Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies (13 page)

“Well come look at the e-mails,” Muirin said, turning her netbook around so they could all see the screen. “I can’t tell if that sounds crazy
or
scared.”

They all peered at the windows. Spirit pursed her lips. They were in txt-speak, or at least the two kids were, so it was hard to glean any
feeling
out of them. And the teacher’s was impersonal, which you’d expect, and almost as short.

“So…” Spirit chewed on her lip. “You don’t…”

Burke snorted. “Look,
something
went after everyone at the dance. That much is a fact. Our rings glowed and we don’t know what that means, and
that
is a fact. You
are
right, Spirit, the Wild Hunt was sent by someone, and we don’t know who that someone is, or if he’s given up or not—”

Spirit got a queasy feeling. “OK, so the Tithed were more or less scared to death, right? Or killed while they were scared. Was being scared the point? Isn’t there something in magic about how you terrify your victim for extra mojo?”

Addie looked thoughtful. “You might be on to something. According to everything Loch and I were able to find, yes, the Wild Hunt—and I guess whatever was behind it—more or less feed on fear and pain.”

“So what they did to us at the dance—?”

Loch mussed his hair uneasily. “Different weapon, similar goal. Maybe.”

“You think that would be all they want?” she asked.

All he could do was shrug. “If I were thinking all conspiracy theory, I’d think that the power gained from the fear was going to go toward taking us out.”

Burke shot him a glance. “You are a
big
help.”

“Forget that,” Addie said steadily. “The point is that Spirit is right about one thing; there is something out there that ran an attack on us. We need to figure out who on the inside here is helping them. Once we know that, maybe we can figure out what the next move is going to be. Then we can take what we know to Doctor Ambrosius. After what we did against the Wild Hunt, he’ll listen and take us seriously. Now let’s see if we can figure out a place to start.”

The others nodded, and Spirit would have been perfectly happy if it hadn’t been for the part about taking what they knew to Doctor Ambrosius.

Because she wasn’t at all sure that was a good idea.

*   *   *

They hadn’t dared stay out too long—not only because they might be missed from their rooms, but because tomorrow it was back to classes as normal. Or rather, back to all new classes; this was the start of the second term of the year, an “Oakhurst year,” which had three terms of four months each.

Spirit woke up with a sense of dread, and elected to go for a protein shake for breakfast, figuring if she needed to, she could get some yogurt or something to tide her over until lunch. She didn’t think that a full stomach for her first class was going to be a very good idea.

She hurried over to the gym—to the weight room this time, the first time she had ever been in it—to join the half-dozen other students there once she had changed into the clean gym clothes in her locker. At least they were just sweatpants, a tank and sports bra, and a hoodie in Oakhurst brown … nothing nearly as ugly and embarrassing as the gym uniforms she’d seen pictures of.

“All right, ladies,” said Mr. Wallis, prowling up and down in the front of the room like a caged panther. “This is one class where there are very clear rules. You will use the equipment I put you on, at the settings I put it on, and you will accomplish the goal I have set for you. And tomorrow, we’ll do it again. There won’t be any hiding behind a lucky move, and no excuses. Are we clear?”

“Yes sir,” they all murmured. Although some of the more competitive types made use of this room, Spirit never had, and neither had any of the others in this class. What was more, according to the others, this was a brand-new sort of class—a conditioning class—and it was nothing that had ever been taught here at Oakhurst before. If you could call this “teaching.”

Mr. Wallis picked out Spirit and Elizabeth, and put them on the two treadmills in the room. The other four he put on the fancy weight-simulation machines, contraptions that looked like a tornado had run through an archery store leaving these things in its wake. Mr. Wallis programmed in an ambitious workout for Spirit and Elizabeth, and with a sadistic grin, punched the
start
buttons. The belts hummed to life, and Spirit and Elizabeth had no choice but to start running.

Spirit soon found to her dismay that these were no ordinary treadmills. Oh no. These were state-of-the-art machines that could raise and lower their beds, and in the next five minutes she found herself struggling up a “hill” that never ended.

