Chapter Twenty
Just as Lisabelle and I were about to dash back into the madness that had become the homecoming tent, Sip grabbed us and propelled us quickly away. Her small, purple-painted nails dug painfully into my arm.
“We are going back to the dorm,” she announced. “I will not have either of my friends get detention, expelled, or set on fire by a hellhound tonight.” All five feet of her stomped away, not releasing either of our arms. “Bye, Keller,” she yelled over her shoulder without looking back.
“Bossy thing, isn’t she?” Lisabelle asked, glaring at the tiny blond head that was leading us away. At least we weren’t alone. Lough was still with us, and we were surrounded by other students. “Besides,” said Lisabelle, “Charlotte here needs to wash before that chocolate hardens and everyone starts trying to lick her.”
“Very funny,” I murmured.
“Move along, move along,” said Professor Lambros from right behind us. She was staring around at all the students; her pixie ring was shining into the night like a flashlight. “Students are to return to their dorms and to stay there until further notice,” she announced, even though that’s where all the students were headed anyway. “We are on lockdown. That means you go nowhere. You got that? Nowhere, without a professor present.” No one argued with her.
When the four of us reached Airlee, we separated. There was nothing to do at that point but go to sleep and hope for news in the morning. Besides, I had to get up bright and early to go see the President yet again, and learn my punishment. I wondered why Keller had come back to the tent after he’d left with the blond, then helped me without saying a word. He must be so disappointed in me. Not only couldn’t I do magic, but I had embarrassed myself in front of the entire school. Again. I fell asleep fuming.
The next morning when I padded out of the dark room, Sip was still snoring. Downstairs was the Professor of Medieval Magic, whose name I couldn’t remember. He told me I had permission to go to breakfast and then to see the President, provided I stayed on the biggest paths. “Just during the day,” he informed me. “No one will be able to wander around after dark.” That meant that the second half of our class day would have to be closely chaperoned, because it took place after the sun went down.
Outside, the campus seemed different. Now that I knew it wasn’t safe and that what I’d seen on my last night at home, a hellhound, had been walking around on campus the night before, a dark shadow fell over my experience at Public.
After breakfast I headed toward the President’s office. I still thought it was in an odd place, at one end of campus looking out over the elementals’ pond. Since it was still early morning and we were on lockdown, there was no one on the paths as I made my way over the grounds.
The morning was cold and wet, with a hint of winter. The colors, from the leaves in the trees to the layered sky, were rich and deep, as they can be only in the fall.
I was early for my appointment, so I decided to sit by the pond and wait. I tried not to go too far off the path, but I wanted to be near the water. I figured no hellhound would be hanging out in front of the President’s office anyway, and I had a lot to think over.
Ever since I’d arrived at Public I’d been struggling; I knew that. I was supposed to be a mage, but I couldn’t do magic. Sometimes I wondered if that went back to my mother and what had happened to her. There was magic somewhere in me, there had to be. I just had to figure out how to draw it out. The President had been kind enough to give me the chance to try. She believed in me, like my stepdad never would.
Glaring, I picked up a nearby rock and threw it into the water. All I wanted to do was perform the magic I was supposed to be capable of. Every other Starter could. My ring was the only one that hadn’t lit up with power yet. Sometimes it felt heavy on my finger.
The pond rippled. A fish – or something, I thought with an ominous shiver – must be swimming underneath the surface. Or a breeze too slight for my skin to feel. There was always wind in the fall. I threw another rock, then another.
I was about to throw my fourth stone when I realized that the water was rippling on its own. The smooth surface writhed. Scrambling, I tried to push myself away from the edge, but it was too late. The water was now churning into the air in great gulps, as if a blanket had been thrown over a giant who was now coming awake.
I tried to make my legs move, but they seemed rooted to the ground. I looked around frantically to see if there was anyone in sight who could help, but just as I understood that I was as alone as could be, and just as suddenly as the water had come alive, it subsided. Slowly, in one great, everlasting swirl, it calmed down. But now there was something different there that hadn’t been there a moment before.
In the middle of the pond was my mother.
