by E. E. Holmes
“The Medieval ages generally were, I understand,” Carrick said. “My point in telling you this is to help you understand that you were never in any real danger.”
“Really? Because it sounds like you’re trying to make excuses for what those girls did,” I said.
“I do not want to make excuses for them,” Carrick said. “I merely wanted you to fully understand what just happened to you.”
“Yeah?” I snapped. “Well, why don’t you go a few rounds in the ring with that Elemental, and then talk to me about how much danger we were in.”
Carrick definitely smiled this time. It only elevated my temper.
“I’m sorry, is something about this situation funny to you?” I asked.
“No, not at all,” Carrick said quickly, though the smile lingered almost imperceptibly around the corners of his mouth. “You just reminded me of someone.”
“Who do you —”
But Carrick was no longer paying attention to me. We had reached the front steps of the castle. “Finn, I’ll see that the girls get safely to their room. You should head back to your quarters before someone misses you.”
“Yes, sir,” Finn said. He gave an odd sort of slouchy nod in our direction. “Good night.”
“Good night, Finn,” Hannah said. “Thank you again.”
He turned without another word and loped off in the direction of the
Caomhnóir quarters, a long, low stone building I’d mistaken for stables during our first week.
We trudged back up to our room in silence. Fairhaven’s staircases had never seemed so long or been so hard to climb. Whatever Carrick claimed about there being no lasting damage, I felt utterly drained from the experience, and desperate for sleep.
“Just one thing before I leave you here,” Carrick said in a hushed voice. “I would appreciate if you didn’t mention my role in your escape tonight to anyone. I told you I was watching out for you on Finvarra’s orders, but the truth is, she does not know I have been doing so.”
“Why would you lie about that?” I asked.
“It was for Finn’s benefit. Caomhnóir are not supposed to interfere in situations like this, and I don’t want it known that I got involved without Finvarra’s consent,” he said.
“Well then, why did you do it?” I pressed.
Carrick didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be weighing his words carefully. “I see and hear much in my current state that I was not privy to when I was alive. I may be Bound to the Durupinen High Priestess, but that will not stop me from seeing to it that all the Durupinen are protected, whenever it is in my power to help.”
I opened my mouth to question him further but Hannah cut me off. “We won’t say anything. Thank you again.” Carrick clicked his heels together in a military stance, and faded from the spot. I put my hand on the door handle, but Hannah reached out and pulled it back.
“What?” I asked.
“I think we might be missing an opportunity here,” she said. She was looking at the shadow of the graffiti that no amount of scrubbing had quite been able to remove. Then she looked at me and I was shocked to see that she was grinning.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said, smiling a little myself. “What’s the opportunity?”
“Peyton and the rest of them obviously think we’re going to be stuck out there until they come to get us in the morning,” Hannah said. “And Carrick doesn’t want us to reveal how he helped us get out.”
“True.”
“So why don’t we just let them think we did it ourselves?”
My smile widened. “I like where this is going. Keep talking.”
“There should be no way that we could have gotten out of that circle, even if the Elemental hadn’t turned up. Let’s give them a little dose of fear, too.”
And she told me her plan.
“Can you actually do that?” I asked in awe.
“Yup.”
I bowed and stepped aside for her. “Lead the way. I’ll take my cues from you, oh devious one.”
Hannah giggled, a welcome sound after the night we’d had, and crept across the hall to the door of Peyton’s room.
“Oh, hang on. Let me call Milo. He won’t want to miss this. He’s wanted us to get back at these girls since we first laid eyes on them,” she said, and closed her eyes. After a minute or so of silent conversation, Milo popped into existence between us.
“They did what to you?” he shouted.
“Shh! I’ll give you details afterwards. I just thought you’d enjoy watching this.”
“Watching what?” he asked.
“You’ll see,” she said, and without hesitating at all, she knocked forcefully on the door. Milo faded from view, but I knew he was still there —he was drawn to drama like sharks to the scent of blood.
After a few moments, and a muffled commotion from behind it, the door swung open a crack, and Peyton poked her head out.
Her jaw dropped.
“Hi, there!” Hannah said cheerily.
“What’s the matter, Peyton?” I asked. “I’d say you look as though you’ve seen a ghost, but well…that cliché doesn’t carry the same kind of meaning around here, does it?”
We pushed our way into the room. Olivia and several of the other girls were sitting around. I spotted hastily stashed paper cups and liquor bottles poking out here and there. One girl was actually still grasping her cup, half-concealed behind a throw pillow. I noticed that Róisín and her sister Riley were not among them.
“Oh, sweet, you guys are still drinking?” I asked. I strode across the room, snatched a cup from behind the vanity mirror, peered into it, and gave it an experimental swirl. I shrugged and swallowed the contents in a single gulp. Then I spotted another cup and scooped it up, offering it Hannah. “Cheap wine?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Hannah said, taking it from me and emptying it in one go. “I could use a stiff drink after that little excursion.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You haven’t got something with a bit more kick, do you? Maybe a nice Scotch?”
