The Curse in the Candlelight

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

IVY

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.

“That’s normal,” Scarlet remarked. We didn’t even need to whisper. Madame Lovelace was rather deaf at the best of times. I didn’t think even a speeding train could wake her up once she’d nodded off.

“So what do we do now, then?” another new girl asked.

“I have an idea.” A voice came from behind me.

I gulped. That Scottish accent was becoming familiar to me now. The way Ebony spoke … it was like she was inviting you into a dream.

Or a nightmare.

“Why don’t I demonstrate something for you?” she said. Before anyone could say a word, she was striding to the front of the class. She turned to face us. There was a strange, far-off look in her stormy eyes.

“Just ignore her,” Scarlet muttered, looking for the page in her textbook. “Then maybe she’ll go away.”

“I’ll need a volunteer,” said Ebony, raising her voice. Madame Lovelace continued to snore in the chair.

Ebony looked around the room slowly, her eyes falling on each of us in turn, holding our gaze for just a little too long.

“You!” she said suddenly, pointing a long, white finger at Muriel Witherspoon.

Muriel pointed at herself. “Me? What do you want with me?”

“I want you to come up to the front,” said Ebony in a singsong voice.

Muriel sat back and folded her arms. “Why should I get involved with this, exactly?”

There was a hush, broken only by Madame Lovelace, who occasionally snorted in her sleep.

Ebony was staring at Muriel, giving nothing away. “We wouldn’t want you to have another accident, now, would we?”

Muriel’s face paled. She seemed to be trying to hide the fact that Ebony scared her, but she was no longer doing a very good job of it. She stood up slowly and then rolled her eyes, bringing down the curtain of false bravado again. “Right,” she said. “If you insist.”

She approached the desk and Ebony waved her hands over it. And then suddenly, as if from nowhere, a deck of cards appeared in her palm.

Muriel blinked down at it. “I … what?”

Ebony held up the deck in her long, thin fingers and displayed it to all of us. The back of each card was black, with an intricate pattern etched into it. Then she flipped it to show us the front, and I saw that each suit was decorated with skulls, and the Kings and Queens and Jacks were all skeletons. How cheerful.

“Pick a card,” Ebony ordered.

Muriel reached down gingerly, as if she thought the cards might singe her fingers. The look on Ebony’s face was expectant, almost hungry.

Muriel’s hand came to rest on one of the cards. She didn’t meet Ebony’s eye.

“Show the class,” said Ebony, with a flicker of her eyelashes.

Muriel slipped the card from the pack and then held it out to all of us, so that only we could see. The three of Hearts. I shared a look with Scarlet. What was this about?

“Now, return the card.” Ebony watched as Muriel turned the card face down and put it back.

In the corner, Madame Lovelace snorted in her sleep and a cloud of chalk dust floated up from her dress.

A slow smile crept across Ebony’s face. She shuffled the cards, her hands moving in a blur. “Open your palms,” she instructed.

“I really don’t see why—” Muriel started, but faltered under Ebony’s gaze. She sighed and did as she was told.

The entire class seemed to be holding their breath. Everyone had leant forward in their seats. I expected Scarlet to tell them to sit down and shut up, but even she appeared to be fascinated.

With a strange grace, Ebony started moving her hands over the deck of cards, her fingers curling. She kept doing it, over and over, in a circular motion.

“Nothing’s happening,” someone whispered, but everyone shushed her. Because just then, the cards began to move – at a snail’s pace, but moving nonetheless. The deck began to slice in two, the two halves shifting apart, leaving a card in the middle.

And then … the card shot out of the deck.

Everyone gasped. I blinked. Had that really just happened?

Muriel was clutching her arm. “Ow!” she said. “You cut me!” She pulled her hand away and there was indeed a small flash of blood on her skin – a paper cut.

Ebony just laughed, and her laugh was like a misty mountain stream. “Never mind that,” she said. “Pick up the card. Show them.”

Scowling, Muriel bent down and picked up the card from the floor. I watched as she cautiously turned it over and then picked it up. She held it out to the class.

The three of Hearts.

