The Hound of Rowan (14 page)

“Run!” screamed Connor over the noise, pulling Lucia to her feet. “All of you, run!”

The children staggered toward the bow of the ship, falling now and again as it pitched back and forth. The keening increased; the timbers of the boat began to vibrate and hum. Many of the children leapt over the side, plunging some fifteen feet into the water and flailing through the chop for the beach. Max saw David bob up in the foamy water when he suddenly felt a hand seize his arm. Sarah was shouting at him in terror.

“I can't swim!”

The wailing became deafening; the boat lurched away from the dock as one of the mooring chains strained near snapping.

Max grabbed Sarah and hurled the two of them over the side. They plunged into the sea. Swallowing a mouthful of salty water, Max clutched Sarah's shirt and stroked wildly with his free arm for the beach. The water was cold and swirling in wild currents; beds of kelp dragged against his legs like clammy fingers. At any moment, Max expected something horribly strong to clamp on to his foot and heave him out toward deeper waters. Brine splashed in his face, and a great black wave rolled over his head, pushing them under. Sarah was screaming and thrashing crazily in his grip, her sharp elbows hitting him on the side of the face as he labored.

As Max's grip threatened to give, their feet met the rough sand. Sarah flung herself away from him and scrambled through the surf. The keening began to die as the children fled up the stone steps and across the lawns.

The Manse's lights were on. A crowd of students and faculty had gathered onto the drive by the fountain. Ms. Richter was among them, her bright lantern casting her anger into sharp relief.

                  
8                  

T
HE
N
EW AND
W
EIRD

S
tifling a yawn, Max stumbled down the hallway with his classmates shortly before six o'clock Monday morning. Many were exhausted, having spent Sunday cleaning out the stables as punishment for their foray aboard the
Kestrel.
The task had taken most of the day, leaving them drained and filthy. Ms. Richter had been sparing with her words, muttering only that she had never seen a class so determined to exterminate themselves.

When Mr. Vincenti asked why they had elected to do such a foolish thing, Connor insisted that it was his idea, staring all the while at Alex Muñoz, who gawked from the dwindling crowd.

Despite their questions, no one told them what had churned the seas and wailed so horribly. No students seemed to know, and no faculty would say.

Max was particularly tired. After the day's labor, feeding and playing with Nick had proven to be no trivial task. Following the instructions in his booklet, Max murmured, “Food for Nick: Black Forest lymrill,” into a stained and spattered wooden bin in the Warming Lodge. The bin rumbled and shook, its lid clattering and spilling beams of light onto the stalls. While his reading had braced him for Nick's diet, Max still retched upon opening the lid. The bin was piled high with crates of writhing rodents and worms along with small stacks of thin metal bars.

Nick's tail fluttered wildly, and he zoomed up and down the corridor as Max loaded the crates into a wheelbarrow and staggered outside. He looked away as Nick methodically devoured each crate's contents: first bloodying his snout in the wriggling piles of vermin before extending his tongue to deftly separate, lift, and swallow whole each of the small metal bars. After cleaning himself vigorously in the lagoon, Nick then chased Max about the clearing, racing ahead in tremendous bursts of speed to ambush him from outcroppings of rock or swatting playfully at his ankles to spill the boy into the grass as he fled. When Nick finally stopped and curled himself into a dozing ball, Max almost wept with gratitude. Scooping the lymrill into his arms, he walked down the Warming Lodge's rows of stalls until he found the door for Nick's. After laying the sleeping lymrill in the boughs of the stall's small tree, Max dragged himself to bed.

         

“How are you feeling?” inquired Omar, stumbling along next to Max as they descended the stairs for their first class. Omar was in Max's section, one of five groupings of First Years who would be taking all of their classes together.

“I can't even see straight,” moaned Max. “Nick kept me out until eleven.”

“Can Nick talk?” asked Omar, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“No.”

“Well, you should be thankful. Try caring for Tweedy. He's making me memorize the life works of his favorite composers….”

Max grunted in sympathy as they entered the basement classroom, a large space whose floor was covered in firm, spongy mats. A tall, wiry man with close-cropped black hair and heavy-lidded eyes stood in the middle of the room. He wore a loose-fitting shirt and pants; his feet were bare. He sipped from a bottle of water as he perused a clipboard, not bothering to look up as they entered.

“Remove your shoes,” he murmured with a slight accent. “Start jogging around the room. Clockwise. Quick, quick!”

Max jogged along with the others, shooting curious glances at the instructor as they lapped doggedly around the room. “Faster,” the man's voice snapped like a whip. After a few minutes, Max was huffing; he noticed Jesse and Cynthia were several laps behind. The man took another distracted sip, sat on the ground, and murmured, “All right. Over here. Spread out along the floor, facing me. Stretch your hamstrings, like so.” He spread his legs and smoothly lowered his forehead to a knee, holding it there. As Max and the others seated themselves and struggled to emulate him, he abruptly stood and started walking around the room. “Do not bounce!” he hissed, passing Connor, who promptly groaned and forced himself back down.

“I am Monsieur Renard. I will be your instructor for Training and Games. You will either love or hate me. This does not concern me.”

Max's eyes widened. He shot a look at Connor, who had unwisely taken a break just as M. Renard passed behind him.

“Many of you are fat and lazy,” the instructor hissed, digging his toe into Connor's midsection. “Little sausages that have burst their casings. That ends today. Cynthia Gilley?”

“Over here,” wheezed Cynthia, red-faced in the corner.

