Miss Mabel's School for Girls (41 page)

“Don’t touch them.”

Her eyes tightened into slits. “Then don’t give me a reason.”

I stepped towards her with a snarl.

“I’ll never put myself in your debt.”

“Here’s the thing, Bianca.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me close with surprising strength, gripping so hard I thought the bone would break. I forced back a cry of pain.

Her mouth hovered near my ear, whispering. “If you don’t sign the contract, I won’t remove the curse. You will die this summer, and your father will be exiled to the Northern Network for lying to the High Priestess and the Council. Your mother will dwindle in a slow death, alone. Because I have ultimate power over her curse, I wouldn’t mind extending her miserable, pathetic life so that she always remembers what she lost. Death will be the reprieve that she can’t have.”

She shoved me away.

“Do you want that kind of guilt sitting on your chest? Knowing that you’ll pass but your mother won’t, forced to cling to a bitter, painful existence?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when the High Priestess’s words came back to me.

I want you to agree to her deal.

Agreement or not, I wasn’t sure I could do it now that I stood in front of her. The High Priestess couldn’t have known what she was asking. I hated Miss Mabel too much. The fire crackled and fizzed, shooting up the chimney in great flames, filling the room with sticky heat. A bead of sweat trickled down my neck and ran along my spine.

“I won’t do it. I won’t tie myself to you.”

“I can see you’ll need some convincing,” she said. “I’m sure this will help.”

The familiar
whoosh
that preceded a human transformation spell came from the hall. Mama appeared in the doorway, her black hair loose over her shoulders. It took her a second to take in the burned floors, the overturned desk, the scattered books. She shook her head, disoriented, her gray eyes matching the broiling winter storm outside.

“Bianca!” she cried, starting for me. My heart stilled in my chest.
Mama.
What was she doing here?

“No!” I screamed. “Stop!”

She skidded to a halt, her eyes in panic. Miss Mabel tipped her a cold, hard smile.

“Welcome, Marie. Bianca and I were just about to discuss what her future looks like.”

“Go back!” I yelled as Mother started towards me again. “You have to leave!”

“Make a decision, Bianca!” Miss Mabel said, excitement in her wild sapphire eyes. “Or I’ll make her life more miserable than you could ever imagine.”

Mama stopped to stare at me. I glanced from her to Miss Mabel in indecision. No matter what I did someone would suffer. Why couldn’t Miss Mabel leave her out of this?

“Don’t do it, Bianca!” Mama cried. “It’s not worth it. She doesn’t frighten me.”

Miss Mabel took a threatening step towards Mama with vindictive spite.

“Silence, Marie. You don’t know what you’re saying. Time is up, Bianca.”

“Wait!” I yelled, throwing myself between them. “I’ll do it.”

Miss Mabel pointed to the book.

“Sign it.”

I hesitated and looked back to my mother. She shook her head, her face pale, lips compressed. “Don’t do it,” she pleaded without sound. “Don’t sign that paper.”

“I have to,” I whispered.

“Don’t do this, Mabel. She’s only a girl,” Mother said in a low voice, turning away from me. “Let me sign it for her.”

“This is what Bianca gets for trying to play in an adult world.”

“It’s okay,” I said, begging Mama to trust me with my eyes. I wished I could explain it to her. Would knowing the High Priestess’s plans comfort her? No, because they didn’t even comfort me. “It’s okay.”

Whether I wanted to reassure her or myself, I couldn’t tell.

My footsteps echoed on the floor as I walked to the
Book of Contracts
, like a slow march to death. The feather lifted into the air as I approached. Only a few sentences in the whole binding stuck out to me.

I will see the unknown deed unto completion or forfeit my own life. If I communicate this contract to another soul, may my life be surrendered.

My accomplishment of the task guarantees the removal of my family curse.

With one last breath, I grabbed the feather, turned away, and signed the bottom line. The ink glittered a familiar crimson, matching Miss Mabel’s bloody thumbprint.

The book slammed shut as soon as I pulled away.

“Wonderful!” Miss Mabel cried, all fury forgotten. “I love a good binding.”

The
Book of Contracts
flew to her side. She wrapped an arm around it and anchored it to her waist. The sound of a door slamming sounded below, and a gaggle of shouting voices followed. My heart perked up in hope.

Papa.

Miss Mabel stopped in the doorway, her back to us. Although the sound of running feet filled the air, she didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

“One last thing,” Miss Mabel said, looking back at me over her shoulder. “I’ll need you to be powerful, so don’t be afraid to give in to how you feel after this moment, Bianca. Hatred is a mighty catalyst. You’re going to need it if you want to survive the hell that’s about to descend on the Central Network.”

My eyes narrowed in an attempt to understand her meaning. But then a blinding flash of light interrupted the air, slamming into my mother’s chest with a spray of sparks.

I gasped, only able to stare in fear.

Mama turned towards me, a stunned look on her face. Her gentle gray eyes locked with mine and stopped my heart. She stood there for a few moments, trying to breathe.

“Mama! No!”

Everything slowed down.

I ran forward and caught her as she fell. My knees gave out, taking us to the wooden floor. A few tendrils of ebony hair fell away from her face. Her lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling.

Someone began to scream from far away.

Voices yelled. Feet flooded the floor. Someone grabbed my arm. Another passed behind me. The edges of my vision went dark. A pair of hands felt her neck. People spoke over me.

