Wayward Children 07 - Where the Drowned Girls Go, page 9
“I feel well today, thank you, matron,” said Cora, and even her voice was level and calm. It was the voice of someone who had considered all their options, and come to the conclusion that an early bedtime, a balanced diet, and flossing were the true keys to happiness. “I appreciate your consideration.”
The matron nodded, surprise and pleasure still written plainly on her face. “It’s always wonderful to witness someone successfully breaking through their troubles. I think you deserve a little reward, to acknowledge such a lovely morning. You may have a spoonful of brown sugar, if you’d like.”
Her expression remained pleasant, even mild. The same couldn’t be said of the other matrons in the room, whose eyes hardened as they watched Cora to see what her response was going to be.
Cora shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, I really do, but my stomach is still queasy from my past few days of being unwell; it’s best if I stick with bland food for the moment.” She ladled a healthy portion of oatmeal into a bowl and placed it on her tray, offering the matron a polite smile. “Perhaps tomorrow.”
She walked to the table she shared with her dormmates, back straight and shoulders squared, and pretended not to notice the approving glances being sent in her direction, or the way some of the students were starting to whisper behind their hands.
The other girls joined her at the table, each with their bland, approved breakfast. Sumi ate her turkey bacon and eggs with small, precise bites, not looking at the plates of waffles in front of the Logic girls, or at the strawberries on Emily’s plate. Cora ate as if she thought oatmeal was the most desirable thing in the entire world, worthy of being slowly savored. When she was done, she bused her own dishes, placing them in the appropriate basins, before moving to wait by the door for the rest of the girls in her dorm to finish.
Regan watched all this out of the corner of her eye, a look of profound regret on her face. She’d known Sumi would go to solitary for the crime of hitting her, and she’d understood Sumi was taking the blame on her own shoulders to spare Regan; of the two of them, it had seemed obvious that Regan was the more fragile. She hadn’t expected them to punish Cora as well, or as harshly.
Just before the group walked out of the room, in a moment when the matrons were focused on the students who seemed more in need of their guidance and attention, Cora met Regan’s eye and winked. It was a small gesture. By the time Regan processed what it might actually mean, the girls were gone, heading for their first class.
Regan sat alone, surrounded by the girls who should have been her friends, who still had nothing to say to her after the debacle of her near-graduation, and wondered what the hell was going on.
When Cora’s group reached their assigned classroom, the matron waiting for them was one of the ones who had been responsible for Cora during her recent stay in solitary. Cora offered her the politest, blandest of smiles and sat at the front of the room, folding her hands atop the desk and looking attentively to the chalkboard, where a series of equations had been written for them to study.
“Are you well, Miss Miller?” asked the matron.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Cora. “May I answer problem two?”
The matron allowed that she could.
The class progressed according to the structure of such things, with questions being asked and answers being offered. None of the girls acted up, not even Sumi, who kept her head down and participated without causing a disruption, treating the math with the seriousness it deserved. History progressed in much the same way, as did biology.
Midway through the group’s grammar lesson, the door opened and the headmaster stepped inside. All conversation immediately stopped. Even the matron looked startled by his presence, lowering the pointer she’d been using to indicate verb conjugations on the chalkboard.
“Pardon the intrusion,” he said, a smile on his pleasant, forgettable face. “I’m here to borrow Miss Miller, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not, Headmaster,” said the matron. “Miss Miller?”
But Cora was already standing, crisp and quiet and mannerly, looking at the headmaster with the vague air of someone who was sure something interesting was about to happen, and was prepared to pay proper attention to it. She walked to his side without a word, and didn’t flinch or pull away when he settled his hand on her shoulder.
Only Emily, whose seat was at a slight angle compared to the rest of the room, noticed the way Cora’s fingers twitched, like they wanted to form fists, like they wanted to be ready to swing. She continued looking blandly forward, not betraying what she knew. This plan, haphazard and dangerous as it was, depended on every one of them playing their part. Even Rowena, who put her hand up as soon as Cora stood, waiting to be acknowledged.
“Yes, Miss Crest?” said the matron, after a moment had passed without Rowena rethinking her actions.
Rowena lowered her hand. “Will we be giving Cora time to return before we finish today’s lesson? She’s been absent from class for the better part of the week, and I’d prefer not to spend more of my leisure time than necessary helping her catch up. I have essays to write for my other classes.”
“A reasonable question,” said the headmaster, hand still resting on Cora’s shoulder. “Miss Lennox, you have permission to take your class on a nature walk. Something brisk and educational. I’ll have Miss Miller back by the time you return.”
It took most of the class a moment to realize that “Miss Lennox” was the matron. She had been teaching them periodically for months, slipping in and out of the classroom according to whatever private schedule controlled the school staff, and none of them had ever heard her name before. The matron herself looked faintly alarmed, glancing at the headmaster. He didn’t appear to notice. His attention was back on the silently, patiently waiting Cora.
“Shall we go, Miss Miller?” he asked.
Cora tilted her head, offering him a pleasant, perfectly bland smile that was rendered somehow complicated by the way her rainbow-painted hair framed her face. She looked like she was becoming someone else.
