The Curse of Arkady (7 page)

Jason trotted after the man, somewhat curious, and glad to be in the open air again, shedding the smell of the trash bin as he followed. Murphy was a nice enough guy, always dressed in a suit, looked like he could have been a banker or something but instead he was chief enforcer at the school. He was young, Jason supposed, and had a picture of a nice wife with freckles across her nose and two small kids, who both shared the same freckles, on his desk. This was his first year at the middle school.

“Sit down,” he said, pointing in the general direction of several chairs.

“Sure.” Jason settled down, feeling vaguely uneasy. Had Murphy seen anything? He gazed at the picture of his wife and two kids. Nice family. He decided to count freckles to take his mind off Murphy's expression.

“Middle school,” Murphy said, “can be really demanding. It's a time in your life when you're not a child, but you're not quite a teenager yet either.”

Jason throttled back a sigh. Not one of
those
lectures? He tried not to squirm in the chair.

“That's why,” Murphy continued, as he steepled his hands and swung around in his chair, staring at his wall full of cheerful posters and interesting looking credentials hung in frames, “we have middle school. We have it to bridge those few years when you are in between, to help you through. As I said, you're on my list. We don't want feuds, Jason, and I'm here to intervene.”

“I'm not feuding.” His voice came out sulky, and he shut his mouth, deciding it was better not to talk. Jason waited. Sooner or later, Murphy was going to ask why he'd been in a cloud of golden, glowing light . . . wasn't he? How could he not have seen it? He tried to think of a logical explanation, and couldn't. The only thing he could do then, was convince the vice principal that he
hadn't
seen it. Or maybe to forget he'd seen it. He had a few options . . .

“. . . and that is why I think you'll find this program beneficial.”

“Program?” Jason glanced up from his tumbling thoughts, to find Murphy now staring at him. He'd obviously missed something.

“It's nothing to be embarrassed about,” Murphy said. “And, of course, we'll have to discuss it formally with your parents, but since today is Mr. Finch's first day, I thought you could meet him and get things rolling. We brought him in as a kind of prevention force. Get to the problem before it really happens, you see.”

It sounded to Jason as though things were already dangerously out of control. “Ummm,” he said, fishing for a useful thought.

Murphy stood. “Come on, it's just down the hall. He's waiting.”

He didn't seem to have much choice, so he joined Murphy again for a short trip through the school's administration office. They seemed to be heading for a tiny cubbyhole at the far end of the farthest offices. Boring beige walls led into an even more bland cubicle of an office.

“Statler,” Murphy said warmly. “It was good of you to wait. Jason Adrian, this is Statler Finch. He's our new counselor, brought in for special programs. Finch, this is Jason Adrian. Excellent student, good athlete, has a bit of trouble with peer acceptance. He's on the early warning list we discussed.” He put his hand on Jason's shoulder and drew him inside the doorway.

“Peer acceptance?” Jason looked at both of them warily.

“Bullying,” said Finch, standing, with an expression that could be taken as a smile or a glare. “You could call it bullying.”

Peer acceptance? Jason thought. This was about the bullying? “Then why are you hauling
me
in? I'm the victim.”

“Only because you attract and allow it. But I'm here to change all that.”

Statler Finch stood behind the cluttered desk which was overlaid with books and files, and boxes still half-opened, their packing leaking out onto the desktop. He was tall, thin, wore glasses perched high on a prominent nose, had pale skin, and his body teetered on the brink of clumsiness. If anyone was made to suffer smirks and bullying, it would have to be Statler Finch.

He turned, nearly pitching headfirst over the arm of his desk chair. Grabbing frantically, he righted it and himself and sat down with a thunk. Neither he nor Murphy seemed to have noticed anything, but Jason pinched his own leg, hard, to keep from laughing.

The impulse stopped dead when Finch settled his dark brown eyes on him. Eyes dark and hard as flint, without any light to them.

