“Well, go get changed, then,” Mr. Wallis said. “You’ll be in time for the second half of the class.”
I do not,” Spirit said, as she and Muirin headed for the Girl’s Locker Room.
“Do, too,” Muirin said. “I’ve spent enough time in your closet to know your sizes. I picked one up from Housekeeping yesterday and stashed it in the locker room this morning.”
“I hope it’s still there, in that case,” Spirit muttered, because nobody had a permanent locker in the Gymnasium. They were just there for whichever class was using the gym to leave their school clothes while they worked out.
“You have to learn to trust me,” Muirin said irrepressibly. “And I bet you’re gonna like hitting things, too. I’m never wrong about stuff like that, you know.”
Actually, after the last two weeks, Spirit thought Muirin might be right.
FIVE
He’d always been a survivor. Last man standing. Everybody always said fast food would kill you, but it wasn’t fast food that’d killed Seth Morris’s parents, it’d been a crazy Realtor depressed over the housing market who opened fire in the Micky D’s. Like that would change anything.
He hadn’t even wanted to go, because Dad had been out of work for a year and a half and all he and Mom did (back then) was argue about money. Seth didn’t even like Micky D’s, and he knew that Dad would order too much food and then complain about how much it cost until Mom started snapping back at him.
Helluva last memory to have of your folks, Seth thought. He remembered seeing the ice and Coke from his drink hanging in the air, sparkling, even before he heard the sound of the first shot. He’d thrown himself to the floor and gone squirming across it on his belly, so tunnel-focused on getting behind the order counter to safety that he hadn’t thought about anything else.
There’d been eighteen people in the place when the shooter opened up. Twelve of them died, including his parents. Seth Morris had been the only one who wasn’t even wounded.
And that had been almost two years ago, and for a long time after he’d gotten to Oakhurst it had just been a relief that everybody wasn’t yelling all the time. There were a lot of rules, but Seth had always been good at getting around the rules. And when there was a place like this that was rolling in velvet (like Dad would’ve said), nobody was going to notice if he boosted a few things and traded them off. By the time he’d been at Oakhurst a year, he’d had a sweet arrangement going with the kids in Radial. Everything from clothes and magazines to downloaded MP3s went out, and anything Oakhurst didn’t want them to have came in: extra chocolate, extra soda, mail that hadn’t been censored . . .
The handoff place was an old boxcar out in the middle of nowhere, about halfway between Oakhurst and Radial. There were a bunch of them scattered all over the place out here; the locals used them to store feed hay in for the cows stranded in the winter blizzards. They were never all the way full. He’d leave his stuff when he could, and go back when he could and pick up what the townies left. He’d never gotten burned, and he’d never actually worried about it. Hey, it wasn’t like he was playing with his own money.
But in the words of Master Yoda: “It’s all good until somebody loses an eye.”
No deal was sweet enough to risk your ass for.
He hadn’t been sure at first. He still wasn’t entirely sure. Even at a school full of magicians, the idea that people really were trying to kill you because you did magic was just too weird. He was uneasy enough about it now, though, that he’d decided leaving Oakhurst was a really good idea. It would be a lot easier to hide what he was when he wasn’t sitting in the middle of nowhere surrounded by other people with targets taped to their backs.
It would be nice if he had one of the bigger, flashier Mage Gifts. But even a minor Earth Gift meant he’d always know when magic was around him. And this way might be safer. Nobody’d ever actually said so outright, but Seth suspected that the more power you had, the easier it was for Them to find you.
He stopped, looking back at the school. The whole place was still lit up. He was too smart to wait until after curfew to leave, or to go too early. Half an hour before curfew, if nobody saw him in the lounge or the library they’d just figure he was in his room. And if he wasn’t in any of the online chatrooms, people’d figure he’d either turned in early, or was even (shock) studying. They wouldn’t miss him until morning. He figured he could make it to Radial tonight—it was about ten miles, a long hike, and a cold one, but possible—and find some truck to hide in the back of. Once he was far enough away from Radial, it’d be safe to hitchhike until he got to a big city. And then—?
