by E. E. Holmes
“It’s fine, Karen,” I said, trying really hard to mean it. “We’ll take care of it.”
§
And so here we were. I slid off the bed and walked over to the window. The grounds outside were thickly blanketed with snow, transforming the woods, gardens, and fountains into a vast collection of indistinguishable white mounds. I had never been here in winter before; it felt more isolated and otherworldly than ever.
“Ugh, I just don’t understand why we had to be here in person,” I grumbled. “It’s the 21st century, for heaven’s sake! Why couldn’t we just have called or Skyped or something?”
“You know the Council,” Hannah said. “They’ve been doing things the same way for centuries. They don’t exactly embrace change. Celeste told me the last official change to the voting process was ratified in 1882.”
I rolled my eyes. “And I bet they’d been trying to get that change through since the invention of the wheel.”
At that moment, Milo sailed clear through the wall, in full strut like a runway model. He reached the fireplace, turned and beveled, and struck a dramatic pose. “The Spirit Guide has arrived,” he announced in a low sultry voice.
“Milo, we really need to work on your self-confidence,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “Seriously, don’t be afraid to get noticed.”
Hannah giggled. “Hello, Spirit Guide. What’s with the catwalk?”
“Life is a catwalk, sweetness!” Milo said. “Well, in my case, the afterlife is a catwalk, I guess. Anyway, I have an announcement. I’ve had some time to think about it and I love being back here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.
“Nope, not kidding. Totally serious. We can stay forever, as far as I’m concerned,” Milo insisted, perching himself on the edge of the fireplace mantle and crossing his arms imperiously.
“And why exactly do we want to stay where we’re treated like the social equivalent of leprosy?” I asked.
“You two might be lepers,” Milo said. “I, however, am queen of the castle around here, and I am loving it!”
“Explain,” I ordered.
“It’s the other ghosts,” Milo said. “They’re all in awe of me because I’m Bound to the two of you. It’s like I’m some sort of celebrity on the deadside because I was involved with the Prophecy. They’re literally following me around everywhere, bombarding me with questions.”
“Like the ghost version of the paparazzi?” Hannah asked, smirking a little.
“Exactly!” Milo said. “And basically, it’s just confirming what I always knew about myself, which is that I was born to be famous.”
“Well, then, I’m so glad you’re getting your time in the spotlight. In the meantime, the two of us would like a little less attention,” I said. “It’s going to be a nightmare, especially when all the other families arrive. Most of them have only ever heard of us until now. We’re going to be on display like some kind of sideshow attraction.”
Over the next twenty-four hours, the castle would be flooded with Durupinen from all over the world whose families had roots in the Northern Clans. They would all be staying for the duration of the Airechtas. Many of them, like us, had only first seen Fairhaven when they arrived for their training, and many hadn’t set foot here since. These were Durupinen who had successfully made their lives far from the shadow of this castle and all of its machinations. They had escaped the vortex; tales of Prophecies and Necromancers were just stories to them.
And now here Hannah and I were, the storybook monsters come to life. Step right up, folks.
“You’ve just got to learn to use your mystique to your advantage,” Milo said. “Let them believe the rumors. Encourage them. If they stare at you, stare right back. No one’s going to bother you; they’ll be too terrified of what you might do to them.”
“That’s not really the kind of reputation we want to have, Milo,” I said.
“Well, it’s the reputation you’ve got, so you might as well roll with it,” Milo said with a shrug. “I certainly am. The new spirits here are so gullible.”
“Yeah, and let’s not forget why all the spirits here are new spirits,” I said, with a bite of impatience in my voice. Milo’s face, alight with mischief a moment before, fell into lines of misery.
“Oh, yeah. Right. I… sorry,” he said quietly.
“Hey, speaking of new spirits,” Hannah said, perking up. “Have you seen this one among your admirers?” and she pointed to the portrait I’d just made.
Milo’s eyes widened as he looked at me. “Already? We just got here!”
“I know, I know,” I said. “But she was insistent. Have you seen her?”
