Secrets all unfold gallo.., p.16
Secrets All Unfold: Gallows Hill Academy: Year Three, page 16
“This is part of what you all talked about in Newport,” she said. “Jax told me a little. We have Uncle Herbert looking some things up. He’s the guy who keeps track of family trees for us.”
“That’s cool.” I nodded. “Thanks.”
In Lecture, Mrs. Ambersmith went over some history from World War Two.
“The devastation over what’s now Liechtenstein was so severe, even the extrahumans with the armed forces believed it to be the aftermath of a storm. We’ve been aware for the last few years that isn’t the case, thanks to the Black Forest University Archaeology department. They found a largely untouched dragon hoard, along with the remains of dragons and a nest. However, no eggs.”
In Forum, I was about to ask about this, but Saya beat me to it.
“Who do they think took the eggs? Or the hatchlings? Nazis, doing experiments?”
“We’re certain it wasn’t Nazis,” Mr. Hickson said. “They kept meticulous records, and none referred to dragons. Their atrocities were devastating and sadly not unique to that period or regime.”
“You’re talking about the Boston Internment.” Fiona sighed. “My mom lost both her parents on those barges. Will we ever learn?”
“That depends on who you ask.” Mr. Hickson’s voice was flatter than usual. “Like with most any lesson, nobody learns the same way. So, if we want to maximize who learns from history, the key is teaching it in as many ways as we can.”
“So who took the eggs, then?” I asked.
“That mystery’s still unsolved,” he told us. “Maybe one or more of you will make discoveries about exactly that someday.”
“By getting into Black Forest U?” Cosmo shook his head. “Not likely. They’re more selective than PPC.”
“It doesn’t matter which college,” I said. “Or any college at all. Discovery’s all about digging deeper and keeping an open mind.”
“That’s an inspiring attitude, Miss Merlini,” Mr. Hickson said. “Hang on to it for as long as you can.”
Lunch was uneventful but filling. The bell rang, so we said goodbye and headed off to our respective Rec periods. At Drama, I ran through my duet with Kiara for the variety show. After that, Ed approached me.
“I need some help,” he said. “With a different kind of practice.”
“Let’s take a walk.”
I led him into the wings, then into the maze of old set pieces backstage. The ghosts followed. He stopped under the old piece from Romeo and Juliet.
“Diego got that reading from Allen at lunch today,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You’ll see the full report this afternoon. Something else happened. At the end, some of Allen’s cards fell at my feet.”
“Gods, that’s spooky. What did they mean?”
Ed got his phone out and showed me a picture he’d snapped of them. I recognized the one on the right instantly as the Wheel of Fortune. The one in the middle was reversed and had two people holding cups and a winged lion overhead. Then, there was The Hanged Man Reversed.
“What did Allen have to say about those?” I hid the thin spike of fear the image struck me with.
“Make like a wheel and turn it around.”
“That’s an exact quote? It doesn’t sound like how he usually talks.”
“I know. It’s pretty typical for the trance-patter he goes into when reading in Clairvoyance, though. That Wheel of Fortune card reminds me of the sphere.”
“Then let’s try to follow his advice. What are you going to try?”
“Turning upside-down, of course.” He pulled his sweatshirt up, revealing a coil of rope around his middle, then jerked a thumb at the balcony.
“I guess you want a hand.”
It wasn’t high, only twice my height from the floor to the bottom of the protruding part of the set-piece. The ladder to get up there was on the other side of the contraption so he couldn’t climb it unless we tilted it.
I didn’t have to put much effort in. Ed was almost strong enough to do it himself. Once we’d leaned it, we realized the ladder wasn’t attached. At least it looked like the balcony itself would hold a person’s weight. But there wasn’t anything for Ed to climb. We put it back the way we’d found it.
“Of course, Sid reused the ladder in another piece since then.” Ed sighed and shook his head. “Back to the drawing board.”
“No, I can pop wings and fly you up.”
“Okay, then.”
I shrugged off my hoodie then took off my t-shirt. Since becoming the Sirin, I’d started wearing a camisole over my bra. Ed had looked away, anyhow. He didn’t turn back toward me after my wings opened, wafting old sawdust and glitter in the space between us.
“You have to come over here if you want me to carry you,” I said.
“Yeah, okay.” He turned back, eyes fixed firmly on my face. Still, he hesitated.
“I’ve got this.”
I took three steps, opened my arms, and caught him in them. Ed couldn’t decide where to put his hands.
“Like we’re dancing,” I said.
“Oh, right.”
After that, ferrying him up to the balcony felt natural. Letting go of him didn’t, but I managed. This was sphere business, after all. Not a good time to start quoting Shakespeare despite my impulse.
After setting him behind the white faux marble balcony replica, I glided back down to the floor and waited.
Ed leaned down, probably to attach the other end of the rope to whatever Sid had used to build the inside of the platform. “Good thing Crow taught me all those knots.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “If it doesn’t hold, I’m here.”
After rising again, he stood there. I watched him staring at Rob as though waiting for approval. Rob faced the front of the theater, probably acting as a lookout.
