SEVEN
The kids who actually made it down for breakfast seemed to stuff themselves, as if they had been starved all last night. That didn’t make any sense to Spirit, since she hadn’t seen anyone avoiding the food at the New Year’s Dinner; it had been really good, actually, even if the atmosphere had been strained. Maybe there was something else going on. Could they have been—oh, drained or something, by that fear?
Or maybe some of them had been so frightened they’d gone back to their rooms and thrown up. Spirit wouldn’t have blamed them.
After a huge breakfast and what could not have been a very restful night, if she had been in their shoes, Spirit would have wanted a nap. Mind, she could see why Muirin didn’t—Murr-cat had gotten so much sugar and chocolate she must have been buzzing. But a lot of the kids had shoveled in heaps of hash browns, huge omelets, and mountains of bacon, ham, and sausage, and that kind of thing put Spirit to sleep. If she hadn’t been so determined to use this opportunity to convince the others to get serious about the threat, she probably would have been thinking about going for the protein herself and sacrificing this rare free day in favor of sleep.
As their group gathered for Monopoly in the lounge, she couldn’t help notice that the lounge was practically deserted—and so were the grounds. There were three or four die-hard winter-lovers outside—ones who’d made big inroads on the pastries and were probably on as much of a sugar-high as Muirin. They were mostly skating. There couldn’t be more than a dozen people in the lounge, including Spirit and her friends.
Or maybe the missing weren’t napping, just huddling in their rooms, alone or in twos or threes, still scared, maybe chattering away on the computer. Spirit didn’t blame them. None of them had faced the Wild Hunt. None of them had known that the students who had supposedly run away had, in fact, been murdered by the Hunt. Oh, they were told often enough that the reason they were here was because there were people out there who wanted to kill young magicians—and some of them might have the idea that those same people were the ones who had killed their own families and left them orphans. But there was no proof of any of that, and it was one thing to hear this story out of Doctor Ambrosius but it was quite another to show up at the school dance and have something try to scare you to death.
Spirit couldn’t keep her attention on the game, and for once, it seemed the others, even Addie, were having the same problem.
“I just don’t get it,” Loch whispered, finally. “There doesn’t seem to have been a point.”
They didn’t have to ask what he meant. Muirin bent down over the board, her voice even lower than Loch’s. “They were saying before I came down to breakfast that three kids and a teacher were missing from their rooms this morning.”
“If they even got there,” Spirit replied darkly. “I mean, who would know if they just went missing after the dance?”
“The chaperones and proctors, I guess,” Addie said in tones of uncertainty. “But Loch’s right. Nothing really happened. We just all saw some lights and got scared. Horribly scared out of our minds, but no one was actually hurt.”
Spirit threw the dice and moved her Scottie dog at random. No one objected. “If it was a test, like Elizabeth said, it probably did exactly what it was supposed to.”
“A test for what?” Burke asked.
“Not what, not exactly.” Spirit was thinking out loud. “More like—a test to see what everybody’s reaction would be. I mean, the lights went out, right? And aren’t some of you supposed to be able to make light? So why didn’t anyone?” I sure would have if I could have, she thought a little sourly.
“We weren’t supposed to use magic at the dance,” Addie objected. But it sounded as if she knew how lame that statement was the moment it was out of her mouth.
“Well, duh, the dance was pretty effectively over when the lights went out, and I’d say that was an emergency situation, wouldn’t you?” Spirit retorted. “And why didn’t the teachers do something about it? They’re supposed to be really hot magicians! You’d think one of them could make a light!”
“So, you’re thinking what was being tested was how we all responded to something no one expected?” Burke hazarded.
Spirit nodded. “I mean, think about it, whoever sent the Hunt is still out there. Or in here. But they’d want to know if we all thought that was the end of it. But they don’t want to let us know what they’ve got. So they just whip something up to scare us, then sit back and see what we do.” She was very proud of herself. For something that she was just coming up with on the fly, it sounded really good, like she’d been working it out all night.
The others exchanged glances, and for once, they weren’t the condescending “Oh, humor her,” looks they’d been giving each other lately.
“It’s what I’d do,” Burke said reluctantly.
