Party Ghoul

by Sarina Dorie

His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear him. Probably he was trying to lure her out of her room. She closed the window and tried to sleep, but he kept tapping.

  After enduring the taps for fifteen minutes, she opened the window again. “If you have something to say to me, come up here and say it.”

  He gestured to her and then himself. He spoke, but she couldn’t hear him.

  She sighed in annoyance and closed the window again. Eventually the tapping stopped. Stacy didn’t complain about it in the morning, so Vega thought that was good at least.

  Twice during the day when Vega entered classrooms, students who had been talking clammed up upon seeing her. At lunch she heard a snippet of conversation, overhearing Vincent’s name. Probably he had woken a teacher, and they had known he was there to see her. She could have used an eavesdropping spell, but that would have meant she was curious about what her peers were saying.

  She didn’t care what anyone thought.

  That night, the tapping came again. She didn’t see Vincent, but as soon as she closed the window, the tap-tap-tap started up again. If Vincent had been caught the night before, he probably didn’t want to be spotted.

  She opened the window. “I know that’s you, Vincent. I’m not going to change my mind. Go back to school.”

  On Thursday night, the tapping started around the same time. It was more persistent. The rhythm was erratic, like a heartbeat.

  She tried to ignore the tapping, but it persisted. She used a sound-dampening spell. When that didn’t work, she covered her head with her pillow. She didn’t know how Stacy slept through it.

  Vega threw open the window. She didn’t see him. “Where are you? Show yourself.”

  The moonlight illuminated the grass below. The glow shifted and wavered, growing brighter, taking shape, but he didn’t throw off the façade of glamour or whatever kind of spell he was using to disguise himself.

  “Go away, Vincent. I don’t love you. I’m sorry, but I just can’t love anyone.” She knew she shouldn’t have shouted it for the entire school to hear. “I’m going home to my family’s estate tomorrow.”

  There was no more tapping that night.

  In the morning as she got ready for school, Stacy mumbled as she made her bed, “You were sleep talking last night.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I was talking to Vincent. He won’t go away.”

  Stacy’s face shifted from confusion to sorrow to something Vega couldn’t read. “Let me know if you need to talk or something.”

  It was oddly generous of Stacy. Vega supposed Stacy might have listened in on her conversation with Vincent on Monday night.

  During Vega’s classes, she kept hearing her name and Vincent’s paired together like they were a couple. Girls stared at her with open curiosity.

  During lunch when Vega went to the infirmary to drink her daily potion, Nurse Margoyles asked, “How are you holding up, dear?”

  “Fine,” Vega said.

  The nurse pursed her lips as though she thought Vega was lying.

  Vega had to find out in the worse possible way what all the gossip was about. Malisha Bane, her nemesis, walked by her in the hall. Despite wearing an eyepatch over one eye, and looking like a pirate, she wasn’t humbled into a less haughty expression. Malisha was probably feeling particularly cruel after the injury she’d received from Vega’s outburst at Ruth’s funeral—even if her partial blindness was supposed to be temporary.

  Malisha tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder as she sauntered in front of Vega with Gretchen Gravenreuth.

  “It’s pretty suspicious, don’t you think, Gretchen?” Malisha asked in a false whisper. “First she gets in a fight with her roommate, who then dies from a portal accident. Then she gets in a fight with her boyfriend, and he mysteriously dies in another portal accident a month later.”

  A cold lump of ice settled in her belly. “What are you talking about?” Vega demanded. This had to be some weird rumor Malisha Bane had started just to make her panic.

  Malisha cast a snide smirk her way but didn’t answer.

  Vega found Stacy on the way to class, grabbing her arm and shaking her. “Is it true? Is Vincent dead?”

  Stacy recoiled. Her brow furrowed. “Didn’t you know?”

  “What do you mean? What happened? How did he die?”

  “It was a portal accident. He must have died Monday night. They found his body outside Merlin’s Academy. He used the wrong kind of portal to transport himself or something.”

  Vega’s knees gave out beneath her, and she collapsed to the floor.