“Of course, Headmaster,” she said, and her voice was hers and wasn’t hers at the same time, steady and calm and serene.
The headmaster nodded one more time to the matron—to Miss Lennox, and knowing her name was a kind of heady, breathtaking power that most of the students hadn’t tasted in so, so long—before he turned, pulling Cora along with him, and stepped out of the room.
The hall was empty, as it always was when classes were in session, and their footsteps echoed ahead of them, like tiny sonic bursts mapping their environment. Cora kept her eyes forward, not looking at anything in particular, allowing herself to be led. The headmaster was less sanguine. He kept stealing glances at her, like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing, like he wanted to somehow change it. Like he thought he knew how.
When they reached his office, he led her inside, gestured her toward a seat, and moved to settle in his own chair, behind his sturdy oak desk. It was an imposing thing, that chair, all black leather and polished metal. It was a chair for a powerful person, for someone who made important decisions for everyone around them. It was a chair for a headmaster.
Cora was unable to fully control the small curl of her lip when she looked at it. It was a chair that would have looked lovely at the center of a bonfire. It would probably smell like bacon when it burned, and the castors in the wheels would pop and shimmer in the firelight. Cora’s expression smoothed back into pleasant neutrality at the thought. Everything could burn, if she was willing to put the effort in.
“It’s good to see you doing so well,” said the headmaster, studying Cora as he sat. If he’d seen the brief wrinkle in her serenity, he didn’t say anything. “I admit, I was concerned about you after your most recent readjustment. There was some question of whether we’d been moving too quickly with you.”
“I’ve realized that you can only help me so far before I have to help myself,” said Cora. She held up one hand, showing its complete lack of rainbows. “I’ve faced down some of my demons at last, and I’ll be ready to rejoin the world outside very soon.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not as eager to believe that as some of the matrons.”
“You’ve seen many students come and go,” said Cora. “You have reason to be suspicious when a problem child turns themselves around too quickly. I understand why you’re not going to be immediately convinced of my motivations.”
“You say all the right things,” said the headmaster. “It’s odd, for a traveler to give up on their door so quickly. Many of our students stay here until they age out of the program, and return home unsuited for normal society. Their parents are very disappointed in them.”
“My parents have always supported me,” said Cora neutrally.
“Your admission papers say that they thought you had committed suicide when you first disappeared. Do you have much experience with death, Miss Miller?”
Cora looked at him levelly. “More than I would like.” Sailors whose ships had sailed into the wrong waters, gasping out their last breath in her arms. The deep cold waters of the Moors, where the Drowned Gods had seized her fast and pulled her down, down into the depths, the unforgiving depths, where nothing was forgotten or forgiven.
The sailors had been heroes in their own stories, and the mermaids had been the monsters. But it didn’t matter who wore which label. When monsters met heroes, there were always casualties.
The headmaster might have been a hero, once. He was a monster now. There was going to be a casualty, even if he didn’t kill bodies. The only question left was which one of them was walking away.
“I’ll be frank, Miss Miller: I think you’re trying to trick me. I think your little friend from Miss West’s school came on some sort of ill-conceived rescue mission, and you think you’re going to walk away. I would like to state, in so many words, that it’s not going to happen. You will remain here until you turn eighteen, and at that point, you can choose to drop out, or you can choose to do the sensible thing for your own future, or you can choose to leave. I think you’ll find that it won’t matter if this was a trick: the door you so eagerly seek will be closed to you.”
“I understand,” said Cora. “I assure you, this isn’t a trick. I was right to come here. The rainbows are gone from my skin. My hair will change next, I’m sure, and I’ll be saved. It’s nice to play sometimes. But you can’t live your whole life running toward rainbows. Rainbows won’t feed you or clothe you or put a roof over your head. All they’ll do is shine. Lots of things can shine. I think I’d like to shine. I’ll just do it quietly.”
There was a pause as the headmaster looked at her and Cora did her best to keep breathing, to keep looking at him with calm, untroubled eyes. This was another kind of war. This was a battle, and she knew how to win battles. All too often, the trick was in refusing to be the first one to move.
Finally, the headmaster nodded. “I don’t entirely believe you yet,” he said.
“I can’t blame you for that.”
“But if, as you say, you’re willing to change your behavior, I would be delighted to welcome you back to the fellowship of humanity.” The headmaster smiled. It wasn’t the terrible smile he’d shown her during her intake, all teeth and ill intent, but it wasn’t a kind smile, either, and it only made the slightest of impression on his general air of forgettable blandness.
Cora took a careful breath. This was a gamble, and one that might have been better left for another time … but gambles were risky by nature, and if this one paid off, it might make her position substantially better. That made it worth trying.
“Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Yes, Miss Miller?”
“I can’t … I know you when I see you, but I can’t remember your face when I’m not looking directly at it. Why is that?”
And the headmaster’s smile widened.
12 THE HEADMASTER’S TALE
“THE DOORS HAVE ALWAYS been more inclined to prey on little girls,” said the headmaster, and Cora said nothing. He was a man who enjoyed being listened to: anyone with eyes could see that. He liked it when people made him feel important, and attention had always been a quick route to importance. Attention said “you exist.” Attention said “I see you.”
