by Kim Newman
She was growing light-headed. Concentrating, she settled on a perch near the top of the tallest tree.
The light funnels were the headlamps of a car. A track ran through the woods, well beyond School Grounds.
Being here was a Major Infraction.
She clung to a tree trunk, fifty or sixty feet up, above the parked car, and heard voices below. She couldn’t make out what was being said.
Taking a grip with her knees, she crawled head first down the trunk. She had to take back some of her natural weight, but not too much. She did not want to drop on Bainter’s head. Then she’d certainly share whatever terrible fate Rose was being dragged to.
‘…the stones are under the snow,’ Bainter was saying. ‘This is the proper place for the oblation.’
The leafless branches offered little cover. Amy tried not to make a sound so Ponce wouldn’t look up. Her frosted breath came back at her face.
She was close enough to see Bainter talking with two other people. He kept a grip on Rose, one big hand around both her wrists. Beauty wasn’t struggling. She might have swooned or been drugged. Amy hoped the girl was shamming and biding her time.
‘He’s right,’ said a woman – a woman! – ‘this is where we should be. My calculations…’
‘Pah,’ said a man. ‘I believe what I can see. I see snow. Not stone.’
The woman’s voice was distinctive – metallic and shrill enough to hurt. She wasn’t one of the mistresses.
‘I tell you, we are here,’ said Bainter.
Ponce’s confederates wore hoods. They must have come in the car.
Amy’s knee-grip went wonky. She had an uneasy moment, but held fast. She was more stick insect than moth at the moment.
The man who believed only what he saw wore a familiar hood, with a red flame on the forehead. The chief of last term’s Hooded Conspiracy…
…and almost certainly her friend’s father!
How near was Kali? Would she recognise him from his voice?
The woman was a tubby, barrel-shaped person. Her tweed hood matched her Norfolk jacket and stiff skirt. She didn’t seem the sort Kali’s father would take for an umpteenth bride.
Bainter had put on a hood – purple silk, with a tassel on top. Embroidered tears dripped from one eyehole.
So, the Hooded Conspiracy reached the Staff Room?
Amy’s mind raced. Who else might be in on it? Not Gryce – she’d cast out the Crowninshield sisters for associating with Hoods. Unless that had been a cunning ploy to cast off suspicion. Bainter was in the ascendant this term, with the relative scarcity of sightings of Headmistress. He was very pro-Black Skirt.
Black Skirts and Hood Heads? Together?
Amy felt sick… which, considering her position, was inconvenient as well as uncomfortable. Her tummy roiled.
She missed what was being said.
Red Flame clapped grey-gloved hands. A chauffeur got out of the car.
‘Get on with it, Gogoth,’ he said.
Gogoth – if that actually was a name – wore a peaked cap over a stiff, shiny black mask which pushed out in the middle like a snout. Something was wrong with the chauffeur’s backbone, which seemed to be a zig-zag. He cleared away snow with an entrenching tool.
‘Careful, it is forbidden to treat the sacred sites with disrespect,’ cautioned Bainter. ‘Procedures must be followed. There are consequences for blasphemy.’
The spade scraped flint and struck blue sparks. The chauffeur had uncovered paving stones set in a round pattern, like a clock or an astronomical chart. Looking at it from above, Amy’s eye was drawn to spiral grooves she found oddly fascinating – as if she were being pulled towards the centre of the design.
She was reminded of her Purple dreams.
‘Good job, Gogoth,’ said Red Flame.
‘Careful, or we’ll all become oblations,’ said Bainter. ‘One simply doesn’t trifle with the Other Ones.’
Amy had never heard of the Other Ones, but didn’t like the sound of them. A good rule of thumb was not to trifle with groups who liked to be called the Anything Ones… the Old Ones, the Wicked Ones, the Deep Ones, the Comely Ones. All thoroughly bad lots.
Mrs Tweed had an implement with her, like an upside-down sextant with jewelled lenses. She stuck it close to her eyeholes and surveyed the stones.
‘The inscription is clear,’ she said. ‘This is the Runnel. This is the Flute.’
‘Bring over the Girl With the Face,’ Red Flame ordered Bainter.
