Hawthorn Academy- Year Two

by D. R. Perry

  "No, no, I understand. Are you two a thing?"

  "We're not. He's got an enormous crush on someone else right now."

  "Oh, okay then. Well."

  "Well?"

  "There's a dance. In December. The December Dance.” She cleared her throat. “Do you have a date yet?"

  "Oh!" I blinked. "Well, no. But, Bri—"

  "So, do you want to go? With me, I mean. I won't be upset if you say no. Not everyone who’s queer likes girls."

  "I’m not sure if I’m queer, and I like you as a friend, but last time I had an actual date for something, it was a disaster."

  "Well, maybe we should organize a stag group."

  "Yeah, that'd be awesome. I bet Izzy would be down with that. Lee, too. And if Logan doesn't get his date…"

  "Who's he asking?"

  "He's probably hoping to get asked. Logan's super-awkward about stuff like that."

  "Peep," Ember agreed.

  "Me too, Ember." She laughed, her posture and expression more relaxed and easier than I'd seen in a while. "I guess it's library time."

  She opened the door and we went inside, where all the grammar and style handbooks we could ever want waited for us.

  That night, I walked into the cafeteria intending to chat with Logan and encourage him to ask Dorian to the dance, but he sidetracked me.

  "Aliyah, have you heard anything about who poisoned Clementine?"

  "What?"

  "From Bubbe, I mean."

  "No. She hasn't said anything."

  "Have you asked her?"

  "I haven’t." I shook my head, the pit of my stomach dropping as my head got fuzzy and far away. "I feel horrible about it, too."

  "You've had other things going on, what with getting pulled out of class and the holiday." He sighed. "But something new happened."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. Lena said she’s afraid of getting in trouble about Clementine."

  "So that's why she was crying." My hands curled into fists. "She was in the infirmary with us that afternoon. She couldn't have done it."

  "Temperance is threatening her anyway. Said she'd get her expelled."

  "Where are they?" I stood up.

  "Not here." He grabbed my wrist. "Tempe left almost a half-hour ago, but Lena's in the corner with a book."

  "I should talk to her." I pulled away and Logan looked past me, a pleading look in his eyes.

  "Whoa there, Morgenstern." Dorian shook his head, stepping between me and the rest of the room.

  "Sorry, Dorian. Gotta go."

  "Not yet." He put a hand on my shoulder, as gentle and soft as the first snowflakes.

  "It's important."

  "Wait a minute." He sighed. "Please?"

  "Okay." I waved at the empty chair beside Logan at the table and got back in my seat. "Step into our office."

  Ember fluttered down to the table, peeping softly at Mercy and the gryphon cocked her head, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Dorian ignored his familiar's discomfort. He turned the chair around and sat down, grinning. Logan nearly melted, but Dorian didn't notice. He stared at me.

  Oh, no. Not another inconvenient admirer.

  "What are your plans for the December Dance?"

  He's smoother than the girl, at least.

  Logan stood up and ran out of the cafeteria before I could do or say anything to stop him. Faster than he ever moved on the track in Gym, too.

  "Dorian." I groaned. "He likes you, you idiot."

  "What?"

  "You heard me."

  "Impossible. Logan’s out of my league."

  "Thanks."

  "I didn't mean it that way. So, the dance?"

  "I’m going stag." I pointed toward the door Logan left by. "Ask him!"

  "Oh. Right!" Dorian got up and bolted.

  I put my head down on my arms, unable to look at Logan's half-empty tray and my nearly full one. I'd clean them up, of course, but I just didn't have the heart at that moment. Ember peeped softly, then climbed on my back and settled against my neck.

  "Aliyah Morgenstern?"

  "If it's about the December Dance, I'm going stag," I mumbled.

  "It's not."

  I looked up too far because the person beside the table was almost as short as Hal had been last year. After lowering my gaze, I saw a boy with Dorian's coloring and high cheekbones, but he had a wiry sturdiness my friend did not possess. Then I recognized him.

  "Cosmo. From the beach. You're the cat shifter with Blaine Harcourt."

  "He wants to see you."

  "Really?" I raised my eyebrow, skeptical.

