by Helen Keeble
“There you are, pet, you can sit with Suzanne,” Ms. Wormwood said as the dust cleared. The only other empty chair in the room was next to Faith, whose unpopularity must indeed be epic to keep her sitting alone even under these circumstances. Maybe that was why Ms. Wormwood hadn’t pointed her out to me—joining Faith would be social suicide for any new student.
So . . . why was I already heading her way?
The possessive smirk slid right off Suzanne’s face as I went past. Faith’s head snapped up, eyes wide with astonishment. Oh, this was a terrible idea. But I was powerless to stop myself. It was as if her body was a magnet, irresistibly sucking me toward her even as my brain screamed that I did not want to get involved with this jellyfish of a girl, no matter how beautiful she was—
The door creaked open.
“Late again, Michaela,” Ms. Wormwood said, her jolly voice for once betraying distinct dislike. “Hurry up and take your seat.”
Michaela ignored the teacher completely. Her black eyes met mine—just for an instant, but I felt the jolt of it go clear through me as if I’d been hit by lightning. Then her gaze flicked sideways, from Faith to Suzanne and back again. Face set in a sour expression, Suzanne immediately got up and went to join Faith, who eyed her unhappily but didn’t protest. Michaela sashayed to the now-empty desk and sat down, crossing her long legs before her. Without so much as another glance at me, she opened her book.
Ms. Wormwood glared at Michaela’s demurely bowed head, a frown making her look much older for a moment. “Very well. With Michaela then please, Raffi pet.” Her voice smoothed back into bright, professional tones. “Now girls—that is, class—let’s talk about the summer reading.”
My feet feeling about three sizes too big, I stumbled through the ranks of desks to the back row, sliding in next to Michaela. I occupied myself for a second getting my stuff out of my bag, my mouth dry. All my plans had completely flown out of my head. I took a deep breath, surreptitiously rubbing my sweaty palms on my trouser legs. She’d wanted me to sit next to her, I reminded myself. “Hi,” I managed at last. “I’m Raffi. I mean Raf. Rafael. Rafael Angelos.”
I nearly jammed my pencil case into my mouth to shut myself up. Michaela treated me to the very briefest of glances before turning back to her book.
“And you’re Michaela,” I continued, grasping wildly for something, anything, to say. Michaela shifted position, flashing me a glimpse of bronzed skin past the undone top button of her blouse. My brain lost all connection with my mouth. “Michaela Dante. Romanian, from Rome. I mean, not that being from Rome makes you Romanian, but you are. Romanian, I mean, but you live in Rome.” Someone, please, please shoot me now. “Which is in Italy, not Romania. Where you’re from. Originally. Um.”
Michaela finally looked at me, a spark of something—possibly interest, but more probably concern that whatever I had might be contagious—kindling in her eyes. They were so dark that the pupil and iris merged together. “You seem to know a lot about me.” Her exotic accent was pure, liquid sex. “For someone who just arrived.”
Trying to look cool was probably a lost cause at this point, but I deployed my charming smile anyway. “I know more about you than anyone else in this school does.”
One perfect eyebrow raised. “Oh?”
“Yes.” I leaned in closer, holding her challenging gaze. “For a start, I know the truth about the Circle of Trust.”
The response was better than I could have dreamed. Michaela stared at me as if seeing into my very soul. She was so close now that I could feel the heat of her skin, could see her pulse leaping in the hollow of her throat—
“So let’s hear from the male perspective. If you would tell us your thoughts, Raffi?”
What few coherent thoughts I had at that moment were mainly about the view down Michaela’s top, but I didn’t think that was the sort of male perspective Ms. Wormwood meant. Dragging myself back into the everyday world, I tried to remember what the teacher had been wittering on about. Something about the summer reading assignment? What was the summer reading assignment? I hadn’t even read the back cover when I’d thrown it in my bag this morning. I glanced down now in search of inspiration and discovered I’d taken out my biology textbook. No help there.
