by Megan Atwood
“This was it, wasn’t it?” Ophelia asked quietly.
A deep male voice behind them said loudly, “Yes, this was it. Why don’t you come join our party, girls?”
Fear shot through Madeleine. She turned and tried to run but a wall of hooded figures surrounded them on every side, blocking any exit, all wearing some sort of black mask, plastic or latex. The masks had blank eyes and downturned mouths. She saw something glint in the candlelight, slender and silver, in one of the figures’ hands and knew it was a knife. Her knees threatened to give out.
“Please don’t hurt us,” she said.
The man said gruffly, “You’ve come to a place you have no business coming to. And you’ve almost ruined our work.” The hooded figures in his line advanced on the girls slowly until the only path left led into the room with the artifacts.
The girls all huddled close together, shaking.
Ophelia cleared her throat, “Please, sir—”
“Silence!” the man roared. “You are in a sacred space, and you will not speak unless spoken to. Though you have trespassed, you can be of use to us. We are here to help you—you must know that—even though you are ungrateful.”
Madeleine furrowed her eyebrows. Help them? This didn’t feel very helpful to her.
A smaller robed figure came forward—the one holding a knife. “And you can help us … by giving up your blood.”
Shadowy hands grabbed each girl and held their arms back. As Madeleine saw the blade come toward her, a scream ripped through her throat.
“It will be over quickly. Don’t worry,” said the man who’d been doing all the talking. Madeleine turned to the other girls, sharing with them a last look of terror.
Madeleine was first in line. One of the masked figures picked up her necklace from the altar and brought it toward her. For a moment, she thought they might just put it around her neck. Instead, the person gripping Madeleine thrust out Madeleine’s arm.
“Spill the blood on the necklace,” the deep-voiced man said.
The rest of the figures started to chant in the strange unknown language, and the person holding the necklace dangled it underneath Madeleine’s forearm.
The knife got closer and closer until Madeleine felt its blade press against her wrist. She waited to pass out, but something kept her wide awake.
The voices of Ophelia, Kayley, Emma, and Sophie traveled over to her, all yelling, but they sounded far away, as if they were on a different planet. The tip of the knife pressed slowly down as pain shot through Madeleine’s arm. She could hear her voice turn into a scream.
And then she heard another voice. The most beautiful voice she’d ever heard.
“Stop this at once.”
Madame Puant slammed her cane on the cement floor. Behind her stood at least five faculty members and six police officers.
The person holding Madeleine let go, and she fell to the floor. The other girls were released too, and they rushed to her, wrapping Madeleine in a hug.
“Just what is the meaning of this? You think you can come to my school and menace my girls? You are sorely mistaken!”
Chapter 14
The police officers stormed up to the hooded figures, handcuffing each one. No one seemed to put up a fight.
The lead man’s big booming voice began to quiver: “Don’t hurt anyone here. We were just trying to help.”
Madame Puant strode over to him and yanked off his mask. Madeleine threw her hands up to her mouth. Staring in wonder, she said, “Mr. Barnes?”
Her heart sank. How could it be Mr. Barnes?
One by one, more masks were taken off. Madame Puant looked livid. The person who had held the knife was Ms. Jamison. Other teachers Madeleine had seen around the halls were also in the mix.
Madame Puant stuttered, dumbstruck. “Wha … ? Why would you … ?”
Mr. Barnes, his hair and eyes wild, began to plead with Madame. “Please, Betsy, you don’t understand. We were trying to save these girls.”
Madame Puant pounded her cane on the ground. “By killing them? By stabbing them with a knife?”
Madeleine shrank from the power in Madame’s voice. As petite as she was, Madame Puant was no one to be messed with. Madeleine hoped she would never be at the end of that yell. Right then, though, there was no one in the world she’d rather have had by her side.
Mr. Barnes flinched but continued to beg: “We weren’t going to kill them, Betsy. Don’t be absurd! We needed their blood for the tokens we took to ward off the bad energy, the curses that plague this academy! That’s what we’ve been doing here. These girls, your other students—they should be grateful! Once they gifted us with their presence, we knew the fates had smiled upon us. Their blood would have sealed off the school from evil, protected it!”
Madame Puant shook her head in disbelief. “I’m the one being absurd?”
“Betsy, you know as well as we do that this school is malevolent,” Ms. Jamison said. “There is something not right about this place—I’m positive it’s haunted, cursed. And you know as well as I do that the best dancers are those who get harmed! What about Giselle? The dancers who have die—”
“Nonsense!” Madame Puant said. “The only curse on this house is the curse of you crazy people. Officers, please escort these lunatics out of here.”
She turned to walk out, then turned back again. “And you will kindly address me as Madame Puant from now on. Rest assured, I will make sure you never work in this state again. Or any other state in which I can wield my influence.”
The officers took the hooded figures away, leaving the girls in the room alone. Tears coursed down Madeleine’s face as she slid out of their group hug. When they stepped back, she saw she wasn’t the only one crying. She took a deep breath, bent down, and picked up her necklace.
“It’s about time I got this back,” she said.
Ophelia grinned and grabbed her ring from the altar, sliding it onto her finger. “I told you I didn’t steal it.”
