* * *
Fairy High could have fit into one wing of my old school. The three-story, red brick building looked like it had been around for at least a century—it actually had carvings over two of the doorways that read “Men’s Entrance” and “Women’s Entrance.” I was glad to see that none of the kids paid any attention to those instructions. Kayla called out to a group of girls standing off to one side of the path under a huge oak tree, and took off without a word to me.
“Counselor’s office,” I muttered to myself. At least I wasn’t starting in the middle of a term—though given the fact that there were fewer than 500 students in the entire high school, I didn’t think I was going to be able to go unnoticed, even in the general bustle of the first day back from summer vacation.
I was almost wishing I had taken Mom up on her offer to come with me. Or had at least insisted on coming in and scoping out the territory before classes started. But I’d been too busy trying to ignore the fact that I’d been ripped away from everything I knew and dumped into a life that wasn’t mine.
Well, I couldn’t ignore it now.
I walked through the door marked “Men’s Entrance,” just be contrary, and faced a long hallway lined with heavy wooden doors. The spaces in between the doors were filled with lockers, and marble staircases with ornate hand-rails flanked each end of the long hallway. Students poured in behind me, calling out greetings to each other and jostling me off to the side while I tried to get my bearings. None of the doors obviously led to a main office; I was going to have to walk the entire length of the hallway. And people were already starting to stare and whisper.
God, I hated being the new kid.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward. I made it halfway down the hall without seeing anything informative—all the doors had numbers over them and many of them had name plaques, but neither of those things did me any good since I didn’t know the name or office number for the counselor. I was almost getting desperate enough to ask Kayla, but of course she was nowhere to be seen.
I turned back from scanning the halls for her and caught sight of the first adult I’d seen—and almost screamed. As it was, I gasped loudly enough for a guy walking past me to do a double take. The man standing in the open doorway was tall, over six feet, and way skinny—so emaciated that it looked like you ought to be able to see his ribs through his shirt, if his shirt didn’t hang so loosely on him. He had white hair that stuck out in tufts, thin lips, a sharp nose, and pale blue eyes that narrowed as he watched the kids walk past—and all the kids gave him a wide berth without even seeming to notice that they did so. He stood in an empty circle while students streamed around him in the crowded hallway.
But none of that was what made me almost scream.
For a moment, just as I’d turned toward him, I could have sworn that I’d seen the shadow of two huge, black, leathery wings stretched out behind him.
The guy who had done the double-take watched me for a moment. “So Bartlef creeps you out, too?” he asked quietly.
I stared back at the man. The wings—the imaginary wings that had to have been all in my head and not on the man’s back at all—were gone. Of course.
“Bartlef?” I asked.
“Yeah,” the guy said. “He’s the counselor.”
I closed my eyes and groaned. “Of course he is.”
“You’re Laney Harris, right?” the guy asked. He laughed when I looked surprised. “Small town. Small school. Not much happens without everyone knowing about it. Your mom married Kayla Hamilton’s dad this summer, right?”
I nodded.
“I’m Andrew,” he said. “We’ll probably be in the same homeroom: Mrs. Davis, room 133.” He pointed to a closed wooden door. “I’ll save you a seat. Good luck with Bartlef. And don’t get too close—I think something died in his mouth about ten years ago, and is still rotting away in there.” He grinned and headed down the hall.
Bartlef had disappeared back into his office, but the door was still open. I leaned my head in.
“Hi,” I said tentatively. “I think I’m supposed to see you?”
“Ah, yes. Miss Harris, is it? Please come in and have a seat. I’m Roger Bartlef, the school counselor.” His voice was higher than I’d expected but rough at the same time, like it kept getting caught up on something on its way out. Just listening to him, I found myself wanting to clear my own throat.
I eased myself down into the chair he pointed toward. Bartlef pulled a file folder out from the bottom of a stack on his desk and flipped through it. I waited in uncomfortable silence while he tapped his fingers lightly on the desk in front of him.
