The Curse in the Candlelight

by Sophie Cleverly

  We headed back to our room after dinner, tired and full. We were walking with Ariadne and Muriel, when Ebony came along in the other direction. Her eyes slipped across Muriel, and then narrowed and darkened. Muriel shivered, as if a cold breeze had just whipped round us. Then Ebony was gone, drifting away without a sound.

  “Are you sure you didn’t … do something to get on the wrong side of Ebony?” Ivy asked. I was a little surprised that she asked. It was the sort of question that I would usually bring up. “It’s a bit strange how she only seems to have it in for you.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Muriel snapped. Then her voice lowered and took on a sadder tone. “She just hates me and I don’t know why.”

  We neared Ebony’s room and that was when it happened.

  A cat, small, thin and black as night, was standing in the middle of the corridor.

  It looked at us, unimpressed, arched its back and then slunk in through Ebony’s door, which was slightly ajar.

  “Well, I never,” said Ariadne.

  “Did that just happen?” I asked.

  “This,” said Muriel darkly, “is a very bad omen.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  IVY

  f course, the first thing Scarlet did was go and put her head round the door of Muriel’s room, to try to spot the cat.

  “I can’t see anything,” she said. “It must be hiding.”

  “It’s her familiar,” Muriel hissed. “We shouldn’t go near it!”

  “I thought it was rather sweet,” said Ariadne, blushing.

  Scarlet spun round. “She’s breaking the rules, though. She has a pet in her dorm room and that’s definitely not allowed!”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Since when did you care about rules?”

  “As soon as Ebony started breaking them,” Scarlet said. “Come on. Let’s tell Matron. Ebony deserves some trouble!”

  We all followed Scarlet down the corridor, and found that Matron’s door was wide open – she was about to begin her evening rounds. She shuffled out of the apartment in her housecoat.

  “Evening, girls,” she said, taking a pin from her mouth and pinning her hair back. “Something the matter?”

  I opened my mouth, about to explain the situation delicately, but Scarlet beat me to it. “Ebony is keeping a cat in her room, Miss!”

  We all nodded.

  Matron squinted at the four of us, as if she could tell we were making things up just by staring hard enough. “I think I would have noticed if one of my girls had a cat in her room.”

  “It hides, Miss,” Muriel protested. “And it’s black, so it’s hard to see. But honestly, it was just in the corridor, I saw it go into her room—”

  But Muriel didn’t get any further with her sentence because that was when Ebony appeared from a door beside us. From her expression, I could tell she’d been listening the whole time. Her eyebrows knitted as her gaze swept across all of us. She mouthed something at Muriel and then strode away. Matron didn’t even try to stop her.

  “You’re probably just seeing things,” Matron said. “Miss McCloud is a good girl.”

  Scarlet looked at her. “Are you sure you aren’t the one who’s seeing things?”

  Luckily for Scarlet, Matron didn’t seem to have heard what she’d said. She was still looking down the corridor. “If there’s a cat in here, I’ll find it,” she said. “Go and get ready for bed, the lot of you.”

  I looked at the others and shrugged. What else could we do?

  We headed back, but Ebony was waiting for us outside Ariadne and Muriel’s room. She was leaning against the door, her arms folded.

  We surrounded her. “What are you doing?” Scarlet asked.

  Ebony ignored my sister and just stared straight at Muriel. “You shouldn’t meddle with things that you don’t understand,” she said. She didn’t raise her voice, but she didn’t have to. Her tone was laced with quiet threat. “Especially you.”

  I looked up at Muriel, who had gone pale and tight-lipped. “Please. Just leave me alone.”

  Ebony stood up straight. She was like a vacuum – pulling in all of our attention. “After midnight,” she said. “You’ll know that I’m serious.”

  Scarlet tried to step in front of her, but I instinctively pulled my twin back. “No trouble!” I whispered in her ear. We watched in silence as Ebony strode away, her black boots scuffing the floor.

