I Am Her Revenge (13 page)

I’ve been going to art tutorials more and more, drawn in by the silent space Ms. Elling and the other students offer in the studio. The next day after dinner, I’m trying to sketch the tree near my cottage, the one so bent over that its branches bump along the ground. But I still can’t translate the feeling of it onto the page.

Ms. Elling peers over my shoulder. “Still interested in the trees, I see,” she murmurs.

I toss my charcoal down. “It’s not working.”

She purses her lips off to one side, thinking. “I wish I had one of her drawings to show you. But it was so long ago.”

“Whose drawings?” I ask.

“Hmm? Oh, Rose. Rose Travers. Or Rose Hampden, as she was back then. The student I told you about before, the one you remind me of. She did the most exquisitely emotional drawing of a tree a bit like this one here. But that was so long ago.”

“How did she do it?” I ask.

Ms. Elling shakes her head. “Honestly, I don’t know if I can describe it. She said the moors inspired her, and she would spend hours crossing them. Sometimes even getting into trouble for it. But she knew she had an ally in me.” Her eyes drop down to the table, and I see the glint of tears gathering at the edges of them.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, since the question seems to hang in the air between us.

Ms. Elling sighs. “Just talking about Rose . . . I’m reminded of what happened to her. It was tragic, actually. The year after graduation, her house was robbed. The burglars killed her husband when he tried to stop them. Shot him point-blank in the head. And then not one month afterward—well, she’s had a few horrible experiences, let’s just say that. I’ve tried to visit her since then, but she doesn’t see people anymore. She stays locked up in that old house.” Ms. Elling looks out the classroom window, caught in some memory.

I stay silent and wait for her to remember that I’m here, turning back to my paper and picking up my charcoal.

Ms. Elling snaps her fingers in my ear, and the charcoal nearly falls back out of my hand. “The yearbooks!” she exclaims.

“What?”

“Rose won an art prize in her final year. What was that, twenty years ago? Let’s see, when did I go to that awards ceremony?” She looks down at her fingers, the pad of her thumb traversing from pinky to index finger as she counts.

“Rose’s drawing is in the yearbook?” I ask when the silence has stretched on too long.

“Yes! You can see it for yourself. There have to be old yearbooks around this campus somewhere.”

“The student lounge,” I offer, remembering seeing the row of them there my first day at Madigan.

“Brilliant,” she says, brushing me up from my chair. “Go look. See if you find inspiration, and come back tomorrow to show me.”

I gather up my things as quickly as possible before she shoos me out of the room.

The yearbooks stand proud and neglected on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in the lounge, just as I remembered. I settle down on the floor in front of them, ignoring the curious stares of the three girls at a table behind me.

I start with the book from twenty years ago, riffling through it until I find the extracurricular section. Nothing. I go through a couple more, until, finally, I turn a page to find a charcoal study of a tree.

Half the page is taken up by a photograph of a girl clutching a trophy in front of a large oil painting of a tree on the moors. Her hair is thick and dark, and her eyes are big and thoughtful. I can tell even from the grainy photograph that Rose Hampden, as the caption identifies her, has much more talent than I do. She’s captured the tree so particular to this land as I’ve been trying to capture it; its tenacity dominates the canvas.

I study the drawing for a couple of minutes, trying to find the inspiration Ms. Elling told me to look for. I trace my fingers along the rendered curve of the trunk, its intricately detailed scattering of bumps and knots along the bark. The image is technically perfect, but it’s so much more than that, too. I just have no idea how to infuse my work with that much emotional power.

I put the yearbook back in its long, steady line and sigh. But I don’t get up. I stay staring at those big leather-bound volumes. Those capsules of history. History, I realize, that might have something to do with me.

The books focus on year-thirteen students only, the year I’m in. I don’t know how old Mother is, so I flip through several of the books, looking for Collingsworth’s name and picture. Finally, I discover him in the same yearbook as Rose. He’s a slightly warped version of Ben, with the same cocky smile and glinting eyes. But his nose is bigger, and his hair doesn’t curl at the ends.

This is the man who broke Mother’s heart. He’s the one who set everything in motion, who ensured that I would grow up as a weapon to take him down. He’s evil and manipulative and everything I hate. I don’t want his smile and his eyes to look like Ben’s.

The thought unsettles me. I’m supposed to hate Ben, too, I remind myself.

I have to focus. I hurry through the rest of the pages, looking for Mother. I nearly pass her picture by, because she’s changed so much from the hesitant-looking girl with the drapes of brown hair nearly covering her face. She peers out at the camera as if she were a deer examining the barrel of a gun, unsure if it’s going to hurt her.

But there’s that heart-shaped mole on her cheek. And the night-dark eyes and thin lips. Her hair seems to be light brown in this black-and-white photo, but if I imagine it as prematurely gray, I can see Mother.

Morgana Whitfield. That’s her name.

Names have power, Mother taught me. They can shape a person, or reveal things they don’t wish to be revealed. I know she didn’t tell me she went to Madigan because she didn’t want me to know her name, and I can’t believe my discovery.

The name fits her. Morgana is another Arthurian name, King Arthur’s sister and, by some accounts, his rival. Sometimes known as Morgan le Fay, she was an enchantress. Another Vivian.

I don’t know what to do with this information, but having it makes me feel somehow powerful. I shove the yearbook into my bag and sneak it out of the lounge.

