A petite woman stood in front of a chalkboard beside a desk covered in tidily stacked rows of paper. Her brown hair, streaked with gray, was scraped into a tight knot at the back. “You’re late. Do you have something better to do with your time than attend class?”
Very much so. “Not at all.”
Heels clacking on the hardwood floor, she stepped closer to him, fixing her hazel eyes on him over the rims of her glasses.
“I’m Tobias.”
Her mouth twitched at the corner. “I’m Ms. Ellsworth. I was only told you were joining my class this morning.” She turned, pulling a printed sheet of paper off her desk and handing it to him. “We’re discussing this poem today. I hope Mr. Mulligan told you that this is a rigorous class and that I have high standards. I suppose you’ll need extra help catching up. Sit with Munroe for the partner work.” She pointed to the back row. “Sully, you’ll have to move.”
Munroe blinked her gray eyes at him, smiling as she fiddled with her chalice pendant. Beside her, Sully shuffled his collection of crumpled papers to a nearby desk, dropping his book on the floor. He glared at Tobias as he reached down to pick it up.
“As I was saying,” Ms. Ellsworth resumed while Tobias took his seat in the back, “The Tempest is believed to be one of Shakespeare’s final plays.”
He looked around the room as Ms. Ellsworth lectured in front of a chalkboard. The classroom had the same walnut walls as the dining hall, and bookshelves lined the entire right wall. He’d never seen so many books in one place.
Most of the other students bent over their desks, scribbling in notebooks. Searching for writing implements, he found that Sully had left a half-eaten apple and a crude drawing of the male anatomy, but nothing he could use to write.
He wanted to stand up and scream that this was a waste of time and he needed to find the ravens. Instead, he leaned toward Munroe and whispered, “Do you have a pen?”
“What?”
“A pen—do you have an extra?”
“Tobias.” Ms. Ellsworth’s heels clacked toward him. “In the future, I will expect you to come prepared. When people are unprepared, you waste my time and yours. Now I will ask everyone to turn to your partner, and discuss Browning’s poem in relation to The Tempest.”
Tobias glanced at Munroe, who rolled her eyes. Her lips were painted a deep red.
“Ms. Ellsworth is always talking about time.” She reached inside her bag, pulling out a pen and handing it to him. “We’re always wasting our time and hers, like we care about time-wasting. My dad went to school here. We’ve been at Mather forever.” She nodded toward Ms. Ellsworth. “She wanted to be a singer, but she ended up back here, freaking out about passing time. It must be depressing to have failed at your dreams.” She bit the end of her pen, turning to Tobias. “Can you imagine having to be a teacher? It would be the worst.”
When he was little, he’d dreamt of what it would be like to stand before a classroom of wide-eyed students. Once or twice he’d draped himself in a blanket, attempting to create a teacher’s robe. He lectured to chalk drawings about herbs and astrology.
He raised his eyebrows. “It would be awful.”
“Have you read The Tempest?”
“A few times.” Maremount citizens considered Prospero an important philosopher. Some noble families claimed him as an ancestor.
“Oh, good! I haven’t finished it. Shakespeare is so boring, and I don’t know why we’re reading about disgusting old warlocks.” She arched a thin, red eyebrow. “But it would’ve been fun to live in Tudor times. Like when the men wore those big lacy collars, and the women had golden gowns.”
“If you were rich, it might have been been fun. Otherwise you’d live a brutish life.”
She frowned at him, chewing on the end of her pen and then turned to jot notes in silence. Tobias picked up the Browning poem on his desk, pretending to read it while he ran through the possible scenarios that might have detained his friends: the fire, the storm, the bone wardens, and Rawhed himself.
“OK, class.” Ms. Ellsworth clapped her hands together. “Let’s begin.” She glared at Tobias over her glasses. “Tobias, what did Munroe teach you?”
The students in the front rows turned to stare at him. Silence descended as he scanned the poem. After a minute, Sully threw back his head and gave an exaggerated sigh.
“Ms. Ellsworth?” Fiona spoke from across the room.
