Daughter of Nothing

by Eric Kent Edstrom

Dr. Carlhagen ate about half of his steak before surrendering his knife and fork. “That business with Vaughan,” he said, wiping his face with a white napkin. “Perhaps I overplayed it. What do you think, Jacey?”

  Alarm bells cut through the dull warmth in her brain. She hadn’t expected Dr. Carlhagen to bring up the big issue. Certainly hadn’t expected him to ask her opinion.

  “It was unfair, since Humphrey and I received no punishment,” she said. “And the beating was much too severe.”

  “I had to make an impression on the Scions,” Dr. Carlhagen said. “We can’t have them all running off into the bushes together.”

  The room felt too warm. Jacey found herself reaching for the wine, but instead picked up the water and took a long drink. She wanted to hold the glass to her forehead, but that would certainly violate any notion of etiquette she had ever learned.

  “What do you think, Humphrey?” Dr. Carlhagen asked.

  Humphrey composed himself. “I agree with Jacey.”

  Dr. Carlhagen clucked and tapped the table with his finger. “Come now. Surely you enjoyed it. We both know how much you despise Vaughan. Which reminds me, I want to thank you for doing as I asked and keeping an eye on him and Jacey. The last thing we need is a pregnancy on campus.”

  Jacey set down her fork and raised her napkin to hide the fact she was gritting her teeth.

  Humphrey told on us!

  But rather than covering her emotion, the move betrayed it, for Dr. Carlhagen fixed his stare on her. “Well, what of it, my lovely? Don’t you think it’s admirable for Humphrey to have kept an eye out for his fellow students?”

  She couldn’t formulate a response before Dr. Carlhagen’s face turned dark. His eyebrows turned down, and he bared his teeth. “Isn’t it refreshing that he did something bold for once!” He emphasized his point by slamming his hand on the table, making the silverware rattle and the wine slosh.

  Jacey sat bolt upright. It took all of her control to smooth her face, but she knew she had let her surprise show for a second. Humphrey’s face bore absolute shock. She saw then Dr. Carlhagen’s masterful move in praising Humphrey first. The boy had even started to smile, reveling in the praise. But now his mouth was pinched shut tight, and his nostrils flared.

  Dr. Carlhagen leaned closer to Humphrey. “I had a spark of hope for you. I even gave you the chance to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing. To strike Vaughan down in front of the whole school. But instead of leaping forward and doing it, you defied me! And why? Because you wanted their approval. You wanted them to admire you, didn’t you?”

  Humphrey swallowed and looked down at his plate. “I never wanted to harm Vaughan, and I never would have told on Vaughan and Jacey if I’d known what you intended.”

  Jacey lowered the napkin and wadded it in her fist. “Why did you?”

  Humphrey didn’t answer.

  “I’ll tell you why,” Dr. Carlhagen said. He picked up his wine glass and swirled the red liquid. “He told on you because he was jealous. You see, when Humphrey visited me on Birthday, he confided in me his feelings for you. And his resentment for Vaughan, whom everyone adores.” Dr. Carlhagen tossed back the glass, draining it in one swallow.

  Humphrey started to cut another piece of his steak, though his hands shook. “I told on them because you specifically ordered me to report if they were alone together.”

  “Bah!” Dr. Carlhagen dismissed Humphrey’s statement with a sharp wave of his hand. “You know what your problem is, boy? You crave attention. You hunger for it. You lust after it. Look at me. Look at me!”

  Humphrey’s head shot up as if Dr. Carlhagen had pulled on an invisible string attached to his nose.

  But Dr. Carlhagen hadn’t been asking Humphrey to look at him. He’d been mimicking him.

  “Look at me,” Dr. Carlhagen said in a silly voice, as if it were Humphrey’s. He raised his hands and waved them. “I’m a genius. Praise me. Love me.”

  Dr. Carlhagen’s face turned even darker. “Your weakness makes you as desirable as a corpse!”

  Humphrey’s face went white, and his hands began to tremble so badly his fork and knife clattered on the plate.

  Jacey sat motionless, though her heart thundered.

  Dr. Carlhagen kept his bulging, blue eyes focused on Humphrey, but he pointed a gnarled finger at Jacey. “Look at her.”

