by Julia Nobel
“And then leave the book here?” Jack said.
Emmy nodded.
“Okay, but just the first three chapters, right?”
“What does it matter if—”
“I just don’t think we need to do extra reading. We’re supposed to learn about the Abbey, not the school.”
Lola rolled her eyes. “It takes, what, ten minutes to read a chapter?”
“No, it takes you ten minutes to read a chapter.” Jack glared at Lola. “Not all of us are speed readers with photographic memories.”
Emmy left them sniping at each other, got the chapters copied, and gave the book to the librarian. Then, she handed Jack and Lola a chapter each. “We can read them tonight during study session and talk about them after.”
As soon as study session ended, they all got together at a table near the fire.
“I can’t understand why there aren’t more books about Blacehol Abbey.” Lola glanced at Madam Boyd’s door and popped a stick of gum in her mouth. “My chapter says it was part of Blacehol Monastery, which was a really important place in the Middle Ages. It had one of the biggest art collections in Britain. Their monks were expert metalworkers, and they made amazing things out of silver and pewter.”
“My chapter talks about the monastery, too,” Emmy said. “Apparently the monks put up a huge fight when the monastery was dissolved. Eventually they were all executed for treason, but they managed to hide their entire art collection first.”
“Really?” Lola said. “Where did they hide it?”
“Beats me,” Emmy said.
Lola looked at Jack. “So, what’s your chapter about?”
Jack tapped his fingers on the table. “Mostly the same stuff as yours. Then it starts talking about the school, and there’s not much useful there.”
Emmy stared at Jack. “Um, really? ‘Cause I read it, too, and I thought there was lots of stuff we could use.”
“What are you talking about?” Lola asked.
“I flipped through his chapter when I was photocopying it, and it looked really interesting, so I copied it for myself, too.”
Jack stopped tapping. “You read my chapter? I can’t believe you—”
“So, what’d you dig up?” Lola interrupted.
“It’s about the school’s founding, and it’s got a lot of cool stuff. Listen to this.” Emmy began to read. “Of all the contributions our school has made to British society, none is greater than our noble brotherhood: the Order of Black Hollow Lane.”
CHAPTER 7
The Order of Black Hollow Lane
“What’s the Order of Black Hollow Lane?” Lola asked.
Jack cleared his throat. “I don’t think we should—”
“I think it’s some kind of secret society,” Emmy interrupted.
Lola dropped her notebook on the table. “A secret society? At Wellsworth?”
“Yeah,” Emmy said, “at least they were here when the school first started. And that weird skull thing is the symbol for the Order. They put it on things to let other Order members know when something was important. Almost like a secret handshake, but one you can actually see and leave behind.”
“That is so cool!” Lola said.
“I know! They sound kind of creepy, though. Apparently, they—”
“Let’s go for a walk!” Jack shoved his chair back so hard it tipped over.
“A walk?” Emmy looked at her watch. It was after eight thirty, and they weren’t allowed out past nine.
“Yeah, it’ll do us good after being cooped up in here all evening.”
“Have you gone mental?” Lola said. “It’s pitch black and freezing outside.”
“I just need some fresh air.”
Emmy looked at Lola and shrugged, but they both followed Jack.
The icy wind blasted them the minute Jack opened the door. Emmy hugged her sweater tight to her body.
“There,” Jack said through chattering teeth. “That’s loads better.”
Lola shook her head. “Mental. So what else did you find out, Emmy?”
“This Order was pretty creepy. They thought they needed to ‘purge the school of dissenting viewpoints,’ which I think means getting rid of anyone who doesn’t agree with them. And they had this ritual where new recruits would cut their hands open and let the blood drip down onto a human skull.”
Lola stuck out her tongue. “Blech!”
“I know, and they had to say this pledge where they promised that ‘nothing and no one’ was more important than the Order. It’s like something out of a scary movie. I don’t know what Black Hollow Lane is, though. It’s kind of a weird name.”
“It probably comes from Blacehol Abbey,” Lola said. “Blace means black in Old English, and Hol means hollow.”
“How do you know that?”
“We did a bit of Anglo-Saxon language study in humanities last year.”
Emmy raised her eyebrows. “And you remember what random words mean?”
“I told you,” Jack said, “she remembers every page of every book she’s ever read.”
“Anyways, the Anglo-Saxons often named places after things that were nearby,” Lola said. “There might have actually been some kind of lane in a black hollow at some point.”
Emmy nodded. “So, do you think we should put something about them in our report?”
“No.” Jack rubbed the goose bumps on his arms. “I think we should just forget about them.”
“But this could really make our report stand out!” Emmy said.
“You don’t understand how dangerous they are!”
Lola crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “All right, Jack. Spill it.”
Jack kicked at the icy dirt. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Come on, you obviously know something about this Order thing,” Lola said. “You’d better give us a good reason if you want us to keep quiet about them.”
Jack looked around the empty clearing. “I don’t know a lot,” he said quietly. “I just know they exist…and that they’re dangerous.”
“How do you know about them?” Emmy asked.