“Yes?”
“He’s British, and I think he…” She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “He’s socially anx—”
“Language is magic,” he said, interrupting Fiona. “Caliban sees Prospero at his books, peeling a wand and calling it by a name. When he named it, he imbued it with magic. But Caliban knows that language is a curse and a blessing.”
Alan’s hand shot up. “Can we talk about the staff? I thought that was the best part. In a universe where matter could be transformed by magical energy directed by a wooden medium, a staff could transmit way more energy than a wand—”
“Alan, we’re discussing the poem now,” Ms. Ellsworth clucked.
Thirty minutes later, class ended with the clanging of a bell. Tobias felt stuck in an odd dream, severed from the world he knew. He’d seen Mather Academy many times before—only he’d seen it in Maremount, and he’d never been allowed within its gates.
When the Great Philosophers created Maremount, it had begun as a replica of Boston, hidden through powerful magic. Because the school had been built before the Great Schism, it was one of the few buildings that continued to exist in both worlds. He’d often walked past the Mather gates, gazing in at the courtyard. And yet, right now he could think of nothing but getting out again.
At lunch, he sat with Alan over bowls of vegetable soup. Alan assured him there was no time to leave for a walk before History. As Alan rushed through his homework at the table, Tobias thought of Oswald and Eden tumbling through the blizzard. What if Mishett-Ash, the gray-faced storm god, had chased them out of the skies?
In History, his teacher described the early days of Massachusetts. She explained how the pilgrims befriended the Wampanoag King, who’d helped them survive the harsh winters. She said they’d thrown a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their friendship.
Tobias noticed there was no discussion of what happened next; how the pilgrims feared the Natives were devils and burned villages full of heathen children. There was no mention of how, when Massasoit’s son had arrived for a Plymouth thanksgiving years later, it was in the form of a severed head.
7
Fiona
Before lunch, Fiona stopped by her room to try her hand at accessorizing. Today, she would speak to Jack Hawthorne. Ever since he’d arrived in September, she thought of his face every night before falling asleep. His appearance was a study in contrast: black eyelashes and pale blue eyes, porcelain skin and pink cheeks, unruly dark hair and a sober, almost severe dress sense. She’d seen him earlier today, and since he was hardly ever in school, she had to take her chances when she could.
Yesterday’s clothes formed misshapen mounds beside her bed, draped over books and an empty mug. As usual, Celia’s side of the room was pristine, her books alphabetized and her blanket tucked in neatly.
Fiona looked at her reflection in the closet mirror. Her brown ringlets formed a bushy halo around her face. On the plus side, her hair’s volume gave her the illusion of having a gigantic head—a look that celebrities could only attain through starvation. She rifled through Celia’s cosmetics for purple eyeliner. Celia had told her it would bring out the gold flecks in her eyes, but after a few minutes of fumbling through plastic tubes, she gave up as her rumbling stomach seized control.
On her way out, she grabbed a beaded hairclip from the end of her bed, securing her curls off her face. She wove her way through the dense packs of girls in the corridors and stairwell. In the dining hall, she loaded her tray with pasta and plopped down across from Celia and Mariana.
Mariana wore her usual black eye
makeup, and she’d drawn a skull on the back of her hand in pen. The only thing about her that didn’t scream “goth princess” was her healthy, golden complexion. She stared at Fiona. “You changed your hair. It looks good.”
Fiona smiled. “Good. I’m talking to Jack after school.”
Celia picked at her lunch. “I don’t know why you like him. I get that he’s cute, and it’s cool that he’s related to Emmanuel Hawthorne—”
“Nathaniel,” Mariana put in.
“—but he’s been here for over a year, and he never talks to anyone. He’s weird.”
“Yeah, but he’s hot.” Mariana shrugged.
Fiona took a sip of orange juice. “He just needs someone to bring him out of his shell.”
“Enough about him.” Celia waved her hand dismissively. “What do you think of the new British kid?”
Fiona drummed her fingers on the table, looking up to the ceiling. “He’s kind of hot, too. Skinny, maybe, but he has nice lips.”