  Humphrey kept his eyes down.

  “Look at her,” Dr. Carlhagen insisted.

  Humphrey’s eyes snapped up. They glistened like blue orchids after a rain shower. A patch of skin at the side of his throat throbbed, betraying the rapid-fire drumming of his heart.

  Jacey wanted to look away. No matter how angry she was with Humphrey, she couldn’t bear to see him humiliated. It felt wrong to abandon him, as if her gaze were a lifeline.

  So she kept her eyes locked on his. She forced herself to calmly reach for her wine and sip. She tilted her head and raised both eyebrows, trying to signal to Humphrey, Dr. Carlhagen is playing you. She thought it as loudly as she could.

  There was no evidence that Humphrey understood what was happening, but he kept his eyes on hers.

  Dr. Carlhagen stood again and stepped behind Jacey’s chair. “Look at this girl. See her face? It is perfection.”

  Dr. Carlhagen stroked Jacey’s ear for a moment, sending shivers of revulsion down her back. Then his fingers brushed down her cheek to her chin. His other hand stroked the hair away from her left ear, and he gently turned her head.

  “Look at her ear, Humphrey. A delicate ear, wouldn’t you say?”

  Head turned, Jacey couldn’t keep her eyes on Humphrey’s. She saw his shoulder trembling.

  Dr. Carlhagen’s voice came close and his breath burned her cheek.

  “Look at her skin,” he said. “How would you describe it, Humphrey?”

  Humphrey swallowed before stuttering, “Fair, sir.”

  “Fair?” Dr. Carlhagen gave a scornful laugh. “It’s flawless.”

  Jacey discovered she was trembling, too. Her breath shook in her chest. She wanted to squirm free from Dr. Carlhagen’s touch, wanted to run out of the hacienda and keep running. Climb the electrified fence and never return to campus.

  Dr. Carlhagen put his warm hands on her bare shoulders. “And you have the audacity to hope for her love?” His voice dripped with wry disbelief.

  Jacey looked away then, mortified by Humphrey’s humiliation. Her mind was too fogged with wine to follow the track of Dr. Carlhagen’s manipulations. She was helpless to understand what he hoped to achieve by this attack on Humphrey.

  “Women like this . . .” Dr. Carlhagen said, grabbing her chin and roughly turning her face back to Humphrey. “Women like this do not love those who crave it.”

  He released her and barked a loud laugh that startled her like a door slam.

  Though tears flowed from Humphrey’s eyes, he kept his chin up.

  “Tell me, Jacey,” Dr. Carlhagen said, “can you imagine a future—any future—in which you’d ever fancy Humphrey the way you do Vaughan?”

  In an instant, Humphrey’s face transformed from pale horror to white rage. He stood, knees slamming against a table leg and causing plates to rattle. “Thank you for dinner, sir. I must return to Boys’ Hall. I fear the wine has made me lightheaded.”

  He spun away, not waiting to be dismissed.

  Dr. Carlhagen laughed loudly, making sure Humphrey heard it, then returned to his seat.

  Mr. Justin brought in a plate and set it in front of Jacey. On it was a dish she had never seen before, brown and wedge-shaped, wholly unappetizing.

  Jacey flashed back to Vaughan’s punishment. Dr. Carlhagen’s lessons were never aimed at only one person. So what was he trying to teach her? It certainly wasn’t about neediness. That was Humphrey’s lesson. But her mind was too fuzzy to sort it out. Her stomach churned.

  “I’m feeling ill,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Don’t let that little scene here ruin the evening,” Dr. C
arlhagen said. The acid had completely drained from his voice, replaced with honey. “I’m sorry to have used you so ill, but Humphrey has to get over his neediness. Trust me, it was for the best. He’ll not earn your affections until he gets over it.”

  “He’ll never earn my affections!” She pushed the plate away and stood.

  “Very well,” Dr. Carlhagen said. “You’ll have another opportunity to enjoy chocolate cake. You’ll be staying here tonight. I’m sure you’ll find the bed in your room more comfortable than your bunk.”

  Jacey turned to go, knowing she wouldn’t refuse his direct order, but wishing she could return to Girls’ Hall, wishing to get as far from Dr. Carlhagen as she could. And part of her wished she could go after Humphrey and make him understand what the headmaster had done to him, tell him that she promised to forget it and would never speak of it.