“My dad’s a member, and Malcolm and Vincent. Brynn’s a member, too. That’s why he hates me.”
“Why would being part of the Order make Brynn hate you?”
Jack stuffed his hands inside his pockets. “Most people don’t find out about the Order until they’re in the last year or two at school. It was different for Brynn and me. Our families have a long history in the Order, so we were offered a…well, I guess you’d call it an apprenticeship. We were supposed to start early training so that when we left school, we’d have some kind of special positions or something. Brynn was really excited about us doing all this stuff together.”
“So, what happened?” Emmy asked.
“Vincent was supposed to be in charge of our first year’s training. That’s when he was still at school. He offered me the apprenticeship…and I said no.”
“You turned your brother down?”
Jack nodded.
“Why?”
Jack leaned against the door. “Malcolm and Vincent…they changed when they joined the Order. I don’t know what they all have to do, but I know some of it isn’t legal. And a lot of it seems pretty dangerous, and it puts other people in danger, too. So, I told Vincent I didn’t want to do it, pulled out of Latin Society, and that was that.”
“What does Latin Society have to do with the Order?” Emmy asked.
“It’s like a recruitment ground, a place to find worthy candidates,” Jack explained. “They test people with questions and challenges to find out if they’ve got what it takes. If they pass the tests, they’re offered the chance to join before they leave school.”
“They haven’t asked me any questions,” Emmy said.
Jack laughed. “The Order might as well hang up a big ‘No Girls Allowed’ sign. And believe me, if the Order is ignoring you, that’s a good thing.”
“Are you… I mean…” Emmy didn’t know how to say this. “Are you safe at home?”
“Oh yeah, it’s nothing like that,” Jack said quickly. “I don’t get on with my family, but they don’t scare me. I just hear things sometimes, things that Malcolm or Vincent are doing that sound kind of shady. I know those things are for the Order.”
“How come I didn’t know all this?” Lola had been strangely quiet while Jack was talking. Her face was bright red, and Emmy couldn’t tell if she was angry or hurt. Maybe it was a bit of both.
“Most of it happened before we started hanging out. My dad’s still on me about joining the Order, though.”
Emmy bit her fingernail. “I guess we probably shouldn’t talk about them in our humanities report.”
“Definitely not. I’d be in loads of trouble if anyone found out what I told you.”
“Don’t worry,” Emmy said, “your secret’s safe with us. And there’s plenty of information on the abbey in that book. We’ll just focus on that for the report.”
Jack let out a big breath. They went back inside and kept working on the assignment, but Emmy’s mind kept wandering back to Jack and the Order. He hadn’t known her that long, but he told her something really personal and kind of scary. She hadn’t even told Jack and Lola about her dad. It was just so hard to explain that her dad was a total mystery to her. She didn’t even know what had happened to him. What if they didn’t understand? What if they thought it was weird? What if they thought she was weird? She’d never really had close friends before. She couldn’t do anything that might mess that up.
“Emmy, did you hear what I said?” Lola was staring at her.
“Oh, sorry, what was that?”
“Where was that stuff about the monks being executed for treason?”
“I’ll find it.” Emmy riffled through her pages. She needed to focus—she didn’t want to let Jack and Lola down.
It took them a few days to finish the assignment. Emmy smiled when she handed it in to Master Barlowe. She was proud of this report; they’d worked really hard on it.
“Blacehol Abbey?” Barlowe looked at her. “I’m surprised you found information on our old cathedral. It can be hard to come by.”
“We found an old book in the library mezzanine. There was lots of stuff about the abbey and about when the school was founded.”
Barlowe tapped their report on his desk a few times. “You must have found some interesting information in there.”
“Yeah, lots, but we didn’t have time to go through it all. We just focused on the abbey for the report.”
“Good,” he said sharply. “That was the goal of the assignment. Sometimes doing extra work isn’t a good thing. Do you still have the book?”
Emmy shook her head.
“Good.”
Emmy tucked her hair behind her ear. Barlowe didn’t seem too impressed by the extra effort they’d put in. He seemed almost annoyed. She let the next person hand in his report and went back to her seat. They didn’t need anything else for their assignment, but she couldn’t help but be curious about the Order. Who wouldn’t want to know more about an ancient secret society? It felt a bit strange to go to Latin Society now that she knew they had a connection to this weird group, but it’s not like they had any interest in her. She’d probably never hear anything about the Order again.
CHAPTER 8
The Saint
The next few weeks were a blur. Get up, go to class, study. Eat lunch, go to class, study. It was exhausting. Researching her father’s box seemed like a lost cause. Every once in a while, she’d stare at the medallions or try and fit them together like a puzzle, but it never worked. That was as much research as she had time for now that school had become her whole life.
She kept going to Latin Society, even though nobody helped her with Latin. In fact, nobody talked to her at all. Other people had joined since she started, and most of them already seemed like “part of the club.” Malcolm and Brynn made a point of chatting with almost every new boy, asking them questions, and helping them fit in.
Malcolm seemed to have a special status in the club. Everybody wanted to sit with him, like he was some kind of good luck charm. He was so different from Jack: outgoing, loud, always the center of attention. He was friendly with everybody in the club—everybody except Emmy. She wondered whether he knew she was friends with his brother and if that made a difference.
