Life was finally as it should be.
Classes resumed Monday, and things went back to normal. Word soon spread across campus of the fight between the Heer and the Agents that Rachel and Sigfried had glimpsed. Apparently, the Agents had caught several lightning imps but had failed to capture their leader. The storm goblin had taken enough damage, however, that he had withdrawn, leaving Storm King Mountain and retreating to his other stronghold in Dunderberg, some twenty miles away.
Rachel began spending her extra time, when the tutor was reviewing lessons she already heard, drawing Yule cards for friends. Her drawings were still wobbly, but she was making progress. She sat in Science, or Language, or True History, with her eyes resting on the tutor, while she read from memory the drawing book she had borrowed from Mrs. Heelis. She would learn about perspective or shading and then tried what she had just learned on the paper.
In Language, they were studying Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On Fridays, for the Original Language portion of their class, they learned a few new words: ah – one/being/person, nothor – to swerve away, lu – go or move, luathe – foot. Since in October they had learned athe – place, Rachel could now confirm for herself what Gaius had told her during the first week of school—that her favorite cantrip, ti-athe-lu, meant: up-place-go.
In the interest of protecting themselves from the depredations of the Heer, they also learned ahura, a cantrip meant to calm men, beasts, and storms. However, it proved too advanced. Even the Top Four, as the class had started calling the quartet of Nastasia, Sigfried, Joy, and Wulfgang, could not achieve much of an effect. Mr. Tuck noted that experienced canticlers often struggled with this one.
In Art, they had moved from conjuring hoops to rectangles, triangles, or even pentagons. In Music, they were still on dispelling fog, though some of the more advanced students, such as the princess and Joy, were learning how to dispel rain showers. In Math, they had reached Book Two of Euclid and were also reviewing the many uses of running water as a ward. Nearly any sort of undead or spirit creature was unable to cross running water. Some could not cross it at all. Others could cross bridges. Still others could only cross specially-constructed bridges, consecrated with blood. Wilis, vampires, and specters fell into this last category.
In True History, they were still studying Frazer’s The Golden Bough. Rachel found the study of primitive spells and taboos fascinating. She had not realized that accomplished thaumaturges could stick a pin in a person’s shadow and curse them, or that the fur of a black cat could be used to make one invisible. In Science, they had begun making their own rudimentary shadowcloaks—the garments the Wise wore to hide themselves when traveling amidst the Unwary. To Rachel’s delight, “hair from a black cat” was one of the main ingredients.
Partway through the week, however, Mr. Fisher had them put their unfinished cloaks aside in favor of making lightning-bane talismans, such as the key that Sigfried had given her. This way, Mr. Fisher assured them, if the Heer were to return to Roanoke and get through the wards to attack the school, they would all be protected from the lightning imps.
Rachel’s hard work was finally paying off. The spells and cantrips she had singled out and practiced diligently were improving. In addition to practicing in her private hallway, she went down to the gym and asked for a ball thrower, the kind used to practice baseball or tennis. She used this to practice the turlu cantrip, concentrating on the principles of physics William and Gaius had taught her. If she set up two devices, she could knock the inertia from one ball into another, so that the first ball stopped in mid-air and plopped to the floor, while the second crashed into the padded walls at a considerably faster speed.
The three-dimensional quality of her perfect memory that helped her so much when she was flying made it easy for her to track the trajectories of the balls. This exercise was a lot like playing billiards, a game she rather liked—partially because she used to play it with her grandfather and partially because the locals in Gryphon-on-Dart were so amused by watching her hustle visitors. In the past, however, her success at hustling had depended mainly on the fact that she was significantly better at billiards than a stranger expected a tiny girl to be. Now, as she figured out the forces involved with turlu, she felt that, if she played again, she might actually become very good indeed.
All the while, the Lion’s promise that someday she would know all quietly reverberated through her thoughts. Rachel wondered what he had meant by that and whether all would include the name of the Raven, the location of Moloch, and how to restore Blackie’s memory.
