by E Hall
Our voices echo in the empty corridor as we debate my costume options. Yassi continues to try to convince me to go as Imogen Hawkes.
When we pass Professor Frickman’s classroom, he dismisses a group of my classmates who needed extra help. They’re glassy-eyed as they stump down the hall. I probably should’ve been in there for tutoring. I wonder if Bobby is inside, but Yassi hurries me along.
In the distance, the bells chime.
“Miss Mayweather won’t be happy if we’re late for check-in.”
Once outside, fog rolls in a smooth wave down from the mountains and creeps across campus. Its fingers wind through the trees, leaving us under the blanket of a quiet, peaceful night. The air is the kind of crisp I remember from when I used to go trick-or-treating. Little puffs of our breath dissolve as we hurry toward Penny House.
We’re near to the dorms when from the opposite direction, shadows slink along the brick wall of a building. I guess we’re not the only ones almost late for check-in. Low voices chatter followed by joking laughter.
Then a groan and a grunt.
Yassi grips my arm. “What was that?”
I tilt my chin in the direction of the shadows. We sneak toward the sound, but as we get closer, the shadows disappear, the laughter fades, and the side door to a boys’ dorm closes.
“Maybe it was a secret society initiation,” Yassi whispers.
“Do you think what Dewey was saying about conspiracy theories could be true?” I ask with disbelief.
“There’s only one way to find out,” she says, drawing me toward the boys’ dorm.
“We can’t spy. What about getting back to Miss Mayweather?” I stop on the path. “Wait a minute, that’s Wyatt’s dorm.”
She smiles mischievously. “Don’t you wonder what he—?”
“What he’s going to wear for the costume party? You’ll find out next weekend. Now come on, before we get in trouble.”
Once back in the dorm, Yassi flops onto her bed and flings her arm over her face. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Crushes yes. Love no. You?” I ask.
I know the answer before she replies.
We talk about Wyatt well past midnight. “Bobby has his eye on you and so does a certain fellow in a top hat.”
I squawk a laugh.
“But Honey has her eyes on both of them. Greedy daughter of—” Yassi breaks off. “I don’t know much about JJ, but he doesn’t seem like the type to hang around with a girl like her.”
“She’s pretty…” I trail off.
“She’s not nice,” Yassi says.
“That doesn’t seem to be high on JJ’s criteria. He’s not nice. And there’s no way I’d ever like him.”
Yassi laughs like that’s the most hilarious thing she’s ever heard. “Anyway, you’re pretty too and pretty fierce. You just don’t realize it or how you feel about JJ Thorne yet.”
Chapter 21
★
In the next days, everyone gears up for Hallows Eve, leaving homework as an afterthought as we perfect our costumes to prepare for the party, doing our best to fly under the professors’ radar.
There’s a secret committee for refreshments, décor, activities, and some that are super-specialized. Rumor has it that the decoration committee has something huge in store for us. I’m on clean-up duty the next day. Not too glamorous.
When Friday finally arrives, everyone is eager and excited as we meet before classes to practice magic. Me? Not so much. Not because I’m still a failure with my wand and not because it’s Friday the thirteenth and Reese just told a story about how her roommate’s older brother was at Riptivik last time Hallows Eve fell on a Friday the thirteenth. A student, an apple tree, and a ghost went missing, never to be seen again.
I set aside my apple. “Did they check Holland?” I ask, thinking of the recent vamps.
“They did.”
“I’m staying out of the orchard,” I say with a shiver.
“I saw Sage, Bobby’s sister, sneaking around down there the other day. She seems nice, but there’s something...I don’t know...different about her.”
“Yeah, she lives in the golden shadow of her big brother,” Dewey says.
I know the feeling but I live in the golden glow of my parents’ Olympic wins. Sage is nice. But that’s not my concern. I’m stuck on a feeling of uneasiness. Could it be what Bobby asked of me? He hasn’t said a thing. Maybe it was all a joke.
