The Grim Adventure, page 5
“Maybe,” Rosemary agreed solemnly. She thought of the Grim Reaper. “But there’s a chance the Keeper isn’t alone in wanting to reach the school. And . . . I may have one more trick up my sleeve.”
Rosemary didn’t respect lies and had no interest in fibbing to her friends. That said, she’d spent years learning that some truths were meant to be kept inside one’s own head. Some thoughts only hurt people’s feelings. Some ideas broke people’s hearts. This was a lesson she’d learned in particular when Eleanor Thorpe had grown sadder and more fearful anytime Rosemary told the very honest truth of sharing her visions.
She didn’t lie to her mom. But eventually, she learned to keep some truths to herself.
This was the lesson that prevented her from telling anyone about the black hooded sweatshirt she’d hidden under the floorboards of their bedroom. She’d nearly told Trym about it in the woods, when a vivid memory of a terrifying gremlin filled her mind.
She recalled Henry telling her that gremlins knew everything, and once one knew a secret, it told its gremlin friends.
As much as she wanted to tell her roommate that she possessed a spectacular and powerful treasure, she needed to do it correctly. One wrong move, and Iris would have everything she needed. And if they were right, then once Iris knew, it was only a matter of time before the Keeper knew as well.
Rosemary and Trym made their way from the lawn into the manor, down the hall, and into the common room. It was still perfectly quiet, save for the gentle flutter of luna moth wings. Bright light poured in from the arched windows. She led Trym to the wall of shelves and reached for a leather-bound book as big as her head. Rosemary pulled it down and began to leaf through the alphabetized pages.
Each page had an image in the top left corner, a large, decorative first letter, and paragraphs upon paragraphs of entries. She skimmed through the page on alchemy, with bars of gold and an interesting chemistry set in the corner. She paged past C for cauldron, with a big iron pot in the corner, followed by the many magical uses for the traditional black pot. She skipped over D for dragon, E for enchant, F for fairy, and countless other fascinating, magical entries before she found what she was looking for. She had just reached the letter I when a sound stopped her short.
An angry voice barked from behind them. “You.”
Rosemary quickly set the book on the nearby ledge. She spun to see who was storming toward them, but Trym didn’t look back until Willow was practically on top of them.
Rosemary gave her roommate a gentle squeeze on the arm. “I think she’s talking to you.”
“What?” Trym asked flatly.
Willow’s face reddened. There might as well have been flames behind her eyes as she clenched her hands into fists. “You almost killed every plant in the garden today.”
Trym’s expression changed. Her posture straightened. “What are you talking about?”
Willow jutted a finger into the middle of Trym’s chest. “The kissing kelp was loose, and it brought the water with it. It drowned our entire garden. If Rion hadn’t gotten there—”
Trym looked at the finger still poking the center of her chest. She grabbed it carefully and peeled it off her as if it were a venomous snake. She narrowed her eyes. “Something happens involving an animal and you automatically assume it was me?”
Willow stomped her foot atop the rug. “Because it was you! No one else at Fern’s lets those things out of their cages. You’ve caused more destruction here—”
“Whoa, hold on,” came an older student’s voice from behind them. The part-nymph girl heated to a dark shade of crimson as Owen approached, and Rosemary understood why. The entire school knew he always took Trym’s side. He brushed his black chin-length hair into a bun as he readied himself for the argument.
Rosemary took a few careful sideways steps to block the book she’d grabbed. Anyone who glanced behind her would see a hefty magical dictionary opened to a passage on invisibility.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
Willow tilted her chin up and glared at him. “Why would I tell you? So the Unseelie can gang up on me?”
“We would never do that, Willow,” came Owen’s calm reply.
“Yeah, right. Trym let out the kissing kelp and almost destroyed the entire garden. She keeps doing things like this, and no one stops her. Why do you Unseelies get to run around doing whatever you want like the rules don’t apply to you?”
Owen stood his ground. “That’s not true.”