“Cynthia Gilley,” he read off the clipboard. “Lactic production rate: forty-nine. Lactic dispersion rate: thirty-four. Twitch speed: fifty-one. Muscular density, current: thirty-six…. Hmmm. You might have to be a special project. And I do not like special projects.”

Cynthia looked helpless.

“Rolf Luger,” he continued, scanning down the list. “Not bad…not bad at all. We'll see what we can do.”

Rolf suddenly looked very serious and grunted through his stretches.

“Max McDaniels?” M. Renard inquired, raising his eyebrows and scanning the room for Max, who raised his hand. M. Renard walked over, looking him up and down with a stoic expression. “Your ratings are unusual—
most
unusual. Are you aware that a ninety-five has
never
been recorded?”

“Nigel said something about it,” said Max, ignoring the glances from his classmates.

“Are you lazy?” asked the instructor, looking down his nose.

“I don't think so.”

“We shall see,” mused M. Renard, turning on his heel. It was a punishing hour of exercises and stretches. Cynthia had been reduced to tears; M. Renard simply stepped over Omar's inert body when he assumed the fetal position during sit-ups. When M. Renard finally announced that class was finished, the students rushed off to shower and breakfast before their first academic classes.

Clutching a slice of buttered toast, Max ran up Maggie's steep stone steps as fast as his tired legs would allow. His school uniform felt hot and stifling. Other students disappeared quickly down hallways; doors began closing.

This classroom was smaller and cozier than the Manse's basement gymnasium, its desks and chairs raised in a small amphitheater to look down on the instructor's desk and blackboard. Old prints, tapestries, and rich paintings of landscapes and famous battles hung on the paneled walls. The room smelled strongly of tobacco, while warm saltwater breezes slipped through the open windows facing the sea. An old, roly-poly man sat low in a cracked leather chair near the blackboard, puffing on a meerschaum pipe, and nodding as they entered. As they took their seats, he grumbled in a low baritone.

“No familiar faces here. Good. I think I must be in the right place. Welcome to Humanities for First Year Apprentices. I'm Byron Morrow. I'll be your instructor.”

Lucia coughed and raised her hand.

“Mr. Morrow? Will you be smoking a pipe every day?”

“Yes, I will, young lady,” he grumbled, raising an eyebrow. “Is that all right with you?”

“I am allergic to smoke.”

“Heaven help you in Mystics!” he exclaimed. He chuckled and waved his hand, causing the pipe smoke to abruptly stream down and snake a wispy path along the floor until it disappeared up and out the window. “Better?” he grunted.

Lucia nodded with wide eyes.

Throughout the period, Mr. Morrow enchanted Max and his classmates with an overview of the course delivered in his rolling baritone. At times, Mr. Morrow would waddle around his desk in sudden fits of passion; during others he would lean back in his chair to answer students' questions between long puffs on his pipe. They would be learning a combination of history, literature, writing, and myth. It would be a challenging course, he promised, but those needing extra help could always find him at his small white cottage beyond the Sanctuary dunes.

         

Mathematics and Science were straightforward and more familiar, if daunting. Math was spent taking a diagnostic test to gauge their proficiency. Max turned it in after only ten minutes; many problems had symbols he had never even seen before.

Science was hardly an improvement, as they were assigned a lengthy chapter in their text and strongly encouraged to know the earth's major ecosystems by the next class.

Taking a breather before Languages, Max leaned on Maggie's railing and watched the white-capped swells out on the ocean. In daylight, the
Kestrel
looked antique and charming—hardly the seesawing terror from which they had fled early Sunday morning. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see Julie Teller, grinning and holding a flimsy photo between her fingers.

“Hey, you,” she said with a laugh, “want to see your photo? I should win a Pulitzer!”

“Oh. Hi,” said Max, standing up very straight, aspiring to her height. “Sure.”

She handed him an eight-by-ten black-and-white photograph that showed a shirtless Max leaping high off the ground away from the selkies. His expression was one of sheer terror, his limbs shooting in four different directions. In the photo, Helga had turned her head to look at him; Frigga was still oblivious as she basked in the sun.

“Oh my God,” Max moaned, handing it back to her. “It's worse than I thought. Are you sure you need to use it?”

“It's not so bad,” tittered Julie, giving the photo another look. “It's cute!”

“It is
not
cute,” muttered Max, blushing. “I won't live it down all year….”

“Oh, stop it,” she said, smiling. “How're your classes?”

“They're okay—I don't know how I'm going to do all the homework…. I like Mr. Morrow, though.”

“He's the best,” she gushed. “Some of us still go visit him out at his house. I think he gets lonely sometimes.”

Max nodded, racking his brain for something—anything—to prolong the conversation.

“Well, anyway,” said Julie, hoisting up her bag, “I've got Devices—first time, and I heard Vincenti's a killer. Gotta run!”

With a wave, Julie jogged down a path toward the woods, her shiny auburn hair swishing back and forth. Max watched her go, until Connor stuck his head out Maggie's double doors.

“Who was she? She's a stunner,” Connor said as Max followed him inside and up the stairs.

“She's a Third Year,” Max replied, wary of Connor's tone. “I met her in the Sanctuary…. She took my picture for the newspaper.”

“Think she likes you?” asked Connor, sounding impressed.

“No.” Max flushed. “She liked the photo opportunity.”

         

The rest of their Languages class was already seated when Max and Connor entered. The room looked like a concert hall in miniature, its polished walls and roof designed for optimum acoustics. At the front of the room was a very large woman with curly black hair who wore a cheery sundress and an unusual coppery necklace. Once Max and Connor took their seats, she handed out printed sheets and delicate chrome headsets that blinked with bright green lights. Returning to the blackboard, she wrote: