Rebecca's Quest, page 3
part #8 of Finding Magic Series Series
He moved on, and she feigned rapt attention for a few moments.
But after four lonely years at Gray Cliffs, she was tired of people pleasing. She picked up a pencil and sketched lazily in her notebook, as if she were taking copious notes, and continued her musings.
Sometimes, she imagined she’d never come to Gray Cliffs at all. Mostly at night when she closed her eyes. She’d pretend she was home in her own room, the room she’d slept in her whole life and where her last thoughts before nodding off morphed into pleasant dreams.
In them she was twelve, almost thirteen. Her world was still warm and loving and perfect. Her older brother, Brent, slept in his room down the hall. Her boyfriend, Paul, slept in the farm house next door. In the kitchen, their parents laughed while they played Euchre after dinner and into the wee hours.
When she drifted to sleep with those memories on her mind, though, she invariably struggled through the nightmare years that followed. Like last night: She’d awoken in a cold sweat, shivering and unsettled. With great effort, she’d managed to push those vivid nightmares aside.
But they had increased as her graduation and departure from Gray Cliffs approached.
She just needed to get away from there. She couldn’t wait to return to everything that was real and good—and normal. No vicious cats. No nasty girls. No odd clocks or thick stone walls or ravines where dying goats were eaten by vultures.
Becky craved the real world—the down to earth, predictable, reliable Americana—and the people she loved and who loved her in return.
Could. Not. Wait. To live that again.
She glanced at the big clock. Nearly time.
Gray Cliffs had been nothing like what she’d expected, right from the start. And how had her life fallen so far off the rails?
Her parents had been students there, too, back in the day. They’d fallen in love at the Academy. So had Paul’s parents. ‘Gray Cliffs is a magical place where new and better lives are launched’ or that’s what the four parents frequently said. They had never lied to her, and Becky believed them even now, when she applied those words to others at the school.
But her reality was different. If she had been able to see the future instead of only hearing about her parents’ happy times at school, she might have made a different choice…
Maybe not.
Her older brother, Brent, and the boy who might have been her boyfriend, Paul, were already gone before Becky left home. There was very little to hold her in Traverse City by the time she went. Or so it had seemed.
Gray Cliffs Academy was one of the best and most exclusive boarding schools in the world. When she’d been chosen for a full scholarship she hadn’t believed her luck. The scholarship had seemed so exciting. That day she’d danced with glee in her mom’s kitchen, waving the letter from Headmistress Hettie Lalane.
Her parents had been blissfully happy for her, too. Happier than she’d seen them in a long time. Mom’s eyes had glistened with happy tears, and Dad’s grin was even bigger than when the Tigers won the World Series.
Bret had been at college for the past few years, but he’d called on his way out the door to basic training. “Congratulations, Beck! The scholarship is your ticket to everything good in the world. I promise.”
One of the last times she’d spoken to him.
She shook her head.
What a fool she’d been.
Chapter 4
Since the moment Becky had arrived at Gray Cliffs, the weight of homesickness had settled over her as thickly as the misty atmosphere around the school. No matter what she did, she couldn’t escape it, even during the summer months when she roamed the grounds outside.
Everything beyond the castle walls intimidated her, and she couldn’t relax there. The steep mountain cliffs that dropped thousands of feet into savage ravines around the school’s edges scared her. Nothing was as she hoped. Her only friends had flunked out at the end of first year. She was lonely and unhappy. And it must have shown because the other kids avoided her. Most professors likely pitied their poor scholarship student who simply could never fit in.
Even the cats that swarmed playfully around the other kids, fled from her like cockroaches scurrying away from light. On some level she knew those cats were evil. Especially Simon, with the eerie ice-blue eyes that pierced her heart every time he looked at her.
Simply put, for too long she’d felt a prisoner there. Like all prisoners everywhere, she longed for nothing so much as freedom. Which she would get the moment she graduated. On that day, the bus that brought her there four years ago would take her to the airport. She’d be packed and waiting.
She hoped.
She felt like the ominous dark cloud on the horizon would reach out to ensnare her, given the chance.
Don’t dwell on the negative, Becky. It’s just coincidence. Don’t stress. Stay focused and positive.
When she closed her eyes she could almost smell her mom’s cherry pie baking in the kitchen at home. Mom made the best pies in the whole region. Everybody said so. Every year at the Northwest Michigan Fair, Livy Martin’s blue ribbon cherry pie was deemed better than all the others. Even celebrity chefs failed to best her.
Mundane images and aromas of her childhood were the snapshots most precious to her now. Bright white cherry blossoms dressed the orchards perching beside the sparkly blue water of Grand Traverse Bay. Old-fashioned shops filled downtown. Centennial farms like theirs were plenty, held by the same families for generations.
Even the tourists seemed endearing when she thought of them from her school. Eating cherries in the hot July sunshine, juice dripping everywhere. Frantically seeking suitable places to spittoon the pits, until eventually giving up and swallowing them. And turning a little green around the edges when they did.
Thoughts of her favorite things back home painted a broad grin on her face. Which drew another fierce stare from Professor Kell and instantly squelched all pleasant feelings.
