RoseBlood

by Howard, A. G.

  “You guys really need to end it here. Headmaster Fabre and Principal Norrington aren’t taking Rune’s missing uniforms as lightly as you might think. Student perks are in danger—”

  “Uh, wait a second,” Kat interrupts. “We had nothing to do with the uniforms! This mannequin thing was to teach Rune and her kleptomaniac pal Sunflower Sunshine a lesson about sneaking into my room and stealing my brush.”

  “Summers,” I correct, annoyed by her subtle dig on Sunny. “And why would either of us want anything that has your DNA on it?”

  “It was a Mason Pearson boar-bristle hairbrush,” Kat says, her perfect forehead furrowed, as if she can’t fathom my ignorance. “Worth more money than Sunny’s cheap dye job.”

  “Sunny’s hair is naturally red,” Quan interjects. “And she doesn’t steal.”

  For the most part, anyway, I think, and by the gaze Quan shoots me, I can tell we’re sharing brainwaves.

  Roxie stands up at the table. It’s unsettling to see such a hard expression on a face that matches Jax’s, who’s almost always smiling or cracking a joke. “Awfully coincidental how it went missing the first full day you were here. Kat hasn’t seen it since Monday morning before breakfast.”

  Tomlin pounds the table, getting our attention back on him. “Here’s my one-time offer. I don’t care who did what. I won’t report any of this conversation, or what happened today in my room, but only if these pranks stop now. Because were anyone to go to the headmaster with even one more thing, you guys can forget about having any fun activities for a while. That includes Saturday outings and the masquerade being canceled. Do you hear what I’m saying, ladies?”

  The three of us nod.

  He turns to Quan. “Okay, dude, I’m appointing you as referee. See that everyone gets along so you and Sunny can win the title of best costume couple again this year.”

  Quan gives the professor one of his lopsided smiles along with a thumbs-up. “You got it, Prof.”

  The four of us head out. I’m last, and just as I step into the hall, Tomlin stops me. We move to the wall beside the door, out of the wave of students rushing to class.

  His intense blue eyes study me. “How’s your voice? Did you hurt it screaming?”

  I tamp down the panic his question inspires, feeling eyes on me from inside the walls, too. My voice is the least of my worries. “Um, no.”

  “That’s good.”

  He starts back inside when I mumble, “I wish I had.”

  He turns on his heel and rubs his beard. “Look, you know about my accident, right?”

  “Yeah.” I cinch my arms around my books and strain to hear him over the passing students.

  “Before that, my parents used to pressure me to be a doctor because I was so good at science and biology. To appease them, I was going to medical school, even though I didn’t want it. I wanted my music. And I wanted to make science and theater fun for kids,” he says. “After the crash, I realized how much time I’d wasted trying to be what someone else thought I should be. So, believe me, I get it. Just because you’re good at something, doesn’t mean you want to do it forever. Or at all. I made my choice and never looked back. Someday, Rune, you’ll get to make your choice and be free to do what you want. Just take care of yourself until then, okay?”

  His kindness touches me, even though he has no clue. My issues have nothing to do with any choice on my part. I see Sunny wave at the other end of the corridor where we always meet up before second period and offer a nod. “Thanks, Professor Tomlin.”

  He flashes his teeth in a grin that makes him look way too close to our age, even with the facial hair. “Call me Prof. And give it time. Things will get easier for you soon.”

  He’s wrong again. They don’t.

  While having dinner with Aunt Charlotte and Mom that night, I find out Mom won’t return to Ned or her job until she’s sure I’m safe. The missing uniforms are eating away at her more than she originally let on. It would be so easy to admit that I suspect Kat took them, considering the macabre hanging in science class. But that would screw up every extracurricular escape the students look forward to, including my new friends. So I fake a confession: that I hid them myself in the beginning because I was so scared to face my stage fright, but now they’ve gone missing for real. I apologize profusely, and promise to get my act together. Mom pats my hand, saying she’s proud of me for being honest, and is relieved. Aunt Charlotte watches us quietly while chewing her veal cutlet. I get the distinct impression she sees right through me, yet she doesn’t say a word.