Rose stirred in her swoon and turned over in Bainter’s grip. Amy saw she was making herself heavy and awkward to handle.
Clever girl.
Amy fixed her mind on Rose.
It struck her all in a flash that if she could move things without touching them, then she could also prevent them from being moved. Just by thinking.
She held Beauty. As she made herself light, Amy made Beauty heavy.
Bainter strained, as if he were trying to pull a nail out of a plank with his fingers. He hadn’t expected resistance.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mrs Tweed.
‘She… won’t… be… shifted.’
‘Ridiculous,’ said the woman. ‘You’re a milksop. Let me at her and I’ll…’
She weighed in and fared no better than Bainter.
‘This isn’t natural,’ she said. ‘We’re not alone.’
The hoods swivelled as the conspirators peered around. They didn’t look up.
Kali must be lying flat in the snow. That wouldn’t be comfortable.
‘Not out there,’ said Mrs Tweed. ‘Down here. In the stones. It must be the Other Ones.’
‘Why are they hindering the oblation, then?’ said Bainter. ‘Tell me that, eh?’
He was annoyed with the woman. Amy recognised his snippy, irritable tone from lessons. The chaplain must wish he could force Mrs Tweed to endure the Three Questions just now.
‘Priest, if you’ve misinterpreted the inscriptions…’ began Red Flame.
‘Everything has been checked, over and over. We have the ideal oblation. This is the sacred site. The night is propitious. The Purple is stirring. And yet the girl won’t be shifted a mere six feet to the Flute.’
‘She doesn’t all have to be shifted,’ said Mrs Tweed. ‘Cut off her face where she is and fetch it over. That’s all we need.’
Shocked, Amy let go of Rose.
Equally shocked – and with more personal interest in not having her face cut off – Rose made a dash for it. Amy had seen Beauty outpace Goneril’s best sprinters at Sport Day. None of the conspirators could catch her if it came to a race through the woods. Provided she didn’t run smack into a tree or trip over Kali. As she disappeared into the night, she shrugged out of her inhibiting coat.
‘After her, Gogoth,’ ordered Red Flame.
Amy twisted Beauty’s cast-off coat between the crookback’s legs. Gogoth fell face forwards in a tangle.
Mrs Tweed made a sound of disgust.
Red Flame drew a revolver from out of his jacket.
‘Don’t shoot… she has to be alive when we do it,’ said Ponce. ‘She has to know what is being taken from her. It’s what she feels about her loss of face as much as the physical skin and blood that makes up the oblation. She has to survive this for the Flute to stay open.’
Amy decided the Reverend Mr Bainter was worse than a white slaver.
‘But I can shoot you,’ said Red Flame, ‘just to make a point. If I were to take your nose off, you’d feel great loss and we’d have the flesh and blood.’
‘I’m not an unspoiled child,’ said Bainter. ‘I’m not a rare creature, whose shape here and in the Purple is perfection. I’m not the Girl with the Face. And neither are you. Nor is the Professor. I have doubts about Gogoth too.’
‘Pah,’ said Red Flame – who seemed fond of the exasperated exclamation – as he put his pistol away.
Mrs Tweed – Professor Tweed, to go by what Bainter said – manipulated her strange device
, folding and telescoping attachments. It fit over her hand like a spiny gauntlet.
‘Gogoth,’ she said. ‘Here!’
She talked to the chauffeur as if she were calling a dog to heel, but Gogoth unwound the coat from his legs, got up and walked over – shoulders hitching as if his bones were rolling the wrong way – as meekly as any trained pet. Amy had a feeling she wouldn’t want to see under his mask.
‘Hand and arm,’ said the Professor.
Gogoth rolled up his sleeve. He had odd, elaborate tattoos – intertwining snakes or dragons or tendrils or tentacles. Shiny, reflective, strangely positioned eyes might be coloured glass sewn into the skin.
The Professor scratched across his tattoos with her device. Blades sliced almost to the bone and Gogoth yelped.
‘Bleed,’ she ordered, somewhat superfluously.
Blood – blacker than red – gushed from the ruined tattoo and spattered the flagstone circle. Some fell into the spiral groove – the Runnel – and ran towards a cup-like depression in the centre. That must be the Flute.