Professor Luciano tried getting Rob’s attention, but the senior ghost shook his head. I raised a foot to go over and give him a piece of my mine, but Horace held up a hand.
Finally, the professor turned and gave Ed a slight nod. Ed nodded back, then tossed the rope over the side of the balcony. After that, he put one leg over, then the other, and hung by his hands.
My heart practically stopped in my chest as his hands moved. He managed to let himself down hand over fist. Also, the rope was shorter than I expected so there wasn’t enough slack or space for the drop to injure him even if he’d lost his grip.
He swung there, face-down and suspended by the waist. He didn’t look like The Hanged Man on the Tarot card, but he beheld our surroundings from a different perspective.
The chain holding the Chronus sphere spilled from the neck of his shirt. It did the same hanging and balancing act as Ed.
I stepped under him, gazing up. The chestnut forelock that typically threatened to hide his right eye had fanned left and framed his face. The light from above him made it look lighter, almost like a copper corona or a dim halo.
“Wow.” I covered my mouth.
“Don’t, because wow yourself.” He cleared his throat. “Unless you’re talking about the sphere.”
“Nope.” I pointed at it. “It’s not doing anything.”
“Oh, it is. You just don’t see it.”
“How? We both see medium things.”
“This isn’t that.” Ed swallowed. “It’s, uh. Well, an avatar thing, I guess.”
“Describe it to me.”
“I see threads. For some reason, it reminds me of myths about the Fates, but I don’t see anything that could be their tools.”
“So no scissors, that’s a good thing.” I grinned.
“Yeah.” He chuckled a little breathlessly. “Mavis, these threads are silver and gold. Like when Levi knocked us out of our bodies.”
“Weird. Do they go and connect to people you think?”
“There’s a huge silver one wrapped all around you.”
“Like a cocoon?”
“No. Like all the clothes you’re wearing are made of spun silver if that makes any sense.”
“That makes sense.” I nodded. “How about yours?”
“I’m not sure.” He held his hands out in front of him. “Okay, yeah. There it is, like yours. The other threads around, they’re not on anyone. Those are like a web.”
“Spider or worldwide?”
“Like artist representations of worldwide, or Fios.”
“Verizon commercials?”
“Something like that. This is starting to make more sense now.”
“Your face is turning red. Might be time to come down from there.”
“You know what, I’m not sure how.” He laughed. “Just a second.”
Ed waved his arms to the left and tilted his legs to the right. The movement turned him a little but not much. He repeated the motion but only bounced a little.
“You’re trying to see the ghosts?”
“Yeah.”
I flapped a wing, churning the air. It worked. He gasped.
“What?” I asked.
“There goes my theory.”
“That you’re seeing threads of fate?”
“With the Wheel of Fortune, I thought I would.”
I stepped around to look at his face again.
“Okay, you’re coming down now.”
“I look like a tomato, probably.”
“You do.”
I stepped back to give myself room, then flew up. It wasn’t as easy to grab Ed while he dangled in mid-air. I managed but kicked him in the shin once and severely messed up his hair with one of my wings. After setting him back on the balcony, I smiled.
He looked a little punch-drunk, but I chalked that up to the blood rushing from his head. Still, I didn’t land although it took regular flapping to stay up there.
“You could go back down, you know.”
“Just waiting for you to untie yourself.”
“Oh. Right.” He leaned down and did it. Then he took the rope off his waist and dropped it over the side. “Bye, chafemaker.”
I laughed. He stared, but I didn’t know why.
“It’s not like you’ve never seen giggly Mavis before, Ed.”
“Perspective rules all.” He grinned.
“From mine, it’s time to go.”
“Give me a minute.”
“Have you been wounded?” I glanced at his waist, looking for any sign of blood from the rope there.
“It’s not what you think.”
“I think if there’s any chance you could be hurt I should bring you to Nurse Wilson.”
“I think maybe I’m, uh, too fond.”
“Ed Redford!” I threw my head back and laughed. “Enough with the Shakespeare jokes!”
“We’re hanging out on Juliet’s balcony. What do you expect?”
“The exchange of thy faithful vow for mine, according to The Bard.”
“I’m not making any vows up here on this star-crossed set.”
“I offered to bring you down twice already.”
“Do it again.”
“Come on, large medium.” I let go of the balcony and opened my arms. “Get in.”
It wasn’t as easy as I made it sound but less challenging than catching him as he swung from the rope. The hardest part was flapping strongly enough to keep us aloft at the right moment, but I managed. A moment later, we were down.
“Well, that covers The Hanged Man,” he said.
“What about the Two of Cups Reversed?”
“Oh, I already understood that part. That’s how I knew I needed you.”
“I don’t get it.” I folded my wings and shifted them away.
“You, ah, came up in other readings as that card before.” He smoothed his hair. “Don’t worry. It’s all been in good ways.”
“It’s reversed.” I blinked. “Thought that was always bad.”
“Not according to the last couple of years of clairvoyance class.” He picked up my shirt and handed it to me. “It depends on its placement and also the reader’s interpretation.”
“So, Allen says it’s good?” I pulled my shirt on.
“Always has when it’s about you.”
