by J A Campbell
“Are you okay?” Mindy bent and offered her hand to help. Harmony gratefully noticed that neither of her friends were participating in the merriment.
The half-dozen girls surrounding them were decked out in the latest fashion: everything perfect, everything beautiful except the sneers turning their faces piggy by the mercury vapor lights.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be walking, either!” Sylvia said.
“Maybe you should be nicer to your fellow students,” Mindy said.
“Oh, she is nice to her fellow students.” Harmony managed to stand without help despite her knee protesting with every motion. A hot trickle of blood ran down her knee. That was one pair of tights ruined. In a school full of mages, why couldn’t one of them figure out how to make a pair of tights that wouldn’t run?
“Jealous?” Sylvia hissed.
“Not particularly.” Harmony grinned back at her. “Got better things to do.”
“Like learn to walk again?”
“Like how to put together an outfit that looks like it was fashionable within the last hundred years?”
“Like learn to string beads on wire?”
Harmony suppressed the urge to wish and kept on walking. She congratulated herself for having made a few months free of bullies. Pity it hadn’t lasted.
“What a pair of losers she has with her,” one of the Sycophants added, popping her gum to emphasize her point.
“Girl, don’t you know that natural hair is out?” One of them said to Deborah. “You don’t have to look like....”
“And you could lose some weight,” another girl said to Mindy.
Harmony took a deep breath. She’d put up with years of crap herself, but leave her friends out of it. “And all of you could use some manners. Get away from my friends.”
“Make me,” Sylvia hissed.
Headlights illuminated the group. Cousin parked his sleek black Benz sedan nearby and got out, moving lithe as a panther in his customary black.
“Ladies.”
Sylvia looked like she was going to swoon. Her companions fluttered suitably.
“Harmony, it’s time for your self-defense lesson,” Cousin spoke in his rich, deep voice.
Harmony winced. She’d already taken a pummeling today, but she was starting to wonder if she’d forgotten her lessons already. Whatever Cousin dished out, it’d be more merciful than Sylvia—and Cousin was not known as Marcus the Merciful.
“Thanks, I think,” Harmony muttered.
“Sit down,” Cousin said when they’d reached a bench just inside the gym proper. “What happened to your leg?”
Harmony stared down to see her tights plastered to her lower leg from knee to her black uniform Mary Janes.
“Living in Oregon,” she explained. “First time I’ve seen the stars in months…I was so excited, I missed the last step.”
Cousin’s head shook minutely. “Go to the restroom and remove those tights. I need to check and see if you need healing.”
She did as he bade her. Already, the cut looked nasty and she had an ugly bruise to add to the collection on her wrists, throat and body which hadn’t even faded yet. Nurse had taken photos. Harmony supposed it was in case they found her attacker and chose to press charges.
“I think you’ll do fine without stitches.” Cousin had appropriated the First Aid kit in her absence. Despite the fact that she’d already cleaned the wound in the bathroom sink, he applied an antiseptic cloth, ointment, and then a bandage with professional ease.
“Thanks,” Harmony said. She’d momentarily contemplated asking him if he wanted to kiss it and make it better, but if he did, she’d probably soil herself.
“You’re collecting an impressive slate of enemies,” Cousin said as he shut the first aid kid with a decisive click.
“You don’t think I can take her?”
“I’m certain you can,” Cousin said amiably. “I doubt she’s the kind to fight her own battles to the end.”
Harmony nodded and fell into step with him gratefully when he opted to leave. They met Deborah and Mindy leaving the library.
“Hey, thanks again,” Deborah said. “Judith liked the necklace. She’s got a really cool gold tunic to wear with it, too.”
Harmony nodded.
Cousin cut her a glance as they carried on to the dorm.
“I think whoever it was hit my head harder than we believed.” Harmony chose not to elaborate.
“I think whoever it was may well be working to make you think that,” Cousin replied evenly as he held the door for her.
Harmony nodded. She had every sympathy for Elise as she cripped up the steps to their top-floor aerie. Though her leg would mend a lot sooner than her roommate’s had, she already hated the walk-up.
She unlocked the door and plopped down on her bed, her head thrumming with pain as it had since they’d found her bruised and beaten.
Whoever attacked me won’t stop with this. I’ve got to find a way to get my memory back.
Elise couldn’t handle Harmony’s broken personality any longer. It was simply so strange to see her going around acting, well, normal. She’d dressed only in her school uniform since the incident. She drank the tea Elise made mechanically, with no enjoyment, and she didn’t say much except when she had to. Pacing around their small room, she pondered what to do.
Some of it, Elise thought, could be blamed on trauma from the attack, but she couldn’t imagine someone like Harmony having a complete personality shift. Harmony was a fighter and she acted like she’d given up without even trying.
Because of that, Elise was pretty sure the shift was due to whatever had been done to her. Obviously memory loss, and everything.
She put down her cup of tea. Time to hit the library.
Elise hurried down the narrow staircase and out into the brisk evening. The sun hadn’t quite set, but the warmth from the day had fled. Her light sweater was still warm enough, but soon she’d need to worry about real winter weather. Elise wasn’t sure how she felt about the approaching season. She was used to snow. They got quite a bit back in Virginia where she’d grown up but she’d heard Oregon winters were different. She’d had so much different recently that she sort of wished for normal.