Milo drifted over, examining it closely. “No, she doesn’t look familiar,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “She didn’t give you any information?”
“Just the image. That’s all I’ve got.” I dropped my face into my hands and started rubbing my eyes. I was so tired they were beginning to ache from the forcible act of keeping them open.
“Well, it’s like you said,” Hannah said. “She’ll probably be back again. They usually are, if they need something.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll see.” As if I didn’t have enough to be nervous about, being in this castle again. Now this strange girl’s face would keep cropping up in my head, tying my life and her death together with a string of vague images until I could discover who she was and what she wanted from me. Her eyes bore into me as I stared down into them. There was a plea deep inside of them, but I could not interpret it. With a shiver, I pulled the picture from the wall and shoved it under my bed, knowing that her eyes were upon me still.
2
Friends and Foes
I MANAGED TO AVOID the main floor of the castle for the rest of that afternoon by claiming I had a headache from my psychic drawing episode. I fell into an uneasy sleep after an hour or two of tossing and turning, trying to ignore the slivers of bright sunlight slipping between the drapes and the sounds of conversation and footsteps reverberating throughout the castle, which, for all its beauty and history, was basically a giant stone echo chamber. Three hours later, when Hannah nudged me awake to see if I wanted to go down to dinner, I felt barely more rested than before I’d fallen asleep.
“I’m not hungry,” I grumbled. A cartoonishly loud growl from the region of my stomach immediately called my bluff.
Hannah giggled. “Liar. Come on. It’ll be fine. We’ll grab some food, find a table, and terrify onlookers from a distance. It’ll be great.”
“No. I want to stay here and sulk.”
Hannah trotted back over to our door with a mischievous smile on her face. “I knew you’d say that, so I brought a couple of people by to help convince you.”
She pulled the door open to reveal two grinning faces.
“Get out of bed, you lazy tosser!” roared Savannah Todd, striding across the room, leaping onto my bed, and knocking me flat.
“She can hardly get up if you crush her, Sav,” said Mackenzie Miller, choosing instead to just take a couple of steps into the room and wave at me. “Alright, Jess?”
“Mackie! I didn’t realize you were going to be here!” I gasped. “Okay, Sav, seriously, get off me!”
“Shhhhh, I’m looking into your eyes,” Savvy whispered, stroking my hair.
With a laugh and an almighty grunt, I heaved her off me. She fell to the floor with a thud and a cry of “Bloody hell!” I slid off the bed and crossed the room to throw my arms around Mackie.
“It’s so good to see you!” I told her. I hadn’t seen her in almost two years, not since my last visit to London to visit Savvy, when the three of us had met for a drink in a pub. She looked exactly the same. She was still tall and lanky, her hair still cropped short into a pixie cut, her smile broad and her eyes warm. She had been the first-year Head Girl when we’d started at Fairhaven, and had also been one of the only Apprentices not to treat us like total outcasts. She’d been one of the many driven out of Fairhaven by
a fire Hannah accidentally caused while enabling our escape, and then she had been imprisoned along with the rest of the Apprentices when the Necromancers invaded the castle. We’d kept in touch by email and social media over the last few years, but seeing her in person made me feel like she had transcended the theoretical to the actual.
“So, how are you? What have you been up to?” I asked Mackie.
“I got accepted into that graduate program. I’m going for my teaching license. Women’s Studies,” she said, smiling broadly. “I guess I enjoyed my days of bossing you all around as Head Girl so much that I’m looking to make a career of it.”
“That’s so exciting, Mack! You’ll be a great teacher,” Hannah said, beaming at her.
Mackie shrugged. “I think I’d rather be a perpetual student, but I’ll give it a go.”
“Why are you here, then?” I asked. “You don’t have to vote, do you? Isn’t Celeste going to handle all that?”
“Yeah, I’ve managed to steer clear of the voting. But I got guilted into coming back to help with wrangling all the guests. Celeste has me running around giving tours and helping clans to mingle. I’ve only just managed to slip away; I’ve been at it since seven o’clock this morning!”
