by Eden Beck
I knew I should have cut it before I came, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I left more than my life behind when I found out about this world … and the flashing light of my phone as it comes back to life serves as a harsh reminder of that. Nearly two dozen messages, all from the person I left behind as well. My aunt, Trish, raised me as her own all these years, and I left her without so much as a warning.
In every way, I was the daughter she would never have. She’d loved me, cared for me; brushed my hair every night as she told me fantastic stories about the great adventures my parents were off having. What she never told me, however, was that all the stories were true. She never lied, and still, it hurts like she did.
There’s no Aunt Trish here to brush the tangles from my hair, so I just wind it into a sturdy rope-like braid. It’s sentimental, I know, and stupid—stupid enough that it almost cost me everything I came here for.
The bathroom door opens, bringing me back to the present alongside a thin, waifish girl as she enters. She sees me and freezes.
I stare back. She’s visibly shaking.
“S-sorry,” she mumbles, taking trembling steps toward the nearest stall. “I just—I have to—”
“I’m not going to fucking bite you,” I say flatly.
She jumps. “No, I mean, I don’t …”
I make a very obvious show of turning away from her. Maybe that was a bit harsh, but this nonsense is getting old, fast. I only have a few minutes before the start of the next trial, but I fill the time by systematically deleting each and every one of the voicemails. I don’t need to listen to them. I already know what they say.
Behind me, the girl gulps and bolts into a stall. She probably won’t last through the trials with an attitude like that. There’s no point in waiting around anymore, so I throw my bag over my shoulder and duck out—preparing myself to make a quick getaway back to the trials when I freeze instead.
Piers, Owen, and Bennett stand on the path between me and the next tests. There’s a certain air of danger about them. I know it right away, instinctively. These are boys not afraid of anything, people like me who know the truth of what lies just beyond the veil. They turn to face me, all scowling, until Piers steps forward. He runs his hand through his dark hair.
“So you think you’re all that, huh?”
I don’t answer.
He takes another step forward. “That little stunt you pulled back there? You didn’t fool us. We know what you’re up to.”
Behind him, Bennett folds his huge arms, muscles bulging. Again, I say nothing. I have no clue what they’re talking about but telling them that isn’t likely to stop them thinking it.
“Not everyone can rely on their parents to get in here,” Owen says, stepping up. “Some of us have to earn it.”
Now, it’s just too much. I plant my feet to the earth and my hand to my hip.
“My parents have nothing to do with the fact that you took nearly a minute longer than me to complete that course,” I say. “If you’re worried I’m going to get in and you’re not, well then … maybe you should focus less on me, and more on not sucking.”
Piers puts a hand on Owen’s shoulder, as if to hold him back. “Don’t worry about us, Avery Black. Just know, if you get in … and that’s still a big if … I think you’ll find yourself less comfortable than you might like.” Piers glances over his shoulder at Bennett and Owen, who both nod.
“Is that a threat?” I ask calmly.
“What if it is?” Owen says.
Piers steps toward me again. He smells of sweat and the forest. His blue eyes stab straight into me.
“You’re not the only one with powerful parents. My dad’s on the board of trustees, so even if something happens—even if someone makes something happen—you won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Definitely a threat, then. I grit my teeth.
“Hold on a second. So you’re accusing me of using my parents—my dead parents, mind you—to get me in, when your father is on the board of trustees? Doesn’t that seem a tad bit … hypocritical?”
“That’s none of your business,” he snaps. “But trust me, I get no advantage where that’s concerned.”
I take a second to look at all three boys again.
I don’t have time for this. They don’t scare me with their empty threats.
“You know what?” I look Piers straight in his beautiful face. “Go fuck yourself.”
His expression darkens. He opens his mouth and clenches his fists, but Sawyer appears from behind and strolls over, a big grin plastered across his face.
“Avery!”
Piers steps back quickly, his hands unclenching.
Sawyer falters and glances from me to the group of boys. “Oh. Uh, am I interrupting something?”
“No,” I say, not taking my eyes from Piers. “These three were just wishing me luck on the next trials.”
“Oh.” Sawyer grins and turns to Piers and the others. “Hey, you …” he says, pointing at Piers. “You’re Mason Dagher’s kid, right?”
Piers’ chin lifts a little, and he smirks. “Yeah? What of it?”
“Wow. It’s really cool to meet you. Is your dad here today?” Sawyer’s interest oozes fanboy in an adorably embarrassing way. It’s much less aggravating when it’s not directed at me.
“Yeah, but he’s not out here,” Piers replies coolly, his eyes staunchly avoiding mine. “Conflict of interest. He’s in the main building, waiting on the results.”
An awkward silence falls between us, broken only by Owen slapping his hands against his thighs.
“I think we got what we needed, don’t you?” he says, looking to Piers. “Let’s head out.”
“Yeah.” Piers’ eyes finally lock with mine as he and his boys turn on their heels and stalk back towards the tests.
Sawyer moves to stand beside me as I watch them go.
“Is it just me, or did something weird just go on between you four?”
“Nope,” I say, shouldering my bag. “It’s just you.”
