The princess’s eyes filled with concern. She laid a comforting hand on Rachel’s shoulder. Rachel gave her friend a little smile and, reaching up, squeezed her hand in appreciation.
“Rachel, what’s wrong?” asked the princess solicitously.
“My father suffered an accident. He has l-lost a portion of his memory. He’s forgotten so much that he’s been transferred out of the Shadow Agency and back to being an Agent. Or he will be after some weeks of holiday.”
Weeping openly, she added, “The one silver lining is that I-I think he forgot his argument with me, too.”
Joy ran over and hugged her. Nastasia held her hand, squeezing it gently in her own. She also drew a pale yellow handkerchief from her house-containing purse and handed it to Rachel, who wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Lucky snaked over to join them, wrapping around Rachel’s shoulders, so that his soft, furry body rubbed comfortingly against her wet cheek. Even Salome rolled off the table and sauntered over, looking concerned.
Zoë, released from the torments devised by Joy, lounged against the large central table scratching Lucky behind the ears. Rachel noted that Zoë looked more cheerful than she had before Agent Bridges’s visit.
“It’s okay, Griffin,” Zoë said. “We have crazy power girls and Siggy. We can get him fixed, right?”
“D-did he…did he get attacked at the Wisecraft?” Valerie had stopped trying to buckle the bandolier. Her hands were shaking too much to continue. Leaving it hanging half-buckled, she, too, crossed to where Nastasia and Joy were comforting Rachel and joined in hugging her. At this, Salome joined in, too.
“One big girlfriend hug. Can’t fail to make you feel better.” Salome gave her a surprisingly compassionate smile.
Rachel, surrounded by girls, blew her nose again. Very carefully, she said, “According to my sister, Sandra, he wasn’t attacked. He was doing an experiment and messed up.”
“What happened when you were at Scotland Yard?” asked Valerie, still worried. “Did your father mention any memory experiments?”
Rachel hated having to use her new false memories. She waved her hand vaguely. “Apparently, we had a huge argument.”
Joy asked, “What did you argue about?”
Valerie’s voice rose, panicky, “Apparently? Do you not remember it?”
The usually-calm girl reporter’s face seemed unnaturally pale. Salome moved over and stood beside her, a comforting presence. Lucky, too, shifted to Valerie, wrapping around her like a stole.
With a start, Rachel realized that Valerie was recalling her own trip to the Wisecraft in New York, during which she had been put under a geas that allowed Dr. Mordeau to control her—and worse. Rachel felt great sympathy, and yet, it seemed unfair that everyone else could get away with not remembering details all the time, and she was not allowed to pull it off even once. No wonder her mother had warned her not to tell anyone about her memory. She should have prepared a more convincing lie.
“Argument about what?” asked Siggy, who was fiddling with his new bandolier and not looking up. “And what was it really, if it was not an argument?
Rachel said, “I hardly know what we argued about…You know what parents are like.”
“No. No idea,” muttered Sigfried.
“Oh…sorry.” Rachel grimaced. “As to our arguing—mainly about Gaius—I’m finally talking to Peter again and, now, in the last month, I’ve argued with both Laurel and my dad.”
Zoë shrugged. “You’ve changed. Your family is trying to adjust. My dad and I used to get along pretty well, until a few years ago. Then suddenly, he had no time at all for me.” She shrugged and then added, “You get used to it.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” whispered Rachel. “Do you really get used to it? Or does it just kind of fade to a dull numbness? What kind of things did you do when you were little?”
Zoë said, “You know, things girls do with their fathers. Get attention. Get spoken to. Not be told you’re a mess or embarrassing the family. That sort of stuff.”
Valerie voice trembled. “Wait, are you sure you’re okay, Rachel? What if someone grabbed you in the Wisecraft? Should we have you checked out?”
“I am all right,” Rachel said, hiccupping as she began crying again. “I-if they had messed with me, I’d know. Thanks to our Elf. Arguments with one’s family are…just weird.”
Valerie’s blue eyes were still round with concern. Still wearing Lucky like an overlong scarf, she crossed over to Siggy and held on tightly to his arm. He gave her hand a comforting pat. Salome watched this with a little smile. Then she joined Joy in hugging Rachel one last time, before returning to the table and her nails.