At least, it looked like my mother. The image was more transparent than a real person could possibly be; it looked like if I ran up and hugged it my arms would go straight through it. But it was definitely my mother. Since I’d never met my dad, or even seen a picture of him, I wasn’t sure which side of the family my brown hair came from, but my eyes were definitely from my mom, and so was my height. Or lack of it.
I stood up, unsure of what else to do. I wanted to be ready to run, or fight, I wasn’t sure which. Without speaking, the specter of my mother came toward me. I should have been frightened, but I wasn’t. Instead, everything else around me simply fell away. The morning had been cold, but I forgot about that. I forgot that I was supposed to meet the President, and I forgot that she was probably going to blame the whole chocolate fountain incident on me, because it couldn’t possibly be crazy Camilla’s fault.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. It sounded so natural. It had been the most natural thing in the world for me to say for years. I wished with all my heart that I still had a reason to say it. My steady voice surprised me.
The figure smiled, but didn’t speak. Nervous, I shifted my weight, rubbing my hands on my legs until the friction hurt.
“What do you want?” I asked. I knew this wasn’t my mother, but I didn’t know what it was.
“Someone you trust cannot be trusted. I want you to look in the right place. Most of all, Charlotte, you must stay safe. You of all people. Must. Stay. Safe.”
My mother – was it my mother? or was it some kind of she-devil? – was very close to me now. Her gray eyes were a mirror of my own searching ones. I had a million questions tumbling through my mind, and this was the moment when I could ask her all the questions I’d wished I could ask her since she died, like how could she marry that jerk in the first place, and worse, how could she leave me with him when she died. It all came tumbling through me. I wanted to know why she’d never shown me how to use magic. I wanted to know why she’d refused to talk about it all those years. I had a right to know. I was a mage too, and I’d been dragged off to the paranormal school with no warning and no preparation. And last of all, or was it first of all, I wanted to know what she meant by what she’d just said.
I was just trying to decide which to ask first when the figure started to fade. Fast.
“Wait,” I gasped, reaching out my hands to the wispy form. “Wait.”
But that was all I had the chance to say. She had come in a huge wave of water, but she was going quietly, evaporating into the morning air as if she had never been anything but a little fog to begin with. I gasped as I saw the last bit of her, the last bit of my mother, disappear into nothingness.
I tried to remember what she had said. Looking down I realized that I was clutching my ring. But it was still dull, not lighted by magic.
“Ms. Rollins, are you coming or not?” the familiar voice of the President demanded behind me.
I jumped. In the shock of seeing the water figure appear and my desperation to have answers to my questions (of which I’d gotten none), I had completely forgotten what I was doing there in the first place.
“Now is not a time to dawdle, Ms. Rollins,” said the President, not unkindly.
/> I’d been standing in front of the water, rubbing my ring. The President must have thought I looked like a lunatic.
“You shouldn’t be outside by yourself anyway,” she chided as I made my way toward her. My legs didn’t want to move. I felt like I hadn’t walked in years, but I had to put one foot in front of the other. Time had stopped for the few seconds I had gotten to be with my mother again, but now reality was returning. I had to force myself to go back to existing in the ordinary world, from which she was long gone.
The President stepped out of my way to let me into her building. We made our way through the rooms until we reached the door of her office at the back. I was moving slowly; I spent too much time here. The Infirmary was one thing, I was a teenager at school, and it made sense that I’d go there sometimes. But the President’s office implied that I was getting in trouble. And now that I had a chance to look up into the President’s face, I realized that this time I was in fact in trouble. A lot of it.
Before I could sit down she said, “You purposefully started a fight with Camilla.”
I didn’t say anything. I knew there was nothing I could say in my own defense; I would just have to take my punishment. I had decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to let Camilla push me around, just because I hadn’t learned magic yet and just because I was friends with Cale. She did not have the right to harass me.
“Ms. Rollins, I have given you every latitude. I have allowed you to remain here for an entire semester, no matter the cost to my personal reputation, on the assumption, no, that’s not right, with the certainty that you would work hard. I asked the very best student at Public to assist you.”
I thought that might be going a bit too far, but she was pacing around her office wringing her hands. “I found a tutor for you, and I have it on good authority that he has worked with you faithfully. And you repay me by attacking a student at the school dance, unprovoked.”
