Hawthorn Academy: Year Three

by D. R. Perry

"I am Miss Petra's fiancé," Andre added.

  "Please hold."

  A bland tune in major key played softly.

  "Miss Elanor Pierce, Mr. Andre Gauthier. Miss Petra is in the lounge."

  "What about my brother?"

  "Your visit time with your aunt matches the remaining time in his evaluation."

  They walked directly toward a stretch of wall between two planters, as though it were a door. They passed through. I tried following, hand outstretched, but my fingers met wood.

  "Glamour," Bubbe said.

  "How? Nobody's out here."

  "Brownies." She jerked her chin at the planters. "This place is fae-run."

  "Whoa." I blinked, then thought of Logan. They'd said he was still in eval. I wondered, did that mean Leo was here with him? Were decisions being made, long-term ones, at this very moment?

  Yes. You need to act now.

  Short of threatening mass murder by lighting up brownies, I couldn't think of a way in.

  "Bubbe, what do we do?"

  "First, tell me about this deal with Andre."

  I did. And what we'd overheard about the conservatorship.

  "Then we need to get in there immediately."

  "That's what I've been saying. But how?"

  "Brownies follow rules, but they use intellect to interpret them. Letting Andre in means there's wiggle room on their interpretation of family." She tapped her temple. "Convince them."

  "Oh!"

  Don't get me wrong. It wasn’t like I forgot about having mind magic. I had the worst teacher, so I wasn't sure when to try using it. Mr. Fairbanks had turned my training to his advantage. Professor Hawkins wasn't sure how it worked or what to do with it, but my education wasn't limited to either of them, thank goodness.

  I thought back to Professor Luciano. He always told us to trust the process of our magic.

  When in doubt, call on it and see what happens.

  With all the vulnerable patients around, even behind wards, that was a risk I almost didn't take. However, professors weren't my only teachers. I was captain of the Bishop's Row team, bound for college on a scholarship because of my skill. Mind magic was like any other energy. Conjurable.

  I held my hands up and together, focused on bringing my third magic forward.

  I failed.

  Fire bloomed between my palms instead. I banished it and tried again. Light took its place, and I shook my head. The third time, I felt with my fingers that it worked although I couldn't see any hint of an orb. Mind energy was more difficult to see than Faith's undeath.

  "What do I do with it?"

  Glancing from the space between my hands to the stretch of wall between the planters, I stood stumped.

  Throwing an orb, even one made from mind magic, was a direct attack on the caretakers here. From what I'd observed, the brownie staff operated with care and kindness. It wasn't their fault that some people were here under coercion from malicious family members. They didn't deserve aggression from me and acting out like this might only support Leo Pierce's arguments that his son wasn't safer with his chosen family.

  I needed to focus the energy, not aim and fire it. So I had no choice but to banish the orb.

  In your bag.

  The ear cuffs.

  I fished them out and put them on, wincing at the pinching they made in my rush. A chuckle at the irony of this situation bubbled up from my throat. Was I using my shackles to help set someone else free? Yes. Yes, I was.

  Approaching one of the planters put me beside the wall, which I realized at once was made up of brownies. I beckoned to Bubbe, who joined me. We held hands. Then, I rested my palm on the surface in front of me, remembering all the years I'd spent getting to know Logan.

  Bubbe came along memory lane with me, which had more than one unintended effect. She saw me at my worst in a few of them. Then she added in some of hers. Together, we made a kaleidoscope of experience, projected through the connection the ear cuffs made between the brownies and my magic.

  Logan in the Hawthorn lobby, taking my breath away the first time I saw him. How he set fear of his family aside and saved Doris. The calm comfort he offered through our first year when I feared discovery as an extramagus. His face under the sodium lamp that night in Salem, trusting me when he had nowhere else to go. Bubbe signing below his signature on a paper at Salem District Court, and the handshake that became a hug.

  The kindness he offered to every guest in second year. His brilliance in the classroom and in Lab. How he never left my side, even through the horror of Temperance and Luciano's death. Kindness and comfort, given to strangers at Bubbe's practice. Interceding to save Cadence, which was how he ended up here in the first place.

  "Curious. That's not what his father said."

