Neverland Academy (6 page)

“But
you can’t stay there forever, can you?”

“Why
not? They’ve got everything we need. As long as we stay hidden and out of
sight, we can keep partying like it’s 1999 until we’re old and gray.”

Daphne’s
ears perked. Though her rational side kept trying to tell her that this was
wrong, she was too tempted by the seductive nature of Neverland Academy. She
didn’t want to have her heart broken again, like Rocks had done to her. She
didn’t want to get a job or be responsible. She wanted to have fun and live
life her own way, by her own rules, where nobody would tell her what to do or
how to do it. She wanted to be free.

“Okay,
let’s keep going.”

Chapter
Seven

Slave
Tunnels

It was a full moon
, the sky was
sprinkled with stars, and the former plantation glowed with a light blue fog.
Belle had been staring out her window overlooking the garden for over an hour,
waiting for Finn to return. Tonight would be the night. The night that she
would reveal her true feelings for him. This would be her final chance. He had
to know before it was too late.

 
Belle didn’t know why she had never told
him before. She’d just assumed that he’d get the hint and fall madly in love
with her. After all, he had been with Lily for almost five months. If he could
love her, why wouldn’t he love Belle?
I’m ten times prettier than Lily
, she thought. But Belle was not always comfortable
being straightforward with Finn. She would be fine until he pierced her with his
emerald eyes. Then her knees would wobble and her stomach would drop ten
stories. She’d lose her nerve.
Tonight will be different
, she thought. She couldn’t afford to drop the ball
this time. She had to say something or risk losing him to the new girl. That
couldn’t happen.

 
Finn often went out at night. Sometimes
he would hunt or fish and bring back rabbits and crappie for the cooks to
prepare. Sometimes he would go skinny dipping in the lake at the outskirts of
the property. Other times he would just sit in the meadow by the lake, staring
at the stars. Belle knew he was doing none of those things now. She knew
exactly where he was and she didn’t like it. She liked being the only girl
here. Apart from Lily anyway, but that relationship had run its course and it
was her turn now. She didn’t want any more competition.

 
A shadow, moving swiftly behind the
boys’ dormitory, stirred her attention. She squinted, trying to ascertain
whether it was Finn or just a grazing deer. The shadow bolted across the quad
to the garden. A second one followed, slower and wavering. The figure turned
and looked as if to see if it was being followed.

 
Belle dropped to the floor, wounded and
on the verge of tears. It was too late.
How could he have brought her here?
If only Belle had spoken her heart sooner, maybe she
could have avoided this disaster.
Why her?
What could Daphne possibly do that none of the other boys could do? A
single girl alone in the presence of all those boys, stealing the attention.
The thought sickened Belle and her grief thickened until she couldn’t take it
anymore. Her heartbeat raced and her shoulders rose and fell with each labored
breath. Her heartache turned into resent, which turned into fury.

 
Belle stood up, angry and resolved. That
Daphne girl would not overshadow her. No way. She would make sure that Daphne
did not last the night at Neverland Academy.

 
Belle flung her side table across her
bed, the sound muffled by her thick comforter, and disappeared into the tunnel
in her wall.

***

“Psst
. . . in here!” Finn whispered to Daphne, who was caught behind the hydrangea.
It wasn’t that it was too dark, Daphne could see just fine in the moonlight.
But she’d only been through the garden once and she remembered how complicated
the layout was. She didn’t want to get her pajamas caught in a tangle of rose
thorns.

“I’m
coming,” she whispered back. Daphne thought she had found her way back onto the
cleared path between the foliage, but launched forward when she tripped on some
vines that had scurried across the path. Before she hit the ground she felt
herself lifted. Warmth spread around her midsection, warmth that found its way
deep into Daphne’s chest. She rose up to find Finn standing behind her, his arm
still clasping her waist, so close she could feel his heart beating against her
back. She caught her breath. The feeling of Finn holding her against him made
Daphne nervous, frightened even, and yet, she didn’t want him to let go.

“You
okay?” Finn whispered against her ear. Daphne shivered and nodded. He took her
hand and after a few steps, squatted by a hole in the ground. Next to it was a
large, flat stepping stone that had been pulled aside.

