The School of Nine

by Amanda Marin

  He stops short, startled by my reluctance. “It’ll be fine—don’t worry,” he protests, shaking his head as if confused by my reaction.

  I open my mouth to argue again. To tell him we should just call it off and go back to bed. But the sound of approaching footsteps in the hall make me choke on my words.

  “I fear we’ve been ignoring the signs for too long, Evangelina,” says a voice, calm but firm. It’s Ms. Applegate. “We’ve known this day would come for a while now.”

  “Gloria expressed the same concern to me the other day,” Headmistress Fothergill replies, “and I agree with you both. It’s impossible to deny these events are connected now. It was easier to overlook before, when it was simply a matter of lower enrollment at Brightling, less creative advertising, and repetitive entertainment—the same types of songs and movies over and over again. But it’s hard to deny now, with the more traditional fine arts under attack as well.”

  Their words grow louder, more distinct—as does the shuffling of their slippers on tile as they walk through the corridors, doing their final check of the building before turning in for the night. In a moment, they’ll find Sebastian and me, standing here, just a few paces from the auditorium. My pulse thunders as wildly as the storm outside.

  “We have to hide,” I whisper to Sebastian—a real whisper this time, not the false veil of secrecy in our tones from before.

  Stuffing my cell phone into the pocket of my sweatshirt, I loop my arm through his, pulling him deeper into the shadows, around the corner and out of their path. We huddle together, crouched behind the trophy case that dominates this section of the hallway—the array of plaques, ribbons, and statuettes commemorating the achievements of Brightling students long graduated. Chorale championships. Dance competitions. Art shows. My mom’s name is probably inscribed on something in there—my grandma’s, too. But I don’t risk looking. I can’t. We’ll be seen. So we wait. As long as Ms. Applegate and the headmistress don’t turn down this corridor, they’ll never spot us.

  “There was the theft of the Laffitte, and now the attack on Brambleton. What do you think will be next?” Ms. Applegate asks the headmistress as they pass.

  “I believe the claim that ‘songbirds will cease to sing’ follows,” is the response. “The omens so far have been described in abstract terms, so I assume it’s a reference to human singers, not actual songbirds. Maybe a choir—or an opera troupe, perhaps …?”

  “That would make sense. We should keep our guard up. The events seem to be taking place closer and closer to Brightling … You don’t suppose our girls are in danger at all, do you?”

  I picture Headmistress Fothergill bringing her hand to her heart and rubbing her eyes behind the sharp angles of her cat glasses. “I sincerely hope not, Felicity,” she replies. The strain in her tone is unmistakable. It’s the voice of a woman speaking about her nightmares. “I’ll do everything in my power to protect Brightling Academy and its students.”

  “As will I.”

  “I’ll consult with the Board of Nine in the morning. They will be able to offer further guidance.”

  As their voices trail off again—a sign of them moving on, down another hallway, where they’ll discuss more worries—I can barely breathe. My lungs seem trapped beneath my rib cage, just like the trophies behind glass beside me, unmoving and hard.

  “Bianca …” Sebastian’s voice is soft. Eerie. Tentative. As if he’s not quite sure he’s saying my name right.

  “Something terrible is happening, isn’t it?” I whisper, looking up into his face. “And we’re not safe from it, even here?”

  He shakes his head, and his hand finds mine in the dark. He entwines our fingers like the ivy that clings to the side of the building by the garden. His touch sends a shockwave through my system. A sharp electric jolt, like lightning, that ripples over my skin and pauses my heart. I swallow hard, trying to choke down the dryness in my mouth just as much as I’m trying to mask my shock. I’m not sure what surprises me more: the conversation we just overheard, or him holding my hand.

  Either way, tap dancing in the auditorium suddenly seems like a very silly idea.

