Firespell

by Хлоя Нейл

  “Great,” I muttered. “That’s great. Just one more thing I don’t need to worry about right now.

  But before we figure out how to sneak into Foley’s office and drop off a student file without her knowing it was gone, can I see it, please?”

  “No.”

  That silenced me for a moment. “Excuse me?”

  “No.” Scout stopped her pacing and glanced over at me. “I really don’t think looking through this is going to help you. If there’s anything weird in here—about your parents, for example,

  since Foley likes to discuss them—it’s just going to give you things to obsess over. Things to worry about.”

  “And it’s better if only Veronica and M.K. have that information?”

  Silence.

  “Good point,” Scout finally said, then handed it over. “You read. I’ll plot.”

  My hands shaking, I flipped it open. My picture was stapled on the inside left, a shot of me from my sophomore year at Sagamore North, my hair a punky bob of black. On the inside right was an information sheet, which I skimmed—all basic stuff. A handful of documents was stapled behind the information sheet. Health and immunization records. A letter from the board of trustees about my admission.

  The final document was different—a letter on cream-colored stock, addressed to Foley.

  “Oh, my God,” I said as I reviewed it, my vision dimming at the edges again as the world seemed to contract around me.

  “Lily? What is it?”

  “There’s a letter. ‘Marceline,’ ” I read aloud, “ ‘as you know, the members of the board of trustees have agreed to admit Lily to St. Sophia’s. We believe your school is the best choice for the remainder of Lily’s high school education. As such, we trust that you will see to her education with the same vigor that you show to your other students.’ ”

  “So far so good,” Scout said.

  “There’s more. ‘We hope,’ ” I continued, “ ‘ that you’ll be circumspect in regard to any information you provide to Lily regarding our work, regardless of your opinion of it.’ It’s signed,

  ‘Yours very truly, Mark and Susan Parker.’ ”

  “Your parents?” Scout quietly asked.

  I nodded.

  “That’s not so bad, Lil—she’s just asking Foley not to worry you or whatever about their trip—”

  “Scout, my parents told me they were philosophy professors at Hartnett College. In Sagamore.

  In New York. But in this letter, they tell Foley not to talk to me about theirwork ? And that’s not all.” I flipped the folder outward so that she could see the letter, the paper, the logo.

  “They wrote the letter on Sterling Research Foundation letterhead.”

  Scout’s eyes widened. She took the folder from my hand and ran a finger over the raised SRF logo. “SRF? That’s the building down the street. The place that does the medical research. What are the odds?”

  “Medical research,” I repeated. “How close is that to genetic research?”

  “That’s what Foley said your parents did, right?”

  I nodded, the edge of my lip worried between my teeth. “And not what they told me they did.

  They lied to me, Scout.”

  Scout sat down on the bed beside me and put a hand on my knee. “Maybe they didn’t really lie,

  Lil. Maybe they just didn’t tell you the entire truth.”

  The entire truth.

  Sixteen years of life, of what I’d believed my life to be, and I didn’t even know the basic facts of my parents’ careers. “If they didn’t tell me the entire truth about their jobs,” I quietly said, “what else didn’t they tell me?” For a moment, I considered whipping out my cell phone, dialing their number, and yelling out my frustration, demanding to know what was going on and why they’d lied. And if they hadn’t lied exactly, if they’d only omitted parts of their lives, why they hadn’t told me everything.

  But that conversation was going to be a big one. I had to calm down, get myself together, before that phone call. And that’s when it dawned on me—for the first time—that there might be huge reasons,scary reasons, why they hadn’t come clean.

  Maybe this wasn’t about keeping information from me. Maybe they hadn’t told me because the truth, somehow, was dangerous. Since I’d now seen an entirely new side to the world, that idea didn’t seem as far-fetched as it might have a year ago.

  No, I decided, this wasn’t something I could rush. I had to know more before I confronted them.

  “I’m sorry, Lil,” Scout finally said into the silence. “What can I do?”

  I gave the question two seconds of deliberation. “You can get me into Foley’s office.”

  Fourteen minutes later—after the brat pack had left the common suite for parts unknown—we were on our way to the administrative wing. The folder was tucked into Scout’s messenger bag,

  my heart pounding as we tried to look nonchalant on our way through the study hall and back into the main building. We had two missions—first and foremost, we had to put the folder back.

  If Foley found it missing, she’d only consider one likely source—me. I really wanted to avoid that conversation.

  Second, since my parents’ letter assumed Foley already knew about their research—and apparently didn’t like it—I was guessing there was more information on the Sterling Research Foundation, or on my parents, in her office. We’d see what we could find.

  Of course, it was just after dinner—and only a few minutes before the beginnings of study hall —so there was a chance Foley was still around. If she was, we were going to make a run for it.

  But if she was gone, we were going to sneak inside and figure out what more we could learn about the life of Lily Parker.

  17

  Choir practice gave us an excuse to walk through the Great Hall and toward the main building,

  even as other girls deposited books and laptops on study tables and set about their required two hours of studying. Of course, when we got to the main building, the story had to change.

