| |
★
––––––––
A new day arrives, but so does the reality of life at a reform school for the magically delinquent, which means a full day of classes (Derrington is back and as contentious as ever). Then a big rumpus game (we win against the Rudbury Rebels, making JJ scarce until the celebration in the dining hall).
I try numerous times to cross the sea of people, most of them in line for the banana cream pie or in line to get a chance to congratulate him. Just before I sit at our usual table, he and I exchange a look of I wish I was over there and I wish you were over here. However, as the star player on the team and despite his moody manner, he can no longer deny his role, or his fans.
In stark contrast, Bobby sulks nearby, surrounded by a few loyal friends aka Marauders. Below the din, Chilton says, “I told you not to mess with Derrington.”
“If you’re wondering, she didn’t curse me to become the worst player on the team,” Bobby snipes.
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Owen says as stony-faced as Derrington.
In his southern drawl, Griffon says, “These teachers are tougher than they look. First, the Gorgon curse failed and Arrowsmith came back. Now, Derrington is going to make our lives a living nightmare.”
“Speak for yourself,” Bobby says.
“But you’re the one who did it. Aren’t you disappointed?”
“Just a delay. Not a denial. Be patient,” he says and for a moment, our eyes meet. I quickly glance away, afraid he realized I overhead every word.
No, when it comes to Bobby Gold, I shouldn’t have anything to be afraid of. Except that he’s incredibly attractive and evil. A lethal combination. Also, the matter of leading the Marauders and working for the Golden Hive who’re desperate enough for power they’re willing to try to build an undead army. No, nothing to worry about at all. Ha! For one fleeting moment it all seems so surreal I could laugh. But I don’t.
Dewey sits down with a sigh. “They’re out of the banana cream pie.” He eyes my slice.
I push it toward him. “You can have it,” I say before he has the chance to ask.
Around a mouthful, he says, “Gold’s probably upset that he didn’t make a single play for the team. The only thing keeping him on the field is the fact you can’t fire the captain. But knowing what I do now, maybe he can be impeached. Voted off the island. He should be shaking in his boots right about now.”
“Yes, yes he should,” I mutter.
Despite the celebratory mood on campus at the win, the teachers (mostly Derrington) are unrelenting with homework, keeping me occupied for the next few days as I finally catch up.
When the end of the month arrives, the air is warm enough that I only wear a light sweater, with the Riptivik emblem, over the blouse of my uniform. I exchange the knit tights for tall socks (dress code). The boys drape their coats over one shoulder between classes.
After the final bells ring, at an ordinary boarding school, students would gather on the lawn. Some would toss a Frisbee, others would soak up the lingering sun, and all around there’d be chatter and laughter. Instead, everyone is steely-eyed and wary. The restrictions here are stacked pretty high even without Storch around. She was dismissed, but the Reform school rules she enforced stand.
I still haven’t had a private moment to speak with JJ. We haven’t been alone since he stayed by my side through the night after the demon snatcher attack. And I was asleep, so...
I return to my dorm room to leave my books and go back outside to meet Yassi and the others before nightfall. A note tucked into the frame of my door flutters to the floor when I push it open.
I don’t dread seminal seminar like I used to, but if I’m honest, I’m still recovering from West’s exam and the demons. However, the embers that were burning within when I cast my magic are still aglow and fuel me to find a solution to the Marauder problem.
As I rush back down the stairs, I read the note. Instead of a request for me to be at Nightingale later, I read it and the glow brightens.
You’re beautiful: your hair, your eyes, and your wild will. All of it makes me feel something: buoyant, free, like the world has depths untold, like our story will be infinite.
It’s signed by the same hand that wrote the other ones. It’s not Bobby. That much I’m sure of. Thank goodness. I wonder if there’s someone out there less complicated than JJ. Then I see him walking up the hill toward Clermont Chapel. He stops outside the door and smells a rose; the first bloom of the season.
I have a funny thought that nature always wins...despite obstacles, weather, and human hands. And so does love—the fire that kindles and ignites within.