As the week continued, she found herself dreading the beginning and ending of Science class. The source of annoyance came from Ameka Okeke, the go-getter girl from Raleigh Hall, who excelled at every sport the school offered: soccer, track and broom, crew, flying polo, basketball, gymnastics, bow and arrow, swimming, fencing, and zapball. From her Orkoiyot (a supreme chieftain of the Nandi people of Kenya) father and Chinese mother, Ameka had inherited a bone-structure and dark bronze skin color that was both unique and lovely. This, combined with her athletic prowess, had made her a huge hit among the jocks and sports fans on campus. Rachel found this classmate as charming as everyone else and looked forward to her witty repartees with their tutor.
However, the usually stylish young woman had recently begun boasting loudly about her interactions with Dash Darling down on the sports field. Only the way she pronounced his nickname, it sounded like “Dash, darling,” as if she and he were sweethearts, which was clearly what she had in mind. At first, this did not trouble Rachel. Seeing John Darling laid out on the ground back in October, after having been doused in flaming skunk spray, had gone a long way to mollifying any anger she felt toward him. Tuesday morning, however, all this changed.
Rachel had put her hair in pigtails that morning. She loved the way the short braids stuck out, wiggling when she shook her head, and Gaius had chuckled at how sweet she looked. When she went back into the lunch line, to get a slice of the apple pie that the cooking brownies had just brought up, piping hot, from the kitchen, Claus Andrews, the class clown of the college freshmen, grabbed her braids from behind and made clck-clck noises, as if he were encouraging a horse. Rachel thought he was funny—until she saw John Darling smirking.
All her wrath and indignation returned. It horrified her that she had wasted three years crushing after this detestable young man. He had seemed so gentlemanly at her family’s Yule parties. It must have been an act he put on to impress the adults.
At first, Rachel had assumed that Ameka and “Dash” Darling were dating, but going back to the dorm that night, she had heard him make a crude comment to Claus and Conan MacDannan on the subject of the physical desirability of Merry Vespers, the sweet girl with the reindeer Rachel had glimpsed surrounded by animals, and what his plans were for “nailing” her. Rachel gritted her teeth. Merry was too good for him—Ameka, too, for that matter.
After hearing Darling’s bawdy talk about a different girl, Ameka’s confident comments about her “Dash, darling” made Rachel’s skin crawl. She felt so bad for her classmate, caught in the grip of an identical crush to the one that had enslaved her.
It did not help that, everywhere she went—Dare Hall, the dining room, hallways, the gym—Rachel ran into Ivan Romanov. He was always smiling, always surrounded by young women, always looking so cocky and suave. Each time she saw him, her stomach clenched. She averted her eyes and hurried by, unwilling to so much as look at the blackguard. Between Darling and Romanov, Rachel found herself out of sorts with smug young men. She was grateful that lunch allowed her a chance to sit with young men of another sort.
• • •
At least her job at the gym was going well. The students were learning quickly, and several graduated to the intermediate class. Hildy Winters even approached Rachel about private lessons, as she wanted to participate in the broom-based sports. She and Rachel worked out a plan to meet on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Af
ter assisting Mr. Chanson on the Wednesday following Thanksgiving, Rachel remembered to ask him about the flying course in the gym, hoping that he might shed some light on who had designed it. The gym tutor had never seen that particular configuration of the gymnasium before. He agreed that the course must have been intended for steeplechasers, but he did not know of anyone else at Roanoke who rode one. When Rachel mentioned that Agent Darling had told her that he had once known a girl who rode a steeplechaser, Mr. Chanson suggested that the Agent might have been referring to someone who was a student before the Terrible Years. As Mr. Chanson had not been at Roanoke during that period, he could not help her decipher this mystery.
Rachel longed to ask him other questions, like: Why had the King of Magical Australia called him by the last name St. Michael? And why had the princess seen him in a vision on another world dressed in armor and wearing a golden helmet? But she dared not. What if her words brought his memories back, and something terrible happened, the way it had when Sakura Suzuki remembered her past? So Rachel bit her tongue and kept her many questions to herself.