“We’re too late.”

“She’s dead.”

“Careful! Look at Bianca’s hand.”

“Gone. Mabel’s disappeared.”

I held on tighter as the world around me blurred. The far-away screams turned to guttural cries of pain.

All I could feel was the breaking of my own heart.

Making Chaos

A
few flower petals fluttered to the ground from my clenched fist.

The coldness made it feel like winter would stay forever. Gray carpets covered the sky, blocking the sun and sending a piercing wind. The edges of my white dress drifted in the breeze as I stared at my mother’s grave. A fresh-churned dirt so rich it was almost black made a perfect rectangle in the ground and smelled like earth. Instead of a line of plants over her grave, we put a circle of chrysanthemums with a tree in the middle. Letum Ivy already snaked along the ground and started the slow twirl up the slender trunk, accepting Mama back to the earth.

Everything else was so similar to Grandmother’s funeral that I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or not.

I wished I was. Oh, how I wished I was.

Two new marks filled the circle on my right wrist. I didn’t remember getting them. A seven-pointed Advanced Defensive Magic star and the three interlocking circles in a row for Advanced Hexes and Curses. Although I hadn’t done magic at all in the past two days, I knew I was different with a completed circlus.

Different, or stronger. Filled with rage, or grieving. Whatever it was, I felt it. It coursed through me in hot streaks, never letting me forget.

Hatred is a mighty catalyst.

Indeed.

Guardians ringed the perimeter of the cemetery, spaced at even intervals and facing outward. Even their presence couldn’t comfort me. Who were they against Miss Mabel’s barbarous cruelty? It knew no boundary.

That’s why my mother lay in the cold ground, never to smile again.

Helen stood outside the cemetery, but this time her chant faded away. She held her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. I recognized the words of a familiar invocation as she called on the heavens to give me light and energy, to banish the bitter sting of death. But she couldn’t finish it, and I didn’t know if that was my fault or not. I watched her for a long time, and then I saw movement far behind her, in the depths of Letum Wood. Isadora’s foggy eyes met mine. I saw a knowing sadness, a mourning there. Her warning at the beginning of the school year haunted me.

Don’t underestimate her.

The crunch of leaves announced that someone walked towards me, and I braced myself for another well-meant expression of solace from someone I didn’t know. The footsteps came to a stop at my side. Isadora disappeared.

The High Priestess’s scratchy voice broke the air.

“Miss Mabel is gone, and the High Priest is dead. She killed him shortly after murdering your mother.”

“I’m not surprised,” I murmured. “She loves chaos of her own making.”

I didn’t have the energy to look the High Priestess in the eye, so the two of us just stared at the deadfall. How could I look at her knowing I would one day kill her? Especially when I couldn’t tell her that I’d signed the binding. I had the creeping suspicion that the High Priestess had known all along that I wouldn’t be able to warn her. Had I known I wouldn’t have agreed. She must have understood that about me.

It would be a bitter secret, gnawing at my heart.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “You changed all her plans.”

Yes, and she changed mine.

“Marie’s death will not be posted in the
Chatham Chatterer
as it occurred,” the High Priestess said with little preamble. “It was an unfortunate accident while visiting her daughter at school.”

A well of bitterness grew in my chest.

“You’re covering for a murderer.”

“No. We’re playing our cards right. Miss Mabel will think that we’re trying to cover up a scandal with the Network schools to ensure we always have students. But we are trying to avoid drawing the spotlight onto her. There’s nothing Mabel loves more than attention.”

“Who will know the truth?”

“You and I, your father, and a handful of Council Members I trust. They put the classroom back together and repaired it before they left.”

I suppose that meant she had Council Members she didn’t trust. Just thinking about it left me with a headache.

“If a few Council Members know the truth, Miss Mabel has no hope of becoming High Priestess by popular vote,” I said.

“As I said before: you changed her plans. I think it’s safe to assume that she’s going to attempt to do what I did with Evelyn.”

“An overthrow?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Or she can have me do it from within. A young traitor, bound to an unknown task.

“Do you think she will try?” I asked.

“I have no doubt.”

We said no more. There was nothing more to say.

The High Priestess glanced over her shoulder to the small queue of people talking to my father by the cemetery gate. His wispy brown hair fanned out around his face and neck. Dark circles colored the skin under his eyes and a layer of stubble across his chin, but he held himself together with surprising strength.

“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked, following her gaze. The wind brushed a few tendrils of hair off my face. Helen had picked the chant back up, and it coalesced into the background.

“He’s going to continue in his job.”

“What about the Council? They aren’t likely to be as lenient with him.”

“You let me worry about them.”

That was a kind way of saying that it wasn’t going to be that simple.

“He’s not the first Head of Protectors to have a secret. He never let his family life interfere with his work, which is an argument in his favor.” The High Priestess shifted and pulled her white shawl back over a shoulder. “Not until recently, anyway. He’s been adamant about controlling your safety and being with you at all times for several weeks now. It’s caused a few more issues amongst my Protectors than I would have liked.”

Our eyes met for the first time. The rough edge I normally saw there had softened a little, making her look more like a grandmother than a ruler.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s as simple as it sounds. You weren’t aware of anything unusual except for the sudden appearance of a white cat.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“After Derek learned that Mabel had you at the Esbat, he became concerned. He received permission from me and came the next day. He wasn’t there all the time but returned as often as he was able.”