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“Do you think she can make potions? Maybe she’d make a love potion for me …”
“I bet she can see the future!”
“If we look in her window at night we can see if she transforms into a bat!”
Wordlessly, we backed away. Ariadne’s old roommates were a little intense once they got an idea in their heads.
“Ebony’s certainly strange,” I said, as I scraped my bowl clean. “But where can they have got this idea from?”
Ariadne wrinkled her nose, though whether it was at the food slops or at her friends’ gossip I wasn’t sure. “Who knows?” she said.
Scarlet frowned. “I think they believe anything anyone tells them. I think she’s just eccentric, that’s all.”
I nodded in agreement. It wasn’t surprising that Ebony was a little strange – who wasn’t, at Rookwood?
But as I walked past her, with her hair the colour of the night sky and her eyes grey as storm clouds, I began to wonder if perhaps there was more to her than met the eye.
Chapter Seven (#ulink_4eef29fa-eb3d-586f-b62c-689e13a9ec25)
SCARLET (#ulink_4eef29fa-eb3d-586f-b62c-689e13a9ec25)
t was our first night back at Rookwood, and it didn’t take long for trouble to find us.
We’d unpacked and were heading to the bathrooms to get ready for bed. An hour or so earlier, Ariadne had sloped off to her dorm with Muriel.
The lavatories were packed, filled with girls jostling to get to the mirrors and brush their teeth. As we waited at the back, Matron came in and whistled. “One at a time, you lot! The sinks aren’t going anywhere!” She left again, but the chaos didn’t improve by much. Some sort of queue began to form behind each sink, but it was messy.
We waved to Ariadne, who was on the other side of the crush. Muriel was there too, her beanpole legs making her stand head and shoulders above most of the other girls. She was staring at her Rookwood regulation toothbrush, looking unimpressed.
But everything changed when Ebony walked in.
The crowds parted like she was Moses. She had that enigmatic smile on her face as she glided along. She walked straight up to where Muriel was standing and said, “I’m going to use this mirror.”
Muriel stopped, the toothbrush still in her mouth, and turned to look down at Ebony. Despite being smaller than Muriel, Ebony gave the impression she was eight feet tall.
“Mmscuse me?” Muriel said around the toothbrush.
“I said I’m going to use this one.” Ebony didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. Everyone had gone silent and was staring at her. “Or …”
Muriel spat a foamy mouthful into the sink. “Or what?”
“Or you’ll regret getting in my way,” said Ebony. She tipped her head on one side. That smile wasn’t going anywhere. “The world has a way of punishing people who don’t do what I want.”
Now, having heard about the fearsome Muriel from Ariadne, I assumed we were about to witness something dramatic. So of course I stood on tiptoe to get a better look.
But to my surprise, Muriel just looked hurt. “Why?” she said. “I waited my turn. I’ll be done in a moment.”
And then, as I watched, she turned, slipped on something and fell backwards into a heap on the floor. There were gasps. But no one moved.
Ebony looked down at her. “I told you so,” she said. She stepped over Muriel and began brushing her silky hair in the mirror and humming something. It was a tune I didn’t recognise. It sounded almost like a nursery rhyme.
I didn’t like what I had seen one bit.
How did that happen? I wondered. There was a moment when there was no sound in the bathroom but the strange humming. And then a second later, Muriel sat up and choked back a sob. It was as if there had been a spell that had just been broken, and everyone started talking again.
I frowned and began shoving my way over to the sinks. “Come on,” I said “Are none of you going to help her up?” I reached down. Muriel reluctantly took my hand and climbed up unsteadily. She rubbed her bruised legs and glared at Ebony. And without a word, she ran into the corridor.
I didn’t know what Ebony was playing at, but she was reminding me uncomfortably of our old enemy Violet – or at least, how vile Violet had been in our first year. The sort of person who thought they were better than everyone else and ordered them around. And people were just letting her get away with it!
I stood beside her, hands on my hips, while she preened. “What did you do that for, Ebony?” I asked.
She just blinked at me, and then she leant forward and whispered one word: “Power.”
“What?” I looked around at the other girls to see if they were listening, but everyone had moved on to something else. It was as though the events of the past few minutes had evaporated from their minds.
“Power,” she repeated. “Some of us have it …” She looked towards the door. “Some of us don’t.” And then she turned back to the mirror and carried on humming that same song.
“Right, well,” I muttered. “Perhaps you could use some of that power to stop being a nasty piece of work.”
She ignored me.
Ariadne pushed through and stood next to me. “I should … I should go and see if Muriel’s all right,” she said.
I was a little surprised, but not completely. No matter what Muriel had done to Ariadne in the past, they’d been getting on better and Ariadne was very forgiving – a good person at heart.
I didn’t think I’d be able to say the same about Ebony.
Ivy and I eventually managed to reach the sinks and get ourselves ready for bed, and then we headed back to room thirteen. I had to admit I was a little relieved not to run into Ebony again. Something about her just wasn’t quite right.
Getting under the sheets was the strangest feeling after being away from Rookwood for so long. Our beds had been made with hospital corners as usual, meaning I had to untuck the whole thing before I could actually climb into it. But once I was lying down, I had to admit … it almost felt like home. More than anywhere else did, anyway.
I thought briefly about hiding my new diary in the mattress, but that wouldn’t be much of a hiding place, since everyone knew about it now. Do I need to hide it? I thought. I didn’t have so many secrets these days.
But then I thought of what had just happened in the lavatories. I was no longer faced with Miss Fox or Violet, and Penny seemed to have mellowed a little, but then there were people like Ebony.
I decided to put the diary inside my pillow, just for now. I’d have to find a better place, though, or it could get tossed into the laundry.
