perhaps? Or pain? She withdrew and turned stiff and formal. “Are you asking why I’m here, instead of in London lined up against the wall at Almack’s, hunting a husband along with all the other sheep-faced little debutantes?”

  She said it with such ferocity that I could only nod.

  “It’s simple really. I made too much money.”

  Even more confused, I shook my head. “You must’ve misunderstood my question—”

  “No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand.” She spoke loud enough to draw the other girls’ attention. “I’m here for the same reason all of us are here. The same reason that brought you here.”

  “I doubt you burned down your father’s stables,” I blurted, and immediately wished I could retract the words.

  “Burned it down?” Jane drew back and exchanged glances with Tess. “Well, I admit, that is a trifle unique.” The corner of her mouth quirked up. I expected her to laugh at me, or mock me. She didn’t. Instead, her wry smirk developed an edge of respect. For the first time Jane seemed genuinely interested in me. Her eyebrow hooked up sharply. “Surely, you realize that the fire isn’t the only reason your parents sent you away.”