Darke Academy 4: Lost Spirits (3 page)

Even Isabella mustered enough interest to lean forward and gaze up at the windows that glinted in sun and sea-light. ‘It is very beautiful,’ she murmured.

And the beauty meant nothing to poor Isabella, thought Cassie sadly, without Jake here to share it. Cassie felt another pang of grief for him too, and chasing after that came unwanted thoughts of Ranjit. He’d been insane, when he killed Jake –
insane
, and through no fault of his own. It had been the curse of the Pendant that led to that disaster, and he’d only hunted down the Pendant because he wanted to make everything right between him and Cassie. He’d done it for
her
. Didn’t that make her guilty too, in a way? Didn’t it make her
responsible
? Yet it really wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t his. In the truest of senses, Ranjit had been out of his mind.

Not that that made any difference to Jake or his family. Or to Isabella.

Marat was silent as he unloaded their luggage, but that was nothing new for the surly porter, and it didn’t bother Cassie – she was used to his hostility. It gave her time to drink in her new surroundings, to inhale the smell of the ocean and the scent of tropical flowers. She took Isabella’s arm.

‘Let’s go and settle in,’ she said to Isabella, with a wave at Richard, hoping he’d understand and wouldn’t take offence. He didn’t; he’d already spotted Perry Hutton’s eager face among the hubbub of returning students and was strolling towards him with a fresh swagger in his step.

Inside the mansion the atmosphere was cool and colonial, all white linen and mahogany furniture and gently turning ceiling fans, but it was loud with the voices of students pretending not to be excited. Cassie smiled to herself as she steered Isabella through the throng.

Cormac and Ayeesha shouted out greetings, and Cassie waved and grinned in response, noting the warmth of their Few auras hovering around them, Ayeesha’s a little stronger than her boyfriend’s. But Cassie didn’t stop to chat, assuming instead an air of urgent preoccupation as she kept her forward momentum going. She didn’t think Isabella would welcome a social gathering just yet. Other friends, of course, had moved on, having graduated from the Academy – Vassily, India … Cassie wondered where their Few lives would take them now.

In the high-ceilinged, marble-tiled hall she smiled with recognition at the statues that surrounded them. She’d once thought it odd that Achilles and Hector and Clytemnestra and the rest had to come with the school wherever it went; now they seemed like reassuring old friends who’d always be there for her. Even her terrified namesake Cassandra, cringing before the killing-blow, felt welcoming more than alarming.

Checking the document in her hand, Cassie led Isabella up a flight of stairs lined with striking Samburu artworks. The school wasn’t such a maze as it had been in Paris or Istanbul, but their room was at the end of a small private corridor; thoughtful of Sir Alric, Cassie realised with reluctant gratitude. Isabella wouldn’t be constantly bumping into people as she came in and out. Checking the polished brass plate – yes,
Miss Isabella Caruso; Miss Cassandra Bell
– she pushed the door wide.

She took a breath, as she always did at first sight of her quarters at the Academy. The room was huge, full of air and light, its tall casement windows open to the sound of the Indian Ocean beyond the palms; Cassie could see turquoise water glinting between the fronds. The beds were beautiful mahogany four-posters, hung with filmy mosquito nets, and the desks looked too elegant for her battered old laptop. A gecko scuttled behind a painting, drawing her eye; the stunning impressionistic landscape of an African plain dominated one wall, almost giving Cassie the illusion she could smell the red dust.

In fact, she could smell flowers; the pink oleanders just outside the window smelled of baby talc, she thought, stroking a petal. And what were those – gardenias? And hibiscus! Leaning out, she plucked a scarlet flower.

She turned to Isabella, smiling, and tucked it into her friend’s hair. ‘That’s better.’

Isabella touched it with a fingertip. ‘Cassie. It’s amazing how you can cheer me up.’

Really?
thought Cassie doubtfully. But she said, ‘Not enough, not yet anyway. Aren’t you hot and dusty after that drive? Marat doesn’t exactly make the time fly.’

Isabella actually giggled a little, for the first time since Cassie had met her at Nairobi. ‘I know. He’s so door.’

‘
Dour
,’ she corrected her friend absent-mindedly. ‘Wow, look at that ocean. I know you’ll have packed a million bikinis, right? And all of them beautiful.’

‘I have one or two …’ admitted Isabella sheepishly.

‘So.’ Cassie grabbed her arm with a smile. ‘Let’s go and christen them.’

‘Careful, Cassie,’ called Isabella anxiously from behind her. ‘You don’t know these waters.’

