The school’s coat of arms had been on the front of the folder, and it was on the cover of the booklet, too, only here it was in color. It was pretty fancy. Spirit bit her lip, thinking of the rude things Phoenix would have said about it. Phoenix had adored every dumb movie about King Arthur and Camelot to come along, from The Sword in the Stone to First Knight to A Knight’s Tale.
On top of the shield there was a bear’s head on a plate, which was weird just to start with. On one side of the shield was a gold upside-down cup, and on the other was a broken silver sword. She frowned. The design was decidedly unsettling. On the shield itself, which was mostly red, there was a broad white stripe going from the top right to the bottom left, and on top of that was an oak tree (for Oakhurst, she guessed) in bright green and brown. Only when she looked more closely, there was a gold snake coiled in the branches. Maybe it all made more sense if you were English. She turned the page quickly. More pictures of the manor house. It was huge. And unless they’d Photoshopped the heck out of it, there wasn’t a chip in the stone or a blade of grass out of place.
She paid no attention to the text . . . it was just a bunch of stuff about the guy who’d built the place back in the early 1900s. Instead she stared at the glossy photographs. They looked like a set for one of the Harry Potter movies, not like anything Spirit could imagine being actually real. There was the “Great Hall,” done up in the kind of grand Art Deco scheme she remembered from visiting the Empire State Building in New York City once. There was a “refectory”—which looked pretty much like a dining room, with white linen tablecloths and enormous chandeliers; a library—which could have been pulled right out of another of those fake British Stately Homes; and a couple of pictures of classrooms. It looked as if there were school uniforms. Spirit frowned. She thought she was going to get pretty tired of brown and gold before she was done with this place, though. She turned the page quickly, intending to skip the rest of the boring stuff (if this was an orphanage, who was this supposed to impress?) but something caught her eye.
“Oakhurst residents will be encouraged to explore information technology in our state-of-the-art facility in order to prepare themselves for the challenges of the future.” Spirit knew computers, so she frankly stared at the full-page spread on the computer lab, because the descriptions of what was available for the students’ use was mouth-watering. The whole school had WiFi, and its own servers, and the servers ran on a T1 line to the outside world—a full-duplex circuit transmitting 1.544 megabytes per second concurrently. Uploads, downloads, and net-surfing would take place at the speed of light. And the brochure said that each arriving student was “issued” their own laptop. She turned the page. There were photos of a tennis court and an Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool. And there were riding stables! A gymnasium! An exercise room with more equipment than an athletic club! Each picture just made her stare harder. Finally she looked up at Loch.
“What—?”
“I keep thinking it can’t be real either, but . . . this is the school’s own Rolls.” Loch shrugged. “And I can’t think of any reason they’d want to fool us. I can’t touch a penny of my trust fund until I’m twenty-one, and, uh, it’s not like I’m anyone important. All Father’s stock and everything just got bought back by the partnership and the money was put into the trust. And neither of us has any place else to go anymore.”
She’d thought she was cried out by this time. But that reminder of why she was on her way to this place was enough to crack Spirit open all over again. To her dismay, her eyes brimmed up and spilled over, and when she tried to catch her breath, she heard herself give a long shuddering sob. Loch looked helpless as he handed her the box of tissues set into the armrest next to her.
“I . . .” Loch gulped. “I’m sorry, Spirit . . .”
She struggled to get control of herself, and Loch kept talking, stumbling through a long rambling explanation of how he’d ended up here in the back of this limousine with her because he was obviously mortified at having made her cry.
“I don’t . . . I mean, my father and I never really got along. I hardly knew him. He was always off on business trips, or working, and my mother died when I was a baby. If Father could have gotten one of his assistants to take me for that interview at Albany Academy he would have, but they said he had to be there, so when the hotel caught fire and he didn’t get out, it was . . .”
Loch finally ran down, like a music box running down, his last sentence unfinished. Spirit got control of herself and wiped her eyes and her sore nose. She thought she remembered seeing that hotel fire on the news. It couldn’t have happened more than a week ago. Sixty people had died. “How . . . How did you get out?” she asked.
Loch shrugged. “We were in separate rooms. He wanted it that way. I guess he had . . . woman-plans. I went out the window. I free-climb, I do parkour. I never even thought about going out the door.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, he was my father and I should feel something but . . . I know more about Tom Cruise than I know about my own father.”
Spirit nodded numbly. In a way, she wished it had been the same for her. It wouldn’t have hurt so badly.
“I wish I’d had a family like yours,” Loch said forlornly. “At least . . . at least I’d have something to miss. I’ve just got . . . nothing.”
He might have said more, except the limousine started to slow, and then took the airport exit. When it entered the airport itself it turned off into what was obviously the private aviation side of the airport. Loch glanced out the window. “I guess there’s no direct flight from anywhere to Oakhurst. They sent me a ticket to here from Albany, and the lawyer-dude put me on the plane yesterday.”
