by K. F. Breene
“Did someone come with an envelope?”
“Yes, but—”
Dad shook his head, slowly. “No, Wild. No buts. We will not speak with him. You saw what happened to Tommy. It’s too dangerous. Tommy was a target, and you will be, too, even more so than your brother. Your mother left that place to stay safe. You’ll stay away for the same reason.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around what he was saying. They were the kinds of words that threatened to change the shape of all you knew. Questions lined up in my head like little toy soldiers. What place did Mom leave? The same school as Tommy? Why was it dangerous?
“But…” I started.
“No, Wild, and that’s final.” He cranked up the volume on the TV, his way of ending the conversation. “Give the money back. Give it all back. They won’t have another of my children. They will not!”
He shifted his gaze to the TV, and I stared at him a moment before I turned and trudged back to the kitchen in a fog, my mind whirling. What did my father mean, “my power continued to grow”? Did he mean physical strength? I was surely much stronger than the average girl, but I’d always attributed that to a hard life dealing with large animals. A girl needed a certain amount of strength to work the farm and keep up with the men.
But what did any of that have to do with a college scholarship that included stacks of cash, fancy watches, and trinkets? And why were Tommy and me targets? Targets of what?
None of this made any sense, starting with sideburns dude somehow sneaking onto the property. Not to mention that the envelope wasn’t even for me. Whatever my father thought he knew, clearly he was mistaken. Except for the fact that he should’ve said no when Tommy had wanted to go, of course.
Suddenly the guilt I’d seen in Dad all those years made a lot more sense. My mother had somehow known Tommy would get asked to this college, whatever it was, and she’d made my Dad promise not to commit. Only, my father had bent to the excitement, and his own desire to live vicariously through Tommy.
One thought kept niggling at me—why hadn’t I gotten an envelope if my father was so sure they’d want me? They’d skipped right over me.
“It’s a pity you elected not to go to school. You’re a natural.”
Sideburns had said that, as though it had been my choice to be passed up. As though I’d rejected the invitation already. Yet…my father would’ve said if one had already come. Right?
I pushed that from my mind. The past didn’t matter. What did matter was the envelope coming for too-young Billy.
It struck me that Sam hadn’t gotten one either. Whatever my dad thought, my initial assessment held firm—this college, school, whatever it was, was going after the younger males of this family. They were trying to pick them off.
First things first, I needed to find out the nature of this college.
Chapter 3
A couple hours later, after I served up dinner and all but force-fed the twins their greens, I slipped into the quiet hush of my room and closed the door. The yellow package was still in my closet, right where I’d stashed it. I grabbed it and unceremoniously dumped the contents onto the bed. Five trinkets spilled out first. They reminded me of something, I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Each one was tiny, barely bigger than a quarter, but three dimensional. A knife, a gravestone, a pawprint, a tiny stick, and a blank coin. I rolled them through my fingers, then dropped them back to the bed. No clues there.
I zeroed in on the letter in the shiny silver envelope. If anything held answers, that did; I was sure of it.
A quick slit of the paper with my knife, and I pulled out a piece of thick cardstock with feathered edges. Soft vibrations ran up through my fingers as I touched the card. As I watched in utter confusion, embossed letters etched themselves into the cream-colored paper, dancing and swirling across the expensive paper as they formed words.
“What the hell?”
I angled the card away from the light and leaned in to see better, but upon closer inspection, the words were stationary. My dad’s babbling about magic must have set off my imagination. My eyes slid over the message and immediately sweat beaded along my brow and slid down my face, one droplet landing on the paper, next to the words I couldn’t un-see. Words that could not have been any worse.
Billy Johnson,
Your presence is requested at the Culling Trials.
You don’t choose an Academy. An Academy chooses you.
Report to the address below within forty-eight hours or your family will die.
Time is ticking.
