Ghoul Problems

by Sarina Dorie

  Malisha started to turn.

  Vega clucked her tongue. “I want that book.” She held out her hand.

  Malisha hugged it to herself. “No. You don’t need it.”

  “I want to examine the handwriting to see if I recognize the forger.”

  “It won’t help you. If you perform a spell searching for the same handwriting, all that will come up is any other books the culprit has checked out in your name.” Malisha sauntered off.

  “There are other spells I can use,” Vega called after her.

  Malisha didn’t answer. She walked through the blue waves of the sound-barrier spell. Vega supposed Malisha had taken the book to use as blackmail in case she didn’t find sufficient proof that they were both innocent. It was a move Vega would have done herself if she’d had incriminating evidence against her enemy.

  While Malisha’s back was turned, Vega slid the amulet over her neck. She examined Malisha for glamours or details she might be hiding that the Fae magic might reveal. She didn’t see anything that she didn’t already know about Malisha’s ancestry.

  Vega kept the amulet on as she removed the note from her pocket. It was the one she’d found on her pillow. Malisha was the one who had suggested it had been forged. For all Vega knew, Malisha might have been the forger, only admitting that because she thought Vega had suspected it was.

  “Witchkin sight, use your might,” Vega whispered. “Show me who this note belongs to by right.”

  Using the spell like this wasn’t as powerful as when she was looking for her own possessions or imbuing the essence of someone and divining on their behalf, but it usually worked if the owner was close by.

  Malisha strode out of the library. The note didn’t glow when Vega held it up toward her. Perhaps that meant Malisha truly hadn’t left it on Vega’s pillow. Someone else wanted to frame Vega.

  A woman with long brown hair strode through the door. Vega did a doubletake. It was Karen Kazmere, her roommate. She didn’t have a pig nose.

  Henrietta had been telling the truth. Karen waved to Vega and smiled in a friendly enough way. Vega was so shocked, she didn’t wave back.

  Why would anyone want to get rid of a normal face like that? Glamour was supposed to be used to improve appearances, not diminish them.

  “Ms. Bloodmire,” a teenage girl called.

  “What is it now?” Vega whirled, finding Siobhan standing next to the card catalogue, poking her head through the sound-barrier spell.

  The students beside Siobhan ducked down. One student was trying to glamour herself invisible along the bookcase. Vega also noticed two girls with their faces enhanced to be prettier—that was what most normal people used glamour for. Family crests as well as the school crest of protection hovered over teenagers heads, revealed by the amulet’s magic.

  Siobhan’s family wards blazed in front of the girl, the protection spells minor enough they might delay a Fae or Witchkin from attacking, but they wouldn’t last long in a true fight.

  Vega removed the necklace and placed it in her pocket so that she wouldn’t use up all the power.

  “Is now a good time for me to give you information about that favor you asked of me?” Siobhan shifted from foot to foot anxiously, bobbing in and out of the sound-proof barrier.

  Vega tapped her polished nails against the case beside her. “You have impeccable timing. Were you spying?” She would have done so had she seen two teachers quarreling.

  The rosy complexion between Siobhan’s freckles paled. No doubt she realized she’d been caught.

  “Did you actually manage to break through my sound-proofing spell?” Vega asked. Her sound-barrier spell was flawless.

  “Oh no, nothing like that. I read your lips.” Siobhan smiled sheepishly. “It’s a useful skill in a house of screamers like my mom and sister. They’re part banshee too.”

  She doubted Siobhan was going to have any useful information, but she called the girl over to the corner where they would have more privacy. She altered her sound-barrier spell, making it grow clouded so that it would be difficult for anyone to read their lips. Vega could see she needn’t have wasted her magic after she heard what Siobhan had to say.

  “You wanted to know if Sherry had any enemies. She didn’t. Other girls liked her,” Siobhan said.

  “Uh-huh. Well, that was informative.” Vega flicked the sound-proofing spell away.

