Pennyroyal Academy

by M. A. Larson

  “My father doesn’t understand why people like to gossip about royal families, but I can’t help it. I find them fascinating. Go on, then, you were saying how you know Remington?”

  The girl was about to answer, until the witch and the cottage and the candy-making machine flashed into her mind. “I don’t know, really. I only met him yesterday—”

  “Next!”

  “All my friends were jealous when they heard I’d be in his year,” said Magdalena. “He comes from one of the most prestigious families in the Western Kingdoms. They say he killed his first dragon before age twelve. You know him better than I do, but it seems he might actually be perfect.”

  The girl looked across the courtyard to where she had last seen Remington. He hadn’t said a word about killing a dragon, but then, she supposed she had never asked.

  Suddenly, Magdalena clutched the girl’s arm, her eyes wide. A tall girl with hair like spun silk and soft, beautiful features joined the queue behind them. She wore an immaculate pale blue tunic dress with intricate gold embroidery along the trim.

  “Begging your pardon,” said Magdalena, “but princesses of the blood queue up over there, Your Serene and Exalted Highness—”

  “Don’t call me that!” the blond girl said, cringing. Magdalena blanched, as though she had just made a horrible mistake.

  “But . . . but you’re a Blackmarsh royal—”

  “Aye, and I hate that bloody address.”

  “Forgive me, Highness.” Magdalena lowered her head and dipped a knee. Then she elbowed the girl in spiderwebs, who did the same.

  “Call me Demetra. Please. And stop doing that.”

  “Yes, Highness.” The girls straightened up. “I’m Magdalena, of Sevigny. Maggie.”

  “Sevigny?”

  “It’s in the south. Beyond the Valley of Giants. No one’s heard of it.”

  “And you?” said Demetra, turning to the girl. “I see I’m not the only one whose parents couldn’t be bothered to turn up.”

  “My parents don’t know I’m here.”

  “Don’t they?” said Maggie. “How scandalous!”

  “Who’s next?” said the old woman at the enlistment table. “Step lively, we’re running behind.”

  “I think that’s you,” said Demetra.

  The girl turned. Sure enough, they had reached the front of the queue. She stepped forward, then looked back to Demetra and Maggie for guidance. They gave her a smile, but were already busy chatting about something else.

  “Name, please,” said the old woman, her quill tip hovering over her parchment. “Go on, child, what’s your name?”

  “I’m sorry, I . . . I don’t have one.”

  The old woman removed her eyeglasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Siblings?”

  “I have a sister.”

  “And I’ll wager she hasn’t been to the Academy, has she?” The old woman ran her weary eyes over the tangle of webs, strewn with souvenirs of the forest.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Where are your people from?”

  With rising panic, the girl glanced back to Maggie and Demetra, but they were still deep in conversation.

  “Headmistress! Over here, please!” sang the old woman, waggling her thick fingers.

  Slowly, with captivating elegance, a woman with a jeweled crown and a stern bearing turned to face them. The Headmistress wore a luxuriant golden dress, the graceful arc of her crown resting atop cropped white hair. She excused herself from her conversation and strode the length of the table. The sophistication and grace she exuded from afar melted away as she drew near, replaced by an inscrutable coldness.

  Another woman followed the Headmistress, angular and thin and scowling, her face as lumpy as a bag of frogs. “Spiderwebs,” this other woman snarled, scratching a quill across one of the parchments she kept clipped to a piece of snakewood bark.

  “Terribly sorry to interrupt, Headmistress,” said the old woman at the table. “It’s bloody hard work trying to sort these common girls out.”

  “Not at all. How may Corporal Liverwort and I be of assistance?” It was a voice of authority, of lifetimes of experience.

  “I reckon it’ll be another memory curse, Mum. Doesn’t know her name or family.”

  “Not royals, you can be sure of that,” said Liverwort.

