Guardian of the Dead (7 page)

Which was just as well. ‘Ms Spencer,' she snapped, flashing her rings at me. ‘What is the obvious thematic parallel in the presentation of Circe weaving?'

‘With Penelope,' I said, and waited to see if more was required. She folded her heavy arms over the bulk of her breasts and lifted an eyebrow, inviting expansion. ‘Well, Penelope's presented as the faithful wife, always with her loom,' I said slowly, giving myself time to work it out as I went. ‘But Penelope's only weaving during the day and secretly undoing it at night so that she doesn't have to marry one of her suitors. So she's doing the work of a wife, but then she's destroying it, so no one will
make
her his wife. Oh, but she's just making ordinary cloth. Circe is weaving enchantments. And Circe's cooking is filled with herbs that transform men to beasts. She does complete the housework, but it's, uh, twisted.' That sounded reasonably clever. Best to leave it there. ‘So, uh, yeah,' I concluded masterfully.

‘The sorcerous seductress as the perverted housewife,' La Gribaldi said, slapping the book onto her desk. Her braided crown threatened to tumble down with the violence of the gesture. ‘Excellent, Ms Spencer. Mr Nolan, something to add?'

‘Circe's pretty selfish,' he offered, lowering his hand and glancing at me. ‘Penelope's selfless, but Circe just wants to control men. She gets what she wants from them, and then she doesn't care.'

I wasn't going to let even a cute guy get away with that. ‘She wants to be safe,' I argued. ‘You think the men would let her get away with being powerful? She has to protect herself. There're all those lines about her house being made of stone, and the wild animals under her command. Security precautions. Penelope wouldn't need to unpick her work every night if she had some other way to keep those guys off her back. But the Greeks didn't like women with magic – look at what happened to Medea and Ariadne.'

Mark leaned forward. ‘They didn't really like anyone with magic.'

‘Orpheus is a magician as well as a musician,' I pointed out. We were twisted in our seats, now, facing each other. The rest of the class was watching with interest. ‘But he's a good guy. When he goes into the underworld to rescue his dead wife, we're supposed to cheer for him, and sympathise when he turns to look at her before he's fully completed the walk back out. You're never supposed to cheer for women who use their magic to actually do anything. Naiads and dryads are allowed to be sympathetic, because they're pretty and passive, but we're never allowed to like enchantresses or witches.'

Mark frowned and looked about to respond, but La Gribaldi cut him off with another wave. ‘Interesting points both, and I look forward to seeing them explored in your
Odyssey
assignments, due on Monday. No exceptions.' She glanced at the clock. ‘For now, sadly, our time is up. Mr Nolan, a brief word.'

The rest of us escaped gratefully into the hall. Usually any mention of assignments came with one of La Gribaldi's famous spiels on how New Zealand students were lazy and underachieving compared to the competitive Advanced Placement students of her adopted country. I couldn't see the appeal of working yourself ragged and doing ten thousand extra-curriculars. So New Zealand only had seven universities, and most entrance courses required entrants to meet a bare minimum of standards. So what? How were you supposed to know what you were going to do for the rest of your life when you were only seventeen, anyway? Medicine and Engineering were restricted-entry courses, and there were students at Mansfield killing themselves to make the grade. One student
had
killed herself a couple of years ago, a horrible event that was now a whispered cautionary tale. One of the science scholarships was named after her, which seemed a peculiar memorial to me.

With a start, I realised I was still hanging outside the classroom door, leaning against the cream-painted walls. Geography was in five minutes, and I hadn't done the homework. Why was I standing here noodling about poor suicidal Kathy someone? What was I — I'd wanted to talk to Mark. Or had he wanted to talk to me? I peered through the door's glass inset, rubbing at my aching temples. The wire mesh in the little rectangle made everything look fuzzy and undefined, but I could see La Gribaldi shaking her crowned head at Mark, big arms folded over her breasts again. Mark seemed to be pleading for something. An extension? La Gribaldi looked unconvinced. Abruptly, she moved toward the door, and I sprang back to lean against the corridor's far wall as she came out of the classroom, stiffening as she paused to stare at me. She surveyed me from toe to top, much as Reka had done in the mists, but her dark eyes met mine, a little puzzled, a little wary.

‘Interesting,' she murmured, and walked on.

Mark tried to scoot out after her, but I made my move, lurching to block his path like a transportable human wall. ‘Didn't you want to talk to me about something?' I asked. As conversational gambits go, it probably lacked a certain something.

He stopped, but didn't look at me. ‘No?'

‘Oh,' I said, confused all over again. Maybe I had wanted to talk to him? There had been
something
, damn it. I improvised: ‘Um, I was wondering. Do you want to study for the Classics midterm exam with me?'

Mark hesitated, pale face guarded. Something silver glinted at the wrist of his ragged sleeve. ‘When?'

‘After school sometime? In the library?'

‘I have a job after school. And on the weekends.'

I didn't ask,
Then why do all your uniform pants have
holes
? ‘Just an idea,' I said, trying not to sound huffy about the rejection. What had I expected? That after crashing into him at the gates we were going to be best buds?

The headache eased and he nodded, smiling slightly. ‘It's not a bad idea. I'll think about it and let you know?'

I brightened. ‘Sure!'

‘See you later.'

I frowned after him. His final sentence was a perfectly normal farewell. Why did it sound so tantalisingly familiar?