  As she walked from the dining room, Dr. Carlhagen’s voice followed her. “You truly looked lovely tonight.”

  She found it difficult to stay upright. The world seemed to spin so that she had to use her hands on the walls as she made her way down the corridor. She found her room and didn’t bother removing her dress before collapsing on the bed.

  She gave herself all of thirty seconds to shed tears before collecting herself. Then she got up, and as steadily as she could manage, went into the bathroom and threw up her dinner.

  18

  A Sudden and Urgent Need

  Sunlight daggered through Jacey’s bedroom window and stabbed into her brain. She groaned and pulled a pillow over her head. Thankfully, the room no longer spun the way it had most of the night. But her stomach still twisted.

  The smell of food coming from somewhere in the room sent her rushing to the bathroom. Stomach purged, she felt much better, though her head pounded.

  She found a fresh uniform folded neatly at the corner of her bed. At some point during the night, she had stripped off the dress, which lay in a white puddle on the floor. Part of her wanted to take it down to the burning barrel.

  She left it on the floor but tossed the frilly underthings onto a high shelf in the closet, hoping Mr. Justin wouldn’t see them. There was no way she could wear them back down to the campus and have them discovered by her peers.

  The swelling on her thornskipple wounds had gone down. All that remained were a series of tiny red dots on her skin. She put on her uniform. The Shark pin was already attached, but out of long habit she checked its positioning.

  Mr. Justin had left a tray on the bureau. Tea, bread, fruit, and a pitcher of water. The bread smelled much better now that her stomach was empty. She took a couple of bites as she dressed.

  She slipped on her canvas shoes and downed the rest of the tea. With her digestion going in the correct direction, an insane thirst took hold of her. She drank all of the water and started to feel better immediately.

  She took a last glance in the mirror, horrified by the puffiness beneath her eyes. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and left the hacienda. Fresh breezes welcomed her as she descended past the bougainvillea hedges to the quad.

  Judging by the position of the sun, she had missed half of the first class period. The way she felt, though, she just wanted to go to her bunk and go back to sleep.

  The path took her past the medical ward. There were no windows on the back half of the building, which she always thought was curious. The horizontal louvers covering the windows on the front half were shut tightly. She was tempted to go in the front doors and just try to strong-arm her way past Nurse Smith. But the door to the medical ward behind Nurse Smith’s desk was always locked tightly.

  She headed toward Girls’ Hall and noticed a line of Scions standing just past the large trees on the eastern side of the grassy quad.

  As she drew closer, she saw it was more than a line. It was a circle. And all of the Scions were present. Her legs went weak as she realized the circle was centered around the pit.

  She approached warily and headed for the front of her Nine. She touched Wanda’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  Wanda frowned at her. “Where were you? You never came back to Girls’ Hall last night.”

  “I stayed at the hacienda.”

  Wanda’s eyes went wide.

  “It wasn’t by choice,” Jacey said. “I’ll tell you about it later. What’s going on?”

  “Nobody knows. Socrates told us to gather here.” Wanda threw a glance at the heavy steel grate that covered the pit. “It doesn’t look good, though.”

  Whatever was about to happen, Jacey knew she wasn’t at risk. She’d broken every rule she could think of, and Dr. Carlhagen had refused to punish her.

  Still, not knowing who was in trouble made her nervous. The sense of the island tilting, the strange shift in the world that she’d had right before Vaughan’s punishment, struck again. It was almost a physical force this time.

  Wanda caught Jacey’s arm as she stumbled. “Are you okay?”

  Jacey put a hand to her head. “I had too much wine last night.”

  “What?” Wanda cried. The assembled Scions turned their heads to look at them.

  Jacey leaned close and whispered to her second. “Humphrey and I were invited to the hacienda for dinner last night. Mr. Justin served us wine. I just had too much.”

  “What was it like?” Wanda’s acute interest struck Jacey as funny. Of all the things to be curious about, the effects of wine seemed irrelevant.