  7

  I met Kash the first day of school. My new roommate. Some of the other girls on our floor were used to boarding schools. It didn’t phase them. But not Kash and me. This was the first time either of us had been away from home for more than a few days at a time. As we unpacked our bags and boxes, we barely talked—even to our parents, who lingered to help us. I didn’t want my mom and dad to go. I didn’t want to be left alone with this stranger—the small, quiet girl from Connecticut who seemed to have more pairs of dancing shoes than underwear.

  My grandma was there, too. Daphne Harper. The legend—translator of the Lost Scroll of Clio and Brightling’s former headmistress—returned to her kingdom to witness the ascension of her sole grandchild to the role ordained by her ancestors. She tried to keep a low profile. She didn’t want to detract from my special day, she said. So she wore a scarf over her head and lingered behind me. But a couple of people noticed her anyway. Including Kash.

  “Are you really related to Daphne Harper?” Kash asked, wide-eyed, later, after they’d left.

  I hesitated. This was what I didn’t want. Assumptions. Expectations. Preferential treatment. “She’s my grandma,” I confessed softly, cringing, waiting for the barrage of questions to follow, as they often did.

  Kash simply grinned and, seeing the discomfort that must have been so plainly written on my face, shrugged nonchalantly. “Cool. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”

  I looked at her, grateful, knowing I’d just met someone who understood me without effort—and feeling like I’d already made a friend. “That would be great. I want to be able to be me, you know?”

  She nodded. “I totally get it.”

  That was when she told me about not being able to walk as a kid. A secret traded for a secret. We’ve been keeping each other’s secrets ever since.

  Which is why I don’t hesitate to tell Kash about what Sebastian and I overheard Headmistress Fothergill and Ms. Applegate talking about last night.

  I wait until we’re alone, until it’s just the three of us—Kash, Sebastian, and me—with no one to eavesdrop. The last thing we need is for Zelda Mackey to blab to the whole school—or for Aurelia Ketterling, with all her superstitions, to exaggerate and catastrophize the whole thing. Besides, advertising that Sebastian and I were sneaking around after curfew seems like an equally disastrous idea—the kind that could put my chances of graduating even more at risk … or, at the very least, prompt a completely different set of rumors about what, exactly, we were doing together so late.

  “I don’t understand—why were you downstairs after hours again?” Kash asks. Her face is pinched in confusion as she stares at us from across the table. In the last five minutes since we’ve started telling her what we overheard, she’s gnawed her pen cap so much it’s practically flat.

  I glance at Sebastian, seated between us at the round table tucked in the corner of the library, and feel heat rise in my cheeks. That’s been happening a lot today. I think it has something to do with last night’s hand-holding escapade. Not that I want to tell Kash that.

  “It’s not important—just forget about that, okay?” I tell her impatiently, eager to get to the point. “The important thing is that something’s going on. Something big—something even bigger than a connection between the fire at Brambleton and the disappearance of the Laffitte painting. Something that could impact us here, at Brightling, too.”

  Kash shakes her head, confused. “But it sounds like Headmistress Fothergill is consulting with the Board of Nine. They won’t let anything bad happen to us. We’re students.”

  I throw my hands up in the air and let out a heavy sigh. “That’s only part of the point. It sounded like a series of events—or omens, I think the headmistress called them—have already happened, and there’s more to come. We should try to figure out what
’s going on. Maybe we can help somehow.”

  “I highly doubt we’ll be able to help,” Kash says. “It sounds like the headmistress and the Board have everything under control. We’ll just get in their way.”

  She pauses and gives Sebastian a sideways glance, like she wishes he wasn’t around to hear what she has to say next. “Besides, Bianca,” she adds, lowering her voice to a grave whisper, “if you did find out anything worthwhile, you’d have to tell them you broke school rules by breaking curfew and spying on the headmistress. Do you really want to risk what could happen if you do that?”

  The risk of not graduating, she means. The risk of getting held back a year, if not expelled altogether.

  I shake my head and glare at her. She knows how I don’t want my predicament to become common knowledge. But before I can say anything, Sebastian is running his hands through his already messy hair with frustration.

