As she did, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see another spirit standing at the foot of the stairs. She was a girl about my age, wearing a bright green cardigan over a short flowered dress. Unlike Isabelle, who hadn’t seemed to notice me, this girl was staring straight at me. I opened my mouth to ask Mrs. Casnoff who she was, but the headmistress had already turned her attention to someone across the foyer.
“Miss Talbot!” she called. I was amazed at the way her voice crossed the huge room without sounding even remotely like yelling.
A tiny girl, barely five feet tall, appeared at Mrs. Casnoff’s elbow. Her skin was nearly snow white, as was her hair, with the exception of a hot-pink stripe running through her bangs. She had on thick, black-rimmed glasses, and even though she was smiling, I could tell it was just for Mrs. Casnoff’s benefit. Her eyes looked totally bored.
“This is Jennifer Talbot. I believe you’ll be rooming with her this semester, Miss Mercer. Jennifer, this is Sohfee-yuh.”
“Sophie is fine,” I corrected, just as Jennifer said, “Jenna.”
Mrs. Casnoff’s smile tightened, like there were screws on either side of her mouth. “Gracious. I don’t know what it is with children these days, Ms. Mercer. Given perfectly lovely names, and determined to mangle and change them at the first opportunity. In any case, Miss Mercer, Miss Talbot is, like you, a relative newcomer. She only joined us last year.”
Mom beamed and shook Jenna’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Are you, um, are you a witch like Sophie?”
“Mom,” I whispered, but Jenna shook her head and said, “No, ma’am. Vamp.”
I could feel Mom stiffen beside me, and I knew Jenna did too. Even though I was embarrassed for her, I shared Mom’s freak-out. Witches, shapeshifters, and fae were one thing. Vampires were monsters, plain and simple. That whole sensitive Children of the Night thing was total b.s.
“Oh, okay,” Mom said, struggling to recover. “I . . . uh, I didn’t know vampires attended Hecate.”
“It’s a new program we have here,” Mrs. Casnoff said, reaching out to run a hand over Jenna’s hair. Jenna had a polite, if kind of blank look on her face, but I saw her tense up slightly. “Every year,” Mrs. Casnoff continued, “Hecate takes a young vampire and offers him or her a chance to study alongside Prodigium in the hopes that we can eventually reform these unfortunates.”
I glanced over at Jenna, because . . . unfortunates? Ouch.
“Sadly, Miss Talbot is the only vampire student we currently have, although one of our instructors is a vampire as well,” Mrs. Casnoff said. Jenna just smiled that weird nonsmile again, and we all stood around in awkward silence until Mom said, “Sweetie, why don’t you let . . .” She looked up helplessly at my new roommate.
“Jenna.”
“Right, right. Why don’t you let Jenna show you your room? I’ve got a few things I want to go over with Mrs. Casnoff, then I’ll be up to say bye, okay?”
I looked toward Jenna, who was still smiling, but her eyes seemed to be already looking past us.
I shifted my tote again and went to grab my trunk from Mom, but Jenna beat me to it.
“You really don’t have to help—” I started, but she waved her free hand.
“No problem. The one bonus to being a bloodsucking freak is upper-body strength.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just lamely replied, “Oh.” She carried one side, and I grabbed the other.
“No chance of an elevator, I guess?” I was only half joking.
Jenna snorted. “Nah, that would be too convenient.”
“Why don’t they just have, like, a luggage-moving spell or something?”
“Mrs. Casnoff’s a real stickler for not using magic as an excuse to be lazy. Apparently, carrying heavy suitcases up stairs is character-building.”
“Right,” I said as we struggled past the second-story landing.
“So what do you think of her?” Jenna asked.
“Mrs. Casnoff?”
“Yeah.”
“Her bun is very impressive.” Jenna’s smirk confirmed that I had said the right thing.
“I know, right? I swear to God, that hairdo is like, epic.”
There was only a trace of Southern lilt in her voice. It was pretty.
“Speaking of hairdos,” I ventured, “how do you get away with that stripe?”