  “To be honest, it tasted terrible. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  But Wanda wasn’t going to let it go. The only thing that stopped her from asking more questions was the arrival of Dr. Carlhagen. He stepped among them and leaned heavily on his silver-tipped cane. He glanced around at the other Scions and smiled in a grandfatherly way at the Dolphins. He met Jacey’s eyes for a moment and he gave her a slight nod, as if their dinner the night before hadn’t been the most uncomfortable of all time.

  “Make way,” said a deep voice. It was Sensei, and before him strode Humphrey, who looked as ill as Jacey felt. His eyes were dark, his lips thin and pale. Jacey thought he was fighting to hold in his breakfast.

  There was only one reason they were at the pit, and Humphrey was being guided in like a prisoner.

  And it wasn’t fair.

  The only transgression she could think Humphrey had committed was leaving the hacienda without permission. That Dr. Carlhagen would punish Humphrey for it after the way he’d treated him was monstrously unjust.

  She stalked toward the pit. “This has got to stop.”

  Dr. Carlhagen turned toward her, eyebrows making a sharp vee over his nose. “Go back to your position.”

  “I will not. Putting Humphrey in the pit for what he did is unfair and uncalled for. Just because you feel disrespected is no reason to subject someone to such extreme torture.”

  “Disrespected?” Dr. Carlhagen said. “What on Earth are you talking about?”

  Jacey stopped, suddenly unsure. She looked at Humphrey. He shook his head side to side. Something else was going on.

  “What is he accused of?” she demanded.

  “Take your position, Jacey.”

  She slowly backed to join her Nine.

  Wanda yanked her elbow. “What are you doing? And since when do you defend Humphrey? I thought you hated him.”

  Jacey noticed Belle staring at her. She could almost hear the gears turning in the girl’s head as she tried to figure out what Jacey’s game was. All the girls knew Jacey hadn’t returned to Girls’ Hall the night before, so the Nines had to be thick with speculation.

  “I’m afraid we’re gathered here to witness another punishment,” Dr. Carlhagen said. “It pains me to have to deliver these sentences to the Scions I cherish. Especially when it concerns the Sharks, who should know better. But we have rules for a reason. A community thrives only when its members understand the guidelines and stay within them.” He gave a pointed look to Jacey, though she couldn’t understand it. She’d tried to be
punished and had failed.

  “Sensei?” Dr. Carlhagen prompted.

  The martial arts master stepped forward and bowed respectfully. He reached into a pocket, pulled something from it, and held his hand aloft.

  It was a walkie-talkie.

  Sensei walked around the circle so everyone could see it. “Last night, I confiscated this walkie-talkie from Boys’ Hall. It was hidden among Humphrey’s things.”

  A murmur passed like a wave around the circle. Humphrey betrayed no surprise.

  Jacey spent several moments trying to figure out why he would have stolen a walkie-talkie before the truth wiped all thought from her mind.

  Jacey’s breath caught in her throat. Humphrey hadn’t stolen it.

  Before her thoughts could reach a conclusion, Sensei continued. “This appears to be the exact same radio that Dante reported lost two years ago, which means Dante did not lose the walkie-talkie. It was stolen. So you have before you a student, a peer, a Shark, a leader of Nine, who not only has stolen school property, but who allowed another Scion to be punished for its disappearance.”

  An outrage, to be sure, Jacey thought. Except it was true.

  Humphrey must have seen that she was going to step forward and defend him. He shook his head at her.

  But why wouldn’t he even defend himself? Vaughan was the one who had kept the radio.

  Unless . . .

  Realization followed upon realization, each more stunning than the last. The walkie-talkie had been the thing that had kept Jacey and Humphrey quiet about what they’d overheard from Dante’s transmission.

  They knew that if word got out about how they’d heard what they’d heard, the walkie-talkie would be traced back to Vaughan.

  After the horrible dinner with Dr. Carlhagen, Humphrey must have gone back to Boys’ Hall, found the walkie-talkie among Vaughan’s things, and put it among his own. Then he must have reported himself to Sensei.

  Humphrey was doing this for Vaughan. For her. He was doing it so she could speak the truth about what they’d heard.

  Dr. Carlhagen peered down into the pit. “This will not be pleasant, Humphrey. But neither was it for Dante, who spent one night in the pit for losing the radio. You not only stole it, but you kept it for two years.”