The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 11

  “I have returned,” the Princess of Magical Australia said gravely. Despite the golden glow of the wisp-lamps, her face seemed paler than usual. “Did Ivan give you my message?”

  “Yes, he did. Are you all right?” Rachel rushed to her friend’s side. “What happened to Zoë? Do you have any idea how to rescue her?”

  Nastasia’s face grew paler still. “How did you come to hear about Zoë?”

  “Gaius told me.”

  The princess seemed quite agitated. “I will have to report this to the dean! We shared the information about Miss Forrest in gravest confidence. Whoever told your—friend must have been spying on the dean!”

  “But…” A terrible feeling, like nausea, gripped Rachel. Had she betrayed Vlad and Gaius without even knowing it? She took a deep breath. “What happened?”

  “We managed to bring the shade of our elf friend back to her world and her husband without incident, but on the way back—”

  “You went without us?” Rachel shouted.

  Her voice reverberated over the reflecting lake and echoed off of Roanoke Hall. Across the commons, students returning to their dorms paused and looked their direction.

  Rachel did not care. In her whole life, she had never been so angry.

  “How could you go without Siggy and me?” she yelled. “You knew we wanted to go!”

  “I am not at fault. I was taking a brief nap, a break from working on my paper, and Zoë showed up in my dream. The elf woman appeared and asked us to bring her home. Really, Rachel, what were we supposed to do?”

  Rachel’s face had become bright red. She fought to keep control of her mind. “You were supposed to say, ‘Hold on. Rachel and Sigfried want to come, too!’”

  Her voice broke as she remembered Siggy’s anger and his promise to forgive the princess—once she had taken them to visit Hoddmimir’s Wood. How would he react now?

  Nastasia held up one fair hand, her face stern. “Please, Rachel, control yourself. Such behavior is not becoming of a lady.”

  The Lady Rachel Griffin seethed with wrath, but her face became instantly calm. When she could keep her voice reasonably even, she replied, “Very well. Go on.”

  “The elf woman explained that we did not need to step down into her world, now that she was a shade. Merely bringing her back to her dreamland would be enough. So there did not seem to be any point to making a large expedition of it.”

  “Do you think I did not want to see that? What the dreamland of Hoddmimir’s Wood looked like?” Rachel’s voice was low and forlorn. “And we can’t go back, can we? Without our Elf here for you to touch, so that you can find a pathway?”

  “No. We certainly cannot,” Nastasia replied sternly, her face ghostly pale. “But I would not return in any case. The silver ways are not safe. Miss Forrest was yanked out of my hand. One moment, we traveled the silver track together. The next, she was gone.”

  • • •

  Saturday dragged into Sunday. They spent a dreary day inside studying quietly—except for Joy, who continued to weep loudly, mourning the loss of Zoë Forest. Rachel tried to assure Joy that Zoë would return, that everything possible was being done, but Nastasia interrupted, announcing solemnly that false hope was beneath them. After that, Joy was inconsolable.

  Unable to help, Rachel fled the dorm. She spent the morning in her private hallway, practicing sorcery and experimenting with what she had learned at Ouroboros Industries. She also spent time loading into her grandmother’s wand spells and cantrips she had mastered, keeping careful note of how many charges of each she stored. To her disappointment, Gaius did not come by, though he did welcome her enthusiastically when she joined him at lunch.

  That afternoon, Gaius was busy studying. Rachel wangled a few coins from Lucky, enough to buy warm winter gear for Sigfried: coat, hat, mittens, scarf, and a pair of fur-lined boots, which she ordered from catalogs she kept in her trunk. Then she went for a long, quiet ride on her broom before repairing to the gym, where she continued both practicing standing on a balance beam and diving, falling, and calling her broom back to her hand. After several hours, she tripped on the balance beam and plummeted into the foam rubber pit. When, due to overwhelming exhaustion, she neglected to rise immediately, she drifted off to sleep.