“If that’s what happened, we flunked,” Muirin added darkly. “Teachers and Doctor Ambrosius, too.”
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. On the one hand, Spirit couldn’t help but have an “I told you so” moment. On the other hand—
On the other hand, I wish I didn’t get to say “I told you so.”
* * *
They gave up trying to play the game and instead took over one of the TVs and DVD players in the lounge and put on something utterly mindless and outdated. A musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie, which was pretty much typical of the stuff in the DVD library in the lounge, which was a mix of “classic cinema” that you were supposed to study and take seriously like Citizen Kane, stuff you saw on late night movie channels, documentaries (boring ones, not good stuff like MythBusters), and Arts stuff like ballet and opera. It was as if the school didn’t really want kids getting together to watch something; the entertainment you could pull up out of the digital library was so much better.
Maybe that was the point of having lame lounge entertainment. It would go right along with the atmosphere of competition. You wouldn’t really want kids getting together and having fun … they might make friends.
Each of them brooded about the situation in his or her own way. Muirin chattered cattily nonstop. Addie put in pithy comments about the movie. Loch stared out the window at the snow sculptures, not even pretending to watch. Burke stared a hole in the screen without really seeing it.
And Spirit twisted a strand of hair around and around her finger, occasionally responding to Addie and Muirin, trying to figure out if there was any way, any way at all, they could get some idea who had created last night’s terror, and what that shadowy enemy might do next.
Breakfast had been more-or-less brunch and the dining room was still open at noon; the guys got hungry again and went and made bacon sandwiches, bringing a stack of them for everyone back to the lounge because there were still no adults in sight to object. Seeing that, Muirin dashed out and returned with another giant plate of pastries. Addie and Spirit rolled their eyes and got milk and tea. They put on another lame movie, and another. No one talked.
It was a relief to hear the summons to dinner; at least it got them out of the lounge.
They’d barely gotten their seats when Mr. Wallis came in; something about the way he moved made her think he wasn’t there just to eat. A moment later, when he picked up a glass and a fork and tapped the latter against the former to get their attention, she knew she was right.
“Just to forestall any rumors,” he said, once the room had quieted down, “we took Jack Croder, Susan Menners, and Judy King to the Infirmary last night. Ms. Carimar also went to the Infirmary under her own volition. After several hours in which their conditions worsened, it was determined they needed to see specialists. No one wanted to risk their health after such a shock, so they were on their way to Billings by sunrise. We took them by special rail as the fastest and safest means possible.”
Of course, Spirit mused, watching Mr. Wallis through narrowed eyes, there’s no way to prove you aren’t lying. Absolutely no one had been awake this morning at dawn, not after going to bed exhausted, knowing there was no reason to set your alarm because breakfast was going to be held open.
On the other hand, she knew that she had seen at least two of the four mentioned passed out cold, and she was pretty sure if she asked around, she’d find out that all four had been laid out. So it wasn’t completely insane to think that they might still be in bad shape. Ms. Carimar wasn’t young, and if you had any sort of heart issues, last night’s terror would have been enough to give you a heart attack.
“We’ll keep all of you posted,” Mr. Wallis said, wearing a look of concern that couldn’t go any deeper than the first layer of his skin. With that, he sat down, and slowly the buzz of conversation got back to hushed-normal.
Hushed enough that Spirit was able to pick out some threads of conversation at other tables. At least two of the students had left e-mails for their friends.
Interesting. If only she could see what had been in those e-mails!
Not a chance of that, of course. It wasn’t as if she was a hacker.
* * *
By common consent, they all went back to their own rooms after dinner. Too much time spent together was going to get attention they didn’t want. But as soon as Spirit got to her computer, she found a message from Addie.
Gym.
She bundled on her coat, peeked out the door of her room to make sure no one was watching, and slipped out. It was already dark, and really cold. She shivered her way to the gym, did another furtive check to make sure no one was around, and slipped inside. The foyer was dimly lit, the big room itself dark except for safety lights and still decorated for the dance.
Straining her ears, she heard the faintest of whispers and followed it. At the side of the gym proper was a kind of corridor; that was where the voices were coming from. The door, which had always been closed, and presumably locked, was slightly ajar. There was faint light at the far end of the corridor. She closed the door behind her, noticing as she did that there was tape over the dead bolt, keeping it from locking in place.