  On Friday at breakfast, I tell Sunny, Jax, Quan, and Audrey the truth: that I’ve no idea what happened to my uniforms, but that lying is the only way to send Mom back to Texas so she can live the life she’s worked so hard for. Quan tells everyone the other reason I’m doing it—to save us all from losing privileges.

  However, pretending to have a severe case of stage-fright-turned-neurosis doesn’t earn me any points with Kat. She croons soprano in full vibrato when I pass her in the hall then drops to the floor, flailing as if she’s having convulsions. I decide not to hold it against her; she doesn’t know how seeing a person in a convulsive state affects me. She isn’t aware of my experience at the frat party.

  All I can do is turn and walk away, wishing quietly that I could sever and discard the musical entity that lives inside me, and finally be normal. But even then, I still wouldn’t be. Because although this academy is full of interesting and quirky personalities, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who’s left a guy comatose in a hospital across the ocean.

  My loyalty to my friends pays off in other ways. During fourth-period historical musicology, Audrey passes me a note that explains the meaning behind her tattoo, and why her future career is so important she can’t let herself get distracted by a romantic relationship. Her ballerina sister was the victim of a hit-and-run in New Mexico, and was left a paraplegic. Her name is Ravyn, and since she “can never fly again,” as Ravyn herself puts it, she wants to ride vicariously on Audrey’s operatic wings. So Audrey got the tattoo in honor of that sentiment. Their beautiful bond echoes my memories of Dad, and from that moment on I, too, want to see her reach all of her goals, not only for her, but for her sister.

  Unfortunately, Bouchard catches us whispering and makes me stay ten minutes after class, carving time out of my lunch period. Audrey argues that she is to blame, too, but I shut her down. I’ve come to realize Bouchard’s a fangirl of Katarina, and since I tromped over her star pupil during tryouts and various rehearsals, the vocal instructions and musical studies on my schedule have been even more painful than I already anticipated. There’s no reason Audrey should suffer for that.

  As soon as I’m released, I find Sunny in the hall waiting for me. She says I deserve vindication and sneaks me in to see Bouchard’s room of deceased pets on the second floor—complete with the mounted heads of a beloved parakeet, a pampered chinchilla, and a plaque showcasing three field mice with real butterfly wings stitched meticulously to their backs. The scent of something medicinal blends with animal dander and stale bones, creating a sinister and clinical combination that knots my stomach.

  “I’ve heard her talk to them,” Sunny murmurs.

  “To the dead things?” I ask as we both stare up in petrified wonder.

  “Yeah, sometimes when she’s in here with the door closed. Or maybe she’s talking for them. Maybe she’s one of those . . . what do they call that again?”

  “Ventriloquists?”

  She nods. “Yeah. And they’re her marionettes.”

  “Or maybe she’s theirs,” I half joke, eyeing a white rabbit head still attached to its front torso and forelegs. Bouchard has carved a window in the rabbit’s chest where it’s hung flat against the wall, embedded an oval wooden frame within, and inserted an image of her holding the prized bunny years earlier, when it was still alive. She’s younger with no wrinkles, without that trademark layer of French powder and rouge. A white lab jacket covers a casual butt
on-up shirt. It’s unsettling how happy she looked back then. Not even a trace of the stern bitterness I’ve come to dread each time I’m in her class.

  “She flunked out of veterinarian school,” Sunny whispers. “That picture was taken before. She obviously didn’t ever get over having a scalpel in her hand or her love for the scent of blood.”

  I cringe. Neither one of us notices that the Bride of Frankenstein herself has stepped up behind until she shouts: “Get out!”

  We both yelp in surprise and spin around.

  Her eyes are glossy and glaring, like pointy blue beads. She might as well have pulled them out of one of her projects. She wields a frighteningly sharp pair of scissors as she backs us into the hall. “How did you get in?”

  Sunny stammers, vowing the door was already ajar. Only I catch the implication of her hand tucked inside her skirt pocket where she earlier dropped the key she’d lifted.

  Headmaster Fabre appears at the top of the staircase. “Is there a problem, Miss Bouchard?” His commanding presence ignites a blush through Bouchard’s rouged cheeks—coloring them the same shade as the dye in her hair.