I tuck the note into the pocket of someone’s discarded jacket in the corridor, hoping it will give them the little thrill of having an admirer, I rush up the hill, away from the leisurely afternoon and toward the chapel, toward something complicated, yes, but also that fills my heart in a way nothing else ever has.
I’m panting when I step through the door. JJ is a whisper and a shadow. His form is so faded that the glow of a lit candle shines through him. It must be that this space is warded against magic. Panic grows inside of me at what this could mean.
I rush over and hug him. He instantly brightens.
“Thank you for sitting by my side that night,” I say, inhaling his fresh air scent.
“Of course,” he says, holding me by the shoulders and looking at me with his strange, sad gray eyes.
“Moody, mysterious, misunderstood,” I say, planting a kiss on his lips. “I’ll take it. I’ll take it all.” Just please, please don’t disappear.
JJ leads me over to one of the wooden benches and we sit down. He doesn’t need to read my thoughts to see the plea in my expression.
“It can’t be helped. My mother wished not to age anymore. I’ve been stuck here for a long, long time.” His voice is strained.
“We have to break the curse.”
“I was afraid to like you. I wanted your help but feared you’d think I was using you for a wish. I was afraid you’d see that I’m your inverse. I worried you wouldn’t trust me. Sometimes I don’t trust myself.”
I squeeze his hand, shake my head, and nestle against his chest. “Tell me what it was like before the curse.”
Time expands for us in the quiet chapel as he tells me about his home in England, the acres of open space, the flowers (roses are his favorite), and his younger brother.
“He was born after our mother started to mess with her youth. Before my father found out. He was born like I am now, already fading. She was selfish and foolish. I don’t want her to die, but to be at peace. Now here I am, trapped between worlds. Anyway, I don’t think there’s much left of the original Imogen Hawkes.”
“Could I wish you back to this side?” I ask as my mind races with possibilities.
“That’s messing with life and death, no better than her. When my brother was born, that was the last straw for my father. They had a big fight—yelling, casting spells, the whole bit. She chanted a complicated spell, it sounded like Gibberish, and then he walked out.”
“Did you ever see him again?”
“No, and believe me I’ve had plenty of time to look. I was stateside for a long time, but then learned he’d passed away back in England. But they never recovered his body. His family tried to keep that quiet. Probably out to sea somewhere.” Heaviness presses against JJ with every word.
“And your brother? He wasn’t a twin?” I recall Chelsea’s theories.
“No, but we looked alike. He came of age and stopped aging so we were the same age. Easy mistake to make. People thought we were twins. For ages, one of us was always at Skerry Street—though he was most afraid of non-magicals. Me, the other brother, was out traveling the world trying to figure things out. To fix things. To find you. Strange, that you were right there all along.”
“You must have sensed my magic.”
He nods. “You’re right. I must have known even before I saw your name written in the stars, drawing me to you.”
I remember the map and pull it from my wand pocket where I’ve kept it rolled up for the last few days, hoping we’d have a private moment. “Have you ever seen this?” I ask.
He takes the old piece of paper lightly in his hands and his face brightens. “I recognize this handwriting. It’s my father’s. Where’d you find this?”
“In Imogen’s journal. The one you gave me.” I pass it to him.
“I was flipping through it while you were sleeping. Searching for answers. I didn’t spot it.”
“It was in a hidden pocket.”
“I found the journal in his library on Skerry Street long after everything happened.”
“JJ, I think this is a treasure map,” I say.
He brings it over to the candlelight and studies it. “It’s the Riptivik campus,” he says.
I nod. “Isn’t it strange how some things in it just end though? As if he got tired of drawing the details.” I point to where the orchard dissolves. “Surely, he would have included the cemetery. Some of the most important magicals rest there.”
JJ holds it up to the candlelight and as if imprinted between the paper, right in the middle of the cemetery, is the letter X.
“It is a treasure map!” I exclaim.
“That old pirate,” JJ says fondly, shaking his head.
“Do you think he buried the wand there?” I squirm because I never want to go to the cemetery again, no less dig up a wand.
JJ almost smiles. Just as quickly as the corners of his mouth tease upward, the expression slides off his face as though he realizes something much worse than digging up a wand.