It smelled musty back here, the kind of aged-sweat-and-neglect sort of musty that made her think of her dad’s old athletic gear that had been stored in a box in the attic. And there were a lot of doorless rooms along this corridor. She peeked inside one, and made out some really wrecked gymnastics equipment in the dim glow of an exit light. So this was where the old stuff went to die?
She scuttled to the end of the corridor and stuck her head into the room.
It was the furnace room for the gym. The others were sitting on metal folding chairs in a huddle in the light from a single overhead fixture. Muirin and Loch both had little netbooks and were typing furiously. Muirin was talking as she typed.
“… all that might mean is Big Brother learned from the last time,” Muirin was saying. “Vanishing into nothing and telling us they ran away didn’t exactly work to hide what happened to the Tithed.”
“Burke and I both got e-mails from Ms. Carimar,” Addie countered. “Canceling her class, basically, and giving us options for what to take in its place.”
“Doesn’t that seem a little, I don’t know, odd to you?” Spirit said from the door. “Here she’s supposed to be half passed out, stressed to the max, and sick, and she’s sending out individual course recommendations?”
“Well, no duh,” said Muirin, looking up. “Hey. Grab a chair.”
“Wouldn’t be that hard to hack the personal e-mail accounts,” Loch put in, and shoved the last empty chair toward her a little. “You wouldn’t even need to hack them if you had Admin status.”
Spirit pulled the chair to herself and plopped down in it. “Why are you typing?” she asked. “And where did you get those netbooks?”
“There’s a WiFi hotspot here, and we’re acting like we’re in our rooms,” Muirin said with a smirk. “Loch and I are always in chat, and it would look weird if we went missing from it. You three, on the other hand, aren’t in public chat much. I’m told you are actually known to do something quaint and antiquated called reading a book. How very analog of you.”
“I had the netbooks, they were in my luggage.” Loch shrugged. “Old ones I wasn’t using anymore. Father was always upgrading me to the newest model, so they were at the house, so I guess the secretary threw them in with the rest of the stuff she sent for me. At least these are useful, unlike most of the stuff that was sent.”
“So you’ve got no jeans and t-shirts, but you’ve got a tailored tux and two netbooks?” Spirit hazarded.
“Four netbooks, and yes.” Loch sighed. “But Murr-cat’s right, even when we’re studying, we’re in chat, so we need to look like we’re where we should be.”
“Back to the subject,” Spirit said firmly. “What’s going on?”
“Two of the missing persons left e-mails for their friends, too,” Muirin told them. “I just got sent copies.”
Addie frowned. “And?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know them well enough to tell if it actually sounds like them,” Muirin replied. “It’s only a couple of lines each, just that they can’t take it here, and they want to get out, they can’t eat or sleep, they feel like they’re going to die any second, and Doctor Ambrosius wants to send them to Billings.”
“Uh—if they were in the Infirmary, and never went back to their rooms, where would they have gotten a computer?” Spirit pointed out.
Muirin looked up, and Addie’s eyes narrowed. “That is a good point,” Addie said slowly. “And actually, why would anyone bother to have them e-mail their friends if they were sick enough to need to be sent to Billings?”
There was silence, broken only by the powerful fans of the furnace. Then Burke spoke up.
“They might not have been sick, as such, at all,” he said. “Just still insanely scared, and wanting to get out of here. That would leave Doctor Ambrosius with the choice of trying to keep them here and having crazy people on his hands, or letting them go and shipping them off to shrinks. Which would get the problem out of his hands anyway.”
“Well come look at the e-mails,” Muirin said, turning her netbook around so they could all see the screen. “I can’t tell if that sounds crazy or scared.”
They all peered at the windows. Spirit pursed her lips. They were in txt-speak, or at least the two kids were, so it was hard to glean any feeling out of them. And the teacher’s was impersonal, which you’d expect, and almost as short.