  “Vega!” Stacy shouted. “Are you sick? What’s wrong?”

  Stacy had to be mistaken. Vega had seen Vincent Tuesday night. She had heard him Wednesday—or heard his tapping. She had thought she’d seen him the night before, but it must have been her imagination. This was why Stacy had thought she was sleep talking.

  Either Vega’s subconscious had somehow known from those snippets of conversation and tried to warn her, or she had seen a ghost. Whether her last words to Vincent had been on Monday night or Thursday, they had been cruel and selfish. She had hurt him. Her last words to him had been that she didn’t want him.

  Baba had been right. She was like her mother. She pushed people away with cruel words instead of apologizing and making things right between them. Being like her mother was a fate worse than death.

  Vega went home Friday afternoon for winter vacation. As she’d expected when she’d informed Vincent she wouldn’t be spending the holiday with him, she was miserable. She just hadn’t known how miserable.

  She had gotten her wish. She was alone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Present: Grave Ambitions

  Vega Bloodmire knew she was in trouble. The principal would never hire her for a full-time job if she had accidentally killed one of her students. It was possible Mrs. Angelopoulos had been murdered by her enemy and not Vega, but if that was the case, she had to prove it.

  Vega had about three seconds to wallow in her self-pity and misery before a gnome darted toward the bathtub behind Orsolya and snatched something from underneath it. At first Vega thought it was a piece of her snakelike tale. Then she saw it was Mrs. Angelopoulos’s alligator-skin purse. He headed toward one of the mounds of dirt.

  Vega pointed. “Thief! Stop him!”

  She tried to scramble around the bathtub and Orsolya so she didn’t shoot a spell at her, but the other woman’s massive frame blocked her aim.

  Orsolya whirled. She held up her hand. A green ball of swirling mist hovered in her palm. She threw it, striking the gnome in the back.

  “Agh!” He shrieked and dropped the purse.

  The mist turned to vines and bound the gnome like rope. Orsolya was better at throwing a ball of magic than she was at throwing a shovel.

  “Nice aim,” Vega said. “You could play air pelota with an arm like that.”

  “That was nothing.” Orsolya waved her off. “You should have seen me play in high school at Womby’s.”

  Womby’s School for Wayward Witches? That was a subpar school with a subpar team. Vega chose not to comment.

  Vega strode over to the purse and picked it up. She left the gnome.

  Orsolya lifted the end of the vine tangled around the gnome. She held the gnome upside down and away from herself. “One down, a lot more to go.”

  The gnome struggled against his vines and snapped at her.

  “Why would a gnome steal a purse?” Vega unlatched the top of the bag and peered inside.

  The abyss was too dark to see much. The delicious scent of decay wafted toward Vega. The aroma of spiced cider mixed with cherry cupcakes made Vega’s belly grumble. Probably the old witch had stored some eye of bat and toe of dog inside the purse. They weren’t uncommon ingredients in potions. Vega closed the purse before she drooled on it.

  “Gnomes can smell metal. And rocks.” Orsolya waved a hand at the purse. “She probably has jewelry i
n there. Or money.”

  Vega arched an eyebrow upward. “Gnomes sound like leprechauns.”

  The gnome shook his head and growled.

  “Oh no, these little guys are way worse. They don’t hoard precious stones and metal. They eat it. If you’ve got any jewelry, guard it with your life.” Orsolya started toward the forest.

  These horrible vermin were demented pooping thieves that ate jewelry. That was a sobering thought. Apparently, some of what her students had said about gnomes was true. The fear of jewelry thieves was enough to rouse Vega from her self-defeat and guilt at what she might have done to her student.

  She had left her room unlocked.

  Vega applied another ward of protection to the corpse before flying to her room to ensure everything fabulous she owned remained safe.

  * * *

  Most of Vega’s expensive belongings, jewelry included, she no longer possessed. What her mother hadn’t taken from her as “punishment” for deciding to become a teacher, Vega had sold in order to cover her college tuition. The few pieces of jewelry Vega owned were paste, the imitation stones almost good enough to pass for real. They were still metal, and the glass was made from minerals, like other stones. It was possible that would still appeal to gnomes’ tastebuds.