  “Kash, they’re not telling us what’s going on,” he says. “But if we knew, we could do something to protect ourselves, at least. You don’t want to just sit around and wait for something bad to happen to us, do you?”

  “Of course not,” she tells him. Her face falls, a wounded expression on it, and her bottom lip quivers. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to anybody. But I don’t want to get in trouble, either.” She looks to me for help then, hoping I’ll take her side. “I don’t think you want to either, right, Bee?”

  I lean back in my seat and cross my arms over my chest. “Sometimes doing the right thing means bending the rules a little.”

  The pen in Kash’s hand falls to the table with a soft thump. I have a feeling that her heart is doing the same inside her chest. “All right, I get that you want to act. You always do this—you start charging forward without thinking things through. This time, though, just please promise me you’ll be careful, okay?”

  I want to argue with her. I want to tell her I’m not impulsive. But I know better. There’s more evidence to prove her point than mine. Chasing the dark-suited man the other day wasn’t my finest moment. And there have been others before that—like the time I inspired a group of vandals to stop graffitiing over a mural … or when I cut class last year to join a protest for better school funding for the arts.

  So, I don’t put up a fuss. I simply nod. “Okay.”

  Satisfied, Kash nods and manages a weak smile. “I just worry, Bee, that’s all.”

  She taps the surface of her cell phone, propped on the table beside her copy of our Inspiration Practicum textbook. The screen flickers from darkness to light, and the time stands out in bold, white numbers. It’s later than I thought. Apparently Kash thinks so, too.

  “I have to get to Exotic Languages now,” she explains as she scoops up her books and packs her bag. “See you after?”

  I nod, though she doesn’t seem to notice, and in a moment, she’s gone, rushing toward the exit.

  “Sooo, it looks like it’s up to you and me to save the world, I guess?” Sebastian says.

  Now that it’s only the two of us, I’m hyper-focused on everything about him. The way he digs in his pocket for a butterscotch. The crinkle of the wrapper as he removes it and pops the candy into his mouth. The half-grin that tilts his face as he stares back at me, equally fascinated, throughout it all.

  I wonder what he’s thinking about.

  I wonder if he’s mulling over everything we overheard … or if he’s remembering how we held hands last night in the hallway.

  Which makes me start thinking about his hand. The way our fingertips locked like adjoining pieces of the same puzzle. The strength of his grip, how it made me feel safe and comforted. And the fact that I wished he didn’t let go a minute later, when we got up to go back to our dorms.

  Forcing the thoughts from my mind, I raise my eyebrows. “You’re willing to help me?”

  Sebastian shrugs with fake modesty, brushing his fingertips against his shirt like being a hero is all in a day’s work for him. “Why not? Someone has to.”

  And even though he’s being sarcastic, I can’t help but feel glad.

  We make a list of everything we know: the events Headmistress Fothergill mentioned had occurred so far, the songbirds ceasing ahead, and her consultation with the Board of Nine. We rack our brains, trying to remember every detail, no matter how insignificant it initially seemed. We even print up a map of the city and mark the locations of the Brambleton fire and Museum of Fine Arts, where the Laffitte was stolen. Just in case it matters.

  “It’s so much information—but also so little,” I mutter with a sigh later, as I stand back and stare at the lists and printouts pinned to the wall of my dorm room. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “How about we start with the first thing the headmistress said—the declining enrollment at Brightling,” Sebastian suggests. He sits at my desk, the chair turned toward me, while we talk. “Is that even true?”

  I shrug. “It should be easy enough to find out.”

  My fingertips fly over the screen of my cell phone, typing in search terms. In seconds, I have the answer: a list of articles announcing the graduates from Brightling Academy over the past ten years. I click the first.

  “Looks like last year was a-hundred-and-eight graduates,” I announce before moving on to the next link. “And a-hundred-twenty before that … one-fifty before … one-eighty …”

  My heart sinks. Declining graduation rates because of declining enrollment. I glance up at Sebastian and see the paleness in his cheeks. He’s grown more ashen with each year I check. He must see the same pattern I do.