  At least it's not about the dance. Blaine's engaged.

  "Yeah, really."

  "I've got to do something first, though."

  "Okay if I tag along?"

  "Sure."

  I stood up and carried the trays to the dishwashing window, then headed toward Lena with a confused Cosmo in tow. I sat across from her. Cosmo hovered by my elbow.

  "Hi there." I let the corners of my mouth turn up but not too much. I didn't want to spook her.

  "Hi." She blinked. Her opossum put her paws on the edge of the table and gave me an appraising look. "What is it?"

  "I heard Tempe Fairbanks was giving you grief. How can I help?"

  "There's nothing you can do since she's my roommate." Lena hung her head. "Why?"

  "Because you shouldn't be bullied. You don't deserve that."

  "Maybe I do. My element’s poison. Clementine was poisoned."

  "There's no way you did it."

  "Are you sure?" She held the book up, partially obscuring her face. "Because I'm not. Every day she says I did it. That I'm the only person they didn't look at, and it's still unsolved, so it can only be me. Maybe she's right."

  "Gaslighting," Cosmo chimed in.

  "What?" I blinked.

  "Gaslighting. My cousin Tony taught me all about it." He sat beside Lena and put his hand on the table, where she could see it. "The worst kinds of people do gaslighting. They mess with your head, so you don't know what's true."

  The opossum sat up in Lena's lap. She leaned over the table, sniffed Cosmo's hand, then looked up at her magus and squeaked. Her fur glowed a faint purple.

  "Yeah, Edie," she spoke to her familiar. "You were right."

  "Should I have a chat with your roommate?" I asked.

  "No." Behind the book, Lena shook her head. "I want out of that room."

  "I’ll work on that." I cleared my throat. "Also, I'm going stag to the December Dance in a group. You're welcome to join us."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. My friends Lee and Izzy will be there. What do you think?"

  "Okay."

  "Awesome. We’ll meet on the third floor by the stairs five minutes before it starts."

  We said goodbye, and Cosmo and I left Lena to finish her dinner.

  "You're that sure the headmaster will move her room?" he asked.

  "Oh, yeah. I'll talk to Hal about it as soon as I've seen Blaine."

  "Right, you're friends with his kid." Cosmo nodded. "Makes sense."

  "Lead on, then."

  Blaine was in the library, which was on extended hours for extramurals. Mrs. Ashford sat behind the desk, looking sleepy. That didn't stop her from giving me a friendly wave as Cosmo brought me to the back corner.

  "Mr. Harcourt, you wanted to see me?"

  "Yeah." He nodded. "It's about your friend Dorian Spanos."

  "What about him?"

  "Has he been acting unusual lately?"

  "Are you trying to send him back to the Academy? Because if so, I'm leaving."

  "No, never." Blaine put his hand over his mouth. "It's a horrible place. Kim still has nightmares about it."

  "Okay. I'll do what I can, but he's not my best friend or anything."

  "Well, that's sort of the problem."

  I blinked.

  "He's had trouble with that. Trusting people, I mean."

  "Persuading me to buddy up with him won
’t help."

  "It's not about friendship. He overheard something and kept quiet, largely because he doesn't know who to trust here."

  "Why you?"

  "Kim and I promised to help Dorian and his nephew Cosmo."

  "Nephew!" I winced. "Oops."

  "Yeah, it's a long and complicated story involving the Under."

  "Okay." I nodded. "So, what's this thing Dorian heard?"

  "It was about the poor familiar who got poisoned."

  "You're telling me because my grandma examined the victim?"

  "No. The people he overheard mentioned you."

  Lovely.

  I must have stayed silent too long for Blaine Harcourt's comfort since he resumed dropping bombs on me.

  "Apparently, this duo, or perhaps an entire group, wants to remove all non-magi from campus, which I personally object to. They're willing to kill familiars over it, but first, they want to get rid of all the extramagi."

  "All?" I blinked. "There are only two of us."

  "The way Dorian put it, there's at least one more—someone with sealed records and influence here. Do you know who it is?"

  "No."

  "Perhaps Hal Hawkins?"

  "Definitely not. He's got a medical condition, pernicious magiglobular anemia. That’s the opposite of being an extramagus."