“Oh, really?” Willow bit back. “Rosemary disappeared and ditched classes for an entire month. Trym lets animals out of their cages constantly. We’re all allowed to wander the house at night as long as we don’t leave the manor, except for you, the vampire. Name one Seelie student who breaks the rules as often as the Unseelies.”
Rosemary watched with held breath as she waited for Owen to get angry at the accusation. Instead, his gray eyes softened. He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I’m really sorry you went through that with your plants, Willow. That had to have been really scary to experience.”
“It . . .” She blinked. Her shoulders slumped. “It was.”
Owen looked directly at Trym. “Is this true? About the kelp?”
“No,” she said. Her lip twitched as she struggled to conceal a sneer. She was furious, and Rosemary could understand why.
Owen said something in sign language that neither Rosemary nor Willow could understand, but from his expression, he appeared quite serious.
Trym responded with equal gravity and an even longer set of signs.
Owen returned his attention to Willow. He gestured for everyone to take a seat on the couches and chairs. He made the first move and sank onto an ottoman, and the girls followed suit, if reluctantly.
Once everyone had taken a seat, he said, “Trym acknowledges that she takes the animals out of their enclosures. She said she took the kissing kelp out a few days ago but put it right back in. Whatever happened today wasn’t her. It’s uncool to lump Unseelie fae as the bad guys, and you know that.”
Willow remained tense. “But—”
“But,” he cautioned, “the kissing kelp either escaped or was released. I’m not your enemy, Willow. But Trym says she didn’t do this, and I believe her.” He blew out a lungful of air. “Doesn’t Rion talk to plants as well? I’m a bit unclear as to what his gifts are.”
Willow slumped. She shook her head, entirely defeated. She looked at her feet and said, “None of them do. Rion and Magnolia could talk to a specific plant if they really tried, but it’s not the same. It’s nothing like what I hear from them.”
It was at this moment that Rosemary began to wonder just how alone Willow felt. Rosemary had spent so much time feeling like an outsider, she hadn’t bothered to consider how many other students felt the same.
“I know the twins’ mother is an elf and Magnolia calls himself a green witch. I just wasn’t sure . . .” Owen folded his hands in front of him. “You know, no one at Fern’s really has anyone else. There are no other vampires here. There are no other banshees besides Trym. I know you feel alone, and things like today probably made that even worse, but—”
“I have two parents,” Willow said, turning her back. “I don’t need you to be another, Owen.”
Owen sighed and held his hands up before walking out of the room. Trym shot Rosemary a look before leaving with him.
Rosemary hesitated. “Willow . . .”
“Go away, Rosemary,” Willow said. “Can’t you tell I want to be alone right now?”
Rosemary backed away, but her heart hurt for Willow. She slipped out of the common room and moved as quickly and quietly as she could until she reached her bedroom and closed the door behind her.
She knelt over the loose floorboard and pulled out the black hooded sweatshirt. She replaced the floorboard as carefully as she could, then ran to the mirror. Rosemary watched as she went from a perfectly visible twelve-year-old girl to slipping the hoodie over her head and vanishing entirely.
A moment later, Rosemary was out the door and choosing her steps so as not to make a single noise. She crept onto the landing, down the hall, then peered around the lip of the fountain to where Willow sat alone.
Rosemary had seen Willow by herself, facing the vine, a million times before. Until today, Rosemary hadn’t known that she came here to speak to the vine.
Tears lined Willow’s eyes. Rosemary instantly felt a pang of guilt for spying on a private moment, but her gut told her this was important. A coin leaped with a gentle splash, then settled to the base of the fountain. The faint smell of chlorine filled the space between them, reminding Rosemary of the horrible swimming pool at the school she’d hated.
Maybe this was why she’d followed Willow. She needed to know if they were truly kindred spirits.
The fresh scent of new, springtime sprouts replaced the nose-wrinkling smell of the fountain as the rustle of green, fresh leaves tilted toward Willow. Rosemary breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the watchful vine couldn’t see Rosemary when she was wearing the sweatshirt, either.