Her classmates tittered behind their hands. Mocking gazes trained her way. She tossed her head as if she didn’t care what they thought of her. A cloak of indifference was her only defense against the incessant bullies.
How much longer can I sit here without bolting?
Her nose wrinkled of its own accord. Bile rose in her throat.
The other Gray Cliffs Academy kids were all rich and beautiful and entitled, like Jennifer and Virginia. The world’s future leaders, every one of them, destined for greatness.
Becky’s destiny was not theirs. Not even close. Nor did she want it to be.
What an idiot I’ve been to leave my home and the people who love me for this place.
She wanted to go back home and be close to those she loved.
Never again would she venture so far away. She was as sure of that as she could possibly be. Attending Gray Cliffs was her one big adventure. And one was more than enough, thank you very much.
The clock’s minute hand jerked ahead and landed straight up on the twelve. One of the boys coughed to snag Professor Kell’s attention barely half a moment before the deep resonant chimes began.
Kell glanced toward the clock and the hairy caterpillars above his eyes jumped up his forehead into his sandy hair, as if shocked to see class was over.
The boys in the front row pretended his reaction was permission to leave. They scooped up their books and rushed toward the door, roughhousing all the way out.
“Very well, then. I’ve done all I can. Now it’s up to you.” Professor Kell called as they hurried through the door: “Eight o’clock sharp. Don’t be late. No second chances, you know.”
Oh, Becky knew that much, for sure. She grimaced. Never a second chance at Gray Cliffs. Her friends found that out too late…
Jennifer was right behind the boys at the front of the pack with Virginia and the girls clumped together like co-joined twins. They stopped briefly to glance back at Becky and clap their hands to their mouths as if they were horrified. Then they burst into a stream of giggles and left the room.
Rumors circled Jennifer and Virginia were princesses in real life. They certainly acted like royalty. They expected Becky to treat them that way. The last thing she wanted right now was to be on the losing end of Jennifer’s next argument or mean trick. Not when she was so close to graduation. So close to going home.
She hung back and shuffled along slowly. After a few dozen careful steps across the rough cobblestones in the corridor, Jennifer and Virginia peeled off from the others with a bunch of other giggly girls. The boys followed them like bees following their queen.
When Becky looked up again, Jennifer and Virginia were gone and she was the last in a different trail of students all headed toward the only place this corridor led, the headmaster’s office. Her heart dropped even further when she realized her humiliation might be public. Why were the others headed there too?
She couldn’t be late. A major transgression like being late for an appointment with Mr. Auster would get her sentence extended for sure.
When the headmaster’s clock struck the appointed time, students were expected to be present and prepared. She picked up her pace, now trying to catch up with the others, but she’d fallen too far behind.
She saw Headmaster Auster’s office door open, and one of the boys stepped inside. The other kids followed him in. Becky hurried to reach the open door before the last student shut her out. She managed to slip through, just as the door was closed.
Instantly, she was sucked into the center of the room with the others, surrounded by a dark and wild wind, wilder than any wicked storm she’d experienced before. Bewildered, frightened, one of the girls cried out, but the wind was so loud that Becky couldn’t hear her words.
Mr. Auster struggled to yank the door open against the wind’s force and then held the door with his full body as he shouted above the gale. “Go to the roof! Now!”
The students seemed rooted to the spot, too frightened to move.
Becky knew they needed to get away from whatever this wild, whirling thing was and they couldn’t be safe if they remained inside the office. And she was closest to the door…
“Come on!” Becky yelled. She pushed away from the quivering huddle of teens and raced through the doorway and up the slimy stone steps as fast as she could.
When she reached the roof, her left foot slid on the final step. She stumbled, but couldn’t regain her footing. She pitched forward and landed heavily on her hands and knees—and eye to eye with Simon, the worst of Gray Cliff’s vicious cats. The one that seemed intent to destroy her.
She scrambled to her feet and backed away from Simon. How was it possible? How did he get up there so quickly that he’d waited for her to arrive?
Her classmates had pounded up the stairs behind her. At the top, the students were breathing heavily as they slipped toward her along the wet roof tiles. One of the boys fell on top of Becky and the others yanked them to their feet. The last two students arrived and tried to huddle with the tight center of the group.
Becky’s right knee throbbed and both palms stung where the skin had been scraped from her fall. The others crowded too close to her, crushing the very breath from her lungs. She couldn’t see over the boys’ heads. She was short of breath and her heart pounded harder than a Japanese drummer.
She couldn’t see Simon, either. Where did he go?
The howling wind drowned most sounds, but above the din she heard an older male voice counting down. “Ten, nine, eight…”
Auster.
Before she could consider her options something hard and heavy for its size landed deep in the pocket of her blazer. It settled against her hip. Her arms were pressed against her sides by the kids surrounding her, so she couldn’t reach in to grab whatever it was.
The howling wind whipped up around them faster and faster and forced the circled group into a tighter and tighter knot, practically compressing Becky to a mere sliver. She could barely breathe and brought some bazaar trivia to mind: Some snakes killed by squeezing their prey to death, just like this.