Ivy yawned in the bed across the room. “Back at Rookwood,” she sighed.
“Everything’s different, but …” I took a deep breath. “There’s more of the same. Bullies and secrets and—”
“Stew,” Ivy finished for me. “Lots and lots of stew.”
We smiled at each other in the darkness.
“Night, Scarlet,” she said.
“Night, Ivy.”
It was chilly and the sheets were a little scratchy against my skin. But only a few moments passed before I slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I woke to a loud clanging, and almost panicked before I realised it was Rookwood’s regular morning bell.
I sat up, stretched and looked around to find Ivy already sitting at the desk, brushing her hair with our mother’s brush.
“How are you awake already?” I asked.
She shrugged happily. “I slept well.”
“Me too,” I said. I unfolded myself from the covers and got up. A glance out of our window with its threadbare curtains revealed a bright day outside. The leaves were rustling in the trees, waving gently like green fingers.
“I wonder how Ariadne got on,” Ivy said. “With her first night sharing with Muriel, I mean.”
Once we were dressed and ready, we went to investigate. We knocked on their door and Ariadne’s mousy face peered out. “Morning,” she whispered, slipping into the corridor.
“So … did you survive?” Ivy asked, even though it was plainly obvious that she had.
Ariadne’s brow wrinkled. “Nothing happened. She seemed upset after that incident with Ebony, and I asked if she was all right. That cheered her up a little. Then she just said she was going to read a book and didn’t speak another word.”
“See?” I poked her gently. “I told you it would be fine.”
“Scarlet, stop poking people,” Ivy said.
I poked her in the arm, just to prove a point.
Ariadne still didn’t look very reassured. I noticed there were bags under her eyes, and her hair was a bit of a tangle. “So you didn’t sleep as well as we did?”
She shuffled her feet. “Well, I know it’s silly, but I couldn’t relax knowing she was in the room. It was like … being haunted or something. I can’t forget what she was like before.”
As if on cue, the door opened and Muriel appeared. We all looked up – and Ariadne went a bit white. But she didn’t seem to have heard what we’d been saying. She just smiled at us. “Morning,” she said. “What do they do for breakfast around here?”
“Porridge,” I said.
“Oh.” She didn’t seem too disappointed. For someone who had apparently been the worst bully since Penny, she appeared to be quite cheerful. “Well, see you down there.” She strode away towards the stairs.
We both looked at Ariadne without saying anything. I raised my eyebrows, as if to say: A bully? Really?
“I’m serious!” she squeaked. “She was awful!”
“It’s all right,” said Ivy. “We believe you. It’s just that … she seems different now.”
I nodded in agreement. “I think it’s Ebony we need to worry about.”
In the dining hall, the familiar thick smell of porridge greeted us, but I could see something was different straight away.
Ebony had gained a following.
It was only a small one, but it was still a following. She was up at the serving hatch and there was a little group of girls trailing her like kittens round their mother.
As we got closer, I realised that the group mostly consisted of Ariadne’s old roommates, as well as some of the other younger girls.
“What’s that about?” I hissed, gesturing over to them as we joined the back of the queue.
Ariadne’s eyes were wide. “I think she has a fan club.”
We watched as two of the girls fought over who was going to carry Ebony’s tray for her, which was eventually solved by Ebony handing one of them her mug of tea. They went over to one of the tables and all gathered round her. She was talking. I had no idea what she was saying, since it just faded into all the surrounding noise, but they were all leaning in and hanging on her every word. She waved a hand at one point and all their eyes followed it, as if she were drawing something in the air.
“Now that’s just odd,” I said. “She can’t be that interesting, surely?”
One of the new teachers went over – by the looks of it, she was telling some of them off for not sitting at their house table. But they didn’t pay her any attention, and she walked off looking red-faced and flustered.
When we’d picked up our helpings of porridge, we headed for our table. I couldn’t help taking a sneaky detour past where they were sitting. Pieces of their conversation floated to my ears.
“Is it true?” I heard one of the younger girls say.
“Teach me, Ebony, please!”
“Show us what you can do!”
I rolled my eyes. They were so unbelievably desperate for her attention.
But the last exchange I caught as I walked past them was more interesting.
“Can you really do magic?” I heard Agatha say, her voice glittering with awe.
For a moment, Ebony said nothing. I stopped in my tracks. She was looking straight at me, and her stormy eyes seemed to crackle with lightning.
“Yes,” said Ebony. “Yes, I can.”
Chapter Eight (#ulink_20cd01fe-c42a-565e-aca7-be2f74868cb2)
IVY (#ulink_20cd01fe-c42a-565e-aca7-be2f74868cb2)
e managed to finish breakfast without incident, but the first lesson of the day was to be a different matter altogether.
I’d studied the new timetable carefully. It was a relief to actually have been given one, and not just to have to trail after Ariadne like I’d done when I’d started at Rookwood, pretending that I knew what was happening. The first lesson was history, with Madame Lovelace – a teacher so old that she appeared to have acquired cobwebs.
“Anywhere you like, girls,” she was saying in her creaky voice as we filed into the room. “It’s a new year, after all.”
Scarlet and I darted to get desks side by side. I only realised once I’d got there that it meant Ariadne would have to go behind us. “Sorry,” I whispered.
“It’s all right,” she said, finding a desk a few rows back.
Madame Lovelace sat down at her desk. “Right then, everyone,” she said. “Open your books at page one hundred and fifty-three. And make sure you memorise those dates.” She waggled her finger at us all.
And while we were pulling out the books and finding the pages, she bowed her head and began to snore.
“Did she just fall asleep?” I heard Muriel say.
