Miss Mabel's School for Girls: The first book in the Network Series

by Katie Cross

  I shoved it under the textbooks with the other and attempted an innocent smile.

  “Lucky, I guess.”

  She didn’t appear convinced.

  “Luck, sure. Who was your letter to? You’ve never mentioned any friends at home.”

  Leda looked up now, almost complete with her third attempt. It was just about ready to fly, which made it squirmy. I stumbled for a viable response to satisfy their curious gazes.

  “I-it’s for a friend.”

  “At home?”

  “Yes!”

  Surprised by my vehemence, Camille recoiled, suspicious.

  “You must really miss them,” she said slowly.

  “Yes,” I nodded, hoping it didn’t come out strangled. “I miss them a lot.”

  Camille opened her mouth to say something else, but Miss Bernadette took her chance by calling out a warning for time. Frantic, Camille turned back to her letter, her hands flying with surprising speed. I held back my relieved breath and buried myself in a textbook before they could ask more questions.

  Ten minutes later, Miss Bernadette gave us permission to release the letters. A cloud of square papers of various sizes cluttered the air, flying in circles around our heads. A few of them straggled near the desks, flopping like dead fish in an attempt to fly, Camille’s latest attempt included.

  When Miss Bernadette opened the window the letters spilled out, fading into the blue sky. My letter to Papa disappeared in the anonymity of the crowd, with no one any wiser.

  We left class shortly after, congregating in the hall at the same time as the third-years. Priscilla sent me another false, cheery smile, to which I responded with a twiddle of my fingers, as if we were the best of friends.

  “I can’t wait until you crush her in the next match,” Leda said under her breath when Priscilla disappeared with a smirking Jade in tow. “That’s all anyone talks about in the library anymore.”

  “Me as well,” I said.

  I trailed just behind Leda up the stairs, only half-listening to her talk about a flaw in the Council system that she wanted to correct when she came to power. The rest of the afternoon stretched in front of us, and it felt glorious, like flexing a well-worn muscle. I wanted to take the day for a run. If I had been at home, I’d try to track down Papa, see if he was free to give me another lesson on sword work.

  “Are you listening?”

  “What?” I asked, jerking to attention. Leda shot me a glare.

  “Why isn’t anybody interested in politics?” she said with a hot breath and her usual annoyed eyebrow lift. “Everyone spaces out when I talk about them.”

  “I’m listening now. Promise.”

  “Too late,” she said, throwing her bedroom door open. “I’m done.”

  Her door closed in my face with a final bang. I sighed, then turned to go to my own room, but a cry from some other first-years stopped me in my tracks.

  “Bianca, come join us!”

  Camille beckoned me from one of the tables in the common room. I walked up to find Isabelle setting out a couple of pieces of canvas and paper.

  “I’m teaching Camille watercolor if you’d like to join,” Isabelle said. “Miss Amelia ran a class on the weekend. She said I have a lot of talent, and wants me to take the Watercolor mark with her in a couple of years.”

  Camille glowed with excitement, already rattling off on all her plans for the paper. Jackie sat at the window seat, shifting through a Divination book and lounging back against the wall in lazy, feline grace.

  “You can draw me a deck of Diviners’ cards, right Izzy?” Jackie asked, her lips pursed. “I’d like to have my own. With pictures no one else will ever have. A one-of-a-kind original. Something that would shock my grandmother.”

  “Of course,” Isabelle shrugged, as if it wasn’t a big deal. I plopped into a chair.

  “Are you an artist, Isabelle?” I asked, perusing a few sheets of paper she’d set out. The drawings were extraordinary, still-life pictures brought to life through charcoal and paper. A few crinkled paintings rested next to them. The bright, explosive colors startled me, a sharp contrast to the even tones of the drawings. I had to turn away, the pictures were so vivid. If Jackie wanted a deck of Diviners’ cards to surprise her grandmother, then Isabelle was the painter for her.

