I wanted to ask more about the picture—about what had happened to Kaitlyn and the doting parents in the picture—but Emma was already pointing to the battered wooden wardrobe beside the third bed.
“Your things are in there,” she said. “They’re pretty good about hanging everything up and folding whatever is foldable. One good thing about Nocturne Academy is that we don’t have to do our own laundry. You just put whatever is dirty into this chute…” She pulled open a drawer on the wall, revealing a large rectangular hole that led down into darkness. “And it falls down into the sub-basement where it gets laundered and brought automatically back to your own wardrobe.”
“That is nice,” I remarked admiringly. I had never been a fan of doing laundry, though I had gotten pretty decent at doing mine and Dad’s after mom died—before he shuffled me off to Aunt Dellie, that was.
The thought made me sad so I pushed it away and opened my wardrobe. Inside all my uniform skirts and blouses and my extra blazer were all hanging neatly from hangers on one side. The other side of the wardrobe was all drawers and I pulled one out to see a neat pile of fresh white underwear and bras. There were white knee socks too and, in another drawer, the white lacy nightgowns the receptionist had picked for me.
“I’m going to feel like something out of a Jane Austen novel, wearing this,” I said, picking out one of the nightgowns and shaking it out. I noticed with approval that the lace at the gown’s neck and wrists was soft, handmade-type fabric—not scratchy and artificial-feeling. “It’s really nice. But I don’t think I have a robe to go with it.”
“Are you sure?” Emma asked, frowning. “I thought a robe was standard issue for the Dungeon. Kaitlyn and I both got one. Look again.”
“I don’t think—” I began but then something caught my eye. Hiding behind the spare blazer at the very back of the wardrobe was something green and fuzzy.
“Oh look—a robe! And that color is going to look fabulous with your eyes,” Emma remarked approvingly. “Look and see if they sent you slippers too.”
Sure enough, beside an extra pair of the heavy black Mary Janes and my tennis shoes, I saw a pair of green fuzzy slippers that exactly matched my new robe.
“Perfect!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t help feeling excited. I loved the idea of getting into the clean white nightgown and warm, cuddly robe and having dinner by firelight with my new friends.
I wanted to get changed at once but felt suddenly shy, remembering the white line of scars marching up and down my forearms and thighs.
“Um…” I turned to Emma uncertainly. “Is there a bathroom where I can change?”
“Right through here.” She walked over to a wooden door on the end wall and threw it open.
Inside, I saw two rows of stalls—one row of three for showers and the other row of four for toilets—as well as a line of mirrors and sinks. At the far end was one huge claw-foot bathtub that looked almost deep enough to swim in.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, drawn to the tub despite my urgent desire to change and get dinner.
“Isn’t it great?” Emma asked, smiling. “Kaitlyn and I take turns for bath nights—she gets the odd days and I get the even days. I guess we can fit you into the schedule somewhere. Oh, and you can borrow my bubble bath if you want.”
“Thanks—it looks perfect. I love bubble baths.” I would have wanted one right then but suddenly my stomach growled and I felt faint. “Ugh—I need to get changed and eat,” I exclaimed, putting a hand to my midsection. “I’m so hungry I’m about to keel over!”
Emma laughed.
“I think second dinner should be almost ready. Remember, just dump your dirty stuff in the laundry chute on your way out of the bedroom. It’ll appear back in your wardrobe by tomorrow night.”
“Okay,” I said and frowned. “But…how will they know it’s mine? I mean, I don’t have my name or initials or anything written on the tags. I needed a laundry marker—so I could mark my name on my things, just the way my mom used to do before she sent me off for summer camp for two weeks every summer when I was a kid.
