The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three)

by Baum, Spencer

The footsteps moved down the hallway and faded into silence.

  What just happened? she wondered. That slave…would he rat her out? Why didn’t he say anything when he saw her?

  From elsewhere in the mansion, Jill heard a brass fanfare. The overture. The play was about to start. She had to get out of here.

  Slowly, she opened the closet door and poked her head out. Confident it was clear, she ran out of the room. Back down the hall, through the foyer, and into the ballroom. She snuck in through the back door and slunk down the side of the room. People saw her but she didn’t care. The overture was still playing. She had made it. She found her table and took the empty seat next to Annika.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Annika whispered.

  “Oh, just…around,” Jill said.

  Onstage, the curtain began to rise, rescuing Jill from answering anymore questions. She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath.

  I made it.

  As the audience gasped at the beauty of the set on the stage, Jill closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment of pride. So much had gone wrong since the Date Auction ended, but tonight, one thing went right. She was still a Network agent, and she had just pulled off the most dangerous, audacious assignment ever.

  As she sat in the chair, once again pretending to be a student, she realized she still had a set of keys that opened the door to Renata’s crypt in her hand.

  Chapter 24

  Renata took the stage and looked out over the audience. A hundred eager faces, students who had no clue of the significance of this moment. For decades she had been performing the Rose Ransom. Thousands upon thousands of students sat in the audience over the years and participated in the spectacle, the show changing them without their even knowing it.

  Her dress on this night was a dusty rose color, made of silk and bejeweled with hundreds of small diamonds. Her hair was pulled back into a Roman ponytail that draped over her shoulders with tassels of golden silk. Her makeup was stark and theatrical. Sharp eye shadow, dark highlights on her cheeks, bright red lipstick.

  She finished the look with a tiara that was so loaded with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires it was heavy on her head.

  She could already imagine how the dress would look in her museum. For tonight’s performance, the knife was huge. This dress wouldn’t just be stained with blood, it would be soaked. It would be the most extravagant piece in her gallery. A perfect memento from the greatest of all Rose Ransom performances.

  She marched to the center of the stage and began the show.

  “There once was a king who was old, lazy, and fat,” she said. She scanned the audience as she spoke the words, catching many of them in the eye, locking into their minds and willing them to participate in the show.

  “When his daughter, the princess, came of age,” she continued, “the king arranged for her to marry a prince from another kingdom, thus strengthening the power of both houses. But the princess had no love for this man, for he was foul and slothful.”

  She had them now. Three sentences were all she needed to catch most of them. Now she and audience were one, and could get lost in the tale together.

  “The princess begged the king to free her from the arranged marriage, but he refused,” Renata said, allowing her hands to move freely, accentuating her words. It was like a dance. She led; the audience followed. Art at its most exquisite.

  “Distraught, the princess shut herself in her bedroom, vowing to never come out. And there she stayed, until the night before her wedding, when the king knocked at her door and told her to open it or he would break it down.”

  *****

  At the end of the party, Renata steps onstage and tells the students the story of the Rose Ransom.

  Jill had written those words in Nicky’s briefing book without any idea of their significance. To Jill, the Rose Ransom performance was just another ritual in the Coronation contest, no different than Brawl in the Fall or the Date Auction. A bit of theatricality from creatures with a natural flair for the dramatic.

  Now, sitting at the table between Annika and Mattie, watching Renata tell her story, Jill understood that this was much more than a fun bit of theater. Renata had captured the whole room in a hypnotic spell. She wasn’t just telling a tale, she was making them believe it as truth.

  It was only because Jill had a stronger bit of truth inside of her, a law she had written there herself, that she was able to step back from the moment and see what was going on.

  I choose to do what’s right.

  Those words had inoculated her against the charms of Bernadette. Now they were keeping her safe from Renata’s seductive performance.

  Jill saw a hundred students who were absolutely enraptured. Their eyes were locked on Renata’s movements, their ears attuned to her every word.

  Of course it was like this. Jill couldn’t believe she’d never realized it before. Three years of research for the Network, starting her freshman year, when she cozied up to people from the senior class and asked them for details about the Coronation rituals…during that research, she found that every senior described the Rose Ransom as the most amazing play they’d ever seen.

  Renata goes onstage and tells this incredible story.

  It’s such a beautiful play.

  I cried at the end.

  Jill had listened to the upper classmen come back from the Rose Ransom and assumed it was indeed a marvelous performance. She’d never considered the possibility that it was something more, that Renata was hypnotizing the audience.

  For decades, the Network tried to get a mole into Washington’s circles of power but never succeeded. Now Jill knew why.

  The sheer volume of the hypnosis was astounding. A hundred students watched this play every year. A hundred high school seniors from the wealthiest families in the world, all of them destined for lives of privilege and power. Graduates of Thorndike Academy populated the hubs of power all over the earth, and all of them had been hypnotized with the story Renata was telling tonight.

