A Handful of Hexes Page 7

  Thatch placed a hand on his heart as if stricken, though there was too much delight in his eyes for the gesture to be sincere. “Me? Enjoy torturing people? Miss Lawrence, you always accuse me of such sinister deeds.”

  I rolled my eyes and trudged away. Thatch and Vega got along so well they should have just gotten married.

  After study group in my classroom on Friday afternoon, I headed up to my dorm room for a break before dinner. I settled down at the desk under the shuttered window to write my adoptive mom a letter by the light of an oil lamp. My fairy godmother would be wondering how I was holding up.

  My room reminded me of somewhere schoolmarms might have lived two hundred years ago, with two single beds sharing a nightstand and wardrobes across from the foot of each bed. It was hard to pinpoint what about Vega’s decorative touch gave it a homicidal Downton Abbey feel. An old-fashioned cuckoo clock rested on the wall between the beds, not so different from the one my grandma had in her house. Every shelf on the wall was filled with Vega’s books, including the spaces I’d hoped to fill, and paintings of macabre subjects like skeletons adorned the walls.

  I’d just set my pen to the paper when Vega threw back the door. She sighed dramatically. “Thatch asked me to look over your Latin and your ward memorization to make sure you understand what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, sure. I can get my books after dinner and—”

  “It’s Friday. I’m going out after dinner. We’re going to do this now.” She crossed over to the desk, looming over me. “Move. I get the desk.”

  Apparently, I didn’t move quickly enough. She held up her palm, using kinetic energy to push me out of the chair. I stumbled and righted myself. She seated herself like a queen on her throne.

  Vega’s tutoring consisted of asking me questions in Latin, most of which I couldn’t answer.

  “You fail,” she said nonchalantly.

  “I haven’t studied grammar or past tense. I’m still learning vocabulary.”

  She crossed her arms. “Then you know what you need to study next, don’t you?”

  This wasn’t tutoring. If this was her teaching style, I was surprised more of her students weren’t failing.

  “What else do I need to tutor you on?” She left the desk and opened the doors to her wardrobe.

  “I’ve been studying plants in the greenhouses—”

  “Grandmother Bluehorse can help you with that.” She selected a black fringed dress that would have been fitting for an evening at a speakeasy.

  “Professor Bluehorse won’t even talk to me. I can’t get her to answer my questions.”

  Her smile didn’t touch her eyes. “Do you know why?”

  “My mother murdered her husband.” I looked away, a mixture of remorse and guilt rising in me, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  I didn’t like the idea I was related to someone capable of heinous deeds. Maybe everyone was mistaken, and my mother hadn’t really killed people.

  “I thought it was because Grandmother Bluehorse didn’t like pink hair, annoying people, or complete morons.” Vega tapped her fingernails against the wood of the wardrobe, staring at the neat rows of shoes within. “I suppose the bit about your mother being a bitch is more dramatic.” She nodded as if she’d just made up her mind. “Ask your plant questions, then.”

  Vega changed behind the Oriental screen as I asked my questions. When Vega had first redecorated our room, I’d thought the imagery on the screen showcased a Japanese cherry tree with red blossoms. Upon closer inspection, I’d realized the jagged branches impaled small birds and butterflies on spikes. The red appeared to be splatters of their blood.

  After another ten minutes, Vega emerged. She flung a cloak over her shoulder. “Anything else?”

  I grabbed my translations of the cipher I’d written in a lined notebook. “Am I doing this wrong? It doesn’t make sense.”

  The substitution cipher was time consuming, but easy enough. All letters of the alphabet were shifted over three so that the letter a had been written as d and the letter b had been changed to e. Some of it was written in Latin, some parts in English. Even after translating and decoding, what had confused me was what had been written. There were columns of words that looked like names, numbers that might have been dates, and more names. I translated an entire page, but what I found didn’t make any sense at all. I suspected it was in a foreign language—one that wasn’t Latin. The following pages, an explanation of the chart I assumed, had been written in the same language

  Vega squinted at it. “This looks like German, maybe Middle English. No, I think it’s Old High German. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t studied it. In any case, it’s some kind of spell.”