“Are you okay?” Yassi asks. “You realize, we have to pass through the orchard to get to the—”
The bells chime, indicating we’d better get to class. Chairs slide across the floor, students shuffle their bags and bus their plates. I take a deep breath, focusing on the fact that I’m going to dress up as a Smurf, not Imogen Hawkes, and there’s no such thing as ghosts.
Audra, Winnie, and the others talk about their costumes on the way to class, but I can’t shake the tingles along my spine from the mention of all-things-eerie. The overcast sky, the fog hanging over the mountains in the distance, and the crows scattering from the dark pockets of the woods bordering one side of the campus don’t help.
However, Popperwell puts me in a pleasant mood with a distracting story about a trip he took to the Amazon several years ago. He describes the sunshine, the organisms, and a long conversation he had with an ancient tree. Whether or not it’s true, it’s funny to imagine my plump professor talking to a wimba tree in the jungle.
In arithmetic, Bobby is absent, but that prompts me to imagine him on the rumpus field where I last saw him.
A test in alchemy provides a focused distraction, mostly because I’m afraid to fail.
Derrington doesn’t scowl when I arrive in her class, which is a first. She practically flits around the room, lowering the screen she uses to project images (from her wand, not a machine). While we settle in, she makes a sound, almost like a laugh, but sharper and a little like something dense being hit with a wooden club. At least she isn’t yelling at someone because they forgot their homework or slicing us to ribbons with her glare—typical Derrington behavior on a Friday.
She dims the lights and says, “Today is very important. For those of you not familiar with Hallows Eve traditions, particularly insofar as they relate to conservation, this will be a treat.”
A student mutters something about her relatively pleasant mood being a trick, given it’s Halloween. By the tapping of fingers on desks, darting eye movements, and the general uneasy tension in the room, we’re all suspicious of Derrington’s good humor until her dare me to give you a detention look silences the laughter after the trick-or-treat joke.
As she explains the significance of Hallows Eve, my body gets colder and colder, like my blood slowly chills in my veins.
Her voice cuts through the quiet in the class. “On this auspicious night, the veil between the two realms thins,” she says. When she starts to highlight the difference between ghosts, ghouls, and spirits, I stop listening.
When I was six, my dad’s mother came to stay with us. She was super old—stooped shoulders, cane, wrinkly, crotchety. Not a cuddly grandma like on my mom’s side. (Though, finding out that Gramma’s a witch, stirs up all kinds of questions.) Anyway, looking back, I imagine my grandmother came to stay with us so she wasn’t alone in her senior years and so my parents could look after her.
She rarely came out of her room, yelling for my dad to bring her more Epsom salts to soak her feet. She rarely ate, and if she did, complained my mom’s cooking was too spicy. My dad’s hair rapidly went gray, my mom had to keep shushing me, and her singing stopped. It was a dark, silent time in the Wessels’ household.
I don’t think my grandmother was there for a full month before she died.
Then the noises started. Raspy howling like wind rushing through the winter woods. Clanking and a three-part stomp, stomp, stomp. The sound of my grandmother crossing the floor and leaning heavily on her cane. I was terrified to go upstairs and especially to pass the guest room.
I tilt my head, realizing something. It was shortly after my grandmother passed away that Gramma visited from Jamaica. Sure enough, the sounds stopped, my mother started singing again, and my dad finally looked like he’d had a good night’s sleep. Maybe she performed some kind of ghost banishing magic.
I snap back to reality as Derrington goes on to say that we’ll all meet in the old cemetery for the ceremony to welcome the traveling spirits as the veil thins. She says something about how it’s our job to encourage their journey forward to the other realm where they’ll travel onward to the Sea of Dreams.
She adds, “When Hallows Eve falls on an auspicious day, the moon is full, and the energy is powerful, sometimes the veil doesn’t just thin, it lifts.”
The bells chime and everyone quickly gets to their feet and rushes from the classroom. However, JJ lingers by his desk. With a backward glance, I hurry out as though my grandmother is back there too.