“Or Absinthe? That’s what the really hardcore kids drank in the last mental hospital I was locked up in,” Hannah said. “Y’know, when we weren’t high on stolen narcotics.”
No one spoke. The girl sitting closest to the fireplace looked like she might cry.
“No real booze? Okay then,” I said. “We just wanted to stop by and congratulate you on a prank well-pulled.”
“Yes,” Hannah said. “A very good try, honestly.”
Peyton finally became the first of them to recover the power of speech. “How did you get back? That circle should have held.” Her tone was boldly accusatory for someone so obviously in the wrong.
“Oh, that?” Hannah said, and snorted with laughter. “That was the easy part. Seriously girls, was that really the best trapping circle you could produce? Keira would be horrified. I’d get studying if I were you.”
“We’d have made it back for more of your little party if that had been all we had to deal with,” I said, peering into another empty cup and tossing it aside. “The Elemental was the interesting challenge.”
Everyone froze, as though the Elemental itself had silenced them with its approach.
“The …” Olivia swallowed something back and cleared her throat. “The summoning worked?” She shot a terrified look at Peyton. “We didn’t think it worked.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Yeah, it showed up not long after you left. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t freaked out. Anyone stuck in a circle with that thing would have had the longest and most horrifying night of her life.”
Hannah nodded solemnly. “Oh, yes. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.” We both paused to admire the effect of these words. The pall of guilt was palpable. “But there is one thing you girls really need to take into account before you go trying to plan something like this,” Hannah said.
The other girls all looked warily at each other, each wanting to ask what that thing was, but none of t
hem with the guts to do it. We let the silence spiral until finally, the girl sitting closest to the fireplace asked in a breathless voice, “What is it?”
“A Caller is never alone,” Hannah said, and pointed to the windows.
All the girls turned to look. A few screamed. Those nearest the windows scrambled away in panic. Even though I’d been expecting it, my heart thudded at the sight of at least a hundred ghosts, their faces pressed to every inch of the three floor-to-ceiling windows. The overwhelming cold that accompanied them seeped into the room like a gas, extinguishing the fire and turning the remaining booze to crackling ice in their bottles.
“And those are just the ones she found while we’ve been chatting,” I said brightly.
“So I guess what we’re saying is, nice try girls. You might think you run this place, but you really have no idea what you’re dealing with,” Hannah said. She flicked her hand to the right. Every ghostly face behind her turned to follow its progress. Her tone was entirely friendly, but the effect, with a hundred seemingly hypnotized spirits under her control, was terrifying.
She reached behind her, clenched her hand, and opened it again. The horde of ghosts vanished instantly.
“Ooh, snacks!” she said, grabbing a bag of potato chips off of the bed. “Thanks! I’m starving.”
And she turned and practically skipped out of the room.
“Sweet dreams, girls. Really fun night. We should do it again sometime,” I said, and followed Hannah out. I laughed quietly as I closed the door behind me, partly at the stunned expressions we were leaving in our wake, but also because, however damaged she may be, my sister was a hell of a lot tougher than she looked.
11
MISSED CONNECTIONS
KARMA SHOULD HAVE DICTATED THAT WE EMERGED the next morning from our rooms, fresh-faced and full of confidence in our new reputation as the resident badasses of Fairhaven Hall, tossing our artistically tousled hair and walking with a new swing in our step. Instead, we both caught monstrous colds and spent the next two weeks coughing and sneezing miserably all over each other. We did our best to look as un-miserable as possible at breakfast the next morning though I, for one, would rather have spent another hour with the Elemental than give Peyton the satisfaction of knowing her prank had any lasting negative impact, even if that impact was only a cold.
The only thing that could have lightened our congested, hacking wretchedness was the wary look on many of the faces around the dining hall. Hannah took a break from blowing her nose long enough to give Peyton’s table a casual wave, which caused many of the occupants to become intensely interested in their cornflakes.
Savannah, Brenna, and Mackie listened to our story with mouths hanging open, although Mackie’s initial response was horror and guilt that this had all unfolded on her watch as head girl, and it took us nearly ten minutes to convince her that there was nothing she could have done to prevent it.
“I can’t believe they left you there with the Elemental,” she said, shaking her head. It was rare for something in the Durupinen world to elicit much from her other than a nod or a knowing smile. “No one’s done that in about a hundred years, at least. I didn’t even think it was real. I thought it was one of those stories you make up, to frighten people into behaving themselves, like the boogeyman.”
“Well, we can definitely confirm that it is not only real, but every bit as scary as the stories claim,” I said. “If I were in charge around here, my first act would be to figure out a way to get rid of that thing.”
“You going to report them?” Savvy asked.
“What would be the point?” I said. “They kept those freak doll masks on the whole time, so even though we know at least a few of them that were involved, we can’t really prove it. It would be their word against ours. And besides, who on that Council is going to punish them?”
“Well, Celeste would try, but she’d get overruled,” Brenna said.
“Yeah, by Marion and her crew, and you know she was probably the one that put them up to it in the first place,” Mackie added.