  Disappointment weighed heavy on my shoulders. If Vega didn’t know the language, then it was unlikely I would learn what it meant. She leafed through the other pages. “These are clearly charts of Fae lineage. So-and-so begat so-and-so. I can’t see why this is in here. You can find this in any book on Fae peerage.” She turned another page. “This appears to be some kind of diary entry. Is this from the book Thatch gave you? What kind of book are you translating?”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

  She closed my notes and shoved them back at me. “When you see Thatch, tell him I fulfilled my obligation. I tutored you for two hours this week.”

  “No, you didn’t. You only spent fifteen minutes helping me.” The rest of the time I’d spent cleaning her classroom and helping her.

  “Same difference. Toodles.”

  I suspected Thatch would feel otherwise.

  On Saturday, all my usual students showed up for Latin practice. A blonde teenager named Darla lingered outside the door like a vampire waiting to be invited in. She was a junior, and though I didn’t have her myself, I recognized her from when she used to hang out in Julian’s classroom.

  She was pretty, with short shoulder-length hair. Julian had taken advantage of a blonde, but I didn’t know if that was Darla or someone else. Immediately I was on my guard, uncertain how she would react to me now. Would this be a how-dare-you-steal-and-kill-my-late-boyfriend conversation?

  “I heard there’s a Latin club,” she said shyly, her gaze on the floor. “Do you mind if I join?”

  “It’s open to anyone, but it isn’t a club,” I said. “It’s more like a study group.”

  Out of all the students there, Darla was the most proficient at Latin. She corrected my pronunciation and everyone’s incorrect grammar.

  “This is such a hard language,” Imani said. “I wish I had started five years ago.”

  “I had no idea how much Latin I would need until recently either,” I admitted.

  “Latin is the easy language,” Darla said. “It’s reinforced in a lot of the classes. It’s the Middle English, Old High German, Tamil, Greek, and Sanskrit that’s harder to learn because there aren’t as many opportunities to use them.”

  Middle English and Old High German? Wasn’t that what Vega had said the Fae Fertility Paradox had been written in?

  “What?” Imani asked. “I’m going to have to learn all of those?”

  “No, you’ll have to learn more,” Chase Othello laughed. “But you don’t need to be proficient. Right?” She looked to Darla.

  The older girl shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  Hailey crossed her arms and slouched in her seat. She obviously didn’t want to be there, but she’d shown up, probably because Thatch had threatened her with detentions if she hadn’t. “I wouldn’t have to study if I had found the Ruby of Knowledge.”

  “What’s that?” Greenie asked.

  “The proper title is the Ruby of Divine Wisdom. It’s a myth,” Darla said.

  “No, it isn’t. It’s real!” Hailey grimaced, looking to me. “Tell them, Miss Lawrence. You know about it, right?”

  I shook my head. “Why would you think I would know what it is?”

  Silence fell over the group. N
o one met my eye. Dread settled over me as I realized the reason. My biological mother.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Chase poked at the stud in her lip with her tongue, making it pop in and out of her skin in a nervous gesture. “Rumor has it, former Headmistress Loraline used the ruby to intensify her Celestor affinity. She could see the future and read minds and find treasures and stuff. She used it to summon demons that killed people.”

  Alouette Loraline hadn’t been a Celestor—she’d only posed as one. Perhaps she had used it to increase her Celestor magic because she had needed it to effectively disguise herself. Or perhaps she had used it to intensify her true affinity as a Red. Did the ruby have something to do with the Fae Fertility Paradox?

  “If I had found it, I wouldn’t have used it to release demons,” Hailey said, likely referring to the night I had chased her down when she’d been wandering the secret passages of the school. “I just wanted to use it to pass my classes. Me, Ben, and Balthasar made it past the dungeon, even with the booby traps, but then there was the Chamber of Horrors.”