  She woke up after sundown, which, now that it was mid-November, came quite early. Rachel took advantage of the failing twilight and soared up to the roof of Roanoke Hall, the real one, not the copy in the gym. Flying to the hexagonal tower, she opened a window with the Word of Opening, rejoicing that she had finally mastered that cantrip. Inside was a room containing a sofa covered by a peach damask slipcover, a large cream and peach quilted comforter, two giant satiny throw pillows, creamy with bright iridescent blue and green peacocks whose tails trailed off the pillows, and, added more recently, the plushy lion with the large red bow that Sandra had bought for her in London.

  Hugging the toy lion, she dropped onto the peach damask sofa, causing its old springs to creak. She lay with her feet on the armrest, turning the black bracelet on her wrist and staring up at the cracks in the ceiling. Her conversation with Sigfried weighed heavily upon her. She had hoped that the break between her friends could be repaired, but now that Nastasia had gone to Hoddmimir’s Wood without them, she did not see how it could be.

  If it could not, she was going to have to revise her loyalty ladder.

  Ever since the first week of school, when she had been torn in so many directions, she had kept a strictly ranked list detailing the hierarchy of her relationship with each person who had laid a claim to her fealty. She was determined to avoid another mental battle over her loyalty, as her internal civil war seemed to that horrible sense that she was about to lose herself to encroaching darkness. Should an attempt be made in the future to divide her allegiances, she would need but glance at her mental ladder. A person on the higher rung automatically won out over anyone below them.

  Currently, the list was as follows:

  Rung One—Gaius

  Rung Two—Sigfried and Nastasia

  Rung Three—The Raven

  Rung Four—Father

  Rung Five—the rest of her family—Mummy, Sandra, Laurel, and Peter

  Rung Six—other members of the Die Horribly Debate Club

  Rung Seven—Agents she knew and liked, such as Darling or Standish or Bridges

  Rung Eight—the dean, Mr. Badger, Mr. Chanson, Mr. Fuentes

  Rung Nine—other friends and tutors she liked

  In recent days, however, there had been two upsets. The first was the tension between Sigfried and Nastasia. It was bad enough that Nastasia did not want to have anything to do with Gaius or Vlad. If Rachel’s two best friends stopped getting along, she would no longer be able to be equally loyal to them. If one of them should ask her to keep a secret from the other, she would have to decide which one ranked higher on the ladder.

  Whom would she choose? Would she share Nastasia’s private musings with Sigfried? Or would she reveal Sigfried’s secrets to Nastasia? In her heart, she knew that this question had already been answered, but she did not want to face it by officially demoting one of her friends off the second rung.

  The other problem was: Vladimir Von Dread.

  Rachel ran her finger along the cool metal of her black bracelet, remembering with a tingle of secret delight how he had knelt to present it to her. Before this, Dread had merely been an adjunct to Gaius. Rachel trusted Gaius above all others, but she kept secrets from the prince. He was a dark horse, and her friends did not trust him.

  But now?

  Vlad was to be her future brother-in-law. Did that put him on the family rung? Rachel smiled slightly. Future Brother-In-Law had a nice ring to it. She loved giving people nicknames. She called the Raven by the name Jariel, which she had taken from a dream, and she thought of Illondria, Queen of the Lios Alfar as the Elf, or perhaps her Elf. Maybe she would secretly call Vlad Future Brother-In-Law.

  Or FB-I-L.

  Or just FB for
short.

  But FB or not FB, the question remained: Where should she put him on her loyalty hierarchy? Should she leave him on Sandra’s rung? Should she move him higher, closer to Father, now that Vlad had stepped forward to protect her personally? Should she push Gaius off the top rung and give it to the prince?

  Rachel toyed with this idea. Much as she adored Gaius, the top rung of the ladder belonged to her Most Favorite Person. This has been a good thing back when the position was held by her imperious grandfather, but she could not deny that having a sixteen year-old-boy at the center of her universe was a bad idea. She had known this, but last week when Gaius discovered that Rachel and her friend knew one of his secrets—the content of what he had told the Agents while under the influence of the Spell of True Recitation—he had threatened to spill her secrets to Von Dread. That betrayal hit Rachel so hard that she had nearly lost her grip on her sanity. Only the intervention of her Elf had saved her.

  It was time to take action and find a different most-favorite-person. But—who?