There was a hush, followed by a ripple of hesitant applause. But Madame Lovelace chose that moment to wake up, and the spell was broken.

“Hmm?” she said loudly, one rheumy eye shooting open before the other. She looked around and wrenched herself up straight. “You two! What are you up to? Back to your seats, this instant!” She picked a ruler up off her desk and waved it at them threateningly.

Muriel dashed back to her seat, still frowning and clutching her arm. Ebony just swept up her cards and sauntered back, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

Madame Lovelace coughed and then fixed us with a steely gaze. “Have you even got your books out? Anyone would think you didn’t have a teacher! Get on with it!”

It was lunchtime before we finally got a chance to talk about what had happened. I knew, as soon as I stepped into the dining hall, that everyone was talking about it. The new girl did magic in class. She made cards move all by themselves. How did she do it?

The whispers rushed past us like the wind. And the moment Ebony entered the hall, all eyes were on her. She smiled. I knew then that it was exactly what she’d wanted. She was relishing the attention.

“That was quite a trick,” said Ariadne as we sat at the table.

“You think it was a trick?” Scarlet asked. She hadn’t even bothered to touch her food. This was too exciting.

“As opposed to what?” I turned to my twin.

“Real magic,” Scarlet said. “I mean, did you see her touch those cards? I didn’t.”

Ariadne put her thinking face on, the one where you could almost see the cogs turning. “She probably had the cards up her sleeve to start with,” she said.

“But after that?” Scarlet shook her head. I had to admit, I hadn’t seen her touch the cards either, and I’d been concentrating hard. “It was too weird. And did you see the way everyone just stared?”

“It was creepy,” I admitted. It wasn’t the Rookwood I knew, where show-offs were usually quickly dispatched by bullies. People had just sat and watched. Ebony was like a ticking time bomb, it seemed, and you felt like you had to keep an eye on her in case she went off.

And why had she involved Muriel in her prank? She seemed determined to single her out. “Where’s Muriel?” I wondered aloud.

“She ran off.” Someone from further down the table spoke. I looked up to see Penny, who looked distinctly fed up. She was poking her sandwiches – Mrs Knight had altered the menu somewhat, and we had cheese and ham sandwiches instead of the usual stew. “I saw her,” she said in a flat tone. “She got her food, took one look at Miss Mystic over there and headed outside.”

“Is something wrong, Penny?” Scarlet asked, although there was no real concern in her voice. Penny had always been the school’s worst bully. “Are you not getting all the attention for once?”

“Ha!” Penny laughed drily. “That’s rich coming from you.” I could tell her heart wasn’t in the insult, though. “I’m just … tired, that’s all.” She smiled a weak smile. “Tired of all this.”

Although talking to Penny was usually the last thing I wanted to do, I felt a little intrigued – she wasn’t being actively horrible. “What do you mean?” I asked.

Penny hesitated for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure whether to set the words free. She ran a hand through her copper hair and sighed. “Violet’s gone. Josie’s gone. I don’t think Nadia likes me. And my parents, well …”

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I meant it. It must be tough for her, not having her friends around.

Penny just shrugged.

But Scarlet wasn’t going to be as soft on her. “Thinking of giving up the bullying business, then?” she asked.

I expected Penny to get angry at that, but there was no explosion – just a quiet resignation. “Maybe I just can’t count on things being the same any more,” she said as she picked up her sandwich and began to chew thoughtfully.

I hated to admit it, but I thought I knew how she felt. I turned to my twin. “Things are certainly changing around here,” I said.

“But we’ll always have each other.” She grinned.

Ariadne was silent for a moment, her cogs still spinning. Then she stood up. “I … I’m going to see if Muriel is all right,” she said, “… again.” She took her plate and wandered off outside.

I watched her go. “Do you think Ariadne’s starting to forgive Muriel?”

“It’s Rookwood School,” said Scarlet. “Anything could happen.”

Chapter Nine

SCARLET

he rumours about Ebony were flying around the school faster than I could follow them. I heard someone swearing that they’d seen a black cat coming out of her dorm room, followed by someone else insisting they’d seen her turn into a black cat.

It was ridiculous. Her magic had been convincing, and maybe, maybe

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