Victories (11 page)

At the outer edge of the village was a hut twice the size of the others. Brenda Copeland was standing in the open doorway, tossing handfuls of grain to the ducks and chickens in the yard. Spirit glanced at her friends, unsure of what to do now, but before she could make up her mind, Brenda caught sight of the four of them.

“My lady—my lords,” she gasped, dropping to her knees. Grain spilled everywhere, and the ducks and chickens swarmed her, trying to get the food.

Spirit heard Addie stifle a despairing giggle. How could something be funny and horrible at the same time?

“Get up,” Spirit said desperately. “I— You have to come with me right now.”

Brenda looked puzzled, but didn’t argue. There was a stand of trees across the field behind The Fortress. As soon as they got there, Spirit relaxed a little. At least now they couldn’t be seen as easily.

“How may I serve you?” Brenda said humbly.

“Tell me what you remember,” Spirit said.

“I don’t understand.” Brenda stared at her in bafflement.

“Your name is Brenda Copeland,” Spirit said carefully. “You live in the town of Radial, Montana. Your father is the Sheriff. And … something happened to you on March 22nd. Do you remember the Spring Fling?”

Suddenly Brenda’s face filled with horrified awareness. She opened her mouth to scream, but Burke lunged forward and clapped his hand over her mouth.

“We’re here to help!” Spirit said as Brenda struggled. “If you draw their attention, they’ll kill us all!”

“Do you understand?” Loch asked. Brenda nodded, and Burke slowly took his hand away from her mouth.

“I … What’s going on?” Brenda demanded, her voice shaky. “I went to the dance at Oakhurst. I remember thinking the decorations were creepy, and then— And then.…” Her voice trailed off, and there was a long moment of silence. “You said you’d tell me what was going on,” she said at last. “After the Library. You said you’d tell me what was going on, and you never did.”

Spirit took a deep breath. This was a good sign—she’d promised Brenda an explanation after the Shadow Knights had attacked the Town Library, but she’d never had the chance to deliver it. “This is going to sound freaky,” she warned, then launched into the explanation: Oakhurst was a school for orphaned magicians. Dr. Ambrosius was the one who made them orphans. Dr. Ambrosius was actually an incredibly ancient evil necromancer who intended to take over the world and become its evil overlord.

“So you’re all … witches?” Brenda asked, when Spirit was done.

“Magicians,” Addie corrected automatically. “That’s what they called us up at Oakhurst anyway.”

Brenda looked around, her eyes still wild, and then down at herself. She was barefoot, her feet filthy, wearing muddy blue jeans, a T-shirt far too large for her, and a tattered barn coat. Spirit could see her mouth quiver as she fought back tears. No matter what Spirit had gone through in the last couple of weeks, at least she’d had some idea of what to expect. Brenda’s world had been turned inside-out and upside-down in an instant.

“I— Can you— Can you fix my dad?” Brenda asked. “He’s the Sheriff. He can help.”

Maybe he can,
Spirit thought, but before she could answer, Burke spoke up.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Brenda.” The soft hesitancy Spirit was used to hearing in Burke’s voice was gone now. It was hard to think of him as he’d been when she first met him. Now when she looked at him she saw Arthur, High King of Britain, not Burke Hallows, high school student.

“Your father is a good man,” Burke said. “Never doubt that. But if he tries to be the Sheriff here and now, Breakthrough will kill him. And I don’t even want to try to explain to him about the fact that magic is real—at least you’d had a taste of it before today. He hasn’t. For now, he’s safer where he is.”

“But.… If you aren’t going to break this, this
spell
over everyone, what
are
you going to do?” Brenda asked, a little desperately.

This time Burke waited for Spirit to speak. “We’re going to Oakhurst, to free any of the other students being held prisoner there,” Spirit said.

“You’ll need some help,” Brenda said. “Come on.”

Addie glanced at Spirit. Spirit shrugged. She didn’t think Brenda intended to betray them after what she’d seen.

Brenda led them through the maze of the village until they reached a small hut on the far edge. The door was open, and Veronica Davenport stood inside working at a long table. It was covered in mounds of green plants.

“Oh my god,” Veronica said when she saw them. “What are you doing here? I thought you were dead!”

