Chosen (9781742844657)

by Morgansen, Shayla

  ‘So sweet,’ Sterling agreed whole-heartedly. Kendra ate her half of the spring roll in two quick bites and glanced subtly at Sophia’s half. Sophia picked it up and took one bite, then obligingly handed over the remainder.

  ‘How come you get the sweetheart?’ Sophia complained. Kendra swallowed the last of Addison’s spring roll.

  ‘I get the sweet boy because you love me and you don’t mind missing out from time to time if it makes me happy,’ she explained.

  ‘Oh. That’s right.’

  ‘And besides, you’ll get a sweetheart one day, too,’ Kendra promised. ‘I won’t let anything short of a perfect male near you.’

  ‘I’m going to die unmarried and childless,’ Sophia announced. ‘No such male exists, and if he does, you’ve already got him. And even if there’s another one out there, somewhere, he’s never going to bother with me if he has to get past Mom, Dad and you just to talk to me.’ Sophia glanced at me. ‘Kendra thinks that because she’s twenty minutes older, she’s in charge of me and who I see.’

  The conversation progressed steadily from there. A younger student had been called out of Sophia’s last Healing class to pack his things up and return home to his parents, the eighth person to leave. Kendra mentioned that a roommate of Addison’s had received a letter that morning from their former friend Egan, encouraging the remaining three boys in the dorm to leave the school.

  ‘They ignored it, of course,’ Kendra assured us. ‘It turns out he’s a lunatic. But that’s still a lot of people gone already just because of him and his mom.’

  The staff entered the dining hall and began packing up the buffet table. I watched as one woman pushed a trolley through the door and noticed Renatus and Emmanuelle walk in behind her, talking in low voices. Despite that he did nothing to call attention to himself, several of the girls in the hall glanced over.

  Emmanuelle looked mildly annoyed as she grabbed a plate and scooped whatever was left onto it. Renatus continued talking to her, staying close enough that he didn’t have to raise his voice. He collected no lunch, but followed her to the table. She sat down at one end and began to eat while he stood beside her, resting his hands on the table, leaning close to talk quietly.

  I looked around the hall. Of the fourteen girls still enrolled, six were openly glaring at Emmanuelle. Sterling had lowered her head so that her fringe swept into her eyes, supposedly for the dual purpose of making her look more alluring and hiding the jealous expression shining in her eyes. I saw Khalida with her two roommates sitting further up the table, whispering darkly and shooting nasty looks at the French councillor. Even my non-obsessive girlfriends would occasionally glance up to take part in passively admiring Renatus.

  At times like this I had to wonder if there was something wrong with me. Why was I the only person around who didn’t find the headmaster sexually attractive? Other sensible girls, like Hiroko and the twins, were able to observe and regard an attractive person in an entirely objective manner without becoming ridiculous like Sterling or totally disinterested like me.

  Well, it’d be wrong to say I was disinterested. But it was a different kind of interest to theirs. I enjoyed his company and I found our conversations intensely compelling.

  Last night had been a perfect example, both intense and compelling. The visions held by the ribbon had only startled me; it was the heart-wrenching grief and sorrow that followed that had ripped at me. Renatus was carrying around a great deal of repressed guilt, loneliness and self-loathing. He hated himself. He hated being him. How did he deal with that kind of self-disgust all day every day?

  And how could he be dumb enough to believe he was worth so little?

  When I returned to the office it was to tell him that he was stupid for hating himself, but thankfully I’d realised on my way that it would be rude and unfair. Feelings could not be controlled. I could not help disliking Xanthe. Renatus could not help disliking Renatus.

  I was so, so glad to have gone back. He’d said it made me “the better of us”, whatever that meant, but I was just glad because of how much had become clear and how much I now understood. Renatus had had a sister, who had died. I reminded him of her, although I couldn’t see how. Ana, like her brother, had possessed film-star good looks, and I was certain that I looked nothing like her. The picture of Ana’s tear-streaked face had stayed with me all night, clear in my mind, even as I fell asleep.

