Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies (4 page)

“It’s not always good,” Muirin said, her face unreadable. “Trailer Trash had a Destiny.”

“Trailer Trash” was Muirin’s cruel name for Camilla Patton—one of the victims of the Wild Hunt. “She showed me once. She thought it meant she was going to turn into a wolf. Stupid b—”

“Hey, look,” Loch said, interrupting Muirin—probably on purpose. “My ring’s already starting to turn!”

Sure enough, the pale blue was starting to change. Right now it was a pale greenish color: Loch’s main Gifts came from the School of Air, so his stone would probably turn as yellow as Muirin’s was.

Spirit looked down at her own ring. The stone remained a cool, serene blue.

TWO

It took Muirin about half an hour to wolf down three heaping plates of gooey sugary treats. On her last trip back to their table she brought two more plates heaped so high with brownies and chocolates that Spirit was amazed they didn’t spill. It was obvious Muirin was settling in for the long haul, and with good reason: You couldn’t take anything out of the Refectory—though you could eat as much as you wanted while you were here—so most of the other kids were hanging around, too. Spirit didn’t have any appetite for the desserts, but the chance to mainline as much Diet Pepsi as she wanted was too good to pass up.

When Addie said she wanted to try out her new Monopoly game, it didn’t take much coaxing for her to get all of them to agree to play, because really, it was a game with them Addie wanted for Christmas, not the set itself. Addie chose the Moneybag token (with a faint smirk), and Loch chose the Top Hat (with an ironic bow). Burke chose the Race Car (he was from Indianapolis, home of the Indianapolis 500), and Muirin (surprisingly) chose the Scottie Dog. Spirit didn’t care what piece she picked, so just reached in and grabbed one at random. It turned out to be the Cannon.
I wish I did have a cannon,
she thought with irritation.
I’d blow up Oakhurst.
Unfortunately, that wouldn’t really solve anything. She tried to concentrate on the game, but her mind kept wandering—and not to good places. She was just as glad she’d taken her new ring off again—Loch hadn’t, and he kept looking at it with an expression of pleased wonder that was kind of sick-making. She wondered if Loch would find a “Destiny” in his stone when it finished changing color. Hearing about them had absolutely creeped her out.

And at least part of what creeped her out was that no one else seemed creeped out. She wouldn’t have known if the other kids were—from what Burke had said, you weren’t even supposed to know what a “Destiny” was until your Senior Year here—but even her friends just seemed to shrug the whole idea off.

That wasn’t all they were shrugging off, either. They’d defeated the Wild Hunt
three days ago
. They should still have been trying to deal with their very-near-death experience at the cadaverous claws of a collection of ghosts, demons, and—oh yeah—evil elves. She certainly was! She’d had nightmares about the battle in the snow every single night. But from the way the other four acted—and everything they said—it was as if that fight had happened three years ago, not three days ago. And that was just crazy.

She wanted a break. Needed a break. They’d taken on one of the nastier things in Celtic mythology—and won—and an all-expenses-paid month in Disney World—anywhere but here!—was the least of the things she would have liked as a follow-up. But she had the horrid feeling that things were only going to get worse from here on in. And fast.

So … get a break? Shoot, she hadn’t even gotten enough time to sit down and
think
. Too much wasn’t adding up, and that was terrifying. If the Wild Hunt showing up the way it had was the start of the wizard war, why wasn’t Doctor Ambrosius stocking up on magical nukes and having everyone build barricades? (Or, hey, just warning people, because that’d be nice.) And if the people here were the good wizards, where were all the bad wizards coming from? Didn’t anybody care?

She frowned, tuning out the sound of Loch and Muirin arguing—just as if it mattered—about whose turn it was, and whether or not Loch owed Muirin rent. There was another thing that had been bothering her for a while. If the only kids allowed here were magicians, but all the children of former Oakhurst students were eligible to come to Oakhurst, where did the kids who weren’t magicians go? Was there another school—a kind of Shadow Oakhurst—where the non-magical kids were sent?

“—so I got permission to have Admin ask the Trust peeps to send my formals, and—
quelle surprise
—she actually did, and I only fit the black one anymore,” Muirin was saying, as Spirit tuned back in to the conversation. “But that’s okay, since the others are like so last century and you gotta know if I fit one of them, that’d be the one Ms. Corby’d say I had to wear.” Muirin shuddered. “Seafoam! Come
on!
Maybe if I was thirteen and still into Magical Girl animé!”