“So…” Spirit chewed on her lip. “You don’t…”
Burke snorted. “Look, something went after everyone at the dance. That much is a fact. Our rings glowed and we don’t know what that means, and that is a fact. You are right, Spirit, the Wild Hunt was sent by someone, and we don’t know who that someone is, or if he’s given up or not—”
Spirit got a queasy feeling. “OK, so the Tithed were more or less scared to death, right? Or killed while they were scared. Was being scared the point? Isn’t there something in magic about how you terrify your victim for extra mojo?”
Addie looked thoughtful. “You might be on to something. According to everything Loch and I were able to find, yes, the Wild Hunt—and I guess whatever was behind it—more or less feed on fear and pain.”
“So what they did to us at the dance—?”
Loch mussed his hair uneasily. “Different weapon, similar goal. Maybe.”
“You think that would be all they want?” she asked.
All he could do was shrug. “If I were thinking all conspiracy theory, I’d think that the power gained from the fear was going to go toward taking us out.”
Burke shot him a glance. “You are a big help.”
“Forget that,” Addie said steadily. “The point is that Spirit is right about one thing; there is something out there that ran an attack on us. We need to figure out who on the inside here is helping them. Once we know that, maybe we can figure out what the next move is going to be. Then we can take what we know to Doctor Ambrosius. After what we did against the Wild Hunt, he’ll listen and take us seriously. Now let’s see if we can figure out a place to start.”
The others nodded, and Spirit would have been perfectly happy if it hadn’t been for the part about taking what they knew to Doctor Ambrosius.
Because she wasn’t at all sure that was a good idea.
* * *
They hadn’t dared stay out too long—not only because they might be missed from their rooms, but because tomorrow it was back to classes as normal. Or rather, back to all new classes; this was the start of the second term of the year, an “Oakhurst year,” which had three terms of four months each.
Spirit woke up with a sense of dread, and elected to go for a protein shake for breakfast, figuring if she needed to, she could get some yogurt or something to tide her over until lunch. She didn’t think that a full stomach for her first class was going to be a very good idea.
She hurried over to the gym—to the weight room this time, the first time she had ever been in it—to join the half-dozen other students there once she had changed into the clean gym clothes in her locker. At least they were just sweatpants, a tank and sports bra, and a hoodie in Oakhurst brown … nothing nearly as ugly and embarrassing as the gym uniforms she’d seen pictures of.
“All right, ladies,” said Mr. Wallis, prowling up and down in the front of the room like a caged panther. “This is one class where there are very clear rules. You will use the equipment I put you on, at the settings I put it on, and you will accomplish the goal I have set for you. And tomorrow, we’ll do it again. There won’t be any hiding behind a lucky move, and no excuses. Are we clear?”
“Yes sir,” they all murmured. Although some of the more competitive types made use of this room, Spirit never had, and neither had any of the others in this class. What was more, according to the others, this was a brand-new sort of class—a conditioning class—and it was nothing that had ever been taught here at Oakhurst before. If you could call this “teaching.”
Mr. Wallis picked out Spirit and Elizabeth, and put them on the two treadmills in the room. The other four he put on the fancy weight-simulation machines, contraptions that looked like a tornado had run through an archery store leaving these things in its wake. Mr. Wallis programmed in an ambitious workout for Spirit and Elizabeth, and with a sadistic grin, punched the start buttons. The belts hummed to life, and Spirit and Elizabeth had no choice but to start running.
Spirit soon found to her dismay that these were no ordinary treadmills. Oh no. These were state-of-the-art machines that could raise and lower their beds, and in the next five minutes she found herself struggling up a “hill” that never ended.
Then the thing went flat again, but her ordeal wasn’t over. It suddenly sped up, and she was forced into a sprint for thirty seconds. Then it slowed down. Then it sped up. A few more repetitions of that, and it turned into a hill again.
Finally, the treadmill slowed from a sprint to a jog, then a jog to a walk, and then stopped. Spirit bent over, sweating and panting. When she caught her breath and looked up again, she saw everyone else had finished their workouts, too.
“Treadmills!” Mr. Wallis barked. “You’re on machines one and two. One and two, move to three and four. Three and four, move to the treadmills. Move it, ladies!”
With a deep sense of apprehension, Spirit took over one of the two designated machines. Sure enough, there was a workout already programmed into it; “all” she had to do was follow it.
