Wager's Price

by G. P. Ching

  “You.” Ravenguard’s finger pointed at Finn’s face. “This will be your room.” Finn edged past the admissions counselor to enter the doorway to their left. As the brochure had suggested, two full beds were separated by a common nightstand with a gold-and-white lamp. An open door led to a small bathroom on his left. Two dressers, one window. Finn picked one of the beds and tested it with his hand, then stood, dripping at its foot.

  Ravenguard’s attention turned back to the hallway of students. “You,” he said, pointing to someone else in line outside his field of vision.

  He waited for his chosen roommate to enter. A moment later, the athletic girl slipped past Ravenguard into the room.

  “But she’s a girl,” Finn blurted.

  “Yes, she is,” Ravenguard said. “How wise of you to notice.” Faint chuckling drifted in from the hall.

  “Don’t you separate boys and girls?” Finn asked incredulously.

  “We do things differently here,” Ravenguard said. “Your uniforms are in the drawers. You have twenty minutes to change for dinner and orientation.”

  Finn stared helplessly as Ravenguard and the other students left. Without Ravenguard to hold it open, the door closed on its own. Finn rubbed under his nose and glanced at the girl, who pulled her backpack from her shoulder and dumped it at the foot of the opposite bed.

  An awkward silence filled the room. “Don’t worry. I’m not a pervert or anything,” Finn said, trying to break the ice.

  Her eyes flicked from his head to his toes, one corner of her mouth lifting. “Oh, please. I’d kick your ass. You’re half my size, and I’m twice as fast. If you try anything, I’ll hurt you.” Her pale eyes locked on his, thin ice over ocean, hard as stone.

  Ooookay. He raised eyebrows toward the window. “My name’s Finn… Wager. I’m from Beaverton, Pennsylvania.” He punched the air playfully. “Fighting Beavers.”

  She snorted, softening slightly. “I’m Hope Laudner. From Paris. Not the famous Paris, unfortunately. Paris, Illinois. Small town. Blink and you’ll miss it.”

  “Cool.” Finn shifted awkwardly in front of his bed. “So, ah, what did you do to end up here anyway?”

  Hope walked to the window and stared across the rainy yard to a forest that extended beyond. “I didn’t do anything. Well, I was born, I guess.”

  “Innocent, huh?” Finn said sarcastically.

  “There’s something here I’m supposed to do,” she murmured.

  Finn laughed. “Isn’t that why we’re all here? To be rehabilitated.”

  She flashed a half smile over her shoulder. “Yeah.”

  “I wonder when we get our luggage,” Finn said, cold and soaked to the bone. He walked to the dresser and opened the drawer. He pulled out a stretchy black leotard-looking thing and waved the uniform at her in horror. “They can’t possibly expect us to wear this.”

  Hope sighed. “I don’t think this place is going to be what you expected, Finn,” she said. “And yeah, I think they’ll require us to do a lot of things we won’t want to do.”

  9

  The Architect

  While Hope changed in the bathroom, Finn stripped out of his wet clothes and dressed in the stretchy black uniform in the privacy of the bedroom. He’d hoped the gear would look better on, but it proved as embarrassing as he expected. The athletic pants were only slightly more concealing than tights, thankfully more gymnastics-looking than ballet. The black sleeveless T-shirt had a Revelations logo on the right breast and purple piping that lined the V-neck and angled across the torso from clavicle to hip. Leather ballet shoes completed the ensemble.

  He did not look cool. Not at all. He messed with his hair and adjusted the shirt. It didn’t help. There were no buttons or zippers, no way to spruce it up. On an athletic physique, it might have looked okay, but the getup was loose in all the wrong places on Finn and only succeeded in making him look even smaller than he was.

  The door to the bathroom opened and Finn groaned. Hope emerged, all toned muscle and confidence. He could feel his ears grow hot, and he scowled at his own reflection. She was wearing the exact same thing he was. Only, she made it look good.

  “At least they’re comfortable.” By her tone, he could tell she was trying to put him at ease.

  It didn’t work. He rolled his eyes and tried not to think about how pitiful he looked.

