Night School: Resistance (Night School 4)

‘This is important,’ she said, looking at the phone. ‘Valuable. Are you sure you want me to have it?’


Lucinda didn’t answer right away. But when she did, all she said was, ‘I think it’s time for you to have it.’

Allie closed the book carefully and wrapped it back in the protective paper. ‘Thank you for trusting me. I’ll take very good care of it.’ Her voice was fervent. She meant every word.

‘I know you will,’ Lucinda said.



Back in her bedroom later, Allie turned the pages of the book with careful fingers. The paper was thick but soft to the touch and the page ends were uneven, as if they hadn’t been cut by a machine.

She could see now how the handwriting changed periodically. The first half of the book was written in a spidery, swooping hand, and included names like Lord Charles Alton Finley-Gaston. His birthdate was 1681. Underneath, the book noted the years he’d served in Parliament. And the date of his death: 1738.

His wife was Mary and they’d had three children, two of them already dead by the time Charles passed away. One, Thomas John Finley-Gaston, survived. When she turned the page, his name headed the next entry.

Only now he was Lord Thomas John Finley-Gaston. Born 1705. Died 1769.

His children and grandchildren filled the pages after that.

This is my family, Allie told herself. She was trying to feel the things other people felt when they talked about their ancestors – a kind of possessiveness; a clear connection.

But the names meant nothing to her. She might as well have been reading the books in the library downstairs.

She felt nothing at all for these long-dead men.

Flipping forward in time, she passed increasingly familiar names. Names she’d read in history books. A prime minister here, a chancellor there. Then suddenly a long name stared out at her, written in a confident, no-nonsense handwriting that slanted sharply to the right: Baroness Lucinda Elisabeth Eugenie Gaston St Croix Meldrum.

Each word was clear and clean – no embellishments.

The page held a description of her life, her role as first woman chancellor, head of the World Bank, UN advisor. Beneath that, her husbands were listed, along with Allie’s mother. Like the book’s other pages, the information was all straightforward. But there was something about it that bothered Allie. She was at the bottom of the page before she realised what it was.

The page was written in the past tense.

Dread twisted inside her like a blade. Slowly, she turned to the next page. When she saw what her grandmother had written at the top of the next page, the blood drained from her face.





20





Twenty





The words swam in front of Allie’s eyes.

How could Lucinda do that? Allie felt betrayed. She couldn’t be in this book. She wasn’t one of the dead old men trapped in its dusty pages. She was young.

She was alive.

Suddenly she didn’t want to read any more.

Closing it with an emphatic thud, she wrapped it back in the anonymous brown paper and slipped it into the bottom drawer in the desk, beneath a pile of old assignments.

When it was hidden away she wiped her hands on her skirt, as if to remove any traces it might have left behind.

She didn’t want that book. She didn’t want any of this. She’d figure out a way to give it back to Lucinda. To tell her she’d made a mistake.

Allie’s whole life was ahead of her. Nathaniel might have tried to kill her but he’d failed.

She didn’t belong in the family book of the dead.



All the next day Allie waited for word from Lucinda about the date of the parley but none came. The day after that was the same: nothing.

Each day when her lessons ended she ran to Isabelle’s office to ask for news but the headmistress just shook her head. ‘They’re still negotiating terms, Allie. This part takes time. It could be weeks. Spend that time focusing on your studies, and on getting yourself ready.’

But it was increasingly difficult to pay attention in her lessons. To care about homework. It all seemed absurd compared to what was happening outside the school grounds.

And what lay ahead.

The air between Allie and Sylvain was still clouded and heavy with unspoken recrimination. She never saw him alone, and she got the feeling he was avoiding her as much as she was avoiding him. In groups he was studiously polite to her. But their conversations were stilted.

It was hard to believe that just over a week ago he’d told her he loved her.

Allie had taken to studying in the library. Nobody else used it these days – most students preferred to study in the common room, or out on the lawn on sunny days – so she often had it to herself.