Chapter 22
★
After dinner and a sampling of all the apple pie variations—the cinnamon crisp was my favorite—, we return to our dorms to prepare for the covert costume party followed by the Hallows Eve ritual. (I wasn’t listening during Derrington’s explanation of what that entails and quite honestly after she said the stuff about ghosts, I don’t want to know.)
I go down to Yassi and Audra’s room, dressed in a little white dress and Smurf hat.
Audra looks up from applying swoops of dark eyeliner. “You look adorable, but something is missing.”
Yassi exclaims, “I haven’t made her blue yet.”
Audra goes to her closet while Yassi stirs a blue concoction in a cauldron.
No joke.
“Am I supposed to take a bath in that?” I ask.
“This? No, this is for the ceremony tonight. It’s one of my alchemy assignments.”
“Phew. For a minute there I thought I was going to paint it on my face or something.”
She laughs. “Of course, it’s the tanacetum annum potion. Don’t worry, Professor Khallini supervised. Now, drink up.”
“What?” I ask, slapping my hand over my mouth.
We argue back and forth, but in the end, I swallow mouthfuls of the earthly, floral liquid that has the consistency of milk. I gag a few times. Yassi pats me on the back, and before our eyes, I turn grayish, then blue, bluer, and bluest.
Yassi exclaims, “Smurfy!”
Audra emerges from the closet, jumps back, and says, “Wow. That was fast. Oh, and I found what you were missing. White shoes to go with your Smurfette costume.”
White high heel boots to be exact. I slide them on and totter out of the room like a very tall and wobbly Smurf.
The Penny House girls gather in the common room. Yassi is a gorgeous, ethereal unicorn. There’s a scarecrow, a giraffe, several creatures I’ve never seen before, a rainbow, and others in dark robes.
We sneak out of the dorm, along the lantern-lit paths and toward an old mansard-style house named after Chancellor Von Friek who initiated the Hallows Eve ceremony hundreds of years ago. The place looks haunted during the day so I don’t imagine the decorating committee had to do much...except put a spell of concealment over it so the teachers don’t see.
When we reach the house, cobwebs spread wide and sticky along the walkway leading up to the porch. A click, click, click like high heels echoes. Oh, that’s probably me. Then a large, hairy leg stretches from one of the webs. Mine is blue and not hairy. This leg belongs to a huge, life-like spider. I gasp and grip Yassi’s arm.
From a window above, bats pour into the night, their wings sharp against the sky. Candles flicker on nearly every surface as we enter the house. Organ music plays a chilling tune even though a fire crackles in the large stone hearth.
I don’t see many costumes from regular Halloween except for multiple zombies. Others are variations of magical creatures: some with horns, others with fangs, scales, and a few elves and pixies, though not like the elves and pixies that actually attend Riptivik. These are dead versions of students: a cyclops with an arrow through his eye, gory fae, a headless elf, and mangy werewolves.
Reese and Sadie, each wearing ballerina costumes, glare at them. The changlings look like your average humans, which is surprising because I assumed they’d go all out, considering their abilities.
“Wow,” I say. It’s all startlingly realistic.
Yassi asks, “Isn’t it cool? Some use metamorph spells, potions, and of course, regular costumes.”
We wander over to the refreshments table, laden with bowls of colorful candy, never-melt ice cream, and S’mores magic bars—at least they look like the ones my mom makes. It’s warm in here so I dip the ladle into the punchbowl. Yassi grips my hand. “No, not that one.” Her face is grave. “It’s for the vamps.”
“Blood?”
“Yup.”
Something smells like the mud from the bottom of a lake. A scaly, slimy creature sidles up beside me while I try to decide if I should have a brownie or a cupcake—and make sure they’re safe for eating. I hold my breath, but the stench is so strong I back away.
I don’t let Yassi’s unicorn horn out of my sight as I weave through the crowd of costumed students. She’s standing beside Wyatt, whose hair is in a man-bun, along with a pair of twin baby dragons (Dewey and Winnie), and a mummy—not sure who that is.