He didn’t know.
Better than here, though.
An hour later, Seth was most of the way to the boxcar. It was a good thing he was a Pathfinder: there was no moon tonight and he wasn’t stupid enough to use his flashlight out here. But having Pathfinder Gift meant you couldn’t get lost: he could find his way to any place he’d ever been—and for that matter, to any place he’d never been. And that was a good thing, because he’d never actually been to Radial. Being sure where he was going didn’t keep it from being creepy out here, though. Seth had grown up in San Francisco’s East Bay; he was a city kid, and all this open country without a shopping mall or a freeway or a skate park anywhere in sight was just unnatural. He’d never even seen snow until he’d come to Oakhurst, and it had been great—for the first month. Then it was depressing: too cold, too white, and too much of it. Then it was a stone drag and he wished it would go away. Which it hadn’t, not for another three months.
It was too quiet out here, and too loud, both at the same time. He stopped, thinking he’d heard voices, but it was only something howling off in the distance. Wolves or coyotes, whatever they had out here. He stuffed his hands deeper into his blazer pockets and kept walking. He had a coat stashed for his getaway, but it was at the boxcar; he hadn’t dared leave tonight looking as if he was going anywhere, in case somebody saw him. He’d be there soon. Another hour, tops. It was almost eleven, and once—before Oakhurst, back when he’d still had parents—that wouldn’t have seemed late, but being out here where streetlights (and streets) were an optional extra made it seem like it was a thousand o’clock already.
He stopped again, because the wolves (he was pretty sure now it was wolves) were making a lot of noise. Brendan, who could talk to animals (and who couldn’t be convinced that didn’t mean all the little fuzzy creatures loved him) said that wolves howled either before or after a hunt, and usually at twilight or when the moon was full. Brendan was a dork, but he was a nice dork, and he’d come to Oakhurst about the same time Seth had, and he’d tutored Seth on his English Comp for the last two years, so Seth knew a lot about wolves by now.
Whatever was howling out here tonight, it wasn’t wolves.
He stood for what seemed like far too long, listening, as the chorus of wolf (not-wolf) howls crescendoed and died away. The silence seemed to echo afterward. And in it, faintly . . .
He heard the sound of engines. What the—Were the local rednecks doing some kind of creepy night-hunting? Or was someone missing, so they sent out the sheriff’s department with bloodhounds?
Seth didn’t wait to hear more. He took off for the boxcar at a lope, just hoping he remembered the ground well enough and there was nothing that would trip him. If the ground was smooth he was sure he could reach the boxcar before the drivers of the vehicles saw him—he was on the Oakhurst Track Team; he had both speed and stamina. For now, he’d just hope they weren’t heading right this way. He’d get to the boxcar, duck inside, hide out for an hour or two . . .
But a few seconds later he had to admit that the crawling feeling between his shoulder blades wasn’t fear, but magic, and the sound of the engines was louder. And there was something very wrong with the sound.
He remembered his first day at Oakhurst, the first time he ever saw Doctor Ambrosius, when Old Doc A. told him the world was filled with good witches and bad witches, just li
ke The Wizard of Oz, and back then Seth had figured Doc A. had been playing too much D&D in his spare time.
Later Seth had decided the Doc was speaking from personal experience.
That the Doc wasn’t training all of them out of pure unselfishness, but because someday they might need to fight the evil magicians. And Seth hadn’t wanted to be drafted to fight in somebody else’s war the way his grampa had. As the months passed, he’d kept his eyes open, put a few things together, and figured out that Doctor Ambrosius’s war wasn’t something that was going to happen “someday.” It was something going on right now, and the people involved—at least the ones on the Other Side—didn’t have any intention of letting anybody just sit on the sidelines.
Oakhurst should have been safe. But Seth didn’t think it was. He thought one of the enemies Doctor Ambrosius knew about had found it and gotten inside, secretly. He thought that whoever it was, they were making sure that when Doctor Ambrosius decided it was time to take on Emperor Palpatine and the Sith Lords, there weren’t going to be any Jedi Knights left.