Choosing a vial from his new bandolier, Sigfried held it up, as if he were about to pull out the stopper and down the contents. “This is obviously an attack by an enemy with memory-eraso powers. I suggest we divide the world into quadrants and start searching. Wheels and the princess can examine dreamland, and Lucky can look in that area behind Drake Hall, where they keep the snacks…I mean sacrificial animals.
“Kidding,” he sighed. “Actually, I have no idea what to do. Or even how to prove this was not an accident.”
Joy pulled up a chair and sat down on Rachel’s other side. “We have to try something. He’s your father! Maybe…maybe the princess’s father could help?”
Rachel felt like a deer that discovered that what it had taken for a bicycle headlamp was actually the forward lights of a battle cruiser. As Nastasia was sitting right beside her, gazing at her with kindly concern, Rachel fought to school her expression.
“That is an…interesting idea,” she choked.
“I am certain my father can help,” offered Nastasia. “We have many useful resources in Magical Australia.”
I bet you do, thought Rachel.
Aloud, she murmured, “That…might not be a good idea.”
“I know what we need to do,” announced Siggy, his face bearing the beneficent look Rachel knew meant that whatever came out of his mouth next was guaranteed to alarm Nastasia. “Using my trusty, Elf-enhanced invisibility elixir, we need to break into the Wisecraft offices! First, they turned my G.F.’s father into a duck…”
“Goose,” said Lucky.
“Moose,” agreed Siggy. “Then, they messed with Goldilocks herself. Now, they’ve knocked Rachel’s father on the noggin so hard that the last couple of years fell out of his ears. Clearly, the offices themselves must be evil! So, in the interest of goodness, lollipops, sparkly rainbows, dancing unicorns, not to mention lonely magic items yearning for new owners, we’ve got to break in there, search the place, and relieve them of cool enchanted talismans and secrets.”
“Mr. Smith.” The princess looked up from where she comforted Rachel. “The Wisecraft is a law-abiding agency that works for my family’s friend, Mr. March. I am sure if there are evil elements among the Agents, the Grand Inquisitor will see to their arrest.”
“Unless he’s the evil element!” Siggy cried gleefully. He pulled out his wand and flourished it wildly. “I think we can take him! I’ll put his head on the wall over there!” He gestured in the general direction of Valerie’s photos. “Right next to spots I have picked out for the ogre and the Jabberwocky. Do you think that the school will mind if I affix shelves to this wall? I don’t think double-sided tape will do. Maybe we could install huge hooks in the ceiling, so that the heads can dangle from them and drip blood and gristle onto the ground.”
“Thank you, Sigfried,” mouthed Rachel. “You are making me feel so much better.”
“We are certainly not going to ‘take him,’” the princess insisted. She spoke graciously, but Rachel could hear the strain in her voice. “We could not, if we wished to.”
“Sure we could!” continued Siggy.
“He would stop us in an instant,” she said coolly.
“Great, then he can come after us…while Lucky slips by and raids the magic items, er…I mean looks for the baddy who hurt Rachel’s father. It’ll be a
win-win!”
“I don’t see how getting our hinnies kicked by the Grand Inquisitor is a win,” admonished Valerie, as she returned to buckling Siggy’s bandolier. “Besides, I got attacked in New York, but Agent Griffin works in the London office. Which one would we raid?”
Sigfried did not miss a beat. “Both of them, of course.”
“Mr. Smith, you are suggesting behaviors improper in a knight.” A furrow marred the princess’s perfect brow. “This is unbecoming.”
A dangerous gleam came into Sigfried’s eye. Rachel sighed. If she did not interfere, things were quickly going to get much worse.
“I appreciate your loyalty, Sigfried,” Rachel looked up and smiled at him warmly. “But I’m not sure it would help my father. I…don’t think anyone in the Wisecraft hurt him.”
“Too bad,” Sigfried glowered, disappointed, whether at not raiding the Wisecraft or not getting his chance to needle the princess, Rachel could not say.
