Wager's Price

by G. P. Ching

  At the murmur that bubbled up from the students, Ms. D raised her hands. “The way we do things here may seem strange at first, but all will become clear in time. The longer you are here, the more easily you will… adapt. Now, I recommend you return to your rooms and get a good night’s rest.” She stood and leaned over the table. “You’ve got a big day ahead of you.”

  11

  A Good Night's Rest

  Exhaustion weighed on Finn as he followed Ravenguard back to his dorm room. The weight of the day grew heavier when the room proved stubbornly devoid of his trunk. The morning’s ADHD medicine had worn off and the stress of the orientation and the mysterious happenings of the night had resulted in a surging pulse at the base of his neck. The world came at him at high speed and a fidgety restlessness was taking hold.

  “When will we get our luggage?” he blurted before Ravenguard could leave.

  Ravenguard gave a tight smile. “Your trunk, Mr. Wager, has been misplaced. Unfortunately, while Ms. Applegate and I were distracted with Ms. Tidwell, it disappeared. Mrs. Wilhelm is searching the institute. Meanwhile, everything you need has been provided for you.” He motioned toward the drawers.

  Finn frowned. “My medication is inside that trunk. Is there a nurse or a pharmacy?”

  “I have no record of you needing any medication.”

  “Because it’s in my trunk. Call my dad. He’ll tell you.”

  “Students may not contact their families during their stay here.”

  “I’m not asking to contact my family. I’m asking you to contact my father and figure out a way to get me my medication… which I need… for my health.”

  Besides feeling like his skin might crawl off his body, his father would kill him if anything happened to his great-grandmother’s trunk. Plus, in the back of his mind, he remembered his father’s promise of a cell phone within its depths. After what he’d seen today, he had a strong feeling he’d need that phone at some point.

  “What happens if you do not have your medication?” Ravenguard asked.

  “I won’t be able to sit still or concentrate. I’ll be impulsive, even if I don’t want to be. I won’t be able to help it.”

  “I suppose we must cross that bridge when we come to it.” The older man tipped his bowler hat and left the room without another word.

  “Hey. Hey!” Finn yelled. The door closed and a loud click came from the wall. Finn rushed the door, slapping the wood and trying the knob. “He locked us in.”

  “Why do you take medication?” Hope asked softly. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, twirling the end of her ponytail around her finger.

  “It’s personal.”

  “Are you going to croak before morning?”

  “No. I won’t die.” He paced between the dressers. “I have ADHD, all right? No, I’m not crazy, it’s not all in my head, and it is not because of my diet. I have a disease that makes me…” He trailed off, focusing on a chip in the wall.

  “Okay.” Hope rubbed her hands on her thighs. “I don’t think it’s in your head. You seem really uncomfortable.”

  “After what we saw today, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up with the training. By morning, I’ll be crawling the walls.”

  She gave a deep sigh, her pale pink lips parting slightly. Her eyes followed him across the room. “I don’t think any of us have any hope of keeping up. What was all that about anyway? They expect us to learn how to train tigers in five months? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Don’t forget, we have to take a knife to the chest too. I’m still trying to figure that one out.”

  Hope crossed her arms and glanced over her shoulder, out the window at the twilight beyond. “What are they really doing here?” she murmured. Finn got the impression that she wasn’t talking to him when she said it.

  “Running a circus for delinquents.” Finn snorted.

  Hope opened and closed her hands a few times, staring at them as if they’d only recently been attached to her wrists.

  “Do your hands hurt or something?” he asked.

  “Have you ever heard of reiki, Finn?”

  “Uh, no. I mean, I’ve heard of it. I’ve never heard of anyone actually, you know, doing it.”

  “Lots of people where I come from use reiki. It’s intentional healing energy. It isn’t well understood, but I know how to do it. You look uncomfortable. Do you want me to try it on you?”

  “I should be okay for the night. They have to give it to me in the morning, don’t they?”