His breath rasped in his throat as he ran; the night air was dry enough to burn. The motor noises were louder now. Not just one engine, but too many to count. They were coming closer, but he still didn’t see any sign of headlights, and that was just crazy. There weren’t any roads along here—he was heading on a straight “crow flies” path from Oakhurst to Radial, and both the county road and the railway line were south of here (at least until the tracks swung north onto the Oakhurst campus)—but the engine sounds were to the north of him. When he’d just been learning his magic, Seth had trained with maps of the area. There wasn’t anything to the north except miles of open range. Rocky open range. Even if whoever was out here was driving off-road vehicles and trusting to night-sight gear instead of headlights to show them where to go, they had a better than even chance of busting an axle.
Except they weren’t using night-sight gear. Seth knew that. The magic he could feel was strong enough to make his skin crawl. He could see the boxcar up ahead, a dark shadow against the sky.
Almost there. Almost safe. He put on a final burst of speed.
And suddenly the boxcar was lit in a dazzling wash of brilliance as his pursuers turned on their headlights all in unison.
And Seth Morris realized that he’d run out of time.
Spirit bounced into the Refectory with just minutes to spare, but Addie, Cadence, and Camilla were holding her a seat. There weren’t assigned seats in the Refectory—you could sit in a different place for every meal if you liked—but certain groups of kids just tended to sit together, like her and Muirin and Addie and Cadence and Camilla. And the boys, of course.
In any other school Spirit could imagine, Burke would be going around with his football hero nose in the air, refusing to even notice ordinary mortals. And while Oakhurst technically had a football team (two of them really, since they never played against any other schools) and Burke was on it (Burke was on all the Oakhurst sports teams), and Burke was its star player, he was as far from being dazzled by his own wonderfulness as it was possible to be. In fact, he and Loch had quickly become best friends, although Loch was the star of the Oakhurst chess team and had only taken up fencing because he’d done it at one of his other schools. Addie had talked him into adding swimming to his list of sports; they liked it here if you had what most places would call “a lot of extracurricular activities.” There really wasn’t much else to do.
Despite her early misgivings, Spirit had found herself settling in to life at Oakhurst. Burke was sweet, and Loch had a sly sense of humor once he got to know you. And Seth and Brendan and Nicholas were all kind of nice, although Nick was tongue-tied to the point of total silence except with Camilla, and Brendan seemed to believe absolutely everything anybody told him, no matter how ridiculous. Muirin (of course) teased Nick until he practically choked and told Brendan the most outrageous lies as if they were absolute fact, but Spirit was pretty sure that Muirin had a kind of thing for Seth, even though both of them would probably have died rather than admit it. So if Spirit thought that sometimes Seth’s sense of humor crossed the line into rudeness or even cruelty, she kept her opinions to herself. She didn’t think Muirin had that many friends.
Spirit slid into her seat and kicked her book bag under it. You could leave the Refectory early enough to go back to your room to get your books for your morning classes, but she preferred to save herself the hike. She reached for her juice glass.
“Where’s Muirin?” she asked, looking around.
Addie shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since last night. You know Muirin.”
Burke laughed. “You mean, you never know Muirin. She’ll probably stroll in here just before—”
The doors burst open. Muirin stood between them, out of breath, her face flushed. “He’s gone!” she yelled, her voice breaking on the second word. “Seth! He’s gone!”
Pandemonium inevitably erupted. Mr. Gail and Mr. Bowman came out of nowhere, seized Muirin by the elbows, and hustled her out of the Refectory before she could say anything else.
The others at Muirin’s usual table stared at each other over their plates, speechless. The room had erupted with speculation, students chattering so loudly it would have been impossible to speak, anyway.
And that was when Ms. Corby walked in, just as dramatically as Muirin had. Silence immediately fell. She looked around the room through narrowed eyes.