“What do you mean, it’s like I want to be angry?” Willow asked. From the way her face contorted, it was clear she was talking to the vine.
The plant tilted its leaves as if it were a friend cocking its head to the side.
“No one wants to be angry,” Willow replied quietly.
The vine’s leaves quivered. Time stretched while Willow continued sniffling, and Rosemary imagined that while she couldn’t hear it, the vine must be speaking.
Willow wiped her face once more. “I don’t need to deal with anything ‘underneath.’ The only thing underneath is the need to figure out who flooded the garden.”
Rosemary was desperate to know what the vine had said. Underneath what? Underneath her floorboards upstairs? Underneath the soft, wet soil in the garden? Underneath the secrets and lies of the Seelie fae?
After a few more sniffles, Willow straightened her shoulders. She stopped crying altogether. With cold seriousness, she looked at the vine and said, “Even accidents have consequences.”
Rosemary took a step toward Willow and had started to remove the sweatshirt when a sudden flash of white and a twirl of fabric appeared from across the room.
Anger bubbled within Rosemary as she saw who it was. Iris rushed to Willow’s side and perched on the ledge of the fountain.
“I heard what happened,” Iris said.
“It’s not fair,” Willow sniffed. “The Unseelie students do whatever they want and no one stops them.”
“I know,” Iris agreed, a steely edge to her voice. “But it won’t be that way for much longer.”
Rosemary ensured that no one was looking—not even the paintings that lined the hall—before she ducked into a shadowy corner and tugged the sweatshirt over her head. It was draped over her arm like a perfectly normal hoodie when she reentered her bedroom.
“Where were you?” Trym asked. Her roommate was sitting on the bed, picking lint from Ghosty.
Rosemary looked around uncertainly. She set the hoodie on her bed on the far side of the room, then asked Trym if she could borrow her notebook. Trym extended the paper and marker.
Rosemary wrote: I have something to tell you, but no one else can overhear. I don’t know where we can go to be totally alone.
Trym’s lips became a flat line. Unimpressed, she spoke out loud, saying, “This wouldn’t be a problem if you’d hurry up and learn to sign.”
Rosemary winced. Trym was right. So far, Rosemary had only memorized the signs for sorry, thank you, yes, no, and pineapple. Fruit-related signs hadn’t been particularly useful, but it had been a fun one to learn. Still, she’d made a vow to study sign language, and she had not yet made good on that promise.
She said, “You seem annoyed.”
Trym’s jaw dropped. She lifted Ghosty, a cute toy locked in a permanent scream, to show they were making identical expressions. Rosemary chuckled, which seemed to please Trym.
Then Trym said, “Of course I’m annoyed. There’s never salt on the table at dinnertime. I’m annoyed that Dante makes you and me hike to the very top floor every single day even though other students get to play in the garden. And more than anything, I’m annoyed by people who say one thing to my face, and something entirely different behind my back.”
Rosemary wasn’t sure if she had missed something. “Who’s talking behind your back?”
Trym started to speak, then shook her head. Finally, she said, “You know Willow was my roommate before you got here, up until I screamed in the middle of the night, which accidentally killed her. I didn’t mean to do it, and Leo put her spirit back in her body right away. But . . . I thought she was my friend. I get that she was mad over what happened, but it’s not my fault. I didn’t ask to be born this way. I can’t help that I scream sometimes.”
“Isn’t that why Dante wants us to learn—”
Rosemary snapped her mouth shut as Trym glared. Yes, that had been insensitive. Of course everyone at the school needed to learn to control their powers. But Trym could no more change the fact that she was a banshee than Rosemary could change her gift for seeing death.
Trym went on. “Willow slept in the infirmary that night—the night of the accident—with everyone fussing over her. Every teacher stood around her, all the students, everyone was worried about poor, poor Willow. She was fine, Rose. She was completely fine. You know who wasn’t fine? Me. You know who no one checked in on? Me. I lost a friend that night, but I lost more than that, too. And then to have her accuse me of also drowning her plants—”
“I’m so sorry, Trym,” Rosemary said. She crossed the room and sank onto the bed beside her roommate. She gave Trym’s hand a squeeze. “You needed a friend that night as badly as she did. It’s unfair that everyone let you down.”