Gogoth made a fist of bandaging himself with a handkerchief. The other conspirators practically bumped hoods over the Flute. They mumbled something like a chant…
The words were different – not English, and perhaps not even human – but the rhythm was all too familiar.
Dum-dum-dee-dum… dumdee-dumdee Dum…
Ants in your pants… all the way from France.
The rivulet of blood reached the Flute and there was a small crackle, like tame lightning…
…and Rose, running full tilt, came out of the night and charged into Bainter’s arms! The Professor and Red Flame laid hands on her too.
Whatever ritual they had performed had turned the girl around. Or turned the woods around.
Bainter sat on Rose, pinning her down. Her head was over the Flute. The Professor adjusted her razor-gauntlet again. Amy guessed she was preparing to lift Beauty’s face from her skull.
Rose made keening noises in the back of her throat.
‘That’s right,’ said the Professor. ‘Make a fuss. We can’t hear you, but the Other Ones can.’
Her implement buzzed and crackled. It generated or attracted some sort of electric charge.
Bainter and Red Flame kept up the chanting. The Hooded Conspiracy was on the point of making its ghastly oblation.
Beauty – soon to be the Girl Without the Face – kicked and struggled.
Amy let go of the tree and made herself heavy. She dived at Bainter.
She got her hands around his neck and twisted his hood so he couldn’t see out of the eyeholes. She shoved him off Rose and into the shovelled pile of snow. The girls of R.I. would have cheered her for this.
Kicking and twisting, Amy shoved the Professor into Red Flame. The buzzing gauntlet shredded the shoulder of his coat and he shrieked. He went for his revolver again, but dropped it. The Professor, also flailing, kicked the gun away and blundered against the tree. Her glove apparatus sliced bark and lodged deep in the wood. She couldn’t easily pull free.
Amy had her feet on the ground – she had pins and needles from hanging upside down too long, but tried to ignore the tingling and rubbery legs. She took Rose’s hand and helped her up.
She hoped they could run back to School and out of range of the Runnel and the Flute before the conspirators could recover and work their bleeding trick a second time. Rose didn’t waste breath asking who her rescuer was. Then again, she couldn’t ask if she’d wanted to.
However, the girls only got a few strides away from the circle.
Gogoth barred their way. He had stopped bleeding. The snout of his mask went in and out. His eyes were fixed on them and his arms were spread.
They would have to split up and run in different directions.
No, that wouldn’t work. He’d grab Beauty and the de-facing would be on schedule again.
A branch swung out of the darkness and slammed into the chauffeur’s head. He staggered and fell. A triangular, brown-and-white mask loomed in the night.
Oleander Hawkmoth had struck!
Kali tossed away the branch. She applied Kafiristani foot-boxing techniques to the fallen man. In that discipline, the most devastating blows were made with the instep.
Amy and Rose made a start into the woods.
‘Stop,’ shouted someone ahead – Red Flame!
He’d scooped up his revolver and circled round. He had them cold.
Only his coat was damaged. White shirt showed through the rents. He walked carefully towards the girls.
Amy tried to get a mental grip on him but was too distracted. She hovered a foot off the ground, but her other Abilities were exhausted.
Kali was closest to Red Flame…
…her father!
He took aim at her mask.
His hood had come loose and been torn. His chin and mouth showed. He had very white teeth and a very black, distinctive beard.
Kali must know by now who he was.
‘You don’t understand what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘This has been set down as inevitable, long before any of us were born. It is important. For us, this is religion… a sacred duty.’
‘Then why not ask for volunteers?’ asked Amy.
Red Flame shook his head and smiled wryly.
‘A girl with no voice can’t speak up,’ he explained.
‘You cut off girls’ faces,’ said Amy. ‘That’s not religion. That’s poppycock!’
Red Flame thumbed back the hammer of his revolver.
Kali stood stock still, arms out to her sides.
‘You were there before,’ Red Flame said to Amy. ‘In the tower. You’re the butterfly girl.’
She didn’t correct him.
‘What do you think you’re doing out of bounds, dressed foolishly, wearing masks…?’
This was a bit rich, coming from inside a hood.
‘Give me the Girl with the Face,’ said Red Hood. ‘Or I shoot this one.’