  “Do you think we’re supposed to head down on our own?” he asked, sliding his arm into a waist-length warm-up jacket. At least the jacket added some bulk around his shoulders. He frowned into the mirror.

  Hope’s lips parted as if to answer him but she was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door, followed by Applegate storming into their room uninvited. The heels of her boots clicked on the hardwood floor as she sized them up, zeroing in on Hope. “No jewelry of any kind is allowed.”

  Hope removed her earrings and placed them on the dresser. Finn remembered the pendant he’d seen around her neck and wondered if it was under the shallow vee of her uniform. If it was, she made no effort to remove it. Applegate stepped closer, her hands clasped behind her back, and narrowed her eyes on Hope’s neck. One white-gloved hand reached toward the girl, Applegate’s mouth contorting into something ugly.

  If she found Hope’s pendant, what would she do? Would Finn have to listen to Hope scream the way Amanda had? He didn’t owe the girl anything, but he didn’t want to start the semester with more drama.

  “When can I get my trunk?” Finn blurted to distract Applegate.

  The admissions counselor’s sharp perusal refocused in his direction. “I did not give you permission to speak, Mr. Wager. Speaking out of turn is an infraction.”

  He remembered Ravenguard saying the same thing to the dark-haired girl, Amanda. He wasn’t about to be subjected to her fate. He closed his mouth and stared at his shoes.

  Heavy footsteps—Applegate’s boots—circled him. She brushed a glove across his back as if smoothing a wrinkle. “Adequate. Line up with the others.”

  Finn shuffled into the hall where the other students, with the exception of Amanda, were waiting. He fell into line behind Rugby and Braids, er, Wendy.

  Hope was right behind him. Once Applegate was out of earshot, she whispered, “Thank you.”

  He nodded. He wanted to ask her why she hadn’t removed the pendant but he didn’t have a chance.

  “Eyes straight ahead,” Applegate barked.

  Finn straightened his chin and stared at the back of Wendy’s head. Applegate led them down the grand staircase and across the massive foyer to two heavy wooden doors that achingly reminded Finn of home. Ravenguard was already there and held the doors open while Finn and the others filed through.

  Inside, a group of seven adults faced them, lined up along one side of a long ebony head table. The head of a rhinoceros was mounted on the wall behind them, and a chandelier made entirely of reindeer antlers and those strange, dull lightbulbs glowed overhead. A second table, one Finn presumed was for students such as himself, ran perpendicular to the head table, set off by a three-foot chasm of space. A clear delineation between teacher and student.

  Finn and the other students hovered just inside the door, not sure what to do next.

  Seated dead center at the head table was an elderly woman, her wild gray hair, evocative of Einstein’s, barely contained under a red bowler hat. Pushing back her chair, she stood, the wrinkles around her eyes growing more pronounced with her scrutiny of the group. She hardly held the mark of sophistication, but when she rose from her seat, the six adults around her also popped up. This woman was powerful. She was important.

  “Welcome! Wellllcome!” she trilled. She gestured toward the tall-backed chairs around the empty student table. “Please, take your seats. Boy, girl, boy, girl. Stay with your roommates. Yes. That’s it.” She pushed back her boxy black jacket to place her fists on the hips of her flared jodhpurs and focused in on Mike through her red-rimmed glasses. Finn realized he was the only one without a partner. “Michael, is it?”
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  “Yes, ma’am,” Mike said, his tone ridiculously polite.

  “I’m afraid your roommate will be detained for a few days. Amanda wasn’t quite ready to fully participate in her rehabilitation, but through intensive intervention, we hope to return her to you soon. I think you’ll find she’s a new person when we do.” Bright red lipstick curved into a yellow-toothed grin.

  Mike chose a seat at the far end of the table, leaving plenty of room between himself and the adults. The other students filled in around him, some more quickly than others. The high-backed monstrosities used as chairs were oversized and constructed of a dense, heavy wood that Finn struggled to move at all. He pushed and pushed and pushed on the chair, but even using all his weight he only succeeded in moving it a half inch. His efforts caught the attention of Hope, who nonchalantly reached over and slid it back with one hand. Red-faced, he sat down, giving her a grateful yet humiliated nod.