“From Atlanta, I see,” he finally said.
“Um. Yeah.” It took him that long to figure it out? We were going to be here all day.
“Your grades are fair.”
“Yes.” Mom might be a bit of an air-head sometimes, and surprisingly prone to running off and marrying random ranchers from her past, but she’d always insisted I get A’s. Well, and some B’s. Algebra hadn’t been my best subject.
“Hm.” He scowled, as if my good grades were somehow offensive to him. “Extra-curricular activities?”
I suspected from the way he stared at the papers in my file that he already knew the answer to that one.
“I was the photographer for the school newspaper,” I said. “And I sometimes did a little proofreading for the editor.”
“We don’t have a school newspaper here.” His narrow-eyed stare seemed to dare me to contradict him.
“Okay,” I said slowly. What could he possibly expect me to say to that, anyway?
“Humph,” he said, and snapped the file shut on his desk. He turned to his computer, punched a few keys, and took a sheet of paper from the printer. “Here’s your schedule.” He leaned forward and handed the printout to me. As he spoke, his breath blew into my face and I almost gagged. Andrew hadn’t been exaggerating about not getting too close. I held my breath as Bartlef continued. “You’re in Mrs. Davis’s homeroom. Report there first.” He turned his back as soon as I took the sheet of paper. Clearly, I was dismissed. Hallelujah.
* * *
Mrs. Davis’s homeroom class was full of students talking to one another while she flipped through paperwork at the front of the classroom. I slid into the seat Andrew had saved for me.
“How did you know I’d be in this class?” I asked.
“There are only four sophomore homeroom classes, all alphabetical.” He pointed to me—“Harris”—and then to himself—“Harvey. Not much deductive reasoning required. Or is that inductive? Anyway, it wasn’t hard to figure out.” He shrugged and grinned, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“So what’s the deal with Bartlef?”
Andrew shook his head. “Guy’s completely screevy. He’s been the counselor here for like a thousand years.”
Yep. Screevy. I nodded.
“And there’s all kinds of rumors about him,” Andrew continued, his voice dropping almost to a whisper.
“Like what?”
Andrew leaned closer.
“Okay, everyone!” Mrs. Davis said. “Let’s get this day started. You know the drill.” She began calling roll.
Andrew leaned back into his seat. “I’ll tell you at lunch,” he said.
* * *
The morning went by pretty normally at first. I had geometry first period, which made me want to bang my head against a wall—no way would I be awake enough for math first thing in the morning. But then I had English, and in between the two, I found my locker on the second floor and stashed my books in it.
Several times that morning I flashed back to the memory of the shadow-wings I’d seen on Roger Bartlef’s back. Or rather, that I thought I’d seen. Because they couldn’t possibly be real. Right?
Still, I was anxious to get to lunch so Andrew could finish telling me what he’d started to in homeroom.
He had saved a seat for me again, and his eyes brightened when he saw me come in and
look around for him.
Actually, his eyes really lit up. And he got that look in them. I glanced around the cafeteria nervously. No. No, no, no. I so did not need the complication of a crush right now. No. But when I looked back at Andrew, The Look was still there.
Curses.
I sighed and headed to his table. At least there were other people there, too. They were all looking at me expectantly—though thankfully, only Andrew had The Look. I recognized one of the girls from my English class, a pretty redhead with green eyes. Allison? Amy? Something like that. I was going to have to try to find out her name without being obvious. Again, just to be totally clear, I hated being the new kid at school. There were two other girls at the table, and another guy. I didn’t recognize any of them from my morning classes.
“Hey, Laney!” Andrew said when I sat down. “Everybody, this is Laney.” His voice took on a sort of self-important quality, like he was proud that he’d met me first. Or maybe like I was somehow connected to him. Oh, no.