  I didn’t dream. I never dreamed anymore.

  ‘You’re so weird, Aristea,’ Sterling commented mildly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, startled out of my reflections. Sterling blinked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, apparently surprised that she was expected to provide a reason for her statement. ‘You’re just weird. You were just plucking at your buttons and it made me realise that you’re weird.’

  I looked down at my front. In my unfocussed state I had indeed been playing absently with the buttons of my blouse. Sterling decided to elaborate.

  ‘You run a brush through your hair twice like you couldn’t care less, and I don’t think you could, and you don’t bother with makeup, and you don’t wear jewellery…And that’s you. You’re minimalist and it’s usually like you don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks.’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘But then, in the morning, you spend fifteen minutes trying to decide what you’ll wear, and you always end up in an outfit that looks like you’re heading to a job interview, and then you spend all day fidgeting and looking uncomfortable. It’s just weird.’

  Her words echoed in my head. She was right. These weren’t my outfits. This wasn’t my style. It wasn’t in my nature to worry about how I looked. From the moment I’d realised I was coming here I’d had this idea that I needed to prove myself, and that I wasn’t good enough as I was. I’d been trying to be perfect. I’d been trying to be Angela.

  But Qasim hadn’t picked Angela. He’d picked me. The White Elm had accepted me into the Academy as I was, weird and untidy me. They didn’t care how I dressed.

  ‘I’m going to be right back,’ I told the girls, getting to my feet and hurrying from the hall.

  Here I was, so insecure about my own self-worth that I’d spent six weeks trying to emulate my big sister, and I’d had the nerve to attack Renatus last night about self-esteem issues when I was so obviously a walking bundle of them.

  I let myself into my dorm and pulled my clothes off, feeling freer with each neatly pressed item that came away.

  ‘Bear with me, Ange,’ I murmured vaguely, stuffing the blouse into a drawer. I dug through the clothes stored there until I came across a tight black t-shirt with rows of silver stars across the front. I’d found it on sale when shopping with Angela two years ago, and she’d allowed me to bring it here for weekend wear.

  And I’d been dying to get back into my favourite purple tartan skirt, which had “accidentally” found its way into my bags…

  I slowly redressed, feeling a little disloyal to Angela as I chose clothes she didn’t like. The feeling quickly passed though. She wanted me to have the best chance of being chosen as an apprentice, and she’d sent me here with what she thought would help. Presentation is key, she’d said, and I’d agreed at the time. If this was a normal university application process, then dressing like Angela would be the ideal starting point. However, no councillor on the White Elm was going to choose a girl without an identity.

  I admired my handiwork in the bathroom mirror. The cropped jacket and stockings were a decent compromise, I assured my conscience, which had Angela’s voice. The look worked. It was cute and unique. This was the real Aristea.

  I was going to return to my friends but noticed with a distinct sense of embarrassment the state of my part of the room. I was such a mess. If I wasn’t going to wear what my sister picked out for me, I might as well do what she’d be nagging me to do right now.

  It took nearly an hour before my bed was made and my junk was back where it belonged. Granted, I didn’t h
urry. I glanced through Anouk’s book; reread that random page about apprenticeships within the White Elm, but nothing stood out to me. When I was done I wandered quietly down the hallways and took note of the expensive-looking paintings and tapestries hanging everywhere. I’d noticed before how recent everything seemed to be for such an old estate, but today I allowed myself to wonder what this place had looked like prior to 1999 and 2000, which seemed to be the top contenders for Year of Most Morrissey House Artwork Award. Were the walls just bare before then?

  I might have just told myself, yes, the walls were bare before then, except that right then I noticed a discolouration to the wallpaper. Was it a trick of the light, or was there a distinctly brighter panel of paper directly below the frame of one of the paintings? I stood back to better observe. Yes, definitely, it was there. I moved on to the next picture and noticed the same thing, except this time it was either side of the frame. When I shifted a tapestry aside, I found a discoloured square beneath it.

