[Network 01.0] Miss Mabel's School for Girls

by Katie Cross

  “Right,” Camille snorted. “But not as bad as failing Algebra and having to take it again.”

  She fell to studying a small piece of parchment hidden in her palm, her lips moving in silent recitation as she read. Miss Bernadette called us forward, and the whole group moved as one, deeper into the forest.

  I watched Leda with a suddenly wary eye as she stumbled along. What was she seeing, and why was it so important? When Leda didn’t look my way again, I turned my back on her, ignoring her vexed expressions. The three of us spread out for the rest of the lesson, and the class faded by without me any wiser for it.

  Vertigo

  Miss Mabel waited for me in the classroom when I returned from breakfast later that week, a warm bowl of oatmeal sitting in my stomach. She gazed out the windows on the backyard, her arms folded across her chest. She spoke without looking at me as I entered the room.

  “Are you ready for class today, Bianca?”

  “Yes, Miss Mabel.”

  “Good.”

  A feeling like a punch to my midsection slammed into me. I tumbled to my knees and gasped. My vision swam for a few seconds; my scalp began to tingle moments before I blacked out. When I came to, Miss Mabel stood over me, her long blonde hair dangling around her face.

  “Goodness! You certainly fell harder than I thought you would. Does your head hurt?”

  Disoriented, I blinked several times. My right shoulder throbbed and the world still spun. My head pulsed with dull thuds.

  “What h-happened?”

  Using my left elbow to prop myself up, I pushed off the floor. Dizziness overwhelmed me. My vision failed, my fingers prickled, and I passed out again.

  The sound of Miss Mabel chuckling brought me back around.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” she stopped me from trying to sit up by putting a foot on my shoulder. It took a moment for my vision to clear enough to bring the shiny black boot into focus. “It’ll make it worse.”

  My head fell back to the floor, where it hit with a bang and echoed through my skull. I groaned and closed my eyes as Miss Mabel lifted her foot.

  “What you have just been hit with is a vertigo curse. Eventually, with time, the fits of vertigo will decrease to once an hour. Then, after a few days, they will only come once every two hours, and so forth. You get the idea. Eventually, you’d live with blacking out every four to five hours. Not intolerable, I think.”

  Her footsteps reverberated through my ears as she walked around me.

  “As you know, I don’t think education is very valuable unless it’s hands-on. Especially for the Advanced Curses and Hexes mark. Wouldn’t you agree? No one should be able to cast a curse if she doesn’t know how it feels. This is an education you can’t get anywhere else in the Network, Bianca. Trust me. Lucky for you, isn’t it? I’m also doing it like this because your papers and homework make me cringe.”

  Then, as quickly as it came, the pain and dizziness faded. I opened my eyes, and Miss Mabel smiled.

  “You may sit up now.”

  She walked to her desk as I pulled myself together and stood up. My head didn’t dive up and down in a dizzy spell. It felt normal and clear. Once removed, there were no residual effects.

  Before I had gotten very far, the punch came again, only stronger this time. I held onto my desk to keep from falling and gasped for air. Nothing happened. I swallowed back a tickle in my throat as I waited. But the sensation didn’t go away. It grew into a scratch. Uncomfortable, I cleared my throat. My mouth felt like sand. The need to drink seized me.

  Suddenly I was so thirsty, I would die.

  Barely aware of my actions, I grabbed a glass of water Miss Mabel had set out and began to drink. It tasted so sweet. The heat abated when the moisture slid past my throat. But as soon as I emptied the glass, my baked mouth returned. No, it had never left. The water didn’t quench my thirst. I still craved more. Miss Mabel sat down in her chair and lounged back with a teasing smile.

  “Thirsty, Bianca?”

  Trying to hide my desperation was useless. I couldn’t fight a curse, as I already knew. What is it about cursing me that she likes? Instead, I clung to the desk and forced myself not to move. If I got near water, I would drink until I vomited, and then begin again.