“You
want me to go down there?” Daphne’s jaw dropped in disbelief. In fact, she
nearly shouted at him for playing this cruel joke on her.

“Well,
yeah. Don’t worry—it’s not just a hole in the ground. I’ll explain
further, but not out here. It’s too dangerous.”

Daphne
looked around at the buildings with windows that seemed to be staring at her
like monstrous beasts with hundreds of eyes. Somebody could be in one of those
windows watching right now. What was she to do? Finn wouldn’t take her home and
there was no way she’d find her way back by herself. Besides, she didn’t want
to go home. But she really didn’t want to go down that black hole either.

“Daphne.
Trust me. I would never do anything to hurt you. We’re friends, right?”

Daphne
stared at his outstretched hand and, knowing she didn’t really have a choice
anymore, she took it and lowered herself into the hole. As she dangled, her
foot caught hold of something—a ladder rung—and she continued
climbing down on her own until her feet touched the hard surface below.

Daphne
shut her eyes and then opened them again, confirming that there was no light at
all down here, not like the moonlight, which illuminated the ground above. She
couldn’t even see her own hand in front of her face. She closed her eyes again,
trying to shut out the horrifying images her imagination was conjuring up: huge
spiders crawling along the root infested walls, roaches and rats racing across
the floor, slime dripping from above. She opened her eyes again and eagerly
waited for her companion. “Finn?” she called out.

A
brilliant white light flashed in front of her, blinding her. She fell back,
raising her arms to shield her eyes, but it was too late. Now she was seeing
bright red spots in her vision.

“Sorry.”
Finn laughed. “I didn’t want to turn it on until we were well out of sight and
the hole was covered.” Finn held the flashlight away and took Daphne’s hand in
his. “Come with me.”

Daphne
rubbed her eyes vigorously to remove the spots, but they would remain, slowly
fading as they followed the brick-lined tunnel ahead. As her vision began to
return to normal, Daphne took in her surroundings, which were simple, yet
dismal, and not entirely the horror she’d imagined. The walls were barely wide
enough to cater her and Finn side by side. The ceiling was low enough she could
reach her hand up and touch it. Along all the surfaces grew cobwebs and every
now and then Daphne swore she could see some tiny creature scurry away from the
light. The air felt damp and musty and though she would never admit it, she was
too scared to reach out and touch the walls to see if they were wet.

“What
is this place?” she wondered aloud.

“Old
slave tunnel,” Finn said matter-of-factly. “Back when this place was built, the
owners were sympathizers with abolitionists. They owned slaves themselves of
course, being the south, but it was more for appearance and social pressure
than anything else. They actually built tunnels under the property to house
runaway slaves. You know the Underground Railroad, right?”

Daphne
nodded. When Finn remained silent she realized he couldn’t see her and said,
“Yes.”

“This
was a major thoroughfare along several routes. James Tanner knew that if he
hadn’t owned slaves, his surrounding neighbors would be suspicious of him. To
own such a large plantation and not own slaves was unheard of back then. So
since he had to have slaves, he put them to good use and hired them to help the
others hide and escape. Believe it or not, most of the staff here are descended
from Tanner’s original slaves.”

“He
sounds like he was a good man,” Daphne mused.

“Yeah,”
Finn sighed. “Apparently he was the last ‘good’ one of Trappe’s ancestors to
have existed. It all went downhill from there.”

“What
do you mean?” Daphne asked. She knew there was something disturbing about the
current headmaster, and that one of his ancestors was a little crazy, but
that’s it.

“James
Tanner lived a long life. Long enough to see slavery abolished. Since he was so
good to them, his ‘slaves’ even chose to stay here and work for him when he
opened the academy, rather than try their luck up north. After all, it’s not
like things were all that great for them once they were freed, right? When he
finally passed, his own son, Tucker, took over the academy. For the first few
years, everything remained the same. But then he started seeing things, having
strange visions.”

“He’s
the one who built the church, right?” Daphne asked.

“Yeah.
He . . . um . . . thought he was the Son of God. One morning his wife woke up
and found him naked and nailed to a cross. Nobody knew how he had done it, but
it ended up in all the local papers. He died shortly after that. Now you can only
imagine how a boy who was raised by such a lunatic would turn out.”