  “Yes. I’m going to go for the Landscape and Watercolor Mark when I’m a third-year.” Isabelle’s chest puffed out a little bit. “My mother and I sold some of my paintings at the Spring Festival in Chatham. The High Priestess walked by and lifted her eyebrow when she saw one of my works. I think you could say that’s a good sign.”

  I imagined that the High Priestess probably meant, Blessed be, what is this exquisitely horrifying mess of colors? Did a rainbow vomit on the page?

  “They certainly do catch your eye,” I said, striving for diplomacy. Isabelle grinned, oblivious to my need to squint.

  “Thank you.”

  Jackie looked at me askance.

  “She’d make an interesting Diviners’ deck, don’t you think?”

  I sent her the same inflexible smile.

  “One-of-a-kind,” I agreed, and Jackie winked at me.

  Camille and Isabelle threw themselves into the drawings with gusto. I sat down near an empty sheet of paper and stared at it. An awkward lump of charcoal sat discarded nearby, and I picked it up.

  “Try it with your eyes closed,” Isabelle said, startling me. I looked up to see her watching me, her great glasses drooping on her nose. “Don’t think too much about it. Just put whatever picture first comes to your mind on the paper.”

  “With my eyes closed?”

  “Yes,” Isabelle said. “It’s amazing what the mind’s eye can express if we just let it.”

  I hesitated, looking from Jackie to Camille and back to Jackie. Isabelle had already turned away, paintbrush in hand, pointing out a few different tubes of color to her mesmerized student. No one else paid attention to me. With one final pause, I closed my eyes and lifted my hand to the page. At first I envisioned a trail, with Letum ivy hanging from the soaring branches, and Papa behind me, walking hand in hand with Mama. I started to draw the lines of the trees, their great arms reaching out. Then I saw the emerald colors of spring and summer. The blur of the colors when I ran. It all built on itself, and my arm moved faster and faster until I opened my eyes. Expecting to see the outline of the green tunnel that lived in my memory and dreams, my hand fell to my lap in disappointment.

  “Oh,” I whispered. “That’s not it at all.”

  An odd conglomeration of lines and twists met me. None of my leaves came together. Not a single point or shape seemed purposeful. A massive blob of smudged black lines stared back at me. Isabelle moved behind me and looked at it with her head cocked to the side.

  “Don’t be discouraged. Drawing with your eyes closed isn’t done to produce a masterpiece. It’s done to help you see.”

  I stared at the mess in skeptical regard. Even if I turned the picture upside down, it remained a mess. A disaster, even in art’s name. A sudden melancholy took over me, and I didn’t know why.

  “See what?” I asked.

  The mess that is my soul?

  “I don’t know,” Isabelle shrugged. Her cryptic voice annoyed me. “That’s for you to decide. Don’t give up on it yet.”

  Jackie slinked over and stood behind my shoulder.

  “That looks like a raven,” she said, motioning to a group of lines meant to be, I imagined, the thick overhead canopy. “Ravens are the harbinger of death, you know. At least, in divination, when they stand alone like that.”

  The words struck a nervous chord inside me. Harbinger of death. Jackie pushed against my shoulder with one hand. “You should let me do a reading with you one day,” she said. “I think it would be very interesting.”

  More like terrifying.

  “Sure,” I said, with more conviction than I felt, motioning toward Isabelle with a nod of my head. “As soon as you get those Diviners’ cards.�
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  “Put it somewhere you can see it,” Isabelle instructed, shoving her glasses higher on her nose. “Sometimes the answer will come to you when you least expect it.”

  Resisting the urge to crumple it and use it for fuel in the fire, I stood up from the chair. “Yes, Isabelle. I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  Pleased again, and oblivious to the underlying tone of frustration in my voice, she returned to Camille’s side. I took my appalling piece of art to my bedroom, and just to be contrary, tacked it on my wall, where I’d see it every day.

  11

  A Terrible Thing

  “Bianca?”