  “That feeling you’re experiencing precedes every curse. Sometimes it’s the only way you know you’ve been hit. I’ve seen some curses so strong that the initial wave knocks the person over. Isn’t that wild?”

  I was barely able to concentrate. All I could think of was cool blue water. The refreshing taste sliding down my mouth, past my scorched tongue, into my stomach. Moments before I gave in and broke away from my desk to search for something to drink, the feeling stopped. Relieved, I put my head in my hands and collected my breath.

  “There are some curses you can cast that are silent, without precursor, meaning that there is no way of knowing when they hit you. They are a bit more advanced and complicated. Of course, we won’t bother with those. Not today, anyway.”

  She sat up and strolled into the middle of the room. As soon as her footsteps paused, I straightened up.

  “Ready for some more?” she asked.

  Her high eyebrow and tilted head challenged me. She wanted me to say no, to quit. Both of us knew this lesson would go on for hours. I wondered if this was her way of getting retribution for the deception-spell cat and tricking her with Miss Celia’s voice.

  Or if this was just a part of her evil plan that I couldn’t decipher. Either way, I couldn’t turn back. The awful arithmetic of saving my own life and shucking off the Inheritance curse meant I had to stay, and succeed, at all costs.

  “Yes, Miss Mabel,” I said, not without some trepidation, my fists clenched at my side. “I’m ready.”

  Three hours.

  Three grueling hours.

  It took that long for Miss Celia to ring the little tinkling bell for lunch. Miss Mabel had just started explaining how to cast a swollen tongue curse when the bell interrupted and she looked up in surprise.

  “Oh, is it already lunch?” she asked in feigned shock. “Fabulous. I’m exhausted.”

  Maybe she’ll choke on her lunch and I won’t have to see her again.

  I wanted to cast my own curse. One that would make the floorboards disappear beneath her and swallow her into an unforgiving chasm of black snakes. Instead I rested my forehead on the desk and waited for the spasms in my arms and legs to stop. Blasted seizure curse. They slowly subsided, leaving me weary and still.

  I hadn’t known there were that many curses in our whole world, ranging from continuous sneezing to the inability to swallow. The most frightening had been a suffocation curse. While I knew she wouldn’t let me die, not yet, the constant sensation that I couldn’t breathe terrified me into wanting to.

  The most unsettling part was Miss Mabel’s amusement as she controlled me like a puppet.

  “Don’t bother going downstairs to eat,” she said. “I’ll have Miss Celia bring you something. You have a class with Miss Amelia tomorrow afternoon on counter-curses that should serve as a good introduction. You also have a paper due tonight. I want a one thousand word essay on the differences between counter-curses and removing curses. Then, I want you to read chapters ten through fifteen from the textbook Curses. I’ll see you tomorrow. If you have any questions, I’ll be in my office.”

  So much for tuning down the homework that I’m so horribly bad at.

  The moment she disappeared, I folded my arms, lowered my head, and tried not to think about how much I hated her. I wouldn’t remember those instructions and would have to ask her to repeat them later, but I didn’t care. Miss Celia came up after a sweet twenty minutes in which I hovered on the bridge between wakefulness and sleep, startling me into reality again. She carried a plate loaded with food.

  “Bianca?” she cried, aghast. “Blessed be, are you all right?”

  “Yes, Miss Celia.” My voice echoed in the small cave my arms made.

  “What happe
ned?”

  “Nothing.” I straightened up to put her at ease. “I’m just tired today.”

  “Tired!” she exclaimed. “You look nearly worn to death! Are you getting enough sleep?”

  “I’m okay,” I managed. “Nothing a little lunch won’t help.”

  She eyed me in disbelief and set the plate down. Sliced apples rested in a petaled design around a sandwich. The bread smelled buttery and felt warm. My stomach grumbled, but I wasn’t sure I’d have the energy to chew. My midsection felt sore from all the precursors.

  “It’s nothing fancy today, I’m afraid. Just a sandwich and some fruit.”

  “That sounds great. Thank you, Miss Celia.”

  She hesitated. She didn’t seem to want to leave but had no reason to linger.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, I’m well.”