  Vega found her room intact. She placed Mrs. Angelopoulos’s coin purse in the dresser. In order to ensure no Fae thieves devoured anything, she locked the door and used protective wards.

  Now that Vega had made sure her sense of fashion wasn’t sabotaged by gnomes, she considered what she should do next. She tried Mr. Reade again, but he didn’t answer his mirror.

  Probably the correct answer was to call the principal or the Department of Magical Violations since it had been a flying accident, but as soon as someone found out she’d created a portal, they would probably conclude the same thing she had.

  Vega didn’t want to call anyone until she knew she was safe from accusation. If she wasn’t, she would have to figure out what to do with the body. She wished she could have gone to visit Baba and asked her advice. Baba always knew how to dispose of dead bodies.

  And witnesses.

  Vega wished her life were so simple.

  If she waited for more than a couple hours, the principal or the DMV might question why it had taken her so long to report the incident. It might raise more suspicion.

  There was one place in the school Vega always went when she needed an answer: the library. She knew there were spells to determine whether someone had fallen through a portal not meant for living creatures. Teachers had used such a spell at Merlin’s Academy for Boys after a portal accident.

  The portal accident.

  Vega shuddered, trying to force the thought from her mind. Now wasn’t the time for the past to creep up on her.

  Before she had even pushed open the door to the library, she knew something was amiss.

  For one thing, she heard weeping. One of the tables was overturned, the metal legs missing. Wooden chairs were toppled on the floor.

  Ms. Leah Chamapiwa sat on the floor, scattered pages around her. She clutched a damaged book to her bosom, sobbing uncontrollably. The librarian had snow-white hair like Vega’s grandma, a striking contrast against her dark skin. The glamour she used to conceal her age was well applied. Even with her crying heavily, Vega couldn’t tell whether she was forty or eighty.

  The glass door containing the books from the restricted section was shattered. Shards were scattered on the floor. Vega gasped. The books!

  All those precious masterpieces full of wisdom. Tomes were missing from the case, looking like gaping wounds between the other volumes.

  Then she saw it. The pickax on the floor beside the glass.

  Gnomes had been here.

  “No!” Vega rushed past the librarian. “What have they done? How many did they damage?” Belatedly she looked back to the librarian’s tear-streaked face and asked, “Are you all right?”

  “They destroyed my darlings, those monsters!” Ms. Chamapiwa wiped at her eyes with the gray sleeve of her sweater. The librarian’s British accent became more noticeable as she continued with more poise. “They will pay for this.”

  Vega nodded. These crimes upon literature were unforgivable. She wished she’d never used that snarky tone with Orsolya the first time she’d met her, chastising her for wanting to murder gnomes.

  If only Vega hadn’t sent away that relocation expert on Saturday. She could have prevented this book massacre. Guilt clawed at her insides. This was her fault.

  “Why would they do such a thing?” Vega asked. “I thought they only liked metal.” That had been what Orsolya told her.

  Ms. Chamapiwa held up a page of papyrus marked with hieroglyphics, a smear across the black ink. “They were licking the pages. It’s the lead they used to dry the ink.” She held up what might have been an illuminated manuscript before it had been chewed on and spit out. “They’re attracted to the arsenic, cadmium, and mercury.”

  “Isn’t that toxic?”

  Ms. Chamapiwa sighed despondently. “Not to gnomes.”

  The library had always been a second home to Vega. She retrieved a broom and dustpan from behind the desk, her shame spurring her to help. Despite her past errors that had resulted in this disaster, there was no way Vega would actually succumb to manual labor. Not when she could use magic. She used a spell to sweep up the shards of glass as she picked up the scattered pages of the books. Some were soggy.

  “How did they get in?” Vega asked.

  “Someone left a door open in the back of the school,” Ms. Chamapiwa said coolly. She looked Vega up and down as if she thought she might be that person.