“Is this usual?” Elizabeth panted, as Wallis went over to survey the students on the second set of machines.
“No, at least, not from what I know,” Spirit replied. “It’s something they announced for this semester after Halloween.” And I was too busy with trying to make it through my first semester and survive the Wild Hunt to think about it at the time. I wasn’t even sure I’d be alive to worry about Winter Term classes. “Everyone has it, too, you don’t get a choice like you do with the other PE classes.” That was new, too; almost everything else here at least gave you the illusion that you had some control over what you were taking.
“What are they trying to accomplish with this?” Elizabeth muttered, sounding as if she was talking to herself more than to Spirit.
“What do you think? You got the ‘welcome to Oakhurst’ talk,” Spirit replied, straining against the machine. “Those enemies out there, that war that Doctor Ambrosius keeps talking about. This is to get us ready to face it.”
“Damn right it is, and don’t you forget it, ladies,” Mr. Wallis snapped, coming over to see what they were doing. “Put some back into it, White. There are old ladies in nursing homes that can do better than you are.”
He stood over them, making occasional feints at the controls, as if he was thinking of making the program harder than it already was. Elizabeth looked in despair; Spirit just forged grimly on. Her hair was so sweat-soaked now that it was plastered to her scalp, and every time she licked her lips she tasted salt.
Mr. Wallis moved on in a regular circuit, barking at them like a drill sergeant, hammering them with insults. At least after the switch to the next set of machines, he did let them have bottles of water.
By the time they got to the showers, which Spirit sorely needed, she ached all over and felt as limp as overcooked spaghetti. She had the feeling she was really, really going to hate this class.
At least the new schedule gave her a decent amount of time for that shower.
* * *
The class following the conditioning class was the undemanding literature class—undemanding because this semester was covering books she’d already read in her homeschooling studies. She was able to just coast through that one. Mr. Krandal was not exactly the most inspiring teacher in the world, either—he could make Lord of the Rings boring—so it was a good thing she had, really. What he was doing to Madame Bovary should have been a crime, and she wasn’t looking forward to his nitpicky tests. The one on Silas Marner had been … well, one of the questions had been “What did Silas go looking for when the baby crawled in through the open door.” I mean, come on, Spirit thought resentfully, as Krandal droned on about Emma Bovary’s dress purchases in such detail you’d have thought he was planning on wearing them himself. It wasn’t important what he was looking for, it was important that he left the door open so the baby could crawl inside!
She’d gotten that question wrong, too, which only made her madder.
After that was one of the magic classes, and somehow she wasn’t surprised when Ms. Groves gave them all handouts on the Wild Hunt. Which was kind of like, as her mom used to say, “closing the barn door after the horses are out.” But at least it meant she could coast on this class for a little bit, too, which given that conditioning class, was probably a good thing. Maybe by the time Ms. Groves moved them on to something she didn’t already know, Spirit would be used to the conditioning class and wouldn’t feel quite so baked.
At lunch, she could tell that Muirin had just gone her three rounds with Mr. Wallis by the not-quite-dry hair and Muirin’s general look of weary shock. The two of them stood in line to get their food, and after a moment, Muirin finally gave her a sidelong glance. “My God. There is an eighth circle of Hell, and Mr. Wallis is in charge of it.”
“Oh yeah,” Spirit agreed fervently. “I don’t want to think about what I’m going to feel like in the morning.”
“Would you believe he knew exactly how many donuts I ate yesterday?” Muirin asked bitterly. “He was positively gloating. He threatened to load up the machine with an extra pound for every three donuts.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Spirit replied.
“I mean, look at me!” Muirin gestured to herself dramatically, before picking up her tray and heading for “their” table. “Does this look like the body of someone who needs to worry about a couple of donuts?”
Spirit had to shake her head, because in all truth, Muirin looked like the sort of person who might need to consider packing a few extra pounds on rather than trying to take them off.
Addie, Burke, and Loch joined them a few minutes later; Muirin repeated her complaints about the new class.
Burke just shrugged. “Didn’t seem bad to me,” he said.
“Well it wouldn’t, would it?” Muirin retorted resentfully. “You being the King of the Jocks and all.”