  Camille’s voice from behind my door interrupted my agitated pacing on the night of the second match. I yanked the door open so hard it slammed against the wall with a crack. Camille let out a little yelp of surprise. Leda just rolled her eyes, undisturbed as usual.

  “Hi,” I said, grimacing as I recovered the door. “Sorry to scare you. I guess I’m more nervous than I thought.”

  “We came to wish you good luck,” Camille explained, wringing her hands until the knuckles blanched white.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ll do g-great,” Camille said and bit her bottom lip. “I-I-I’m sure the second task won’t be too difficult.”

  “Great job making her feel better,” Leda muttered.

  “I’m sorry!” Camille cried. “I-I’m just so nervous for you!”

  Leda grabbed Camille’s elbow and directed her to the stairs. “You’ll be fine, Bianca,” she said, turning to me. “Just do what you always do.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” I asked, motioning to Camille, grateful to take my mind off the task for even a few seconds. The urge to pull them back into my bedroom, to force them to stay with me until the last minute, took over me. I forced it back.

  Confidence.

  “I’ll handle her. We’ll see you in the library.”

  Camille shot me one last agitated glance, mouthed the words good luck and disappeared around the corner with Leda pushing from behind. I thought of calling after them, but I didn’t. Instead I stood back on my heels, feeling lonelier than ever before.

  I returned back to the confines of my room with a shaky breath.

  It was pointless to prepare for a task that could be anything, so I ran through a few sword routines I’d practiced since I started learning sword work at ten. The familiar movements comforted me, even if I felt a little foolish with my empty hands.

  “Bianca?”

  Miss Bernadette knocked on my door. I jerked and hit the candlestick. It fell onto a roll of parchment, immediately spreading the flame.

  “No!” I cried.

  “What?”

  “Just a second!” I called, then extinguished the fire by slapping it with my hand. The doorknob turned, and Miss Bernadette peered in.

  “Everything okay?”

  The parchment burned beneath my palm.

  “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just finishing up some homework.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, Miss Bernadette.”

  “I’ll walk down with you.”

  We descended the stairs with no sound except for the rustle of her royal blue skirt. She wore a white jacket with it. The colors were the same that the students wore, but the style infinitely kinder. She looked like someone I would want as my older sister, and for a moment, that calmed my frayed nerves.

  “Thank you for coming to get me, Miss Bernadette.”

  She smiled and put a hand across my shoulders.

  “It’s my pleasure. I’m very proud of you for getting this far.”

  The look in her eyes when I finished the first task didn’t support this assertion. My response stalled on my tongue as I struggled over what to say.

  “I-I wanted to ask you about the end of the first match,” I said. It came out so breathy and rushed I wasn’t sure she understood it until her forehead wrinkled. She stared straight ahead, her lips pressed together.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s just that I … I-I wasn’t sure … You seemed so concerned when I finished. I thought that maybe–”

  Miss Bernadette turned a corner and started down the wide stairway; I followed close behind.

  “I had been concerned for you out in the woods is all,” she said. Her tone seemed off, like she was trying too hard to make it light. “You must have mistaken my relief for worry.”

  “Yes,” I said, eyeing her from behind as she continued on a few steps ahead of me so that I couldn’t look into her eyes. “A mistake.” Soon we turned past the dining room, so eerily empty and quiet, and headed down the hall.

  “Good luck,” she whispered. Miss Scarlett stood outside the library, waiting like a dark specter.

  “Late,” she quipped in a low voice only I could hear. “Unseemly.”

  The students split into the three year groups. The grave faces and nervous whispers made me wonder if I’d walked into a funeral. Even the musty smell of books seemed close and overwhelming. Camille, Leda, and Jackie stood in front of the first-years. I had three champions, at least. Camille still wrung her hands, so I gave her a smile that seemed to reassure her.

  Priscilla and Elana stood at an old table near the fire facing the room. Three thumb sized glasses stood along the middle of the desk, half full with water. A single envelope rested against the glasses. A tattered collection of old books lined the edges. Next to the table was a circular stand packed with glass jars of herbs and potions. I recognized hemp, kawakawa leaves, and dried lemon zest.