  I opened my eyes with some small amount of difficulty. My lashes were laden with tears, but I saw clearly enough through them to realize I wasn't in the lobby of Danvers Sanitarium anymore.

  "You did it, Aliyah." Bubbe gestured at a long table, where Logan sat beside Leo at a bench staring at a pen, a folder open in front of him.

  "We." I shook my head. "Including him. All of that, what I showed them, came from his choices."

  Logan didn't look up, like the fellow I'd tried interacting with when I'd first arrived there. As though he couldn't hear or see us.

  "I thought we'd get to, you know, visit with him," I said to nobody in particular.

  "As recent family, this is what we can do," the voice said.

  "Perhaps it'd make a difference if he could see us here." Bubbe raised an eyebrow.

  "Done."

  The light changed, warmed somehow. Leo noticed us. Logan still didn't look up.

  "Don't you see now? All those rules, everything I did. It's because I knew you couldn't manage on your own."

  "I'm still top of the class, Dad." He turned his head to look at his father. "I did that all by myself."

  "Academics are only more rules. When something goes wrong, who's going to bail you out?"

  "Aliyah always rescues me." He swallowed, tears rolling down his cheek. "She loves me, Dad. More than you do, I think."

  "Come home, and if you do everything as I say, you'll always have a roof over your head." He didn't even glance in our direction but picked the pen up and placed it in Logan's hand. "Sign it. That girl's not here for you now, when it counts."

  The voice sounded in sing-song. "Falsehood detected."

  "I meant to say, where is she now?"

  Logan turned his head. Leo held up his hand as if he'd slap him. Instead, he cupped it, trying to stop him from seeing us. With his other hand, Leo held his son's wrist, guiding it toward the paper.

  “Just sign it.”

  I held my hands out, pressed them against the same sort of invisible barrier that held me back.

  "Logan!" I screamed his name, making fists and pounding on the wards. Sparks flew with each beat. "Don't sign!"

  Finally, he saw me and his face lit up, as though he could conjure solar magic behind his eyes. He dropped the pen.

  "No, Dad." He grinned and conjured water that flowed over the contract, washing away ink and soaking through the paper. "Never."

  “Evaluation complete. Outpatient therapy recommended.”

  He rushed to us and embraced Bubbe briefly first, then me. He stood between us, one arm around my waist. Leo stood and glowered.

  "I'm out too, Leo." Petra strode through another ward on the other side of the room, Andre and Elanor behind her.

  "What? How?" Mr. Pierce's face went an alarming shade of red.

  "It's right here in your contract." Andre chuckled and produced an almost identical paper, this one with yellowed edges. "I did my research. Release form's only valid if a blood relative signs it."

  "Elanor?" He drew the name out, raising his voice as he spoke, making the end sound like a roar.

  "Yeah. Aunt Petra's a free woman. You're a monster."

  "You want a monster?" His hands blazed. "I'll show you a monst
er."

  Leo Pierce conjured an inferno. This time, it was more than double the size of the one I'd banished years ago in Lab, and Ember was back at Hawthorn, on her nest.

  I immediately started banishing. So did Elanor, and Fifi who rose from her shoulder. It felt like standing in front of Mr. Ambersmith's blast furnace. I even smelled hair burning. Logan and Petra conjured water, trying to extinguish what we couldn't banish. Bubbe put her hand on my shoulder, lending me strength. Andre did the same for Elanor. It wouldn't be enough.

  Mr. Pierce was almost godlike in his magic, beyond imagining. Logan told me once that his entrance music on stage was Walking on the Sun. I'd thought it bluster, but I’d been wrong. His fire burned so hot it was blue, a color I'd never seen from my hands or anyone else's.

  The ear cuffs gave me a single advantage. Banishing an element someone else conjured was almost like touching them. So I knew his intentions.

  Leo Pierce would burn the entire sanitarium down before seeing his sister and son walk out of it under their power. He almost got his way.

  Blue drowned out red, but white was brighter.

  Bubbe pointed at Leo and flashed light in his eyes. His flames faltered and guttered. A vine-like length of charred wood rose from the table, splintered and dripping a clear sap. It reared back like a striking serpent and punctured his arm. When he lifted his hands to cast again, it was like on the boat when Crow had that knife. His hands remained empty, his magic subdued.