  “Whatever it may be,” the headmaster continues, “I think we could solve it without physically threatening our students.”

  Bouchard slaps the scissor handles against her palm. “The problem is a deplorable lack of respect for other people’s belongings and privacy. In my experience, the best way to make an impression on the uncivilized is by giving them a taste of their own barbarism.” She stomps back into the room, mumbling in French about shoving marble eyes into a hedgehog. The door slams shut.

  Sunny repeats her excuse for us getting into the room. Unable to prove otherwise, Headmaster Fabre sends us to the last fifteen minutes of lunch with only a warning.

  Friday comes to an abrupt end when Mom leaves for the airport. We stand out in the foyer, saying our good-byes while everyone else is at dinner. I make a marked effort not to look at the mirrors . . . not to let in that uneasy sense of being watched. The chauffeur gathers Mom’s bags and offers to wait outside with the limo. As he opens the door, the scent of wet roses and foliage drifts in and the room brightens with the sunset’s soft blush. In the parking lot and the foyer, the academy lights are set on timers to conserve energy—from six thirty until nine thirty every evening.

  Mom tucks an unruly wave behind my ear. I admire how pretty she is in the pink haze, and think of the gauzy, romantic dress she found at a chic Parisian shop this week. She’s planning to wear it for her wedding in December, when I’ll be home for Christmas break. A smile inches across my lips. Her fiancé is picking her up from the airport when she lands tomorrow. “Ned’s got to be dying to see you.”

  She smiles and shrugs. “Nah. Only mildly eager. You know his true passions are en suite bathrooms and hand-carved mahogany millwork.”

  I laugh at her realty humor, but it’s forced. I’m going to miss her. I’ve become accustomed to sharing my dorm room. She hadn’t been willing to take the bed every night, so we’d alternated, but her presence was the one thing—other than my dreams—that made me feel safe.

  “I’ll call you on the landline,” I say, in lieu of what I want to say: Please don’t go.

  “Not if I call you first,” she teases.

  I grin. Then, against everything telling me not to, I ask, “So, when you slept in my bed this week . . . did you hear anything weird?” Granted, I’d only heard the sounds in the vent that first night, but maybe she’d heard them since.

  She frowns, looking pale as the lights in the foyer switch on. “No, sweetie. Like what?”

  Startled by the worry clouding her eyes, I change tactics before she decides to stay another week. “Oh, nothing. Just . . . the air filtering through the vent. It’s noisy. Maybe I’ll ask Aunt Charlotte if maintenance can look at it. It might be stuffed with lint or something.”

  “Okay.” She grins and her cheeks warm again with a healthy flush. “It’s been so nice having this extra time with Lottie. I’m glad you’ll finally be getting to know her, too. She sees so much of your father in you.” Mom’s eyes tear up a little. “He’d be so proud of you. How you’re facing your stage fright. And how you’re making friends.”

  I manage a bright smile by thinking only of my new friends and blocking out all things operatic or phantasmic. Ever since yesterday morning, I haven’t seen any movement within the mirrors; but I don’t think my shadow’s gone. Not for a second.

  Mom wraps a lock of my hair around her thumb. “I know you’re disappointed that you can’t make the trip to Paris tomorrow. Lottie says you can go with her to Versailles instead. She’s really set against you staying here alone for the day. In fact, she keeps asking if I’m sure you’re up for staying at the school at all. I assured her you are. That you’re doing it in honor of your dad.”

  I nod, because I’d do anything for him.

  “But since you’re family,” Mom continues, “Lottie said you can skate around the weekly task rules if you’re with her. It’ll get you out of this building for a few hours, you know?”

  Thoughts of Grandma Liliana in the prison infirmary gnaw at my already-frayed edges. “There’s only one reason Aunt Charlotte would go to Versailles.”

  Mom’s lips purse. “Yes. She visits her mother once a week. But . . . Grandma Lil seems to be sorry. She arranged all of this for you. Maybe soon she’ll even confess where she hid Dad’s violin, or why she started that fire. Maybe then we can try to forgive her before it’s too late.” Mom shrugs because in her heart, she knows there’s almost zero chance of that ever happening. I frown, because it’s possible Grandma Liliana was only trying to rid the world of a plague, and Mom could one day be stepping inside Aunt Charlotte’s doeskin ballet shoes to visit me in a penitentiary.