“That’s because you’re a prat, aren’t you? Should have said no, shouldn’t you?” Savvy said. She was still lying on the floor, as though she had decided, having found herself there, that she was quite comfortable.
“That’s enough out of you! Aren’t you the one who said you’d never set foot here again? And here you are, a mentor,” Mackie said, laughing. “Whose brilliant idea was that, then?”
Savvy shrugged. “I’m a natural, what can I say?” She rolled over and jumped to her feet. “Shall we go down, then? I’m starving!”
Seeing a pair of friendly faces was exactly the boost of confidence I needed—a reminder that I’d had a few real friends at Fairhaven, despite the disastrous end to my time there. “Yeah, alright. Let’s get this over with.”
§
If the sight of two old friends hadn’t tempted me out of my room, the mouthwatering smells wafting out into the lobby would certainly have done the trick. The castle may have masqueraded as a college, but the food was anything but campus dining hall fare. Several dozen women were milling around the room when we entered. All of them were wearing name tags, like we had just walked into the weirdest high school reunion ever.
“Oh yeah, Celeste gave me some of those name tags. I think I’ve got them here in my…” Hannah’s voice trailed away when she saw the look on my face. The last thing we needed were labels.
Sure enough, as we crossed the room to the buffet line, several people were nudging each other and nodding in our direction. By the time we had filled our plates, the outright pointing and staring had begun. I felt the eyes on us all the way over to our favorite isolated table in the corner.
“Wow, they’re really not subtle about it, are they?” I muttered, tucking into a dinner roll.
“Ah, don’t pay them any mind,” Savvy said. “They’re just a load of nosy old cows. Ignore them, and they’ll soon find something else to gossip about.”
I stared at her. “Really? That’s your response? To be mature?”
Savvy swallowed a mouthful of steak and ale pie. “Sure? Why not?”
I laughed. “I just thought, seeing as it’s you, you’d have some different advice for us. Something involving profanity, or crude hand gestures, or mooning.”
“Well, that’s jolly good fun too, if you like,” Savvy replied. And without warning she dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter and pushed her chair back from the table as she stood up. She had her belt half-undone and one foot up on the seat of her chair before any of us realized what she was doing.
“No!” we all shouted in unison. All three of us reached up and grabbed her by the sweater, pulling her back down into her seat.
“Oi! Why all the fuss? You’re the one who suggested it!” she cried.
“I know, I know!” I said, choking with laughter now. “I should have known better. For the love of God, please keep your pants on!”
“If you like,” Sav said with a wink. “You know where my arse is if you need it.”
“I’ll let you know,” I said.
“Glad to see being a mentor hasn’t changed you, Savvy,” Mackie said, with a pat on Savvy’s back. “Good on ya.”
“How’s that going, by the way?” Hannah asked.
Savvy’s smile faltered. “Eh, it’s a bit rough to be honest. Frankie—that’s my mentee—she’s… well, she’s a tough nut to crack.”
“Really? Even for you?” I asked. “I thought you said she’d taken a shine to you? You must be the most laid back mentor ever.”
Savvy grimaced. “That don’t matter much when your mentee don’t believe in ghosts.”
Hannah choked a little on her mouthful of soup. “I’m sorry, what? She doesn’t believe in ghosts?”
“Nope,” Savvy replied baldly. “It’s… well, it’s a sad story, actually.”
“Go on, let’s hear it,” Mackie said, leaning in.
“Well, she had a pretty strict upbringing,” Savvy said. “Parents are a real pair of twats, if I’m honest. Filthy rich, you know? And they never had much time for her, what with traveling all over the world on yachts and all that tosh. So, she’s been banging around fancy boarding schools all her life. And she is smart, let me tell you,” Savvy shook her head and let out a low whistle. “We’re talking straight A’s at Cheltenham here. Charmed life. But then, one day out of nowhere, her Visitations start.”