She supposed that for a man who disappeared from the mind’s eye as soon as he was out of sight, being seen might be even more important than it was for most people.
“That doesn’t mean boy children are safe, only that they’re less likely to see the lures, or to recognize them as the signs they are. Their parents prepare them for other dangers, other risks. They keep them safe from strangers and from busy highways. They don’t keep them safe from impossible doors.”
Cora found her silence was too heavy to hold. She had to put it down. “My parents never warned me about the doors, sir.”
“They told you to be quiet and constrained and obedient, didn’t they? That’s virtually the same thing. The doors want wild things. They want feral beasts in the skin of dutiful daughters—and you can’t sit here, with your neatly brushed hair and your tidy uniform and tell me you don’t know what it is to be feral. I know you too well for that.”
Cora said nothing.
“I was a good boy. I listened to my elders, I did my lessons, I tried to behave. And one day, there was a door where no door belonged, and I opened it, and found myself in a world where color was a fairy tale. It was a cut-paper reality, black and white and malleable, and I was a god there, because I understood how to move in three dimensions. I taught the people so many things they thought were impossible because the rules of possibility were different for them. I made their world infinitely better, and when I was done, they asked if I would stay. They offered me the paper moon and the cardboard stars if I would be their new leader. I could have ushered them into a golden age. But I missed my family. I missed food with shape and texture, that didn’t feel like sawdust in my mouth, no matter how glorious it tasted. I was born for this world, Miss Miller, even as you were, and I wanted—I needed—to return to it. The doors tell their children to be sure. Well, I was sure I needed to go. I told them so. I told them I had done all that I could. And do you know how they replied?”
Cora shook her head, still silent. This time, her silence was not by choice. It was the swallowed horror of someone who could see the shape of the story coming together in front of them, and wished, very much, that they had the power to look away.
“They said I couldn’t go without allowing them to give me a gift, because I had been so very good to them, and so kind, and they couldn’t stand the thought of me leaving empty-handed. And then they held me down, all my smiling, friendly companions, the people who I’d come to care for almost as family, and they stripped the individuality from my bones, so no one in this world would be able to remember me between one moment and the next. My parents, when I came staggering into the backyard, had almost forgotten they had ever had a son. My sister had moved into my bedroom. I could remind them I was real, when I made an effort, but I would simply … slip out of their minds every time I turned my back.
“It got better as I grew older, as the magic faded. Not enough—never enough—but people started to remember my name. The internet was a blessing. No one needed to know what my face looked like if they only spoke to me in text. I focused on my studies, got good grades, and decided to do everything in my power to help other children who found themselves in the position I had been in. I had to save them, you see, as no one had come to save me. I had to save you, Miss Miller. It’s not too late for you to be saved.”
Solemnly, Cora nodded. “I appreciate your efforts.”
The headmaster blinked, looking somewhat taken aback. It was clear he had expected her to argue with him, or at least to put up more of a resistance. “Good,” he said. “Now it’s time for us to test your new resolve.”
“Sir?”
“Your class will be on the grounds, enjoying their nature walk. I want you to go find them.” The headmaster smiled his terrible smile again, seeming to have his equilibrium back. “There are trees outside. There’s a lake elsewhere on the grounds, gloriously deep and inviting. I want to see if you can ignore those things to make the responsible choice. I want to see if you’re serious.”
“Thank you, sir.” Cora stood. “I won’t let you down.”
“Then you will be very surprising indeed,” said the headmaster.
Cora left the room as fast as she dared. Rushing might send the wrong impression, might make him think she was in a hurry to be away from him—which she was, of course she was, but she didn’t want him to think that. She wanted him to think they were the very best of friends now, or at least that she understood and respected his position.
It was good to know that he’d been through a door himself, and better to know what kind of world he’d gone to visit. There was no way he could hear how fast her heart was beating, or smell the mixture of terror and elation rising off her skin. His world had been organized and fixated on rules and rewards, and that explained a few things, too, because Virtuous travelers could never understand that Wicked children weren’t entirely built of spite and breaking the rules, that they could be obedient, or wild, or anything else a Virtuous child could be. As long as she seemed to be following the rules without complaint, he wouldn’t see the Wickedness in her. And as long as she remembered why she was doing this, she wouldn’t lose track of it herself.
The hall was still empty. Cora walked with quick, efficient steps to the nearest approved exit, nodding politely to the matron there, who made no move to stop her. That was another advantage of this school’s narrow way of looking at its students. Everyone knew she was Wicked-forged. While she was behaving like she wasn’t herself anymore, she was doing what they wanted. She could be forgiven.
The air outside was like a slap to the back of her throat, so sweet it hurt. Cora sucked in a greedy breath, holding it as she walked, so that it became a pleasant burn when she finally breathed out again. Walk, inhale, walk, exhale. The sky was gray, studded with clouds, beautiful in its own way. She kept walking, heading for the line of the trees, where the nature appreciation trails would unspool themselves.