I stared at the words for a long time, longer than I should have considering the last line, then shook the paper, wondering if the letters would rearrange themselves into a more favorable message. Nothing happened, of course. My eyes had been playing tricks on me earlier. I turned the paper over and searched the back for a customer service number or an April Fool’s note. It was late July, but maybe someone was getting a head start on their tomfoolery. Blankness greeted me, a solid white of nothing.
I squinted at the address listed below the message. Upstate New York somewhere.
Crystal Lake Wild Forest, Roscoe, New York.
The ink glittered, as if the threat to my family were a young girl’s art project.
The message seemed preposterous. What college threatened people to show up and learn or else? On what planet was that rational?
The same college that covers up students’ deaths.
I gritted my teeth as the message in front of me finally sank in. It almost seemed like I could feel the intent behind the embossed words: You will show up regardless, but if we have to make you, your family will die.
I eyed the watch on the bed, its screen a solid black. They’d even sent their own timekeeper. How thoughtful.
If Tommy had been given a watch, I would’ve seen it. He would’ve been too proud not to wear it. He also couldn’t have gotten a card with a message like this—there was no way he would’ve been beaming about his acceptance to a school that would threaten his family.
Right?
Given all the skeletons that had gone dancing around the living room earlier, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Time to hold Dad’s feet to the fire and get the rest of the story.
I took the stairs quickly but with light steps, not wanting to bring the twins out of their rooms. In the living room, I gently shook my dad awake. It appeared he hadn’t bothered to head to bed. Another part of our routine. “Dad.”
“Hmm?” His eyes fluttered opened and it took a moment for him to focus on the card held three feet from his face. “What is it?”
“Dad, did Tommy get an invitation with that manila envelope he got from that school?” I asked.
“Did…what?” My dad rubbed his eyes and struggled to sit up.
I shook the card a little, drawing his eyes to the glittering message.
“Did Tommy get something like this?” I repeated.
His brows lowered, and the sleep fled from his eyes as they traced the words. “What…? No. Thomas didn’t get anything like that. He only got a message about the Culling Trials, not the threat. Is that how they’re running things now? The older families must be pushing back. The Helix family wouldn’t stand for this. Wait a minute…is that?” He took the card and held it away from his face so he could see better. “That says Billy’s name. It can’t be.” His hand shook as he stared at me over the top of it, the fear heavy in his eyes.
“Yeah.” I took the, now bent, card. “The envelope didn’t come for me. It came for Billy.”
“But…” My father struggled to get his feet down in the recliner so he could properly sit up. “Billy is still in high school. He isn’t ready for college yet.”
I fought not to crumple the card in my hand. “I know. And he’s not going. What is this place, Dad? How is this even legal? You have to give me some answers. We have to figure out how to stop this.”
He sighed and rubbed his temple with a gnarled finger. “Sweet Jesus, this can’t be hap
pening. Not again.” He held up an empty glass to me. “Bring me another glass of elixir, Wild,” he said softly.
Without money to spend on Scotch these days, he had to settle for moonshine, what he liked to call elixir. We had a couple of bottles—a present one of the neighbors had given me for hunting down a lone wolf that had terrorized both of our livestock. Dad rarely drank it, saving it for Christmas and special occasions—or for when life and his pain got too heavy to bear.
“Sure, Dad,” I said, then gritted my teeth, refusing to give in to despair. I’d been taking care of things around here for the last few years. So far, I’d kept us above water…or at least we weren’t drowning yet. Whatever it took, we’d find a way around this. Billy would not end up like Tommy.
A flash of yellow snagged my attention when I stepped into the kitchen, and I found myself staring at a second manila folder on the kitchen table.
“Buckets of crud…” My voice drifted away as cold trickled down my spine.
He’d been in here again—the dude with the bad sideburns. Him, or someone like him. We’d all been home, going about our lives, and none of us had noticed a stranger in our midst. He was like a ghost!
“Billy! Sam!” I yelled. The chances were slim to none, but I entertained the faint hope that I was wrong. That they’d brought the envelope home from summer school.
