Elves and Escapades (Scholars and Sorcery Book 2) (4 page)

Being awake in the early hours of morning, with toothache and a mind that won’t shut off its clatter, is a particular form of hell. I am entirely unable to leave the throbbing pain alone, poking it experimentally with my tongue in order to see if it still results in the kind of agony shooting across my face that it did the last hundred times I tried it. In the same way, I keep poking at my memory of the incident this morning.

I’d been straightening my tie before breakfast. I find putting on my tie somehow an awkward process these days, with the glimmering pins on it, as if making myself neat was somehow boasting about being Games Captain. I tend to studiously avoid my own reflection as a result, with occasionally disastrous results.

 
Esther drifted across to adjust my tie for me. It’s not an unknown thing, Esther likes patting my hair and Cecily’s into place or sorting out our collars, although it feels a little different these days, especially when I catch a vaguely resentful restlessness from Rosalind. I suppose Esther does seem very proprietorial, at times, in a way that is queerly different from when Frances mother-hens Rosalind.

Not, to be honest, that I like it much when Frances, in her maternal way, brushes Rosalind’s lovely masses of hair.

Esther had straightened me out, stood on her tiptoes, and whispered into my ear: “When I need a big favour, Charles, and I will, please remember that I am being very pleasant to your little Rosalind, and not ripping her from limb to limb.”
 

Before I could respond, she’d slipped back to her own cubicle, leaving me feeling vaguely disturbed. I don’t like the idea of owing Esther a big favour. Somehow, being in Esther’s debt feels quite dangerous, especially when I have no idea what she has in mind.

Besides, everyone should be nice to Rosalind. She’s sweet. I resent a little the idea that being nice to her has to be some huge favour to me.

Now, in the darkness, the pain fretting me, I turn the incident over and over in my head, to no resolution. Of course, often Esther chooses to be provoking simply for the sake of it. I just don’t want the happy, uncomplicated flow of the last few days interrupted by Esther’s perverse schemings.

In the end I clamber from the bed, sitting heavily on the end for a moment as the movement sends pain coursing through my face. When I can move, there’s enough light from the moon in the window to manage my slippers and dressing gown.
 

I dread the thought of bearding Matron in her den. I would go back to bed if it wasn’t for the fact that if I don’t have some clove oil soon to deal with the pain, I will never sleep, and between sleeplessness and toothache the poor First form will wish I’ve never been born when the time comes to take them for prep. For their innocent sakes, I tell myself, I have a duty to brave Matron’s grumpiness.

Our cubicle curtains never shut all the way. I’ve never been quite clear on the reasoning why closed curtains are a sin. Privacy is unhygienic, or something. It means that I can see the others as I pass, Cecily curled on her side like a small child, Valerie with her blankets tangled around her knees. I can’t resist the temptation to stop for some ridiculously soppy moment, that I would absolutely die if anyone found out about, to peek at Rosalind, her moonlight-pale hair spread over her pillow and shining softly. She would look like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for an elvish prince to kiss her back to consciousness and full magic powers, if she hadn’t fallen asleep sucking her thumb. I grin and move on.

Next to Rosalind’s cubicle, Diana’s bed lies empty.

At first, I don’t think particularly much of it. There is one very straightforward reason that all girls leave their beds at night at one time or another, even though it is frowned on. I’ve actually passed on before something clicks in my head, a little detail that I’ve noticed. I turn back to Diana’s cubicle.

Her dressing gown is still hanging on the back of her chair. It’s a chilly night; there’s no way any girl would venture out in her pyjamas. There is, however, no blazer with the clothes folded neatly on her chair. Slippers by the bed, not shoes.

I curse under my breath, a very bad word I once heard a stable boy use. I don’t want to care what Diana is up to. I want to get my clove oil and go back to bed and curl up in the warm and fall asleep and leave Diana to her own devices.