“I’m so not looking forward to this,” Addie replied uneasily.
“I’d like to know why they’re springing it on us,” said Loch. He took a bite of his sandwich thoughtfully. “Have you actually looked around at everyone here? We may not be Olympians, but we’re all pretty athletic. And magic burns the fat off you pretty quickly once you start practicing it.”
“Pretty athletic might not be good enough…” Spirit said slowly. “Not if we really are going to be in some kind of war soon. Maybe I was wrong about Doctor Ambrosius not taking the Hunt seriously enough. Maybe this is part of his answer. I mean … I don’t know how you’d have a war with wizards, but any time people fight, endurance plays a big part, right?”
“Huh.” Burke looked at her with new respect.
Muirin groaned. “You sure know how to suck the righteous indignation right out of something, don’t you?” she said with feeling. “Curses on you, Logic Girl!”
Spirit laughed weakly. “Oh, go right ahead feeling righteously indignant,” she replied. “After all, even if there is a good reason for it, Mr. Wallis is still a sadist.”
“Amen to that,” said Loch.
* * *
Lunch went a long way to fully reviving her, so Spirit went on to her math class feeling less like a damp rag and more like a human being. She took her place behind the empty seat that had been Judy King’s. It was with a bit of a shock and a lot of guilt that Spirit realized she couldn’t even put a face to the name, only the back of a head and a severely bobbed hairdo.
Ms. Smith waited for them all to get seated, then crossed her arms over her chest and regarded the class with glittering eyes. “There is absolutely no point in trying to concentrate on mathematics today,” she said, to Spirit’s shock. “Believe me, I understand. What’s probably making it worse for all of you is that most of the teachers don’t even want you to talk about it. They want you to act as if everything is business as usual, to go back to classes like nothing happened. But I don’t.”
She paused for effect, and raked her eyes over all of them.
“What happened New Year’s Eve was a horrible shock. What caused it really doesn’t matter; what matters is the effect it had on you.” Ms. Smith leaned forward, and lowered her voice a little. “You all had a terrible experience. I know I did, and I’m a trained magician with … let’s just say I have a lot of stories I could tell. Bottling your feelings up isn’t healthy. In fact, it might cause problems down the road—psychological problems, like post-traumatic stress disorder, and problems with your control of magic. You need to talk about these things, and I’m here to help.”
She fastened her gaze on Nadia Vaughn, who chewed her fingernail nervously. Ms. Smith didn’t even call her on it. Finally, Nadia broke under the intense gaze. “It was awful,” she said in a small voice. “I was so scared—it was so dark, except for those awful little sparks, and I couldn’t breathe! I thought I was going to have a heart attack or something, I kept trying to say something but nothing would come out!”
Ms. Smith nodded. “I’m not sure which was worse, the dark, or those little sparks of light.”
“They were like eyes!” Kylee Williamson burst out. “Like— Like the eyes of something that knows it’s going to pounce on you and it’s just waiting for you to be scared enough!”
That pretty much did it. Everyone but Spirit started pouring out what they’d seen, and especially what they’d felt. Ms. Smith made no attempt to soothe them; instead, she encouraged them with little nods and the occasional word. And her eyes stayed so … detached. Analytical. It was as if she was taking notes on everything. But why?
It was creepy. It was really, really creepy. Creepy enough that Spirit didn’t want to stand out by not saying anything, so when Ms. Smith’s eyes alighted on her, she blurted out, “I couldn’t stand it! It was a nightmare!” then hid her face in her hands.
That seemed to be enough; when she peeked through her fingers, she saw Ms. Smith’s attention had drifted to one of the other girls, who was in tears and on the verge of hysterics.
Well, so much for that class.…
Ms. Smith did, finally, make the effort to get them all calmed down before the class was over. And she succeeded enough that though some of the guys were flushed and chagrined-looking, and all of the girls were still wiping their eyes, they were all able to walk out and go to their next class without breaking down.
But … if Elizabeth had been right about it being a test, one that had been sprung on them so that no teacher could warn a favorite student in advance … Spirit would have been willing to bet now that Ms. Jane Smith was one of the few who had known what was going to happen in advance.
… maybe even the person who had done it in the first place.