“Not everyone,” Trym said. She made a clicking sound before the pillows began to move. Then the sheets ruffled as if a shark were swimming beneath the duvet. At long last, a nose, then big, yellow eyes, then pinkish tufts of fur poked up from their hiding place among the pillows.
“Wiggles!” Rosemary grinned.
Trym procured a crunchy green vegetable and the siboo immediately began to nibble on the stalk. Rosemary would have stayed silent and happily listened to Wiggles eat his veggies had something not popped into her head.
Before she could stop herself, Rosemary said, “You’re sad, and you’re angry, and I get that. I think it’s more common around here than I thought. And I guess in that way, even in our loneliness, we’re all bound together. But you’re angry at Willow over everything the two of you went through and . . . well . . . Bitterness is like drinking poison yourself, then somehow expecting the other person to die. And you don’t deserve to drink poison.”
Trym watched Wiggles for several long moments. Then she said, “You’re my friend. And don’t let this go to your head, but . . . you don’t annoy me, Rosemary. And maybe Willow can be on our side again, too, even if she said some pretty uncool things today. We all say things we don’t mean when we’re mad.”
Rosemary grinned, but the warmth she felt didn’t last long. Her smile faltered. “I have bad news.”
Trym tilted her head expectantly.
“We may be in trouble. Iris got to Willow first.”
Rosemary was no stranger to being shaken awake in the middle of the night by a scream, despite her nightly precautions. The golden earplugs she wore had been charmed to stop Trym’s scream from hurting her, but they certainly didn’t cancel out enough noise to allow Rosemary to sleep in peace. For her first several weeks at Fern’s, she’d avoided going to bed before Trym’s 3:33 a.m. night terrors. She flailed around wildly as a loud shriek tore her from her slumber, only to find Trym still soundly sleeping across the room.
Rosemary grabbed the clock on the bedside table and squinted at it in the pale moonlight. It was barely midnight.
She strained her ears and heard another wild shriek, then another. They were screams to be sure, but they didn’t belong to a banshee. Rosemary replaced the clock on the bedside table but was horrified when something cold and wet brushed against her fingers. She yelped as she tore her hand away, only to send the clock flying across the room. She expected it to shatter on the wooden floor, but instead, she heard only an odd, horrible squish.
“Trym,” Rosemary called in the sort of strained nighttime stage whisper that people used when the world was asleep. She heard another cry—a boy, this time—and her sense of panic began to bubble. Were they under attack? Was there a fire?
Fear stuck in her throat as she called for her roommate again. “Trym!”
Rosemary was desperate for a light, but the lamp was on Trym’s side of the room.
She hoped maybe Wiggles would hear her and shake Trym awake, but she didn’t know how long that might take, or how serious the threat to the school was. Rosemary threw off her covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed, intent on running to her roommate. The moment her toes hit the floor, her voice joined the chorus of screams filling the manor. She couldn’t help the horrible, disgusted shriek that ripped from her throat as her bare toes made contact with something cold, wet, and squishy.
“Trym!” It was a full-belly scream this time. She chucked one pillow at her roommate, then another.
The moonlight was just bright enough to show Trym shooting up, sitting bolt straight on her bed. She turned to Rosemary with eyes so wide that they could even be seen in the dark. “What?!” came Trym’s panicked voice.
Trym scrambled for her bedside lamp. The moment it clicked on, both girls released gagging, horrified shrieks.
The floor, the walls, the door, the table, the chair—everything made of wood—was covered in mushrooms.
Tiny yellow ones. Stringy white ones. Pink jellyfish ones. Some seemed to be oozing a gross, wet snot. Ones that looked like little brains. Brown, white, and beige button mushrooms. Slippery, gill-like mushrooms.
They’d been overrun. Millions and millions of horrible pieces of fungus were gobbling the manor whole as far as the eye could see.