Spirit frowned harder.
Formals?
What was Muirin going on about?

“The Trust sent me another new one,” Addie said, sighing faintly. “Just like the old one, only blue this time.”

Spirit glanced around the table. The guys were exchanging “I hope they’re not going to talk about dresses all night” looks.
Formals? We escaped death three days ago and they’re talking about
—

“You guys seriously aren’t talking about the
New Year’s Dance
are you?” she asked incredulously.

Muirin gave her a slanty look. “Why not? We get graded on it, you know. Ballroom dancing, deportment, blah blah blah.”

“Don’t worry. You won’t get graded on the dancing, Spirit,” Addie said in a kindly tone of voice. “You weren’t here for the Summer Term, so you didn’t get Ballroom Dance. They only give it in the Summer Term.”

Spirit was so shocked all she could do was stare at the two of them with her mouth slightly open. “But we—But you—” She gathered her scattered thoughts. “But— We can’t just go on as if nothing happened! It isn’t over! You know it isn’t over!”

She would have said even more, but suddenly a sharp pain in her ankle interrupted her—Loch had
kicked
her!—and his equally sharp elbow hit her in the ribs for the second time that day.

“Let’s get something to drink,” he said. “That diet stuff might be okay for
some
people, but
Real Men
want
real
high fructose corn syrup.” He grabbed her wrist and practically hauled her out of her seat and off toward the Viennese Table. By now there wasn’t a mob of kids surrounding it, but about half the Refectory tables were full. They weren’t the only ones here playing a board game, and she glimpsed some kids playing card games, or just reading books and listening to music, either on Oakhurst iPods (easy to spot, since they were in custom colors) or on ones of their own.

Loch dragged her past the table, over by the kitchen doors. It was about as private as they could get without leaving. And the others would notice that—their table was right by the door.

“What do you think you’re—” she began, as soon as he stopped.

“Leave them alone, Spirit,” he hissed in an undertone. “You deal with stuff your way, let them deal with it their way.”

She blinked at him. This was the last thing she would have expected to hear, from the last person she’d have expected to hear it from. “But, Loch—”

“Don’t you ‘but’ me, Spirit White! Yeah, the New Year’s Dance is stupid, but if that’s what they want to focus on,
you let them
. Get it? If they want denial, whose job is it to tell them they can’t have it? Yours? Are you some kind of super-shrink now? Are you going to tell me you can help them deal when you can’t even stop moping around over your family and
that’s
half a year ago? Okay, we saw awful things, we almost died, but we won, game over, now let it go.”

The injustice of Loch’s accusation made her want to erupt with anger—just because he didn’t care whether or not he’d been orphaned didn’t mean she hadn’t loved her family and didn’t still miss them—and it took all her willpower to answer him instead of slapping his face and storming off. “But it’s not over! Loch, you
know
it’s not over! We still have to—”

“I don’t know any such thing.” Loch pulled himself up to his full height and folded his arms over his chest. “I know none of us—including you!—knows what Doctor Ambrosius and the teachers did after we told him what happened. I know they’re a million times better magicians than we are. And I know all this time he’s been
telling
us there’s danger out there. So what do you know? Did you follow all of them around for the last three days and see they
aren’t
taking what we told them seriously and beefing up the security? Have you got some kind of super Magic 8-Ball you can listen in on the meetings with?”

“But— But—”
But why do you think they’ll take it seriously now when kids were vanishing for the last forty years and nobody cared? Why do you want to trust them when we know one of them was
in league with
the Wild Hunt? How can you think they’re going to take us seriously after you
saw
the basement, with all the dead kids’ stuff stored down there and their school records stamped “Tithed”?
How could she explain any of this if he was so determined to deny what he’d seen with his own eyes? How could she make him see she wasn’t being crazy or paranoid, that all of her instincts were shouting at her that this wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning.
What am I going to do if I have to do this all alone?

At the expression on her face, Loch’s softened a little. “Look, Spirit, I understand why you’re doing this. Your magic hasn’t developed yet and you feel like you’re the only normal kid in Super-Hero High. And you
did
get us all together and get us to see there was something wrong, and I know that had to feel pretty damn good. And it must have felt even better to face down those things
without
magic—and I’m not lying when I say if you hadn’t been there, we’d all be dead now. Nobody wants to take that away from you. But you have to accept that, well, you
did
win. It’s over. And trying to relive it and make it happen again so you don’t have to think about not having your magic yet is … it’s
unworthy
of you, Spirit. Just be patient. Your magic will show up soon enough. Meanwhile, it’s time to let go and stop trying to get attention and make yourself feel special by coming up with crazy conspiracy theories.” He smiled faintly. “We like you whether you have magic or not.”