Then the thing went flat again, but her ordeal wasn’t over. It suddenly sped up, and she was forced into a sprint for thirty seconds. Then it slowed down. Then it sped up. A few more repetitions of that, and it turned into a hill again.

Finally, the treadmill slowed from a sprint to a jog, then a jog to a walk, and then stopped. Spirit bent over, sweating and panting. When she caught her breath and looked up again, she saw everyone else had finished their workouts, too.

“Treadmills!” Mr. Wallis barked. “You’re on machines one and two. One and two, move to three and four. Three and four, move to the treadmills. Move it, ladies!”

With a deep sense of apprehension, Spirit took over one of the two designated machines. Sure enough, there was a workout already programmed into it; “all” she had to do was follow it.

“Is this usual?” Elizabeth panted, as Wallis went over to survey the students on the second set of machines.

“No, at least, not from what I know,” Spirit replied. “It’s something they announced for this semester after Halloween.”
And I was too busy with trying to make it through my first semester and survive the Wild Hunt to think about it at the time. I wasn’t even sure I’d be alive to worry about Winter Term classes.
“Everyone has it, too, you don’t get a choice like you do with the other PE classes.” That was new, too; almost everything else here at least gave you the illusion that you had some control over what you were taking.

“What are they trying to accomplish with this?” Elizabeth muttered, sounding as if she was talking to herself more than to Spirit.

“What do you think? You got the ‘welcome to Oakhurst’ talk,” Spirit replied, straining against the machine. “Those enemies out there, that war that Doctor Ambrosius keeps talking about. This is to get us ready to face it.”

“Damn right it is, and don’t you forget it, ladies,” Mr. Wallis snapped, coming over to see what they were doing. “Put some back into it, White. There are old ladies in nursing homes that can do better than you are.”

He stood over them, making occasional feints at the controls, as if he was thinking of making the program harder than it already was. Elizabeth looked in despair; Spirit just forged grimly on. Her hair was so sweat-soaked now that it was plastered to her scalp, and every time she licked her lips she tasted salt.

Mr. Wallis moved on in a regular circuit, barking at them like a drill sergeant, hammering them with insults. At least after the switch to the next set of machines, he did let them have bottles of water.

By the time they got to the showers, which Spirit sorely needed, she ached all over and felt as limp as overcooked spaghetti. She had the feeling she was really, really going to hate this class.

At least the new schedule gave her a decent amount of time for that shower.

*   *   *

The class following the conditioning class was the undemanding literature class—undemanding because this semester was covering books she’d already read in her homeschooling studies. She was able to just coast through that one. Mr. Krandal was not exactly the most inspiring teacher in the world, either—he could make
Lord of the Rings
boring—so it was a good thing she had, really. What he was doing to
Madame Bovary
should have been a crime, and she wasn’t looking forward to his nitpicky tests. The one on
Silas Marner
had been … well, one of the questions had been “What did Silas go looking for when the baby crawled in through the open door.”
I mean, come on,
Spirit thought resentfully, as Krandal droned on about Emma Bovary’s dress purchases in such detail you’d have thought he was planning on wearing them himself.
It wasn’t important
what
he was looking for, it was important that he left the door open so the baby could crawl inside!

She’d gotten that question wrong, too, which only made her madder.

After that was one of the magic classes, and somehow she wasn’t surprised when Ms. Groves gave them all handouts on the Wild Hunt. Which was kind of like, as her mom used to say, “closing the barn door after the horses are out.” But at least it meant she could coast on this class for a little bit, too, which given that conditioning class, was probably a good thing. Maybe by the time Ms. Groves moved them on to something she didn’t already know, Spirit would be used to the conditioning class and wouldn’t feel quite so baked.

At lunch, she could tell that Muirin had just gone her three rounds with Mr. Wallis by the not-quite-dry hair and Muirin’s general look of weary shock. The two of them stood in line to get their food, and after a moment, Muirin finally gave her a sidelong glance. “My God. There is an eighth circle of Hell, and Mr. Wallis is in charge of it.”

“Oh yeah,” Spirit agreed fervently. “I don’t want to think about what I’m going to feel like in the morning.”