I would’ve tried reading his face, but he’d bent to get my hoodie. When he handed it over, his features were as placid as the sea on a calm day. But his hands shook, so I took them.
“Seriously. Are you okay?”
“I’ll live.” He drew a breath. “Mavis—”
The bell rang.
“Thanks for your help,” he finished.
I had a hunch that wasn’t what he meant to say.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hope knocked on my door way too early Sunday morning.
“I can’t believe you want a meeting this early.” I turned my head to avoid blasting her with morning breath.
“I don’t. We’re going to campus after lunch. For sphere practice.”
“Just the research team, I guess.”
“The whole class.”
“Crew, you mean.”
“No. Everybody.” Hope tried peering past me.
“Okay.”
“The, hmm, ghosts must be doing something interesting in there.”
“You interrupted a date with my toothbrush.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant.” She sighed. “See you after lunch.”
“See you.”
I grabbed my toiletry bag and headed across the hall. I saw Hope knocking on the door to the room Ed and Cosmo shared, then hurried into the bathroom before anyone could see my flushing cheeks.
Had Hope thought I had a corporeal guest in my room? If so, who? Even if questions weren’t risky between us, I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
Saya walked in, humming.
“Good morning, Mavis.” She smiled.
“Uh, hi.”
Saya narrowed her eyes.
“Was it something I said?”
“No.” She tilted her head, nostrils flaring. “Something’s wrong. You smell mortified.”
“Oh, well, Hope sure woke us up early.”
“She did. That hasn’t bothered you before.”
“Well, um, I think maybe she thought I brought someone home last night.”
“Explain.”
I told her about the whole exchange outside my room. “I didn’t sleep well. That’s pretty obvious.”
“But you didn’t have a guest.” She raised an eyebrow.
“Just my ADHD birdbrain keeping me awake.”
“Oh no!” Saya’s laugh echoed off the tile like a spray of water in the sun. “Tiamat’s scales! I’ll make sure to disabuse her of that notion.”
“Thanks, Saya.”
We stood in the gym after lunch as Rob laid an enormous gymnastics parachute on the floor. Ed’s eyes lit up as soon as he saw it. He made a beeline for the ghost.
“How did you know I’d ask for this?”
“I didn’t.” Rob blinked. “Had a feeling, I guess.”
“Well, thank you.”
“No problem.”
After a while, we all stood around the edges.
“This is like morning Gym,” Jill said. “But no Coach Tremain.”
“Maybe it won’t be in a minute.” Ed stood back. “Everybody grab an edge and get it up in the air.”
We did. Once there was enough clearance, Ed ducked under it and paced to the middle. After the stunt he’d pulled in the theater, I had some idea of what he meant to do.
I stole glimpses at him as I stood waving the fabric, trying to watch his face. The only thing I knew for sure was he kept his eyes closed. Nothing else there gave me any insight into his emotions or mental state. The air moved, and the fabric fluttered.
No time seemed to pass, but Ed said he’d finished.
Around the circle, all I saw was windswept hair and our friends rubbing their hands or arms. When I glanced at the clock, almost an hour had passed. The ghosts looked paler than usual.
On the walk back, I caught up to Ed.
“You warped time.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Prove it.”
“I can’t. Because I didn’t.”
“So what happened, then?”
“You remember the threads from backstage.”
“I’ll never forget that, even if I live a thousand years.”
“I saw even more of them.”
“How come it all feels like the blink of an eye to me, then? I was right there with you the other time, listening to you describe it.”
“I don’t know.” Ed sighed. “I expected it to be like backstage for everyone. It wasn’t, and I can’t figure out why. This is too complicated.”
“Maybe it isn’t, though.”
“Tell me how.”
“It might be as simple as positioning. Last time, you were up instead of in the middle. I stood right under you, Ed.”
“You think it works in a column.”
“And you expected a sphere because it is one. But it isn’t.”
“Because it’s part of something bigger.”
“So it’s going to behave more like what it came from.”
“If only we knew what that was.” He sighed.
“We’ll get there, don’t worry.” I elbowed him.
“I’m not worried.” Ed grinned. “Because I’m in this with you.”
After we got back to the boarding house that day, I got a call from the hospital. Crow’s new drainage system had healed enough for him to come home. They just weren’t sure exactly when, yet.
Rec Week snuck up on me. It shouldn’t have, considering how much effort and time I put into the magipsych fair project. If only I’d had similar opportunities to practice my number for the variety show. I didn’t have time to do more now. So I enjoyed some art in the hall instead.
“I think this is your best work yet, Cosmo.”
“I’m not sure. Last spring’s felt like a tough act to follow.”
“I feel the same way about Drama Club right now.”
I’d been honest with him but couldn’t stay maudlin for long. The riotous colors and raucous shapes in Cosmo’s five-foot-tall composition seemed designed to banish foul moods.
He’d painted the group of us, dressed up and dancing like we were at one of our school formals, except on board the deck of a ship that wasn’t quite The Odyssey. Each face wore an expression of mirth, and he’d somehow captured our movements and mannerisms with an almost fanatically devoted faithfulness to our personalities.