  “Okay,” she sighed. “Then I’ll leave you alone. Just let me know if I can do anything, all right?”

  I nodded. She turned away to leave, then circled back with a little exclamation.

  “Oh! I just remembered something. Brianna’s birthday party is coming up soon. Her parents have asked us to have a little celebration for her seventeenth. Do you think you’ll be able to come?”

  “Maybe.”

  Living through the day would be a requirement, and I didn’t feel up to it right then.

  “We’ll have yellow cake with red frosting,” she added, as if that would entice me into a commitment. The thought of getting as far away from Miss Mabel as possible appealed to me more than the promise of sweets.

  “I’ll try, Miss Celia.”

  She gave me an awkward little pat on my shoulder. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I wondered how long I’d be able to endure.

  “Get some rest, poor dear.”

  Miss Celia mumbled something under her breath as she puttered to the spiral stairs and left me in the quiet classroom. After staring at the sandwich for a long time, I pushed it away, dropped my head back onto my arms, and fell asleep.

  Purple Flowers

  “Bianca, try this: instead of saying the spell, I want you to focus on what you want to happen. Focus really, really hard. Can you do that?”

  His dark eyes smiled at me.

  “Yes, Papa. But I can’t–”

  “Just try it, B. That’s all I ask. Think really hard about what you want, not what spell to use. That’s how silent magic is different.”

  “It’s hard!”

  “I know. But you can do hard things. If we learn it now, it will help you be strong when you’re older.”

  Sunbeams strayed through the trees, warming my skin. The air smelled like fresh dirt and leaves. We were in a wild, unknown part of the forest where no one would see us. The high sun in the sky meant we still had a few hours before Papa had to leave.

  The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was the delicate curve of the yellow petals.

  “Okay,” I whispered, uncertain. Then I turned all my thoughts to the yellow flower, trying as hard as I could to imagine it purple instead. Time passed, but I kept my eyes closed until the sounds of Letum Wood faded and all I thought of was a purple flower. When I heard a cry of delight, I opened my eyes to see a violet blossom in hand. The only signs of the original flower remained in the few streaks of yellow down the center of each petal.

  “Mama! Papa!” I shrieked, waving it in the air. “I did it! Look, it’s purple!”

  “You did it!” Mama cried.

  Papa gathered me in his arms and spun around. “I knew you could!” he said, exultant with pride. “If anyone could do it, you can, sweet B.” The world blurred into green and brown streaks as we twirled, laughing. He set me down and then settled onto a rock near Mama, who rubbed a hand across his back.

  “You aren’t going to leave yet, are you?” I asked him, fiddling with the flower stem, wondering if I could find some others and make a crown.

  “No, of course not. We still have a few hours left. See, look up at the sun. It’s not on the horizon yet, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Then we still have time! What if we play your favorite game?”

  “Why can’t we go to your house?” I asked. “We never go to your house, Papa. We always meet here.”

  The two of them exchanged a look that meant I wasn’t supposed to know something. So many secrets. He pulled me in closer to him, then propped me up on his lap.

  “We meet here in the forest because I have a very busy job. Sometimes it’s dangerous. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  His gentle tone did little to soothe my sadness. Mama ran a hand down my face and gave me the smile that meant everything would be okay. Papa took her other hand.

  “Mama said no one can know you’re my Papa.”

  “For now, she’s right,” he said. “Maybe one day, when you’re older, we can tell people. But for now we’re going to keep it a secret, okay?”

  I still didn’t understand, but I knew that understanding it wouldn’t change anything.

  “Who is going to protect you, Papa?”

  He smiled and softly chucked my chin with his knuckles. “I can take care of myself, Bianca. That’s part of the reason I’m teaching you all these difficult things. Then one day you can protect yourself.”

  “Because I’m cursed?”

  “Yes. That’s why I’m making you learn difficult things. Do you know why it’s important to learn?”

  “Because it gives me power?”

  “Yes. The more you learn, the more power you’ll get. Then we can try to stop the curse before you’re seventeen.”