“Did you know that next year is the Year of the Dragon?” Valerie asked quickly, attempting to change the subject. “On the Lunar calendar, I mean.”
“As it should be,” said Siggy. He and Lucky nodded at each other. “In fact, every year should be Year of the Dragon.”
“I could eat the other animals: the rat, the monkey, the cow,” said Lucky, who was still wrapped around Valerie. “Then all twelve years would be mine.”
“All dragon, all the time!” declared Siggy.
“The Sacred Days Club thought Lucky’s appearance here at school was so propitious, they chose Lunar New Year as one of the holidays to celebrate this school year.” Salome’s luminous eyes sparkled. “That’s why they’re throwing the masquerade ball!”
Valerie finished buckling Siggy’s belt. “When will it be?”
From where she lay on the table, applying polish, Salome waved her sparkling bronze fingernails. “Whenever Lunar New Year is.”
Rachel wiped her eyes and consulted an almanac in her mental library. “February Tenth.”
“That’s something to look forward to,” said Valerie. “What’s the Sacred Days Club?”
“Wanna-be priests and nuns, mainly, but also people who like to party.” Salome waved her painted fingernails, perhaps helping them to dry. “They hold celebrations for some of the many, many, many holidays and sacred days of the many, many, many gods and goddesses. Each September they meet with the Oracular Department to decide which of the hundreds of greater and lesser holidays it would be auspicious to celebrate on campus that year. For this year, they’ve picked Lunar New Year and May Day—since May Day is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Roanoke. Of course, Roanoke usually has some kind of party on May Day, even when it’s not one of the ones the club picks.”
“What about Halloween?” asked Rachel. “We celebrated that.”
Salome rolls her eyes. “This is the Hudson Highlands, honey. Home of the Headless Horseman? We celebrate Halloween every year.”
Rachel nodded solemnly, thinking about what Salome had said for a bit. Then, the weight of her problems hit her anew, and her shoulders slumped again. Joy looked at her with concern.
“We can get him fixed, right?” insisted Joy. “Your father, I mean. Er, I guess we can’t ask Agent Bridges, though, since he probably would have fixed him already, if he could, right?”
Zoë threw Joy a quick, odd look.
“I…I don’t think he’s going to be fixed,” muttered Rachel, “not any time soon.”
“No one is having me fixed!” announced Sigfried. “That’s the trouble with girls, always trying to have boys fixed! But I do think we need more crazy girl powers. We might want seriously to consider bringing Miss Winters, Miss Ilium, Miss Dibble, Miss Fabian, Miss Darling, Miss Black, and Miss Wednesday into the outer circle. And that girl who wears bells in her hair. No one who did not have crazy girl powers would wear hair bells and make brooms rocket off campus. And what about Astrid, whose last name I can’t remember?”
“Hollywell,” murmured Rachel.
“Dibble?” Valerie looked up at her boyfriend. “Who is that?”
Joy objected, “Miss Ilium isn’t our year. You can’t trust people who aren’t freshmen! They’ll tell us not to do stuff! Or worse, tell on us!”
Sigfried replied, “Miss Dibble is on the Track and Broom team. She is the only person as good on a broom, who I have ever seen in my entire life as a sorcerer—which, come to think of it, covers only a period of time of about five months—as Miss Griffin, our Broom Goddess. Miss Ilium is not a freshman, but, then again, neither is Mr. Valiant, who is in the inner circle, nor Mr. Chanson, who is at least an ally—even if not officially part of the Dark Lord Hunting and Demon Irking Association.”
“I am pretty sure her name is Laura Diggle, not Dibble,” said Joy. “And I don’t know Lena Ilium. Has anyone ever spoken to her? If Mr. Chanson wants to join our club, though, I am all for it.” She sighed with a dreamy look on her face.
“Mr. Valiant is not a member of our club,” Nastasia stated firmly.