  “If I do the reiki now, it will work better. The worse you get, the harder it will be for me to help.” Hope perched on the edge of her bed. “I’ll catch it before it snowballs and maybe you can manage it better.”

  “No offense, but I seriously doubt that focused intentions are going to cure my ADHD. If they did, ADHD wouldn’t be an epidemic.”

  Hope’s piercing eyes met his. “Maybe you’re right, but what do you have to lose?”

  What did he have to lose? He shrugged. “Okay. Knock yourself out.”

  “Sit down.”

  He obeyed, and she crawled off her bed to cross to him. Tentatively, she placed the tips of her fingers on his temples. The spots where she touched his skin warmed instantly and his eyelids drooped at the strange radiant heat. Ribbons of energy passed behind his forehead, twisted through his brain, dove inward to the heart of his mind. Whatever she was doing seemed to focus deep within his head. He allowed his eyes to close. A blue star glowed within his thoughts, in the space between his ears. The tension bled from his shoulders, then his back, and he sagged against her.

  Finn’s eyes flipped open when her fingers left his temples. Hope’s complexion had gone chalky white, and she was hacking like a cat about to cough up a hairball. She covered her mouth with her hand and rushed into the bathroom. The retching that followed made Finn cover his own mouth.

  “Hey, are you okay?” He pushed off the bed to help her, only to have her kick the door to the bathroom closed.

  “I’m fine,” she called between heaves. “This sometimes happens when I do reiki. It will pass.”

  “Touching my head made you sick?”

  Another loud moan and Finn raised his hand to the door, feeling awful for what he’d done to her. Although, how could touching someone’s temples make her ill? The idea was ridiculous. He backed away, confused.

  As he sat back down on the bed, all he could think was his roommate was a complete weirdo.

  Icing on the cake.

  Hope held back her own hair as she spewed into the toilet in her dormitory. She’d never been this sick before. Then again, this was the first time she’d tried to heal someone since Gabriel said she’d attained “full Healer status.” He’d said there would be a price. She had vastly underestimated the significance of that statement.

  Was it possible for her innards to liquefy and pour out her mouth? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why would she choose something as complicated as ADHD to heal her first time? The disease was like a spiderweb deep within Finn’s brain. It had taken everything she had to root it out. Who was she kidding? She had no choice. The boy was coming out of his skin.

  Her adoptive mother, Malini, had told her stories about the time she’d spent as Healer. When Malini used her power, her skin would burn. The difference between Malini and Hope was that Hope was born a Soulkeeper, while Malini was made one at fifteen. The consequences of her mother’s actions were immediate and understandable to her. Hope, on the other hand, had to grow into her power and had been spared the consequences of her healing until now. The pain was shocking. Still, she had to admit, vomiting seemed a better fate than burning alive.

  Gradually, she stopped throwing up and pulled herself together. Revelations had provided a full kit of bathroom amenities for her and Finn to use. She selected a toothbrush from the counter and unwrapped it, brushing away the remnants of her consequence. When she spat, the toothpaste was tainted with blood.

  “Crap,” she murmured. She swished an
d spat again, then drank some water from the faucet. Gabriel had taught her that a meal would help her recover, as would sleep. No chance she’d get the meal. She’d have to settle for water and sleep. She took a deep breath and emerged from the bathroom.

  Finn had already changed into his school-issued pajamas. He shifted and scratched the back of his head, no doubt wondering what caused her lengthy bathroom visit. He probably thought she was contagious.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She smiled, blinking slowly. “How about you?”

  He paused for a second, his eyes shifting across the room. “Uh, yeah. You know, I do feel better. I really do.”

  “Good. Then it worked.” She walked to the dresser on her side of the room and retrieved a matching set of striped pajamas. “They have everything you need in there. Toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, soap, hairbrush. No makeup, but I don’t suppose you use it anyway.”

  Finn snorted. “Uh, no.”