I was unprovoked like a bear whose children are in danger is unprovoked, I thought bitterly. But the President continued. “Not just any student, but Camilla Van Rothson, whose father happens to be a prominent donor to this institution. Is this how you repay my kindness? We are in the middle of demon attacks, and all you can think about is yourself.”
I tried to protest, but she cut me off. “I therefore have your punishment,” she said, glaring at me from behind her desk. “And again, as you have been all semester, you are fortunate that I am not expelling you. Attacking other students on school grounds, or truly anywhere, is disgusting behavior of the first order. I will not tolerate it. Just imagine what damage you could have done if you could actually do magic!” She sat down in a great whoosh of her robes.
The President was really on a roll this morning.
She was giving me the weirdest look, like I was supposed to say something, but I didn’t know what. Finally I said, “You were going to punish me….”
“Don’t be a smartass,” she ordered, sitting back in her chair. “I believe that you cleaned Astra for a few Saturdays,” she said. My heart sank. I felt like I’d been cleaning it since I got here. It was the cleanest dorm on campus. “You are to continue to do so until further notice. Keller, of course, will be there to assist you.”
I wondered why she was always throwing me together with Keller. I didn’t understand his behavior toward me; most of the time he was cool and indifferent, but every so often it seemed like he might actually like me. That had all probably changed after what had happened last night. I was snapped out of my thoughts by the sound of the President’s voice.
“Why are you still here?” she asked.
As I was leaving I passed Professor Anania. She barely acknowledged me as she rushed into the office. Just before the door slammed shut I heard her exclaim, “There’s no sign.”
Once I was outside again the air felt less stuffy, and I could breathe easier. Since my anger had been about to boil over, it was good that the President had dismissed me when she did. She might actually kick me out of Public if I lost my temper with her, and I still didn’t want that.
It was late morning now and I figured my friends were probably at breakfast, so I wandered that way. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the calm pond. My mother’s appearance there only a little while ago already felt like a dream. Most of all, Charlotte, you must stay safe. You of all people. Must. Stay. Safe.
Professor Anania had reminded me that there was a hellhound somewhere, and since apparently no professors had seen it and forced it to leave, there was a good chance it was still lurking on the grounds.
The breakfast attendant just shook his head at me and said, “You keep eating each meal twice, pretty soon that ring isn’t going to fit on your finger.” To my own surprise I found myself wishing he was right.
I spotted Lisabelle and Sip, sitting by themselves in the corner with their heads bent together.
“What is it?” I asked, reaching the table. Now that I was closer I could see that they looked worried.
Lisabelle looked up at me. She wasn’t worried. She was angry. “The President wants to see me again,” she said. “They think I know where the hellhound is.”
My stomach tightened. My own morning was forgotten in fear for Lisabelle. “Why?” I asked.
“Because I’m a darkness mage. Because no one remembers seeing me last night until I pulled you out of the tent,” she answered bitterly.
“But you were there,” I protested. “Weren’t you?” With a twinge of fear I realized that I hadn’t actually seen her. I’d been so preoccupied with fighting the pixies that I wasn’t sure.
“Yeah,” said Lisabelle. “I wouldn’t miss watching you make a fool out of yourself for anything.”
“She had to stand up for herself,” said the ever-practical Sip. “She can’t let Camilla push her around.”
“Fine,” said Lisabelle. “Whatever. I have to go.” She pushed away from the table and picked up her tray.
“Don’t do anything rash,” Sip advised.
Lisabelle glared at her. “I haven’t done anything at all. And all the while they keep blaming me because there are hellhounds still loose on the grounds.” She stormed off.
“How long do you think she’ll be gone this time?” Sip asked, looking after her. She pursed her lips.
I shook my head. “I have no idea.”
Once Lisabelle was out of sight, Sip turned to me and said, “What did the President want with you?”
I told Sip what had happened, but left out the part about my mother. Somehow that was private. And since that ghostly figure had told me that someone close to me couldn’t be trusted, it seemed safer not to tell anyone, although I was pretty sure about who she was referring to: Zervos.
“What now?” Sip asked.
I shrugged. Everything felt like it was spinning out of control and going wrong, but I felt powerless to stop it.
“Now we study for mid-semester exams,” I guess.
Sip dropped her fork with a clatter. “Oh no! I had almost forgotten about those!”