Rachel, who had finally stopped sniffling, began weeping all over again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight:
The War of Cream and Jam
Leaving her friends, Rachel called Gaius on the bracelet. She wanted to confess that this fiasco had all been her fault, to tell someone what really happened, and, most importantly, to share the burden she currently carried alone. Gaius was the only person it was safe to tell, now that her father—who had apparently also known all along—no longer remembered. However, it was not just guilt that pressed upon her. The part of her that loved sharing secrets longed to see his face when she revealed the startling things she had discovered. In particular, the most shocking secret of all: The existence of the Master of the World and the role the Romanov family played in maintaining the secrecy of the Metaplutonians.
Gaius met her on the commons, shivering in his drab green parka with its fraying sleeves.
“Sandra came to talk to Vlad,” he blurted out.
“Then you know,” replied Rachel.
“Rather strange, don’t you think, that this accident happened so soon after your visit?”
“Nothing strange about it.”
“It wasn’t an accident?”
“No. The M…” Rachel looked right and left. The day was so cold that few students were out, but the commons was not empty. Two girls were adding flourishes to a snowman, and a group of others passed by on their way to the gym.
“Come on,” she said. “I know a private place we can talk.”
“Is it warmer?” asked Gaius, through chattering teeth.
“Much.”
“I’m in.”
• • •
Seated on Vroomie, Gaius’s arms tight around her waist, Rachel headed for the hexagonal tower. The day was bitingly cold. Flying through the January air felt like having one’s cheeks caressed by icy sandpaper. Midway, however, an idea struck her.
She swerved and flew over Roanoke Hall and on to the tall, round, stone tower that rose above the hemlocks just north of De Vere. The Watch Tower had four faux arches and four real ones. The real windows contained no glass. She flew through the south-facing arch into the round, top chamber and landed on the frozen straw. Next to her was a gigantic brass device, as large as a lighthouse lamp, with an enormous cut-crystal bulb that was much taller than she. Above it hung huge, tubular chimes.
“So this is the top of the Watch Tower!” Gaius looked around with interest. “I’ve never been up here. Hey, is that an obscuration lantern? Is it the one that protects the school?”
Rachel nodded. “Don’t touch it. That goes…badly.”
“Don’t turn off the school’s protective obscurations, so that we suddenly become visible to the Unwary world? Right-o.”
The wind roared through the open arches. Rachel shivered, drawing her red wool coat tight around her.
Gaius, whose coat was much thinner than hers, chafed his arms. “I thought you said it w
ould be warmer. We’re several stories up. I think it’s definitely colder!”
“Sorry. Brief detour,” said Rachel. “I had a thought.”
Here inside the belfry, the four faux windows were filled with mirrored glasses, the same size and shape as the open arches. Each glass had a colored hue, one green, one blue, one purple, and one gold. Her stomach lurched as she turned to examine the golden mirror. She had suddenly remembered that, last time she was here, it had broken when, upon discovering the horrible things that Mordeau’s teacher’s assistant had done to Valerie, Sigfried had punched it. To her relief, the thinking glass had been repaired.
Rachel took off her mitten and walked over to the golden glass, placing her bare hand on its surface. It was so cold that she cried out in pain. She tried remembering, but nothing appeared in the thinking glass. Rachel sighed.
“Trying to use that, are you?” Gaius asked. “Here.”
He pointed his wand. The sapphire tip glinted. Suddenly an image of the belfry, from Rachel’s point of view, appeared in the glass. Rachel jumped.
“Oh!” She took a step back, and then stepped forward boldly, “Thank you. Here goes!”
Rather than tell Gaius what had happened, she showed him. With her perfect memory, she recalled the entire event of her trip to London, from the moment she and Agent Bridges walked into her father’s office until the Raven vanished. It was painful to recall all this, but it was a great relief as well. She had felt so weighed down, so alone, when she was the only one who knew these terrible things. Sharing them with someone else, particularly with Gaius, was a big relief. Just knowing that he was entirely on her side made everything in her life better.
She stopped at the point where the Raven left because, while she wanted to be honest and straightforward with her boyfriend, she did not think that had to include sharing her most embarrassing moments. As she considered where to pick up, Gaius laid a hand on her arm.
“R-rac-ch. T-too. C-co-ol-ld!” he stammered over the chattering of his teeth. His lips were blue.
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 32