  "Confinement in the aggression ward, stat." The voice stated, much more calmly than expected in a recently burning place made of and run by creatures of wood.

  "Oranges. Barcode. Theramin," Bubbe said. Her knees buckled. A bench moved under her as she collapsed, her right arm curling against her chest.

  "Calling Emergency Extrahuman Services, Law Enforcement."

  In moments, we found ourselves out on the steps, where sirens sounded nearby. People piled out of the ambulance, surrounding Bubbe and hustling her onto a gurney. I tried getting in, but they stopped me. Behind us, police cars pulled up in front of the sanitarium. Elanor ushered us toward the backseat of the restored hearse, where we sat and waited as Andre chased the ambulance.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Instead of shaking, crying, or even screaming, I reacted with numbness. Was this how an ice magus felt? I wondered as I woke my phone and called my parents. Logan put his arms around me, weeping as I told Mom where we'd been, what had happened, and where we were going.

  Salem Hospital's emergency room saw Bubbe immediately, while the rest of us waited. Mom and Dad walked through the door. Noah arrived later, through the stairwell to the basement. A nurse came and brought my father through a set of double doors. My phone beeped with a message from Izzy.

  I'm sorry, she sent. And immediately after, the three of swords reversed.

  I couldn't text back. She must have done a reading and seen that card, one of the worst in the deck. But the message explained a lot about her argument with Bubbe in the parking garage. I couldn't blame Izzy for what happened. Nobody stopped Mildred Morgenstern when she had her mind set on something. Not even an inauspicious reading from the most talented precognitive family in Salem.

  Dad emerged from the double doors. He gathered Mom, me, Noah, and Logan, then took us aside.

  "I'm sorry." Logan stared at the floor.

  "Nobody here blames you." Dad patted his shoulder. "Bubbe's had a stroke, but they got her here in time. Doc says she's six points on THRIVE."

  "Um, can you explain that, Dad?" Noah blinked back tears. "Not a medical person here."

  "It means she'll have a good outcome after recovery and therapy, but it'll take time and a lot of work. Her life might be a little different even after that." He reached out and tried to put his arms around us all. We crowded in, faces all covered with tears. Logan stood still between my mom and me, shaking.

  "Hey." I rubbed his back. "Hey. What's wrong?"

  "She wouldn't be in there if it wasn't for—"

  "Your father." Mom looked up and wiped her eyes. "If he'd left you in the infirmary as he was supposed to, everything would have been fine. You can't blame yourself. Bubbe made sure I didn't when I was your age. Her advice is timeless. Let's honor it. Now, tell us what happened."

  Logan's mouth dropped open. He looked from her to me, then at Dad and Noah. Everybody nodded.

  "Nurse Smith gave me Valium last night. It wore off in his car, in the sanitarium parking lot. I was bleeding." He held up one bandage-covered forearm. "The brownies asked me a lot of questions about Doris, how I felt, asking if I still wanted to hurt myself. Dad kept insisting I wasn't safe at Hawthorn. He said he saw me try to cut my wrists in the infirmary. I almost believed him, too. Then he lied about you. Said you wouldn't come because you don't care about me. I knew that was wrong. Well, you heard all that. You were there."

  "We called Nurse Smith," Dad said. "He cared for Dorian just fine last year, and you were getting the same treatment. So we knew he had everything under control."

  "Right." Elanor cleared her throat. "I called the infirmary, too. You were on Ms. Khan's schedule and everything. Then Dad happened because he's a malicious son of a bitch."

  "Language." Mom raised an eyebrow. "But yes. He hasn't stopped trying to sabotage Logan over the last two years. You just didn't see the paperwork." She shook her head, then gazed at Logan. "Did you sign anything while at Danvers Sanitarium?"

  "No, Mrs. Morgenstern." He shook his head. "He had papers and kept pushing a pen at me. Bubbe and Aliyah got there before I did."

  "Well, that's a blessing." She sighed. "Where are the documents now?"

  "Burned up when he went nuclear," Elanor said.

