The Curse in the Candlelight

by Sophie Cleverly

  “Hmm.” The hairbrush our mother had left us stared up at me. I suddenly felt like she was watching us, waiting for our next move. I wanted her to be proud. “Perhaps we shouldn’t get involved in this.” I stood up and faced my twin. “Why don’t we just stop talking to Ebony and go down the hallway right now and apologise to Ariadne and Muriel? Wouldn’t that make everything better?”

  Scarlet nearly laughed in my face. “What? No! Ebony would continue to terrorise the school and we’d still have no idea what was really going on. This is no time to go cowardly on me.”

  Affronted, I decided to explain my thought process. “I just … I thought of our mother. I want to do the right thing. To make her proud.”

  Scarlet put her hands on her hips. “Our mother stood up to bullies. When she was here, she ripped this school apart from the inside out to discover what was going on, no matter what it cost her. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to make her proud. By stopping Ebony.”

  And that was why, on a wet and windy night, when the clock struck twelve, we were sneaking out of Rookwood School once again and heading for the graveyard.

  I wrapped my coat tightly round me. The rain was light, but it made the night even colder and blacker than it already was. The moon was hidden behind endless clouds.

  Only this time, our trip to the graveyard wasn’t to spy on Ebony’s curses. It was to join in.

  I’d tried everything I could to talk Scarlet out of it, but it was no use. We were going. And we intended to sabotage Ebony in whatever way we could.

  After checking that the coast was clear, we ran down the steps and along the drive. I thought, not for the first time, how we never would have attempted this when Miss Fox was headmistress. She’d always seemed to have eyes everywhere.

  But even now, I felt as though there were eyes watching me in the night. Something fluttered past my head and I squealed and grabbed hold of Scarlet.

  “Bats!” she said.

  She was right. As we stood on the drive and looked up, a dark shape would occasionally flap past, like a bird’s shadow.

  “Ebony probably summoned them,” Scarlet muttered, though only after looking around to check she wasn’t being overheard.

  I let go of her and shook myself. Bats didn’t mean anything. I’d seen them when I’d lived at Aunt Phoebe’s and they’d just been like little mice with wings.

  As we neared the churchyard, I saw some of the others lurking beside the gate.

  “Where is she?” one of them asked, her hands tucked under her arms in the cold. Her pockets were full of candles. “I thought she’d be here by now.”

  “Just wait,” Agatha snapped, seemingly having been appointed Ebony’s spokesperson. “She knows what she’s doing.”

  Ebony’s group of disciples seemed to have grown. I saw Ethel was there, her hair in its usual tight bun beneath a dark cap. And there were others too. How long would it be before the whole of Rookwood wanted to join in this madness?

  Scarlet jumped up and perched on the rough stone wall of the graveyard, gaining a series of tuts from the assembled girls. “What?” she asked, folding her arms. “If we have to wait …”

  I shrugged and climbed up beside her, sitting close for warmth. The wind blew my hair over my eyes and I kept having to pull it back.

  After what felt like far too long, Ebony appeared, walking down the driveway. She appeared to be in no hurry – she made everything seem so effortless, as if it was exactly as she meant it to be. She stood in front of us as everyone waited with bated breath for instructions.

  “Hmm,” she said. “This weather will put the candles out. We’ll have to go inside.”

  “In … in the church?” Mary stuttered through chattering teeth.

  Ebony frowned. “No. Not there.” She turned her eyes back to where she came from. “In the school.”

  “That doesn’t seem very magical,” Scarlet whispered loudly to me.

  I saw the whites of Ebony’s eyes as they flicked over to us in the darkness. She’d heard.

  “The library,” she said with an air of finality. “Words have power.”

  I glanced at my twin, not that I could see much of her in the dark. Part of our plan had been to knock the candles over. In wet grass, that would be no problem. In the library, which had already burned down once in our time at Rookwood … now that was a different story.