  Hurriedly, Muriel opened their dorm-room door and ducked inside without saying another word.

  Ariadne bit her lip. “What did she mean by that?”

  Scarlet’s fists were shaking by her sides. “She’s planning something at midnight, isn’t she?”

  “And we have to find out what,” I said.

  My twin looked at me. “Without getting into trouble!”

  We agreed that Ariadne would keep an eye out for Muriel in their dorm room and make sure no one came in. Scarlet and I would hide out near Ebony’s room at midnight and watch for her.

  I’d argued a fair bit because I still wasn’t convinced that we could do it without being seen. But as Scarlet pointed out, we’d had many night-time excursions through the halls of Rookwood without running into a single teacher. Any who stayed at the school were usually fast asleep by that time, and Matron didn’t tend to come out of her bedroom for anything less than the school catching fire (which had only happened the once).

  “All right,” I conceded as I lay under the covers, still wearing all my clothes. “If she really does go anywhere, and isn’t just making idle threats, we can trail her. But no confrontations. We can’t risk another telling-off after what Mrs Knight said. We have to stay out of sight!”

  Scarlet sighed. “Yes, of course.” She was doing the same as me. Neither of us fancied the idea of running around in our nightgowns again. This time, we were going to be prepared. And less freezing, hopefully.

  Our lights were out, so with any luck Matron wouldn’t suspect anything. But there was a full moon in the sky and it was bathing our room in ghostly light. It was enough to see by, so I picked up my copy of Jane Eyre and began to read. From the other side of the room, I could hear the unmistakable sound of Scarlet writing in her diary. It made me smile. It wasn’t so long ago that I had only heard that sound in my dreams.

  I was so caught up in the book, it only seemed like minutes later that Scarlet whispered urgently, “Ivy! It’s midnight!”

  Sure enough, there was the distant chiming of a grandfather clock. I thought I would feel tired, but I was surprisingly awake. I realised that there was a small buzz of excitement in my stomach. I wanted to know what Ebony was up to.

  As soon as I felt that, it became tinged with guilt and with worry. What if she did something really bad? How would we stop her?

  Before I had time to ask Scarlet, she was out of her bed and slipping through the door. Quickly, and trying to be as light on my feet as possible, I followed her.

  Scarlet stopped suddenly and flattened herself against the wall, and I did the same. My heartbeat raced. We were just in time to see Ebony sneaking out of her room. And she wasn’t alone.

  There were six other girls with her. I recognised a couple of them as Ariadne’s former roommates. They were all carrying candles. We watched as they tiptoed from the dorm and headed for the stairs.

  Scarlet looked back at me and tilted her head in their direction. I nodded silently. We had to follow. At least they don’t seem to be going after Muriel, I thought.

  We waited, hopefully just long enough for the others to get some way down. And then we went after them, our footsteps light on the moonlit stairs.

  When we reached the bottom, the last of the girls was disappearing from sight – I recognised her as Agatha with the frizzy brown hair. Her head turned for a second, and my breath caught in my throat, but we were in shadow and she didn’t seem to have seen us.

  Scarlet put her hand out in front of me and we stopped again. “Are they going outside?” she whispered.

  “I thought the door
s were always locked at night now,” I said. But as we waited and listened, we heard the unmistakable sound of the front door swinging shut.

  “She must have pinched the key!” Scarlet hissed.

  We ran to the door and I knelt down and peered through the large keyhole. The girls were all standing in a circle round Ebony at the bottom of the front steps. I watched as Ebony pulled out a book of matches, and one by one she lit each of their candles.

  Scarlet shoved me aside with her shoulder. “Oof!” I fell out of the way and glared at my twin.

  “What are they doing?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know! I can’t see any more!” I stood up and brushed myself off. Considering that the foyer always smelt strongly of floor polish, it was rather unexpectedly dusty.

  “They’re off somewhere with those candles.” Scarlet frowned into the keyhole, then got to her feet beside me. “Well, the joke’s on them. We can follow them easily now!”