Cassie was already at the edge of the reef, the coral rough under her toes as she poised ready to plunge forward into deeper water. Isabella had hung back a little, crouching to examine shells and probe in rock pools, but now she was watching Cassie with anxiety.

‘I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about me!’ Cassie called.

‘Yes,’ tutted Isabella, ‘but you never know. There could be sharks, or sea urchins, or—’

‘If there are sharks,’ laughed Cassie, ‘then they’d better watch out for
me
.’ She flung herself forward with a whoop of delight, letting the cool clear water close over her head before surfacing and shaking it off. Flopping into a lazy backstroke, she floated, blinking up at the sun, then squinted back towards the beach.

There were other students venturing down to the water now, clutching snorkels and tanning lotion, and she could see even the snottier members of the Few splashing and hooting like kids as they dived into the crystal-clear water in huge fans of spray.

Cassie splashed upright and pushed her wet hair out of her eyes. Isabella had come closer to the edge of the reef, as if to dive in, but she had paused and was looking back at the school building, with its stones warm and glowing in the afternoon sun. The light was so clear here, Cassie could make out every fern frond, every vine, the lines and dents in every stone of the Academy. Still, she couldn’t see any reason for Isabella to look so distracted by it.

‘Hey, c’mon in!’ yelled Cassie to her roommate. ‘The water’s lovely, as they say!’ She splashed a little towards Isabella, who glanced at her, startled, but then returned her gaze to the huge mansion.

‘I’m just coming …’

Cassie trod water, watching her friend curiously. ‘What’s up?’

Isabella couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the high windows on the east wing of the house. Cassie hadn’t noticed that part of the building until now. There was a narrow wrought-iron balcony that couldn’t be seen from land, and French windows that led on to it, with fine muslin curtains that drifted in the faint sea breeze.

Isabella shivered a little, then turned and lowered herself gently into the deeper water beyond the reef. She took a few strokes and soon she was treading water beside Cassie.

‘What was it? Did you see something?’ Cassie said.

‘No.’ Isabella shook her head a little too vigorously.

‘Go on, tell me?’

‘I thought I—’ Isabella glanced back at the balcony, her brow furrowed. ‘No, maybe I didn’t.’

‘I didn’t notice that wing when we arrived. We’ll have to check it out,’ suggested Cassie brightly. ‘There could be a secret spa or something lurking up there! Never know what you’ll find at the Darke Academy, do you?’

‘Or who.’

‘What do you mean?’ Cassie blinked.

‘Forget it.’ Isabella swam a couple of languid strokes, but her eyes kept being drawn back to the balcony. ‘It’s those curtains. I thought … I thought I saw someone.’

Cassie insisted. ‘Who? Go on!’

‘I don’t—’ Isabella hesitated, but then set her jaw. ‘I’m seeing things. It was nobody.’

‘Isabella, you have the eyes of a hawk. A hawk with binoculars.’ Even with her heightened Few senses, Cassie had always been impressed by her friend’s attention to detail.

The Argentinean girl didn’t smile. ‘I’m sorry, Cassie.’ She sighed. ‘I thought it was Jake.’

Oh, God
. Instantly regretting both her good-natured nagging and the mistimed joke, Cassie felt her scalp prickle with horror. She ducked her head under the water for a moment to get rid of the alarming frisson. ‘Isabella …’

‘I know, I know. There wasn’t anyone there at all. It was the curtains. They made shadows. Look, I’m sorry.’ In a small voice she added, ‘I feel like I see Jake all the time. Like … like he’s haunting me, or something. It’s awful.’

‘Of course you do. And of course it is.’ Cassie touched Isabella’s arm as they floated in the water, and searched her face anxiously. She couldn’t help remembering the horror she’d seen in Jake’s eyes, the very first day she’d met him, in Paris, when he’d mistaken her briefly for his dead sister. And now, with a terrible irony, Isabella was seeing Jake, her own dead boyfriend, in shadows. Once again Cassie felt sorrow and guilt overwhelm her.

‘Come on.’ Gently she tugged Isabella’s hand. ‘Let’s swim.’

‘Yes. You’re right. I need to get a grip.’ Isabella struck out into the waves.

Cassie followed her. ‘Isabella, wait! That’s not what I meant.’

‘I know, Cassie,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘But I mean it, I really do. It’s so stupid. I wish I could just snap out of it.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ Cassie swam on her side so she could watch Isabella. ‘It hasn’t been long at all, since—’

‘I can’t spend the whole term, the rest of my
life
, just missing him,’ interrupted Isabella fiercely, avoiding Cassie’s eyes. ‘I can’t. It’s happened. I need to try and move on. I just don’t know if I can.’