Don’t get me wrong. Andrew was cute enough. Tall, with dark brown eyes, high cheekbones, looked like he probably played soccer or ran track or something—not a football player, but athletic. And he was kind enough to include the new girl, so I was assuming he was nice and all. But still. It was my first day. I was in Fairy-freakin’-Texas. I didn’t know anyone. And I wasn’t planning on getting too attached to anyone, either. Mom had flaked on me once, dragging me out of my life and dropping me here. I wasn’t going to count on staying.
Andrew was still talking. “This is Ally”—the girl from English class—“Sarah, Natalie, and Scott.”
“Hi, y’all,” I said.
“Oh. My. God. Say that again,” Natalie said.
“Um. Hi?”
“Oh. You have the cutest Southern accent in the whole world!”
This from a girl who used three syllables to say “world”? I managed to keep my opinion to myself, and just smiled as I sat down in the empty seat between Sarah and Andrew.
“Anybody seen Cody today?” Andrew asked, glancing around.
“Yeah,” said Scott, “I think he had shop last period.” He scanned the lunch room, then shrugged and bit into an apple. “He’ll show,” he said around a full mouth.
“So how do you like Fairy so far?” Sarah asked me quietly.
“Oh, Sarah Ann, you know she hasn’t had time to decide that yet,” Natalie broke in. “And besides, she must hate it, ’cause she’s from Atlanta, you know, and Fairy doesn’t have nearly half the cool stuff that Atlanta does. I mean, maybe if she’d moved to Fort Worth or Dallas it would’ve been okay, but Fairy just sucks. You know it does.” She stopped to take a breath.
“Just ignore Natalie,” Andrew said. “We all do.”
Natalie peeled a piece of crust off the sandwich in front of her and threw it across the table at Andrew. “You do not,” she said. “You just wish you could. But I am way too cool to ignore. So there.”
“So,” Sarah said again, just as quietly, “how do you like Fairy so far?”
“Hard to believe these two are best friends, isn’t it?” Scott said, leaning around Natalie and pointing between her and Sarah. And, thankfully, saving me again from having to answer the question of how I felt about their town.
“I know!” Natalie said. “Everybody thinks it’s so weird, but I don’t think it’s weird at all. I mean, we’ve been best friends since kindergarten, and everyone’s always saying we’re so different, but really we’re not.”
“Except for the talking part,” Scott said, but he smiled at Natalie when he said it. She reached over and thumped his shoulder, but then squeezed his hand under the table.
I pulled out my own lunch and aimed for a casual tone when I asked Andrew, “What was it you were going to tell me in homeroom this morning about Bartlef?”
“That’s right!” Scott said. “You had to go see Barfs-a-lot this morning.”
“Gross, Scott!” Natalie said. “Some of us are trying to eat. Don’t say that.”
“Did you catch a whiff of his breath?” Scott asked, ignoring Natalie’s interruption. “Disgusting.” He shook his head and made a face.
“Yeah, it was pretty foul,” I said. “But Andrew warned me, so I mostly managed to hold my breath.”
Sarah shuddered delicately. “I hate it when I have to go see him. He’s so weird.”
“And don’t forget ugly,” Ally said, pulling a compact out of her backpack and applying lip gloss as she spoke.
“Weird how?” I asked. “I mean, other than the nasty breath?”
Sarah shook her head. “It’s hard to explain. I mean, it’s not like he’s ever done anything bad to me, but. . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Has he done something to other people?” I asked, my own voice dropping almost to a whisper.
“Well, no one will say anything for sure,” Andrew said. “But there are rumors.”
“Like what?”
“Like he gets kids to go to his house on the weekends. . .”
I leaned in closer to hear him. “Yeah?” I asked breathlessly.
“And they do all kinds of creepy rituals, like black magic and stuff.” His eyes were round and his voice solemn.
“Oh,” said Natalie, dismissing him. She leaned back in her chair. “Don’t listen to him. Those rumors have been going around since my parents were kids. Just because he’s a smelly old man doesn’t mean that he’s evil or anything.”