“Wait,” Loch said. “You know who we are?”

Veronica frowned. “Of course I do. Oh god, I hope this isn’t some kind of a trap. I’ve been playing along since the Dance.…”

“It isn’t,” Spirit said quickly. “But what do you mean, you’ve been ‘playing along’?”

Veronica beckoned them inside and pulled the door shut. The hut was stuffy and dark, but at least it got them out of sight.

“You guys ran off from the Dance,” she said. “Nobody knew what was going on. Your friend in the black dress … she looked really sick. Is she…?”

“She’s dead,” Addie said harshly. Veronica winced.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I.… After the last Dance Committee meeting, when you were all so scared, we thought there had to be something weird about Oakhurst. But it didn’t seem.… Well, everyone thought we’d better go anyway.” She shrugged.

“So what happened after we left?” Burke asked.

“About half an hour later, the Headmaster guy, Ambrosius, came and said everything was fine, but it would be better if everyone went home. He sent all the Oakhurst kids back to their rooms, and when they were gone he said he was sorry our evening had been spoiled, but he had presents for us to make up for it. They wheeled in this big cart with a bunch of little bags on it—you know, like wedding favors or something? And everybody had to take one. Then we all left. A lot of guys just tossed theirs out the car windows on the way back to town. I threw mine out as soon as I got home. I had nightmares that night, and when I woke up … everything was gone. My house. The town. And everybody was acting crazy.” She looked at Brenda. “I went to you. I tried to talk to you. But it was like you’d turned into somebody else. I got scared.” She looked back at Burke and continued her story. “A few people were still normal. It was horrible. They, you know, they tried to wake up the others, or leave. But anybody who didn’t play along got stomped. I saw them—the Breakthrough guys, all dressed up like knights or something—round up everyone who was fighting back. They had these, I don’t know, clubs or truncheons or something. If you resisted, you got hit.…”

“Do you think anyone else escaped?” Loch asked.

Veronica shook her head. Her eyes filled with tears. “A few of the people they took away came back, and then they were happy little RenFaire zombies. Most of them … didn’t.”

“It’s like some kind of a weird play, and everybody got assigned parts,” Loch said blankly.

“Yes!” Veronica agreed eagerly. “That’s exactly it. And no matter what we saw, everyone else acted like it was all normal.…”

She glanced toward Brenda, and Brenda shuddered. “I didn’t used to believe in monsters,” she said softly.

“Yeah, well, welcome to our world,” Loch said.

“Why didn’t it affect me? What is it? What’s going on?” Veronica demanded.

Burke gave her a version of the same speech Spirit had given to Brenda. “It’s mind-control magic, I guess,” he finished. “At Oakhurst, we’re taught that some people are harder to affect than others. If you hadn’t played along, they’d just have hit you with a bigger whammy.”

Or you would have just vanished,
Spirit thought.

“Lucky me,” Veronica said bitterly. “But what do we do now?”

“We’ve got to rescue the others,” Brenda said strongly. “Maybe some of them are just playing along—or maybe you can wake them up like you did me.”

Spirit looked at Burke. The more time they spent here, the more dangerous it would be. On the other hand, she really wanted to test whatever power she had before she went to Oakhurst. What if everyone there had been overshadowed somehow?

“You can’t just leave everyone here!” Brenda said desperately, when nobody said anything.

“No,” Spirit said. “Of course we can’t. And we’re going to fix what Mordred did to them. But right now we need to get up to the school. We need to find out what’s going on there.”

“And save your friends first,” Brenda said bitterly.

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Loch demanded. “Nobody has friends at Oakhurst if they’re smart.”

There was an awkward silence, since it was obvious the four of them were friends. And what did that make them?

Maybe not that smart,
Spirit admitted.

“We really need to get out of here,” Addie said.

“Brett and Juliette,” Brenda said insistently. “We have to try to save them. You owe it to them. They were at the Library. And they’re the only other ones left from the Committee.”

Burke sighed faintly.

“Okay,” Spirit said. “But we aren’t going to go walking around this place. Can you bring them here?”

“I know where they are,” Veronica said. “Wait here.” She opened the door to the hut and looked nervously around, then hurried out.