I breeze through the instincts trials.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not sure how much of it was due to my actual talent. I’m not even sure most of these tests can rely on talent. As they’re so aptly named … most of it is just … instinctual.
Some things, like sharpshooting and knife throwing, I’ve practiced … but never blindfolded. If anything, my aim improves without the sense of sight. I might’ve gotten a perfect score in the latter if Piers, Owen, and Bennett didn’t make a sudden noise and throw me off. Rather than landing dead-center in the target in front of me, the knife embeds itself into the tree just inches away from Piers’ nose.
Really, they’re the lucky ones … that’s the only knife that missed.
A crowd begins to follow me as I move around the stations. They look on as I correctly guess the creature imitating a rabbit, a dangerous al mi’raj, simply by the touch of its fur. Until this moment, I didn’t even know what an al mi’raj was. But then they lift the lid from the box and show me the fang-toothed, horned creature that, at first glance, feels and appears to be an ordinary rabbit. I can’t explain how I knew, only that when my hand brushed across its soft fur amongst the other actual rabbits in the box, I just knew something was wrong.
With each station, the crowd around me grows. I stop the attendant from lifting a mandrake from the earth—an action that might have deafened or killed all those who stand too close. I taste poison that shouldn’t be able to be detected, and then don’t fall ill from its effects … even when Piers, behind me, has to stop and vomit behind a clump of trees. It goes on—more tests meant to gauge my natural reaction to the world around me.
For some, with great practice, they might be able to do this on their own. But for me … I hate to admit it so soon after the boy’s accusations … there’s really only one explanation. There’s a reason my parents were famous for what they did. And those same reasons, those same instincts, it seems they
’ve passed on to me.
I won’t let the boys’ accusations spoil this for me.
For the first time in my life, I feel a connection to the people who brought me into this world. A real, living, breathing connection—and it makes me proud.
Now, as the advancing students head towards the Menagerie, the underground area where they house captive monsters, I look around at the group. When I arrived, there were almost a hundred of us. Now we’re down to thirty.
“Getting smaller, huh?” Sawyer says, noticing my glance. He’s walking beside me, carrying my backpack at his insistence.
I nod. To my utter surprise, the nervous girl from the bathroom is still with us. She’s wringing her hands as she walks by, looking around as though any of the students may turn and try to yank the hair from her scalp at any moment.
No worries sister, if you’re anything like me … you’ll do that to yourself first.
Sawyer nudges me with his elbow. “Did you do something to Piers?” He nods over at Piers, and all three boys, Piers, Owen, and Bennett, shift their gazes away as I look their way.
“Somebody pissed in their cereal this morning, I guess,” I say.
Sawyer laughs. “Man, those looks they were giving you. You’d think you called Bennett tiny.”
“Now that you mention it, maybe I did remind Owen that he hadn’t touched his hair for a whole five seconds.” I grin up at Sawyer, and he smiles back. His eyes are really beautiful; almond-shaped, golden brown, with long, dark eyelashes.
“Hey, Avery,” he says quietly, “did you know about—”
But I don’t get to hear what I may or may not know, because the test administrator shouts for us to stop. Sawyer tears his gaze away from me and I curse inwardly for letting myself get distracted. I should have spent the last minutes preparing for this last trial rather than mooning over the way the light turns Sawyer’s eyes more gold than brown.
“This is the final trial,” the administrator says, pacing up and down under the low ceiling. We’re underground, beneath the school where the walls are all dark-colored brick and sconces illuminate the wide passage from the main building to the menagerie. We haven’t seen any monsters yet, but I’ve heard their scratching and howling behind closed doors. “You’re about to meet the Headmaster. Everyone on their best behavior.” For some reason, his eyes find me in the crowd. “Stay quiet and follow me.”
I need no further urging. I know what comes next, and it makes my heart feel as if it will beat right out of my chest. For all the talk and training, I’ve never actually seen a monster. All that’s about to change.
Chapter Three
We walk silently down the sloping passageway and out into a large chamber filled with benches. On one end there’s a raised dais with a few people standing on it, and a single man in the center behind a podium. He’s an old man, probably in his sixties, and he’s wearing a black tailored suit with Saint M’s logo emblazoned on his tie. He watches us all file into the chamber with a keen eye. This is the sort of man who misses nothing.
Another man wearing the same tie—though admittedly that’s where the comparison ends—hands each of us a folded slip of paper pulled from a dark envelope on our way past. I start to unwrap mine, but Sawyer covers my hand in his and gives me a wink.
“Isn’t the suspense half the fun?”
The man on the stage waits for us to start settling down onto the benches before he starts speaking.
“Welcome,” he says. He’s got a surprisingly smooth voice. “It’s an honor to stand here before you at the start of another year. In my profession … soon to be some of yours, should you be lucky … that isn’t a guarantee.”
Sawyer and I glance at each other before sitting on a bench near the back. He hasn’t looked at his paper yet, but I feel mine weighing heavily in my hand, just waiting to be opened. Sawyer is watching the man on the stage with rapt attention. He doesn’t even take his eyes off him when he leans in to whisper to me that the man before us is the current headmaster.