Before they could answer, or even emerge from their room, I rushed to the back door and yanked it open. He should still be out there, although I didn’t actually expect to see him.
Early evening blanketed the sweeping fields to the side of our house and settled firmly on the barn off to my left. A deep moo drifted through the dense evening and the sound of crickets throbbed in the dying light. I usually loved this time of the day, but now it all seemed tainted by the intruder. As though the serenity was washed through with his danger.
I flicked on the porch light and jogged to the edge of the cracked concrete walkway. I squinted into the deep twilight, just bright enough to reveal one clear boot tread in the still damp dirt. Just one, as though he’d stepped down with the intention that I’d notice his presence…before vanishing again.
“What?” Sam stepped out of the house and into the evening light. I turned back to look at her, hands on her hips and an eyebrow arched. “What’s the matter?”
Billy jogged out behind her, his brows pinched. “What’s up?”
I spun on my heel and marched toward them. “Did you hear anyone come in?”
They both looked around in confusion, the sass in Sam fading.
“Where?” she asked as I brushed by her. “You mean in the house?”
Well, that was a no.
“Close the door,” I barked, worry making me sharper than usual. “Lock it. All the locks.”
“What’s going on?” Billy asked, hurrying in behind Sam. He didn’t wait for an answer before he threw the deadbolt and locked the knob.
“It’s happening again.” My dad staggered as he neared the door to the kitchen and put a large-knuckled hand on the door frame to stabilize himself. Sam ran forward to help him, slipping under his free arm. Dad’s eyes locked on mine. “Wild, we can’t let him go. They’ll kill him. Thomas was the top of his class—if he couldn’t make it through, Billy surely won’t.”
“Me?” Billy pointed at his chest. “What did I do? I swear it wasn’t me!”
“Guilty conscience,” Sam muttered. He scowled at her.
“Stop.” I held up my hand. “Just hold on. They’re not taking Billy anywhere. Sam, Billy, get to bed.”
Billy shook his head. “If this is about me, I have a right—”
I silenced him with a look. “It’s not about you. It’s about me. Get on with ya. Both of you. Go to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
They hesitated, they knew as well as I did that we didn’t talk about things in this house—and I pointed at the staircase.
“Go on, now. Let me talk to Dad for a while. We’ll figure this out.”
They muttered complaints, but after a stern word from my father, they stomped up the stairs. I waited until their bedroom door slammed before I snatched up the second manila envelope and ripped it open, finding a packet of paper. The five symbols emblazoned across the top in impossibly vivid colors matched the trinkets I had received in the first envelope. I scanned the text even as my dad gave me some of the same information.
“It’s a school for exceptional people,” he said, his words slightly slurring. He reached, grasping for a chair. I grabbed his hand, feeling the strength that was still there, little as it was. Our palms pressed together as I helped him down into it, one-handed. My eyes slid to the additional items as he kept talking. “Only the very privileged go there, Wild, and not privileged in the way of money, but in the way of talent. Magical talent.”
I stared down at him like a hog looking at a wristwatch, utterly confused. “Come again?”
He didn’t seem to hear me. “I got invited, just like everyone in my family did, but…” His head drooped. “I didn’t have what it took. I was a null. A magical nothing…should have had more to me, but didn’t.”
“A…magical…nothing,” I repeated. We’d circled back to nonsense words.
“Your mother, though… She was exceptional,” he gushed. “So talented. So beautiful, like you, with that long dark hair and amber gold eyes. She was the belle of any ball. And of course, she was the top of her class, just like Thomas. I couldn’t go to the academy with her—I didn’t pass the trials—but I stayed close to support her. I worked the grounds.” He put up his hands. “She didn’t talk about it much, but she left because of some family curse. She swore off the magical world and wanted her children to do the same.” He shook his head. “And you should’ve. Thomas should’ve. I let him go. It was my fault—”
Dad’s voice was slurring slightly and I wondered how much moonshine he’d had, but it was clear he believed what he was saying. These fantasy ideas to him were real. At least they were right now when the alcohol was affecting his brain.