  “Pretty sure the other students wouldn’t consider a day trip to Versailles as a family outing,” I say. “I’ve already received enough favors.” My tongue stiffens, barricading what wants to escape: that even though I have a few new friends, I’m not going to be class favorite anytime soon. That someone hates me enough to have left a dead crow on my chair at lunch earlier today.

  I noticed it only seconds before I sat down. As if the sight of its black, greasy feathers wasn’t enough to make me lose any appetite for the cordon bleu chicken rolls on my plate, it also triggered a vivid memory of the meowing crow I saw the day I first arrived.

  Quan picked up the corpse with a napkin and covertly threw it away while Jax tried to reason that the resident ghost cat, Diable, had struck again. It was obvious Jax was trying to keep Sunny from attacking the diva duo, her number one suspects. But a part of me doubts they did it, because they don’t want to lose privileges any more than the rest of us.

  “Mom”—I sidestep the bird confession with another, more obvious one—“I don’t think I’m ready to make that trip to see Grandma.”

  She squeezes my shoulder. “Oh, honey, Lottie wouldn’t expect you to go with her to visit your grandma. There’s a library within walking distance of the prison with computers. Lottie goes there to check the school’s email each week. So she’d drop you there so you can get on the Internet, check your emails, do some Facebooking. And you’ll have access to cell towers, so you can make phone calls and text.”

  I sigh. Regardless that I won’t be expected to visit Grandma, I don’t even want to be in the same vicinity. “I really need to start on the garden. The weather is finally supposed to clear tomorrow.”

  Mom nods, then scans her watch. “Just make sure you get out of your dorm for a while. I don’t want you staying cooped up for too long. It can mess with your mind.”

  Tell me about it.

  Pulling me into her arms, she whispers in my ear, “You have the potential to be something . . . amazing. Please, Rune. I don’t want you to spend your life with other people’s dust and soap scum under your fingernails. Your father wanted so much more for you than that.”

  She kisses my temple. Then she’s out the door and in th
e limo, disappearing across the bridge and into the sunset, as every fear, flaw, and insecurity wraps tight around my shoulders—a chilling foil to the warmth of her good-bye hug.

  9

  THE DEAD AND THE BELOVED

  “Do you know what it means to have Death know your name?”

  Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

  Thorn crouched beside an array of overgrown chrysanthemums. When morning first dawned, the garden had been pristine. Sun drenched and sparkling with dew. Now, several hours later, clouds filled the sky.

  He coiled the shredded remains of a gray stocking around the bright-yellow blossoms. A honeyed scent drifted up from the petals and settled on his tongue—sweet and heady.

  He’d stumbled upon Rune’s school uniforms behind the stage in the ballet rehearsal hall the night she arrived. Each piece had been clipped with scissors, ripped at the seams. The one responsible played a dangerous game. But she’d warranted a reprieve, since the maneuver had provided the perfect means to lead Rune through his maze of horrors today.

  He hated to put her through more trauma after what that obnoxious diva and her sidekick had done with the mannequin. But he could reason it was necessary; he and Erik were going to lead Rune to the truth she’d been craving. It’s just the way they were going about it wasn’t at all gentle or kind.

  Sickened by what lay ahead, Thorn waved away a fog of gnats and fished a tattered vest from the pink shopping bag. In the distance, a territorial squirrel argued with a song thrush perched on a blackberry bramble. It would be a typical nature scene, if not for the squirrel quacking like a duck. Unable to bear the deviant sound, Thorn tossed a rock to break up the fight, careful not to hit either of them.

  The squirrel scampered away and the bird took flight, lifting Thorn’s attention to the sky, where greenish-gray clouds hooded the midmorning sun. The entire plan would be compromised if Rune didn’t complete the maze before the rain, and judging by the dampness on the wind it would be within the hour. Ideally, the storm would hit the moment she found the final clue and would chase her into the chapel.