Page 26 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
Emelle smiled sadly at me as stray drops of rain peppered the stone pathways. She took a deep breath and said in a lower tone, “Look, I know you’re not ready to tell me what’s going on, but Lander’s house is having a party on Friday. And I really think it would be nice if you joined us for real this time.” She paused. “Not just to go through the motions, but to let loose. Like you said, have fun—even if it’s the dumbest, most senseless fun you could ever imagine.”
Fun. Could I have fun with the thought of Lexington arriving on Saturday for an update? Of the memory I had to show him—how I’d only nicked Steeler’s jaw and needed help catching him when he came back to force-feed me another pill this Sunday?
Emelle was just inhaling a breath to say something else when we descended the stairs to the old History classroom. And both stopped dead in the doorway.
Gone was the musty, moldy scent that had accompanied Mr. Fenway. Gone were the cobwebs and swirling dust motes.
Now, the desks and chairs glistened with new polish, and—
“What thehell?” I yelped.
On every wall where old chalkboards and posters had once been, displays of dried insects faced us instead, their various wings spread wide and pinned in place. Stuffed animal heads glowered down from massive plaques nailed to the wall: redbrocket deer and hippos and even a leopard. There were pairs of tusks and canines and rattlers and…
I closed my eyes against the onslaught of all the images, just as fresh gasps bloomed from behind me. The rest of the class had filed in, their cries of shock echoing the shriek of my magic within me.
“Don’t look, Nuisance,” Gileon whimpered.
“Settle down now, settle down,” came a rasping hiss of a voice.
An instructor plunged through the jam of bodies near the doorway and stepped to the front of the classroom, her hair like inky quills sticking out of her head. I blinked. Then blinked again.
Because Iknewher. She was the same hunchbacked woman who’d passed out our fourth quarterly History test last year…
Except she wasn’t hunchbacked anymore. Her spine was straight as a spike now—almost too straight—and her nose looked less hooked.
The instructor surveyed us with undersized eyes rimmed in too many layers of kohl.
“I have assigned each of you a desk for the year, so please find your nametag and take a seat,” she said in that same hissing tone.
We all glanced at each other. Assigned seats? We were all nineteen, for God’s sake. I couldn’t remember sitting in an assigned seat since I was five years old at the Alderwick schoolhouse.
“Now,” the instructor said.
Glancing at Emelle, whose face had drained of all color, I edged toward the nearest row of desks to peer at the nametags placed neatly on each one. Norman. Mitzi. Dazmine. Pierson. Cilia. Gileon…
A minute later, everyone had found their seats and settled in, muttering under their breaths. Emelle was on the other side of the classroom from me, but thankfully I’d been placed next to Rodhi…
Who barreled in a few seconds later.
“I’m not late!”
He skidded to a halt before the desks, his mouth popping open at all the taxidermy. I tried to catch his eye and urge him to that empty desk beside me, but his eyes stayed glued to the nearest plaque of otter tails.
“No, you are not late,” the instructor said, “but…” Her undersized eyes strayed to a clock between stuffed heads. “Now you are. Please sit in your assigned spot before you become even more so.”
Rodhi mouthed the words “assigned spot” with a dazed expression, but stumbled toward me and lowered himself into his chair.
I nudged his foot in an attempt to break him from his stupor. Rodhi did a double take, leaned in close to me, and whispered, “Looks likesomeonegot some Shape Shifting work done over the dry season, huh?”
Thankfully, Mr. Fenway’s replacement hadn’t heard. She was too busy staring down her no-longer-hooked nose at Gileon in the front row.
“As you all may know, this isHistory, not Spiders, Worms, & Insects. There shall be no flying or buzzing things in here.” She smiled at Gileon. “Please take your little pet back outside where it belongs.”Before I nail it to the wall, too, she didn’t have to say.
I’d never loathed an instructor before, but now my fingers actually twitched on my desk, begging me to grab my knife in case she got too close to my friend and the beetle he cared for.
Throat bobbing, Gileon hefted himself up with Nuisance perched on his outstretched finger. Every eye followed the trek of his heavy footfalls to the door and back.
Maybe it was for the best that Nuisance wasn’t in a room with all his murdered and pinned-up peers, but I still hated the way Gileon slumped back into his assigned seat, empty-handed and looking as if he’d like to curl into something so much smaller.