  “But we still need to stay back,” I cautioned. I wasn’t as worried about the group seeing us as I was about potential conflict. I was a little afraid of Ebony, but not as afraid as I was of being sent back to our stepmother.

  Scarlet made a face at me and then pulled the door open. Together we slipped out into the night.

  The air was brisk and chilly as we followed the trail of bobbing amber lights in the distance. Soon it became clear where they were heading.

  “They’re going to the chapel?” Scarlet whispered.

  Rookwood’s chapel was a relic from the days when the school was a grand old house. It was fairly large, large enough to squeeze all of us in on a Sunday morning, as it had originally served the local village as well. It was encircled by a graveyard, bearing battered and worn old stones that jutted from the ground like teeth. For most of the week, nobody went near it.

  In the moonlight, the chapel was a looming shadow on the landscape. We headed towards it, but that meant crossing the gravel. It was incredibly difficult to be quiet on the small stones, and I felt as though we sounded like a herd of elephants. But the other girls’ footsteps masked ours, and they were all looking straight ahead to their destination, anyway. We darted on to the grass as they reached the gate to the graveyard. I could see Ebony leading them all inside.

  “What has this got to do with Muriel?” I whispered to Scarlet, who just shook her head in response. I could tell she had no idea either.

  We sneaked over to the graveyard and crouched down behind the dry-stone wall. The grass was wet and cold to the touch, and I shivered. Even in my uniform, the night was still chilly.

  Scarlet waved her hand and I looked to where she was gesturing, and realised there was a gap in the wall. We both scuttled over to it and peered through.

  Ebony had found a space between the gravestones, and she was directing the other girls into a circle round her. I could hear her from where we sat – she was making no effort to lower her voice.

  “You, there,” she was saying. “Not there! We need to make the four corners.”

  “But there are six of us,” Agatha pointed out.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ebony snapped. “As long as four of you are in the right place. The rest can make up the circle.”

  I could see red-haired Evelyn staring in awe at Ebony. I was surprised that Ariadne’s old roommates had got so caught up in all this, but they had always been a little fascinated by anything dramatic.

  When they’d finished assembling, they all sat down on the grass while Ebony stood in the centre. She took a deep breath and a wind whipped up, blowing her black hair out behind her.

  She smiled, and it sent shivers down my spine.

  “Now,” she said, “let the curse begin.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  SCARLET

  urse?” I hissed, but Ivy shushed me. I didn’t think Ebony would be able to hear anyway, not with the wind whistling through the graveyard. So that’s what they were up to! Ebony was going to put a curse on Muriel!

  Ebony spread her arms wide and began talking to the sky in a language I didn’t understand. It sounded cold and ancient, but there was almost a tune to it.

  The eyes of the girls surrounding her went glassy. They couldn’t stop looking at her, and neither could we. She was mesmerising.

  Her voice got louder and louder, until she threw her head back and shouted into the wind. The girls tipped their heads up.

  And then Ebony clapped her hands together and the wind swept over them, and the candles went out.

  And everyone screamed.

  “Honestly,” I heard Agatha say. “What did you lot have to go and scream for? You’ve probably ruined it now!”

  Little toad, I thought. She’d screamed as loud as the rest!

  Ebony looked at them, and it was as if she was coming back down to earth from somewhere up high. “No,” she said, “it’s done.”

  “You did it?” asked one of the girls I didn’t know. “You put the curse on Muriel?”

  Ebony nodded as Ivy tried to stifle her gasp.

  “You’ll see tomorrow. These darker magics … sometimes they take a little time.” She smiled her bewitching smile. I wanted to slap her.

  “Ebony,” Evelyn said, whispering just loudly enough for us to hear. “Are you sure about this? What if she gets really hurt?”

  “She will get exactly what she deserves and no more. That’s how this works.” Ebony shrugged off the younger girl and began striding out of the cemetery. I grabbed Ivy’s arm and pulled her round the corner of the wall. I tried not to breathe too loudly, but my heart was racing.