“Would you believe he knew exactly how many donuts I ate yesterday?” Muirin asked bitterly. “He was positively gloating. He threatened to load up the machine with an extra pound for every three donuts.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Spirit replied.

“I mean, look at me!” Muirin gestured to herself dramatically, before picking up her tray and heading for “their” table. “Does this look like the body of someone who needs to worry about a couple of donuts?”

Spirit had to shake her head, because in all truth, Muirin looked like the sort of person who might need to consider packing a few extra pounds
on
rather than trying to take them off.

Addie, Burke, and Loch joined them a few minutes later; Muirin repeated her complaints about the new class.

Burke just shrugged. “Didn’t seem bad to me,” he said.

“Well it wouldn’t, would it?” Muirin retorted resentfully. “You being the King of the Jocks and all.”

“I’m so not looking forward to this,” Addie replied uneasily.

“I’d like to know why they’re springing it on us,” said Loch. He took a bite of his sandwich thoughtfully. “Have you actually looked around at everyone here? We may not be Olympians, but we’re all pretty athletic. And magic burns the fat off you pretty quickly once you start practicing it.”

“Pretty athletic might not be good enough…” Spirit said slowly. “Not if we really
are
going to be in some kind of war soon. Maybe I was wrong about Doctor Ambrosius not taking the Hunt seriously enough. Maybe this is part of his answer. I mean … I don’t know how you’d have a war with wizards, but any time people fight, endurance plays a big part, right?”

“Huh.” Burke looked at her with new respect.

Muirin groaned. “You sure know how to suck the righteous indignation right out of something, don’t you?” she said with feeling. “Curses on you, Logic Girl!”

Spirit laughed weakly. “Oh, go right ahead feeling righteously indignant,” she replied. “After all, even if there
is
a good reason for it, Mr. Wallis is still a sadist.”

“Amen to that,” said Loch.

*   *   *

Lunch went a long way to fully reviving her, so Spirit went on to her math class feeling less like a damp rag and more like a human being. She took her place behind the empty seat that had been Judy King’s. It was with a bit of a shock and a lot of guilt that Spirit realized she couldn’t even put a face to the name, only the back of a head and a severely bobbed hairdo.

Ms. Smith waited for them all to get seated, then crossed her arms over her chest and regarded the class with glittering eyes. “There is absolutely no point in trying to concentrate on mathematics today,” she said, to Spirit’s shock. “Believe me, I understand. What’s probably making it worse for all of you is that most of the teachers don’t even want you to talk about it. They want you to act as if everything is business as usual, to go back to classes like nothing happened. But
I
don’t.”

She paused for effect, and raked her eyes over all of them.

“What happened New Year’s Eve was a horrible shock. What caused it really doesn’t matter; what matters is the effect it had on you.” Ms. Smith leaned forward, and lowered her voice a little. “You all had a terrible experience. I know I did, and I’m a trained magician with … let’s just say I have a lot of stories I could tell. Bottling your feelings up isn’t healthy. In fact, it might cause problems down the road—psychological problems, like post-traumatic stress disorder, and problems with your control of magic. You need to talk about these things, and I’m here to help.”

She fastened her gaze on Nadia Vaughn, who chewed her fingernail nervously. Ms. Smith didn’t even call her on it. Finally, Nadia broke under the intense gaze. “It was awful,” she said in a small voice. “I was so scared—it was so dark, except for those awful little sparks, and I couldn’t breathe! I thought I was going to have a heart attack or something, I kept trying to say something but nothing would come out!”

Ms. Smith nodded. “I’m not sure which was worse, the dark, or those little sparks of light.”

“They were like eyes!” Kylee Williamson burst out. “Like— Like the eyes of something that knows it’s going to pounce on you and it’s just waiting for you to be scared enough!”

That pretty much did it. Everyone but Spirit started pouring out what they’d seen, and especially what they’d felt. Ms. Smith made no attempt to soothe them; instead, she encouraged them with little nods and the occasional word. And her eyes stayed so … detached. Analytical. It was as if she was taking notes on everything. But why?