  Ebony began striding away into the darkness. Scarlet and I hung back for a moment. What were we going to do?

  “Coming?” Ethel called back to us. “Or are you scared?”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  SCARLET

  eluctantly, we followed the other girls. We crept along the dark corridors – but with the growing numbers of Ebony’s followers, even creeping was noisy. It was like a herd of elephants trying to be as quiet as possible. When we reached the library doors, Ebony tried them, only to find they were locked shut. I hadn’t attempted to break into the library at night since last year, so I was surprised to see that a lock had been fitted. But it made sense, given everything that had happened.

  And, of course, Ebony somehow had a key. Again. Where did she get it from? The sound of Miss Fox’s jangling pockets flashed through my head, but I swatted the thought away. I needed to be concentrating if we had any chance of disturbing Ebony’s ritual, whatever it was going to be.

  With the grand doors pulled open, Ebony led us inside to the largest empty space, just in front of Miss Jones’s desk.

  Agatha began lighting some candles and placing them in holders in a circle, without even having to be asked. “Careful,” I said with a wince. I only had to close my eyes for a moment to see the whole place alight again, flickering flames and smoke filling my nose.

  Agatha ignored me. I rolled my eyes at her. Obviously Ebony was the only one who would be listened to around here.

  Ebony leant on the desk, like some sort of overseer. “Make the four corners,” she said.

  I remembered her saying that from … when was it?

  The curse. The curse on Muriel.

  Ivy grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I caught her eye. She was clearly thinking the same as me. We had to stop this before it went too far.

  I had to act as casually as possible. As everyone shuffled into position in the circle that Agatha had begun drawing in chalk, I found the spot nearest to Ebony. “So then,” I said. “Who are we cursing this fine evening?”

  Ebony frowned at me. I think I was ruining her moment. “Mrs Knight,” she said simply.

  My mouth must have dropped open.

  “Close it or you’ll catch flies,” Ebony said and turned away. She pulled a folded picture of Mrs Knight from her pocket, which looked like it had come from the school newsletter, and placed it on the library desk.

  I couldn’t find the words, but thankfully Ivy leant over and found them for me. “Why Mrs Knight?” she asked. “What has she done?”

  Ebony put her nose in the air. “She wants to take away my cat. This spell should change her mind.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So not a curse then? More of an enchantment?” Whatever it was, spell or curse, I was certain this sort of thing shouldn’t be messed with.

  Now she stared at me, straight in the eye. “If you know so much, Scarlet Grey, why don’t you try the spell?”

  Ivy stepped forward. “Why should she have to? And how would she know what to say?”

  I turned, once again surprised by my twin. You would think I’d have got used to her confidence, but after so many years of shyness, it was still new to me. I realised everyone in the candlelit circle was staring at us now. The smell of melting wax filled the air.

  Ebony began to laugh. “Both of you, then. Stand in the middle. I’ll tell you what to do.”

  Ivy looked at me desperately. I shrugged. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” I said. If we were the ones who had to carry this out, we could do everything in our power to sabotage it.

  I strode into the centre of the circle. Ebony stoo
d up straight, putting her black boots on the chalk line. After a few moments, Ivy took a deep breath and stepped in after me.

  “So you’re going to teach us?” I asked.

  “Isn’t that why you’re here?” she retorted. “To learn?” I wasn’t sure whether she meant here as in Rookwood School or here as in inside a magic circle in the library after midnight. But I had to admit the answer to either of those would be ‘No’.

  So I did what I had to. I lied. “Yes,” I said. “Show us how it’s done.” I hoped I seemed sincere, but I heard faint giggles from behind me as I said it.

  “All right, then. Stand back to back.” She waved us together.

  “How will this help?” I whispered to Ivy, only to find myself getting shushed by a circle of would-be witches.

  “Silence!” Ebony called out, and the silence fell quicker than a thunderclap.

  I almost shuddered. A cold chill swept across my face, though my feet were warmed by all the candles.

