The Keeper's Curse (7 page)

Jade
grabbed Emmy’s arm before she could take it all in, leading her
down the main corridor, around a corner to a door with a gold
plaque on it that read “Front Office”.

“
This is the principal’s office, and administration,” she
said. She didn’t even knock upon entering, dragging Emmy in with
her.

The
principal’s office must have been in the back, because all Emmy
could see was a mahogany desk and a little woman behind it that
Jade greeted as Ms. Spillet. Despite never seeing Emmy before, Ms.
Spillet recognized her immediately. The receptionist went over the
basic protocol of what was and wasn’t tolerated behaviour at
Urquhart. She told Emmy quite frankly that if she used her powers
in theory classes, she would face a week of suspension for every
offense.

Emmy took
all this in while signing her name on several pieces of paper. She
thanked the woman and the two girls left the office.

“
Great. Now we had better hurry, we have International
Relations in five minutes.”

Alex had
told her in half-comprehensible explanations the outline of the
school and where everything was, but she had never really formed a
map in her head. They went through a seemingly endless assemblage
of corridors, all of them containing mounted lit torches, growling
animal heads and/or tapestries depicting blood-splattered battles.
Emmy noticed a fondness for decapitation in the
hangings.

They made
it just in time as the teacher got up to begin the lecture. The
room was circular with seating around the edges and upwards like a
miniature Roman amphitheatre, and in the middle a platform was
positioned where the teacher stood.

She had a
hard time paying attention, too curious to stop herself from
looking around. She caught snippets of the lecture – mostly to do
with places she had never heard of – but for the most part she just
stared at her classmates and the room. Her eyes trailed the wall
hangings, the octagonal columns two storeys high, leading up to a
ring of windows near the ceiling –

Emmy saw
it again. The bird. She looked to her left and right and behind
her, and as she suspected, nothing unusual was going on. It just
stared straight at her with those bottomless, unnatural eyes. She
bowed her head down towards her notebook, jotting notes to make it
seem like she was paying attention, but when she looked up again,
it was still there. It was hard to decipher if it comprehended any
more than a regular bird; it tilted its head and ruffled its
feathers, but its gaze never wandered from Emmy. She wished she had
something to throw to knock it off the ledge, but figured it wasn’t
something worth getting suspended on the first day over.

The bell
rang after what felt like an excruciating amount of time. Emmy
threw her book bag over her shoulder and sprinted out of the room,
waiting for Jade at the threshold.

They
continued on to their History class, which Emmy found incredibly
hard to follow since she didn’t recognize any of the names of
people, places, and events.

After the
class, the two girls headed to the cafeteria for lunch. Emmy
mumbled about needing to get to a library as soon as possible,
which Jade seemed to find funny, as if she had never heard of a
library before.

“
I’m going to make you eat lunch with me and my friends,” Jade
said, pulling her arm again. “Alex told me you’d object, so I’m not
giving you the option to leave.”

Emmy
smiled faintly, ignoring the knot in her stomach. The last time she
had made new friends she had been eight.

The
cafeteria was very bright, like every other room in Urquhart, due
to the many lancet windows, dim sunlight behind a thick blanket of
cloud reaching the glass. Jade skipped through the clusters of
circular tables over to the far end where there was a table of five
people, with two seats still empty.

Jade sat
down, shouting out a hearty hello, while dragging Emmy into the
seat beside her. Emmy lowered her face.

They
chatted for a few minutes, and only when she heard a boy say, “So,
who’s the new girl, Jade?” did she finally raise her
head.

Across
from her was a handsome black boy with dreadlocks pulled back from
his face, smiling at her.

Jade
threw an arm around her as if they had been friends for years.
“This is Emmy, Alex’s sister, but of course you knew that. Emmy,
this is Teddy.”

She
accepted his proffered hand.

“
Of course I know who you are! You look just like Alex, all
soft and fragile and gooey –”

“
Teddy!” Jade exclaimed.

“
What? She does! Emmy, trust me, it’s a compliment.” He took a
bite out of an apple in his hand. “You look normal enough to me.
Hey, do you want me to take you out flying tomorrow? It’s a lot of
fun.”

Jade, who
had started talking to another friend, perked up her ears at the
statement. “Teddy, no! She’s not ready, she just got here last
week.”

Teddy
threw up his hands. “Relax, I’ll just put a pair of solators on
her. Nothing will happen.” Jade gave him an admonishing look which
he responded to with a charming smile. “I’ll watch her the whole
time, I promise. So Rookie, what do you say?”

“
Emmy, you’re under no obligation,” Jade said, straightening
her back.

Teddy
opened his mouth to agree with Jade, but Emmy interrupted.
“Actually, I kind of want to,” she said, surprising herself and the
other two. “I’ve always wanted to fly,” she added.

As silly
as this sounded, it was true.
To actually fly sounded terribly exciting and she was curious to
see how it worked. To reassure Jade, Emmy held up her arm,
revealing the glinting crystal ring around her wrist. “I can’t go
crazy, it’s impossible. Teddy will be in full control.”

Jade
’s expression darkened. “Which is
exactly what I’m worried about.”

But Teddy just winked at her when Jade
turned her attention elsewhere. Emmy resisted the urge to
giggle.

The friends all started talking
again,
and
Emmy was left to once again study her surroundings. She had only
been there for half of one day, but she felt the anxiety slowly
dissipating in her stomach. Despite their unusual appearance,
everyone seemed relatively similar to her humans back
home.

She was staring out the window
into the courtyard when once again, she saw it, staring at her with
its beady white eyes. Emmy stiffened, trying to appear casual.
Maybe if s
he
stopped worrying about it, the bird would lose interest and go
away.

