The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy

by Nikki Loftin

  Ms. Morrigan pulled her hand away and licked the blood from her fingertips. “You’re not very perceptive, are you? Nothing special at all. I don’t know what she sees in you.” I didn’t speak, couldn’t. If I made a sound, I would cry.

  “No,” she said. “You’re stupid and worthless. Just a girl who won’t eat.”

  She turned away, and I ran.

  When I got back to the cafeteria, the kitchen staff was standing against the wall, stricken looks on their faces. Vasalisa was crumpled in a chair, weeping silently.

  And Gustav was gone.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN:

  THE NATURE OF THEIR POWER

  I knew without asking that the witch had been there.

  “She came for Gustav right after you left,” Otto whispered to me over the dozens of plated chocolate cashew clusters. No one looked toward the back of the kitchen, but everyone was aware of Vasalisa crumpled in the corner by the door, next to the bucket of sand. “She knew they had touched, and she made them choose which one would go. Gustav spoke first.” Otto’s voice broke. “He spoke his own name, and she took him.”

  “Where . . . where is he now?” A terrible thought occurred to me. “Is she going to eat him?”

  “No,” Otto answered quickly. “Not one the age of Gustav. He is no longer a child. There would be no magic to gain. He will become one of her watchers.”

  “Watchers?” I didn’t understand.

  “Yes. She could not make him into one of her kind. He was a good man. And no witch has magic enough to change a soul.” Otto hesitated and looked toward the back door. “He has become a tree, maybe, or one of the mounds of earth bordering the property.”

  “She’ll bury him?” I asked, trying to wrap my mind around it. “By the playground?”

  “No,” Otto explained slowly. “She has the power to transform with her magic. To create. She does not waste anything she can change. She will make him into something else. Something that cannot run away or fight her. Or love.”

  “How do we stop her?” I asked, and Otto stopped just short of covering my mouth with his hand.

  “No! Do not speak of such things. There is no way. She is too powerful.”

  “But there’s only one of her.” I paused, remembering the hallway. “I think. Anyway, there are lots of us. None of us are fooled by her magic. And her magic’s getting weaker, right? Can’t we overpower her?”

  “We cannot even overpower the weakest—Threnody.” His eyes looked as bleak as a winter sky. “They keep us half-starved, too weak for any real resistance. How would we have the strength to overcome the principal?”

  “Wait,” I said. “You’re telling me . . . the principal was here? She came in and took Gustav herself? Are you sure it wasn’t Ms. Morrigan? I just figured something out. Ms. Morrigan can be in more than one place at a time.”

  “No, she can only make you think that,” one of the other girls said, looking up from the tiny, sugar-crusted viola blossoms she was setting down on the plates next to each cashew cluster. “The Morrigan has power over the mind. Threnody has power over the voice. And the principal has power over everything she sees.”

  “Enough,” Otto interrupted. “The principal was here.”

  “Ms. Morrigan can make you think things, right? Maybe she just made you think it was the principal!” I paused. “It can’t be the principal. She’s not evil. She’s always been kind to me. Loving. Like a . . . like a mom.”

  Vasalisa raised her tearful face. “You make excuses for her? I told you, I saw her kill my sister. She made me grind her bones into sand myself, made me scatter them on the ground. My own sister! Is your mother a witch, then? A devourer of children?”

  “My mother is dead,” I shot back. “I don’t have a mother.”

  “And the witch would be a good substitute?” Her face twisted in disgust. “Was your mother such a horrible person that you would replace her memory with a killer of innocents like the principal?”

  “Vasalisa?” A soft voice came from the door. “What . . . what are you saying about me?”

  It was Principal Trapp. She looked utterly stricken, tears falling silently to the pristine, white tile floor. “And what is Lorelei doing in here?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY:

  PERFECTLY NAMED

  A killer of innocents’?” Principal Trapp whispered as we left the cafeteria. She leaned against me as we walked, her weight making my shoulder ache. In the hallway, she rested against the wall, took a deep breath—or tried to—and swiped her arm across her face. “But what she said doesn’t matter. The only thing I’m concerned about right now is you. What was happening in there, Lorelei?”

  We stood right outside the cafeteria. I could see Vasalisa through the window in the cafeteria door. She was watching me, but it didn’t matter. I put my hand out and patted the principal’s shoulder.

  Vasalisa’s eyes narrowed. I had become the enemy, her expression said. I was in the company of the witch.

  I didn’t care what she thought. She was wrong, anyway. They all were. Principal Trapp was clearly innocent.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Just . . . you . . . you didn’t know I was in there, then? Working in the kitchen?”

  “How could you think that?” Her red-rimmed green eyes stared into mine, and I saw despair, horror—concern—in their depths. “How could anyone—” She broke off with a short, harsh laugh. “Of course, what should you think? I’m the principal. This is my school. Everything that happens here is my responsibility, isn’t it?” She held a hand out to me tentatively, like she was afraid I might slap it away. “So I am at fault. I wouldn’t blame you if you never spoke to me again. Never trusted me.”

  It was too much. The hurt in her eyes called out to me. I’d felt that way before: that no one would ever trust me again. That I was to blame.

  I still felt it.

  I couldn’t do that to her. “No,” I said, “I don’t blame you.”

  I looked back over my shoulder right before the principal enfolded me in her arms. Vasalisa was gone.

  I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the principal’s perfume, the smell of lilies that inevitably reminded me of the cold, quiet funeral home where I’d seen my mother’s body for the last time. The principal was still crying softly, and I found myself singing a lullaby with no words, notes strung together, to calm her, the way my mother had for me.

  After a minute, she straightened and wiped her eyes. “That’s beautiful,” she said. “You have a gift.”

  “Ms. Threnody didn’t think so,” I said cautiously. Was now the time to tell her about Ms. Threnody? Warn her about both the witches?

  Would she believe me, now that she had seen what her stepdaughter had done to me?

  “Then she was wrong,” the principal said. A tear slipped silently down her pale cheek. “Perfectly named, my little Lorelei.”

  “You know the story?” I asked. I usually didn’t bring it up. It was sort of creepy.

  “Of course I do. Lorelei, the mermaid on the Rhine who sings so sweetly, sailors dash their ships on the rocks just for the chance to hear her before they die?”

  “That’s a nice way to put it,” I said. “She killed herself and became a witch. She killed those sailors.”

  “They were drawn to her. There’s a difference. And she traded her old life for a better one, for eternal life.” She stroked my hair again. “I knew from the first time I heard your name that you would be special. I was drawn to you.” She held out her hand. “Now let’s get you cleaned up.”

  I walked down the hall with Principal Trapp’s arm around my shoulder, my heart light for the first time in days. There was no way she could have faked those tears, that pain.

  She hadn’t known. She really hadn’t known I was working in the kitchen. So it was possible—in fact, I w
as sure it was true!—that she didn’t know about the other terrible things that were happening. My heart felt so light, I thought I might float away. I leaned into her arm. I felt safe, and warm, and loved.

  When we got to the front office, she sat beside me, her hands in mine softer than the velvet upholstery of the sofa. “How could Alva have done such a thing?” I closed my eyes and let the silver waterfall of her voice cover me, refresh me. “How could she have thought I would allow it? You know I never meant you to be sent to the kitchens”—her voice broke—“don’t you?”

  I nodded, and raised my hand to cover hers on my cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered, and I could hear relief in her tone. “You’re safe now, with me. Did you have lunch?”

  “A little,” I said, remembering the hastily swallowed chicken. Remembering, as I thought of that frenzied lunchtime, the others who had been there with me. Who had helped me. I opened my eyes a crack. The lines around Principal Trapp’s mouth still spoke of pain and embarrassment.

  “I’ll get you something to eat. Something sweet,” she said.