Finn
and Daphne had come to an intersection and turned right. She was following his
lead and, being so engrossed by the story, had paid no heed to where they were
going.

“Walter
Trappe wasn’t crazy like his father. In fact he took his grandmother’s maiden
name to distance himself from Tucker’s memory. But he was pretty sick and
twisted. There’s not much information on him, but it’s believed that he
tortured students and fathered several children with the staff.”

Daphne
and Finn turned again.

“Vernon
Trappe, our headmaster’s own father, didn’t actually grow up here like the
others. He had been sent away for most of his youth, probably because Walter
wanted him out of the way to perform his nasty deeds. He came back and took
over the academy when Walter died. He knew very little of the plantation’s
history and when he had discovered the old slave tunnels, he had the entrance
sealed in concrete.”

“But,
we just came in the entrance,” Daphne noted, “didn’t we?”

In
the faded light that reflected off the walls she could see a dimple appear on
Finn’s face. He smirked.

“Like
I said, he didn’t grow up here. So he didn’t know that there are many entrances
to the tunnels. The one he sealed up was in the former slave quarters. You saw
that house behind the church, right?”

Daphne
shook her head. She hadn’t seen it on the way to the academy because of the
darkness, and that hadn’t been part of the tour that Trappe gave.

“The
slave quarters were rebuilt and now it houses the staff.”

“Wait.”
Daphne stopped and looked at Finn. “You said there are many entrances. Where
are the others?”

“There’s
one out in the woods to the east and another one in the old cotton field.”

“So
why did we use the one that’s right in the middle of the academy where we could
be seen? Isn’t that unnecessarily dangerous?”

Finn
laughed. “Of course! That’s what makes it so fun!”

Daphne
wanted to shove him. It’s not that she didn’t like taking risks—she did
it all the time. But on a night like tonight when she was already on edge, he
was pushing her to her limits. She had her hands drawn out, ready to push, when
a cracking noise startled her.

“What
was that?” she whispered.

Finn
stopped laughing and listened. “Stay here,” he said, handing her the
flashlight. “I’ll go check it out.” Daphne watched him until he disappeared
into the darkness of the tunnel. She was alone.

Daphne’s
legs were achy and her soles pulsed with the pain of walking for the past two
hours straight. She wanted to sit down or even lean against the wall. But when
she flashed the light over the bricks she’d thought twice. A spider the size of
a small gerbil, three times bigger than any she’d ever seen before, scampered
up the wall to its web near the ceiling. In the intricate lacework were what
looked like little, round, white balls of cotton. Daphne knew they weren’t
cotton, though. They were eggs. She stood like a statue in the middle of the
tunnel, unmoving except for the rise and fall of her chest.

Nearby,
she heard a scraping sound. Then a pulsing. Footsteps. And they were getting
closer.

Daphne
swung the flashlight around in both directions, settling on the one that the
sound seemed to be coming from.

“Finn?”
Her voice sounded like a squeak of a tiny mouse, barely escaping her lips. She
took a tentative step forward and then stopped. “Finn, is that you?”

The
scraping got louder. It sounded eerily like the sharpened blade of a knife
against concrete. Daphne heard a musical laugh echo over the walls and felt
instant relief. Even though she’d just met him, it seemed typical of Finn to
frighten her and then be so amused about it. But the laugh was joined by
another and she knew neither of the laughs belonged to the boy who brought her
here.

“There
she is! Get her!” a brassy voice rang out like a thunder crack.

Daphne
had enough time to see three shadowed faces and a glint of light reflection off
a huge dagger before she turned and bolted back the way she and Finn had come.
The ache in her legs and feet disappeared under the adrenaline forced through
her veins. She saw a wall rising up to meet her and quickly dashed to the right
before slamming face first into the bricks.

Behind
her, Daphne could still hear the cackling of the boys. Were they the boys Finn
had told her about? His friends? Maybe she should stop and talk to them,
explain why she was here. But she kept picturing that dagger that one of the
boys clutched. What if they wouldn’t wait for her to explain? What if they were
the types to act first, ask questions later? These weren’t the mature,
responsible types—that she was sure of.