“Well that’s complete crap,” Savvy said, slamming her hand down on the table and knocking over the maple syrup. “I’ve gotten punished twice already just for breaking curfew. Meanwhile those toxic little mannequins kidnap you and unleash some demon creature from hell on you, and they don’t even get a slap on the wrist?”
“Tradition is the best defense for anything that happens here. They’re just going to insist that they were following the old customs, and no one will even bat an eyelash,” I said.
“With the bizarre shit classified as tradition around here, it’s no wonder that people have been hunting down and persecuting you lot over the years,” Savvy said. She was applying shocking pink lipstick and using the back of her spoon as a mirror.
We all looked at her in mutual surprise.
“Does this mean you’ve actually started staying awake in History and Lore?” Mackie asked.
“Not if I can help it,” Savvy said. “But I have accidentally learned a few things, despite my best efforts. Alright girls, what’s the verdict, does this color work for me?” She pouted her full lips seductively.
We all shook our heads.
“Bollocks,” she grumbled, and swiped the lipstick away with the back of her hand. “Guess I’ll return it to Phoebe’s purse, then.”
True to our word, we hadn’t mentioned Carrick’s role in our rescue, but instead made it sound as though Finn found his own way there on Róisín’s information.
“I’m surprised Róisín did that,” Brenna said. “She’s always been really close friends with Peyton, but much more of a follower. I wouldn’t think she’d have the guts to defect like that, especially if she might have gotten them all in trouble.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mackie said. “I liked her a lot until a couple of years ago, when she started following Peyton around like a puppy dog. She was obviously the only one with any sense in that whole group. You’re lucky Finn agreed to come. He could have been in a lot of trouble if he was caught out unchaperoned with Apprentices. He’s certainly committed to his job, and he hasn’t even officially been Initiated yet.”
“Yeah, we were lucky alright” I said. I got a pit in my stomach every time I thought about Finn and the Initiation. Everything about it felt wrong, but there was no way out of it. It was a helpless feeling, like being sentenced for a crime you never even realized you’d committed.
“I know you don’t like him much, but at least you know he can do his job,” Savvy said, shaking my shoulder bracingly. “Poor old Bertie looks like one stiff breeze would knock him over. He actually screamed out loud when we got that first spirit to approach our communication circle last week. What a tosser. Looks like Phoebe and I will be doing our own protecting for a while.”
“Yeah, well at least he tries. Isaac is so busy trying to look tough and imposing that he forgets what he’s supposed to be doing half the time,” Brenna said. “All brawn and no brains.”
“Well, let’s keep the hope alive, shall we, girls? We’ve all got a lot of learning left to do. We’re not much better at our own jobs, yet,” Mackie said, looking every bit the head girl. Brenna stuck her tongue out at her sister.
“The exception to that being Hannah, of course,” I said, ruffling her hair. “She’s got the ghosts queuing at the snap of her fingers.” Hannah blushed and grinned shiftily. “I never thought I’d say it, but it has its uses.”
“No kidding. I would have paid good money to see the looks on those girls’ faces when you Called all those ghosts,” Mackie said. “I’ll bet it was absolutely priceless.”
“Yeah, it was pretty great,” Hannah said. “I just hope the mystique lasts long enough for them to get in the habit of leaving us alone.”
The bells chimed loudly, and Peyton and her friends left so quickly that the sound might have been signaling a fire rather than the end of the breakfast hour. So far, Hannah was getting her wish.
§
After a miserable two hours of Ancient Celtic Languages, during which I fought in vain to stay awake and butchered my pronunciation even worse than usual, I decided a nap was the best use of my time. I crossed the courtyards, where Finn and the other Novitiates were doing some sort of martial arts combat drills. They were set up in pairs, throwing punches and kicks at each other while attempting to block the blows from their opponents. I saw just enough to tell that most of them were very good, with the glaring exception of poor Bertie, and also that the Caomhnóir took their physical training very seriously. I guess that should have made me feel safe or something, but it didn’t. Instead, I was left contemplating what possible situations I would be involved in that would require my own personal ninja.
Deep in troubled thought about this, I nearly ran headlong into Róisín Lightfoot in the entry hall.
She stared at me, wide-eyed for a moment, then stepped around me without a word and kept walking.
“Róisín, wait!” I said, turning to follow her.
She pretended not to hear me, and lengthened her stride.
Róisín, stop! I want to talk to you!” I called after her.
She stopped and spun around so suddenly that I almost walked into her again.
“What?” she hissed, glancing nervously around us. There was no one in sight.
“I just wanted to thank you,” I said.
“For what?” she said, crossing her arms. “What do you mean, for what?” I said. “Finn told us you went to find him last night.”
“So what?” Róisín said tartly. “You obviously didn’t need the help, from what I hear, so forget about it.”
“You couldn’t have known that.”
“I told you to forget it. It was nothing.”
She turned to leave again, but I caught her arm. She shook it angrily out of my grip.
“It wasn’t nothing!” I said.
“Yes, it was,” Róisín hissed, and there was an edge of panic in her voice now. “And if you ever tell anyone about it, I will deny it.”
That pulled me up short. “Why?”