“He wanted to go,” I said, trying to soak his words up, to hold them close so I could make sense of them. I put a hand on his too-thin shoulder. “He probably would’ve pushed to get his way. He would’ve thought it was the right thing to do. All that money, a good education leading to a good job—you couldn’t have stopped him. None of us could have, even if we’d known.”
Maybe Rory could have, though, I thought whimsically. Tommy had turned to Rory more than once for advice and had always taken it to heart.
Dad sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I suppose you’re right.” He paused and shook his head. “I thought maybe the neighbor kid and him could watch over each other, like they did growing up.”
Confusion smacked me yet again like a two by four to the back of the head. “Wait, you mean Rory?”
Dad swayed. “We all used to have such a great time, us and Pam Wilson. Pam and your mother were thick as thieves. They were in school together for a while. But then your mother died, and well, that mean ol’ codger got heavy into the sauce. He was always bad news. I told her to leave, that I’d help somehow, but what could I do, really? And then there was Emelia in town. She and your mom were good friends too—”
“Dad.” I leaned forward and put my hand on his arm, trying to jog him out of the past. I remembered Rory’s mom and mine laughing over their glasses of sherry at the kitchen table, but that had been a long time ago when my mother was young and full of life, and my father hadn’t been riddled with sickness. “What about Rory? Rory went to that school?”
“That mean old bastard gave me a split lip, do you remember that?” Dad ran his hand over his face. “He was as fast as I ever saw.”
Dad meant Buck, Rory’s father. Buck had never needed much of a reason to throw a punch. But given that I’d been asking about Buck’s son, it meant my dad’s grasp on timelines and people were getting confused. I didn’t have time to straighten it all out, not that it wo
uld’ve mattered if I had. I’d gotten a couple postcards from Rory from Nevada, the other side of the country from the school Tommy went to. Besides that, Rory had never lied to me. That was one thing we’d promised each other—we’d always held stock in honesty.
I sat heavily in the chair opposite my dad, my hand sliding from his shoulder. Truth rang in his words, but so did alcohol. There was no telling what was fantasy and what was reality. Not when he was this deep in the moonshine.
“This is the contract, then?” I flipped the pages of the packet, and in a moment, I had my answer. A section at the back laid it all out, right down to the nitty-gritty.
If Billy showed up to the trials, he could keep the money in the welcome packet, and if he was offered a place in the academy, he could apply for financial aid. We were all bound to silence, and our lives would be forfeit if we breathed a word about any of this. Then, at the very bottom, almost like an afterthought, was the line, “If APPLICANT fails to appear at the Culling Trials, APPLICANT stands in breach of contract, and APPLICANT’s family will be destroyed.”
“It doesn’t even make sense,” I said softly, reading it again. “At the top it says if Billy shows up at the trials. Then at the bottom, it’s clear he doesn’t have a choice.”
I threw the contract down, the papers fanning out.
“They can’t make this stick. None of this is legal. They sound like the freaking mafia, not a school for the…privileged.” I shook my head. “He’s not going. There’s no conceivable way they can make him. He’s still a minor, for criminy sakes. I’ll call the police tomorrow and file a harassment report. I’ll turn the money over to them.” I flung up my hand, anger eating through me. “If they think we can be bullied into doing what they want, they are sorely mistaken.”
My father clasped his hands, staring at the packet with tight, worried eyes. “I tried to call the police after your brother died. I tried to get someone to properly investigate.” He swallowed hard. “I should’ve known better. These people, magical people, have their own laws. Their own set of guidelines. They don’t play by the rule book you and I know, Wild, and they don’t have to. They have an understanding with certain powerful world leaders. It’s been years since I was part of it, but none of that has changed.”