  “Just taking an architectural tour,” Scout explained with a smile as we passed two would- be choir girls. She blew out a breath that puffed out her cheeks after they passed, then pulled me toward the hallway to the administrative wing.

  I wasn’t sure if I was happy or not to discover that the administrative wing was quiet and mostly dark. That meant we had a clear path to Foley’s office, and no excuse to avoid the breaking and entering—other than the getting-caught-and-being-severely-punished problem, of course.

  “If you don’t take the folder back,” Scout said, as if sensing my fear, “we have to give it back to the brat pack. Or we have to come clean to Foley, and that means making even more of an enemy of the brat packers. And frankly, Lil, I’m full up on enemies right now.”

  It was the exhaustion in her voice that solidified my bravery. “Let’s do it before I lose my nerve.”

  She nodded, and we skulked down the wing, bodies pressed as closely against the wall as we could manage. In retrospect, it was probably not the least conspicuous way to get down the hall,

  but what did we know?

  We made it to Foley’s office, found no light beneath the wooden door. Scout knocked, the sound muffled by timely thunder. After a few seconds, when no one answered, she rolled her shoulders,

  put a hand on the doorknob, and turned.

  The door clicked, and opened.

  We both stood in the hallway for a minute.

  “Way easier than I thought that was going to be,” she whispered, then snuck a peak inside.

  “Empty,” she said, then pushed open the door.

  After a last glance behind me to ensure the hallway was empty, I followed her in, then pulled the door carefully shut behind us.

  Foley’s office was dark. Scout rustled around in her messenger bag, then pulled out a flashlight,

  which she flipped on. She cast the light around the room.

  The top of Foley’s desk was emp
ty. There weren’t any file cabinets in the room, just a bookshelf and a couple of leather chairs with those big brass tacks in the upholstery. Scout moved to the other side of Foley’s desk and began pulling open drawers.

  “Rubber bands,” she announced, then pushed the drawer closed and opened another. “Paper clips and staples.” She closed that one, then moved the lefthand side of the desk and opened a drawer. “Pens and pencils. Jeez, this lady has a lot of office supplies.” She closed, then opened,

  another. “Envelopes and stationery.” She closed the last one and stood straight again. “That’s it for the desk, and there’re no other drawers in here.”

  That wasn’t entirely accurate. “I bet there are drawers behind the secret panel.”

  “What secret panel?” she asked.

  I moved to the bookshelf I’d seen Foley walk out of, pushed aside a few books, and knocked.

  The resulting sound was hollow. Echoey. “It’s a pivoting bookshelf, just like in a B- rated horror flick. The panel was open when Foley called me out of class. She closed it again after she came out, but I’m not sure how.”

  Scout trained her flashlight on the bookshelves. “In the movies, you pull a book and the sliding door opens.”

  “Surely it’s not that easy.”

  “I said the same thing about the door. Let’s see if our luck holds.” Scout tugged on a leather-

  bound copy ofThe Picture of Dorian Gray . . . and jumped backward and out of the way as one side of the bookshelf began to pivot toward us. When the panel was open halfway, it stopped,

  giving us a space wide enough to walk through.

  “Well-done, Parker.”

  “I have my moments,” I told her. “Light it up.”

  My heart was thudding as Scout directed the beam of the flashlight into the space the sliding panel had revealed.

  It was a storage room.

  “Wow,” Scout muttered. “That was anticlimactic.”

  It was a small, limestone space, just big enough to fit two rows of facing metal file cabinets. I took the flashlight from Scout’s hand and moved inside. The cabinets bore alphabetical index labels.

  First things first, I thought. “Come hold this,” I told her, extending the flashlight. As she directed it at the cabinets, I skimmed the first row, then the second, until I got to theP s. I pulled open the cabinet—no lock, thankfully—and slid my folder in between PARK and PATTERSON.

  Some of the tightness in my chest eased when I closed the door again, part of our mission accomplished. But then I glanced around the room. There was a little too much in here not to explore.

  “Keep an eye on the door,” I said.

  “Go for it, Sherlock,” Scout said, then turned her back on me, and let me get to work.

  I put my hands on my hips and surveyed the room. There hadn’t been any other PARKER folders in the file drawer, which meant that my parents didn’t have files of their own—at least not under their own names.

  “Maybe our luck will hold one more time,” I thought, and tucked the flashlight beneath my chin.

  I checked theS drawer, then thumbed through STACK, STANHOPE, and STEBBINS.

  STERLING, R. F., read the next file.

  “Clever,” I muttered, “but not clever enough.” I pulled out the file and opened it. A single envelope was inside.

  I wet my lips, my hands suddenly shaking, lay the file on the top of the folders in the open drawer, and lifted the envelope.

  “What did you find?”

  “There’s a Sterling file,” I said. “And there’s an envelope in it.” It was cream-colored, the flap unsealed, but tucked in. The outside of the envelope bore a St. Sophia’s RECEIVED BY stamp with a date on it: SEPTEMBER 21.

  “Feet, don’t fail me now,” I whispered for bravery, then lifted the flap and pulled out a trifolded piece of white paper. I unfolded it, the SRF seal at the top of the page, but not embossed. This was a copy of a letter.