Jenna smoothed the pink streak with her free hand. “Oh, they don’t really care about the poor vamp scholarship student that much. I guess as long as I’m not munching on my peers, I’m free to have any hair color I want.”
When we reached the third-floor landing, she studied me. “I could do yours if you want. Not pink, though. That’s my thing. Maybe purple?”
“Um . . . maybe.”
We had stopped in front of room 312. Jenna set down her end of the trunk and pulled out her keys. Her key chain was bright yellow and had her name spelled out in sparkly pink letters.
“Here we are!”
She unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Welcome to The Twilight Zone!”
CHAPTER 3
The “Holy-crap-that’s-a-lot-of-pink” Zone would have been a more accurate description.
I don’t know what I was expecting a vampire’s room to look like. Maybe lots of black, a bunch of books by Camus . . . oh, and a sensitive portrait of the only human the vamp had ever loved, who had no doubt died of something beautiful and tragic, thus dooming the vamp to an eternity of moping and sighing romantically.
What can I say? I read a lot of books.
But this room looked like it had been decorated by the unholy lovechild of Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake. It was bigger than I expected, but still small. There was enough room for two twin beds, two desks, two dressers, and one battered futon. The curtains were beige canvas, but Jenna had twined a hot-pink scarf over the drapery rod. Between the two desks was one of those old Chinese screens, but even this bore Jenna’s stamp, as the wood had been painted—you guessed it: pink. The top of the screen was draped with pink Christmas lights. Jenna’s bed was covered in what appeared to be deep pink Muppet fur.
Jenna caught me staring at it. “Awesome, right?”
“I . . . I didn’t know pink existed in that particular shade.”
Kicking off her loafers, Jenna threw herself down on her bed, upsetting two sequined pillows and a ratty stuffed lion. “It’s called ‘Electric Raspberry.’”
“That’s the perfect name for it.” I smiled as I pulled my trunk over to my bed, which looked as plain as . . . well, as plain as me next to Jenna.
“So, did your old roommate like pink too?”
Jenna’s face froze for a split second. Then the strange look was gone, and she was leaning off the bed to scoop up her pillows and lion. “Nah, Holly just stuck with the blue stuff they give you if you don’t bring your own. You brought your own, right?”
I opened my trunk and pulled out the corner of my mint green bedspread. Jenna looked a little disappointed, but sighed, “Well, it’s better than regulation blue. So”—she flopped back onto the bed and began fishing around in her bedside table—“what brings you to Hex Hall, Sophie Mercer?”
“Hex Hall?” I repeated.
“Hecate is kind of a mouthful,” Jenna explained. “Most people just say Hex. Besides, it feels kind of appropriate.”
“Oh.”
“So what was it?” she asked again. “Did you make it rain frogs, or turn some guy into a newt?”
I leaned back on my bed, trying to imitate Jenna’s air of nonchalance, but it turns out that’s really hard to do on a bare mattress, so I sat up and started pulling things out of my trunk. “I did a love spell for this girl in my class. It went badly.”
“Didn’t work?”
“Worked too well.” I gave her the short version of the Kevin/Felicia episode.
“Day-um,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s hard core.”
“Apparently,” I said. “So you’re . . . uh, you’re a v
ampire. How exactly did that happen?”
Her eyes didn’t meet mine, but her tone was casual. “Same way it happens to everyone else: met a vamp, got bitten. Not really that interesting.”
I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to share the whole story with someone she’d only known for fifteen minutes.
“So your mom is normal, huh?” she asked.
Hmm. Not exactly something I wanted to get into on the first day, but hey, this was what Fitting In was all about, right? Sharing makeup, clothes, and dark secrets with your roommate.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, my dad is a warlock, but they’re not together or anything anymore.”
“Oh,” Jenna said knowingly. “Say no more. A lot of the kids here come from divorced families. Even magic doesn’t ensure a happy marriage, apparently.”
“Are your parents divorced?”
She finally found the nail polish she’d been searching for. “No, they’re still disgustingly happy. Or, I mean . . . I guess they are. I haven’t seen them since I, uh, changed, or whatever.”