  "Hmm." Blaine pulled out a phone that shouldn't have worked in here. Somehow, an app called LORA still functioned. He had a chat window open in seconds through it, with a series of fast replies after he entered what I'd just said. "Lynn says that means his mother's a dhampyr."

  "Whoa." I shook my head. "That phone shouldn't work here."

  "Yeah, I run with some real geniuses, and this app securely answers a ton of questions. Stuff we've been puzzled about for years."

  "Does it have anything to do with why my uncle hasn't been sentenced yet?"

  "Your uncle?" He raised an eyebrow.

  "You didn't know?" I took a deep breath. "My mom's Richard Hopewell's little sister."

  "Had no idea, but it makes sense, magically speaking." He nodded. "Listen, if it's okay with you, I'll tell Dorian to tell you his whole story."

  "Go ahead." I nodded. "My grandma won't discuss Clementine, but my friends are trying to stop whoever did it from attacking again."

  "We won’t be in town much longer." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a card with a phone number on it, and handed it to me. “If you or your friends discover anything, would you mind keeping us informed? I think the connections between Newport and Salem are deeper than we imagined.”

  "When I’m off campus." I took the card. "I don’t have a LORA.

  “Right.” He nodded. “Take your time, and thanks for meeting with me."

  I left, baffled for the rest of the evening by how I could possibly be of any help to a dragon shifter chasing a Ph.D. I wouldn’t figure that out until next year.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The next day felt like running to stand still. Lecture was an afterthought, but remembering that Dylan was behind on Luciano's topics helped me pay attention for his sake. I shared my notebook with him, focusing enough to take notes. Professor Luciano lectured about the 1920s in Salem.

  Bootleggers, rumrunners, and other clandestine operations were part of the local shifter and faerie history, with portals to the Under being used to evade the authorities. Magi stuck to recording the extrahuman secret history. Vampires ministered to patients during the Spanish Flu. A Dr. Brown had saved the most lives during that pandemic.

  A few names from liquor-smuggling sounded familiar. Coach Murray’s family now owned the Lyceum. The Merlinis and Micellos also rang a bell, but I couldn’t place them. I raised my hand.

  “Are those last two families still around, Professor?”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “The Merlinis are more obscure, but the Micellos helped establish Gallows Hill. Bartholomew Micello and Corwin Merlini are on the extramural team from that school.”

  “Bar and Crow,” Dylan murmured. “Huh.”

  We all tried to blow off steam in Creatives. Dylan went to his corner again with the guitar. He'd gotten good enough that his band had a chance of winning the talent show. I didn't have an inclination toward art, performance or otherwise, but maybe I could help in some other way.

  Nobody could see the folks on stage without lights. I jotted a note to Professor Luciano in the notebook about running the lighting booth. Moments later he replied, saying he'd get me in touch with Penelope Andros, the staff member in charge of the stage tech crew.

  In Gym, Logan blocked out cheer squad moves with Dorian. Hal took notes and gave critiques. The rest of us practiced Bishop’s Row, including orb-conjuring drills. Coach Pickman flat out said she wanted Dylan, Faith, and me to make her proud of the school's team, and Bailey, who was still in our Gym group for some reason, didn't like it. She headed to the showers with her uniform on, sneakers and all.

  "What's her problem?" Dorian leaned in the doorway to the gender-neutral section.

  "I don't want to know." Faith shook her head.

  "You used to be friends," I said.

  "I’m still on good terms with Hailey." Faith sighed. "We grew apart, I guess."

  The silence felt as awkward as a turtle on its back. I broke it, changing the subject.

  "So Dorian, you’ve got something to tell me?" I put my hands on my hips, hoping he'd talk about what Blaine said he overheard, but he didn't. "What about Logan?"

  "What about him?" Dorian raised an eyebrow.

  "Did you ask him to the dance?" I tapped my foot.

  "Oh my God, tell me you did." Faith put a hand to her cheek. "He's been crushing on you all year."

  “I did." Dorian took a deep breath. "He said he'd think about it."

  "What?" Faith asked, her head tilting in sync with Seth's. Her familiar seemed as confused as she was.