I suppose, once you start thinking like a Senior Prefect, there’s no escape from acting like one.

I brave Matron’s wrath, first of all, because I know my temper will be much worse if I’m in pain. Once the clove oil has first escalated the pain into hellfires of torture and then dulled it, I return to the dorm, half hoping that Diana has made it back and I can confine myself to scolding her in the morning. No such luck. I sit on the end of my bed, resisting the lure of the pillows, and give myself up to thought.

Diana’s been spending a lot of time with Kitty and, presumably, her crowd, lately. Perhaps the Fifth are having a midnight feast or something. I really hope it’s something as innocent as that, something that will mean I can pack them all off to bed and make them write me a short essay on why they need their sleep, some minor breach of rules that doesn’t put Cecily’s precious School Banner at risk. I have a dragging feeling in the pit of my stomach that it won’t be something so babyish and simple to deal with. Diana isn’t really the sort to hobnob with the lower forms at midnight feasts and, come to that, the Fifth’s record of nighttime wanderings is a little less innocent than surreptitious boiled eggs and ginger beer.

I drag myself back to my feet and walk softly along the passages, checking all the usual places for illicit feasts, or come to that, casinos: the Fifth common room, the music rooms. I even ease open the doors of the Fifth dormitories and peek inside. The demons in the Fifth are sleeping like precious angels. Well, all barring one.

Naturally, Kitty Eversleigh’s bed is the empty one.

I curse again and resort to my last guess, the study Diana and I share. It only takes me a moment to see that the window, apparently closed, has in fact a ruler wedged into it to prevent it latching against someone’s return.
 

It’s going to be, I suspect, a long night. I settle into an easy chair near the door and resign myself to the vigil. There are books lined up on the shelves, including one on gryphon breeding that Mother has sent and I am just longing to read, to while away the hours. If only I dared put on a lamp and read to keep myself awake, without alerting the two miscreants that I’m lying in wait.

I decide to work on my plans to encourage Harry and Rosalind to fall in love instead. After all, I think bitterly, it’s usually the best way to keep me tortured and awake all night.
 

My romantic plans don’t change much, no matter how often I go over them. They are two of the nicest people I know, after all. They’d be a perfect couple. If I could only convince Rosalind to keep all those heavy pale waves of hair out on display instead of tied up in childish plaits, and get her to talk about Fabled Beasts so that her fiery enthusiasm for them overpowers her timidity, I can’t see how Harry could help falling in love with her. Harry, who will spend all night working on some doomed foal, won’t be able to help having his protective instincts roused by someone like Rosalind, which is half the battle. And Harry… he is good looking and chivalrous and kind-hearted and Rosalind will adore him and I will just have to bite down and endure it, because it is a hundred times better than some stranger carrying her off.

I fall into miserable day dreams of them together, Rosalind’s face turned up to him with the soft glow of affection that in my heart should always belongs to me. Will still, in part. She promised forever friendship. It’s just that it will rightfully belong more to someone else later, which is good and natural and inevitable, and a loving friend would be happy for her.

I cuddle deeper into my dressing gown, shivering. I pull my knees up to myself. The ache in my tooth is still numbed, at least. I’m feeling sad and so terribly drowsy.

The clink of the window coming up wakes me fully. I remain motionless, trying to breathe softly, listening to the scuffling as the two girls come in the window and close it behind them. Then I am up and between them and the door before they can react to my presence, my back against the wood as I flick on the electric light switch.

Kitty and Diana blink at me. They are wearing wraps turned inside out, to hide the school colours, over evening dress, dance slippers in one hand and school shoes on their feet. Kitty, as a Fifth former, shouldn’t even have a party dress at school. I have no idea how she has hidden it from Matron.

Diana turns pale, then red. Kitty, for her part, gives me an impudent smile. “Couldn’t count enough sheep, Charley?”