  Hope suspected he didn’t have much use for the razor either, but she didn’t want to embarrass him. “So, uh…” Hope held up her pajamas.

  “Oh yeah, I’ll take my turn in the bathroom.”

  Showered and tucked under the covers, Finn fell asleep surprisingly fast. Whatever Hope had done to him had completely relaxed him. For once, his mind didn’t race and the worry he carried about the morning sessions did not trump his desire for rest. So, when the sound of barking dogs and pounding hooves woke him, it was from a deep sleep. By the time he opened his eyes, Hope was already standing at the window.

  “What the hell is that?” Finn asked.

  Moonlight washed over half of Hope’s face as she turned her head, the other half lost in shadow. The pale glow wasn’t enough for his eyes to register color, and she had a strange black-and-white appearance in the darkness.

  “Hunting party,” she whispered. “I made out Ravenguard and Applegate, but there were two others as well. They were on horseback with those… dogs.”

  “Why are they hunting in the middle of the night?” Finn asked. “What time is it anyway?”

  “I don’t know.” She held up her left arm. “My watch doesn’t work here, and there isn’t a single clock in this room.”

  “Ravenguard said something about the electromagnetic properties of the island interfering with electronics.”

  She grunted and turned back toward the window. The barking and hoofbeats grew quieter, as if muffled by distance. Hope’s eyes narrowed and she moved closer to the glass. The moonlight caught on the three connecting loops of the silver symbol around her neck.

  “What’s that symbol on your necklace mean? I thought Applegate was going to bust you for it.”

  “Thanks for distracting her,” she said. “I prefer to keep it on. It’s meaningful to me. It’s a triquetra.”

  “Triquetra? Never heard of it.” Finn tried out the strange word.

  “It’s an ancient symbol of protection,” she said.

  “Like a magic symbol?” Finn snorted. “You’re not one of those neoreligious nut jobs, are you?”

  Hope turned back toward the window. “I don’t believe in anything I haven’t experienced to be true firsthand.” Her shoulders bobbed with a deep sigh.

  Finn was going to tell her he liked her necklace, but a scream pierced the air outside the window, the long, bloodcurdling variety that went on and on, morphing into something like an agonized bleat. Finn staggered to the window and searched the woods and the mountain beyond. He couldn’t see anything, but it didn’t matter. The scream stopped abruptly, cut off midbreath.

  “I guess they got the fox,” Finn said.

  Hope didn’t say anything, but when he glanced over, she was visibly upset.

  “That’s right. You’re a vegetarian. An animal lover.”

  She nodded.

  He stood by her side, gazing into the night until it was clear the hunt was over. All was quiet. But when Finn finally returned to bed, he couldn’t sleep. For a long time, the scream replayed in his head, the darkness pressing in around him.

  12

  Classes

  The next time Finn opened his eyes, Ravenguard was leaning over him, his pointed nose mere inches from Finn’s. He scrambled away from the admissions counselor’s scowl, pressing his back into the headboard in an attempt to put space between him and the strange man.

  “Rise and shine, boy. You’ll be late for class.” A square of parchment was thrust into Finn’s face.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your schedule.”

  Finn perused the table of classes on the paper. He flipped it over to find a crude map of the school and grounds drawn on the back.

  “There are no time slots,” he said.

  “You start when the rooster crows and end with dinner in the dining room. Between times, the troupe leaders will tell you when to rotate.”

  Finn turned to check if Hope was listening, only to find her gone, bed made. Bright light streamed through the window.

  Ravenguard grinned and glared at him over his spectacles. “You’ve already missed breakfast. Would you rather spend the day with me?”

  Finn had never dressed so fast in his life. He sped out the door, hair unbrushed and hopping on one foot as he slipped on his shoes. His first period was aerial with Orelon in what was labeled “the gazebo.” On the map, it appeared to be in the middle of the front garden. Finn followed the winding path through the privets and blooming plants to a giant birdcage of a building at least three stories tall and as wide as a barn. The gazebo was situated at the end of a pebble pathway, in the center of a circle of bright green boxwood topiaries carved to resemble flying birds.

