Firespell

by Chloe Neill

  I grimaced at the combination. “That’s disgusting.”

  “If you think that’s bad, wait until you see the stew,” Scout said, nodding toward a chalkboard menu for the week that hung on the far end of the room. “Stew” made a lot of appearances over the weekend.

  Scout raised her glass of orange juice toward the menu. “Welcome to St. Sophia’s, Parker. Eat early or go home, that’s our motto.”

  “And how’s the new girl this morning?”

  We turned our gazes to the end of the table. Veronica stood there, blond hair in a complicated ponytail, arms cradling a load of books, Mary Katherine and Amie behind her. Amie smiled at us. Mary Katherine looked viciously bored.

  “She’s awake,” I reported. That was mostly the truth.

  “Mmmm,” Veronica said in a bored tone, then glanced at Scout. “I hear you’re friends with someone from Montclare. Michael Garcia?”

  Scout’s jaw clenched. “I know Michael. Why do you ask?”

  Veronica glanced over her shoulder at Mary Katherine, who made a sound of disdain. “We spent some time together this summer,” she said, glancing at Scout again. “He’s cute, don’t you think?”

  I couldn’t tell if they were trying to fix Scout up, or figure out if she was crushing Michael so they could throw his interest in Veronica back at her.

  Scout shrugged. “He’s a friend,” she said. “Cute doesn’t really figure into it.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Veronica said, smiling evilly at Scout, “because I’m thinking about inviting him to the Sneak.”

  Yep. There it was. I didn’t need to know what the “Sneak” was to figure out her game—stealing a boy from under Scout’s nose. If I’d had any interest in Michael, it would have been hard for me to avoid clawing that superior look right off Veronica’s face. But Scout did good—she played the bigger girl, crossing her arms over her chest, her expression bored. “That’s great, Veronica. If you think Michael’s interested in you, you should go for it. Really.”

  Her enthusiasm put a frown on Veronica’s face. Veronica was pretty—but the frown was not flattering. Her mouth twisted up and her cheeks turned red, her features compressing into something a little less prissy, and a little more ratlike—definitely not attractive.

  “You’re bluffing,” Veronica said. “Maybe I will ask him.”

  “Do you have his number?” Scout asked, reaching around for her messenger bag. “I could give it to you.”

  Veronica practically growled, then turned on her heel and headed for the cafeteria door. Mary Katherine, lip wrinkled in disgust, followed her. Amie looked vaguely apologetic about the outburst, but that didn’t stop her from turning tail and following, too.

  “Nicely done,” I complimented.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Scout said, straightening in her chair again. “See what I mean? TBD.”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “TBD?”

  “Total brat drama,” she said. “TBD is way too much drama for me, especially at seven thirty in the morning.”

  Drama or not, there were questions to be answered. “So, who’s Michael Garcia? And what’s Montclare?”

  “Montclare is a boys’ private high. It’s kind of our brother school.”

  “Are they downtown, too?”

  “In a roundabout way. They have more kids than we do—nearly four hundred—and their classrooms are scattered in the buildings around the Loop.”

  “What’s the Loop?”

  “It’s the part of downtown that’s within a loop of the El tracks. That’s our subway,” she added in an elementary-teacher voice.

  “Yes,” I responded dryly. “I know what the El is. I’ve seen ER.”

  Scout snorted. “In that case, you’d better be glad you’re hooking up with me so I can give you the truth about Chitown. It’s not all hot doctors and medical drama, you know.” She waved a hand in the air. “Anyway, Montclare has this big- city immersion-type program. You know, country mouse in Gotham, that kind of thing.”

  “They clearly don’t have a Foley,” I said. Given what I knew of her so far, I guessed she wouldn’t let us out of her sight long enough to “immerse” ourselves in Chicago.

  “No kidding,” Scout agreed. She pushed back her chair and picked up her tray. “Now that we’ve had our fill of food and TBD, let’s go find our names.” Although I had no clue what she was talking about, I finished my orange juice and followed her.

  “Our names?” I asked, as we slid our trays through a window at the end of the buffet line.

