“Good idea.” Tobias walked over to the rack, picking up twenty-pound weights from the top shelf. “How often do you come here?”
“Most days. I have to keep up with it. I used to get bullied before I started working out.” Alan jumped on a machine and eased into a jog. With a few beeps, he increased his speed, and the machine’s whirring grew louder. “Are we gonna go forward with this band? We need to get you a lute.”
Standing near the mirror, Tobias curled the weight into his arm. “Just so you know, I’m not very good.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m still working on a name. Maybe we could call ourselves the Necromantic Fools.”
Tobias cocked his head. “I guess that’s appropriate.”
“At my last gig, there were only two people.” Alan spoke through labored breaths. “But now we’ve got the girls hanging out with us. Ever since—you know. I bet they’d come to our show.” He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.
Before Tobias could reply, Sully sauntered in with a friend. In contrast to Sully’s square, chiseled face, his friend’s face was round—almost cherubic. The boy’s blond curls only enhanced the angelic impression.
Rubbing at the back of his broad neck, Sully threw his towel over the weight rack. He smiled, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. “Oh good, it’s the affirmative action crew.” A picture of innocence, he widened his blue eyes at Alan. “Did you earn your spot on that treadmill, or did someone give it to you because they felt bad for you?”
The cherub giggled, walking toward another machine. “You can’t say that stuff in public, dude.” He turned to Alan. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s been hit in the head too many times in football.”
Sully stood a few feet away from Tobias, near the rack of weights. He held up an elbow behind his head, pulling on it with his other hand. “What? I’m not racist, Connor. I love Asian girls.” He smirked. “They’re hot, and they can do your math homework for you.”
Connor gave an embarrassed laugh. “Tone it down, man.”
With a beep, Alan stopped his machine. With beads of sweat trickling down his face, he gripped the bars. He turned, glaring at Sully.
Sully’s sneering tone had made Tobias’s jaw clench. He put down his weight and stood beside the blue-eyed football player, looking him over. He was over six feet tall and muscular, though not any bigger than Alan. And he was probably too stupid to know how to fight.
Ignoring Tobias, Sully grinned at Alan. “Seriously though, I need some help with math. You got a sister you can lend me?” He straightened, holding his palms out in a welcoming gesture. “I’ll take your mom, too. I’m not picky. Just don’t tell Munroe.” He winked.
Alan stepped off the treadmill, striding toward Sully who stepped backward, laughing and holding up his hands.
“What, you can’t take a joke? Oh crap, do you know judo?” He backed up, grinning. “My bad. What is it? Jiu-jitsu?” As Alan pressed in on him, he took another step back, knocking into the weight rack. Losing his balance, Sully toppled backward into the mirror, arms over his head. Weights rolled from the rack, thudding to the floor.
With a reddening face, Sully sprawled over clanging dumbbells. His lips pressed into an angry line, and he breathed hard through his nose. His flared nostrils reminded Tobias of an enraged bull as he pushed himself up from the rack. “What the hell?” He stepped toward Alan, pushing him hard.
Alan returned the shove, knocking him into the rack a second time, but this time he remained upright. The bull gnashed his teeth and swung at Alan, smashing his jaw. Dazed with the blow, Alan stumbled back, his eyes glazed.
Red-faced, the bull shouted, “Do not mess with me!”
Tobias stepped in front of him, blocking Sully’s path before he struck Alan again, but Sully grit his teeth and shoved him. Instinctively, Tobias swung for his nose. He landed the punch, and Sully stumbled back, bringing his hand to his face. He stared for a moment at the blood trickling down his hand, then lunged for Tobias, knocking him to the floor.
A flash of pain shot through Tobias’s skull as Sully punched him in the temple, but then something tore Sully away.
Gripping his throbbing head, Tobias rose. Alan pinned Sully’s arms behind his back.
The cherub hovered by them now, hands outstretched. “Okay, guys. Everyone just relax.”
Restrained, Sully’s face turned a deeper shade of red. Connor was right. If they didn’t calm down, someone would end up seriously hurt.