Lost in her thoughts, Elise almost ran over the student stopped on the path in front of her. She stopped, almost tripping over her feet, and looked up. Long raven hair framed a creamy pale face that Elise could only hope to imitate, even with her body altering abilities. Eyes so dark they were almost black glared at her over perfect rosebud lips.
“Um, hi, Sylvia.”
“You might consider watching where you are going.” Sylvia placed perfectly manicured hands on hips that were just the right size. On most people the school uniform looked just like a uniform. On Sylvia, it looked like the sexiest outfit imaginable.
Elise didn’t know how the girl did it, but considering how much she didn’t like Sylvia, she didn’t want to know.
“Sorry. I was thinking about home. Does it snow here much?”
The other girl arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow and sniffed her disdain. “I see you and Harmony didn’t bother coming back to the club.” The corner of her lip curled slightly. “Shame.”
“Um, yeah. It just wasn’t my thing. I’m not really into clubs and Harmony has other things she does.” Which wasn’t strictly true, but Sylvia didn’t need to know any of that.
“So sad. Well, I’m off to hang out with my friends. Ta-ta.” She twirled and headed toward the dining hall.
Elise stared after her, wondering what exactly that had been about. Shaking her head, she watched Sylvia saunter off. Elise wished she had a bunch of girlfriends to hang out with again. She was used to being the popular one. Elise resolutely headed for the library. This time she paid attention to who was in her path.
The librarian gave Elise a crusty look when she entered, but Elise had made peace with the ghost. First she would talk to the poltergeist and then she’d see if she could find any books on re
covering something lost. If that didn’t work, she’d come back for memory charm books.
Ducking her head and pretending she didn’t notice the librarian’s glare, she headed for the basement where the ghost spent most of his time.
Since she’d last talked with him in the necromancy section, she headed there first.
Enjoying the musty smell of old books and the dry dust of the library, she threaded her way through the stacks until she came to the little used section that talked about the dead. She had already read or skimmed most of the books, and was trying to work up the courage to ask Cousin Macrow if he could get more from the House for her and Harmony, but she hadn’t quite managed yet.
“I read the book.”
A soft wind curled around her ankles.
“I’m going to read it again and again until I really understand everything it said. It’s probably the best book in the library.”
The wind tugged at her hair playfully.
“Thank you for what you’ve taught me.”
The wind vanished for a moment and Elise wondered if she’d done something wrong, but when it returned, it caressed her cheek. Maybe no one had ever thanked the ghost before.
“I look forward to learning more from you. Now I’m going to try and help my friend. She’s lost her memory and I want to know how to help her.”
Elise hadn’t expected help, but it was as if something tugged on her hand. She let the ghost lead her further into the stacks.
The ghost dropped her hand in a section about charms and rituals. At a first glance, Elise could tell this was a section as little used as the necromancy section, but probably because people didn’t take it seriously, not because they were scared of the contents of the books.
Titles like Crystal Magic and Shapeshifting Your Mind adorned the shelves. Elise knew crystal magic was real, but the book appeared to be written for the New Age group, not for mages. She supposed there wasn’t anything wrong with that, but she guessed that the general mage population looked down on them.
Not about to argue with the poltergeist, Elise ran her hand over book titles until ghostly pressure halted her. Elise took the book from the shelf and studied it. Charms for Finding.
A simple enough title for a thin volume, but if the ghost thought this would help, Elise would give it a try.
“Again, thank you.”
She felt a cheek caress, and then the tingle behind Elise’s eyes that meant a ghost was about, vanished.
Quickly walking back upstairs, she clutched the book to her chest and hoped it would provide the answers she and Harmony needed.
“Whatcha reading?” Harmony came in, flopped on her bed and gave Elise a briefly interested glance before her gaze clouded again.
“A book on finding things. Spells, things like that.” She almost added that she thought it might help Harmony, but she hadn’t found anything yet and she didn’t want to embarrass her friend, or get her hopes up. She wasn’t exactly sure how Harmony would react, so she said nothing.
“Did you lose something?”
“The ghost showed it to me. You never know when you might need to find your car keys.”
As if driven by Elise’s words, Harmony patted her pockets before glancing at a handbag. “They’re in my bag.”
Smiling, Elise nodded. “I’m sure they are. Hey, that crystal you have that lets you see. Are you still wearing it?”
“No. It showed me too much. It’s around somewhere.” As if she didn’t care one way or the other, Harmony shrugged and left the room.
Even that was strange for her.
Sighing, Elise went back to studying the pages.
An hour and a slight headache later, she thought she might just have it. She still wasn’t quite brave enough to outright tell Harmony what she’d found, so she took the crystal from Harmony’s bedside table, where it had sat for quite some time and marked the place in the book with it. She left the book on Harmony’s bed and headed to the bathroom. The spell was something Harmony would have to do herself, and it didn’t sound like the experience would be pleasant, but if she could get herself back, it would likely be worth it. Of course, Elise wasn’t the one that would have to go through the process, but she’d help if Harmony asked.