  And attached to the copy was a sticky note with my father’s handwriting on it.

  Marceline,

  I know we don’t see eye to eye, but this will help you understand. —M.P.

  M.P. My father’s initials.

  My hands suddenly shaking, I lifted the note to reveal the text of the letter beneath. It was short,

  and it was addressed to my father: Mark,

  Per our discussions regarding your daughter, we agree that it would be unwise for her to accompany you to Germany or for you to inform her about the precise nature of your work.

  Doing so would put you all in danger. That you are taking a sabbatical, hardly a lie, should be the extent of her understanding of your current situation. We also agree that St. Sophia’s is the best place for Lily to reside in your absence. She will be properly cared for there. We will inform Marceline accordingly.

  The signature was just a first name—William.

  That was it.

  The proof of my parents’ lies.

  About their jobs.

  About their trip.

  About whatever they’d gotten involved in, whatever had given the Sterling Research Foundation the ability to pass down dictates about my parents’ relationship with me.

  “They lied, Scout,” I finally said, hands shaking—with fear and anger—as I stared down at the letter. “They lied about all of it. The school. The jobs. They probably aren’t even in Germany.

  God only knows where they are now.”

  And what else had they lied about? Each visit I made to the college? To their offices? Each time I met their colleagues? Every department cocktail party I’d spied on from the second-floor staircase at our house in Sagamore, professors—or so I’d assumed—milling about below with drinks in hand?

  It was all fake—all a show, a production, to fool someone.

  But who? Me? Someone else?

  I picked up the envelope again and glanced at the RECEIVED BY mark.

  The puzzle pieces fell into place.

  “When was the twenty-first?” I asked Scout.

  “What?”

  “The twenty-first. September twenty-first. When was that?”

  “Um, today’s the twenty-fifth, so last Friday?”

  “That’s the day Foley received the envelope,” I said, holding it up. “Foley got a copy of this letter the day I got hit by the firespell. The daybefore I went into the hospital, the day before she came to the hospital room to tell me she was wrong about my parents. That I was right about their research. There’s probably a letter in here to her, too,” I quietly added, as I glanced around the room.

  “Foley told you about the genetic research when you came to her office,” Scout concluded.

  “Then she got the letter and realized she really wasn’t supposed to tell you. That’s why she dropped by the hospital. That’s why she changed her tune.”

  I dropped my gaze back down to the letter and swore out a series of curses that should have blistered Scout’s ears. “Can anyone around here tell me the truth? Can anyonenot have, like,

  sixty-five secret motives?”

  “Oh, my God, Lily.”

  It took me a moment to realize she’d called my name, and to snap my gaze her way. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted in shock. I thought we’d been caught, or that someone—something—

  was behind us, and my heart stuttered in response.

  “What?” I asked, so carefully, so quietly.

  Her eyes widened even farther, if that was possible. “You don’t see that?” She flailed her hands in the air and struggled to get out words. “This!” she finally exclaimed. “Look around you, Lily.

  The lights are on.”

  I looked down at the flashlight in her hands. “I’m having a crisis here, Scout, and you’re talking to me about turning on a light?”

  I could see the frustration in her face, in the clench of her hands. “I didn’t turn on the light,

  Lily.”

  “So what?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “The lig
ht is on, but I didn’t turn on the light, and there’s only one other person in the room.”

  I lifted my head, raising my gaze to the milk-glass light shade that hung above our heads. It glowed a brilliant white, but the light seemed to brighten and fade as I stared at it—da dum, da dum, da dum—as if the bulb had a heartbeat.

  The pulse was hypnotic, and the light seemed to brighten the longer I stared at it, but the rhythm didn’t change. Da dum. Da dum. Da dum.

  “Think about your parents,” Scout said, and I tore my gaze away from the light to stare at her.

  “What?”

  “I need you to do this for me. Without questions. Just do it.”

  I swallowed, but nodded.

  “Think about your parents,” she said. “How they lied to you. How they showed you a completely false life, false careers. How they have some relationship with Sterling that’s going on around us, above our heads, that gives the SRF some kind of control over your parents’ actions, what they say, how they act toward you.”

  The anger, the betrayal, burned, my throat aching with emotion as I tried to stifle tears.

  “Now look,” Scout said softly, then slowly raised her gaze to the light above us.

  It glowed brighter, and the pulse had quickened.Da dum. Da dum. Da dum.

  It was faster now, like a heart under stress.

  Myheart.

  “Oh, my God,” I said, and the light pulsed brighter, faster, as my fear grew.

  “Yeah,” Scout said. “It’s strong emotion, I think. You get freaked out, and the light goes on.

  You get more freaked out, and the light gets brighter. You saw it kind of dims and brightens?”

  “It’s my heartbeat,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, turning for the door, “I guess you have a little magic, after all.”

  She glanced back and grinned. “Twist!”

  In no mood for study hall, we found a quiet corner of the main building—far from the administrative wing and its treasonous folders—and camped out until it was over. We didn’t talk much. I sat cross-legged on the floor, my back against cold limestone, eyes on the mosaic- tiled ceiling above me. Thinking. Contemplating. Repeating one word, over and over and over again.