Spittle flew from Sully’s mouth as he struggled to free himself. He shouted, “You’re dead, you swarthy fu—”
Tobias stepped forward, grabbing on to Sully’s reddened jaw, whispering a distraction spell into his ear. The bull’s breathing shallowed, his chest rising and falling more slowly. Tobias stepped back, watching as Sully opened his mouth and closed it again, shoulders relaxing. Sully’s attention drifted to the rowing machines.
“Okay?” Alan released his arms.
Sully glanced at Connor before stumbling out of the gym.
Connor stared after his friend. He turned to Tobias, narrowing his eyes. “What did you say to him?”
Catching his breath, Tobias shrugged, a hand over his aching forehead. “I just told him he needed to calm down.”
Connor nodded slowly. “Huh.” He grabbed his towel and marched out.
Alan ran the back of his hand over his sweating forehead. “Dabbled in magic, was it?”
Tobias swallowed. Had he been hit too hard in the head? Perhaps his spell-casting hadn’t been as subtle as he’d intended.
12
Fiona
Fiona blinked at the schools of sea creatures floating in the glass tank above them. With Tobias in tow, she and Mariana had trekked down Milk Street to the aquarium. As they gazed at colorful fish and turtles, Tobias wanted to know the name of each creature. With a chipped black fingernail, Mariana pointed out the angelfish, a blacktip reef shark, and a small clownfish hiding in a sea anemone.
Tobias stared up at a large green sea turtle as it drifted through the water. “There’s a legend that turtles are heralds between humans and water spirits. They straddle the worlds of water and land, the living and the dead.”
Mariana spun in a circle as she looked up at the animals swimming overhead. “That’s so cool. And did you know turtles are more closely related to birds than to lizards?” She stopped twirling to glance at Tobias. “At least, that’s what I read on a science blog.”
“That makes sense. Birds are messengers, too.”
During the frigid walk back to Mather Academy, Mariana thrilled Tobias with descriptions of all manner of species: arctic foxes, scarlet macaws, and Komodo dragons that could cripple a man by severing his Achilles tendon.
As they approached the iron school gates, Fiona couldn’t help but recall their frantic run through Boston’s streets and the skeletal, hollow-eyed demon.
She hugged her arms around herself as they neared the school’s wooden entrance. “Tobias.” She turned to look into his deep brown eyes. “You said you dabbled in magic. You said you don’t know a lot about it. But let me ask you one thing. Are we safe? Nothing’s coming for us?”
He spoke softly, leaning toward her. “Nothing’s coming for you. I think someone just wanted to scare us.”
She exhaled. “Thanks.” She opened the front door, greeted by a gust of warm air in the vestibule.
At the top of the stairs, they said their goodbyes, and the girls veered off toward their wing.
While they approached Fiona’s door, Sadie sauntered toward them from the other direction. A smatter of freckles crossed her pert nose, and blond curls bounced over her shoulder as she walked. Fiona avoided eye contact. Sadie had a habit of launching into diatribes about her shin splints and rambling deliberations over breakfast choices. As Fiona opened her door, Sadie pressed her hand against the doorframe. Fiona’s heart sank.
“Hey, guys!” Sadie smiled.
“Hi, Sadie,” they mum
bled.
“Do you know that new kid from England? I saw you talking to him the other day.”
“Yeah, I know him. Tobias.” Fiona pushed her door open further, edging into her room. She took off her coat, hoping to hurry things along.
Sadie shifted closer, threatening to enter. She spoke in a low voice, her eyebrows moving up and down. “Well, I heard that Tobias was in the gym using free weights, and he punched Sully in the face. He broke his nose.” She crinkled her nose. “Do you think Sully’s okay?”
“Tobias didn’t mention that.” Stepping further into the room, Mariana glanced at Fiona.
“So you don’t know what his deal is?” Sadie gripped either side of the doorframe. “Not to be rude, but does he have, like, a mental problem?”
“Sully probably started it.” Fiona hoped that would end the conversation.