“But she must have known they were going to,” Hannah said. “Her mother must have told her, right? Or another relative?”
“Nah, she’s the first in her line, just like me,” Savvy said.
“Oh, that’s right!” I said. “That’s why they asked you to mentor her, isn’t it? Because you both had that in common?”
“That’s about the only thing we have in common, but yeah,” Savvy said.
“So, another Gateway somewhere must have closed for good, right? Isn’t that why a new one opens up in a new line, to keep things balanced?” Hannah asked.
“That’s right,” Mackie said. “The old one closes, and a new one opens. It can pop up anywhere in the world. It just appears on the Léarscáil, and that’s how the Durupinen know where to find it.”
“What the hell is a Léarscáil?” I asked, stumbling over the unusual word.
“Aw, come off it, you’ve never seen it? Oh, that’s right, you never made it that far in your training here,” Mackie said with a sheepish smile. “We usually get to take a trip up to the South Tower in our second year of Apprenticeship, just to have a look at it. It’s a giant map of the world that marks geographic shifts in the concentration of spirit energy, using this massive pendulum. I’ll have to bring you up there; it’s fascinating, how it works.”
“I would love to see that!” Hannah said, eyes alight with curiosity. “It’s right here in the castle?”
Mackie nodded. “Yeah, every High Priestess’s residence has one, and there’s a Durupinen in charge of monitoring each one, recording and analyzing the shifts in spirit energy. It can be used to predict all sorts of things, not just the opening of a new Gateway.”
“Will you really take us to see it? That’s fascinating!” Hannah said. “Jess, wouldn’t you like to see that?”
I shrugged. “Sure, I guess. Sounds better than sitting through this stupid Airechtas.” I turned back to Savvy. “Sorry, Sav, keep going with your story.”
“So anyway, Frankie’s away at school, and she sees her first ghost right in the middle of an end of term test, but she thinks it’s a hallucination brought on by stress. Thinks she’s going mad.”
I laughed, although it wasn’t really funny. “I know that feeling.”
“Me, too,” Hannah said grimly.
“Yeah, but you both tried to hide it, didn’t you? That’s a normal reaction. Frankie went straigh
t to her headmistress and told her what was happening, and then from there to a shrink for medication. She didn’t even stop to consider that what was happening to her might actually be real. She took a leave from school, booked herself into one of those retreats for the wealthy and doped herself up on every pill her doctor would prescribe her.”
“Lot of good that did her, I’m sure,” Mackie said, shaking her head sadly.
“Actually, anti-psychotic meds can block out spirit activity pretty effectively,” Hannah said, a faint pink flush creeping up her face. “The right combination of medications, along with a determination not to notice things, can work wonders.”
Mackie gaped. “You can block out spirits with meds? Really?”
Hannah nodded. “Some of those drugs are really strong. It’s like walking around in a haze. And you can usually explain away any activity that does manage to penetrate the shield. Your mind is relieved to continue the oblivion. It’s willful ignorance, but it never lasts long. No matter what you take, the spirits break through eventually.”
There was a moment of awkward silence as we all processed the awfulness of Hannah’s words, and then Savvy jumped in. “By the time Celeste and Siobhán found her, Frankie was well and truly hyped up on those meds. They tried to tell her what was really happening to her, but she wouldn’t hear a word of it. Celeste told me that, at one point, Frankie screamed at her that she and Siobhán weren’t real and threw a chair at them.”
“Holy shit,” I said breathlessly. “I mean, I didn’t want to believe it either, but it was better than thinking I was going crazy.”
“You’d think, but Frankie would rather be mad as a hatter than a Durupinen, and that’s the truth,” Savvy said.
“So, what did Celeste and Siobhán do? How did they get her here?” Hannah asked.
“They couldn’t bloody well leave her where she was. They needed that Gateway to be open and functioning properly, just like the rest of them, but Frankie wouldn’t go willingly. In the end, they met with her parents and orchestrated a ‘transfer’ to another, more prestigious mental facility.”