“It’s about time we had some fresh blood.” Mariana raked black fingernails through the air.
Celia wrinkled her nose. “You guys are scary. Oh, do either of you know if we’re being tested on The Tempest tomorrow, or are we still talking about it? I never finished it.”
“Still talking about it,” said Mariana.
Celia groaned. “I’m never gonna finish it.”
“I really liked it,” said Fiona.
“Did you actually read it this time?” Celia narrowed her eyes. “You’re not just relying on your freakish memory to spit out everything from class?”
“What makes you think I do that?” Fiona twirled her pasta around her fork.
Celia sighed. “Anyway, I wish we could learn more real magic.”
Fiona looked up, frowning. “It seemed like something was happening at our last séance. You really don’t have any idea what that meant? About the cobblestones, and the philosophers?”
Celia shook her head. “No idea. But you could tell something happened. That’s all the evidence you need.”
Mariana lowered her chin, staring at Fiona. “Fiona. Magic is real. Last year, my aunt Carolina put a curse on us, all the way from Rio. She’s still mad at my mom for moving to the states. My cat died.” She rested her chin in her hand. “Lucas started getting bad grades, and I kept getting eczema on my elbows.” She straightened up again. “But then we put salt around the house, and my rashes cleared up. The cat stayed dead though, and Lucas is still failing.”
“Poor cat,” said Celia. “What was her name?”
“A couple of years ago, I renamed her ‘Dog is Dead.’ It was a tribute to one of my favorite philosophers.” She chipped at her black nail polish. “Before that, she was Ms. Mittens.”
“Interesting.” Fiona forced a smile.
“Well, that proves it. Magic is totally real.” Celia lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know how I used to be friends with Munroe?”
“Before you stole two of her boyfriends?” said Mariana.
“Right. Well, she doesn’t have to worry about Sully. That guy’s a jerk.” She shuddered. “The point is, Munroe’s dad is a senator. He knows all kinds of stuff. She told me the government has a whole anti-witchcraft task force. Only they don’t call it witchcraft, because they don’t want people to know about it. It’s called ‘crimes against the state’ or something.”
Fiona frowned. “I don’t know if I believe anything Munroe says. She acts like she thinks she’s better than everyone. She’s so proud of her stupid chalice emblem.”
“You can get a family crest off the Internet for like ten dollars,” said Mariana. “I designed my own with a cat wearing an Elizabethan ruff.”
“Well, I believe her about the witchcraft thing.” Celia’s voice was emphatic. “Have you guys heard about the Mather Adepti?”
The others shook their heads.
“There are rumors about a group of sorcerers who studied here a long time ago. There’s supposed to be a secret room someplace, where they practiced spells. Ghost Hunters did an episode on it. They walked into the library, and their EMF meters beeped like crazy. Plus, the rooms were all cold and drafty. Mather Academy is full of spirits.”
“That, or they’re stingy with the heat,” Fiona said after swallowing a mouthful of pasta. “How many times have we had séances and not seen a ghost? We’ll have to face the fact that none of us will ever earn a living as psychics. We’re just going to work in offices, like everyone else. It’s going to be awful.”
Celia flared her nostrils. “Don’t be ridiculous. We have the perfect opportunity to try something different. We can sneak out tonight and try a séance right on the spot where they used to execute people.”
Mariana’s black-rimmed eyes widened. “How are we supposed to sneak out?”
Celia lowered her chin, hunching forward as she spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “Apparently, one of the seniors paid an MIT freshman to disable the alarm system for a party. Mulligan doesn’t even know about it yet. We can get out the front gate. We just have to get past Ms. Bouchard’s room.”
Mariana’s jaw dropped open and closed again. She slapped both hands down on the table. “We have to do this.”
Fiona shook her head. “I’m all for sneaking out, but if we’re going to do it, we should do something worthwhile. Like a party.”
Mariana scowled and continued prattling on about séances with Celia, while Fiona attended to her lunch with an enthusiasm found only in the very athletic.
