Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies (2 page)

“True,” Addie said. “Unfortunately, you do have to attend the concert. Sorry,” she added. Addie was in the Choral Society, so she’d be performing. Spirit was starting to suspect Addie’d joined the choir so she wouldn’t have to attend the concerts. They were deadly dull.

The server returned with the plate of waffles and the bowl of cornflakes. Of course, since this was Oakhurst, they couldn’t just be regular normal cornflakes. No, they were topped with slices of banana that had been dusted with brown sugar. Spirit picked up the milk pitcher and poured milk into her bowl.

“I know today’s gotta be pretty awful for you—both of you,” Burke said, nodding to include Loch in the statement. “It’ll get, I don’t want to say ‘better,’ but you’ll get used to it.”

“Used to it
hurting,
” Spirit said. She inhaled deeply, blinking against tears.

“Yeah,” Burke said, and Addie nodded in sympathy. Addie had been orphaned three years ago, and Burke had been an orphan all his life—he had a set of foster parents in the Outside World that he talked about going back to once he graduated.

“I kind of wish it
did
hurt,” Loch said quietly. Loch was the only other one of the five of them who’d lost his family recently, and all Loch had lost—as he’d be the first to say—was a father he hadn’t been close to. Benjamin Spears had left his only son to be raised by a series of exclusive private schools. Oakhurst wasn’t much of a change for Loch. Aside from the magic, of course.

At least Loch
has
his magic. I’m the only person at a whole school for magicians who can’t cast a single spell.

It was true. The first thing that happened to you once you reached Oakhurst was getting tested to find out which School you had an “affinity” for. There were four of them: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The School you belonged to determined what kind of magic you had: Addie was School of Water, a Water Witch, while Muirin’s ability to cast perfect illusions meant her powers belonged to the School of Air, and Burke’s Combat Magery put him in the School of Earth.

Even Loch had passed his tests with flying colors. He had what they called minor Gifts from two Schools: Shadewalking, and Kenning, from the School of Air, and Pathfinding from the School of Earth.

Spirit hadn’t had an affinity for any School at all.

“So … before the concert we’ve got that religious service, right?” Spirit said, just to change the subject.

“Not really religious, but yeah,” Burke replied. “That’s ten to eleven-thirty, then the concert’s from twelve to two, then dinner at two-thirty. Fifty different spoons, the whole formal thing.”

“It’ll be fun,” Muirin said, looking up from drowning her waffles in syrup to make a disgusted face.

Spirit nodded glumly. When it all came down to it, in the last year she’d lost her family, Loch had lost his father, Muirin had lost her friend Seth, and all of them had known most of the victims of the Wild Hunt.

There really didn’t seem much to celebrate.

*   *   *

The “religious service” made Spirit uncomfortable—and not just in the butt-numbing, having to sit on hard wooden pews for two hours way, but in a kind of soul-numbing way. She’d never been raised to be more than vaguely “spiritual,” but services at Oakhurst always seemed wrong in a way she couldn’t define, as if the entire thing was a smirky, mocking, yet somehow mind-deadening parody of a real religious service. Yet at the same time there wasn’t a single thing that someone—whether they were devout or not—could have pointed to as being overtly insulting. She knew Burke was the only one of the five of them who was really religious, and even he couldn’t say there was anything wrong with the Oakhurst services. They were all so
very
bland and inoffensive.

The concert that followed was pretty much identical to the one at Thanksgiving. Different music, but it sounded the same—like elevator music.
It’s just like the Christmas service,
Spirit thought, with an odd air of discovery.
It’s all stuff that might have started out being good or interesting but now it’s had all the life sucked out of it.…

By the time they were let out of the concert, Spirit was feeling like a marathon runner entering the final stretch of the race.
Only two more things to get through.
The Formal Dinner would have been okay if merely eating hadn’t been an ordeal—and if Spirit had had any appetite for it. Like at Thanksgiving, there were place cards and assigned seating and extra-formal place settings, but even Dylan wasn’t his usual vicious self.
I guess everyone thinks about their family at Christmas.
She took servings of everything she was offered—you weren’t allowed to refuse anything, on the grounds that you were “broadening your gustatory horizons”—and just pushed it around on her plate with her fork until the potatoes and the vegetables were a beige mush. Then she covered them with the pieces of roast goose. At Thanksgiving, the meal had ended with pumpkin and mince pie. For Christmas, there’d be something called a Viennese Table set up in the dining room after the gifts were handed out. Spirit didn’t think she’d have any appetite for that, either.