  Once everyone was seated, the elderly woman spread her arms wide. Her back was ballerina-straight, and she held her chin high as someone of noble birth might. Along with her upturned hands, her posture made her look twenty years younger than a moment before. She was a performer, Finn realized, and she’d just put on a well-practiced mask.

  “My name is Victoria Duvall and I am the architect of this performance. You will call me Ms. D. I want to congratulate you on choosing Revelations Institute. Our show, like all those before it, will make history. Here at this school, you will be transformed from the ordinary, hapless beings huddled around my table to magnificent warriors of the stage. You will learn to throw yourselves fearlessly into the performance with no concern for your own safety or self-preservation. No!” She held up one finger. “Nothing worth doing is safe, my dear students.” She fisted her hands and thrust them toward the ceiling. “You cannot go into the extraordinary lackadaisically.”

  Her tall, laced boots clacked on the stone floor as she rounded her chair and paced the room. “We must charge toward the exceptional, knowing we might fail. We must jump from the nest believing we can fly, even if the result is our plummet to the Earth. Dear, dear children, for the next semester, you shall be the paints that color my canvas.” Spreading her hands, she approached the table again, a pleading expression on her face. “This island, this school, has made the impossible possible. Together, we will overcome the bindings of natural law. We will transcend the human condition. We will defy gravity.” Ms. D squeezed her hands into fists, then folded her chin to her chest and closed her eyes.

  The room fell silent. Someone shifted. Gazes ping-ponged across the table as seconds stretched into minutes. Ms. D did not move. Finn glanced toward the doors where Applegate and Ravenguard stood at attention. They did not seem concerned with the headmistress’s odd state.

  Ms. D’s head snapped up so violently that Finn jumped in his chair. Her eyes and nostrils flared. “First, we must eat. You will need your strength.” She clapped her hands and a door at the back of the room, opposite where Applegate and Ravenguard stood, opened. A group of people entered carrying domed trays, all redheads, all under four feet tall—little people. An elderly woman with an exceptionally large platter led the servers, and Finn was struck by the resemblance between them, as if they were all related to each other. Mike stood, pushing back his chair to make room and assist the woman in placing the platter on the table. It was a Mike thing to do, polite, gentlemanly.

  “What are you doing?” Ms. D snapped at Mike.

  As he lowered the tray to the table, Mike’s mouth fell open. “Helping?”

  “Does Mrs. Wilhelm look as if she needs help?”

  Finn followed Mike’s gaze back to Mrs. Wilhelm. She was difficult to see from where he was sitting, as she was barely taller than the table, but what he could make out of her seemed perturbed. Her arms were crossed and her lips were pursed.

  “Um, no,” Mike said.

  “We never judge a person’s abilities based on their size at Revelations, and we never, ever do for someone else what they should do for themselves. Is that clear?” Ms. D’s voice was quiet but razor sharp.

  Mike nodded.

  “Michael, please stand facing Mrs. Wilhelm and apologize for underestimating her.”

  With some effort, Mike stepped around his chair and turned toward the woman. “I’m sorry. I’m new and didn’t know the rule.”

  “Apology accepted,” Mrs. Wilhelm said, smiling warmly. Mike turned back to his chair, but Ms. D raised her hand to stop him. There was a general murmur from the other servers.

  “Mrs. Wilhelm, please demonstrate your strength to young Michael and his classmates.”

  “I hardly think that’s necessary. It was an honest mistake,” Mrs. Wilhelm said, twisting her apron in her hands.

  “Now!” Ms. D yelled.

  Mrs. Wilhelm sighed and gave Mike an apologetic look. Then, without hesitation, she stepped toward him and punched him squarely in the stomach. Mike doubled over and dropped to the floor. Jayden moved to help him, but Ms. D pinned him to his seat with a weighty, disapproving stare. He leaned back in his chair and locked eyes with Finn, who mouthed messed up.

  Mike drew a tight, whistling breath.