  At her own table, Jill saw four bodies sitting perfectly still. Jake and Jenny, who earlier in the night couldn’t keep their hands off each other, now sat at attention in their own chairs. Mattie, who had a reputation for being so restless she could barely make it through the school day, was frozen like a statue, her mouth agape at the stage in front of her. Annika, who had downed so many glasses of wine tonight she could barely keep her eyes open before the play started, now seemed fully alert and attentive. Her back and neck were straight. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her eyes were wide open.

  And words from Renata’s phone conversation, words Jill had overheard while hiding in the closet, suddenly made a lot more sense.

  I have ways of getting all the seniors to play nice for me.

  “Annika,” Jill whispered.

  Nothing. No movement from Annika or anyone else.

  “Annika, I need to tell you something.”

  It was like Jill was the only one in the room.

  “It’s about Shannon.”

  Annika’s shoulders twitched.

  “You and Shannon Evans,” Jill said, aware she was being reckless but charging ahead anyway. “Unless you turn your head and look at me, you might never see Shannon again.”

  Annika’s body began to shake.

  “Look at me, Annika. Forget what’s happening onstage and look at me so I can tell you about Shannon Evans, whom you love more than anything in the world.”

  Exhaling sharply, and blowing a wine-flavored wind at Jill’s face in the process, Annika turned away from the stage. She had a crazed look in her eyes.

  “What did you say to me?” she whispered.

  Jill leaned in close, putting her face right up next to Annika’s.

  “Renata is putting this room under a spell,” Jill said. “If you want to see Shannon again, you’ve got to resist.”

  Onstage, Renata had grabbed a knife and was yelling out in anguish. It was as if Renata was as lost in the moment as th
e students. Jill felt like she could jump up and do a jig and no one in the room would care, including Renata.

  “A spell?” Annika said.

  “Yes, and you were under it. You have to resist. You have secrets you don’t want to tell them.”

  Annika’s eyes popped with newfound alertness.

  “Shannon,” she whispered. “I can’t give her away. What do we do?”

  “Close your eyes, and don’t pay attention to what Renata is saying. Think about Shannon instead.”

  *****

  Renata was fully in the moment now, feeling the many minds of the audience connected to hers. She held the knife in her hands, and what a monstrous knife it was. Never before had she attempted this scene with a blade this large.

  She raised the knife out in front of her and screamed the most dramatic line of the play.

  “If I cannot marry for love, I will not marry at all!”

  Renata stabbed herself hard in the stomach with the knife, spilling real blood all over her dress and the floor. Then she fell to the ground and acted out the princess’s death.

  All was silent at first, then cries of anguish exploded from every corner of the room.

  No!

  No, she can’t die!

  She wanted to marry for love!

  I will kill this king! He was a horrible man!

  Come back to us, princess!

  Renata began to cry, and all the students whose minds were connected to hers cried with her. A banquet hall full of sadness, the entire senior class of Thorndike Academy wailing to express their pain at a young girl’s loss.

  Lying on the floor, Renata led the room in a feeling of the most intense despair imaginable. She allowed the sadness to continue uninterrupted for a time. It was only a minute or two on the clock, but to these students, it would feel like a lifetime. When it was over, these students would believe it was within the power of the immortals to extinguish a lifetime of sadness.

  Renata stood up. The wound in her gut had healed, but her dress was still covered in blood. The students, still sobbing, quieted down to hear what she had to say next.

  “The king broke through the door to find his only daughter lying dead. In a panic, he called for the wizard of the forest. The wizard arrived and the king begged him to bring the princess back to life. ‘She is held by the great beyond,’ the wizard said. ‘And the great beyond requires a ransom for her return.’”

  “Pay it!” someone shouted from the crowd.

  “Yes, pay any price for the princess to come back!”

  The students broke into a frenzy. Bring her back! Bring her back! Bring her back!

  Renata turned her head to one side, inviting the crowd to indulge their own passions. When she turned back to face them, it was in a sudden movement, with fire in her eyes.

  “But the price for her return was steep,” Renata said.

  “Anything!” somebody shouted. “We will pay anything to have her back!”

  “Anything in the world?” Renata said.

  “Anything in the world!” the crowd yelled back in unison.

  “The great beyond asks for the three reddest roses in the kingdom!” Renata screamed. “Will you find them? Will you sacrifice them for the safe return of the princess?”

  “Yes! Anything!”

  “And so the king demanded that every rose in the kingdom be brought to him,” Renata said. She held her hands up to the ceiling. Offstage, one of her servants pushed a button, and a thousand roses fell from the rafters. The audience cheered.

  She picked up a rose from the floor and threw it to the crowd. A pile of students dove on top of each other trying to get it. She picked up another and threw it. And another. The audience was practically in a riot now, everyone wanting a rose.

  “The king looked at every flower!” Renata shouted, moving faster now, throwing handfuls of roses into the audience. The students were fanatic, their hands covered in blood from grasping at the thorns. “He compared the colors, choosing only the reddest he could find and discarding the rest.” Renata ran back and forth across the stage, kicking the flowers out into the crowd. “And then, he stopped.”

  The students went silent. There were three roses left on the stage. Renata picked them up. “The three reddest roses in the kingdom,” she whispered. “The king gave them to the wizard. The wizard placed the roses on the princess’s body.”