Dewey says, “The beast trainer apprentices bring actual spiders, bats, swamp monsters, ghouls... Cool, huh?”
“I think I smelled the swamp monster, but ghouls?” A lump forms in my throat.
“Wait until you see the ghosts later,” Yassi says.
“Trust me, I can wait.”
Despite the overall spookiness of the party, the organ music eventually goes quiet and dance music comes on. Yassi and Audra sing along to songs I’ve never heard before and pull me onto the dance floor. As one song turns into another, I’m having fun. The swamp monster stinks, but still, it’s pretty rare to see. I let my blue limbs loose and dance along with my friends, losing track of time.
A boy dressed up as a golden angel slides between Yassi and me—Bobby Gold. He draws me from the middle of the dancefloor into a circle of his friends, also dancing. I can’t tell who’s who disguised as undead elves, vampires, and a mangy werewolf.
We dance and dance—the vague recollection of fae court dances springs to mind and just as quickly spins away. I never want to stop. Bobby grips my hand, twirling me around. My thoughts fade. I feel a golden glow inside. I linger there, in a lovely buoyant place of forgetting. I dance in Bobby’s arms as students circle around. I’m dizzy with delight. The room spins and spins until I see stars as brilliant and bright as the night sky.
Then the twinkle fades and flashes of my classmates fleeing campus enter my vision. Masked figures in capes drive dwarves, elves, and the others off-campus. One of the masks slips and it’s me. I’m one of the cloak-wearing creeps.
No!
The pleasant warmth turns into fire. I’m burning up inside, slamming back to reality, feeling scared, violated, and confused.
Bobby grips my hand and his brow wrinkles with concern, but his lips tilt toward a smile. “Maija, are you okay? You looked far away for a moment.”
I brush my hand over my forehead. “Uh, I’m fine,” I lie. “I need some fresh air.” I excuse myself as he calls me back, but our hands slip apart. I lose him in the crowd. I don’t know what just happened only that I was watching the room whirl before my eyes then saw a horrific scene.
I spot Yassi’s unicorn horn by the refreshment table. She and Wyatt lean close in deep conversation. The others are leaving the dancefloor.
Dewey asks, “Thirsty? I’d say that you look like you’ve had a fright or seen a ghost, but that’s not for another hour.”
&nbs
p; “The fright or the ghosts?” My voice quavers.
He laughs.
Eyeing the vampire drink I warn, “Avoid the punchbowl.”
Dewey disappears to the other end of the table.
“Everyone knows to avoid the punchbowl,” a singsong voice says as if this is common knowledge. It’s Honey, dressed like an angel complete with wings and a halo—the female version of Bobby Gold’s costume. “You know what else you should avoid tonight?”
“Who? Bobby?” I ask brazenly, knowingly. Likely, she saw us dancing and is staking her claim.
Her eyes narrow and she titters. “If it was up to me, yes, but I’m talking about these friends of yours.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask, feeling the flush of irritation building inside me. My fingers flex.
“Things are changing at Riptivik. You’ve been warned.” Her words are sticky. She swiftly looks me up and down and then pushes her way through the crowd.
I move to follow her and find out what she’s talking about, but Yassi rushes over. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“Everyone keeps asking me that. Just tired.” Tired of all this uncertainty, these warnings, and hardly knowing a thing about the world I entered.
“Uh oh. I hope the tanacetum annum potion isn’t blocking your sweat glands. It is hot in here.”
“That sounds gross. No, it’s just—”
Her eyes narrow and like in the past, I feel her thoughts enter mine. She snaps back and her face pales. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
I turn away, afraid she saw the disturbing vision I had. Honey’s warning rings in my ears when Dewey returns with two cookies balanced on top of two cups. “Yassi, there you are. As a second-year, maybe you can answer this question, is it unusual for students to dress up as dead members of the school community?”