  That sounded ominous.

  Greenie whispered to Imani. “You haven’t been here very long. You probably don’t know the former headmistress was really, really, super-duper … evil.”

  “No one thinks you’re bad like her,” Imani said quickly, looking to me.

  My gratitude was shattered when Hailey spoke.

  She snorted. “Speak for yourself.”

  “The ruby has been lost ever since the former headmistress died,” Chase said.

  “No, it isn’t lost,” Hailey said. “It’s in the school vault under the dungeon where the school’s other priceless treasures are hidden.”

  That was where the school answer keys were supposedly located. Or they would be now that they weren’t covered with student art and hung on the wall in my classroom. The last thing these students needed was another excuse to go sneaking around the school at night.

  “Let’s think about this logically for just a sec,” I said. “Do you really believe our school has treasures? If we did, why would the principal always be trying to raise funds so my position doesn’t get cut?”

  “The treasure room is probably cursed because of your mother,” Hailey said. “No offense, but she was a badass.”

  Maya Briggs pulled her dirty-blonde hair back into a ponytail. “Maybe the principal just wants us to believe the school is poor. It’s a cover for all the riches under the dungeon.”

  “No. Come on. There’s no treasure. Let’s get back to studying.” I retreated to my desk to grab the Latin bingo sheets I’d been saving for when they got tired of flashcards.

  Chase leaned in closer. “One of the teachers here centuries ago, a Merlin-class Celestor, prophesized someone at this school who didn’t conform to the affinity trinity would become the chosen one who would bring back the lost Red arts.”

  My mouth went dry. I frantically searched the messy piles of papers on my desk for those bingo sheets. The students needed a distraction.

  “Are the lost Red arts related to the Ruby of Divine Wisdom?” Maya asked.

  “Not even,” Hailey said.

  Did she know what the Red affinity was? Did she know Imani and I both were Reds? She’d overheard enough in the bathroom that she might have put it together.

  Chase went on. “This lost art would either unify all Fae and Witchkin or lead to war. They used to think former Headmistress Loraline was the chosen one, but she died, and nothing happened. Recently people started suspecting someone else.” Her eyes cut over to Imani.

  Hailey watched me. “Someone different. Someone with magic unlike anyone else’s. Interesting.”

  I knew she couldn’t outright blab about my secrets without breaking out in boils, but her hints were getting closer than I would have liked. I didn’t know how much of Wiseman’s Oath she would dare break to spite me.

  Imani’s face looked ashen. She stared at her hands in her lap.

  “I have prizes for the bingo game,” I said. “Candy.”

  Hailey turned in her seat toward me, her expression hopeful. “What kind of candy?”

  “Does it matter?” Greenie squealed.

  “Yay, a game!” Imani said with forced enthusiasm.

  Darla spoke up for the first time since we’d started the off-topic conversation. “Studying is smarter than daydreaming about imaginary solutions.”

  The students enjoyed playing bingo. I also brought out the sentence-construction Battleship game that had taken me hours to put together. Darla pointed out a few of my mistakes on the boards I had made and helped me fix them. I kept catching her staring at me as we played. I smiled, and she looked away.

  Either this was about Julian, not a person I wanted to think about, or it was about the prophecy and my Red affinity. I didn’t want anyone to know about that either. Maybe she wanted to blackmail me like Hailey had. My stomach churned with worry. I plastered a smile on my face and tried not to let my apprehension show.

  “Can we do this tomorrow too? Even though it’s Sunday?” Imani asked.

  I was going to be studying, whether it was in my classroom alone or my dorm room. “Sure, we can meet back here,” I said.

  Greenie clapped her hands. “Yay! This is great. Can we bring our history homework too?”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Darla said.

  She was skilled enough she didn’t need us for studying. I wasn’t certain why she’d shown up. Surely she had ulterior motives.