The limousine pulled up beside a private hanger and the chauffeur came around and opened the doors for them. As Spirit got out, she saw that a couple of men in bright blue jumpsuits were loading what she recognized as her suitcases into a private jet. She blinked at it as Loch got out, just a little relieved to see that it didn’t have the same school insignia on it. Suddenly Spirit had the feeling that her entire life had just started a fast downhill run that she had absolutely no control over.
“Master Spears, Miss White, the plane is ready for you to board. If you would please be so good as to follow me?” the chauffeur said discreetly.
With a lump in her throat and a matching one in her stomach, Spirit followed the chauffeur over to the steps, and then climbed them into the cabin and tried not to gawk at the luxurious interior. She might just as well have been dropped into a book. Spirit White, whose parents kept their cars running until they couldn’t be repaired anymore, whose house had been filled with furniture her parents had gotten at garage sales and estate auctions and refinished in the garage, who’d learned how to sew so she could finally have clothing her mom didn’t get at Walmart or Goodwill, did not belong in a private jet that looked like it was owned by Donald Trump!
But Loch just glanced around as if this was all familiar to him, chose a seat, and buckled himself into it. “This should be pretty fast,” he said quietly, as Spirit fumbled with her own seat belt. “Four hours, maybe, with the routing around commercial airspace. This is a Lear.”
“Okay,” Spirit replied, as someone outside put up the stairs with a heavy thud. Immediately the jet’s engines began to whine up to speed. It turned in place and taxied to the runway, and before she could ask Loch anything more, suddenly the thing was hurtling down the runway at a speed that pressed her back into her seat. She hardly had time to begin to feel terror at the speed of the tiny thing when it hurtled upward at an angle so steep that she clutched the armrests of her seat and shut her eyes convulsively.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw Loch leaning forward and looking out the tiny window. She forced herself to do the same. The ground seemed impossibly far away, and the plane was still climbing. Loch was saying something.
“What?” she asked, turning back to look at him.
“I said, Lear jets can cruise at about eight miles up
,” he repeated. “That’s probably where we’ll level off.”
She couldn’t tell if it was eight miles or not, but when the jet did ease into level flight, she couldn’t even see any roads or buildings on the ground below. She was about to ask Loch if he traveled like this all the time, when suddenly the flatscreen mounted in the front bulkhead came to life. It showed a cool-looking woman, a brunette in a red suit, with an expensive haircut. Was anything associated with Oakhurst not expensive? She had a professional TV-newscaster smile.
“Welcome to Oakhurst Academy,” the woman said, in a cool clear voice that made her seem even more like a TV announcer. It gave Spirit the sharp scary feeling that she’d somehow wandered into a movie version of Real Life. “And if you had not wondered before this, by this point it has certainly occurred to you to wonder why you are here, and why you have never heard of us before this. Certainly you must be curious about the reasons your parents had for arranging for Oakhurst to become your guardian.”
“Well, duh,” Spirit muttered, that anger starting to smolder in her again, resentment pushing out the fear.
“The reason is simple. You are a Legacy.”
A what? Spirit thought, but Loch clearly understood what that meant, since he stifled a gasp of surprise.
“What this means is that your parents, one or both of them, were also raised at Oakhurst. You might already be aware of that fact. If so, you have some idea of what Oakhurst will be like. But if you were not told, then all this is new information for you. And at this moment, I’m sure you’re thinking that they had been remarkably vague about why they had no brothers or sisters, why you had no grandparents.” Spirit’s resentment grew hotter: this woman, whoever she was, looked unbearably smug to her. “We won’t even begin to try to guess why your parent or parents kept this information from you. Perhaps it was a form of rebellion against what they felt was an extremely privileged upbringing. Whatever the cause, we at Oakhurst feel rather proprietary about our graduates. They might sever all ties with us, but we take our guardianship seriously, and keep careful track of their lives. Once they have children of their own, we contact them a single time, to arrange that, should the unthinkable happen, we will assume responsibility for their offspring. I am pleased to say this offer has never been rejected.”
Oh you are, are you? Spirit wanted to smack the expression right off Ms. TV Personality’s recorded face.
“We have no false modesty. Oakhurst graduates are the best of the best. They have the finest educations, and they are of excellent stock. Their children are no less.” Not just smug, but arrogant, Spirit decided. “You will be given the same education and opportunities. No matter what they become, an Oakhurst alumnus is born to lead.”
The television went blank again. Spirit stole a look at Loch. His expression was very thoughtful.
“Well,” he finally said. “That explains a lot.”
Spirit swallowed. She only wished she could agree.
TWO
Four hours was a long time to spend in a small space with just one other person. It was long enough for Spirit to decide that she liked Loch a lot. Sure, Loch obviously came from money, but it didn’t seem to have turned him into a spoiled brat. She found out that he’d been bounced around a bunch of private schools, but it wasn’t because he got into trouble, it was because for a while he was bullied a lot, and at the kind of schools he’d been going to, it was easier to take the kid being bullied out of the dorms and send him for a series of “counseling” sessions that accomplished exactly nothing rather than to blame anybody for anything. Each time that started, Loch’s father would yank him out of the school and find another one, and nothing really changed.