  “Close your eyes,” Ebony ordered. “Both of you.”

  I did as I was told this time. I couldn’t delay any further without them all sensing that something was up. Now everything descended into blackness, with nothing but the temperature and my twin’s back to tell me where I was standing.

  Ivy tapped her finger against mine, questioningly. I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what we were going to do.

  Perhaps I just wouldn’t say it. I wouldn’t say Mrs Knight’s name, or whatever was required to target the spell.

  “Repeat after me,” Ebony said. “I will speak slowly and quietly. You must say the words loudly.”

  “Won’t someone hear?” Ivy asked, and I felt her head turn towards Ebony’s voice.

  “Never mind that!” came the snappy reply. “Keep still. Now …”

  And then she began to speak in that strange, unearthly sounding voice she had used before. She said a few words, words that didn’t mean a thing to me, but I could copy the sound. Ivy and I said them together. It was mesmerising, almost. But inside, my mind was racing, racing for a way to stop this.

  Something fluttered past my face in a rush of air. I tried to ignore it. It felt like butterflies. Or something worse.

  Ebony said more words and we repeated them. “Keep going,” she whispered and then said the same words a few times. It was a chant, clearly. I repeated it and Ivy repeated it too, for what seemed like a long time, until …

  “WHAT ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH IS GOING ON HERE?”

  My eyes snapped open.

  Everyone had gone. Ivy and I were alone in the library.

  Except for Miss Bowler, who was now standing in the doorway.

  Chapter Thirty

  IVY

  carlet and I dived apart and faced Miss Bowler. The candles were still burning all round us, but all the other girls had disappeared! I could see no sign of Ebony or any of the others. Even the photograph of Mrs Knight had gone. There were playing cards scattered at our feet.

  “Did we do this?” Scarlet hissed.

  Miss Bowler was already striding towards us. “OUT OF YOUR BEDS AT SILLY O’CLOCK AND BURNING CANDLES IN THE LIBRARY!” Her booming voice echoed off the walls. I thought she might wake the whole school.

  But as I stared down at the cards, I noticed something.

  They were all face down, except for the Jokers.

  We’d been set up. It was a trap.

  As I raised my eyes again, I found myself face to face with Miss Bowler.

  “Explain yourselves!”

  I fought the urge to clap my hands over my ears at her deafening volume.

  “Sorry, Miss, we, um … we couldn’t sleep … and …” I stumbled over every word. How on earth were we going to explain this?

  “We thought we’d play cards,” Scarlet said suddenly.

  I looked at her. Well, that was one way.

  “CARDS?” Miss Bowler roared at her. “In the middle of the night? With all these candles?”

  We both stayed completely silent. I felt that we were at the point where saying anything else would just make everything much, much worse.

  “Right,” Miss Bowler said, when it became clear that we weren’t answering. “I don’t know what you two are up to, but I know I don’t like it. I will personally be escorting you back to your room and then I will personally escort you to Mrs Knight’s office, first thing on Monday morning!”

  She strode behind us, put a big hand on each of our backs and began walking us forward. There was no use protesting. We kept walking.

  Miss Bowler turned and I heard her blowing out all the candles. The library fell into darkness once again.

  We were marched all the way back through the corridors. Miss Bowler was muttering angrily about how she had been staying overnight to clean the swimming pool early in the morning, and how she’d heard noises and then someone knocked on her door and ran, and she thought there had been a break-in …

  Still, we said nothing. I was barely taking in what she was saying because the consequences of what had just happened were still racing through my mind.

  There was no spell on Mrs Knight. Ebony had designed the whole thing to get us into trouble. It wasn’t magic, just pure skulduggery. I even found myself wondering if she’d somehow caused it to rain, so that we’d have to go inside and be caught.

  And that wasn’t all. Mrs Knight had already warned us about getting in any further trouble. What was going to happen?

