Lost in Thought (10 page)

Amy stopped by briefly between two of her morning classes, but my biggest surprise came when a knock at the door was followed by Headmaster Stewart opening it and peeking inside. I was sitting cross-legged on my bed pretending to read a book but actually just moping.

My aunt had indeed cancelled our Boston visit in favor of Thanksgiving at the Academy. Fun. I looked forward to seeing Aunt Tessa, sure, but I really didn’t want to sit around at school all week.
Dejected
barely began to describe my mood. Until my bizarre visit with the headmaster anyway.

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“Ah, Lainey, you’re awake. Very good. How are you feeling?” she said, taking the one chair in the room and pulling it a little closer to where I sat.

“Fine, thank you, Headmaster,” I replied. “I wasn’t expecting a visit from you! It wasn’t a big deal, not a bad episode at all, honestly. I don’t even have much of a headache anymore. I guess my blood pressure is still a little high, so that’s why they’re keeping me here.”

To my utter shock and confusion, she said, “Yes, well, your blood pressure is fine, Miss Young, within a completely normal range. I told the nurses that your doctors suggested a day of forced rest after episodes, and that was the medical excuse they were to give you.”

“I…oh.” Something in the way she’d said it led me to believe my doctors had given no such orders. “Is that true?”

“Is it true I told the nurses that? Of course. But no, your doctors had nothing to do with it. In the event of ‘an episode,’ as you call them, I merely wanted the nurses to keep you here until I told them to release you.”

This conversation was becoming nearly as weird as yesterday’s. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible, but there I was. “I…don’t understand, Headmaster Stewart. Did
you
think it was a good idea for me to have a day of rest?”

“Of course not, Lainey. Don’t be foolish. You don’t need rest at all,” she replied, with a bit of a withering glance that made me want to cower. I caught myself and tried to sit up straighter. “You’re perfectly healthy. I merely wanted the ability to talk to you in a secluded environment once we uncovered your talents. It took longer than I thought it would for you to manifest, but after speaking to Miss Christensen, I understand the delay. This environment, it seems, has been good for you, being full of young and healthy individuals and away from all those antiques you seem to love, burdened as they are with their long histories.”

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“Miss Christensen? You mean Jill?” was the response that came from my mouth, though I hadn’t planned to say it. I hadn’t planned to say anything at all. My brain seemed to be stuttering, like a car motor that would catch but not turn over. I felt like I needed a jumpstart.

“Yes, Jillian Christensen. In addition to being a bright and discreet girl, she has a remarkably useful ability. She can recognize Sententia gifts, but only when they’ve been recently manifest. Your proximity to her yesterday afternoon was utterly convenient. The fact that she was able to touch you made it even clearer.”

Unfortunately, none of this was remotely clear to me. “I’m sorry, Dr. Stewart, I…this is all a little new to me, and, well, I don’t understand it much yet. I barely believe it, honestly. What is it that Jill does?

For whom?”

“I was under the impression that Melinda Penrose”—she said Melinda’s name as if she didn’t
exactly
approve of her—“had explained.

Did she not?”

“She…well, we didn’t have much time. She told me I had ESP?

Extrasensory Perception? And so did she. And Carter?” I added. I was doing it again, ending my sentences as if they were questions. Something about Dr. Stewart scared me into it.

She actually snorted. “The layman’s explanation, of course. ‘ESP’ is what pseudoscientists and mentally unstable fringe members of society call it. We are
Sententia
, those gifted with perceptive abilities beyond the norm. Your gift is a fairly rare one, but perhaps not exceptionally powerful.”

Okay then.
Sententia
, not ESP. Check. But that still didn’t explain anything. “I…Headmaster Stewart, what is my ‘gift’?”

She sighed, then muttered something about “Penroses” that didn’t sound like a compliment, before saying, “Elaine, you are a Diviner. A Grim Diviner, to be specific. You perceive death. However,
you
will have to tell
me
whether it is past, future, or both you can see.”