When the bell rang, she positioned herself near Jack as she trudged out of the dining hall behind a stream of students. She tried to catch a glimpse of his shy blue eyes from beneath his mop of black hair. For a moment, she thought he smiled at her, and her cheeks burned red.
In Algebra, instead of working through word problems about driving speeds, she spent the class mentally rehearsing her conversation with Jack. Music was always a good conversation starter.
In Art, her last class of the day, she stared around the room at the students’ crude imitations of impressionist paintings. By the end of class, Ms. Bouchard stood nearby, bent over Sully’s desk to chat about his project. She’d given everyone too much time to read an article about the Fauvists, and now students hunched over their desks, whispering and texting.
The art teacher’s smooth brown hair draped over her rainbow blouse. She had declared today Fun Colors Day, which was an improvement on last week’s Sparkle Day. Ms. Bouchard lived for the opportunity to wear decorative clothing and jewelry. There were silky autumnal leaf shirts, pumpkin earrings for Halloween, and, demonstrating an unfortunate misunderstanding of local history, there was the feathered war bonnet for Thanksgiving. Somehow, with her statuesque body and shiny hair, she made all of these costumes and baubles appear seductive.
Fiona glanced at the clock again. After school, Jack sometimes lingered around the courtyard, scribbling in his notebook. That was the most likely place to find him.
She looked down at her papers, grabbing the oil pastels to sketch an approximation of her favorite poet’s face: Lord Byron’s large eyes, straight nose, and curling hair. She marked his eyes and skin with bright colors, like the Fauvists—crimson hair and green smudges under the eyes. She lined below his mouth with an electric blue, but couldn’t quite get the curve of his lips right. She glanced at the clock again.
At last, the second hand rounded past the six. The bell rang, releasing her from her academic purgatory. The class heaved a collective sigh of relief.
“All right, class,” Ms. Bouchard projected. “Finish the reading, if you haven’t already. And draw something beautiful for me.”
A wild giddiness rose in Fiona’s stomach as she hurried out of classroom. While she walked through the halls and down the stairs, she unbuttoned the top of her shirt and rolled the top of her skirt to shorten it as she had seen Celia do.
A few piercing rays of light escaped from behind the clouds when she opened the large wooden doors leading to the courtyard.
For a few seconds the sunlight blinded her, but her eyes adjusted as she searched for Jack. Melting snow seeped into her canvas shoes. With a sinking feeling, she realized that Jack was unlikely to be outside in this weather.
Then, she squinted in the sunlight and saw him standing in a corner of the brick walls, bent over a small notebook and covered in a light dusting of snow. He wore a gray woolen pea coat over his uniform. His rosy cheeks and full lips reminded her of a painting of Dionysus. She could picture him bare-chested and reclining on pillows, surrounded by grapes. She took a deep breath, plunged her hands into her pockets, and walked toward him. He looked up from his notebook. Fiona caught a playful half-smile as she approached.
Her voice caught in her throat she tried to think of something to say. “Hi, Jack.”
“Hi. Fiona, is it?”
He knows my name. She smiled. “Yes.”
She swallowed as he looked at her from beneath his long lashes.
Her toes numbed. What was she planning on saying—something about music? “What are you working on?”
“Just some drawings, though the snow is smudging them a bit. And a poem.”
“A love poem?” Why did I say that?
“Not really. Why, do you like love poems?” He closed his notebook, stuffing it in his pocket.
“Well, I like Lord Byron. But he didn’t get too schmaltzy. I mean, you can’t be obsessed with love.”
He held up his hand to lean against the brick wall. “Is that your theory? Love should be in moderation?”
“I mean, you need to stay your own person, right? You have to let the other person keep their identity or they’re not interesting or worthwhile anymore. It’s like when Germany planned to invade England, they wanted to keep the most impressive buildings intact, so they never bombed St. Paul’s. It’s no good taking over a city full of rubble.” Christ. What am I talking about?
The Witching Elm (A Memento Mori Witch Novel, Book 1) Page 3