But Emma was shaking her head.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Your things are magically marked—they’ll always come back to you, no matter where you leave them on the school grounds. Only if you want them to be clean when they come back, you need to send them down the laundry chute.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I thanked her and she smiled and closed the bathroom door, giving me privacy to change. I shrugged out of my uniform, leaving it in a heap on the floor since it was going to get washed anyway, and pulled on the soft white cotton nightgown. Sure enough, when I looked in the bank of mirrors, I felt like a Jane Austen heroine getting ready for bed. The soft lace of the gown came up to my throat, hiding the black key necklace and the sleeves came all the way down and covered the scars on my arms.
The dark green robe was a perfect fit too, wrapping around my waist with a long sash. The color made my hair sparkle with auburn and red highlights and brought out my gray-green eyes to perfection. I wondered if the receptionist herself had picked it out or if some benign magic had designated it just for me. Who or whatever had chosen it for me, I was grateful. It felt and looked wonderful and the slippers that matched it fit me to a T and made my cold toes toasty warm.
After the long, strange day I’d had, I had a feeling things were finally looking up. And I wanted to get some answers to many of my questions during dinner…if I could ask in a way that wouldn’t make the black key necklace try to strangle me, that was.
“You behave,” I murmured to it, cupping the tiny lump in my hand, where it lay under the pristine white nightgown. “I won’t give away your secret but I need to find some things out if we’re ever going to make sense of all this.”
I felt a reluctant kind of agreement coming from it. Was I crazy to think it was a living, sentient being that I could actually communicate with? It certainly hadn’t seemed so when I had put it on and then couldn’t take it off in the flea market. But things had changed from the moment I first stepped foot in Nocturne Academy. Not just a few things either—everything.
I wondered what else would change…and what I would find out in the hours to come…
19
“Oh, you look snug as a bug in a rug!” Kaitlyn exclaimed, smiling behind her long curtain of hair as I emerged from the bedroom. “That color looks great on you.”
“Thanks.” I twirled once to show off my dark green robe. Jammy-britch fashion show. “I feel pretty snug—and pretty hungry too,” I admitted, looking hopefully at Avery. “Er…is it done?”
“To a turn.” He came over and handed me a wooden tray with an elaborately decorated china plate and a linen napkin with my initials embroidered on it. But as gorgeous as the table setting was, the roasted pork loin and crispy little baby potatoes on the plate took most of my attention.
“This looks amazing!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t know you made potatoes too.”
“Well, I put them in the roasting pan under the spit—that way they get flavored with the drippings,” Avery remarked.
“But…” I shook my head. “How did you learn to cook like this? I mean, I’ve never heard of anyone cooking with a spit unless they were camping out or living in the Middle Ages.”
“Well, it wasn’t by choice, believe me,” Avery said dryly. “But modern things like microwaves don’t work here in the castle.”
“Too much magical interference,” Kaitlyn explained, around a mouthful of potato. “That’s why cell phones don’t work half the time either.” She and Emma were already seated on either end of one of the couches with plates of their own, eating.
“So…I had to make do with what we had down here. And since this is a dungeon what we have is a fireplace and a spit. Oh, and a roasting pan which I provided myself.” Avery grinned. “Which means we have lots of roasted meats and veggies—it’s kind of my specialty now.”
“You must have decorated the dishes and napkins too
,” I said admiringly as I settled on the second couch. “They’re gorgeous.”
“Why thank you.” He got his own plate and sat in one of the overstuffed chairs opposite me. “It’s so nice to be appreciated!”
“We appreciate you, Avery!” Emma and Kaitlyn chorused together.
“You’re the best,” Kaitlyn added.
“I am, aren’t I?” Avery preened a little and then took a bite of his pork. “Mmm—delicious if I say so myself.”
He was right—the roast pork loin and crispy little potatoes were absolutely perfect. I was so hungry I wanted to gobble everything up but after a few bites I made myself slow down and take my time, savoring every delicious bite.
We had bottled water to drink from Kaitlyn’s supply. “It’s important to stay hydrated,” she lectured us. Avery attempted to change the water into champagne to toast “our newest arrival” meaning me, but in this, he wasn’t very successful.