“Yeah.” Sadie nodded solemnly. “You’re probably right.” She turned to Mariana. “Tell your brother I said hi. He’s been helping me get up the stairs because of my splints. I might also ask Jack. My shins are like—”
Fiona cleared her throat, inching the door shut. “You know, I would love to hear about that, but we have so much homework.”
Mariana nodded eagerly. “So much.”
“Okay, well, I’ll catch you up later!” Sadie waved as Fiona closed the door.
Mariana plopped down on Celia’s bed. “Wow. Tobias punched Sully? He didn’t say anything about that.”
Fiona folded her arms. “I’m convinced he knows more than he’s letting on about magic.”
“What makes you say that?”
Fiona stepped over a pile of clothes by her bed. “He described a story he’s writing when I hung out with him in the park, something about an imaginary place with magic. But what if it’s not a story? What if it’s real?”
“What was it called?”
“I’ll tell you, Mariana, but you can’t tell anyone. Not even Celia for now. He didn’t say it was a secret, but it sort of seemed like a secret. Promise?”
“You know I can keep a secret. I never told anyone you pretended to be a robot.”
Fiona blushed. In sixth grade, she’d tried to impress a boy named Kieron by dropping metal nuts and bolts around his chair, hoping to convince him she was a cyborg. “Tobias told me about a place called Maremount, where they have sorcerers. He said it was like Boston—like another dimension of Boston where most people can’t read, because if everyone practiced alchemy, it would screw up the inflation rate of gold.”
“No way.”
“The aristocrats learn magic in the schools, but the peasants aren’t allowed, so they do it in secret. And there’s a civil war.”
“Where’s it supposed to be?”
“I think it’s like—another plane. But it’s connected to Boston somehow.”
Mariana gripped the edge of Celia’s bed, eying her intensely. “We need to look this up.” She sprung up, crossing to the door. “Come with me to the library.”
The old Caldwell Library constituted the entire second floor under the dorm rooms. It was named after a Mather student who’d died in the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. Ernest Caldwell’s mother had donated money to the school for a restoration of the library, under the strict provision that molasses could never be served in the dining hall. As they passed a bust of the Caldwell boy near the entrance, Mariana’s brother Lucas rounded the corner.
“Hey, irmãzinha.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Mariana. “You don’t do homework.”
“How could you say such a thing? You know I love sitting around reading about birds and dinosaurs. Oh no wait, that’s you.”
Mariana rolled her eyes.
He turned to Fiona, a playful smile on his lips. “Your hair is kind of cool and wild.”
Mariana groaned. “Would you please stop flirting with my friends?”
He blinked his large brown eyes. “Speaking of which, I’m supposed to meet Celia now. You don’t mind if I hang out with her, do you?”
“Whatever.” Mariana looked toward the ceiling.
“Cool. See you two.” Grinning, Lucas bounded past them up the stairs.
“New boyfriend. That explains why Celia’s been busy all week,” said Fiona as they entered the library. “Kind of awkward that it’s your brother.”
Long desks with lamps lined the center of the room, and painted ceilings arched over two levels of books, connected by spiral staircases. They found a quiet alcove below the pallid, oil-painted face of Sophronia Hastings, a patron of the school.
Fiona glanced around at endless rows of books that filled two wings and the central hall. “I don’t know where to start.”
“I’ll look online.” Mariana pulled her laptop from her shoulder bag. “You could look at the card catalogue.”
Fiona bit her lower lip as she ambled over to the library’s ancient, hand-written card catalogues, trying to remember how the library was organized. The Caldwell Library’s unique cataloguing system had remained unchanged since the early Victorian era. After fumbling through the drawers, she found a Legends of New England title in the “Folklore” cards.
She closed the drawer, and passed through rows of oak bookshelves until she arrived at the end of the eastern wing. Tall, arched widows looked out toward the Common. On the right wall, a six-foot memorial plaque listed the names of Mather alumni who’d fought in American wars, while on the ceiling high above, painted gold stars and silver moons glimmered in a sea of dark blue.