“Not quite enough, no.” Deep fury is welling up in me. I’m so tired. My head aches. My tooth is starting to twinge again, too. I don’t want to deal with these two idiots and I don’t want to tell Cecily that any kind of Conduct Banner is further and further away from School House because of their actions and I feel that somehow it’s my fault for catching them and—I could just spit. Instead, I lean back against the door.

“Let us pass, there’s a dear. We’re all cold and tired and we’ll feel better for some sleep. We can have a chat about this in the morning.” Kitty dimples up at me, stepping forward and putting a hand on my arm. I’m almost sure she’s wearing powder and rouge and that her long lashes shouldn’t be quite so black, not with that red-gold hair.

For some reason, the thought that she’s wearing makeup puts the seal on my fury. “Are you both completely mad?” I struggle to keep my voice down. “You know that breaking bounds at night could get you expelled! We’re going to Miss Carroll, now!”

Diana is neither red nor white now. She’s a sickly grey. She lifts a hand as if to touch me and drops it, helplessly.

“Charley—Charley, you can’t.”

I glare at her. I hate her. I really hate her, with a deep loathing that makes me tremble. It’s going to be ugly, and horrible, and I hate her for ruining Cecily’s chances at her precious Banner, and I hate her most of all because her unhealthy pallor and obvious terror forces me to feel sorry for her. Everything that has gone wrong this year feels, in this moment, to be Diana’s fault. The only thing stopping me from crossing to her and shaking her is the need to keep the door blocked, with Kitty so close to me and still cheekily unperturbed.

“I don’t have any choice,” I say, shortly. “I’m a Prefect. This needs to be reported.”

“Oh, Charley, you can’t mean it,” Kitty wheedles, stroking my arm. I shake her hand off.
 

“You don’t understand,” Diana says. “This is my last chance. I can’t be asked to leave another school!”

I press my palms to my eyes and slide to a sitting position against the door. “You have to be kidding me,” I say, with no real hope. After all, new girls in Sixth form are unusual enough that there’s probably a story behind them.

“How many schools have you been asked to leave so far?” Kitty asks. She sounds inquisitive and sympathetic and not at all scared about her own prospects.

“Th-three.” I peer out between my fingers. To my despair, Diana is shaking and crying. “I didn’t think Daddy would find another school to take me, until Miss Carroll agreed to have me here at Fernleigh Manor. I was never officially expelled,” she says hurriedly through her tears, “just—they all told Daddy that there wouldn’t be a place for me next term. I can’t be expelled from here too, I just can’t! Charley, please!” Her voice rises in a wail.

“Three expulsions is a pretty good record. I mean, I’m pretty bad, and I’ve only been expelled once. What on earth did you do?” Kitty asks curiously. She is still carrying on as if this was a friendly conversation, and I want to slap her.

“It doesn’t matter what I did! Oh, Charley—I know you hate me, but please!”

I realise I can’t let Kitty carry on all the conversation. I give quarter, just a little. “All right. Have it your way. We’ll go to bed, and after prayers, I’ll call a full meeting of prefects. You can have a chance to explain yourselves and we’ll decide together what to do.”

“Not Miss Carroll?” Diana scrubs at her tear-wet cheeks with the back of her fists.

“I can’t promise. It depends what Cecily and the others decide.” I clamber wearily to my feet. “Get out of those ridiculous frocks before you freeze to death, and go to bed.” I hold the door open for them.

Kitty has the cheek to give me another smile as she leaves. Diana steps after her, then turns back, tear-streaked and blazing.

“I suppose you want me to thank you for not going straight to Miss Carroll. High and mighty prefect, giving the naughty children a chance. What does it matter, though, if we go to a dance? I’m nearly eighteen! You had no need to interfere.” Her voice is hot and vindictive and full of spite. “It’s natural to want to dance and meet young men and have a good time. I haven’t done anything
really
wrong—anything sick or perverted. You are the one who truly deserves to leave Fernleigh Manor, you know that as well as I do.”