“Transformation spells were never my thing,” he admitted as we sipped the weak, vaguely wine-flavored water which was still better than nothing.
After we were finished, I was looking for a place to wash the dirty dishes but Avery simply did a housecleaning spell and all of them were suddenly spotless.
“That’s amazing,” I said enviously as he stacked the sparkling china dishes, clean silverware, and snowy white napkins in a small wooden hutch that stood against the stone wall. “I wish I could do something like that.”
“It’s not hard,” Avery said. “Actually, it’s one of the first spells I figured out on my own. I hate it when things aren’t tidy.”
“Living with him is as good as having a maid,” Emma confided.
“Although we had to ban him from our bedroom,” Kaitlyn put in. “He kept sneaking in and tidying up our areas when we weren’t looking. Once I had my notes for my History of Magic Class laid out on my bed in a certain order for a report I had to write—it took me hours to get them that way. And then Avery came in and did his little cleaning spell and—”
“All right, I said I was sorry about that!” Avery said a bit peevishly. “How was I to know your method of studying involves messy stacks of paper strewn across your bed every which way? Honestly, I thought a hobo had moved into your room!”
“How about some cookies for dessert?” Emma asked, diplomatically changing the subject. “I have some I brought from the I Scream You Scream Diner where I work. They’re a little stale but still pretty good.”
“As long as they’re not chocolate chip,” I said with feeling. “Anything but chocolate chip.”
“What do you have against chocolate chip?” Kaitlyn asked curiously. “Those are my favorite.”
“They used to be mine too—until today,” I said.
I gave them a quick run down of my cookie fiasco in Home Ec and the three of them listened sympathetically.
“And I don’t know what happened,” I finished despondently. “One minute my cookies were practically raw and the next minute they were burnt to charcoal lumps and smoking up the entire classroom! Mrs. Hornsby was not happy with me. In fact, I think she might hate me now.”
“I know what happened,” Avery said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Those bitch witches put an illusion spell on your cookies!”
I frowned. “A what kind of spell now?”
“They made the illusion that the cookies weren’t cooked,” Avery explained. “And the spell didn’t lapse until you had baked them three times and they were good and burned.”
“They can do that?” I demanded. “Mask the sight and smell of the cookies so completely that I didn’t have a clue until it was too late?”
He nodded. “Oh yes—absolutely. It’s strictly against the rules to do unsanctioned magic in Norm classes—well, any classes really but especially the Norm subjects because all the teachers there are Norms with no magical shields or defenses. But we already know that Nasty Nancy and her crew don’t mind breaking the rules.”
“That’s the truth,” Emma muttered. “She really is a bitch.”
“I think she was doing something to the teacher too,” I told Avery. “Nancy’s cookies didn’t look any better or worse than anyone else’s but the way Mrs. Hornsby raved about them, you would have thought they were from a gourmet bakery.”
He nodded. “Oh yeah—she’s definitely cheating. You can get expelled for things like that, you know—people have before. Last year one of the Sisters didn’t feel like writing any of her English essays so she just started handing in blank pieces of spelled parchment. The Norm English teacher saw works of modern literature, of course and gave her straight As…until she got found out.”
“How did she get caught?” I asked, curiously.
“Oh, she was careless and made the magical ‘essays’ too good,” Avery explained. The poor Norm teacher was raving about them to the other faculty—she even wanted to send one in to enter some kind of prestigious writing contest. But when she tried to show off one of the essays, some of the Other Studies teachers saw they were blank.”
“And what happened to the witch—er, the Sister—who did it?” I asked.
“She got expelled,” Avery said seriously. “Headmistress Nightworthy doesn’t tolerate cheating.”
“Well that’s it then!” Kaitlyn exclaimed. “Megan needs to report Nancy and her crew to the Headmistress and get them all expelled.”
But Avery was shaking his head.