  “That’s enough, Corporal,” said the Headmistress. She smiled at the girl, but it was a smile of formality rather than kindness. “My name is Princess Beatrice, and I am Headmistress General at Pennyroyal Academy. I know this must be quite strange for you, but there’s nothing you need fear. The reason you’re finding it so difficult to remember is that you’ve been cursed, most probably by a witch. There is no shame in that at all. Curses happen to even the most seasoned of princesses from time to time—”

  “But there’s nothing wrong with my memory.”

  Beatrice stared down at her, expressionless. “Very well, then. Give me your mother’s name.”

  “Um . . .”

  “‘Um,’ she says,” said Liverwort. “She don’t know what’s what.”

  “Young lady, quite often a memory curse leaves one completely unaware that she has even been cursed. You must trust our expertise; the Academy has the finest medical staff in all the land.”

  The girl stood silently, memories of years past flashing through her mind like fish in a river. She could remember the first tree she had ever climbed, a gnarled old beech that her sister called “the weed.” She could remember the terror in her mother’s eyes when she found her standing on the highest branch, and the words she had used to assign punishment. How could I possibly have a memory curse? Still, standing beneath the authoritative eyes of Princess Beatrice, she didn’t argue.

  “Put her on the standard treatment program,” said Beatrice, setting both Liverwort and the old woman to scribbling. “How many is this, Corporal?”

  “This one here is . . .” said Liverwort, scrambling back through her notes. “Ten before her, Headmistress.”

  “Very well, she shall be known as Cadet Eleven until our medical staff uncovers her given name. Will there be anything else?”

  “No, Princess,” said the old woman. Beatrice gave the girl, now called Cadet Eleven, a tight nod, then walked away, Liverwort trailing behind.

  “Cadet Eleven,” said the old lady, writing it onto an official parchment. “And you’ll be assigned to . . . Ironbone Company. That coach right there.” She pointed to the line of carriage coaches off to the side. Girls were already filing onto each of them.

  Cadet Eleven. I’d rather not have a name at all.

  She stepped out from the marquee and looked up at the stark, black face of Castle Marburg. She tried to picture the girl on her parchment standing before it, so full of confidence and strength. That was what she had set out to find when she ran away from home. Now, surrounded by people who looked just like the girl on the parchment, she couldn’t help feeling somehow disappointed. When she finally did find her, would she gossip and giggle and back away, too? Clearly this parchment held an answer, but she had never really been sure of the question. When first she had set eyes on it, the discovery had caused an unexpected pivot in her life, sending her off in a direction she had never before contemplated. Who was this girl on the parchment? And what role would she play in Eleven’s life? Standing in the shadow of Castle Marburg, she was faced with the possibility that the answer might not be as satisfying as she’d wished.

  I’ve come too far to stop now, she thought. And besides, where else would I go?

  She realized the courtyard had emptied considerably, so she hurried to her assigned coach. With Ironbone Company about eighty girls strong, nearly every seat was already full. The coach was abuzz with enthusiastic chatter now that the enlistees had finally bid farewell to their parents. She looked down the center aisle for
a place to sit and spied an opening on a bench about halfway back.

  “Pardon me, would it be all right if I . . .”

  The girl sitting there glanced up. Her rain-gray eyes stared back with an intensity that cowed Eleven. Her silky black hair was so dark and lustrous it went midnight blue when the sun caught it. She wore a sleek silver gown that trailed off her shoulders like stardust. There was something radiant about her, a concentrated beauty, as though the Fates had awarded her a double measure.

  “I’m sure you’ll find more options farther back,” she said. Even her voice was controlled, just loud enough to be heard and not a bit more. “I only just got this dress, you see, and I . . . well, you understand.” She flicked her eyes to Eleven’s spiderwebs.

  One of the girls in the seat behind her snickered. The other just stared with cold eyes.

  “Don’t be horrid, Kelbra,” said the girl with the black hair. “This is Kelbra—her father’s a king. That’s Sage—her father’s a king as well. And I’m Malora. And my father is also a king.” She stretched her legs across the empty seat. “And you are . . . ?”

  Kelbra giggled again. Eleven’s stomach began to simmer.