  For every painting and tapestry hanging in this hallway at least, and maybe in the whole mansion, there had once been another. Someone (and I could guess who) had replaced every single one. I pressed my fingertips against the wall, wishing I could tap into its secrets like I had Khalida’s stupid lip gloss. What had hung here in the nineties and before, and why had Renatus felt the need to replace it all?

  I was nearing the staircase now and heard the vestiges of an adult conversation I was, no doubt, not meant to hear.

  ‘My first choice would be to keep it here.’

  Emmanuelle’s voice and classical accent were impossible to mistaken.

  ‘Here isn’t really ideal. He let Lisandro go free – what does that tell you?’ Susannah was harder to place, but I got it after a second. I backed up to a distance that seemed far enough away that I wouldn’t be able to hear, but I couldn’t un-attune myself from the exchange.

  ‘Do you think ‘e can’t ‘ear you, in ‘is own ‘ome?’ Emmanuelle asked scornfully. ‘For your information, I offered it to ‘im already. ‘e doesn’t want it. He suggested I pass it to someone else to throw Lisandro off the trail. Teresa ‘as a fantastic idea. Tell ‘er, Teresa.’

  I strained to hear as Teresa spoke for the first time. Her voice was softer and weaker than the other two councillors.

  ‘It mightn’t work,’ she protested. ‘I’m not sure I have the skills…’

  ‘That is rubbish,’ Emmanuelle cut her off. ‘You ‘ave exactly the skills.’

  I imagined that she had shoved past her colleagues to ascend the remaining stairs and exit the stairwell, because suddenly I could see her, and she could see me. I smiled what I hoped was an innocent smile and pretended to go back to admiring the tapestry in front of me. Naturally, it was the most boring piece of art in the whole mansion, so I was thankful when all three sorceresses continued up the stairs without approaching me and noticing that I was staring at a huge red blanket.

  The girls were sitting at the table where I’d left them, but they hadn’t been there the whole time, apparently. Both Sterling and Xanthe were sporting new hairstyles.

  ‘Nice look. Suits you way better. What have you got tomorrow?’ Sterling asked me as I sat down. Both twins had just refused her offer of a free haircut. ‘I’ve got the first lesson free.’

  ‘No you don’t, we’ve got two hours of shame with your favourite toy boy,’ I answered, not looking forward to Aubrey’s lesson, but glad because now Sterling couldn’t chop my hair off. Admittedly, Xanthe’s bob looked really good, but I was still nervous about the prospect of an eccentric teenage witch going to town on my hair.

  ‘What about Hiroko? What does she have on tomorrow?’

  ‘Uh.’ I frantically thought of a good excuse to save Hiroko’s beautiful, satiny hair. ‘She’s trying to grow her hair out.’

  Sterling looked put-out, and made sure to make a comment about trims being healthy for growth when Hiroko did turn up. I caught my friend’s eye deliberately and ensured she saw me shake my head the tiniest bit.

  ‘It was, um, just cut the day before when I came here,’ she said diplomatically as she sat down.

  ‘Nice save,’ I whispered as she settled into her seat beside me. In a more reasonable volume, I asked, ‘How was Elijah’s lesson of hell?’

  ‘It went well. You are not enjoying Displacement?’

  ‘It’s not enjoying me, either,’ I responded, but she didn’t really understand, so I clarified. ‘No. I hate it. I’m really bad at it.’

  ‘Perhaps we can help each other,’ she suggested, sounding very hesitant.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘On weekends and in our spare times, perhaps I can help you with Displacement, and other times, you can help me with making wards?’ Hiroko asked, blushing lightly. ‘I cannot make any wards yet.’

  I was surprised, because Hiroko seemed like such a studious, clever person. In our classes together, we were rather evenly matched. There were a few fields in which my friends excelled and I found challenging, but I’d not really considered that some people found difficult the things that came naturally to me.

  ‘That would be great,’ I said, pleased with her idea.