  “She had a lot of friends, and they always help her with her make-up work. She gets sick a lot, I guess. She didn’t have the potion for her last class, so a friend loaned her a book.” Siobhan leaned in closer.

  Vega’s eyebrow arched upward. “I see. And who loaned her that book?”

  “I don’t know. I’m new here. I don’t know names yet.” She rubbed at one of her freckled cheeks. “But I’ll find out for you.”

  Vega drummed her nails against the case. “Be careful. You don’t want anyone to know you’re snooping around. If someone finds out, you might be next on someone’s hit list.”

  Siobhan gulped. “That’s nice of you to warn me. You’re really looking out for me.”

  Vega grimaced. “I have to protect my interests.” And it was in her best interest to ensure her spy remained alive long enough to report back to her. She was quite certain that her warning had nothing to do with the fact that Siobhan was a sweet girl, and Vega didn’t want her to get more involved and endanger herself.

  That was what she told herself anyway.

  Unfortunately, Vega was already involved, and she didn’t have anyone looking out for her.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Caught Passing Notes

  Vega didn’t have the burnt notebook or the book with the potion. She didn’t even have the card in the library book with her name written on it. All she had for handwriting analysis was the note that had been placed on her pillow.

  The note was disappointingly brief.

  I’m watching you.

  As Malisha had pointed out, no words were misspelled. All letters were written in the correct direction. Knowing what she now knew about Jessica’s dyslexia, Vega wondered whether this was why Mr. Reade had been so kind to her, wasting hours in his attempts to tutor her and making her flashcards she hadn’t used. Would Vega have done anything differently if she had known at the time? Would she have tried to help Jessica instead of hex her?

  Vega suspected she wouldn’t have. It wasn’t in her nature to be benevolent.

  Though the handwriting was etched into the paper with the same chicken scratch Vega remembered, she couldn’t tell whether it was Jessica’s actual handwriting or someone forging her style as Malisha had suggested. The lack of errors could have been because of the brevity of the sentence, which would have been relatively easy for a student to write compared to an essay. Or it could be because someone who didn’t have dyslexia had written it.

  During second period, Vega brought her class to the library to study.

  Ms. Chamapiwa crossed her arms. “Another unscheduled visit?”

  “And I have plenty more of those in store for you today.” Vega flashed a smile that she was certain would show off her perfect white teeth.

  The librarian harrumphed. “We have procedures at this school, you know. Forms to fill out for trips to the library. This is highly irregular.”

  “You want to talk about irregular? Let’s talk about having my desk reduced to cinders and my lessons completely destroyed. The principal didn’t even offer to find me a new desk.” Vega supposed Mrs. Gordmayer was too busy trying to save the reputation of her school.

  Ms. Chamapiwa’s eyes went wide. “Do you mean a student set your desk on fire? I hope you didn’t have any library books inside.”

  “Don’t fret.” Vega couldn’t help the dig. “The only books that got burned were the ones I dog-eared.”

  Not preparing for classes was going to catch up to her, but for the moment, Vega had a murder to investigate. She strode off toward the section of
books on chirography and graphology. A short sentence wasn’t much to use for handwriting analysis, but it was a start.

  She selected five tomes and flipped through them. She paid special attention to sociopathic tendencies manifested in the scribbles before her. The letters were large and angular, telltale signs, as were the letters that weren’t completely closed. According to handwriting analysis, Jessica was definitely a sociopath—not that this was a profound revelation. Vega didn’t need to examine the killer’s handwriting to know she was even worse than Jessica. The lines were shaky, which could be a sign of forgery when someone struggled copying someone else’s handwriting.

  Some of the lines were thicker in places that would be unnatural for someone writing a word casually. Without something to compare this note to, it was difficult to tell whether this was an original or a fake. Vega no longer had the notes she’d received in the past as she’d placed those inside the notebook that had been burned.