FOR WHAT YOU BURN

F
INAL PERIOD
E
NGLISH
was my only class with Kevin, science nerd that he was, and it was, to the joy of nearly everyone, a movie screening day. We'd had the option of
Heavenly Creatures
,
Once Were Warriors
or
Rain
for the film section. Given the choice between teenage matricide, teenage suicide, and possible paedophilia, the class had voted over whelmingly for matricide. I hadn't; I remembered the horrible months last year when my mother had struggled against the cancer and the chemo, and resented my classmates' enthusiasm for what was, after all, a true story about a nasty murder. When they caught the Eyeslasher, would Peter Jackson want the rights to that too?

Heavenly Creatures
began with the patchy film of Christchurch in the 50s, looking even whiter and duller than now, and got progressively creepier. ‘There
are
New Zealand comedies,' I whispered to Kevin, reasonably safe from Mr Aarons0n in the dimmed light. Back seats by the radiators were even more in demand on film days, but Kevin had got there early, and saved one for me.

‘Comedies aren't
art
, darling,' he replied, in a fair posh English accent.

‘I'd love to watch you tell that to Iris,' I muttered, and was rewarded with a muffled laugh. ‘Everything okay?'

‘Yeah.' He thought about it. ‘We'll see.'

‘Well, she needs you for the play, so she can't get too shirty.' I was trying to be reassuring, but I caught the flash of white as he rolled his eyes. ‘What?'

‘She is actually my
friend
, Ellie. My friend who
likes
me, regardless of . . . stuff.'

‘Well, sure, I'm just saying —'

‘If you lot are going to talk all through this —' Mr Aaron son began, but the door opened before he could finish the threat. It was Mark Nolan, holding a strip of paper. I couldn't help straightening in my seat. Outlined in the light coming through the doorframe, he shone like a grubby angel, green eyes gleaming in his white face. He came in, and I began to breathe again. After a brief discussion with Mr Aaronson, he folded his long legs under a desk at the front and stared impassively at the screen.

I was expecting Kevin to give me hell for the obviousness of my crush, but he apparently had something else on his mind.

‘Jesus,' he muttered. ‘I swear he's stalking me.'

‘What?'

‘Nolan's transferred into all my classes today – well, except Physics.'

‘
Seriously?

' ‘God knows how he did it, but he did.' He shrugged the mystery away and gave me his most irritating smirk. ‘This one worked out well for you, didn't it?'

I ignored him, leaned behind his wide shoulder and stole another look at Mark, who appeared totally oblivious to everything but the movie. In the white glare of the projector screen, his face was like a classical Greek sculpture, bleached of colour after long years in the sun.

It didn't make any sense. Mark, I had pathetically worked out through careful deduction, took Classics, English, History, Latin, and Art History. How could he just transfer into Kevin's Chem and Calc classes, much less M
ori? ‘You have Physics second period today, right? Fourth period Thursdays?'

‘Yeah.'

‘That's when I have—'

Mr Aaronson was rising in a clatter of remote controls. ‘Ms Spencer! Are you the director of this film?'

I tried to shrink into my seat. ‘No, Mr Aaronson.'

‘Then why do you insist on adding
commentary
?'

‘Sorry, Mr Aaronson,' I said, staring at the floor so I wouldn't have to put faces to the people laughing at me.

Kevin gave me a comforting poke in the ribs when everyone went back to the movie, but I was not in the mood to be consoled. I sulked in the warm darkness of the classroom until I went to sleep on my desk, and had to be hastily shaken awake before the lights went on. It wasn't an auspicious start to the weekend.

I was fully prepared to defend Kevin to Iris at rehearsal that night, but she foiled all my noble intentions by being typically warm and friendly to everyone, Kevin included. Reka was as warm and friendly as a glacier to everyone
but
Kevin, for whom she melted, chatting with him between their scenes as if he were an old friend. I didn't like the way she looked at him – sort of hungry and grasping – but it was hardly my business to protect Kevin's virtue, even if he had been inclined to give it away.

To make matters worse, Reka looked even more beautiful. She was wearing another anachronistic outfit, this one a crisp 40s-style dark-grey skirt suit over a creamy, high-collared blouse. The fitted skirt cut off at the back of her knees, and she wore sheer black pantyhose underneath. In the crowds of students in jeans and layers of jerseys, she should have looked like an overdressed schoolmarm, but with her startling hair arranged in looped braids all over her skull, she resembled a barbarian princess in business drag. In that company, Iris's pristine grey wool dress and black stockings warranted barely a glance.

I ran the fights through for Iris's approval. The boys were still too enthusiastic about their proposed punch-up, and I was worried they'd get hurt. The last thing this show needed was injured lovers. Maybe I could tell them some of my grislier training stories, like the one where I'd taken a sparring pad to the throat, and been unable to swallow solid food for a day. Or the one about the sidekick to the collarbone that had stopped me raising my right arm for weeks.

Iris called a break, and most of the cast scattered to get food somewhere where it wouldn't offend Reka's delicate constitution, sulking out loud about missing out on their Friday night. The vending machines downstairs were definitely calling to me – my dinner had been mashed potatoes and limp broccoli, and not much of either – but Kevin sat down beside me, and Reka with him. Iris slumped, then flicked open a newspaper to cover for her reaction.