  Elana met my eyes briefly and returned her gaze to the far wall. That steely expression owned her face. Priscilla and I made a mutual point of ignoring each other. Miss Scarlett closed the library door as the cat ran by in a flash of black and brown.

  “You may open the envelope and begin,” she announced.

  So that was it. One of us would lose a dream, or our life, and it all started with a simple have a go. The lack of preamble felt anticlimactic, but delaying the inevitable would have been worse.

  Priscilla snatched the letter with a toss of her gleaming red hair. I envied her for getting to it first and tried not to look as nervous as I felt.

  Confidence, I reminded myself.

  “I’ll read it,” she said, sending me a smug look.

  Satisfied she had everyone’s attention, she cleared her throat and began to read.

  Beloved Competitors,

  Welcome to the second match!

  In front of you is a glass of what appears to be water, but looks can be deceiving. It is not water. To begin, the three of you will drink the contents. You will then create an antidote to the symptoms. The last person to figure out the cure will lose. Feel free to use the books on the table for reference, as well as the herbs and spices to the right.

  As you already know, nothing is ever what it seems.

  Always yours,

  Miss Mabel

  Priscilla folded the letter and set it on the table, compressing her lips in a poor attempt to hide a smile. I could see her certainty in the smooth way she shot the third-year group a wink. The three of us sat there for several seconds, waiting.

  All arrogance aside, no one wanted to be the first to drink.

  With a sinking feeling in my stomach that told me this wasn’t going to be good so I might as well get it over with, I reached for the glass and drank it in one swallow. Another wave of shock went through the school. I heard a few whispers.

  “She took it first!”

  “Demented.”

  Priscilla slipped me a private scowl and took her own.

  The effects were immediate, and intense.

  Fire coated my stomach like a hot glove. I doubled over with a cry of surprise. My stomach rolled and twisted in molten heat.

  The cramps eased as fast as they came, giving me time to grapple for a book before Elana or Priscilla moved. Once the feeling abated, it grew again. I fell to my knees, knocking the empty glass to the fl
oor. It landed with a dull thud and spun in a circle on its side.

  This challenge had to be about more than creating an antidote. Miss Mabel could have tested our skills for potions in an infinite number of ways. Agony like this didn’t come without reason. The tightening started in my bowels again. I held my breath and waited it out, only able to think in bits and pieces.

  Priscilla whimpered nearby. I thought I saw Elana doubled over, but couldn’t be sure of anything.

  The pain receded enough for me to grapple for A Complete List of Medicinal Herbs and Their Purposes again. Using the table as a crutch, I pulled myself up, then leaned against the edge and flipped to the table of contents. The knotting misery swelled too soon.

  Gripping the edge of the table and clenching my teeth helped me pass the next wave. It lasted for ten eternal seconds before loosening. I turned what little brain power I had to the book and had to blink several times to understand the reference for stomach ailments. It took me two waves before I got to the right page in the book.

  I skimmed with desperation.

  Nothing.

  Nothing described this kind of pain. It wasn’t a stomach ailment. This was a form of torture. How could I create a potion if I couldn’t even hold myself up?

  Elana followed my lead and used the table as a support. The occasional exclamation of horror and fascination from the students behind me filtered through my mind.

  “What’s happening to them?”

  “I can’t watch.”

  “Is this allowed?”

  Startling me with a half-choked, half-exultant cry, Elana ripped a page of her book out. She collapsed to the floor and started to crawl toward the table of herbs. Miss Celia waved the students away when they tried to help, forcing them to back up into each other. Priscilla stumbled after Elana, her face pale beneath a small smattering of freckles.

  I looked up to see Camille watching with her hands slapped over her face, her eyes round. Leda dazed out, her jaw tight and lips compressed. I wasn’t sure I could beat this. By the looks on their faces, they weren’t either.

  The cramps overwhelmed me, and I fell to my knees again with a cry.