“Oh wow,” I replied. “That sucks.”
“No pun intended?” she asked.
“Right.” I finished putting the sheets on my bed. “So if you’re a vamp, do I have to be really careful about not opening the drapes in the morning?”
“Nope. See this?” She tugged on a silver chain around her neck and held up a small pendant. It was about the size and shape of a jelly bean, and dark red. Anyone else might mistake it for a ruby, but I’d seen pictures of something like it in one of Mom’s books.
“A bloodstone?” Bloodstones were clear, hollow stones that could be filled with the blood of a powerful witch or warlock. The stone acted as a protection against lots of different things. I guess in Jenna’s case it negated all her vampire issues, which was a relief. At least now I knew I could eat garlic in front of her.
Jenna started painting her left hand. “So what about blood?” I asked.
She let out a huge sigh. “It’s completely embarrassing. I have to go to the infirmary. They have a minifridge in there with a bunch of bags of blood, like it’s the Red Cross or something.”
I suppressed a shudder at the image. Blood is so very gross to me. If I give myself a paper cut, I nearly hyperventilate. I was really glad to hear Jenna wouldn’t be snacking in our room. I could never date a vampire. Just the thought of blood breath . . . ugh.
Then I noticed that Jenna was staring at me. Crap. Had my disgust been written all over my face? Just in case, I faked a smile and said, “Awesome. Like a bloody Capri Sun.”
Jenna laughed. “Nice one.”
We sat in companionable silence for a moment before Jenna asked, “So your parents’ breakup was ugly?”
“Apparently,” I answered. “It happened before I was born.”
She looked up from her nails. “Whoa.”
I walked to my desk. Someone, Mrs. Casnoff, I guess, had left my class schedule there. It looked like a normal enough schedule, but said things like “M-F, 9:15-10:00, Magical Evolution, Yellow Sitting Room.”
“Yeah. Mom doesn’t talk about it much, but whatever happened, it was bad enough that she won’t let him meet me.”
“So you’ve never seen your own dad?”
“I have a picture. And I’ve talked to him on the phone, and e-mail.”
“Damn. I wonder what he did. Did he, like, hit her or something?”
“I don’t know!” It came out more sharply than I had intended.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
I turned to my bed and began smoothing my comforter. After I’d fixed about five imaginary wrinkles (and Jenna had painted one nail three times), I turned back and said, “I didn’t mean to snap—”
“No, it’s cool. That was none of my business anyway.”
That cozy feeling of companionship was completely gone now.
“It’s just . . . for like, my whole life, I’ve lived with only my mom, and I’m just not used to this whole telling-your-life-story thing yet. I guess we’ve always been pretty private.”
Jenna nodded, but she still wasn’t looking at me.
“I guess you and your old roommate told each other everything, huh?”
That dark look came over her face again. She abruptly capped her bottle of nail polish. “No,” she said softly. “Not everything.”
She tossed the bottle into her drawer and hopped off her bed. “See you at dinner.”
As she left, she nearly smacked into Mom, mumbling an apology as she ran off.
“Soph,” Mom said, dropping down onto my bed. “Don’t tell me you already had a fight with your roommate.”
She was annoyingly good at reading my moods. “I dunno. I think I’m just really bad at this girl stuff, you know? I mean, the last friend I had was in sixth grade. It’s not like you can find a best friend when the longest you ever stay anywhere is six months, so I gue—Oh, Mom, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
She shook her head and wiped away the stray tears. “No, no, sweetie, it’s fine. I just . . . I just wish I could have given you a more normal childhood.”
I sat down and wrapped my arm around her. “Don’t say that. I’ve had an awesome childhood. I mean, how many people get to live in nineteen states? Think of all I’ve seen!”
It was the wrong thing to say. If anything, Mom just looked sadder.
“And this place is awesome! I mean, I have this cool, extremely pink room, and Jenna and I seem to have bonded enough to fight, which is a pretty important part of the girl-friendship thing, right?”