  "I goofed. Asked Aliyah about the dance right in front of him and he ran off." Dorian winced. "Can't blame him."

  "I don't know why." I shook my head. “Platonic city over here.”

  "Grace said I should."

  "Honestly?" Faith rolled her eyes. "Follow your heart, not Grace’s. Is she going with Azrael?"

  "No. She hasn’t decided yet."

  "Huh." Faith narrowed her eyes, probably doing social math in her head. "I could have sworn she had the hots for Az."

  "Maybe." I shook my head. "But Grace said she has to date for social reasons, not emotional ones."

  "Been there, done that." Dorian pointed at his armpit. "I smell like last week's liverwurst-and-onion sandwich. Better wash up." He walked through the door to the gender-neutral showers.

  Faith elbowed me. "We reek almost as much as that. It’s shower time."

  Bailey cowered in the tiled corner, wrapped in a soaked towel, hair plastered to her face, neck, and shoulders. Her eyes were wide, and she pointed at something hiding in the steam to my right.

  "Monster!" Bailey cried. She cradled her waterlogged pigeon familiar, who cowered in the crook of her arm.

  I conjured solar magic and looked where she pointed again, expecting to see a spider or insect, but it wasn't anything that benign. Ember reared up, hissing at Temperance's grundylow from my shoulder. It smiled gummily at the bird in Bailey’s arms like a frog about to eat a fly.

  Seth barked. Faith's nostrils flared.

  "Coach Pickman!" I hollered, my hands glowing brighter. "Help!"

  I heard the squeak of sneakers on tile, but by the time our coach turned the corner, the grundylow had squeezed himself down the drain.

  What it was doing there and why it had terrorized Bailey was beyond me.

  You said it—terror. That's the only reason Tempe Fairbanks does anything.

  "It’s safe, Overton." Coach Pickman clapped her hands. "On your feet."

  "I c-can't, coach." She either shuddered or shivered, probably the latter since the water had finally run cold. "It was after Chip." Her familiar cooed, rubbing his head against her cheek
. "And he can't even fly."

  "Whatever it was, it’s gone now. On your feet, Overton. Dry off, tend to your bird. The third-years need the gym in five minutes."

  Bailey got up, still shivering. Coach Pickman walked with her to the changing area.

  Faith growled as we showered. At first I thought it was Seth, her familiar, expressing her anger, but no. Faith Fairbanks rinsed her hair next to me, sounding like a hellhound.

  "I wish I wasn't a Fairbanks anymore." She balled her hands into fists around the towel she’d used to dry tight enough that her knuckles were white. "They do shit like this."

  "But why Bailey?" I shut my water off. "And why now?"

  "I don't know, but I’m calling her on the carpet. Tonight."

  "How can I help?"

  "You can't. She's my sister, my responsibility. Maybe I can pin something on her that'll stick. If I don’t, she'll only get worse."

  "Okay, Faith. Should I tell Hal?"

  "I’ll do that, but it’s Fairbanks territory." She sighed. "Like walking into Mordor. You can't simply walk in."

  "At least we got through showering in peace." We got our regular clothes out of the lockers and dressed.

  "Yeah. Safer in numbers around water right now." She froze. "Dorian's alone."

  We hurried out of the locker room, calling for him.

  "Coach Pickman told us what happened and to stick together." Hal stood at the doorway to the gender-neutral area. "I stayed with Dorian."

  Faith and I breathed a sigh of relief, then headed into the gym, where Bailey waited with the coach. After hearing her story, the coach wanted us to come with them to the headmaster's office.

  We made a formal report, but he said a grundylow's natural habitat included warm, humid places. Unless we could prove Temperance had sent him there with malicious intent, nothing would come of it.

  In the lab, we boxed up our gadgets and brought them with our display and the report to the gym. Students hustled to set their tables up. The faculty had assigned our spots, so each project was easily visible. My group finished ahead of the others, but we still had our hurdles.

  The delicate communication orbs had to go on stands, or they’d roll off the table. They were made of glass and not magically reinforced, so that was tricky. At least the tables didn't wobble. Once everything was set, I walked around to have a look at the other projects.