“I’m afraid she’d have a hard time proving it with no evidence,” he said. “See, the Sister with the blank essays was sloppy—she left physical proof of her magic, which is in itself, a metaphysical act. But a simple little illusion spell won’t leave a trace.”
“Well, what about the way she’s manipulating the teacher?” I demanded.
Avery shook his head again.
“If she was being obvious about it and not doing the work and getting the teacher to rave after showing her an empty plate where there were supposed to be cookies, maybe. But she and the other Weird Sister-bitches did make the cookies—Nancy probably just added a really subtle taste spell to make them seem better than they were. Kind of like magical MSG,” he explained. “Of course, those of us who know how to cook, don’t have to resort to such low tactics,” he added loftily.
“So couldn’t you bring one of the cookies to Headmistress Nightworthy and tell her they were magically enhanced?” Emma asked.
Avery snorted. “And how would you prove it? The Headmistress is a Nocturne—she’s not going to eat solid food. You might as well ask her to taste a plate of doggie droppings! Besides, separating the spell from the cookie to prove your point would be about as easy as getting real MSG out of a dish after you’d cooked it in. It just kind of dissolves in there and doesn’t leave any trace except the delicious flavor.”
“And just like real MSG, it leaves you with a big headache afterwards,” I said glumly. “That was the effect it had on me, anyway.”
“You can’t let those witches with a capital B treat you like this!” Avery exclaimed. “You have to fight back, Megan! I can teach you some defensive spells to start with, so they can’t mess with you again. And then we can work on some attack magic—nothing too obvious of course, since using magic on another student is technically against the Academy’s rules. But if you’re subtle enough—”
“I really appreciate the offer,” I said, holding up a hand to stop him. “But I’m afraid you won’t be able to teach me any spells. I’m a Null—I mean, I really, truly am. I got conclusive proof of it today during my Elementary Casting class.”
“Oh no—what happened?” Kaitlyn asked sympathetically. “Couldn’t you, uh, cast?”
“Not even a little,” I said grimly. “Ms. Yasmeen was teaching us to call the Circle and I was the only one in the entire class who couldn’t even light a candle with magic.” I shook my head. “I just don’t think I have any in me.”
“But you’re a Latimer,” Avery protested. “Are you telling us you’ve never done
a single bit of magic before? Not even by accident?”
For a moment the image of my mom in her hospital bed, her face sweating and gray with pain surfaced in my mind. I remembered the sharp bite of the razor against my flesh and the feeling of her agony pouring into me…and the way she had been at peace and pain-free for a little while afterwards.
But no—that couldn’t be right, could it? After all, magic seemed to be all about manifesting things—making things appear or disappear or doing things by magical means instead of physical. I hadn’t heard anything yet about pain transference and I had never convinced myself completely that I really was the reason my mom had stopped having pain after I cut myself. Maybe it was just the medicines they were giving her at the hospital kicking in at odd times.
Or maybe it really was you, whispered a little voice in my head. But it felt dangerous to talk about—felt like something I ought to keep to myself. After all, I liked Avery and Emma and Kaitlyn immensely and I already felt like I belonged with them in a way I never had with any other group of friends. But still…I had only just met them that day. We hadn’t even known each other twenty-four hours yet.
I decided to keep what may or may not have happened with my mom to myself…at least for now.
“No,” I said. “I guess I’m just not a magical person. I don’t have that, uh, core of magic inside me that Ms. Yasmeen was talking about.”
“But I think you do.” Avery left his overstuffed chair and came to sit beside me on the couch. “Here—give me your hand,” he ordered, a bit bossily, holding out his own.
I put my hand in his reluctantly and waited to feel something—anything at all.
Avery held my hand for a long time, frowning before he finally let me go.
“Well?” Emma demanded, leaning forward.
“Did you feel any magic in her?” Kaitlyn asked.
“It’s hard to say…” he said slowly. “Not really obvious, out-there magic. But she doesn’t feel like a Null or a Norm, either.”
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