Now there was just one more thing to endure before she could go back to her room and indulge herself by being completely miserable and crying until she puked. One of the worst things about Oakhurst was that the Administration kept pretending that the school’s money could make up for losing your family and your whole
life
. One of the ways they did that—
tried
to do that—was by giving all the students Christmas gifts, even though they didn’t even bother to pretend anyone here knew you well enough to pick them out. No, the staff sent around a memo with guidelines and a list of “approved” gifts, and told everyone to pick three items. Not that they’d get all three. No. Despite the fact Oakhurst was rolling in money, each student got one “approved” gift from the Administration. They were probably told to pick three just so there’d be a little suspense.

I don’t want an iPod or a pair of socks! I want Mom and Dad and Phoenix back!

Spirit wasn’t even sure what she’d chosen from the list. Thinking about Christmas without her family had been so painful she’d just blanked on it and wasn’t sure what she’d put down. Books and music, probably, to replace things she’d lost when her home burned down after The Accident. She wouldn’t have come to the “gift-giving” at all if she could have avoided it. But she couldn’t.
Everything not compulsory is forbidden,
she thought with a despairing flash of humor.
1984
had been one of Dad’s favorite books, and he’d taught her to love it, too. She’d been surprised, on coming here, to find Muirin loved it as well. It seemed to be just as odd a choice for a Goth girl from New Jersey as it was for a reluctant hippie kid from Indiana.

*   *   *

There were about a hundred kids here at Oakhurst. It seemed like a lot when you thought about the fact that they were going to be your nearest and dearest until you left Oakhurst at twenty-one.
Or get sacrificed to demons. Hey, anything to get out of SATs, right?
It didn’t seem like many when you thought about the fact that most high schools had about three times that many students.

It
really
didn’t seem like many when they were all gathered in the Entry Hall and the place still echoed.

The Entry Hall was the first thing you saw when you came to Oakhurst. It was about sixty feet across, and its focal point was the biggest single tree trunk that Spirit had ever seen. It seemed to hold up the ceiling—which was at least thirty feet away. Behind the tree-pillar was a balcony stretching the breadth of the room with two half-circle staircases leading up to it. The rest of the ceiling was crossed with peeled-log beams—Loch had said the first time they saw it that Oakhurst was done in a style called “Arts and Crafts Lodge”—and between the rustic beams were panels of parquetry in vaguely Egyptian patterns. The floor was done in the same design, only in shades of green and gray stone instead of wood.

On the right side of the Entry Hall—as you came in—were the huge double doors that led to Doctor Ambrosius’s office. On the left there was a stone fireplace more than big enough to park a horse in—or roast one. Hung above the fireplace was a huge banner with the Oakhurst coat of arms on it. Spirit hadn’t liked the design the first time she saw it, and she liked it less now. (Loch called it “faux armigerous,” whatever that meant.) The coat of arms appeared on everything at Oakhurst, including bedspreads, bathrobes, and towels, though most of the time it wasn’t in color. The banner had the whole deal though: a red shield with a white diagonal stripe across it, an oak tree colored bright green and brown like a picture in a kid’s book, and a bright yellow—or gold—snake coiled in the branches. On top of the shield there was a bear’s head on a plate (brown head, silver plate, red blood). On the left side of the shield there was a gold upside-down cup, and on the right side there was a broken silver sword.
Way to impress the parents. Oh, I totally forgot. None of us has any parents to impress.…

The log-and-leather couches that usually sat in front of the fireplace—though Spirit had never seen anyone sit in them—had been removed to make way for the Christmas tree. It looked like a tree in a movie, and that was another odd thing in a school that didn’t believe in holidays: The Oakhurst tree was a gigantic blue spruce, tall enough to reach most of the way to the ceiling, and every inch of it was decorated. Not with a bunch of Kmart–Wally World plastic junk, either: The ornaments were glass, antique, and probably cost more than the last
Star Wars
movie.