  "What?" Mom's eyes widened.

  "Ask Aunt Petra."

  We turned toward the seat where she sat holding hands with Andre. She resembled Logan, with the same hair and the eyes that escaped meeting gazes. While Logan reminded me of the ocean, Petra put me in mind of the time we vacationed at Niagara-on-the-Lake. We sat as each of us explained our part in the whole incident. When we finished, everyone took a few moments to process it all.

  "Excuse me." Dad rose. "I'm telling all of this to Bubbe's doctors. Any information about how it happened can only help them."

  Andre followed, but only to get a cup of water from the cooler in the waiting area. He popped what looked like a Tylenol capsule in his mouth and washed it down before pacing back over. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  "So, my dad did the same thing to you?" Logan asked.

  "Not him." Petra shook her head. "Our father. But that's probably where he got the idea for a conservatorship."

  "Why?"

  "You hear them too, right?" She grinned. "The animals. All of them. I used to do a translation act. One night, I couldn't stand it. I told them how the creatures in the menagerie really felt and spoke their misery. They brought me to Danvers and made me sign."

  "So how come you weren't at their compound in Vegas?"

  "I refused to leave the Sanitarium. As you saw, it's a kind sort of place. I might have been behind walls, but I was free of them." She glanced up at Andre. "I wasn't as forgotten as I'd feared."

  "Please excuse my unacceptable tardiness." He bowed and held out his hand. She took it.

  "We'll see." She squeezed his hand. "But I think you're in the clear."

  The hospital admitted Bubbe and gave us information about visiting hours. Nurse Smith arrived to bring Logan directly back to the infirmary. Noah and Elanor headed back to their apartment through the tunnel. Mom and Dad drove me back to campus.

  As we walked out of Salem Hospital, my phone beeped with a message from Grace. Only while checking it did I realize that the cafeteria at school hadn't finished serving lunch yet. Time moved strangely in a crisis.

  Police at school. Make statement, meet me in our room.

  Logan headed downstairs to the infirmary. I sat with the representative from Salem PD in the lounge corner that had been cordoned off
with a fancy velvet rope.

  "This is the second time in as many days that you're giving a statement, Morgenstern." Detective Ambersmith raised an eyebrow. "Should I be concerned for your safety?"

  "No, ma'am." I shook my head. "I'm more worried about my friends. It's Mr. Fairbanks. He's dangerous."

  "With good reason, I should say." She glanced down at the statement she'd copied. "I never liked the idea of those trustees being here. If it had all gone down on campus, I'd call the school board and ask for a shutdown and full inquiry."

  "Well, it didn't, but we have exams starting Monday and—"

  "Aliyah." She blinked. "You always took school seriously. I remember you trying to do Noah's homework back when I used to be your babysitter, but this is ridiculous. I'm talking about life and death here, and you're thinking of grades."

  "No, I'm not. There's still a—"

  "It's because you're an extramagus." She sighed and nodded. "You think you're tough enough. I get it. So, help me protect your friends. What's the risk at Hawthorn? For real."

  "Like I said. Lavinia Onassis gave Crow that knife. Leo Pierce was a time bomb. The knife's gone, and Leo went off at the Sanitarium. Hawthorn Academy runs on space magic, which should have made the headmaster aware. But he wasn't. So Abe Fairbanks must be helping them hide everything with mind magic."

  "Leo's staying where he is pending arraignment. You don't have to worry about him at school. Mr. Merlini's waiting on a lawyer, which is his right, so accusations against Mrs. Onassis are hearsay until we know more. Is there anyone else on campus who's a threat?"

  "I told you already." I blinked. I'd said the man's name twice.

  "No. You didn't."

  "I'm trying to tell you. They have a ringleader."

  "Go on."

  "Mr. Fairbanks. He's still dangerous."

  She moved her pen over the statement form, but it didn't make contact. I stared, unable to believe what I was seeing. How could a seasoned detective be unaware of not taking notes? I glanced up and looked toward the lobby entrance, where Andre Gauthier had returned. His eyes fixed on a point to my left. He tensed for a moment, then relaxed and walked in the opposite direction, toward the dorms. Detective Ambersmith cleared her throat.