  “A St. Sophia’s tradition,” she said. I followed her out of the cafeteria, back into the main building, and then through another link into another gothic building, which, Scout explained, held the school’s classrooms.

  When we pushed through another set of double doors and into the building, we found ourselves in a knot of plaid-clad girls squealing before three rows of lockers. These weren’t your typical high school lockers—the steel kind with dents on the front and chunks of gum and leftover stickers on the inside. These were made of gleaming wood, and there were notches cut out of both the top and bottom lockers, so they fit together like a puzzle.

  An expensive puzzle, I guessed. Slurry or not, St. Sophia’s wasn’t afraid to spend some coin.

  “Your name will be on yours,” Scout shouted through the din of girls, young and old, who were scanning the nameplates on the lockers to find the cabinet that would house their books and supplies for the next nine months.

  Frowning at the mass of squirmy teenagers, I wasn’t sure I understood the fuss.

  I watched Scout maneuver through the girls, then saw blond hair bobbing up and down above the crowd, one arm in the air, as she (I assumed) tried to get my attention.

  Gripping the strap of my messenger bag, I squeezed through the gauntlet to reach Scout. She was beaming, one hand on her hip, one hand splayed against one of the top lockers. A silver nameplate in the midst of all that cherry-hued wood bore a single word: SCOUT.

  “It says ‘Scout’!” she said, glowing like the proud parent of a newborn.

  “That’s your name,” I reminded her.

  Scout shook her head, then ran the tips of her fingers across the silver plaque. “For the first time,” she said, her gazing going a little dreamy, “it doesn’t say ‘Millicent.’ And only juniors and seniors get the wooden lockers.” She bobbed her head down the hall, where the lockers switched back to white enameled steel with vents across the front—the high school classic.

  “So you’ve upgraded?”

  Scout nodded. “I’ve been here for four years, Lil, squeezing books into one of those tiny little contraptions, waiting for the day I’d get wood”—I made an admittedly juvenile snicker—“and G-Day.”

  “G-Day?”

  “Graduation Day. The first day of my freedom from Foley and St. Sophia’s and the brat pack. I’ve been planning for G-Day for four years.” She rapped her knuckles against the locker as girls swarmed around us like a flock of birds. “Four years, Parker, and I’ve got a silver nameplate. A silver nameplate that means I’m only two years from G-Day.”

  “You really are a weirdo.”

  “Better to be myself and a little odd than trying to squeeze into some brat pack mold.” Her gaze suddenly darkened. I glanced behind us, just in time to see the brat pack moving through the hall. The younger St. Sophia’s girls—awed looks on their faces—moved aside as Veronica, Amie, and Mary Katherine floated down the hall on their cloud of smug. That they were only juniors—still a year from full seniority—didn’t seem to matter.

  “Better to be yourself,” I agreed, then looked back at Scout, who was still massaging her nameplate. “Do I get a locker?”

  “Only the best one,” she snorted, then pointed down. LILY was inscribed in Roman capital letters on a silver nameplate on the Utah- shaped locker beneath hers (which was shaped more like Mississippi).

  “If your stinky gym sock odor invades my locker, you’re in deep, Parker.” Scout slipped her own ribbo
ned room key from her neck and slid the key into the locker. It popped open, revealing three shelves of the same gleaming wood.

  She faked a sniff. “This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. Such luxury! Such decadence!”

  This time, I snorted out loud. Then, realizing the locker bay was beginning to clear out of students, I poked her in the arm. “Come on, weirdo. We need to get to class.”

  “You have to stop the compliments, Parker. You’re making me blush.” She popped extra books into her locker, then shut the door again. That done, she glanced at me. “They probably will be expecting us. Best we can do is honor them with our presence.”

  “We’re a blessing, really.”

  “Totally,” she said, and off we went.

  Our lockers arranged (although I hadn’t so much as opened mine—there was something comforting about having my books in hand), I used the rest of our short walk through the main corridor of the classroom building to our first class—art history—to drag a little more information out of Scout. Thinking it best to hit the interesting stuff first, I started with Veronica’s breakfast-hour ploy.