  ‘Once you have done it some times, it becomes much easier,’ Hiroko assured me while she fiddled with a piece of clumsily folded paper. ‘When you can…When…’ She clicked her fingers a few times, trying to remember the right word. She gave up. ‘When you know what you must look for, it becomes easy.’

  ‘I’ll help you with your wards, but you should know that I am incapable of displacement,’ I informed her.

  ‘That’s silly,’ she disagreed. ‘Everyone can learn. I will help to teach you.’ She paused, looking around. ‘Do you…Shall we practise now?’ she asked, pushing her chair back slightly. I nodded, suddenly eager.

  ‘Yeah, let’s find somewhere,’ I agreed, standing.

  ‘But you only just got back!’ Sterling complained when she noticed us leaving already. ‘I have a lesson soon but I could probably do something with your ends before then.’

  I protectively tugged on the ends of my long hair.

  ‘Lots of study to do,’ I apologised, following Hiroko from the hall. We headed for the stairs automatically, and I nodded in the direction of her hand and the scrunched paper she held. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It is from Garrett,’ she said, and her eyes brightened with amusement as she twirled it between her fingers.

  ‘Garrett? As in, Addison’s friend, Garrett?’ I asked, interested, examining the paper shape in her hand. ‘The very shy one?’

  Hiroko nodded and started up the stairs, and her step suddenly lightened.

  ‘I think it should be a crane,’ she said, holding the gift up so we could both admire it.

  I squinted at the object, and could see that it had once been a lined page from an exercise book. The shape had been constructed from a series of folds, many of which I could see had been attempted several times, leaving extra creases.

  I guessed that this was Garrett’s first attempt at origami.

  ‘We went outside the gates to practise today,’ she told me, her eyes sparkling. ‘Elijah talked about the intuition of displacement. We came back inside for a theoretical lesson. Garrett did not sit with me, but when the lesson was concluded, he walked past my desk and dropped this. He did not say anything.’ She smiled affectionately at the crane, or whatever it was. ‘I think perhaps he assumes I must enjoy origami because I am Japanese. I do not mind. It is very funny.’

  ‘It’s very cute,’ I agreed. ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  Hiroko shook her head.

  ‘He never speaks to me. I wish he would, because I do not know what he means by giving me this crane. Perhaps he wishes we could be friends?’

  ‘Or?’ I said, and we both smirked.

  ‘We will see,’ she said. Her tone was carefree, but I could tell that she was flattered by Garrett’s attention and was hoping that it would con
tinue.

  We found an empty classroom and shut ourselves in. It was unlikely that we would be disturbed, as everyone else should be enjoying their break between midday and afternoon classes. The room’s furniture had been pushed against the walls, as if someone had known we would come here and need the space, and the wooden floor was covered in a number of ornate old rugs, as if someone had known that I would be falling over a lot.

  ‘So, what do I do?’ I asked, looking around. Hiroko looked stumped.

  ‘I am not sure how to explain,’ she admitted. She pointed to a ruby-red carpet overlapping the edge of the brown-and-beige one we stood on. ‘You must know where you want to be, and you must cease to be here,’ she pointed at the floor beneath her feet, ‘and just be there.’

  She turned as though to walk over to the other rug, two metres away, but she arrived there within one step, having completely avoided the space between.

  ‘That’s amazing!’ I said, realising that I’d never seen this done before by anyone but Elijah and once by Addison. To see such a trick performed by a friend made it so much more real. She smiled, pleased.

  ‘You see, it is not so difficult,’ she said. ‘It is only difficult to explain. You must identify the space you are in, and identify the space you wish to be in, and then…’ She paused as she considered how to phrase the next part. ‘You must then bring the two spaces together so you may step between them.’

  I blinked, confused. How could I possibly move space? Hiroko walked over so that she was standing opposite me, and placed a hand on the side of my face, which seemed weird until she said, ‘I will show you how it feels to displace.’

  I let my guard down mentally so that she could bring me into her mind, like we’d been starting to learn in Glen’s class. It was entirely non-obtrusive. I was soon aware of both my thoughts and hers, although I couldn’t understand much more than vague impressions from hers.