I turn toward the stage with more interest as he goes on.
“Lucian Marius Novac. He was one of the best, back in his day. He’s been teaching here for years, so he was the obvious choice after the last headmaster retired. Well … that’s a nice way to put it. But Novac, he’s been headmaster now for … maybe twenty, twenty-five years?”
All of this comes out of Sawyer’s mouth very quickly.
“You know a lot about him.”
Sawyer glances at me with a sheepish smile. “I’m kind of a geek for this sort of stuff. Like,” he continues, oblivious to the fact that I’ve begun staring, “Mason Dagher—Piers’ dad—is right up there with him. But he’s still nothing compared to the Blacks before they died.” He stops, suddenly, mouth agape.
“Oh God, Avery, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think—”
“It’s fine,” I interrupt, but I’ve focused my attention on the headmaster still speaking up ahead.
“Avery, really, I’m so sorry, I forgot that—” He stops, fumbling for words. “I forgot that they were your parents.”
A hot feeling rises inside me, and I laugh. “Lucky for you that you’re able to do that.” It’s a mean thing to say and I know it, so I quickly look back at him. “Look, it’s fine, really. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Headmaster Novac clears his throat and the noise in the chamber dies back down. “Saint Marcellus is a prestigious school. It wouldn’t be amiss to say it’s the best of its kind in the world. Some of the top monster hunters of our age have trod these same passageways. Surely still, there are even greater yet to come. Perhaps we might find them even here, among those who sit before me,” he adds, scanning the crowd.
I see Piers sit up a little straighter.
“I’m not sure what stories you’ve been told, but no doubt they’ve been ones of glory. Of camaraderie. Of honor. And it’s true, ours is a noble profession. A hunter, no matter the kind, must be honorable above all things. Ours is not just a fight for glory. It is a fight for mankind. A monster hunter must show bravery, courage, and valor as they face the most dangerous creatures this world has to offer.”
I squirm in my seat. For all this talk of monsters, I’ve still yet to see anything more dangerous than a tame lion at the zoo.
“It is for that reason,” Headmaster Novac continues, “That we can only take those most suited to the task. This is not a calling to be taken lightly. From the minute you are chosen as a student here, there will be no coddling. There will be no hand-holding. The professors—” he gestures to those standing behind him on the dais, “—will give you the tools to achieve your goals, but it is up to you to use them. Monsters don’t discriminate, and neither do we. Male or female, rich or poor, whatever your walk in life, you will be held to the same standard.” He pauses and looks over the crowd, his expression serious. “Now. I think that’s quite enough.”
Onto the trial.
There are thirty of us remaining. The slip of paper in my hand contains a number that will determine my group for the final task. Something settles in the pit of my stomach that tells me luck isn’t going to be on my side, as far as that’s concerned.
“Your job is to defeat this monster,” the administrator calls over us as we start unwrapping the slips of paper between our fingers. “That can mean many things, including killing, capturing, or even befriending it … depending on the creature you’ve been allotted according to the number on your randomly drawn group.”
It’s the culmination of past knowledge, physical prowess, and instinct. We’ll have to work together, isolated from the other teams and only with weapons picked from the armory before we even know what kind of creature we face.
“This trial will simulate an unexpected encounter with a monster,” the test administrator says, cutting in, “the sort that you are likely to have in the near future, should you actually make it that far.”
The headmaster looks over us all as we stand and start looking at the number�
��s we’ve drawn. “There are twenty-five spots available, so it’s possible that an entire team will be eliminated. I expect the absolute best from each of you.” He nods down at the test administrator. “Begin.”
I turn to Sawyer and show him the number ‘six’ on my slip of paper.
“Five,” he sighs regrettably, waving his own paper around. He shrugs my backpack off his shoulders and hands it to me, his eyes scanning the crowd behind me gathering into groups.
I heave my bag back up and head straight for the people I somehow know I just ‘happened’ to get paired up with. I’d curse my luck if it wasn’t so expected. Somehow these things always work out this way.
Standing together with identical smirks and slips of paper bearing the same number as mine are Piers, Owen, and Bennett.
“So it’s going to be me and you three?” I say, flatly.
“Looks like it,” Owen sneers at me. “Now, sweetheart, don’t worry about this. We’ll do all the hard work.”
Bennett nods, and Piers grins, saying, “We’ll pick up your slack.”
“A—are you all sixes?”
I turn. The nervous girl from the bathroom is standing there, trembling slightly. This day just keeps getting better.
“Yeah, that’s us,” I say.
“Oh. Nice to meet—um—all of you. I’m Erin.” She sticks her hand out as if expecting me to shake it. I don’t, and none of the boys make a single move to show they’ve even seen her. After a long, awkward moment, she lets her hand drop down to her side.
“Let’s get this party started,” Owen says, and despite my dislike for them … I can’t stop myself smiling. It’s more than the anticipation of the hunt, my first look at a monster, or even the adrenaline coursing through my veins. It’s watching them, and knowing they feel the same … no matter how they try to hide it. And in Owen’s case, he isn’t very good at hiding it. He’s got a spring in his step as he leads us to the back of the chamber.