S
he lowered her head again and played with
her fingers, trying to calm down. She started taking diaphragmatic
breaths like the technique she had learned in a psychology
textbook. She closed her eyes and let her muscles relax, counting
the seconds of her breathing in her head. Like she always did when
she was upset, she slipped inside herself, as if she could feel her
inner core, a tiny light warming her up. She began to relax, when
something radically different happened.

She began to hear a voice in her
head.

…
I did everything he said, and now he wants me to do the
double recommended time? Who does he think he is …

Emmy’s
eyes flew open and she nearly fell out of her seat. She jerked
around, looking for the voice in the sea of chatter in the
cafeteria.

…
You can t least try to be supportive, you know. Look, I know
this stuff is important, but I’ve mastered it! It’s like he’s
punishing me. Does he want me to have no social life
whatsoever?

It was
definitely coming from inside her head. The voice’s echo ricocheted
inside her skull like butterflies were inside, madly trying to
escape.

I just want you to say something! Anything at all …

“
Gah!” she cried, shoving her chair backwards and standing
up.

Breathing
heavily, she turned her attention to the table where everyone was
staring at her.

Jade was
to her side at once. “Is everything okay? Do you need to see a
nurse?”

“
Did you hear that?”

“
Here what?”

What was
she supposed to say? A voice? There were hundreds of voices around
them.

“
Nothing,” she said. “Just ringing in my ears. I thought I
heard a voice. Sorry.”

“
Alright well, we’d better be heading to class. You have
equestrian studies next, right?”

“
Yeah.” She had no idea.

“
You better get to the stable. It’s on the other side of the
school out back, it’s quite a walk. Persephone has that class too,
she’ll take you there.”

“
What?
” came a nasty voice behind
Jade.

Emmy
moved to the right to get a look at who had just spoken. She was a
tiny Arabian girl, not any taller than five feet. Short black hair
furled her little face, her brown skin painted with heavy dark make
up. Her kohl-rimmed eyes roamed Emmy with disapproval, like she
would rather rip her own arm off than have to talk to
her.

“
Er,” Jade said. “This is my best friend, Persephone. She’ll
happily take you.”

“
Will I?”

Jade gave
her a “not now” expression. “Yes, of course you will. You’re a
really experienced rider, aren’t you?”

Persephone leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms.
“Yes, I am.” She gave Emmy another look up and down and sighed.
“Okay, then, let’s get going, Alex’s Sister.”

Jade
beamed at her, giving a quick goodbye to Teddy, the boy beside him,
Lennox, and Ivory and Ebony, the two other girls at the table. Emmy
snorted a laugh at their names, although nobody else seemed to find
this funny.

Persephone pivoted on her heels and headed out of the
cafeteria, and Emmy followed suit. She tried to study her from the
side without being too conspicuous. It was very hard to believe
this girl was Jade’s best friend.

“
She likes your brother,” Persephone said, interrupting Emmy’s
thoughts.

“
Sorry?”

“
Alex. Jade likes him. If Alex asked her to watch out for you,
which I’m sure he did, no doubt she’ll take you under her wing.”
She paused. “Jade does that. It’s like she has a need to take in
any stray that comes in here. She brings all the misfits together.
Like me.”

Emmy
tried to keep her amusement to herself at the idea of someone
liking her rock-headed brother. She could sort of see it; they
seemed to have a lot in common and had similar personalities,
something that couldn’t be said about Jade and Persephone. However,
it didn’t surprise Emmy much that Jade liked to help people who
needed it, like herself, or Persephone.

Persephone was right: the walk was long. It was made worse
that the two of them had nothing to say to each other. Persephone
didn’t seem interested at all in Emmy’s unique background, and Emmy
was too scared to say anything to her in case she got angry or
ignored her.

The cold
air bit at Emmy’s skin unpleasantly when they got outside, and even
more so in the stables where it was moist and dark. Boots and
helmets of all sizes lined the far wall, Persephone helping Emmy
find the proper sizes in silence.

She sat
on the bench, gazing at all the horses in their stalls. It was the
biggest stable Emmy had ever seen, with over forty horses, their
muzzles breathing out puffs of frosted air.

The
lesson for the beginners was taught by a woman everyone called
Foxe, who didn’t look much older than Emmy herself. While she was
passionate about her subject, Emmy found her to be rather
condescending, not even letting them get on the horse even though
the majority of them had ridden before.

Emmy
stared longingly at Persephone on the field, riding a beautiful
beige palomino, seeming to be having a swell time jumping over
hurdles while attempting to throw a lance at a target
board.

Too soon
however, it was the last class of the day, the one Emmy had been
dreading since the moment she got up. Peacekeeping.

“
Come on, we have to hurry up!” Persephone urged her as she
took off her boots. “If we’re late the coaches will make us make us
fight them, or each other. And no offense, but I’d probably kill
you.”

Emmy
suppressed a groan, picking up the pace. She had her tracksuit on
within thirty seconds.

The two
of them sprinted out of the stables and across the grounds towards
the edge of the forest. Emmy didn’t question as Persephone seemed
to know where she was going, but they were getting farther and
farther away from the school.

“
What exactly do we do in this class?” Emmy asked.

“
It’s different in every one, and the coaches never tell us
what’s coming. Although since it’s the first day of classes I’m
guessing it’ll be pretty basic stuff, lucky for you.”

Emmy was
finally able to see a group of students in a circle. On the edge of
the circle were two men who Emmy assumed were the
coaches.

Persephone pointed to the two, “That one’s Maverick Babbage,
and that moron beside him is Nero Flin. They both take themselves
seriously, but do not piss off Babbage. He’s the senior coach and
will tear you apart if you mock him.”