  “Should I be scared of the bad witch that cursed Nana?”

  He stared at me for a long time, then brushed a long lock of black hair away from my face.

  “No, Bianca. You should never be afraid of anything.”

  Startled out of the dream by a loud noise, I jerked myself awake.

  A booming roll of thunder reverberated off the walls of my bedroom. Rain pounded the window and roof in a sharp staccato. I gazed around to make sure it was just a dream, a vague memory stirring from somewhere in the back of my mind. Alone in my room, I sat at my desk. I’d fallen asleep over a half-finished scroll.

  Shaken, I pushed the hair off my sweaty face, curled myself in a ball under the covers, and knew no more.

  Divinings

  I sat in the library that morning, watching a few dust motes drift in the beams of sunlight. The old tomes shed an aged smell, like moldy paper and rotting leather, but it comforted me, reminding me of Grandmother. A yellowing book sat open on the table. I stared at the words but didn’t see them. The flicker of the fire held me in a captivated trance, lulling me like a wicked siren.

  Until two bodies sank into the chairs in front of me.

  “Hi Bianca,” Jackie said, expertly shuffling a stack of cards between her two hands. Her tiny black curls poked out of her head in all directions as usual, contrasting with her smooth caramel skin. I envied her exotic beauty. “I came to practice Divining on you.”

  I didn’t notice a question, recalling our previous conversation in which she’d expressed interest in trying. Luckily, I was in the mood for a distraction, so I straightened up.

  “But I don’t have any decisions to make right now.”

  A lie, partially. Life was full of decisions. Jackie scoffed and shot me a look that suggested she had the same thought.

  “We’re always making decisions,” she said with a confident little shake of her head. “I’m just going to show you two paths. It’s up to you to decide which decision leads to which path. That’s all I can do.”

  “She just did it for me,” Camille said, her eyes glowing. “If a handsome young witch warrior comes along, the results of that decision could spring some beautiful children!”

  “Okay,” I agreed, secretly hoping this wouldn’t turn into a warbling, romantic adventure about finding my soulmate and also fearing that Jackie would actually have some skill. What if o
ne of her paths held only darkness, while the other ended? Perhaps all my choices lead to a bad end, and Jackie would see it. What then?

  Camille bounced in excitement.

  “I can’t wait!”

  I can, I wanted to say, beginning to wonder if this was a good idea.

  Jackie held out both of her hands. I put my palms against hers, not surprised to find them warm and soft. For a first-year, Jackie had it together. She was everything she should be, and everything most girls wanted to be, but she didn’t seem to notice. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

  It didn’t take long before her relaxed face slowly began to crumble, to fall into deep grooves and worry lines. It aged her too many years. I wanted to pull my hands away, to jump up and tell her to forget it, but I feared the meaning of her expression.

  Seconds later, Jackie’s eyes snapped open. She looked at me with a troubled gaze.

  “Let’s see what the cards say now that I have your essence,” she whispered, reaching for the deck, her hand trembling just a little. Camille, oblivious to our silent exchange, clapped to herself, shuddering in excitement.

  Jackie shifted the first card off the top of the deck and flipped it over. I stared at a Guardian on a horse, a burning red sword in his hand, an expression of rage on his face. My heart fluttered as Jackie set it off to the right.

  “The Guardian,” she said in a low tone. “You will battle your enemies on this line. The Guardian doesn’t appear idly. It means you have the skills needed to fight but does not guarantee victory.”

  “He’s quite handsome,” Camille said, studying his face. “Angry, too.” I didn’t look at him, or at Jackie. I didn’t look anywhere, instead pressed my palms together on my lap and waited. She reached for the next card.

  “The red scales,” she said, announcing the next card and placing it to the left. “It means you’ll execute justice on this line.”

  I thought of my curse, of Miss Mabel. Justice, I thought, overwhelmed by a sudden desire to have that power. What a sweet word. A few candles flared high and sputtered out, drowning the library in a low blanket of light. Jackie shot me a sharp look, her eyes narrowed.