  “So,” I said, “since you didn’t answer me before, I’m going to try again. Tell me about Michael Garcia.”

  “He’s a friend,” Scout said, glancing at the room numbers inscribed on the wooden classroom doors as we passed. “Just a friend,” she added before I could ask a follow-up. “I don’t date guys who go to Montclare. One private school brat in the family is enough.”

  There was obviously more to that story, but Scout stopped in front of a door, so I assumed we’d run out of time for chatting. Then she glanced back at me. “Do you have a boyfriend back home?”

  Well, we were out of time for chatting about her, anyway. The door opened before I could respond—although my answer would have been “no.” A tall, thin man peered out from the doorway, casting a dour look at me and Scout.

  “Ms. Green,” he said, “and Ms.—” He lifted his eyebrows expectantly.

  “Parker,” I filled in.

  “Yes, very well. Ms. Parker.” He stepped to the side, holding the door open with his arm. “Please take your seats.”

  We walked inside. Much like the rest of the buildings, the classroom had stone floors and walls that were dotted with whiteboards. There were only a couple of girls at desks when we came in, but as soon as Scout and I took a seat—Scout in the desk directly behind mine—the room began to fill with students, including, unfortunately, the brat pack. Veronica, Amie, and Mary Katherine took seats in the row beside ours, Amie in the front, Veronica in the middle, Mary Katherine behind them. That order put Veronica in the desk right next to mine. Lucky me.

  When every desk was taken, girls began pulling notebooks or laptops from their bags. I’d skipped the laptop today, thinking I had enough to worry about today without adding power outlet locations and midclass system crashes to the list, so I pulled out a notebook, pen, and art history book from my bag and prepared to learn.

  The man who’d greeted us, who I assumed was Mr. Hollis, since the name was written in cursive, green letters on the whiteboard, closed the door and walked to the front of the room. He looked pretty much exactly like you’d expect a private school teacher to look: bald, corduroy slacks, button-up shirt, and corduroy blazer with leather patches at the elbows.

  Hollis glanced down at his podium, then lifted his gaze and scanned the room. “ ‘What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself?’ ” He turned and uncapped a marker, then wrote “WILLA CATHER” in capital letters below his name. He faced us again, capping and uncapping the marker in his hands with a rhythmic click. Nervous tic, I guessed.

  “What do you think Ms. Cather meant? Anyone?”

  “Bueller? Bueller?” whispered a voice behind me. I pushed my lips together to bite back a laugh at Scout’s joke as Amie popped a hand into the air.

  When Hollis glanced around before calling her name, as if hoping to give someone else a chance, I guessed Amie answered a lot of questions. “Ms. Cherry,” he said.

  “She’s talking about a piece of art capturing a moment in time.”

  Hollis’s expression softened. “Well put, Ms. Cherry. Anyone else?” He glanced around the room, his gaze finally settling on me. “Ms. Parker?”

  My stomach dropped, a flush rising on my cheeks as all eyes turned to me. Didn’t it just figure that I’d be called on during the first day of class? I was more into drawing than talking about art, but I gave it a shot, my voice weirdly loud in the sudden silence.

  “Um, moments change and pass, I guess, and we forget about them—the details, how we felt at that moment. You still have a memory of what happened, but memories aren’t exact. But a painting or a poem—those can save the heart of the moment. Capture it, like Amie said. The details. The feelings.”

  The room was quiet as Hollis debated whether I’d given him a good answer or a pile of nonsense. “Also well put, Ms. Parker,” he finally said.

  My stomach unknotted a little.

  Apparently having fulfilled his interest in seeking our input, Hollis turned back to the whiteboard and began to fill the space—and the rest of the hour- long period—with an introduction to major periods in Western art. Hollis clearly loved his subject matter, and his voice got high-pitched when he was really excited. Unfortunately, he also tended to spit the little foamy bits of stuff that gathered in the corners of his mouth.