“What if.… What if she’s going to tell the overseers?” Brenda said nervously, voicing the same thought all of them had. “She said the thing, the spell thing, didn’t affect her, but what if…?”

“We’re trusting all of you,” Spirit said firmly. “We have to.”
But what if she’s right?

It was a long, tense wait before Veronica returned. They could hear Brett and Juliette arguing with her; the two of them were worried about not completing their assigned tasks in time.

The door of the hut opened.

Brett and Juliette had been the king and the queen of Macalister High. Two weeks spent as medieval serfs had changed both of them far more than even Mordred could have imagined. Juliette’s nails were chipped and broken and her long blonde hair was lank and greasy. Brett had a bruise on one cheekbone. Both of them had lost weight. They stopped dead at the sight of Spirit and the others, their eyes wild with fear. Then they dropped into clumsy obeisances.

Whatever Mordred did to everyone, he must have given them the ability to sense magic,
Spirit realized.
That’s why everyone under his spell thinks we’re lords and ladies.
Even thought Spirit knew she wasn’t one, it was hard to remember with Guinevere’s memories so strong in her mind.

“You’re Brett and Juliette Weber,” Spirit said firmly. “This is the town of Radial. You’re students at Macalister High School. Members of the Dance Committee. Two weeks ago you went to the Spring Fling at Oakhurst.
Remember!”

The two of them stared up at Spirit for a long moment. Then Brett’s expression changed. He lunged to his feet. “I’m getting out of here!” he cried.

Burke grabbed him before he could reach the door. Juliette was on her feet as well. She stared at Spirit with hate in her eyes.

“
You
did this to us!” Juliette said. “You and that bunch of freaks up at Hogwarts! This is all your fault!”

Two weeks ago Spirit would have been stunned and unable to respond, but not now. “It is not our fault,” she said firmly.
I guess having been High Queen of England is good for something.
“We, too, are the victims of our true enemy. Ask your friends if you won’t believe me. But heedless flight will only bring your doom.”

“Good going,” Addie murmured softly. The sarcasm in her voice was plain: the more Spirit sounded like a refugee from a road show company of
Camelot,
the less believable anything she said was.

Brett stopped struggling, and Burke released him.

“It’s true,” Veronica said. “They’re in as much trouble as we are. More—they’re from Oakhurst.”

“Well maybe— Maybe we can
trade
them,” Brett said desperately.

“For what?” Loch asked in disgust. “You think Mordred’s going to just let you go?”

“We have a safe place to take you,” Spirit said quickly. “We’ll get you out of here and come back for your friends.”

It took longer than it had with Veronica or Brenda to quiet the Webers down. They finally calmed down enough to confirm what Brenda had said—they didn’t remember anything after the Dance. They’d thrown away the gift bags even before they reached their car that night. It didn’t seem to make much difference.

“We hear—or I’ve heard, anyway—cars coming by the town,” Veronica said. “But only at night. During the day, we only see horses.”

“Those are the overseers,” Brett said in a low dangerous voice. “From the castle.”

Burke gave Spirit a worried look. He knew as well as she did that the Webers were trouble. Veronica had gotten time to adjust to this bizarre world, and Brenda was a natural problem-solver. Brett and Juliette were terrified and clearly on the edge of panic.

There was no help for it now. She couldn’t re-cast Mordred’s spell over them even if she’d been willing to.

“Come on,” she said.

“And keep your mouths shut,” Loch added.

FIVE

The four Reincarnates and the four liberated Townies headed back into the woods at the edge of the field. Spirit and her friends kept the Radial teens in the middle of the party. Once the eight of them were undercover, Loch started to lead them in the direction of Oakhurst. Spirit put a hand on his arm and shook her head, pointing toward the van. She didn’t want to take the Townies into Oakhurst. At least the four of them had their magic—and months of commando training, courtesy of their teachers. All the Radial kids had, just now, was fear. And that could easily be turned against them by Mordred and his allies.

Loch didn’t look happy about Spirit’s decision, but he nodded and began to lead all of them deeper into the trees.

“I don’t understand why this is happening,” Brenda said plaintively. “Even if you
are
a wizard, you can’t just make a whole town vanish. Somebody will notice.”