I pull out my phone and look at my picture of the writing in the condensation. I’m relieved it’s still there. Part of me actually wondered if the image would be gone when I checked. Like it didn’t really happen. Or it did but it vanished to protect Giselle or something. That would have made me really look crazy if I’d tried to show the others the pic and it be gone.
Though, now that I look at it, I’m glad I didn’t show them. I mean, there’s no ghostly hand in the pic. They might have thought I wrote the message and then took a pic. I know I didn’t, but at the same time, I kind of feel like I’m going crazy. Why is all this weird stuff happening to me?
“Can I help you, Ms. Whittaker?” Mr. Hamilton asks as I’m rubbing my forehead and clutching Giselle’s notebook tightly to my chest.
“Huh?” I ask, looking up. “Oh, I was just...thinking.”
“No better place in the whole house than here to do that,” he says with a friendly smile.
“Are...are you a witch, Mr. Hamilton?” I ask. I don’t know much about him, and I haven’t learned how to read people yet. I can’t tell a mortal or a mundane from a witch yet.
“Of course,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Proud Brewster Coven here. La Voison alumni, class of ‘62.”
“1962?” I ask him.
“Well, not 1862,” he says with a wink.
I try to laugh as I do some quick, crappy math in my head.
“You can’t be almost sixty!” I say. He looks to only be in his mid-thirties to me.
He chuckles with a little redness to his cheeks. “Kind of you to say, my dear. But I assure you I am.”
“Are witches immortal?” I ask. The concept of living forever isn’t something I had even considered, and I’m not sure I could handle that sort of responsibility right now.
“Oh, no,” he says. “Our lifespans are the same as any human. Generally eighty to ninety years. But while humans start a rather steep decline in health around age fifty, we are blessed with the vitality of youth for all of our days. Our bodies don’t degrade the way most people’s do.”
“Good to know…”
So, pretty much everyone around here could be way older than they look. I thought Ms. Brewster had been headmistress for no more than ten or fifteen years. But if she were seventy-five or eighty years old, she could have been teaching here back in the late 60s. Still too late to have been a witness for whatever falling-out my great-great-grandmother had with the school’s headmaster back in the day, but she might know about it. I wonder if I should take it up with her...
“Well, if there’s nothing else,” Mr. Hamilton says, “the library will be closing soon. You can come back bright and early.”
“Wait,” I say. “I...uh. I was interested in the statues around the campus. Like who made them and who they are modeled after. Is there like a guidebook to the statues?”
“Not as such, no,” he says, rubbing his chin. “We’ve had a few students ask about them recently. I suppose they are quite eye-catching.”
“Well, yeah.” I clutch Giselle’s notebook even harder. “There are dozens all over the grounds. Some even in the hedgerow, all grown over. They must be important to the history of the school for there to be so many of them.”
“It’s always interesting how we take things for granted in our lives that people down the line might find fascinating,” Mr. Hamilton says. “The people who carved the statues might not have thought they were anything special. Just a...an art project or something.”
“Look at them, though,” I say, going to one of the tall windows and looking out. “Life-sized? Based on real people? They had to be important to put that kind of effort into them. How could the school even afford that much marble?”
“I wish I knew,” he said with a shrug.
“Well, if I wanted to find out more about them, how would I go about it?”
“I’d have to say searching for the individuals the statues are modeled after,” Mr. Hamilton suggests, starting to walk down a nearby row. “This is the biography and memoir section. The statues all have labels with names on them. You should be able to find information about each person here.”
“But if the statues were made after the people died,” I say, “then the books wouldn’t be helpful, would they?”
“You won’t know until you look,” he says. “But I dare say you have a lot of other reading to do first.”
I can’t help but sigh at the reminder. “Fair enough.” I look at the shelves of biographies and memoirs and shake my head. I’ll never have time to go through all these. “Well, thanks for your time.”
“Always a pleasure, Ms. Whittaker.”
It’s twilight when I step out of the library, the shadows long in the halls. I’m still not hungry. Just dejected that my search for answers has come to nothing as of yet. And I’m so swamped that looking for more information would be a foolish waste of my time. I need to focus, not go chasing after...whatever Giselle was working on.
But as I enter the main area and see the spot where I found Giselle’s body, a chill brushes the back of my neck, sending my hairs on end. I cross my arms for warmth and eye the sigil over the stairway. The symbol for luck. It’s just not possible that Giselle’s death was an accident. I have to find out what happened.
I go out the front door and circle the building. I walk over to one of the statues and look down. The woman is dressed in clothes from the early 1800s, I think. Like the others, she’s clawing forward. The lawn is neatly mowed, but whoever is responsible for trimming is slacking on the job, the grass grown up to cover the nameplate on the pedestal. I bend down and move the grass out of the way.
“Prudence Ansel,” I read. I remember seeing that name in the book. I glance around to make sure no one is watching, then I pull the book out and flip through it, looking for a page with Prudence on it.
“Prudence Ansel,” I say again when I find it. “Wife of Jebediah Ansel. Daughter of Michah and Sarah Blakley. Born 1678, Yorkshire. Died 1721, Massachusetts Colony.”