  As the other girls packed up, Darla remained seated. I could feel an awkward conversation coming. Dread crawled across my skin, the sensation like a thousand spiders skating over me. I didn’t want another student hating on me and throwing curses my way.

  I packed up my books and locked my closet, hoping she’d get the hint. Darla remained in the doorway, looking like she might bolt at any moment, nervous energy percolating through her as she shifted from foot to foot.

  “I’ve only taken one art class during my entire time at Womby’s,” Darla said. “It was my freshman year.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t have you this year,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  She stared down at her feet. “I was more of into music and theater when I was a freshman and sophomore. This year my classes were all advanced magic to prepare me for the real world.”

  I nodded.

  Her voice came out as a tremulous squeak. “The day Principal Bumblebub announced that Julian—Mr. Thistledown—had fallen ill and died … it was the same weekend you were sick too.”

  I set a stack of games in my top drawer, unable to meet her eyes. Jeb hadn’t told the students the truth. I didn’t know who among the staff knew what had happened besides Thatch.

  I hated all these secrets. But I supposed Jeb hadn’t wanted to admit we’d had a Fae predator working at our school without our knowledge. It wouldn’t have made parents happy.

  The desk felt like a fortress between Darla and me, the scarred wood a testament to countless years of battles it had endured. Behind the protection of my wooden sanctuary, I waited for Darla to go on. When she did, she rattled me to my core.

  “I know what you did. You killed him.” Her eyes were wild, blazing into me. “Don’t try to deny it. I saw Mr. Khaba and Principal Bumblebub carry his body from your classroom.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  How Many Elephants Can Fit in One Room?

  My knees turned to jelly. I fell into my chair.

  Darla clutched her books to her chest, her knuckles as white as bone. “It was the same weekend the enchantment was broken. I didn’t even know I had been bewitched until it was gone.”

  My throat was as dry as a desert. “From what I understand, they’re very hard to detect. The kind of spell he used, I mean.”

  “He said he loved me. He told me he loved me. And I loved him.” Rage contorted her face. “It isn’t fair. No one understands how unfair it is.”

  Sh
e was here to kill me. That had to be it. She wanted to avenge the death of the man she thought had loved her. I had no weapons. I didn’t know any magic—except how to kill people—and I really didn’t want to electrocute a student.

  Somehow, I doubted that would have stopped my new mentor, but Vega wasn’t here. I couldn’t ask for her help. I didn’t know how to get myself out of this mess. Darla blocked the closest exit. I doubted I could retreat to the other stairwell, unlock it, and make it to the dungeon before she cursed me.

  I turned to one of the teacher skills I’d learned in grad school: active listening. “You’re right. It isn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “No one understands how I feel. All my teachers act like everything is normal. No one cares.” She clenched and unclenched her fists.

  “You probably won’t believe me, but I care,” I said.

  She shuffled her books to one arm and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know you do. I think you’re the only one.”

  “What?” Now I was completely baffled.

  “The moment the spell was gone, I knew what he’d done wasn’t right. It was like I’d woken from a dream. He’d used me. I hated him. He told me he would only ‘help’ me pass if I … did things for him.”

  She wasn’t here to kill me.

  I strode past her and closed the door, not wanting anyone to overhear. “I’m sorry that he did that to you. Not all teachers are like that. And not all guys in your life will be that way either.” I approached her slowly, with the caution one would reserve for a frightened animal.

  “But they are.” Her voice quivered. “I told the principal what he did to me. No one wants to talk about it, not the principal or the counselor. They tell me they’re sorry about what I think might have happened, but I was under a spell that made me delusional, blah blah blah, and Mr. Thistledown is dead, so I can stop worrying about it. I need to move on. I told my friends, but no one believed me because the principal never announced it or anything. The principal won’t acknowledge what he did.”

  Had Jeb truly said that? And Puck, our school counselor? How could they be so callous? There were times the workings of the Unseen Realm disgusted me.