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“A…Grim Diviner?” I tried it out, listening to how the strange phrase sounded coming from my own mouth, if it was as crazy a no-tion in my own voice as it had been in Headmaster Stewart’s. And it
was
crazy, there was no doubt about that, but also…right? I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

Was she
right?
All this time, had I been having real,
true
visions of how people were going to or had died, because of ESP or because I was this “Sententia”? If being able to perceive death was a gift, I wanted to return it. Immediately, and for what I hoped was a very large refund. Somehow though, I didn’t think that was possible, so I went back to trying to accept it as real.

“Grim Diviner,” I repeated. “A Sententia. And you say this is because of, what? A fluke in my brain?”

“Not a
fluke
, Miss Young, a
gift
. Being born Sententia is a
gift
. You are special and should be grateful for it. It is a rare but natural gift passed on through the genes. Yours, unfortunately, are a disturbing mystery, but I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, I will inform the Perceptum that your gift is manifest and we have uncovered its nature.”

She seemed about to go on, when a delicate buzzing sounded from the pocket of her jacket. I’d come to learn that although the Academy had no dress code, Dr. Stewart had her own personal uniform, and appeared every day in a variation of the expertly fitted yet somewhat dowdy combination of long skirt, staid heels, and blazer I had seen her in at our first meeting. She extracted a slim cell phone, glanced at it quickly, and sighed again.

“Miss Young, you are free to leave the infirmary now. You will not return to classes until after break, and you will at all times maintain the excuse of your headaches to the general student population,
including
Miss Moretti. Let me be clear: under no circumstances are you to re-74 | C A R A B E R T R A N D

late to her the nature of your gift or our conversation. As brilliant as she may be, she is not Sententia. Do you understand?”

I nodded soberly.

“Good. If you break this entreaty, I will know it, so do not be tempted. I’d already assigned Mr. Penrose to establish your Sententia heritage and have instructed him to continue your introduction into our ranks. He knows where you may speak discreetly, of course. Miss Christensen will be available to you as well and you may trust her im-plicitly. I dare say she’d be a more appropriate mentor than Cartwright, would that I could assign her.” She rose then and headed for the door.

“Welcome to the Sententia, Miss Young. I hope we’ll be proud to call you one of us.”

Though my mind was absolutely reeling with everything it had been forced to consider, there was still something important I had to know. “Headmaster Stewart,” I called as her hand was on the door handle. “I…it’s both. I see both, past and future…deaths,” I struggled a little getting that word out. “And I saw, well, I don’t know her name, but the freshman girl, at the bookstore. I saw her…die. Is…will it happen? Is it true? Can’t I help her?!” I asked, a little frantically.

A very, very small look of sympathy crossed Dr. Stewart’s face. “Is it true? Quite possibly. But unfortunately, no, you cannot help young Miss Thayer—Miss Christensen informed me she was the student whose proximity triggered your gift. She is not Sententia, and even if we could convince her that her death was imminent, we should not.”

She sighed then and an unexpected bit of warmth, or maybe it was understanding, came into her eyes. “Sometimes our gifts carry a burden of knowledge, Lainey,” she said. “Even if we don’t want it, we must bear it. And though we may be special, we are neither gods nor superheroes, and must resist, at all times, playing at being either. I will be sorry for Miss Thayer’s loss, if it comes to pass. In the end, what

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will happen will happen. I don’t believe in fate, Miss Young, but I’ve been alive long enough to see that some courses are unalterable.”

SENTENTIA
. SEN—TEN—SHI—A. For a long while, I sat in my infirmary room, unwilling to get up and leave, repeating the term over and over in my head. I was Sententia. I had some form of ESP—
but
that’s not really what we called it
—that let me predict deaths or what was it called when you perceived the past? I didn’t know.

It was that question that finally got me moving, over to my bag to pull out a pen and notebook. I’d spent long enough thinking in undi-rected circles, which was getting me exactly nowhere. I decided to tackle this unexpected new turn in my life just like the last one, the one that had brought me here: I would accept it as my current reality and start living it. This was no crazier than when I thought I was simply crazy; the only difference was now I knew the visions I saw were real.

Or possibly real.