After that, there are runes. If Giselle did find out anything else about Prudence’s life, she felt the need to guard it with her secret code.
I get up and walk some ways until I come to another statue. This one of a man. Again, the man’s name matches that in the book. The names of his spouse and parents are listed, as are the dates of his death and birth, and then there are runes.
What I find interesting is that the clothing style is the same as Prudence’s statue, but he was born about forty years later. I suppose the sculptor’s style wasn’t exactly historically accurate. I wonder which books Giselle got her information from. If I can find out what was special about these people, why they deserve a statue, maybe I can learn what the runes mean.
At this point, twilight is turning to night, but there is one more statue I want to check on.
When I get to the grotto, I have to turn on my cell phone light to see by. I put my bag on the empty pedestal and run the light up and down the statue, along the walls, and even up to the ceiling. But, just as I thought, there is no name for my mystery man anywhere. The empty pedestal has no nameplate either.
“So, what did you do to be punished by having to remain nameless for all eternity?” I joke, but then I realize it isn’t very funny. To spend eternity alone and forgotten is a pretty terrifying prospect.
I glance back to the empty pedestal and wonder what happened to the statue that was supposed to be standing there, keeping my friend company.
“So, I found this book,” I say, opening it and showing it to him. “It seems to be a collection of images and stories of the statues around campus. Giselle was compiling it. Did you know Giselle?”
The statue doesn’t answer. Of course.
“Well, she was kind of a jerk,” I say. “But I think she must have been really interesting. I think we had a lot more in common than she would have liked to admit. She wrote all her notes in these weird runes, see?” I point to the runes on Prudence’s page. Then I flip to the b
ack of the book and show him the many pages of runes, running my fingers over them. “It seems to be some kind of code. A code I’ve never seen before. Or it could be an ancient language, I suppose. But I think Giselle wants me to decipher it. Or...do something. I’m not sure. She keeps sending me messages.”
I shake my head and put the notebook in my bag with the rest of my stuff. I open the bag and pull out the loose page with his sketch on it. I hold it up for him to see.
“She was working on you,” I say. “I wonder how she knew you were back here. I don’t remember seeing any other footprints when I first visited you. Maybe she used magic to disguise her path. But why would she do that?”
The grotto gets darker, and the evening a little cooler, with dew starting to cling to the surfaces.
“Well, I better go,” I say, heading over to my bag and putting the sketch inside. “I just came back here to make sure you didn’t have a name. Pretty weird that you are the only one.”
I hear a sound—a sound I’ve heard before. Like stone scraping stone.
The air in my lungs freezes in my chest, and I pause for a moment before turning around.
“H-h-hello?” I ask when I finally face the entryway. Just like before, there is no reply. I glance up at the statue, but he hasn’t moved.
I shake my head. “Get it together, Whittaker,” I mumble.
I throw my bag over my shoulder and start to walk out, but my foot kicks something that then scoots across the floor.
A piece of paper.
My shoulders relax I reach down to pick it up. It must have slipped out of my bag. But when I turn it over to look at it, my heart skips a beat. I haven’t seen this paper before. In fact, it’s exactly what I’m looking for.
Four runes on one side of the paper, and four letters written across from it.
A cipher.
I look up at the statue. “What is going on around here?”
He just looks down at me, the corners of his mouth curled up in the slightest smile I could swear wasn’t there before.
Chapter 18
I’m up all night in the quiet of my room trying to decode the strange writing with the help of the cipher. In my efforts, I learn one really important thing:
I’m terrible at deciphering codes.
None of this makes any sense. I start with using the cipher as one rune equalling one letter. And while that seems to work at first, I then can’t figure out any of the other words. I Google “how to decipher codes” on my phone and follow several proposed plans of attack, but all of them fail. The letters just seem...random. It’s as if the runes might be only one step of the code; as I translate, the language just comes out...jumbled.
I am beyond frustrated when the first bell rings for morning classes. I jump up and rush to the bathroom and look a fright, as usual. I haven’t showered or changed my clothes from the day before. When was the last time I ate? I have no idea.
I’m just going to have to miss first period as I try to make myself look halfway presentable for the rest of the day. After I grab a granola bar from a desk drawer, I collect all of my—no, Giselle’s—papers and notebook and put them in my bag behind my other books, then head to second class.
“Nice of ye to join us, Ms. Whittaker,” Mr. Stewart grumbles at me when I enter his room. “Heard ye missed yer first class.”
“Overslept,” I say, not making eye contact as I slip to the back of the room and take my seat.
I take out my book and look up at him; his nose twitches as if he smells something. Can he possibly smell the smoke from the fire on the notebook? Just how sensitive to their elements are elder witches? I wish I knew.
I zip my bag shut and look around with a smile, as if there is nowhere else in the world I would rather be right now.
“Right,” Mr. Stewart says with a gruff clearing of his throat before he begins the lecture. He leans back in his large wing-back chair and balances glasses on the tip of his nose as he opens his book. “Let’s begin where we left off on page 231…”
I open my book, but I also pull out one of the pages written with runes and try to work on deciphering it.