“Thank you, Mr. Murphy,” the man said. “I'll just be a few minutes, then we can all go.”

The vice principal left, with Jason quelling an urge to call out after him, not to leave him with Statler Finch. But he did not, and the two of them stared at each other.

“That name give you trouble?” Finch smiled thinly.

“Jason? No.”

“Adrian. It is rather like a girl's name, isn't it?”

Jason looked over the counselor's shoulder to a single framed object hanging on the wall. There were other nails, waiting, but this was the only one that had been utilized yet. It stated that one Statler A. Finch had graduated, with honors, with his doctorate in Psychology. “People will make fun of anything,” he said. “I don't worry about it.”

“But you don't stop it either?”

Sitting there, with the faint reek of the trash bin still clinging to him, there wasn't much Jason could say. “It's not important.”

“It isn't?”

“No.”

“What is important?” Finch smiled thinly. It didn't reach his flint-hard eyes. There was no way Jason was ever going to tell him anything remotely personal or important. There was no way he'd ever admit to being a Magicker or share what was important in his life. Silence stretched between them.

“Can I go home now?” Jason finally asked.

“In a moment. You see, the school hired me to help fellows like you. Bullied around, mistreated. A lot of harm can happen. Anger driven inward. People need to know how to assert themselves, how to express that anger . . . safely. Or there can be tremendous problems later.”

Great. The school thought
he
was the problem, not the idiots who did the bullying. Jason kept his silence, afraid that anything he said would be remembered and used against him.

“That's where I come in.” Statler Finch leaned over his desktop, across the clutter, his thin body clenched with intensity. “I'll work with you and your family until you can handle these situations on your own. I'll . . . defuse you.”

Jason had a mental image of his skull being opened from the top, his brain being defused, and his head being snapped shut again. He barely kept from shuddering. “I don't think I need a program,” he said finally.

“We'll see. I'll make an appointment to talk with your parents. I am sure I can share a few insights that will help everything.” Statler rustled his thin, bony hands through the paperwork on his desk. “The first evening free, I'll be there.” He stood. “Thank you for stopping by, Jason.”

Jason darted to his feet. Finch stopped him in the doorway. “I'll be seeing you. Soon.”

Jason did not run till he hit the school's front doors. Then he bolted as if he could outrun the memory of Finch's cold stare.

 

Jennifer Logan frowned as the sky grew darker. Although that meant fall was coming into its prime and Halloween drawing near, she didn't like losing the sun so early. She turned the watchband on her wrist, bringing it around so the caged charm fell into her palm, and her crystal flared with a soft, welcoming light. Before homework for high school, and before a promised phone call from Matthew Douglas, before anything else, she had exercises to practice.

She stood outside in the cooling air of late afternoon, and looked about to make sure no one in the neighborhood noticed her as she walked the perimeter of her house, trying to ward it as she'd been taught. Once she'd learned it well enough, she could lend her abilities to help ward the Havens. There were other Talents, but she really had no desire to develop any yet. There were days when she wanted, more than anything, just to be invisible. Of course, if she were invisible, then Matthew Douglas would never have noticed her. If not invisible, then, just . . . normal. That was it. Normal. Normal enough to fit in with the crowd at school and not have to worry about her Magick popping out at weird times.

Stepping carefully around her home and yard, she began to gather power from the natural ley lines in the ground itself, lines of energy from the elements of the Earth, and weave it together for a protection. She could not get a ward to last longer than a night, but even that took all the will she had, and every day it grew stronger. Jennifer felt a tiny spark of pride as she walked and thought, and gathered and wove.

The last element to gather was the night itself, dark and cold in her mind as she touched it. She hesitated, as always. She'd been deathly afraid of the dark when she was little, something about having been scared one night, and although she was all grown up now . . . well, nearly, next summer she'd get her learner's permit to drive! . . . the night could still make her uneasy.