  Renata lay on the floor, putting the roses on her stomach.

  “Great beyond, today I pay your ransom’” Renata called. “I sacrifice the reddest roses in the kingdom, paying them to you for the safe return of our princess.”

  Renata allowed herself a quick smile and then took a deep breath. Using the sharpest thorn from one of the roses, she carved into her abdomen, slowly dragging the thorn as it cut through her skin.

  The pain was exquisite, and the students felt it with her, shrieking in agony as the thorn sliced through Renata’s flesh.

  When she was done, she threw the rose away from her. Her skin started to heal immediately.

  She waited for the room to grow silent, then she stood.

  “The princess awoke,” she said. “The reddest roses from the kingdom had brought her back from death. She was the first immortal.”

  People cheered in the audience. Others screamed. Girls in the front row were sobbing. Boys too. They were worshipping on the altar of eternal life.

  “The king declared it a miracle, and rewarded the wizard with a sack of gold,” Renata said. “Then, as if his daughter’s death and new life had no meaning, the king announced that her wedding to the foul, loathsome prince was on again.”

  “No,” the crowd buzzed. “It’s not right.”

  One of Renata’s servants, a ripe young man named Terence, walked onto the stage. He wore a purple cloak and mint green tights. As he had been taught to do, Terence took Renata by the hand, and the two of them walked together to the front of the stage.

  “The princess went to the altar with her husband-to-be,” Renata said. “She allowed the priest to marry them. But when they were declared man and wife, she did not kiss him. For you see, my friends, the Rose Ransom is not a one-time payment. Eternal life requires constant tribute. And since there were no roses left in the kingdom, the princess took something else.”

  Renata bared her fangs and bit into Terence’s neck, drinking him in until the life force left him. Terence’s body dropped to the floor in a heap, and the students jumped to their feet and cheered for his death.

  The play was done. Forever more, these students would respect the immortals who walked among them. They would remember how badly they wanted the princess to come back to life, and would forgive her need to refresh her immortality with the blood of others.

  They would be loyal servants to her and her new clan.

  Renata took a bow, and the cheering grew louder. She bowed again, and all the roses she had thrown into the crowd came back at her. The ultimate sign of respect for the ultimate actress. A standing ovation and a thousand roses thrown at the stage.

  *****

  “Stand up, Annika,” Jill said.

  Deep in her own trance, Annika didn’t respond, so Jill yanked at her arm until she was on her feet.

  “Clap your hands and cheer,” Jill whispered in her ear. “The play is over.”

  Together, Jill and Annika joined the rest of the students in elation at Renata’s performance. Jill acted as excited as she could, but she had nothing on the people all around her who were crying as they shouted, “Bravo! Bravo! Bravissimo!”

  Renata took her final bow and then raised her hands, quieting the crowd and commanding them to sit.

  Like trained dogs.

  Annika still had her eyes closed. Jill helped her back in her chair.

  “Thank you,” Renata said. “Thank you everyone. Did you enjoy tonight’s performance?”

  The students cheered and screamed.

  “Then I ask you to keep it our little secret,” Renata said. “Just as those wh
o came before you kept the power of this play a secret, so too shall you use discretion when speaking of this night.”

  Nods and hums of agreement passed through the room.

  “Lights!” Renata shouted.

  A loud click, and the house lights came on, brightening the room. The effect was immediate. Students went quiet, sat back in their chairs, and generally looked drained. The spell was broken.

  “We have a tradition here at Thorndike,” Renata said. “In honor of the Rose Ransom, every year we select our own princess, who can only be returned by those who have found the three reddest roses in the kingdom.”

  Here we go, Jill thought. She scanned the room, finding Karmela with her eyes. She looked down at Karmela’s hand. The ring was on her finger.

  “I will now call this year’s princess to the stage,” Renata said.

  Raising her right hand, Renata snapped her fingers, and a huge picture appeared on the wall behind her. The audience, who had been subdued, immediately jumped to life again with a collective gasp.

  The photograph on the wall was of Nicky and Ryan. They lay side by side on a bed covered in rose petals.

  “You may have noticed that two of our most distinguished guests were missing from the party tonight,” Renata said. “They are missing because they have already been abducted.”

  Whispers of confusion and excitement all around. Jill sat back in her chair, stunned at what she was seeing.

  “I grow bored of doing things the same way every year,” Renata said. “Never before have we abducted a girl wearing black for the Ransom, but this year it felt like the right thing to do. It felt interesting.”

  Jill felt both terrified and excited. Was it possible that Nicky and Ryan were still alive? Was it possible they could be rescued?

  “If you look at this photo,” Renata said, “you’ll see two people. Nicky Bloom, our newest arrival at school and the current leader in the Coronation contest. You’ll also see Ryan Jenson, whose family has the means to offer up a nice ransom sum indeed. Tonight I will give you a clue. That clue will lead you to a rose, and at that rose, you will find another clue. There are three clues in all, and three roses. Find all three, and you’ll find our princess, as well as her very rich friend. If you find them before midnight on the last day of the semester, you may collect whatever money gets offered up for their safe return.”