The letters I have should make deciphering the code rather easy because one is a vowel—the letter E, as a matter of fact. According to everything I have seen online, that alone should be enough to decipher the code. But I also have C, W, and S.
The problem is they don’t seem to form words.
On the page I’m working on—the paper with the man in the grotto—there are some hastily scrawled runes, as if she wrote them at the last minute. And all they say is CW, CE, SW. They aren’t words. And that’s what makes figuring out any of the other runes so difficult.
“Ms. Whittaker!” Mr. Stewart booms.
I slam my book shut and look up. “What?” I say. “I mean, yes, sir?”
“What do ye have there that’s so bloody important?”
“Umm…” I lift up my book to show that it’s the one for his class.
“Then how about ye answer the question I’ve been asking ye for the last five minutes?”
“Sorry,” I say. “I was just getting caught up on the reading. What was the question?”
I swear his eyes actually blaze at me. I wonder if all fire witches have a fiery temper? I wish there were something I could do to diffuse the situation, but I feel the whole temperature of the room drop at least two degrees. Maybe more. It’s probably not something most other people would notice—unless they’re an air witch. But it’s enough to help cool some tempers...or at least Mr. Stewart’s.
He clears his throat and puts his glasses back on his nose. “Please do follow along, Ms. Whittaker.”
“Yes, sir.”
I put my papers away and turn to the book. Once Mr. Stewart returns to his lecture, I glance around to see what kind air witch helped diffuse the situation, and I see Ms. Boucher pass the doorway.
Had she been watching the class? Watching me? Maybe she had been walking by and heard Mr. Stewart losing his temper.
Whatever it was that made her step in, I’ll have to thank her later.
At the library later that day, I find a book on Prudence Ansel. It’s a rather thin volume, and quite old. I open the cover and read the inscription.
“The life and times of Mistress Prudence Ansel, my kind and loving mother, who walked with God in all her days. May she walk beside Him even now. —Sabine Ansel Justice.”
I wrinkle my nose a bit at that. It sounds more like a love letter from a daughter to her mother, written in archaic English, and sure to be strewn about with references to God. It will probably be a slog to get through, and I’m not sure I’ll find anything that will help me understand the statues or the runes. Still, it’s somewhere to start.
I turn the stiff, yellowed page and am surprised to see a drawing of Mistress Prudence Ansel. Like the rest of the book, the style is old-fashioned. But what strikes me is that the drawing doesn’t really look anything like the statue outside. The woman is thin, with her hair pulled up under a bonnet. She has large eyes and a small mouth.
I kneel down and pull out Giselle’s notebook, just to make sure I’m remembering the statue correctly, and I am. The statue of Prudence shows a woman with apple cheeks and long, flowing hair. Artistic license? I wonder which image is more accurate.
Oh well. I put the notebook away, pull a few more books down, and open them to see if they have images of their subjects in them. Most of them do. But there is only one face I’m searching for. The mystery man in the grotto. Giselle didn’t seem to know his name, either, so I doubt I’ll be able to learn something even she didn’t know. But I can hope.
Maybe she just hadn’t gotten that far?
As I’m flipping through the books, I hear people on the other side of the shelf talking in low voices.
“I just can’t believe she’s gone,” one of the girls says.
“Yeah...scary, huh?” the other replies. “Gone, just like that. We have all this power but can still be snu
ffed out in a moment.”
I shouldn’t be eavesdropping. They are clearly talking about Giselle and having a moment. I shake my head, trying to focus on something else, but then the first girl says something I can’t ignore.
“Do you think that new roommate of hers had anything to do with it?” the first girl asks.
My face flushes. Did she really just say that? So casually?
“Awfully weird coincidence,” the other girl says. “I mean, Giselle was a boss. She said she wouldn’t have a roommate. Paid extra for the privilege. Then she ends up dead? Sounds suspicious to me.”
I cover my mouth to keep from making a sound. So, it’s not just Ms. Brewster. Does everyone think I had a hand in Giselle’s death? But what about—
“But what about Hecate?” one of the girls says. “It’s not possible, right?”
“Maybe she’s more powerful than she lets on.” The other girl huffs. “Or has a demon companion or something.”
My heart hitches in my throat. A demon companion? What was it Krista and Ivy said? There’s no such thing as ghosts—only demons.
What if...what if a demon killed Giselle and is now pretending to be her to get me to do its bidding? Maybe my friends are right.
“Well, whatever is going on, that girl is bad luck,” one of the girls continues.
“Oh, I know it,” the other girl quips. “Ms. Brewster was asking for volunteers to room with the freak. No one offered. I wouldn’t even consider it.”
Freak?
I grab my bag and walk out of the library, my eyes welling.
“Find anything you like, Ms. Whittaker?” Mr. Hamilton asks as I pass him to leave.
I can’t look at him. I can’t speak. If I speak, I’ll cry. I can’t even shake my head. I just leave the library and head down the hall to the back stairway so I can get away from other people as soon as possible.
After I slip into the stairway and shut the door behind me, I crouch down, sitting on the first stair and bursting into tears. I can’t even make it to my room before breaking down.
Curse of Stone (Academy of the Damned Book 1) Page 17