Mission accomplished. Mom was smiling. “Are you sure, sweetie? If you don’t like it, you don’t have to stay. I’m sure there’s something we could do to get you out of here.”
For a second I thought about saying, “Yes, please, let’s catch the next ferry out of this freak show.”
Instead, what I said was: “Look, it’s not forever, right? Just two years, and I’ll have Christmas and summers off. Just like regular school. I’ll be fine. Now go before you make me cry and I look like a huge dork.”
Mom’s eyes teared up again, but she pulled me into a tight hug. “I love you, Soph.”
“Love you too,” I said, my throat tight.
Then, after making me swear to call at least three times a week, Mom was gone.
And I lay down on my not-pink bed and cried like a huge dork.
CHAPTER 4
Once I’d gotten that out of my system, I still had an hour until dinner. I decided to do some exploring. I’d opened the two small doors in our room, vainly hoping for private bathrooms, but no. Just closets.
The only bathroom on the whole floor was at the opposite end of the hall, and it, like the rest of the house, was spooky. The only light in it came from a few low-wattage bulbs surrounding a big mirror over the bank of sinks. That meant that the shower stalls in the back of the room were shrouded in darkness. Giving the showers a closer look, it occurred to me that I’d never had a true reason to use the word “dank” before now.
I knew I should have packed flip-flops.
In addition to the mildew-rific showers, there were also a bunch of claw-foot tubs against one wall, separated by waist-high partitions. I wondered who would ever want to take a bath in front of a bunch of other people?
Risking all manner of communicable diseases, I went to one of the sinks and splashed water on my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw that the water hadn’t really helped. My face was still bright red from crying, which had the charming effect of making my freckles stand out even more.
I shook my head, as if that would suddenly improve what I was seeing. It didn’t. So with a sigh I set out to investigate the rest of Hecate Hall.
There wasn’t much happening on my floor; just the usual chaos that occurs when you throw roughly fifty girls together. There were four hallways on the third floor, two to the left of the staircase, two to the right. The landing was huge, so it had been converted into a lounge. There were two
couches and several chairs, but none of the furniture matched, and it all looked a little worse for wear. Since all the seats were taken, I hovered near the staircase.
The faerie I’d seen earlier, the one with the blue tears, had apparently recovered. She was draped over a chartreuse fainting couch, laughing with another faerie. This one had light green wings that beat softly against the back of the sofa. I’d always though faeries’ wings would be like butterflies’, but they were thinner and more translucent. You could see veins running through them.
They were the only faeries in the room. The other couch was taken up by a group of girls who looked about twelve. They were whispering nervously to each other, and I wondered if they were witches or shifters.
The dark-haired girl I’d seen on the lawn sat in an ivory wingback chair, idly flipping channels on the tiny television sitting on top of a small bookcase.
“Could you please turn that down?” the green-winged faerie said, turning to glare at the girl in the chair. “Some of us are trying to have conversations, Dog Girl.”
None of the twelve-year-olds reacted to that, so I figured they were all witches. Surely a shifter would’ve looked more offended.
The blue faerie laughed as the dark-haired girl stood and turned off the TV. “My name is Taylor,” she said, tossing the remote at the green faerie. “Taylor. And I turn into a mountain lion, not a dog. If we’re going to live together for the next few years, you might want to remember that, Nausicaa.”
Nausicaa rolled her eyes, her green wings beating softly. “Oh, we will not be living together for long, I assure you. My uncle is king of the Seelie Court, and as soon as I tell him I am sharing a room with a shifter . . . well, let’s just say I expect my living arrangements to change.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t look like your uncle could keep you out of this place,” Taylor fired back. Nausicaa’s face was still blank, but her wings beat faster.
“I will not live with a shifter,” she said to Taylor. “I certainly don’t want to deal with your litter box.”
The blue faerie laughed again, and Taylor turned bright red. Even from several feet away I saw her brown eyes turn gold. She was breathing hard as she said, “Shut up! Why don’t you go and hug a tree or something, you faerie freak?”
Hex Hall Book One Page 3