On top of all that, her mom was sending almost daily messages badgering Emmy to work harder. Like that was even possible. She’d never worked so hard in her life. The worst part was, her mom hadn’t once mentioned her birthday. Birthdays had always been awkward. Emmy’s dad had left on her third birthday, and her mom wanted to forget everything about that day. But turning twelve was a big deal. Wasn’t it?
The morning of her birthday, Emmy met Lola in the common room.
“So, today’s the big day!” Lola said with a grin.
Emmy’s cheeks felt flushed. “How did you find out?”
“In first year, like everyone else.”
Emmy looked blankly at Lola. “Wait, what are you talking about?”
“It’s Saint Audrey’s Feast Day! We get a proper feast tonight to honor our house’s illustrious patron, Saint Audrey.”
“Audrey was a saint?” Emmy asked.
“Sure, all the houses are named after saints,” Jack said as he sauntered down the Edmund staircase. “Edmund, Felix, Withburga…they were all saints from this part of England.”
Emmy nodded. She’d wondered where the name Withburga had come from.
“Come on, I’m starving,” Lola said.
They hurried to the Hall and filled their plates with food. They had just sat down when someone cleared his throat behind them. “Morning, Jack.”
Jack didn’t turn around. “Hey, Malcolm.” He stared straight down and kept poking at the sausages on his plate.
“This is from Dad.” Malcolm handed Jack an envelope. “He asked me to give it to you when I went home last weekend.”
Jack looked up for the first time. “You went home for the weekend?”
Emmy bit her lip. Why hadn’t Jack been invited? The look on his face made her think Jack was wondering the same thing.
“I had some business to take care of…for Dad.”
Jack’s face went tight, like he was trying not to wince. “Right. Was that what you were doing when you and Dev fell off the chapter house?”
Malcolm looked around and crouched down beside Jack. “Look, I didn’t want him to come with me, okay? And it wasn’t ‘business.’ You think I’d let some kid come with me on business?”
“Then what was he doing with you?”
“I told you, it wasn’t my idea. Somebody dared me to walk along the edge, and… I don’t know, somehow he just ended up coming with me. He got freaked out and lost his balance. I grabbed him and pushed him back onto the wider part of the roof, but then I fell.”
Jack looked down at his plate of sausages. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. That’s the whole story.” Malcolm stared straight at his brother, like he was ready for a challenge.
“Fine,” Jack said.
Malcolm stood up and walked away. Emmy didn’t know what to make of him or his awkward relationship with Jack.
Classes went by slowly that day. She kept checking her phone for missed calls from her mom, but there was nothing. She just wanted to crawl into bed and wait for her birthday to be over.
After the long walk back from Latin Society, Emmy trudged up the Audrey stairs, opened the door to her room, and just about threw up.
The smell was overwhelming. Victoria was sitting on Emmy’s bed with four different
nail polish bottles open on her nightstand. Her friend Arabella was sitting beside her, the dust from her nail file sprinkling over Emmy’s bedspread.
“Can’t you do that somewhere else?” Emmy said as she pulled her shirt up over her nose.
Victoria smiled sweetly. “Nope.” She carefully placed an open nail polish on Emmy’s pillow.
Emmy stared at the open bottle and shook her head. She’d had it with Victoria. “Get that stuff off my pillow.”
Victoria teetered toward Emmy, her freshly polished toes curled up and away from the fuzzy carpet. “Make me.” Her face was two inches away from Emmy’s, and she stared straight into Emmy’s eyes.
Emmy stared straight back.
Do it, she thought.
She clenched her fists.
Just this once.
She moved a little closer to Victoria. They were nose to nose.
“Get it off my bed.” Emmy gritted her teeth. “Now.”
Victoria swallowed hard and glanced at Arabella, who was sitting stock still. Emmy smirked. They hadn’t expected her to stand her ground.
“Fine,” Victoria said, her voice cracking a little. She nodded to Arabella, who picked up the nail polish, put on the cap, and tossed it and the nail file onto Victoria’s bed.
Emmy took a deep breath and picked up her economics textbook. Maybe she could get a few more chapters read before dinner. She turned toward the door, but the heavy book slipped out of her fingers…and landed right on Victoria’s toes.
Victoria shrieked and grabbed her foot, hopping and lunging toward Emmy. She flew forward and landed face-first on the floor. Emmy giggled and Victoria lunged from her hands and knees, her feet dragging on the fluffy white carpet.
“Your toes!” Arabella screeched.
A trail of pink goo streaked across the floor. Victoria screamed and flipped onto her back, legs flailing like a cockroach that couldn’t find its feet.
“It took me an hour to get my toes just right! You did that on purpose, you little witch!”
“I didn’t even do anything!”
“Oh, really? Was that an accident?” Victoria sat up and grabbed the nail polish off her bed. “Then I’m going to cause a little accident, too!” She swiped Emmy’s economics textbook, wrenched open the bottle, and slowly tipped it upside down.