I spend days
trying to figure out all the questions that the yearbook has raised, and I know Ben can tell that I’m distracted. But he’s preoccupied as well. We run away to the cottage just as often, and he kisses me just as passionately, but I catch him looking at me out of the corner of his eye a lot. Especially when he sees Arabella glaring at me in the hallways.

We’re walking back to the dorms one dark morning when Ben finally broaches the subject that I know he’s been mulling over.

“Why does Arabella hate you so much?” The clouds above cloak the stars and the moon, so I can barely make out the outline of his face in the gloom, but I can feel his eyes on me.

I shrug. “I don’t like to pretend to be nice to fake people.”

“She’s not fake,” Ben protests, stopping to turn and face me. “I mean, sometimes she talks behind people’s backs, but she’s really not a bad person.”

I have to laugh at that. “Come on! Nothing about that girl is genuine. How can you stand to be around people like that?”

He shifts from one foot to the other. “My mates are good guys,” he says, trying to make his tone light. He doesn’t want to argue.

I can only push this so far. So I shrug and point my eyes away, as if I don’t believe him. “If you say so.”

An uncomfortable silence rests heavily between us for a moment, and I rush to think of something to break it. I can’t let him leave with such a bitter taste of me.

“So what was your avatar’s name?” I ask, striving for a light tone.

Ben raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t look at me. “My Adam? I named him Bob.”

“Bob?” I ask with a laugh. “You couldn’t think of a name more creative than Bob?”

“Bob is a good name. It’s strong,” he says, his tone still cautious, but I think I can hear a hint of amusement behind it. “He was my best friend until I was, like, ten. He was awesome.”

“I bet he loved Tennyson and damsels in distress,” I tease.

That draws a ghost of a smile onto his lips. “No, I think he was more into, you know, superheroes and bathroom humor. Completely juvenile. Don’t know where he got it.”

As I’m beginning to smile back at him, I find myself trapped in a slash of light. The sun hasn’t risen yet, and I know that we’ve been caught. I shield my face with my hand and squint to see Mrs. Hallie shining a flashlight at us, a worried look on her face.

Ben lets go of my hand, and we both wait to see how Mrs. Hallie will react. My mind begins to race, trying to come up with excuses. Should I cry? I blink my eyes, trying to draw tears to them, just in case.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

I study her face. I can see in her uncertain frown that she knows she should punish us for sneaking around during the night, but she doesn’t want to. She’s too soft and loving to punish anyone.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hallie,” I say, stepping forward so I can look her in the eye. “Ben and I needed to study for an English literature exam, because we’re both so unprepared. I know we shouldn’t be out, but I can’t get a bad grade on this test. It won’t happen again.”

Mrs. Hallie bites her lip, and then her familiar smile is back. “Of course, dear. It will be our little secret, all right?”

I nod, beaming at her. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Hallie.” I give a friendly nod to Ben, who looks at me curiously, and then walk past them both back to Faraday Hall.

I observe Ben carefully for the next few days. He still laughs with his friends like always, but there’s something new in his eyes when he looks at them. It’s as if he’s weighing all of their actions and words and trying to classify them as good or bad. When I tell Mother this on our weekly phone call, she crows with delight.

“When you isolate him from his friends, all he will have is you. He will be yours completely, to do with as you will.” She cackles like one of the witches in
Macbeth
, and I shiver. I pull the sleeves of my long-sleeve tee down over my knuckles and wrap one arm around my stomach, but I still can’t get warm. It feels like such a responsibility, to hold Ben’s fate in my hands. Even though I know exactly what I have to do with it.

What if I wasn’t meant to destroy him?
I wonder.
What would I do with him if he was just a boy, and I was just a normal girl?

I can’t imagine it.

“Is he still taking the pills?”

I tell her in a whisper that he is, and my stomach flutters at the lie. Because he does take Molly occasionally, and sometimes smokes up, but more and more, he wants to just be with me without any chemical enhancement. I tell her that I think he’s already addicted to Molly, though. It’s as if I want to keep those nights close to me alone. I don’t want to give them up to Mother, who will twist their significance into something sinister. But isn’t that what they are? They are nights of destruction.

She congratulates me. “You have got him hooked, definitely. And you have handled pulling him away from his friends well. But don’t pull him too hard.” I nod distractedly into the phone as if she can see me.

Claire appears at the end of the hall, heading for our room. “All right, Mom,” I say quickly. “Talk to you next week.”

Mother takes the hint. “Make sure you do,” she says before she clicks off.

I hang up the phone and smile at Claire, who’s studying me. “What?” I ask.

“You didn’t tell your mum you loved her,” she says.

Damn it. “We’re not really expressive people,” I say with a shrug as we both walk to our room. It’s all these little details that will hurt me in the end. I need to distract her. “You going out again tonight?”

“Why?” she asks, suddenly defensive.

Apparently that was a bad subject to broach, though I can’t think why. I look at Claire more closely as she gets settled at her desk, trying to see what I’ve done wrong. Maybe she’s hiding a secret of her own. And I’m fairly certain it has to do with all those mornings she wakes up with a headache and bloodshot eyes.

It’s not something I need to get involved with, so I mutter, “Just making conversation,” and turn to my own laptop, shutting Claire out.

We spend the night in frozen silence, studiously ignoring each other. I don’t need her friendship anymore anyway, I tell myself. I have Ben right where I want him. Still, there’s something in me that wants to take back my words, apologize to Claire for whatever I’ve done to offend her.

I bury that feeling and focus on homework, keeping my lips pressed firmly shut for the rest of the night.