All around it were presents, and Spirit saw, with a faint despairing disbelief, that no matter the design on the wrapping paper, every present under the tree was wrapped in the Oakhurst school colors: brown, gold, and cream.…

*   *   *

Since the couches were gone, there wasn’t anyplace to sit. They’d all filed into the Entry Hall by the same alphabetical order they’d been seated at for the dinner, but once they were there, Burke beckoned to Spirit, and she saw that Loch and Addie were standing with him. Muirin joined them a few minutes later, looking—as usual—as if she were getting away with something. About half the other kids had shuffled around, too—maybe Oakhurst wouldn’t care if you had friends on Christmas Day—but most of them still looked as if they were trying to pretend they didn’t know anyone here. Conversation was kept to a subdued murmur.

That conversation died out completely with the entrance of Doctor Ambrosius. He was flanked by his assistants, Ms. Corby and Mr. Devon. Doctor Ambrosius looked like a venerable old college professor, white beard, flowing white hair, tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, and all. Ms. Corby and Mr. Devon looked—well, like bodyguards. Bored bodyguards. Ms. Corby was one of the few non-magicians here at Oakhurst. She was Doctor Ambrosius’s personal assistant. Mr. Devon was also the supervisor of the Boys’ Dorm Wing. Or, as they called them here at Oakhurst, “Young Gentlemen.”

Doctor Ambrosius—and his bodyguards—walked over to stand in front of the fireplace. He gazed out at them for a moment, then cleared his throat meaningfully. Absolute silence descended.

“We are here to celebrate the end of another calendar year here at Oakhurst,” he said, in a voice as smooth and reassuring as a documentary narrator on Discovery Channel. “Some of you haven’t been with us long, and some are extended residents, but all of you are part of the Oakhurst family. Indeed, following the deaths of your parents, Oakhurst
is
your family now.”

He beamed at all of them, but the moment his gaze had gone to another part of the room, Loch leaned over to whisper in Spirit’s ear.

“Does he practice being that tactless, or does it come naturally?”

Spirit grimaced and shrugged.

“So, as the old year ends, and the new one begins, we pause for a time of remembrance. Remember—always—that it is your responsibility to live up to the high standards that other members of your Oakhurst family have set. An Oakhurst graduate who is merely average is one who has failed. An Oakhurst graduate soars where others plod. And an Oakhurst student can never rest on his accomplishments, for while he is resting, others are overtaking him.”

He paused, and Ms. Corby signaled what was expected of them by initiating a patter of light applause.

“Now, in the generous spirit of the season and your family,” Doctor Ambrosius concluded, beaming on them all again, “let us commence with the distribution of gifts.”

While Ms. Corby and Mr. Devon handed out the gifts, Spirit stood there feeling a kind of bemused horror. She’d expected some kind of announcement about the Wild Hunt during the service, but when it hadn’t come, she’d assumed there would be one here. But there wasn’t. When the kids had disappeared—Seth and Camilla just since Spirit had come here, and that wasn’t counting Nicholas and Eddie, who were alive but mind-blasted—Oakhurst had covered things up with lies that were meant to be reassuring. And maybe they’d had a good reason at the time, and maybe they’d even believed that Seth and Camilla ran away. But now that she and the others had defeated the Wild Hunt, and Doctor Ambrosius
knew
what had happened to everyone, Spirit had expected some kind of announcement. Wasn’t the Wild Hunt a part of what they were being trained to defend themselves against? Didn’t its appearance mean they should all be warned to be extra careful?

But there’d been nothing. Not one word about their classmates who were
dead.
Not one word about the fact that there were people here—and she’d even been one of them—who’d been marked for death at the hands of the Wild Hunt. It was just: too bad, so sad, you’ve lost your real families, people you knew, there’s someone—probably inside the school!—that wants to kill you all, just forget about it, here’s your iPod or your digital camera or your makeup kit or your Wii.

Even her own friends hadn’t talked about what it all
meant
. Okay, maybe they were kind of in shock, but now they
knew.
Oakhurst wasn’t safe. The enemies Doctor Ambrosius had talked about weren’t out there. They were in here. Killing people. If the five of them wanted to live long enough to graduate—not to mention everyone else here living to graduate—they had to find out what was really going on. She knew they’d all been lied to. But adults lied to kids all the time, playing the “it’s for your own good” card. Those kinds of lies were annoying, but they didn’t mean the person lying to them was out to kill them.