  Just to make sure, I tap the last link on the page. The graduating class size from a decade ago. But even as I skim the article, I have a feeling I know what I’ll find.

  “Ten years ago, Brightling graduated three-hundred students,” I murmur. I sink down to sit on the edge of my bed and try to resist the urge to pick at my fingernails. “What could that mean?”

  Frowning, Sebastian reaches for his own phone and begins to search for something also. “The Board’s Muse Registry is showing lower birth rates every year, too,” he tells me after a moment. His eyes cloud over, like a storm blowing across the sea.

  His discovery is a wave of cold salt water crashing against me. Harsh and jarring, it triggers pinpricks on my skin, and I can barely breathe.

  “There are fewer and fewer of us,” I whisper. “We’re dying out. Fast, too.”

  As much as I don’t want to believe what I’ve said to be true, I know that it is. It’s something I feel in my body, a certainty that lives in every cell, from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. Something that’s in my DNA itself.

  It explains so much—all the Muses stretched thin across the globe. So much to inspire, so few of our kind to go around. I realized it the other day when I kicked the can of Ace Cola. Something inside me could tell, even before I knew for sure. The same goes for us students—we’re nearly all only children. Me, Kash, Aurelia … I cycle through the list in my head, mentally checking off names as I go through the roster. Even Melody and Harmony Dillard count in some way—sure, they’re twins, but it’s just the two of them. No other siblings. Their mother had one pregnancy, just like the rest of ours.

  And then I realize something else.

  “The Board of Nine has to know about this, don’t you think?” I ask Sebastian.

  He nods. “If we figured it out, I’m sure they have.”

  “Why wouldn’t they say anything? Why haven’t there been announcements?” My voice catches in my throat. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to hold back tears.

  “Maybe they’re still trying to sort out what to do,” he suggests. “Maybe they want to be sure before they cause everyone to panic.”

  “Maybe … There’s definitely enough to panic about, finding out your kind is about to go extinct.”

  Slowly, I lose my grip on my phone. It seems too heavy now—so much unspeakable, horrible reality contained within it. It slips from my hand, and
when it falls onto my quilt beside me with a soft thud, I push it away. Who could’ve guessed that when Sebastian joked about saving the world earlier, he’d be right? It may just be our world—an ancient, magical world populated by few—but it’s a noble one, a beautiful one, an important one.

  “Bee?”

  I look up. I’ve been so lost in my thoughts, in my dread, that I haven’t even heard Sebastian move across the room from the desk to my bed, where he sits beside me.

  “There has to be a solution,” he says softly. His overconfident shell has vanished again—nothing wicked flashing in his eyes, no smirk lurking at the corners of his mouth. There’s only a concerned, caring young man staring back at me. “Someone will figure this out, okay? Maybe it’ll even be us.”

  He puts his arms around me, drawing me close, and I don’t resist. I melt into the warmth of him, just like my palm did last night in the hallway downstairs. I like this side of Sebastian—honest, sincere, with his guard down. I’ve seen it a couple of times now. I hope I’ll get to see it more.

  “Just try to forget about all this for tonight,” he soothes. He tucks a strand of my wavy, acorn-colored hair behind my ear. “We can work on it again tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” I murmur, breathing in a lingering hint of his morning cologne.

  But then the door to my dorm room opens, and Kash appears. Our eyes meet over Sebastian’s shoulder, and she stops short.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize you had company—” she begins to say, blushing.

  Walking in on the other with a boy is a first for us both. We have no secret code—no hair elastic on the doorknob or predetermined word to text—for when we want to be alone in the room. I squirm, just as uncomfortable under her stare as she is under mine. Hurriedly, Sebastian and I break away from each other. I pull the sleeve of my sweatshirt over my fist and blot away a traitor tear before Kash can notice it. I’m in no mood for answering her questions. Especially now.