“Doctor Ambrosius wishes you to remain calm, finish your meals, and proceed to your classes in an orderly fashion,” she said, in tones that made it very clear that This Was An Order. “There will be no speculation regarding Mr. Morris until we have determined precisely what has occurred. If Doctor Ambrosius deems it necessary at that time, you will proceed to your rooms in an orderly fashion and remain there until you are released. Is this understood?”
One of the proctors stood up, somehow managing to do so subserviently. “Yes, Ms. Corby.”
He sat down. Ms. Corby cast her gaze over them again. Spirit tried not to squirm. “Very good. Breakfast will end at the usual time. That is all.”
She swept out, but the silence remained.
Halfway through First Period, the word came that they were all to go to their rooms. Spirit went back to her room like everyone else, but no sooner had Spirit closed the door of her room than she got the bird-chirp of an IM. Although the school had forbidden “speculation,” they’d forgotten to shut down the e-mail and Instant Message system. She ran over to her computer and opened IM.
ADDIE4: WTFs going on?!?!?!?!?
SPIRIT: Idunno!!!11!!
Brendan pinged her.
BRENDAN9: S ws out last nite, didn com back. M say NEthing?
SPIRIT: Not 2 me.
She kept repeating what Brendan had told her to everyone who pinged her until Addie opened up a chatroom for everyone to join. There were fifty people in it and the number was climbing when she finally saw Muirin’s icon flashing in her taskbar.
SPIRIT: ??? ??? ?
IMTOXIC: Double plus ungood
Of all the people Spirit knew here, Muirin was the only one besides her who not only had read 1984, but used terms from it. And the only reason she would be using that phrase now had to be because she was warning Spirit that “Big Brother was watching.” The first day Spirit had arrived at Oakhurst, Muirin had warned her that they monitored everyone’s computer use. So Spirit replied in kind.
SPIRIT: Dept of Hist B sez S wnt out, didn come back
IMTOXIC: MG sez S ran away. We have always been at war with Eastasia
Spirit considered that for a moment. “Mr. Gail says Seth ran away.” The fact that Muirin had phrased it just that way—followed by more 1984—told Spirit that whatever Mr. Gail thought, Muirin thought it was a cover story. She’d have to wait to talk to Muirin in person to find out what she thought.
SPIRIT: Wut naow cops?
IMTOXIC: Probly Y we’re N jail.
Spirit fidgeted; she had the feeling,
no, the certainty, that there were a hundred things Muirin couldn’t tell her over IM. Unfortunately . . . they were all going to have to wait.
About ten minutes after that, someone in Admin—or maybe one of the proctors—bought a clue and figured out everyone was on IM, so the whole intraweb was shut down: no IM, no e-mail, no access to the online libraries. Spirit didn’t think the cops would want to talk to her; she didn’t really know Seth and she was new in the school. Meanwhile, she might as well take the chance to curl up with her music downloads and a good dead-tree book.
In theory, anyway. In practice, she kept thinking about how Muirin had looked at breakfast: upset, almost in a panic. Would she be that upset if Seth really had just run away?
It was almost noon before the intraweb came back up again. Her in-box icon was flashing and beeping, which meant a priority e-mail from the Administration. Two of them, actually. The first one simply said that they were all now free to leave their rooms. They were to proceed to the Refectory for lunch as usual, then go on with their regular afternoon schedules.
The second one was about Seth. It was short and to the point, and if any of them still had parents, Spirit thought wistfully, it would probably have gotten the school a few brusque phone calls once it got forwarded.
Dear Students: As you are aware, as of this morning, Seth Morris has left Oakhurst Academy. We regret to inform you that Mr. Morris has elected to pursue opportunities elsewhere. We know that you will share our regret in his unfortunate life choices and will learn from this experience. Regards, The Staff of Oakhurst Academy
Spirit stared at the e-mail incredulously. “Unfortunate life choices”? “Pursue opportunities elsewhere”? They made it sound like he’d quit some middle management job to go into rehab. “Learn from this experience”? She sure would. She’d learn that if anybody here had ever seen a real live teenager before they’d taken their shiny new jobs, she’d eat her entire new wardrobe.
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