• • •
At dinner that night, Rachel’s favorite proctor, Mr. Fuentes, was on duty. She went by to commiserate with the handsome young man over the losing streak of their favorite flying polo team, the Lake Michigan Falcons. As they spoke, Mr. Fuentes’s boss, the head of security at Roanoke Academy, came by, accompanied by his familiar, a great brown bear with silver paws.
“Mr. Badger!” Rachel curtsied.
Maverick Badger, a short man with broad shoulders and a shaggy head of steely-gray hair, paused and scowled when he heard his name called. His expression softened slightly when he saw her. “Well, if it isn’t Pint-Sized Griffin. What can I do for you today?”
An idea struck her. “You’ve been here a long time, haven’t you, sir?”
Mr. Badger shrugged. “Compared to some.”
“Would you happen to have been here when they built the gym?”
The older man snorted with amusement. “I should say not! The gym had been working for almost two centuries before my student days. Course, it was updated in the Forties.”
“But you know how it works?” Rachel pressed. When he nodded, she asked, “Can it—I don’t know—See? Read minds?”
“Nope. Just follows verbal commands.”
“But then…How did it know that I had a steeplechaser?”
“It didn’t. It couldn’t.”
“But it gave me a steeplechaser course.”
“What did you ask for?”
“I said: ‘I want a place to practice flying.’”
He shrugged. “The last person who asked for a flying course must have given specific instructions. So the spell reproduced the previous request. The same way it always produces the same pool or basketball court, unless someone gives specific instructions to the contrary. If Mr. Chanson wanted an indoor area for Track and Broom, he’d have asked for the grand track, not for ‘a flying course.’”
“So someone else at Roanoke has a steeplechaser?” asked Rachel, curiously.
“Not in years,” replied Mr. Badger, looking unusually grim.
• • •
Rachel returned to her seat. Behind her, Mr. Badger and Mr. Fuentes were still speaking. On the spur of the moment, she turned to Sigfried and asked him to let her eavesdrop on the proctors’ conversation. Siggy yawned and rolled his eyes, but he must have agreed, because an image of the head of security and the proctor appeared on her calling card.
Mr. Badger was saying, “—you here, Carlos? The time the Foreverchild raced the storm goblin through Roanoke Hall, trying to save her sister?” He whistled in admiration. “Man, could that girl fly!”
“Um. No, sir,” responded Mr. Fuentes. “I don’t think I even know what a freverchile is.”
“Oh, right. You would hardly have been born yet.” A strange look crossed Mr. Badger’s face. Rachel could not quite identify it, but if she had been hard pressed, she would have guessed sadness. “Better not to talk about those times.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “But I tell you true,” his face broke into a craggy smile, “There’s no one who can outfly a little girl on a steeplechaser!”
Rachel turned to Sigfried. “I wonder who—or what—that was? The freverchile? Foreverchile? Freverchild? I couldn’t quite make out the word they were saying.”
“Have you heard even a similar word before?” asked Siggy.
Rachel thought back and then shook her head. “No. Never.”
Across the dining hall, a motion caught Rachel’s attention. Near the back door, the young woman in the threadbare coat was approaching Mr. Burke, the gardener.
“Hey!” Rachel grabbed Sigfried’s shoulder and pointed, “What are they saying?”
“They…who?” Siggy asked, leaning his chair back on two legs.
“That’s Mr. Burke, the gardener—he took us to gather herbs the time we met the Elf?”
“Sorry, don’t remember.” Sigfried shrugged, “Who’s the girl?”
“I don’t know. Some upperclassman from Marlowe—but she’s the one that Zoë tried to kill back when she was possessed.”
Siggy’s chair hit the floor with a bang. “Zoë tried to kill somebody?”
“The demon possessing her did. That’s why I paralyzed her.”
“Sweet!”
Rachel blinked.
“—that you paralyzed her in time,” Siggy said innocently. “Here. Okay, look.”