  That wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to see right after breakfast, but I had at least one other form of entertainment—Mary Katherine had this really complicated method of twirling her hair. I mean, the girl had a system. She picked up a lock of dark hair, spun it around her index finger, tugged on the end, then released it. Then she repeated the process. Twirl. Tug. Drop. Twirl. Tug. Drop. Again and again and again.

  It was hypnotizing—so hypnotizing that I nearly jumped when bells rang fifty minutes later, signaling the end of class. Girls scattered at the sound, so I grabbed my stuff and followed Scout into the hallway, which was like a six-lane interstate of St. Sophia’s girls hurrying to and fro.

  “You’ve got to figure out how to merge!” Scout said over the din, then disappeared into the throng. I hugged my books to my chest and jumped in.

  4

  A little more than three hours later, we left art history, trig, and civics behind and headed again for the cafeteria.

  “Grab a bag,” Scout said when we arrived at the buffet line, and pointed at a tray of paper lunch bags. “We’ll eat outside.”

  I’d been a vegetarian since the day I’d hand-fed a lamb at a petting zoo, only to be served lamb chops a few hours later, so I grabbed a bag labeled VEGGIE WRAP and a bottle of water and followed her.

  Scout took a winding route from the cafeteria to the main building, finally pushing open the double doors and heading down the sidewalk. I followed her, the city street full of scurrying people—women in office wear and tennis shoes, men nibbling sandwiches on their way back to the office, tourists with Starbucks cups and glossy shopping bags.

  Scout pulled an apple from her bag, then nodded down the street and toward the right. “We can’t go far without an escort, but I’ll give you the five-dollar block tour while we eat.”

  “I’m not giving you five dollars.”

  “You can owe me,” she said. “It’ll be worth it. Like I said, I’ve been here since I was twelve. So if you want to know the real deal, the real scoop, you talk to me.”

  I didn’t doubt she knew the real scoop; she’d clearly been here long enough to understand the St. Sophia’s procedures. But given her midnight disappearance, I wasn’t sure she’d pass on “the real scoop” to me.

  Of course, the most obvious fact about St. Sophia’s didn’t need explaining. The nuns who built the convent had done a bang-up job of picking real estate—the convent was right in the middle of downtown Chicago. Scout said they’d moved to the spot just after the Chicago
Fire of 1871, so the city grew up around them, creating a strip of green amidst skyscrapers, a gothic oasis surrounded by glass, steel, and concrete.

  One of those glass, steel, and concrete structures stood directly next door.

  “This boxy thing is Burnham National Bank,” Scout said, pointing at the building, which looked like a stack of glass boxes placed unevenly atop one another.

  “Very modern,” I said, unwrapping my own lunch. I took a bite of my wrap, munching sprouts and hummus. It wasn’t bad, actually, as wraps went.

  “The architecture is modern,” she said, taking a bite of her apple, “but the bank is very old-school Chicago. Old-money Chicago.”

  I definitely wasn’t old school or old money (unless my parents really did have way more cash than I thought), so I guessed I wasn’t going to be visiting the BNB Building any time soon. Still, “Good to know,” I said.

  We walked to the next building, which was a complete contrast to the bank. This one was a small, squat, squarish thing, the kind of old-fashioned brick building that looked like it had been built by hand in the 1940s. PORTMAN ELECTRIC CO. was chiseled in stone just above the door. The building was pretty in an antique kind of way, but it looked completely out of place in between high-rises and coffee shops and boutique stores.

  “The Portman Electric Company Building,” Scout said, her gaze on the facade. “It was built during the New Deal when they were trying to keep people employed. It’s kind of an antique by Loop standards, but I like it.” She was quiet for a moment. “There’s something kind of . . . honest about it. Something real.”

  A small bronze marker in front of the building read SRF. I nodded toward the sign. “What’s ‘SRF’?”

  “Sterling Research Foundation,” she said. “They do some kind of medical research or something.”

  With no regard for the employees or security guards of the Sterling Research Foundation, Scout made a bee-line for the narrow alley that separated the SRF from the bank. I stuffed the remainder of my lunch back into my paper bag and when Scout signaled the coast was clear, glanced left and right, then speed-walked into the alley.