Ms. Wormwood’s look of friendly expectation was starting to slide into the wary expression of a teacher who senses imminent bullshit. “Well,” I said, stalling for time. “I thought it was very interesting.” I snuck a peek at the cover of Michaela’s book, catching a glimpse of a winged and gratuitously shirtless angel tumbling in flames out of a dark sky. No doubt it was some sort of girly romance, all forbidden love and sparkly boyfriends.
“I found it very inspirational,” I said, deciding that I might as well go for broke. Michaela, still searching my face intently, drew in a sharp breath; encouraged, I plowed on. “I really identified with, uh, him.” I gestured at the angel guy.
Ms. Wormwood did not look like she was buying this. “Could you be more specific?”
Not really. “Well, his struggle totally resonated with me,” I improvised wildly. “And the way that he decided to go for what he wanted, despite everything trying to stop him.”
Ms. Wormwood’s eyebrows shot up. “Interesting. So you would call him the hero of the piece?”
“Absolutely,” I said, hoping I sounded confident. “That sort of tenacity is definitely heroic.”
Ms. Wormwood beamed at me, as a little murmur ran around the classroom. “Very good, Raffi. I do like a student who rejects dogma and draws her—his—own conclusions. Why don’t you read us the famous quote summing up his argument? Lines two fifty-eight to two sixty-three.”
I cast Michaela a sideways glance, to see if she was rapt with admiration at my sensitive nature yet—and was met with a narrow-eyed glare that suggested that if I asked to share her book I was likely to get walloped over the head with it. Recoiling, I hastily fumbled my own copy out of my bag, trying to work out what I’d done wrong. Had I come across as too nerdy? Too pretentious? What?
Finding the right page, I squinted at the text. Oh, great. Poetry.
“Here at last
We shall be free;
the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
. . . Huh?
“Excellent, pet,” Ms. Wormwood said as I blinked at the page. “Now, who can tell me what Satan means by his speech to the fallen angels here?”
Satan? What the hell kind of romance was this? I checked the back cover as half a dozen hands shot into the air. Paradise Lost, it said. By John Milton. Apparently, it was all about the war between God and the Devil.
Who I’d just held up as a paragon of manly virtue.
Whoops.
No wonder Michaela had glared at me. She’d now let her hair swing down like a curtain between us, hiding her face. I stifled the urge to groan and thump my head on the desk. This day just kept getting worse and worse.
Busy kicking myself, I barely noticed Michaela whisper something Italian-sounding under her breath. Then her fingers brushed my thigh.
Ms. Wormwood broke off midsentence. “Is there something wrong, Raffi?”
From flat on the floor, I managed to make a strangled sort of noise, shaking my head. Aware of all the eyes staring at me, I quickly picked up my overturned chair and reseated myself. Burying my face in my book, I waited until all the girls had turned back to Ms. Wormwood. Then I cautiously peered over the pages at Michaela.
Her face was still hidden, but somehow she knew I was looking. “And now,” she murmured in a low, throaty voice that made every syllable sound like an invitation to a dirty weekend, “I know everything about you.” Her knees bumped mine under the desk as she turned toward me. “Do you know what I’m going to do?”
I maintained my smolderin
g, mysterious silence, mainly because my brain had utterly fused.
Michaela pushed back her hair. Her bloodred lips curved upward, slowly.
“I’m going,” she whispered, her black eyes burning with passion, “to kill you.”
Chapter 4
That evening found me lying on my bed, flipping through stacks of old school yearbooks I’d borrowed from the library, searching for my mum. She’d always been secretive about her life before meeting my dad—“I was a different person back then” was all she’d ever said—but I knew her maiden name and the approximate dates she had to have been here. So far, though, the only mention of a “Foxglove” I’d found was an English teacher who’d apparently been at the school then. Given that the article was about her retiring due to completing twenty years’ service, that couldn’t possibly be my mum, although I did wonder if she was a relative. My mum had been completely estranged from her family, but she’d let slip once—while trying to persuade me of the importance of doing my homework—that I had generations of teachers in my unknown maternal background. “The family business,” she’d called it and then changed the subject quickly.