On the left, a brass staircase led to the folklore section. She climbed the stairs and scanned the titles. An amber glow from ceiling lights illuminated the books’ spines. She moved past a few books about hauntings and a row about witchcraft before she spied her title. A death’s-head engraving adorned the slim gray volume.
Skimming the back cover, she found a listing of the topics covered:
• European Traditions
•Indigenous Lore
•Salem’s Legacy
•The Great Elm
•Merrymount
Clutching the book, she thumped down the stairs and rushed back toward the central hall.
“Mariana!” she called out as she approached the alcove. “I found something.”
Mariana looked up from her computer. “Me too! What have you got?”
Fiona pulled out a chair to sit across from her friend. She opened to the index, skimming for the word Merrymount. She paged through to the chapter.
“What does it say?” Mariana peered over the book, trying to read upside down.
“Hang on… Okay, so this says Merrymount started as a Native town. Then an English guy named Thomas Morton began colonizing. He renamed it Mare-mount. Now it’s a neighborhood in Quincy…” She looked up. “Just south of Boston.” Fiona resumed skimming. “The Mare-mount colonists mixed with Natives. They had pagan ceremonies together. Like the Maypole festival.”
“They sound way more fun than the Puritans.”
Fiona skipped to the end. “Then the Puritans got more powerful, and after ten years they destroyed the whole colony. Jerks.” She closed the book. “What did you find?”
Mariana hunched over her laptop. “There’s a Ph.D. student named Thomas Malcolm who studies these legends. He sounds cool. Here’s his bio: ‘Thomas Malcolm grew up in both South London and Jamaica, where he developed an interest in folklore. Since completing his bachelor’s degree at Queen Mary in London in 2010, he has researched folklore and mythology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.’”
“Does it say anything more?”
“He has a website.” She clicked a link. “He’s cute.” She swiveled the laptop to face Fiona. At the top of the screen was a photo of a young man with a goatee, his brown eyes framed by thick-rimmed glasses. His dark skin was striking against his crisp white shirt. She turned her laptop to face her again.
“He is cute, but what does it say about his research?”
Mariana squinted, clicking another li
nk. “On top of the legit history, he describes a legend that the Maremount Colony was made up of English sorcerers. They shared magic with the Natives. Over time, they tried to blend in when the Puritans got more powerful. After the Salem Witch Trials, they wanted their own colony again.”
“This is awesome.” Fiona’s eyes went wide. “What else does he say?”
“The sorcerers created their own land with magic in the late 1600s. It was just like Boston, but limited to English and Algonquian sorcerers. It was called the Great Schism. They’ve been isolated for over 300 years.”
“Is that it?”
Mariana scrolled down. “Then it’s mostly accounts of people who claim to have been there.”
Fiona slapped her hand on the table. “We need to find Thomas Malcolm.”
* * *
At breakfast the next morning, Fiona found Mariana sitting with the guys, grilling them for details about their confrontation in the gym.
“You should have seen how it ended.” Alan glanced at Tobias. “He calmed Sully down with his voice.”
Fiona sat down at the long wooden table with her tray of pancakes and stared out at the dining hall. Something seemed off today. Two boys she recognized from the football team sat with their heads in their hands at a nearby table; other students huddled in groups, wiping tears from their eyes.
Fiona frowned. “Guys, I think something’s going on.”
Her friends’ conversation subsided, and they glanced around the hall. Sadie approached, red-eyed. She stopped directly across from Fiona, propping both hands on the edge of the table. “Did you guys hear what happened?”
Fiona shook her head. “What’s going on?”
Sadie shook her head. “I can’t believe it. He was such a good athlete.” She sobbed, covering her face.
Fiona held out her hand, gently touching Sadie’s arm. “Who? Who was a good athlete?”
“Sully was found dead this morning.” She pulled her hands from her pink and blotchy face, wiping her nose across the back of her hand.
Tobias’s color drained.
Alan swallowed. “Do you know how it happened?”
The Witching Elm (A Memento Mori Witch Novel, Book 1) Page 6