Rose, not exactly happy about it, was still prepared to hand herself over. Amy knew Kali wouldn’t let that happen.
Slowly, Kali raised her arms – assuming a fighting stance.
‘Stop that,’ said Red Flame, shaking his gun.
He must recognise what Kali was doing. Amy remembered the bandit rajah had been his daughter’s foot-boxing teacher – so he could probably beat her even without a weapon.
The fierceness and bravery of the hawkmoths was well known, but…
Amy tried to get a grip on Red Flame’s hand. If only she could hold back his trigger finger. She wobbled in the air and landed… the limits of her Abilities were exceeded.
She might as well have been an Ordinary.
Kali’s fingers reached behind her head.
Red Flame seemed puzzled.
‘Be still, silly chit,’ he said.
Kali took off her mask and hat. Her black hair shook out.
Red Flame, shocked, discharged his revolver… but wildly, up into the air.
He cried out and hung his head in shame. Amy hadn’t expected that.
Kali said something to her father in a foreign language…
…and Amy ran, Rose keeping pace with her.
Kali caught up with them.
‘Them rats won’t be on our tails now,’ she said.
They slowed down, not needing to risk slamming into a tree, and walked back to School. Amy grew aware of the bitter cold and the lateness of the hour. They’d missed Lights Out and would be Majored if whips caught them. She ached in her shoulders, her hands, her legs and her head. And still had a troubled stomach.
Outside Old House, Rose placed her open hand on her chest and then on theirs.
Heartfelt thanks.
She went upstairs to the Fifth Floor.
Amy and Kali, masks off, were alone together.
‘Kali, I should have said before…’
‘Yeah, I know,’ said her friend, eyes as dark as her father’s. ‘But you didn’t.’
X: Ugly Winter
LATER IN FEBRUARY, nightly snowfall slacked off… but the cruel cold went on and on. School no longer resembled a Christmas card. Merry robins were in short supply. If any popped beaks out of their nests to chirrup, they’d be stiff, frosty corpses in an instant. The jolly round cheeks of Father Christmas fell off to show the sharp, malicious skullface of Jack Frost.
By day, under thin sunlight, the top layer of snow melted. Icicle spears detached from eaves, as if aimed at unwary souls passing underneath. At dusk, the temperature plummeted. Slush froze into ridged, sooty ice-crust. Captain Freezing still regularly returned from the dead, more muck-monster than snowman. There was no guessing where he’d appear.
Salt winds blew off the sea like razors. Everyone had red-rimmed eyes, made worse by rubbing. Out of doors, Amy took to wearing her Goosey Gander goggles – until she ran into Brydges. The formerly reasonable Viola whip, now a fanatic Black Skirt, confiscated the offending item and scratched a stain in Amy’s Time-Table Book. Inappropriate Eyewear. A Murdering Heathen of École de Gryce would have snaffled the goggles for her own use, but let Amy off the Minor. The new, humourless breed of tyrant lacked the piratical flair of the cutthroats of yesterterm. Amy was forced to concede she preferred the affably corrupt to the horribly moral.
Black Skirts went about in threes – with no more than two from a single House or Form. This meant no two could dispute rulings from on high without the third informing on the apostates. Those who joined because they fancied a change of clothes or thought skipping might see off the cold found themselves buying the rest of the parcel. They weren’t supposed to talk about ‘the rest of the parcel’ with outsiders. Black Skirts on the prowl for recruits hinted at privileges, inner circles and wonders, but Amy understood the top Black Skirts had ruthless ways of keeping the rank and file in line. No one who went Black ever came back to Grey.
The Folk Dancing Society, an obscure activities club populated mostly by Viola Fourths, was first to institute a Black Only policy. Wychwood, leading light of the FDS, couldn’t go Black if she wanted to. Her parents stubbornly refused to open the parental purse for non-essential expenses. Amy understood how that worked. Wychwood made a hash of dyeing her blazer and skirt in the Chem Lab, which stuck her with a Major Uniform Infraction. Despite deft figures and flings, she was chucked out of the FDS. Condemned to walk between the winds like a mutilated Red Indian brave, she served as grim warning to those who refused to meet the (climbing) price set by Dosson, Chappell & Co.