  After a few moments, I peered back round and watched as they all trouped out through the old iron gate. Half of them were shivering. Ebony didn’t seem to have noticed the cold one bit. She lit one of the candles, which was probably quite unnecessary given the white ghostly light that was bathing the school, and led them away.

  “What she deserves?” Ivy whispered to me.

  I frowned. “Muriel hasn’t done a thing to Ebony, has she?”

  “Maybe it’s because of what Muriel did in the past? She was a bully herself, after all. What if Ebony’s found that out and is punishing her?”

  Having made sure that they had gone and weren’t looking back, Ivy stood up and brushed the damp grass from her skirt.

  But Ivy’s theory didn’t make sense either. “She picked on Ariadne, of course,” I went on. “None of that lot were there, though, were they?” I got to my feet and perched on the graveyard wall. The stone was rough and cold to the touch.

  “If anything,” Ivy said, “it should be you she has a problem with. You’re the one who’s been standing in her way.”

  I shuddered in the cold breeze. Whatever had just happened, it was beyond creepy. Perhaps it wasn’t real magic, but there was no denying Ebony’s dark intentions. Ivy was right. Maybe I was next.

  We made it back to our room (thankfully Ebony hadn’t thought to lock the school door behind them). For the first time ever I was questioning my choice of favourite numbers. I didn’t believe in bad luck or superstitions, but now that there was a girl with a black cat down the corridor, putting curses on people, and we were in room thirteen, it began to worry to me.

  “We’ll have to tell Ariadne and Muriel about this tomorrow,” I said, although some of it got lost in a yawn. I started to get changed into my nightgown, which did nothing to warm me up, but it at least felt soft against the goosebumps on my skin.

  “Do you really think that was a curse? Will anything happen?” Ivy asked from the other side of the room. She sounded unconvinced, but there was a slight tremor in her voice.

  I wrinkled my nose as I thought about it. “I think Penny was on to something. I think Ebony’s a witch in the same way Penny was plain nasty, but as for having magical powers, I’m just not sure.” I took a shaky breath of chilly air. “But that was certainly very strange. She’s not your typical bully, that’s for sure.” But even as I spoke the words, there was doubt in my mind.

&nb
sp; I climbed into bed and shut my eyes, but images of the curse in the candlelight kept flashing behind them. It felt like I’d seen something unearthly that I wasn’t meant to see. That language Ebony spoke …

  “Goodnight, Scarlet,” Ivy whispered.

  “Night,” I said back.

  I took a deep breath and went to roll over on my side …

  Which was when something jumped on to the bed, and I screamed.

  “Aaargh!”

  “What? Scarlet, what is it?”

  I sat bolt upright, and saw what it was.

  “Cat!”

  The black cat. Ebony’s black cat.

  It was standing on my bed, blinking yellow eyes at me with indignation, as if I was the one who had intruded into its sleeping place.

  I could hear Ivy sink back into her bed with relief. “That’s not so bad,” she yawned.

  “It must have sneaked in when we came through the door,” I said, wriggling about under the covers. The cat didn’t move, just continued to stare at me.

  “Shoo,” I said.

  It had no effect. The cat flicked its tail and curled up in a ball.

  “Are you spying on us?” I asked, but I wasn’t really expecting a response to that one. Reluctantly, I climbed out of bed, dislodging the cat, and opened the door. It ran out, but not before looking up at me angrily and hissing.

  “Well, sorry!” I whispered. I didn’t want a teacher walking into our room in the morning and thinking we were the ones with the secret pet.

  I heard Ivy start to snore. She had obviously been exhausted. I knew how she felt. I climbed back into the catless bed and pulled the covers up over myself.

  This time there were no interruptions and I began to slip into sleep. But not before candles flickered in front of my eyes and somewhere on the edge of hearing, a cat meowed.

  The sun rose the next day, but clouds came with it. I could hear the rain drumming against the windows, and it almost washed away the memories of the midnight curse.