“True. But you did just involve me in a cult ritual where someone almost sliced me with a knife.”
Ophelia laughed. “So picky. Anyway, you heard him. He picked the tokens from the best dancers. That includes you. Any more finger pointing and I’ll start taking credit for your ballet skills too.”
She grinned at Madeleine, and Madeleine grinned back. “Why didn’t I bring candy?” Kayley said.
A contorted shadow dashed along the wall. The girls shrieked and jumped.
“Come on, girls,” Madame Puant said, twisting her head in from around the corner. “Let’s get you out of these tunnels. I think you may have earned some ice cream. In the infirmary, though, so we can make sure you are OK.”
The five girls linked hands and followed Madame Puant to the stairs and out of the creepy tunnels.
Chapter 15
“I still don’t get it,” Sophie said through a great big slurp of ice cream. “What were they doing down there? And how did we all get nosebleeds at the same time?”
Nurse John fluttered back and forth among the girls, checking vital signs and ice-cream levels. When he came to check Madeleine’s pulse, she thought it might be twice as high as it should be. Not because she’d almost been killed but because he was so good looking.
He smiled at her. “Perfect vitals.”
Madeleine had to remember to close her mouth. She wondered how much ice cream he saw in there. She tried to swallow her scoop with dignity.
Ophelia huffed. “Sophie, weren’t you paying attention? We’re the best dancers—of course the crazy hooded freaks would target us for whatever stupid ritual they had planned.”
Kayley happily took a bite of her ice cream. “Yeah. You know. The usual.”
Emma sighed. “Well, whatever that was, I’m glad it’s over. Although …”
“Although, what?” Madeleine said.
“There’s that thing about Giselle …”
Ophelia shot Emma a look and said, “We don’t need to make Madeleine
paranoid. She just got here, and we want her to stay around.”
Ophelia smiled at Madeleine. The warm feeling that Madeleine had felt before spread through her again. This was what it was like to be a part of something. She smiled back. And although she was dying to hear about the whole Giselle thing, she decided she’d savor the moment now and ask later.
“But what about the nosebleeds?” Sophie said.
Ophelia slammed down her ice-cream bowl. “Sophie, don’t you listen to anything?”
Emma piped up: “Oh, come on, Ophelia. It still doesn’t make sense to me either.”
“It’s like how Nurse John explained it to Madame Puant,” Madeleine said. “Evidently, there’s some chemical in the tunnels that causes nosebleeds. Remember how tweaked out Mr. Barnes looked all the time? The place is toxic. The staff is doing a major clean down there. Then I think she’d going to cement those tunnels off.”
“I think the real question is, why were those tunnels created anyway?” Kayley asked.
No one had an answer. After a minute, Sophie said, “So, I’m sorry, but about the nosebleeds …”
Ophelia threw her head back and groaned, along with Kayley. Even Emma looked impatient.
“No, I get how we got them and what caused them,” Sophie continued. “But why did we all get them at exactly the same time?”
The room got quiet. Uneasily, Ophelia said, “Maybe the toxicity hit us all at the same time?” But even she didn’t look convinced.
Madeleine took a deep breath and decided to plunge in. These were her friends after all, and friends could say anything to each other. “Guys, I don’t want to sound crazy, but I think those hooded freaks were right. There is something off about this place. I mean, they went about everything all wrong, but … I felt it the first minute I walked up the outside steps. Dario Quincy Academy is strange. And maybe even evil. Am I the only one who feels it too?”
One by one, each of them shook their heads.
“I feel it,” Sophie said.
“Me too,” said Emma.
Kayley pointed her ice-cream spoon at her and said, “Pretty perceptive, newbie. Yeah, something’s not right.”
Ophelia’s lips were a thin line. “Yeah, Madeleine. Dario Quincy Academy is the best ballet school in the world. But something isn’t right here. Something is very wrong. And I don’t think closing up the tunnels will help, no matter what the reason they were built in the first place.”
Madeleine shivered.
At that moment, Madame Puant stepped in the room. “All right, enough ice cream. You all have ballet class in the morning, so you need some sleep.”
The clock read 2:00 A.M., and Madeleine was tired. And then she realized what Madame said.
“Wait, we get to go to class?” She looked excitedly at the other girls, who had the same looks on their faces.
“Well, it would hardly do to have our school’s star investigators banished from ballet.”
All five of them whooped. Madame looked the girls in the eye, one by one. “But if you ladies break curfew again, I won’t be so nice. This is a big house … and very unique. I would hate it if something happened to you girls.” A dark cloud passed over her expression. “Strange things can happen to people late at night. Especially in this house. Now good night, girls. See you in the morning.”
As Madame walked out the door, Madeleine began to think about her new life and her new school. She touched her necklace—on her neck where it was supposed to be, finally. She looked around at her new friends. Maybe there was something wrong at Dario Quincy. But with her family behind her and her friends in front of her and ballet all around her, Madeleine could think of no other place she’d rather be.
About the Author
Megan Atwood is the author of more than fourteen books for children and young adults and is a college teacher who teaches all kinds of writing. She clearly has the best job in the world. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with two cats, a boy, and probably a couple of ghosts.