  The only two details that made Vega question whether this was Jessica’s writing was that the I was uppercase, as were the rest of the words, but it was also dotted. The y was lowercase, and the lower half looped, unlike the other letters. Vega thought she remembered Frida Lakshmi’s handwriting slanting to the left, but it had been years since she’d gazed at her notes being passed in class. The one detail she clearly recalled was that it had been nearly as illegible as Jessica’s.

  That dot on the I in this note could have been Charlotte’s writing, but Vega truly didn’t know.

  If this was written by Jessica’s killer—and Sherry’s—it could be used to divine the writer. Such a spell would work best with only a few suspects and in close proximity to them. The writer had probably worn gloves, taken precautions to cloak her magical residue, and warded herself, but Vega could still use the reverse version of the locator spell. It almost always worked on the principle that objects liked being returned to their owners. Simple and efficient, it managed to defy most attempts to keep a key from finding a lock, a dog from finding its master, and a student from being reunited with her lost books.

  The divination would be as simple as uttering, “Witchkin sight, use your might. Show me what is yours by right.” The paper would glow when Vega held it out to its creator.

  The true problem would be that she needed to find someone she suspected. Vega had already tested it on Malisha, mostly because she hoped it would be her.

  At lunch, Vega scanned the crowd, looking for Malisha and Ms. Suarez to test the amulet on them again and see if she could detect anything more. She spotted Siobhan sitting with a group of girls. Despite her banshee wail earlier, which could have caused her peers to ostracize her, Siobhan laughed merrily with the other students.

  If only Vega had been so fortunate. The group of girls she’d been stuck with at the school had been far from welcoming and kind. They wouldn’t have accepted banshees into their flock any more than they would have accepted ghouls. But then, Vega hadn’t ever been the cheerful smiling sort of student that people had liked either.

  Vega wondered whether the banshee scream that Siobhan had let loose earlier had predicted someone else would die.

  “Hi, Vega,” Hazel said, waving as she stepped through the swarm of students. “I brought you a present!” She held out a book with a red bow tied around it.

  Warily, Vega accepted it. Usually gifts came with a price.

  “What’s this?” Vega eyed the thin book with suspicion.

  “It’s a new teacher planner! I heard about your desk and suspected you must be hurting for teaching supplies right now.” Hazel reached behind her, drawing a set of pencils from a pocket Vega didn’t see. “These are from Mr. Christis. I think you’ll find some other items in your room from other teachers after lunch.” Hazel leaned forward. “A little birdie might have told them about your situation.”

  Vega’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you do something so nice?”

  “We’re all in this together, aren’t we?” She grinned as if she were Vega’s savior. “We teachers have to help each other out, right?”

  If Vega had done something horrible—like murder someone—and she knew she might be a suspect, she also would try to bribe someone with gifts. She would do everything she could to appear to be the nicest person, too good to be blamed for a crime she couldn’t possibly have committed.

  Vega realized she should have started kissing up to the principal as soon as a student had died. Too late now.

  Vega flipped through the book. It was organized like her other one with a planner, a section for seating charts, and a separate section for writing names and dates for assignments. Possibly it was the nicest thing anyone had given her—willingly—in a long time.

  There was no way Vega was going to admit that, though. “Too bad you didn’t plan my classes for me. That would be a true present.”

  Hazel laughed so hard she snorted. “Yeah, I think we all would like that one!”

  Vega didn’t know what was wrong with her coworker. She had the audacity to ignore Vega’s insults and pretend they were jokes. She was almost as bad as Siobhan MacDonough.

  Vega spotted Demeter Winters across the cafeteria, seating herself with two girls at a crowded table. She was blonde, but other than that, she didn’t particularly resemble Charlotte Winters. Vega put on the amulet, stuffing it under her collar to hide it. The room around her shimmered as glamours and illusions revealed themselves to her.

  “What are you doing?” Hazel asked. “That’s some kind of Fae talisman, isn’t it?”