“It finally stopped when one of the physical culture teachers started teaching me parkour, and free-running, and free-climbing.” Loch smiled shyly. “I couldn’t fight back, but if they couldn’t catch me, they couldn’t hit me, and after a while there wasn’t anyone who could catch me.”
That was the second time Loch had used those terms, and Spirit knew she knew them from somewhere. Then she got it. A documentary about a bunch of guys who did things—for fun—that would give Spider-Man a run for his money. “Like in Jump London?” she asked. Loch nodded vigorously, looking pleased that she knew.
Once they started really talking, time passed faster for her than it had in months. There was a small pantry at one end of the plane—there was even a sink! Loch got thirsty and went to prowl through it, coming back with sodas and a covered (not wrapped) platter of sandwiches, and another platter of fruit and fancy cookies. Spirit nibbled absently while they talked, and Loch inhaled the food like every other guy she’d known. By the time the plane started descending, they pretty much had the major details of each other’s life stories. And she decided that aside from the money and the family thing, the two of them were a lot alike. They liked a lot of the same books, same music, same shows—disliked the same kinds of people and attitudes. And for most of the flight she’d been able to not think about having lost Mom and Dad and Phoenix.
She’d never particularly wondered about what Montana looked like, but as the plane descended, she quickly realized that she’d been wrong to think Indiana was the butt-end of the universe. This was the butt-end of the universe! No cities. No towns. At least, not until they got a whole lot lower, and then there was a little bit of a town that looked like it had a main street and maybe four cross streets and that was it. Finally she heard a hum and a thump that must have been the landing gear descending. There still wasn’t much outside the windows but miles of Empty.
The plane touched down so softly Spirit didn’t even feel it at first, she only saw that there was tarmac on either side. Then the engines reversed, throwing them both forward against their seat belts, and the plane was rolling in a big circle, and coming to a stop, and now there was something outside the windows. A line of hangars, and in the distance the tiny town she’d glimpsed from the air. Loch said that this was only a little county airport. Spirit couldn’t make up her mind whether to be glad that he was answering her questions before she asked them, or cross that he knew she didn’t know these things.
Waiting as the plane rolled to a stop was a huge chocolate-colored SUV and another driver in a uniform. The SUV had the same gold-leafed coat of arms on it that the limousine had and the words Oakhurst Academy on the side.
The pilot walked back out of the cockpit. Spirit realized in surprise that they hadn’t heard the woman say anything during the entire flight. The woman walked back to the hatch and opened it, then lowered the stairs for them, still without saying anything. As Spirit walked carefully down the steps—this was actually the first time she’d been up and down a flight of steps since the accident—she saw that a man in green coveralls was already taking their baggage out of the luggage compartment of the jet and stowing it in the back of the SUV. It was chillier in Montana in September than it was in Indiana, and Spirit wished she had a sweater on.
“Master Spears,” said the driver of the SUV, nodding to Loch. “Miss White. Do you need any assistance getting in?”
From here the SUV looked so big it ought to have its own zip code, but Loch was already jumping in, so Spirit shook her head and hauled herself up into it. Inside it was just as plush as the limousine had been, and in the same colors.
She’d thought they’d just be driving to the school, but apparently not. They drove for about half an hour while Spirit looked out the window and tried not to feel like an extra in a Western, until they reached the outskirts of the little town. There was a normal, modern-looking train platform and ticket office on one side of the wide set of tracks—there must have been four sets of them laid side by side—but the SUV drove across the tracks to the other side, where there was a little Victorian-looking platform. The wooden sign hanging over it said “Terry,” and Spirit wondered if all the train stations here had girl’s names.
“We’re taking the train,” Loch said in delight.
“Yes, Master Spea
rs,” the driver said without turning around. “It will be here in just a few moments.”
“Oakdale was originally a private house,” Loch said, seeing Spirit’s look of bafflement. “It belonged to an old-time railroad tycoon named Arthur Tyniger, and he had a private railway line built that went right to his door. This is Terry—as in town of Terry—where you can get the school’s private car hooked onto a regular train.”
“I can’t imagine why I’d want to do that,” Spirit said. The words came out more sarcastically than she’d really intended, and Loch looked hurt.
“Winters here get pretty . . . wintery,” Loch said. “I guess it’s a lot easier to take the train than it is to fight your way through snow for hours.”
Less than five minutes later, their train pulled up. Despite what the train station looked like, the engine and single car that eased into the station were Amtrak-modern.
The driver of the SUV had waited on the platform with them, and as soon as the car’s doors opened, he gestured to them to step inside. Spirit thought it was just creepy to have adults waiting on her like she was some kind of princess or something, but Loch didn’t seem to think it was all that weird. She could see that somebody had stepped out of the door at the far end of the car and was coming to collect their suitcases. Loch had two—a big one and a little one—and they looked just like hers. After a moment Spirit realized why. He would have lost everything in the hotel fire. It looked like Oakhurst had just sent him a new wardrobe rather than having him send for his clothes from home. She supposed that made sense, if there was a school uniform, but what if he’d wanted to bring his personal things?
Shadow grail 1 Page 2