So I started a list. I wrote down everything I could remember about what Headmaster Stewart had told me and then, when I exhausted what I knew, I started in on what I
needed to know
. I tried to go with basics first:
How does this “gift” work?

How did I get it? (Something about genes?)
And then I moved on to the harder things:
How many Sententia are there?

What can Sententia do?

Why does it seem like there are so many of us here at this school?

After staring at my list for a while, I added one more, remembering a word Headmaster Stewart had mentioned briefly but struck me as ominous:

What is the Perceptum?

Satisfied, I gathered my things, thanked the nurses for their excellent care, and made my way out onto campus.

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BACK AT MY room, I treated myself to the longest, hottest shower I’d taken since my arrival. I stood under the spray until it started to run cool, organizing my thoughts while I let the hot water carry away some of my tension, pretending I could feel it flowing down the drain. It helped, more than I expected, and I spared only a fleeting moment of guilt for whoever in Marquise House wanted to shower next.

I was absently brushing out my hair when a soft knock sounded at my door, followed by an equally soft, “Lainey?” Ms. Kim, come to check on me. I called for her to come in, expecting her to ask how my head was feeling, so I was utterly surprised when instead she said, “So how are you doing with the revelation?” as she closed the door behind her.

Whoa.
What the hell is going on in this place?
I thought. It seemed like
everybody
knew what I was but me. “I, uh…so, you know?” was the brilliant response I managed to offer.

She smiled her kindly smile. “Yes, Lainey, I know. Headmaster Stewart informed me and the rest of the faculty of your manifestation.

I’m Sententia too, of course. My gift is mild, but a pretty helpful one for a teacher: when I ask questions, people want to answer them. It only creates a little bit of encouragement though, no impetus.”

“Well… I guess that explains why I always want to stop and talk to you when you ask how my day has been,” I said. “I’m not sure what you mean by impetus though.”

“Some more powerful gifts manifest with a measure of force behind them, an impetus. If my gift were that strong, people wouldn’t just desire to answer my questions, they’d be compelled to. But impetus of any kind is rare, and a very powerful gift indeed, so its rarity is probably a blessing.”

“I…don’t think my gift has any impetus either,” I ventured.

“No,” she replied. “It doesn’t appear that way. It’s often difficult to be a Diviner of any kind, and I’d imagine a Grim Diviner is most diffi-L O S T I N T H O U G H T | 77

cult of all. We’re lucky your Legacy brought you here, no matter how strange the circumstances.”

Boy did she have that right. “I do feel lucky to be here, Ms. Kim,” I told her. “As…strange as this all is, I can’t deny that I’ve liked it here.

Like
it here, I mean. I don’t think that will change, at least I hope not.

Is…well, is something expected of me? Now that I’ve manifested, I mean, and everyone knows?”

“No. No, Lainey. Nothing about your time as a student here should change. It’s your
awareness
that has changed. Now you know, and you can begin to explore your gift or, more importantly, learn how to control it. You have a little to learn about being Sententia too, and that’s actually why I’m here.”

“Oh!” I said, surprised. “Are you going to help teach me?”

She laughed. “No, unfortunately that’s not my job; I’m only an English teacher. I came to tell you that Carter Penrose is waiting for you downstairs. Being your mentor is his job.”

“Oh!” I said, surprised again, in a different way. “Okay. I…guess I’ll go see him.” I grabbed my bag, my list of questions inside it, and my sweatshirt from my bed. Ms. Kim waited for me at the door and I was ready to follow her down the stairs when I thought of something.

“Ms. Kim? I wanted to ask, um, who else knows about…my gift?

About my being a Sententia?”

Thankfully she understood what I was getting at. “The other Sententia students haven’t been told anything, Lainey. We are…fairly strict about students discussing their gifts
openly”
—the way she said it led me to believe they discussed them all the time in private—“because of the number of non-Sententia students here. Jill Christensen is the only other student who knows. Given the nature of her ability, she tends to know the gifts of most Sententia she encounters. But she learned how to keep her secrets at a young age and has never proven to be anything