With a sigh, I gave up on my research and tossed the yearbook aside. I stretched out on my rock-hard mattress, staring up at the beamed ceiling. “Michaela,” I said aloud, rolling the syllables over my tongue. Michaela Dante.
I knew that girls pretended to be disinterested when they actually were panting for you, but when it came to playing hard to get, “I’m going to kill you” was Olympic level. On the other hand, Michaela had made a point of sitting next to me in every lesson that afternoon. That had to mean she was interested, right?
A soft, hesitant knock on the door derailed my train of thought. I swung my legs off the bed and reached for the doorknob, a relieved grin spreading across my face. With Michaela’s glowering presence at my back all day, every other girl had treated me as if I was surrounded by an invisible force field. I’d spent all afternoon grimly trying to ignore the whispers and stares, feeling an awful lot like a zoo exhibit. At least someone was willing to come and say hello.
By the time I realized that my late-night visitor was almost certainly Krystal, it was too late to hide. My expression frozen somewhere between welcome and horror, I peered cautiously around the half-open door.
“Hi!” said the apparently empty corridor.
I looked down. A blonde girl who couldn’t be older than twelve beamed up at me over the top of a fistful of large, vibrant flowers.
“Uh . . . hi?” I said.
“HiRaffimynameisClairewelcometoSaintMary’swe-loveyoubye!” the girl said all in one breath and thrust her bouquet into my hand. A second later, she was gone.
“Okay,” I said, blinking. Random. Closing the door again, I jammed the flowers into my water glass and set them on the windowsill, where they added a cheerful splash of color to the otherwise grim decor. You’d think that as the only guy here, I would have been given one of the best rooms in the place, but as it was I’d been housed in a pigsty. Literally. The plaque on the front of the building said BOYS’ DORMITORY (OLD PIGGERY). Thanks, Headmistress.
Still, even if my room was small, at least I had it to myself. In fact, I had the entire building to myself, though the other half dozen rooms were locked. I gazed out the window at the distant lights of the main school complex, just visible through the tangled woods. Nice and private. Far away from all the teachers. That could come in handy.
Another tap at the door interrupted my thoughts. Wondering if HiRaffimynameisClaire had mustered the courage for another hit-and-run sentence, I opened it again.
Same bouquet. Same expression. Different girl.
“HelloRaffimynameisLouisewelcometotheschool-you’rereallyfitbye!”
I was left with yet more flowers and a deepening expression of bemusement. With a shrug, I added the latest tribute to my impromptu vase. I had to admit, the way the girls had decided to greet me was pretty cute.
By the tenth knock on my door in thirty minutes, it was getting a lot less cute.
“Look,” I snapped, wrenching the door open yet again and glaring down at the latest admirer, “this is all very flattering, but you guys are starting to pi—”
I stopped. I was yelling at a very short, chubby, plain-faced girl clutching a wilting dandelion and looking utterly petrified.
Way to go, Raf.
From down the corridor, I heard a small, muffled snigger. Glancing up, I caught a glimpse of a couple of young girls quickly ducking out of sight around the corner.
Uh-huh.
I stared hard in the direction of the unseen onlookers for a second, then returned my attention to the girl, who was edging away as if preparing to bolt. “No, wait.” She froze like a deer in headlights. “What’s your name?”
“L-lydie,” the girl whispered at the floor. Her knuckles were white on her tattered dandelion.
“Hi, Lydie. Is that for me?”
Lydie looked at her pathetic flower, then hid it behind her back, her face going red. “I’m sorry.” Her barely audible words overflowed like the tears brimming in her big blue eyes. “I picked nicer ones, like the others told me to, but then they didn’t let me keep any of the good ones. They said I still had to come, and this was all I could find.”
“Thanks,” I said warmly, plucking the flower from her fist. Lydie stared up at me, mouth and eyes round, as I tucked it into my buttonhole. I crooked a smile at her. “Yellow’s my favorite color, you know.”