  Why she needed a most-favorite-person in her life, Rachel did not know. Other people seemed to get by just fine without one. Or people outside her family did, at least. In her family, Sandra was Father’s favorite, and Peter was Mother’s favorite. She had been Grandfather’s favorite, back when he lived. Poor Laurel had always been a bit on her own. Rachel wondered how her middle sister did it, or if Laurel always felt as if something was missing.

  Whatever Laurel’s experience, Rachel seemed unable to function without someone in whom to put her faith—a rudder to help balance the ship of her soul. More than that, though, she needed a single person with whom she could share all her secrets without fear of repercussions, a steady and reliable person, like Grandfather, or her father. Grandfather had been volatile in his moods, but he had never let his emotions affect his judgment.

  Grandfather never would have threatened to betray her merely because he became upset.

  Rachel had enough problems holding back the onslaught of chaotic emotions—fear, agony, sorrow—that threatened to sweep over her. Things had been better since her visit to Sandra’s, but she had to be vigilant and not let down her guard. If she did, the thing that had happened to her in dreamland, after Gaius turned on her, might start again—the darkness that encroached on the edges of her vision; a buzzing noise, like a swarm of bees or perhaps distant thunder.

  She did not know what caused this mental distress, but she suspected. Her mother had warned her against relying too heavily upon the family dissembling techniques. Hiding her emotions from other people was one thing. Using their secret technique to manhandle aside emotions that needed to be experienced—such as grief over a dead friend, or horror upon learning that friends had watched their families be murdered, or the terror of watching the Starkadder prince be dragged down into eternal torment—was another thing entirely.

  Rachel suspected that she had destabilized the delicate balance of emotions within her mind. Only by a steady effort could she now keep herself on an even keel. Luckily, her will was strong. Pinning her faith on a boy, however, was not helping her. She needed someone calmer.

  Could that person be Vladimir Von Dread?

  Rachel closed her eyes. She imagined herself as a member of Vlad’s group, working with William and Topher and Jenny. She could not picture Nastasia joining them, but perhaps Vlad would find a place for Sigfried. Siggy admired Dread tremendously. Maybe the Prince could make him a knight of Bavaria?

  The idea of joining Vlad’s group delighted her. She could be in on their secret councils, learn physics, help protect the world—and spend more time with Gaius! The problem was: Von Dread expected obedience from his people. She could not bring herself to obey her father or Dean Moth. Could she obey Dread?

  With her eyes still closed, Rachel pictured some calamity occurring on campus. Vladimir, concerned for her safety, might instruct her to remain in a safe place. She imagined standing beside Roanoke Hall, looking off into the hemlocks, and seeing some disturbance in the distance, someone in need…and running off into the forest to help whomever needed her, without a second thought.

  Opening her eyes, Rachel let out a long sad sigh. If she could not obey Vladimir, she could not join his group. And there was no way she would stand idle if someone was in need, just because Vladimir Von Dread told her to. Sighing again, she grabbed the plushy lion with its huge red bow and hugged it tightly.

  By the time the bell rang for dinner, she had not come to any useful conclusion as to who should replace Gaius or where, upon her mental ladder, to place his boss.

  • • •

  “Marry him?” Joy was shrieking as Rachel arrived at the dinner table. “You’re fourteen!”

  “Please, Miss O’Keefe,”—a hint of exasperation slipped through Nastasia’s dulcet tones—“we are in the dining hall. Perhaps, this is not the most fitting location for drawing attention to ourselves. Especially as many members of his family are here. I would hate for the arrangement to go awry because they thought me a gossip.”

  “They want you to marry whom?” Rachel put down her dinner tray. Recalling Freya Starkadder’s parting words, she added, “You mean Wulfgang? Who wants you to marry him?”

  “My mother,” Nastasia stated simply, cutting her spaghetti and meatballs with a knife and fork. “While I was at home, she informed me that the King of Transylvania had inquired about a match between our kingdoms. Mother and Queen Epona chose Wulfgang and me as the couple they thought best suited.”

  “But Wulfgang’s so arrogant and so creepy!” exclaimed Joy.