  “The other kitchen workers,” I began. “You didn’t know how she treats them? How she hurts—” I stopped, watching a silver tear roll down her face, followed by another.

  “You think I knew about that?”

  “No,” I reassured her, “I know you didn’t.” Another tear rolled down her cheek and splashed on the dark green velvet, leaving a jagged stain. “We can talk about it later,” I said. “You look tired.”

  “I’m sick,” she said. “So very, very sick.”

  My heart pounded. Was she sick like my mom had been? Was she dying, too? I forced myself to ask the question, though the words tried to stay unsaid, leaving a bitter taste on my tongue. “What kind of sick?”

  “Sick at heart,” she said, her eyes meeting mine. “Nothing more. Sick at what happened to you today.” She fought for a smile, roughly wiping a tear away. “When I was little, my mother would tell me stories when I felt sick or sad.”

  “Mine did, too,” I said, feeling the familiar ache in my heart as the memory of my mother surfaced. I pushed the pain aside.

  “Would you tell me a story, Lorelei?” she asked. Her green eyes, so like my mother’s, shone with unshed tears and something else. Compassion? “Tell me a true story.”

  I knew what she was asking. She wanted the story of my mother’s death. I tried not to flinch. She couldn’t understand how much it hurt me to even think about it, or she wouldn’t have asked. I closed my eyes, wondering where to start. Wondering if I could.

  The memory started where it always did—the day Mom fell. I’d been harassing her to go out, to take me somewhere, even though she was exhausted. She’d begged me to let her rest. I’m not feeling well, Lorelei, she’d said. Let’s just talk. I could read you a story? But I’d thrown a tantrum and insisted. She had promised to spend the day with me, promised to do whatever I wanted, I reminded her. Let’s go, Mom. The movie’s starting in five minutes. I pulled hard on her arm, harder than I needed to, angry that she was tired again. She was always tired, always sleeping or resting. Her foot caught in the rug, and she fell toward me. Her legs hit mine, bruising me, but something worse happened then. Two sounds, like sticks wrapped in wet towels, breaking, a liquid shattering. “My legs!” she cried out. I looked; her bones had pierced the skin of her calves. White bone, flecked with red blood. She screamed until they took her to the hospital.

  My fault.

  My family’s secret.

  The splinters of shame I’d carried with me since that moment edged closer to my heart, like they did each time I relived that day. I edged away from the memory, afraid that the splinters would wound me even more deeply.

  I felt damp fingers on my cheek and opened my eyes. I’d been weeping. Principal Trapp sat next to me, her fingers tangled in my hair, a large splinter resting on her lap.

  A splinter? No. A stick.

  “Thank you for telling me, Lorelei,” she said. My heart stuttered. Telling her? I hadn’t said a word. Had I? I licked my lips. They were dry.

  Bone dry.

  “I . . . I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to, my darling.” A tear trembled on her eyelid; her face flashed dark and bright. “I know everything that is in you. Everything that is so much like me. So much pain and darkness. So beautiful.” She tapped the stick against her lips, once, twice. It shone white and silver as it touched her mouth, then changed back to a plain branch when she lowered it. Magic, I thought.

  It was no stick. It was a wand.

  I closed my eyes again.

  Vasalisa had told me the truth about the principal.

  Andrew had been right.

  I had been wrong. Dead wrong. And now I was in her arms. Worse—somehow, she was in my mind.

  I knew I should run, fight. I tried not to think of such things. How much could she sense? How many of my thoughts could she read?

  Enough, it seemed. “Fight me? You . . . you don’t want to hurt me, do you, Lorelei?” My scalp tingled as she stroked my hair hesitantly. “Like you hurt your mother?”

  I felt a tearing inside, like the splinters I’d carried for so long had finally reached my heart and begun to kill me, too. Could I hurt her, the only one to show me love since Mom?

  My heart twisted. “No,” I whispered. “Of course not.”

  “Will you be my daughter, then? I’m so lonely, Lorelei.”