  Ms. D cleared her throat and lowered herself into her chair again. Mrs. Wilhelm and the other servers stepped around Mike and delivered the rest of the trays to the table, removing the domes before disappearing as quickly as they had come. The adults dug in immediately, including Ms. D, who heaped her plate with slices of meat and ladles of whipped potatoes and vegetables. Finn didn’t move until he saw Mike rise from the floor and take a seat at the table. Their eyes met and Mike gave him a reassuring nod.

  On his left, Barbie frowned at the platters. Were they allowed to begin? After what happened to Mike and Amanda, no one wanted to be the first to test the waters.

  “Well?” Ms. D said, glancing at the students. “What are you waiting for?”

  Finn leaned forward and speared a slab of meat. The others did the same. “What is this?” he asked Hope, the meat hovering over the platter. She’d covered her plate with vegetables and potatoes. No meat.

  She shook her head. As large around as a slice of Christmas ham, the slab was rare, bright red, and left a trail of blood on the platter. He’d never seen anything like it.

  Wendy spoke up. “Excuse me, Ms. D, what type of meat is this? I, uh, have allergies.”

  Ms. D stopped eating and wiped a bit of blood from the corner of her lips. “Don’t concern yourself, Wendy. It isn’t lamb. That’s what you’re allergic to, isn’t it?”

  Wendy nodded.

  “Not to worry. It’s tiger.”

  Finn jiggled his fork to release the meat back to the platter instead of lifting it to his plate. He pushed the tray in Rugby’s direction and dug into the potatoes instead.

  “You will eat three meals a day in this dining hall, although most will be buffet style,” Ms. D said around a bite of food. “Don’t miss meals. If you do, you’ll go without. Dinner is served before twilight, and all students must be in their dormitories by full dark. If Mr. Ravenguard or Ms. Applegate catches you out of your room after dark, it will be considered an infraction.”

  “What happens if we get an infraction?” Barbie asked.

  “Good question, Jenny… Pendleton. Do I have your name right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jenny said softly.

  “We at Revelations consider a misbehaving child a sick child. In the case of an infraction, you will be separated from the group and undergo intensive therapy until you are able to obey and succeed in the mainstream setting.”

  “What is the intensive therapy comprised of?” Jenny asked. Based on her expression, Finn pegged her for the type of girl who thrived on knowing the rules and following every one to the letter. He wondered how she’d ended up here.

  “If I told you, it would lose its intensity.” Ms. D grinned. “Trust me, Ms. Pendleton, you don’t want to find out. Now, while you finish your meals, your instructors will introduce themselve
s and demonstrate their specialty. Pay close attention. You will meet with each instructor for ninety minutes each day and attempt to learn his or her act. Your goal is to convince them that you can master their routine and transform yourself into a cast member for the performance in the spring.” She nodded to a man on her left. “Amuke, it’s time. I’d like to begin with you.”

  10

  Orientation

  The man called Amuke was completely bald with espresso-colored skin and hazel eyes that reflected gold in the dull light of the chandelier. If Finn had thought the seats heavy, they didn’t appear so as Amuke tossed his chair back and strode to a small platform at the front of the room. His uniform was similar to Finn’s aside from a flap of orange across the chest that gave the outfit a more sophisticated appearance.

  “I am Amuke. I teach menagerie, the use of animals in the performing arts,” he began in a deep double bass. He approached one of the windows and opened it wide. The rain had abated and the sun was beginning to set. A stiff humidity drifted into the room.

  “Tiger, come,” Amuke called.

  Finn darted a glance toward Mike and Jayden, who returned his raised eyebrow. Surely the man wasn’t going to invite a tiger into the dining room.

  A roar cut through the big, open space, and then a full-grown Siberian tiger leaped through the window. Finn recoiled as it passed Amuke, lowered its head, and prowled toward the table. What was he doing calling that thing inside? Trained or not, an animal like that needed restraint. The thing had to weigh five hundred pounds.

  The great cat reared, paws as big as Finn’s head thunking down on the open foot of the table. Its claws gouged the wood. Finn gripped the arms of his chair and Wendy, who was seated closest to the animal, screamed and jumped out of her seat as if she might leap into Jayden’s arms if he wasn’t cowering as far away from the beast as possible himself.