  Orelon and Wendy already waited inside. Orelon did not look happy.

  “You are late,” he said, his voice a cool ripple.

  “Sorry, I, uh…”

  “Save it. I have no time for your excuses.” The quiet assurance of his tone gave Finn the creeps, charged with a latent threat at odds with his soft voice.

  Finn glanced from Orelon to Wendy, who was wearing a pair of purple-rimmed glasses this morning. Cute. “Uh, hi.”

  The hint of a blush colored her cheeks as she returned the greeting. Damn her eyes were beautiful. Was it him, or did her pupils get larger when she looked at him? She smiled, her gaze dropping to his toes with the warming of her cheeks.

  A fine-boned face with a white braid stepped between them, scowling. “We don’t have time for flirting either,” Orelon murmured. His hand landed on Finn’s shoulder and whirled him around. With a snap of his fingers, he beckoned them to follow to an area at the back of the gazebo where a cluster of equipment waited. “Today, we learn how to fall.”

  Wendy stifled a laugh.

  “Something humorous, Ms. Matthews?” Orelon retrieved a stepstool from a stack of chairs and small ladders.

  Wendy nervously tugged at her braids. “Uh, isn’t falling the easy part?”

  Orelon’s gaze drifted up toward the rafters. “Natalie, please show Ms. Matthews how we fall in aerial.”

  Three stories above their heads, Finn could barely make out the silhouettes of other troupe members crouching on the wide wooden beams. From this distance and with only pockets of light, he couldn’t tell if they were men or women. What Finn could tell was that they were all built like Orelon. Small, thin, almost like children.

  One of them, Natalie he presumed, straightened on her perch, flattened her arms against her sides, and tipped forward.

  “No!” Finn lurched in some unlikely attempt at catching her, but Orelon’s hand shot out, landing squarely in the center of his chest. Couldn’t he see she was too far up? No one could survive a plummet like that. It was suicide!

  Slap. The girl belly-flopped onto the dirt, tight limbed and face down. Wendy gasped. Finn was too shocked to make any sound at all. Had they just witnessed a woman’s death? Before Finn could take his next breath, the girl sprang from flat on her face to standing in one lithe move. No knees or elbows. No trans
ition. Just up.

  “How?” Finn murmured.

  “Catch me if you can.” Natalie flipped her red braid to the back of her uniform. She leaped onto the wall and climbed straight up, like some kind of lizard or frog. She didn’t stop until she was in the rafters again.

  “You can’t expect us to do that!” Wendy pointed a slim hand in Natalie’s direction. “We could break our necks.”

  Orelon clucked his tongue. “Naturally I don’t expect you to do that.”

  Wendy breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Not on your first day.” He placed the small, wooden stool near the outline of Natalie’s body in the dirt. “Today, we start with this. Who will be first?”

  Wendy shifted beside Finn, taking a small step backward and shaking her head. She looked terrified. Finn couldn’t stand to see her upset. He had pulled enough pranks in his life to know there must be a trick to what he’d seen. Perhaps, under all the dust and dirt, the floor was padded, or there were wires he couldn’t see. Surely Orelon would teach him the secret.

  “I’ll go first,” he volunteered, hoping to impress Wendy.

  Orelon nodded. “Step up on the stool.”

  Finn did as he was told. The stool was no more than six inches high, but knowing he’d have to fall off it made it seem taller.

  “When you fall, your arms must be tight against your sides, palms flat.” Orelon yanked Finn’s wrists to force his arms into perfect position. “Straighten up. Stomach in. Chest out. You have the build of a flyer, I’ll give you that.”

  The build of a flyer. What did that mean? He supposed he was built like Orelon. Small. Light. It would be nice for that to be an advantage for a change.

  “Now, fall. Best to close your eyes the first time or you’re liable to catch yourself.”