If her not so subtle hint didn’t work, she’d have to go to Marcus.
The dorm’s basement was soothingly cool and dark. Harmony sat in the lotus position at the center of her chalk drawing: the triple goddess symbol which spread out over most of the concrete floor space. A yellow plastic mop bucket redolent with vomit sat outside the petals of her drawing. Within her immediate reach, she’d chalked the names of the people Professor Thompson had tried to make her forget: Granddaddy, Charles, Sam, Lisa. She blinked eyes heavy with tears and shifted to look at them and remember so she could make them part of her again. Standing up was not in her immediate future. Her head felt like a broken egg, but it was her head once again thanks to the book Elise had left and her ametrine.
For the first time in ten days, her mind was clear of the fog. She remembered everything Professor Thompson wanted her to forget. He thought he’d stop her with pain. That might have worked if she was one of the dainty Macrow House raised princesses. He might have even raped her—if she hadn’t kneed him hard enough between his legs to make him scream and walk funny even now.
She’d had nothing but pain all her life, from the judgmental upright snobs who thought she was her mother’s bastard child to the bullies on the playground. Thinking a migraine was going to stop her was utter nonsense. It made her vomit, it made her lie down in dark rooms…It made her stop and think and plan.
What she’d had to do was fight past the Texas woman screaming “Oh hell no,” in her head and figure out what needed to happen next. Oh, she wanted to take her still-bruised body up in front of the entire school and accuse Professor Thompson of her attack. Surprisingly at this school she did have friends. Not the high-minded whiners in the HH club, but folks like Mindy and Ben who knew how the world worked and how to make things. Joy, who stopped the rain the day before so she’d have a bit of sun. Even Professor Harkenrider had been a friend and ally. He’d come to her bedside and pressed another ametrine in her hands, which helped her begin to reshape her memories. The next day, he added a bloodstone, which he said helped with strength and courage. The last stone was a lapis lazuli as blue as Crater Lake on a cloudless day and shot with veins of gold. That stone was for wisdom and judgment. Making trouble would be little effort at all.
But that wasn’t what she wanted or what the situation called for. She’d gimped around for over a week with the faculty and student body cooing over her injuries while she wrestled with a massive load of pain to rebuild herself alone.
The folks who’d spewed the hate looked away when she gimped past them. She wore her blouse with an open collar and her sleeves rolled up so the bruises would show. She didn’t put pancake over the hideous marks on her face, either. Let them see what hatred did. Let them think she was damaged and broken. Worth it if they felt some shame over her attack.
If they came after her, she would nuke them into next week.
Karma—that’s what she wanted. She had no desire for revenge. Let the higher-ups, if indeed there were such beings, decide what was appropriate punishment for Professor Thompson.
She set a photo of Professor Thompson from the school yearbook in front of her, then laid a red candle next to it. Three times she chanted a spell she’d learned and never used from one of her mom’s Wiccan friends, once for each face of the Goddess:
let cruelty, pain and evil ways
follow this villain through his days
reverse the torment he creates
to turn on him the crueler fate
Then, she blew out the candle.
Darkness. Harmony took deep breaths from her diaphragm, centered again.
The doorknob rattled and the door opened, casting the stairwell light onto her workings. Blinded, Harmony blinked until darkness fell again
and Cousin Macrow walked steadily down the long single flight of stairs a globe of jewel-like amber mage light leading him, each wooden step making its own special complaint.
The good thing about Cousin Macrow was he wasn’t much for small talk. He folded himself bonelessly into the lotus position opposite her, examining her weakness manifested in the bucket and her work writ in fragile chalk on the floor, his brow quirking at the photo and the blown-out red candle. His mouth bowed, whether it was approval or not, only he knew.
“He wondered whether this would break you.”
Harmony didn’t ask who “he” was. Though Cousin Macrow never gave a name, she knew he referred to her father. A bit of late-night research into the restricted section of the school’s library, after a bribe to the resident poltergeist, had given her a pretty good clue who the sperm donor was.
Lord Alistair Macrow himself. She still had no idea who her mother was. No doubt one of the Macrow House princesses she’d contemplated before. Hopefully, the warrior type.
Harmony let out a long breath. “What are you going to tell him?”
“That you’re surprisingly resilient,” he said. “He expected a complaint to the House.”
“What? I’m going to go crying to a man I’ve never met to protect me?” Harmony shook her head at him.
“You are also entitled to file a complaint with the JM and bring a Justiciar into the case.” Cousin said. “That would merit a full-scale investigation into the school and the treatment of the students.”
“That’d give Professor Thompson and the Healthy Hybrids precisely what they wanted, wouldn’t it? A sense of victimization and a need to rebel to prove themselves as good or better than we are.”
He nodded. “I wondered why you didn’t strike directly.”
That was a very good question. He’d spent time both in official class and out drilling her on magical self-defense, and he well knew her temper. She’d let it rule her too often. Harmony bowed her head in a silent thanks to him. He acknowledged with a slighter bow. She swallowed and spoke.