“There are some kids who like him,” Scott argued. “And they spend an awful lot of time in his office.”
“Still doesn’t mean they’re off doing scary after-hours stuff with him. I mean, really—do you actually believe that Mason Collier is doing black-magicky things with Bartlef on the weekends? What? You think he goes and plays quarterback at a big football game on Friday night, and then heads over to Bartlef’s for an after-game round of witchy-poo? Please!” Natalie shook her head in disgust.
Ally laughed. “Yeah, Mason Collier is way too cute to be hanging out with icky-ugly Bartlef.”
I thought of the phantom wings I’d seen on Bartlef that morning. I might not know who Mason Collier was, but I had no problem seeing Bartlef doing “black-magicky things” on the weekends. Or any other time, for that matter.
Chapter 2
“Okay, girls,” Coach Spencer yelled above the chatter around me. “We’re going to get warmed up for this year with a little run around the outer track.”
She gestured toward a field off to the right of the building. I could see a dirt track wending its way along the edge, disappearing into a copse of stubby trees and scrub brush at the far end.
“Four laps,” Spencer added.
A general groan went up, and I was glad that the discussion at lunch had distracted me from eating too much. Late August in Texas is hot.
“Well?” the coach said. “Get going!”
We started off at a trot toward the field, many of the girls around me still complaining. For a moment I considered hanging back with the crowd, but Andrew had told me that Spencer coached the girls’ track team, and I wanted to impress her. So I stretched my legs out as I hit the track and settled in to a long stride, my breathing still easy.
The afternoon sun beat down on my head. I watched the small grove grow closer, anxious for some shade. By the time I hit the bend in the track that led into the thicket, I was yards ahead of the rest of the runners.
So when I rounded the curve and tripped over the body, I was all alone.
It didn’t take long for everyone else to catch up, but it seemed like an eternity as I scrambled back, crab-like. It took a moment for my brain to translate the messages my eyes were sending it—the images coalesced slowly, like one of those magic pictures with the 3D images inside.
He had been stretched out spread-eagle across the trail, head and feet half-concealed in the brush on either side. Blood pooled around him, sticky and half-dried at the edges. His shirt had been ripped open, and a slash opened him from his throat
to his stomach.
As the other girls rounded the bend, I realized that the high, keening noise in the background was the sound of my own screaming. As soon as I realized it, I stopped, but several of my classmates picked up where I left off.
My hands and knees were coated with blood where I had landed; my skin was tacky with it. I crawled over to the nearest bush and vomited.
Coach Spencer shoved her way through the girls and stuttered to a stop, her hand to her mouth. “Oh, God,” she said. “It’s Cody Murphy.”
* * *
During my sophomore year in Atlanta, a kid in my class had died in a car wreck. Although I’d had some classes with him, I didn’t even know him all that well—and I certainly hadn’t seen the body—but I had been forced to spend an hour talking to a special grief counselor the school had brought in.
In Fairy, I got sent to Bartlef’s office.
Spencer had sent me in to shower and change first, but I was still shaking when I reached Bartlef’s office. I huddled into an uncomfortable chair and waited for him to speak.
Instead he stared out the window, tapping his index finger on the desk. The air in the office smelled rotten, like Bartlef’s breath had filled up the tiny space with no room left over for normal air. I couldn’t breathe properly—it made my head swim.
After a long moment, I asked “Are the police going to need to talk to me?”
He glanced at me. “I assume that Sheriff Lopez will let us know if he wants to interview you.” He tapped the desk one last time and nodded, as if he’d come to some decision. “You should go back to class, Miss Harris,” he said.
I couldn’t even find the words to respond. I had expected to be questioned, or sent home, or at least talked to kindly—something that acknowledged the potential trauma inherent in tripping over a dead classmate.
“Well?” Bartlef asked. “Do you need something else?”
“Um. No. I…Um,” I stammered incoherently, then just shook my head.
“Very well, then. Please close the door on your way out.”
Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1) Page 24