  My mind was spinning. “You have . . . her,” I said, meaning Ms. Morrigan.

  “She’s not you, my darling. She’s not capable of the things you can do.”

  “What things?” I asked. I really, truly didn’t want to know.

  “You fought the hunger and won,” she crooned. “They all do that, all my servants. Alva, Threnody. But you . . . you did more. A child, with magic so strong you could not be fooled. You discovered our secrets, didn’t you?”

  “Some of them,” I admitted, my voice shaking.

  “And you have your own secret. One as dark as any of mine. A very important one.” I opened my eyes again and saw she was smiling, eyes shining. “She’ll never be able to take my place, because she didn’t do what you did. What I did. It has to start that way, you see, or else you can never have the full power, no matter how much you eat.”

  What we did.

  I knew what she meant. I had killed my mother.

  But no one, except my brother, had ever said the words out loud. In fact, everyone other than Bryan had said I hadn’t done it. I couldn’t have done it, couldn’t have known.

  I was just a child.

  She must have been sick for months, hiding it so we wouldn’t worry. The cancer had already spread through her body, making her bones brittle.

  The broken legs would have happened, sooner or later. A fall in the kitchen in the night. A stumble on the stairs.

  It could have happened any number of ways. I wasn’t to feel guilty. I wasn’t to blame myself, the doctors said, the neighbors said.

  And with every word, they had made me understand that I had done it, but it was shameful, a secret.

  I was never to speak of it, my father had said. Never to tell a soul. And, except for Allison, I hadn’t.

  “You killed your mother, Lorelei. Just as I killed mine. Power, you see? It’s the oldest way to take power, and so few children these days have done it, can do it. I knew, when I met you—when I learned your secret—that you would be my new daughter. And here you are.” She stroked my hair again, and I fought the bile that rose in my throat.

  “I’ve been looking for a girl just like you for so long.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

  ONE NIGHT TO DECIDE

  I knew what I had to say. I just couldn’t get the words to come out. The thought of calling her “mother” stabbe
d at my heart worse than the pain I’d lived with for a year, and my lips refused to open.

  I figured if I told her no straight off, though, I wouldn’t have long to live. Or at least she would keep such a close eye on me, I wouldn’t have the chance to warn Andrew about the soup pot. My head buzzed with caution.

  “You see it, you must. That bond between us. Our shared nature,” she crooned. “Don’t you, Lorelei? My new, best daughter.”

  I fought back a scream, holding my breath to do so. When I realized she was holding her breath, too, I tried to nod, but her fingers had tangled in my hair.

  “Don’t you?” she repeated. Her voice was a discordant bell ringing, warning me to answer.

  “I . . . I don’t know. It’s all so much to take in.” I tried not to breathe too quickly, but I knew she could feel my heart beating hummingbird fast. I closed my eyes and slumped against her, feigning exhaustion. “I’m so tired. I need to sleep.”

  She didn’t buy it, I could see. But she brushed her hands, helped me up, and led me to the door. “You’ve been working too hard,” she said, stroking my hair again, wrapping her fingers around one of the curly pieces by my face. “Anyone can see that. Rest tonight. Clear your head. You’re a clever girl; I know you’ll see clearly in the morning. Make the right decision, Lorelei. By tomorrow morning, we’ll both know if you’ll be my protégé, or . . .”

  She didn’t continue. A tree? I wondered. Or a mound of dirt?

  Or an appetizer?

  I wasn’t positive I had what it took to say no. A dark part of me wondered if I really wanted to say no at all, but I thought about Vasalisa. I wouldn’t do that to her.

  That evening, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t speak, not that Molly or Dad noticed. They made their lovey-dovey faces at each other over dinner, not even looking up when I pushed my chair back and carried my plate to the sink.

  Bryan noticed, though.

  “What’s up now, Lolo?” He hadn’t called me that in years, and the strangeness of hearing the nickname made me look up.