  Vega couldn’t see Demeter Winters’ face now that her back was turned. But Vega could see the wards on her that the enchantment had hidden. The school crest hovered above her head, along with lines of light wrapped around her in protection, some blue and some orange. Her family’s rune was woven into that. Underneath was a symbol, a snowflake. That avatar was associated with the Geamhradh Court, which was Gaelic for “winter.” The mark belonged to one of the lesser Fae Courts, and like many, they were not known for their friendly treatment of Witchkin.

  It wasn’t uncommon for Witchkin families to owe fealty to the courts they served in exchange for protection. But the winter courts were brutal. They only snuck into the Morty Realm during power outages when humans were the most vulnerable, the protection of electricity being absent. Those were the times ice furies drained the warmth—and life—out of Morties and Witchkin alike. This court enslaved and consumed. Typically they weren’t known for protecting.

  Not without a high price.

  More likely this was the Fae who had given Demeter the gifts she’d stowed away. Probably they had claimed her in exchange for the jewelry. Typical.

  Wasn’t there anyone in the administration staff who could see through the glamour who might have noticed the Fae had claimed one of their students? Vega couldn’t believe how negligent they were.

  The Geamhradh wasn’t a good court to be associated with or claimed by. Not that any other Fae court was going to be better. Any bargain with the Fae was like trading one’s soul with the devil.

  Years ago, Charlotte had been keeping some kind of secret related to her brother being abducted or enslaved by them because of something he had done wrong. Perhaps it was more than just that.

  A secret worth murdering for?

  Vega glanced at Hazel and gestured to the staff table. “While you’re in the habit of doing good deeds, get me a salad for lunch. No dairy, no meat. You can put a roll on my plate so long as it doesn’t have cheese or butter.”

  Hazel’s furry brows drew together. “But—”

  “I have an important mission. I know it’s so cliché to say it’s a matter of life or death, but it is.” Vega strode off toward Demeter.

  Vega held the gradebook to her chest, using it to hide the lump of the amulet she wore under her blouse. She walked behind Demeter, examining the ward to be certain it was one of the winter courts before circling to the other side of the table.

&nb
sp; Demeter sat with her friends, serving herself soup from a tureen. It smelled like minestrone with a chicken stock broth. Animal flesh. Yum. Vega’s belly grumbled, threatening to distract her from the task at hand. She needed to focus.

  Vega put on her mask of bored indifference as she examined Demeter Winters. She was still blonde, but as Vega rounded the table, she realized her face wasn’t the same. As Henrietta had told Vega, she wasn’t as pretty under her glamour, but that was secondary to what she was truly hiding. She had to be Vega’s age or older, too mature to be a high school freshman.

  Her face was the face of Charlotte Winters, Vega’s former classmate.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Face Off

  Vega halted. This was impossible. Charlotte couldn’t be here now. But Vega had no reason to find fault in the amulet’s abilities. It hadn’t deceived her thus far. If Demeter was the same person as Charlotte, that meant she had been in the school both times one of her classmates had died.

  Demeter/Charlotte looked up from where she sat. Her eyebrows lifted in question. “Is something wrong, Ms. Bloodmire?” She spoke with the rehearsed sweetness of a thespian.

  Demeter had to be the guilty culprit. Yet Vega had no way to prove it. Not officially. Proving she had written the note might tell Vega she was the murderer, but the principal might conclude that was a prank. Hiding her identity was certainly suspicious, but being in the school both times “accidents” had happened didn’t make her any more guilty than Vega, Malisha, or even Ms. Suarez. Demeter/Charlotte could have been hiding her identity and her Fae ties, but it still wasn’t enough to conclude she was connected to the deaths of two students.

  It certainly would raise the question why Charlotte would return to the school she had graduated from, posing as a student and hiding her true identity.

  Could it be that she was marked by the Geamhradh, not because she’d touched one of their lures and they intended to abduct her, but because she was already in their employment? She’d had multiple articles of jewelry in her room with Fae lures attached. She could have snuck that contraband in to snare her classmates for her Fae masters.