  “Would your children turn into wolves?” asked Siggy, who sat backwards on his chair, tossing meatballs into the air for Lucky to catch and swallow. “That would be wicked! But wait, aren’t the Starkadders actually wolves who turn into men? Perhaps the question should be: would your pups be able to turn into babies?”

  Rachel glanced at him briefly and then looked away, recalling the previous moment. She saw no sign of anger in his eyes, but there was an odd belligerence that troubled her.

  “I would think your ages would be more of an issue than puppies or creepiness,” Valerie said dryly. “Do people really get married at fourteen in Magical Australia?”

  The notion of people in Magical Australia getting married caused Rachel to twitch. A spasm of hatred toward Ivan Romanov and his mockery constricted her throat.

  “We would not be wed until we reached our majority, of course,” Nastasia replied in her cultured Magical Australian accent, which differed notably from a mundane Australian accent. “It would only be an engagement at this point.”

  “Do you like him?” Rachel asked, sitting down.

  “That is of no consequence,” Nastasia replied simply. “My wish is to be useful to my family.”

  “Pull!” Siggy threw an entire egg salad sandwich.

  The white and yellow mess tumbled through the air, shedding droplets of mayonnaisey egg. The girls threw up their arms, shrieking. Lucky proved up to the task. With a burst of red-gold fire, the entire flaming sandwich, droplets and all, disappeared down the dragon’s gullet. Alas, in his enthusiasm to get the whole sandwich, the red puff of his tail knocked over Valerie’s glass.

  “Lucky! How could you!” Siggy chided. “You killed my G.F.’s apple juice!”

  Lucky hung his head, ears drooping. “Sorry, boss. Sorry, Goldi-haired-one. Here, I’ll help clean up.”

  His long tongue flickered out of his mouth, rapidly lapping up the spilled juice. But his method only spread the liquid around on the table.

  “Huh. That’s not really helping,” noted Valerie.

  “You want I should incinerate the mess?” Lucky opened his mouth very wide and began to breath in.

  “It’s okay, Lucks.” Valerie patted the dragon’s silky fur. “I got it.”

  She mopped up the juice. Very quickly, it soaked through her thin napkin.

  Rachel handed her own napkin to Valerie. “Here, take mine. I’ll get some more.
”

  She pushed her chair in and headed for the kitchen, where she picked up a handful of napkins and another apple juice for Valerie. As she was about to leave, the black bracelet vibrated against her arm. Gaius’s voice spoke beside her ear.

  “Rachel, that Maori dream expert from New Zealand—the one who made Zoë’s slippers. Do you recall—?” Gaius’s voice snorted with self-effacing amusement. “What am I thinking! Of course, you recall. You’re Rachel Griffin! But, seriously, can you tell us his name?”

  Rachel paused in the kitchen door, smiling, “Aperahama Whetu.”

  “Thanks, Rach. That’s a big help! Vlad, the dream exp—” His voice cut off, as the black bracelet stopped vibrating.

  “Move it, pipsqueak,” a female voice demanded behind her. “Stop blocking traffic!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I—” Rachel swung around and found herself face to face with a scowling Eunice Chase.

  Eunice was dressed in subfusc, with a long black skirt and twin black ribbons draping from her throat. She had medium-length auburn hair and enormous hoop earrings as big as Rachel’s palm. She towered over Rachel, looking down at her with a cold stare. In her hands, she held a muffin and a glass of tomato juice.

  Behind Eunice, walking toward the door with their trays, were two other older girls that Rachel recognized, penny-haired Colleen MacDannan and the cool and snide Tessa Dauntless. Both girls were from Drake Hall, like Eunice. Both were Upper School Seniors in Gaius’s core group, and, worst of all, both were in love with him.

  Colleen, at least, had the MacDannan Irish charm. Tess was superior and haughty. With her wavy blond hair and her arresting blue eyes, she always struck Rachel as the kind of girl that boys adored but not the kind that was good for them. Rachel had heard more than one Drake girl snickering about how well the names “Dauntless” and “Valiant” sounded together. She wondered if Gaius also adored that kind of girl.