He thinks this is all about me? That I’m just thinking of myself, and about not having magic? That this is all some sick way for me to try to
get attention
by crying wolf and making up imaginary enemies?
She was so outraged by his accusation that for a moment her voice wouldn’t work.

“Is that what you
really
think?” she finally choked out. “That I’m acting out because I
don’t have magic
?” She stared hard into his eyes until he was the one who had to look away. “Well. Then what about this: Someone set up all those kids as sacrifices to the Hunt. It didn’t get here all the way from Ireland or Wales or whatever by itself. And someone opened the wards so
it could get onto the school grounds
. And whoever that was,
we never found them
. Do you think they’re going to stop now? Do you think the Administration can find them? What if it
is
the Administration—or some of it?”

“I—” It was Loch’s turn to be at a loss for words. “I don’t know—”

“Whoever called the Hunt has been doing it for
years,
Loch! And Doctor Ambrosius hasn’t figured out who they are, either! He would have stopped them a long time ago if he had!”

“We don’t know that—” Loch said weakly.

“Yes we do!” she snapped. “We know it had to be someone inside the school to take down the wards, because they were taken down and put back up—not broken. So—if you’re right, and the teachers are handling this and not telling us—who on the staff isn’t here anymore?”

“Uh … We wouldn’t notice someone gone from the kitchen or maintenance—” Loch said helplessly.

“Oh, give me a break,” Spirit said in contempt. “You think someone from the kitchen or maintenance is that good a magician? We don’t even know that any of them even
are
magicians—do we?”

He withered a little under her glare. “I— Um— Well—”

Now she was the one crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’—that the Housekeeping Staff
aren’t
magicians. And none of the teachers or the Admin staff have ‘left to pursue other opportunities’ in the last three days. So? Still think I’m creating crazy conspiracies to get attention?” It made her sick with anger to think he’d actually accused her of that.

“Look, just cut Addie and Muirin some slack,” he finally said. “It’s not like they—
we
—aren’t cutting
you
plenty.”

She started to snap back at him, then forced herself to nod. As much as it galled her to admit it, there was some justice in that. All four of them had put up with a lot from her since she’d arrived at Oakhurst. And she had to admit they’d all been on board with finding out what was hunting Oakhurst students and putting a stop to it.

“Having a good Monopoly game is making Addie happy. Stuffing herself with cookies and candy until she’s sick and babbling on about what she’s going to wear to the prom is making Muirin happy,” Loch went on. “It’s Christmas, for heaven’s sake, Spirit. Give them at least one day off from being The Mystery Gang. You owe them that.”

Her throat suddenly filled with a big lump. “As long as I don’t have to be the goofy mascot,” she managed to whisper.

Loch gave her his sunniest smile—looking relieved, she thought. “Nah. I always thought of you as more the ‘cute cheerleader’ type.”

All she could do after that was nod, and let him lead her back over to the soda table, and fill her arms with cold cans.

She followed him back to their table, still gulping back tears of grief and humiliation, and if she couldn’t manage to smile and chatter cheerfully, she could at least pay attention to the game to give Addie a good one, and nod when Muirin went on about what an ordeal and a torture session the New Year’s Ball was going to be.

Because, yeah, Loch was right.

She did owe them that much.

But they owed her, too.

*   *   *

The next day—Boxing Day—was the day when the students at Oakhurst traditionally exchanged their “personal” gifts with each other. Spirit had made book covers and matching bookmarks out of felt. Privately, she thought the gifts were a little cheesy, but they were all she could manage, and she’d wanted to give her friends something, at least. When the other girls on her floor had seen Spirit’s bookmark-and-book-cover combinations, some of them had asked her to make some for them. She’d done it, even though it had taken precious time from figuring out how to destroy the Wild Hunt, because she’d been terribly conscious of needing to behave as if everything was completely normal. And since the student body at Oakhurst had a flourishing barter economy going, it had meant she at least had some pretty and colorful paper to wrap her gifts for her friends in.