Truly, Cassie couldn’t see any alternative either, but she was damned if she was going to sit back and let Isabella be relentlessly unhappy. ‘Well, we’ll be really busy this term,’ she comforted her friend. ‘There’ll be loads of field trips. And … And remember what Richard said? There’s actual
shopping
up in Malindi!’

Shopping?
Oh God, Cassie. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, they felt stupid and inadequate, and she rushed to drown their echo in her own head. ‘You
will
have a good term, Isabella. As good as possible, I’ll make sure of it.’

‘Oh, Cassie, you’re sweet.’ Isabella smiled at her at last, floating on to her back. ‘But a
good
term? That is perhaps a bit too much to expect.’ She gestured with an arm, splashing water. ‘Look at this fabulous place, and I can’t even be excited about it. The Academy used to have such magic for me. And now …’ She rubbed her face; Cassie suspected it was more than seawater she was wiping away.

‘Too many memories,’ she suggested softly.

‘Yes. Too many memories. I never realised how much of this place was Jake. For me, anyway.’

‘Maybe you’ll get the magic back, with a bit of time?’

‘Maybe, Cassie. But I’ll never get Jake back, will I?’

There was nothing Cassie could say to that. Hurriedly Isabella turned her face away, and swam in a rapid crawl back towards the reef.

‘
H
ey, Cassie! Isabella!’ Books in one arm, Ayeesha used the other to give them each a swift fierce hug. ‘You were elusive over the weekend! I saw you on Saturday and then you disappeared!’

‘We were kind of … exploring. We weren’t trying to avoid you,’ lied Cassie with a stiff smile. ‘It’s great to see you again, Ayeesha. And you, Cormac!’ She submitted to a hug from Ayeesha’s eternally upbeat Irish boyfriend, and then he turned to Isabella, embracing her more soberly.

‘We’re so sorry about Jake,’ he murmured.

‘Yes,’ said Ayeesha, putting an arm around Isabella’s shoulders.

She nodded, clearly incapable of answering, so Cassie quietly said, ‘Thanks.’

But oh, please, let’s not pursue the subject right now …

The corridors were thronged with students on the first day proper of term, but there was a sense of even more reluctance than usual to get stuck into classes. Too much snorkelling and sunbathing over the weekend, thought Cassie fondly, had made them all very unprepared for schoolwork. For herself, she was glad to be starting classes again; she and Isabella had behaved like recluses after that first swim, hanging out in their room: painting their nails, reading, talking. It had been a lovely quiet start to the term, but for Isabella’s sake, it couldn’t go on forever.

‘You’ll have to excuse me, Ayeesha,’ said Cassie solemnly, pulling Isabella along by the hand. ‘I need to handcuff Isabella to me so she doesn’t try and escape Maths.’

Ayeesha laughed a little too brightly. ‘What’s new! Eh, Isabella?’

Isabella’s lips twitched and she nodded, but she said nothing, not even to moan briefly about the horrors of algebra. She eased herself away from them and preceded Cassie into Herr Stolz’s classroom. Ayeesha and Cassie exchanged apprehensive glances, and Cassie shrugged.

‘She’ll be OK.’

‘Oh, I hope so.’ Ayeesha squeezed her arm anxiously, and hurried after Isabella into the classroom.

Herr Stolz’s face brightened as he greeted Cassie, but for once she couldn’t bring herself to act the star pupil. Throughout his lesson she was distracted, avoiding his pointed looks when he asked for answers. Even the nudges and giggles from the nastier Few, when Stolz ticked her off in hurt tones, couldn’t make her concentrate on the value of
y
.

It didn’t help that Estelle was making bitchy remarks in her head about her classmates, some of which made Cassie want to laugh out loud in spite of herself. She knew what Estelle was up to, but she couldn’t help sort of enjoying her company when she was in this mood. The old spirit, split by Cassie’s interrupted initiation into the Few, had never been backward about offering her opinions, whether Cassie wanted them or not, but she was sticking firmly to gossip, never deigning to mention Cassie’s plans …

Yet she knew Estelle must be angry about her hopes to be free of the Few spirit – terrified, even. Cassie knew about Estelle’s hatred for the half-joined nature of their union; she knew that such a division was horrific and unnatural for a Few spirit, and that it had never happened before. For Cassie to threaten her with total expulsion to that void must be the worst possible prospect for the wicked old bat.