Rachel’s card cleared again to show the face of the gardener, a young man with curly brown hair, and the long black ringlets of the back of the head of the girl in the threadbare coat.
“—so much extra work,” The young woman was saying, “I know you could use some help. Would it be possible?”
Ulysses Burke shook his head sadly, “I’m sorry, Miss Druess. I know you would do a fine job, but our student positions can only be offered to students in need of financial aid.”
“That’s what the assistant dean’s office told me, but it’s not true! I’ve talked to a number of people who have jobs on campus due to their abilities, rather than financial need—such as nearly every tutor’s assistant. I’m good with plants! You know I am. Not as good as Evirene Ev or Iolanthe Towers, but nearly.”
Mr. Burke sighed and wiped his glasses. Putting them on again, he said, “The circumstance is not the same.”
“But…I…” the young woman began, clearly in distress.
“You know the situation, I am confident, Miss Druess. Your parents have made enormous donations to Roanoke,” Mr. Burke said sadly, “and they have specified as a stipulation for their generosity that we are not to offer you a position here…that you must go to them, if you need anything.”
“But…I can’t do that!” she cried. “I…cannot!”
“I am sorry. Your knowledge of plants is excellent, but there’s nothing I can do.” Mr. Burke gave her a regretful smile. “My hands are tied.”
The young woman gave a tiny nod and walked away quickly, heading for the back door. Siggy’s vantage point switched to in front of her. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she left Roanoke Hall.
Rachel felt a stab of sympathy for the young woman. “What do you make of that?”
Siggy attacked his food angrily with his fork. “I think she’s despicable. Anyone lucky enough to have a family should be grateful for them!”
Rachel glanced at the door through which Miss Druess had departed and sighed.
• • •
The next morning, Rachel came out of Dare Hall to find Siggy and her girlfriends gathered on the wide slate stoop at the top of the stairs outside Dare Hall. Zoë Forest stood on the top stair, laughing and running her hands over her hair, half of which was hot pink and half of which was forest green.
Zoë cried out loudly, “Thank you, Nastasia! I will never forget this!”
The princess shook her head. “I would have been glad to help repair your power, were I capable of such a thing, but I regret it
is not within my abilities. I did nothing.”
Confusion clouded Zoë’s face. Then, her eyes widened and she nodded, “Ohhh. Riiight. Okay.”
She winked at Siggy and Joy. Siggy nodded knowingly.
“Very cunning! Of course, the princess cannot admit the true depth of her awesome yet dread-inspiring powers in public!” Siggy gave the princess a wink.
Then he winked several more times.
Nastasia peered at Sigfried, first puzzled and then with some concern. “Mr. Smith, are you well? Did you get something in your eye?”
Leaning toward Rachel, Sigfried whispered, “I never expected the princess to be so subtle. She just went up a notch in my estimation.”
“What happened?” asked Rachel. “What is all this about?”
“Princess Nastasia fixed my hair power,” announced Zoë.
Joy cried out, “The princess saved Zoë! She can do anything!”
“How did this happen?” Rachel looked from Zoë to Nastasia and back.
Zoë grinned, “While I was napping, I had a dream that the princess came and played her violin. After that, she said my powers would work again. She also said something about how light refracts and how the ‘depth’ of a material, off of which the light is reflecting, can change how it appears. When I woke up, my power was back! Now it works even better.”
“Better?” asked Rachel.
“How so?” asked Nastasia.
“Look!” Zoë cried. “Now I can do this!”
She ran her hand over her hair. It turned to burnished gold, as if each strand were made of the precious metal.
“Gold!” Siggy gurgled. He rubbed his blond curls as if trying to transform them.
“Luscious gold,” Lucky murmured, dreamily.
“How I love its weight and luster!” Sigfried spoke in the same dreamy tone. The boy and his dragon inclined their heads together and gazed longingly at Zoë’s hair.
“I am not responsible. I did not do anything.” Nastasia sent Rachel an anguished look, begging for help to make this clear to the other girls.
“I don’t think Nastasia did it,” murmured Rachel.
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 21