  “That wasn’t me!”

  “Someone did.”

  Vega scrambled to think about who she had seen in the building this week. “Could it have been the custodian?”

  “Our custodial staff know about the gnome problems.” The librarian sorted the papers before her into stacks. “They wouldn’t be so negligent.”

  Everyone on staff knew about the gnomes. It was possible the flyer-ed students didn’t. Vega remembered how Mrs. Angelopoulos had somehow gotten inside and come out the front doors. Presumably, she had gotten in the same way as the gnomes.

  Or she’d popped a lock with magic to get in the back door because she didn’t want to walk around to the front of the school, slither up the stairs, and head to the back of the school where Mr. Reade’s classroom was located. Vega wouldn’t have put it past Mrs. Angelopoulos to have been the culprit. She just seemed like that kind of person.

  “Did the gnome attack happen after four forty-five p.m.?” Vega asked, remembering when her student had shown up late.

  “Yes. It was sometime after five.” Ms. Chamapiwa continued sorting pages into stacks.

  Vega sighed in despair. “Probably my horrible student came in through a back door. Most likely she was the one who let the gnomes in.”

  Ms. Chamapiwa looked up from her work, her jaw clenched. “I’ll kill her!”

  “Too late. She’s already dead.” Vega thought again about her room and all her own precious books, shoes, and jewelry. “The gnomes are gone now, right? They aren’t in the school any longer?”

  “Correct. They are gone now,” Ms. Chamapiwa said, her voice husky with rage. “Those gnomes will not return.”

  Vega wondered what the librarian had done to them. There wasn’t any blood anywhere. But that didn’t mean much. There were other ways to get rid of pests without resorting to violence. Ms. Chamapiwa could have lulled them to sleep and kicked them through a portal into the Faerie Realm.

  Or one that living beings couldn’t pass through.

  Vega suspected now was a bad time to ask about that book with spells to see what kind of portal might have been used. She weighed which was more important, impressing the librarian, one of the most important people in the school—who happened to have the power to withhold books from her!—or
prove her innocence in her student’s death.

  Books or innocence?

  Vega was fairly certain she was guilty, and a spell wasn’t going to help her. She chose books, one of the few pleasures she had left in what might be a short life ahead of her.

  “I’ll be back later,” Vega said.

  She hated the idea of interrupting the principal on her wedding anniversary trip, her first vacation in a bazillion years. Especially if this was the only time the stars aligned, and she might be able to get her youth and beauty back.

  Unfortunately, death waited for no one. It was time Vega faced the music and called Principal Gordmayer.

  CHAPTER NINE

  No Place like Gnome

  Vega’s stomach somersaulted at the idea of telling the principal someone had died during her flyer-education class. It was unlikely Mrs. Gordmayer was going to extend a future job opportunity to Vega in the fall once she found out. Vega reminded herself there were other teaching vacancies at other schools that would be opening up.

  She used the magic mirror in the staff room, feeling like an intruder in the teachers’ space.

  On a whim, Vega attempted to summon Mr. Gordmayer instead of his wife. The idea of talking to him was slightly less intimidating.

  Unfortunately, Allegra Gordmayer answered the mirror’s summons. Vega suspected the principal was using a compact because her face was magnified and filled the expanse of the mirror. Prior to this moment, Vega had never noticed how small and clear Mrs. Gordmayer’s pores were, despite her wrinkles. Perhaps that fountain-of-youth spell was starting to work already. Then again, she still had wrinkles galore.

  “Of course it would be you,” the principal said. “What kind of trouble have you gotten the school into now?”

  “Um, hello, Mrs. Gordmayer,” Vega said, trying to cover her surprise at seeing her instead of the secretary. “I’m sorry to interrupt you on your vacation—”

  The principal scowled at Vega. “We received the estimate you placed in Mr. Gordmayer’s box. That amount is not acceptable.”

  Already, Vega was off to a bad start before she’d even managed one sentence. “It did seem a bit—”