  “Over here!” called a familiar voice from the back of the coach. It was Maggie, waving enthusiastically. Eleven glowered at Malora, who stared back with eyes like dirty ice, then went up the aisle and joined Maggie.

  Demetra turned back from the bench in front of them. “Sorry about her. Some girls think being born in a tower means they’re supposed to look down on people. We’re not all like that.”

  Eleven studied Malora, laughing at a joke she had just told her friends. She was so at ease amidst all this chaos. So at ease in her own skin.

  “I never got your name back there,” said Demetra.

  “They told me I’m called Eleven.”

  “Eleven?” said Maggie, grimacing like she’d just eaten something rotten. The coach lurched forward, causing a ripple of screams followed by laughter.

  “RIGHT, ALL OF YOU, EYES FORWARD!”

  The laughter faded to confused silence. The moment hung there as the horses pulled the coach across rutted ground, no one yet sure who had spoken. It was the voice of a woman, silvery and sweet and feminine. Yet it also contained hard authority, unwilling to be ignored.

  “So this is what they’ve trotted out as Ironbone Company. My word. That should make my job easier. Most of you lot will be gone by half term and I can catch up on my reading.”

  And that was when Eleven saw her: a fairy, no bigger than a hummingbird, floating up the center aisle, a mist of shimmering dust falling from her wings. Maggie nudged Eleven and gave her an excited smile.

  “I am your Fairy Drillsergeant, and I am your new reality. There is very little chance you’ll like me and even less chance I’ll care.” As she flew closer, Eleven could just make out her features. Her hair flowed blond, and her nose and cheeks and ears were as dainty as lace. She almost looked like a princess herself, albeit a fraction of the size. “You,” she said, stopping in front of one of the highborn girls. “Why do you want to be a princess?”

  The girl’s spine was straight, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Each hair on her head was perfectly in place, and polished jewels dangled from her ears. Yet with each passing moment, her composure crumbled.

  “Urm . . .”

  “Well? You didn’t just stroll in off the street, did you? Why do you want to be a princess?” The girl wiped her brow, her hand quivering. “Come on, Cadet, this is the easiest bloody thing I’ll ask you all year!”

  “I suppose I’d like to meet my prince,” she blurted out.

  The Fairy Drillsergeant’s tiny jaw tightened like a noose.

  “Get out!” She turned to the coachman: “Stop the coach!” And back to the hapless girl: “GET OFF MY COACH!”

  As everyone looked on in astonishment, the coachman reined his team to a stop. The girl hurried down the aisle and disappeared off the coach as fast as she could go.

  “You are no longer highborn or lowborn or sidewaysborn or anything else,” said the Fairy Drillsergeant as the coach jerked forward once again. “You are third-class princess cadets. And that’s all most of you will ever be.”

  Eleven slumped a bit lower as the Fairy Drillsergeant floated by. “I am not here to make friends, ladies, I am here to make princesses. For those of you willing to work harder than you ever have in your life, I will transform you into a Princess of the Shield, sworn sister to all who have come before and all who follow . . .”

  She trailed off. Cadets began to look up in confusion. She was hovering in the aisle, staring at something in the back of the coach with an expression of utter shock.

  “Excuse me,” she said, her voice cold and even and ready to explode. “Boy. What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

  Heads began to turn. A confused murmur broke out. Eleven followed the Fairy Drillsergeant’s glare to the very last bench where, indeed, a boy casually tried to shield his face with his hand. He was thin and snub-nosed with floppy hair, and he was pretending to look out the window. The moment became so heavy he could no longer ignore it. He looked up from behind his hand, cheeks red as fire. “Sorry, were you talking to me?”

  Her face contorted into a pained grimace, as though the universe had just disappointed her yet again. “And we haven’t even left Marburg yet,” she muttered to herself.

  “Uh, my apologies, Fairy Drillsergeant,” said the boy. “This is where they told me to go . . . Your Highness.”

  Muted laughter spread through the coach. Malora dangled her arms across the back of her seat, watching with amusement.

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Basil. It’s . . . Basil. Of Witch Head Bay, near the sea.”