  A horrible vision appeared in front of me as we trudged up the staircase. The two of us, sent home to live with our wicked stepmother … and not even a chance to make up with Ariadne. I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

  “Which room?” Miss Bowler asked, pausing at the top.

  “Thirteen,” Scarlet replied.

  Miss Bowler marched onward.

  “It’s the other way, Miss,” I said.

  She turned round without a word, as if she’d always been going the right way.

  Soon we arrived at our room, where Miss Bowler wrenched our door open. “In!” she ordered. “I’ll see you both tomorrow! I hope you will have some better excuses by then …” She trailed off into angry mumbling and stomped away.

  With a shared glance and a sigh, we went inside and shut the door behind us.

  “What just happened back there?” Scarlet asked, once we’d regained our wits enough to talk.

  We were sitting on our beds in the pitch-black night, the clouds papering over the moon and the rain whispering at the window. “Did the spell do something? Did we make them disappear?”

  “No, Scarlet, it was a set-up. Don’t you see?”

  I heard her shuffling and I imagined it was the sound of her mentally readjusting her position. “Oh,” she said eventually.

  “Exactly.” I thought back through everything that had just happened. “Ebony must have planned this. She made us do that ‘spell’ so that we’d be standing there unawares with our eyes closed, then they must all have run away and alerted Miss Bowler.”

  “But what about the cards?” she asked. “I think I felt them fly past us.”

  I thought about it. “Ebony must have thrown them somehow. Those Jokers … that was a message. Telling us that it was a trick.”

  “Or that we’re the jokers.” I could almost hear in her voice that Scarlet’s face was scrunched with anger and embarrassment, the way I knew it would be. “But how did she get them to be face up?”

  I lay down on my bed, relieved to finally be in it, even if the peace wouldn’t last long. “I don’t know,” I had to admit.

  There were a few empty moments before Scarlet spoke again. “And why now? I thought Ebony believed that we really were her followers.”

  The idea struck me out of nowhere. I sat back up again. “Muriel!”

  “What?” My twin sounded confused.

  I put my hands over my mouth. I couldn’t believe it, but it had to be true. “Ariadne found out that we’d infiltrated Ebony’s group and she was really upset about it. S
he must have told Muriel.”

  Scarlet took hold of what I was saying and ran with it. “Then we see Muriel talking to Ebony, and we find the two of them passing notes to each other …”

  “They planned this together!” we said simultaneously.

  I couldn’t believe it. It had to be true. One thing led to the other perfectly. Muriel was up to something with Ebony! And if she was, then Ariadne was in even more danger than we’d previously thought.

  “But there’s a big problem,” Scarlet said. “How are we ever going to prove it?”

  Once again, we were stuck – stuck between a former bully and a witch, and with no proof of what had happened. The only thing we had concrete proof of was that we were about to face big trouble.

  We kept our heads down over the weekend while we tried to make sense of what had happened and come up with a plan. But we were getting nowhere. Anything I could think of to say just made it sound as though we were being even more paranoid and jealous of Ariadne’s friendship with Muriel. I felt a pang in my heart every time I saw them talking together. As we sat across from them at meal times, Muriel would smile at us. Ariadne would say nothing and stare at her plate. Every mouthful of dinner was hard to swallow.

  And in the face of Muriel’s smile, I even began to doubt myself. What if she was innocent in all of this? Ebony certainly seemed like the main player here.

  But looming over all of that was Monday morning and our impending visit to Mrs Knight’s office.

  And it was going to be much worse than we’d ever imagined.

  Early Monday morning, there was a thunderous knock on our door that could only have come from Miss Bowler. It was louder than the school bell.

  We got dressed in a terrible hurry, resulting in me wearing odd stockings and Scarlet having her dress on backwards.

  “Time!” Miss Bowler shouted from the doorway, tapping her finger on her watch.

  We pulled our shoes on and then breathlessly followed Miss Bowler down the corridor. She didn’t talk to us, which was a relief.