Jennifer swallowed tightly. Her fingers twitched as if she actually held ribbons in her hands to gather and braid and knot together, but it all flowed through her mind. She'd seen Aunt Freyah and Eleanora and FireAnn do this many times before.
Their
hands had never twitched. Practice! Practice makes perfect.

She needed to do this now, for herself and her family, and later she would be able to do it for all Magickers, something important, something needed.

Jennifer shuddered as the dark ribbons she held turned slimy, fighting her, fighting her will to knot them to the ley lines of bright, powerful goodness running through the earth surrounding her house. Like a snake, the ribbons seemed to want to twist and turn and writhe in her hands. Their touch made her skin crawl and her stomach turn, and her fingers twitched and danced in distaste until her crystal rattled in its cage, threatening to shake loose.

Jennifer frowned and tossed her head, shaking her long fine locks of blonde hair away from her eyes so that she could concentrate. She wanted to finish, in a hurry now, as nighttime fell and the promise of Matthew's call nagged at her. Homecoming was just around the corner, and Harvest Dance, and even though she was only a freshman and Matthew was a junior, there was a chance . . . just a glimmer of a chance, he might ask her! But if she didn't hurry and finish, she'd miss his call. She only hoped that if she did, the answering machine and not her parents would pick it up.

Impatiently, Jennifer worked at the ribbons she'd called to her, trying to force the inky lines of night into her pattern. Then, suddenly, the reluctant streams answered her, gathering and flowing around her, pouring in as though she'd broken a dam. Jennifer could hardly breathe as it began to flood around her, swirling, rising in a black cloud around her. She'd drown in it! She began to work feverishly at her wards, unknotting, letting this line drop, then that, but still the night poured in.

She looked in panic about her backyard, but there was no one around, no one she could cry out to, no one who would understand. She tried to focus for the beacon, but everything got so cloudy, she didn't know if she could get through or not.

And then it began to devour her from the inside out. Jennifer tried to scream and couldn't. She would be lost! She poured everything she had into her crystal to save herself. It flared hotly in her hands and then exploded into a thousand pieces, and rained over her like dust from a spent firework.

The night took her. Covered from head to toe, stifled, blind, numb, she fell, all thoughts gone from her head, only knowing that she fell because there was a brief jar of pain as she landed, and then the growing dampness of a night-dewed lawn beneath her.

Jennifer closed her eyes, weeping silently.

 

That was how Eleanora found her. She lifted Jennifer up and held her, and crooned a small bit of a song she knew from years past, and wrapped her arms around the girl tightly till the warmth came back, and Jennifer stopped weeping, and opened her eyes.

Only then did Eleanora dare ask, “What happened, lass?”

“W-w-warding, or trying to.”

“Overexerted yourself and fainted?” She smoothed Jennifer's honey hair from her face, noted her pale, pale complexion, and felt the erratic pulse of her heartbeat.

“No. It turned on me. The night—” Jennifer's eyes brimmed again.

“Jennifer, dear, I don't understand. A ward is a simple thing, just a weaving of the natural elements around you, and your own strength to tie them. There is nothing evil or unnatural here. It all comes from you and your awareness, dear.”

Jennifer shuddered. She said dully, “Then something in me is very, very dark and evil. I can't risk letting it out! I can't! I can't! I couldn't control it. My crystal shattered. I'm nothing anymore!”

“Now, now. I'm here. You'll be fine.” Eleanora smoothed back her hair again. But her brows knit tightly as she leaned over the girl. Shattered crystals meant that Jennifer had nearly lost herself, and they her. If Jennifer could even bond to a crystal again, it might be months before she was well enough to try it. This was a dreadful setback for the young Magicker.

The girl wrapped both of her arms about Eleanora. “Save me,” she begged.

“I'll try,” said Eleanora quietly.

B
AILEY'S mother leaned close and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead before pausing at the apartment door. “Now remember, if I'm late, you two take the bus. But if you miss the bus, I don't want you walking down to the next bus stop.”