I got the tiniest, shyest, briefest of smiles in return, before her nerve broke and she was off like a rabbit down the corridor. Well, at least now she hopefully wouldn’t grow up thinking that all guys were total bastards.
The warm glow of a good deed well done was cut short by yet another knock at the door. Bloody hell.
“Your future boyfriends can thank me for not giving you all complexes,” I muttered under my breath, shoehorning a smile back onto my face. I swung open the door—and discovered I was doing my best Prince Charming impression at the Headmistress.
“Chrysanthemums, Mr. Angelos.” For one horrific moment, I thought that she too was about to offer me a love token, but her hands were empty. Despite the late hour, she still wore her neat black skirt suit, but she’d now accessorized it with a long raincoat and a peeved expression. “What do you know about them?”
When my dad had said that they’d make me work here, I hadn’t thought that meant late-night pop botany quizzes. “Uh . . . they’re a flower?”
“Yes, Mr. Angelos.” The steel-capped toe of her shoe tapped dangerously. “A flower that provides delightful late autumn color in the garden. My garden.”
Oh.
And also: Uh-oh.
“Except,” the Headmistress continued, as my stomach sank in anticipation, “that my prize specimens now appear to instead be providing autumn color to your window. Since I find it difficult to believe that you have taken up flower arranging, I suggest you tell me who gave them to you.”
“Um.” Lydie’s tiny, terrified face floated up in my mind. Damn. “Actually, I did pick them. I didn’t know they were yours. Sorry.”
“Really.” The Headmistress’s eyes narrowed as she studied me. “Why are you wearing a dandelion?”
“I . . .” My brain stalled. “. . . decided to do a bit of weeding? While I was there? Like, uh, I thought maybe students helped out with the gardening. You know, school pride.”
The Headmistress was silent for a long moment, while I sweated my entire body weight. “How very civic of you,” she said at last, totally deadpan. “I commend your enthusiasm, Mr. Angelos. Perhaps a bit overzealous, but I shall overlook it on this occasion.” She turned away, and I started breathing again.
“On one condition,” the Headmistress added, just as I’d nearly shut the door. “I look forward to seeing your map of my flower beds, with the locations of all chrysanthemums clearly marked, on my desk first thing tomorrow morning, Mr. Angelos. Should this fail to materialize, I shall
instead expect you to materialize in my office for a detention.” She fixed me with a look that said she knew I was serving up bullshit, and she wasn’t digging in. “I trust it will not come to that.”
“You bet,” I promised fervently. I retreated into my room, closing the door and collapsing against it with a long sigh. Great. Now I had to sneak out and draw the Headmistress’s garden, wherever the hell that was, or get a detention. Was there anything else that could go wrong on my first day?
A scatter of gravel hit my window.
I groaned, hiding my head in my arms in the hopes it might all go away. Gravel pattered against the glass again, followed by the louder clink of a thrown pebble. Before my would-be visitor escalated to half bricks, I jerked the window open. “What?”
“It’s me!” Krystal whispered from the bushes. “I wanted to ask how things were going. Can I come in?”
I thumped my forehead against the window frame. “Krystal, I am having a really bad night.”
“Yeah, I imagine it must be pretty tough for you down here. I mean, it’s tough enough for me, and I’ve had a whole lifetime to get used to it.” Krystal’s flashlight lit her face from below, half-illuminating her sympathetic expression. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
I started to shake my head, and then stopped as a thought struck me. “Actually, yeah. Do you know where the Headmistress’s house is?”
“Of course.” Krystal jumped back as I slithered out the window. “What, you want to go there now?”
“It’s a long story.” I disentangled myself from an over-amorous bush and stepped free of the shrubbery. “Let’s just say I have a mission, and it’s a matter of life and death that I complete it before the morning.”
Krystal nodded, as if this was a perfectly reasonable explanation for wanting to spend the night lurking around teachers’ houses. Then again, given that this was the girl who wore a pentagram charm the size of a discus around her neck, I could probably just have told her that the fairies wanted me to do it.