Over the noise of screaming kids, violent wind, and the blood pounding in her ears, Becky heard weird chanting coming from Auster and Lalane.
Circling them, the furious wind screeched like a monstrous wounded animal.
The students were more agitated with every whirling moment.
Whatever had fallen into Becky’s pocket began to glow and warm. Strangely, it calmed her like a welcoming fire on a winter’s night.
She focused on the warm glow, and her heart slowed. Her hearing cleared. Her knee stopped throbbing. Miraculously, even her stinging palms were soothed.
Auster and Lalane continued the counting and chanting that seemed like some kind of foreign language Becky’d never heard before. And the counting seemed to drag itself out, take forever and no time at all.
But that’s crazy. Isn’t it?
“Five, four, three…”
A slender gap manifested in the circle of kids, and Becky peeked through.
Annalise was reaching out, waving her arm wildly. Miss Hettie, a grotesquely horrified expression on her face, tried to grab Annalise’s hand...and missed.
Auster chanted his final words. “One...now!”
At that exact moment, lightening spat from the center of the menacing cloud and knocked both Auster and Lalane twelve feet backward through the air.
Thunder, louder than any Becky had ever heard, reverberated through the huddled kids.
The huddle of students was blasted apart.
Becky gasped and her hand flew to her mouth, leaving the taste of blood on her scraped palm.
The next massive lightening bolt charged the air and electrified each one of them.
Becky felt the charge as if she’d been zapped by a powerful Taser. Her teeth chattered and her limbs twitched.
While her body was electrified, the mighty wind shoved her hard and fast and she slid across the slick, wet tiles.
Becky dug in her heels and reached for anything she could hold on to, but she couldn’t get a firm grasp on anything or stop her momentum.
At the edge of the roof, the wind gave her a final mighty shove.
Her body hung there in the air, hovering briefly, and then she dropped like an anvil.
She looked down into the black abyss below her tumbling body and screamed.
Her eyes squeezed shut, and she stuck both fists into her blazer pockets as she hurtled down, down, down. Faster than any roller coaster she’d ever had the nerve to ride.
Any second, she expected to join the remains of that poor goat.
Terrified, she screamed again then noticed the object she clutched in her pocket.
Oddly, with the thought of it she was no longer frightened. She simply wondered what the goat’s hard landing had felt like.
Will I pass out first, and never even experience my final moments on earth?
Which might be okay. Maybe if she died she’d be with Paul and Brent once again. The possibility of dying might be okay if she’d see them again in heaven.
Another crazy thought popped into her head: What was her mom making for dinner? Mom might have made meat loaf. Becky’s favorite.
With her eyes still closed, and the object still warming her hand, Becky said, “I’d really love to be home for dinner.”
She imagined how great sitting down to a meal like that would be.
Chapter 5
Russell didn’t have a chance to evaluate Rebecca’s responses to the malevolent wind as she stood in the knot of students on the roof. They were whisked away before he could analyze things closely. His impression was she was resolute; not as terrified of the others. An indication she’d perform better during her test.
Perhaps his was wishful thinking, however.
After the students were blown away, he brought Auster and Lalane to him.
Lalane looked like she’d spent a couple of hours in front of a jet engine though she lay flat on the slippery stones. Her hair was a mess and her clothes askew. From his time at the Academy, he’d learned the students at Gray Cliffs loved her—and he supposed she was fine for the kind of guidance most of them needed. But what Rebecca had needed was more complicated. Hettie Lalane wasn’t up to the task.
Auster wiped his hands on his pant legs before he straightened his robes. “Need help, Hettie?” he asked.
She scrambled around. “No, no. I’m fine. Thanks.”
Auster looked at Russell with one brow raised. “I suppose you’re not satisfied with how we handled things?”
“Why would I be?” Russell replied. “You have a lot to answer for, Auster. We’ve been over this.”
Auster nodded. “There’s nothing I can do about Olivia and Julia. That’s water over the dam, Russell. Happened a long time ago.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Russell replied coldly, shaking off the dampness. “I have a very long memory. And a great deal of patience. My power has grown exponentially in the past two decades since you failed Olivia and Julia. You’d be wise to hope things work out the way I plan.”
Auster’s Adam’s apple bounced up and down in his throat, the only outward indication that he understood the gravity of his situation. “Well, at least Becky is on her way. How she manages now is up to her.”
Russell glared. “We’ll know the answers tomorrow. Until then, Auster, both of you would be well served to pray.”
Lalane began to sputter and Auster, indignant, stood tall and he said, “Understood.” He didn’t look like he truly understood and his righteous indignation infuriated Russell.
He glanced around the rooftop to ensure no sniveling students remained nearby.
His head barely moved yet his piercing blue eyes swept a wide swath of blue light over Lalane and Auster.
The two disappeared with barely a squeak of complaint. Their light images faded gradually, sank into the structure of the roof, leaving only a few crackles of energy that dissipated with the blink of Russell’s blue eyes.
Both were banished from his presence—instantly and for now they were still needed at Gray Cliffs. This was the best he could do until he could replace them.