  “Well, Basil of Witch Head Bay near the sea, Ironbone Company is a princess company, is it not?”

  “Yes, F-fairy—”

  “And you, Basil of Witch Head Bay near the sea, are a boy, are you not?”

  “Y-yes, Fairy—”

  “THEN WHAT ARE YOU, BASIL OF WITCH HEAD BAY NEAR THE SEA, DOING IN MY PRINCESS COMPANY?”

  “My mother wanted a daughter, a princess,” he stammered, the words flooding out of him now. “But she just kept having boys. Twenty-two of us. She couldn’t bear to have more children, and I was the last, so here I am.” The Fairy Drillsergeant floated toward him with barely contained fury. “F-f-first was Balthazar, he’s my eldest brother, then Benjamin, Bartholomew, Bannington—”

  “SPARE ME YOUR FAMILY TREE, CADET!”

  Basil stopped talking, but his jaw kept moving. The Fairy Drillsergeant flew right down in front of his nose and gave him a withering look. “You’d better be a cracking princess, boy,” she said, her voice so low that only the last few rows could hear her. “Because I’ll enjoy watching you fail. And you won’t like it when I enjoy things.” She turned and floated away, showering him with the dust from her wings.

  Basil slumped over and clutched his head in his hands. Eleven sympathized with him, but she never wanted what had just happened to him to happen to her. She began to formulate a strategy in her mind: Stay quiet, keep to yourself, and do not do even the slightest thing to attract her attention.

  “You will have academic and practical training with other members of Pennyroyal staff. But all of your fieldwork is with me,” said the Fairy Drillsergeant. She glanced out the window as the coach rumbled through Marburg’s massive curtain walls and into the great, green world beyond. The horses snorted and stomped their hooves as they pulled the coach up a steep path and into a dense, dark forest. “This is the Dortchen Wild. It is the most dangerous enchanted forest in all the land. And Pennyroyal Academy sits bang in the middle. So enjoy your last breath of freedom, ladies. Because as of now, you belong to me.”

  She flew out the window and joined the coachman. Inside, silence descended l
ike snow. The excitement of enlistment was gone. The cadets became lost in their thoughts.

  Eleven stared past Maggie out the window. As the coach jostled through the forest, and the endless black-green of trees and shadows rolled past, she was overcome with an exhaustion unlike any she had felt before. And for the first time in days, she fell into a deep sleep.

  YOU MUST NEVER bow to fear . . .

  Through the mist of a gently falling rain, her eyes opened, deep and piercing green in a world of gray. She stood on the roof of a crumbling tower above a sea of trees.

  Yours are a warrior’s eyes . . .

  The voice was older, and although it had the ethereal quality of a daydream, Eleven knew it was real. She turned and found a woman standing there. She had seen this woman before, but couldn’t place where. Her thoughts seemed slower, dulled in a mist of their own. The woman stepped forward. She wore a simple tunic dress, a rich shade of purple with pale sleeves, and had the small bud of a lily in her hair.

  Your blood is the blood of Saudade . . .

  Now Eleven stepped forward. She had seen this woman before, in the vision in the dragon scale that night by the fire. But just as this realization came, a wave of coldness hit her, so intense it caught her breath. She wheeled. There, nearly twice her height, stood the faceless, hooded witch from that same vision. Her sleeves fell back as she lifted her arms, and Eleven saw her skin, slick and thin as spider’s silk. Black creeping things were pushing out from inside her, like caterpillars made of smoke trying to escape their cocoons . . .

  Eleven startled awake. She wasn’t on a tower. There was no princess, and there was no witch. There were only girls staring back at her in wary judgment.

  “All right?” said Maggie. Eleven nodded, but in truth her terror remained, like the cold droplets on her skin when she had climbed out of the river. “You’ve been asleep all afternoon. Nothing but endless trees.”

  Eleven glanced around the coach. It had all felt so real, and yet it wasn’t. How could a dream provoke such fear that it carried over into life?

  “Maggie,” she said. “Do you know a place called Saudade?”