Fairies and Felicitations (Scholars and Sorcery) (5 page)

She turns, before I can jam the door shut. It’s only open a crack, though. If I mentally reinforce in her not to look…

“Please stop that nonsense and come talk to me like a civilised human being. It will simply embarrass us both to death if I have to come in and drag you out by the scruff of your neck. Besides, I detest making any kind of unnecessary physical effort outside of games, don’t you, Anne?”

Now my heart truly is in my throat. Conceding defeat, I open the door wider. Esther is lounging against the table on the platform, hands shoved in her pockets, lips pursed as if to whistle, the picture of insouciance. She grins as she hears the creak of the door.

“That’s a good girl. Come on out, now.”

If I was a puppy, I would be slinking out with my tail between my legs. Instead, I try my best to look unconcerned and with at least a tiny bit of dignity. It’s useless. I can feel my face burning like I’ve spent a week at the beach in high summer, and I can’t seem to look anywhere except at my shoes.

“How did you know?” My voice is small in my own ears.

“It’s a mistake to try to secretly use magic around someone with the Gift of detecting it, you little goose. That’s something you might well let your demon of a friend Kitty know next time she gets icy fingers around my friends.”

“Oh.” I feel stupid.

“Cheer up, old girl,” she says, with a certain amount of kindness. “I would have known something was up anyway. You need to use a more delicate touch. My mind suddenly screaming at me not to look at a cupboard was enough to raise anyone’s suspicions. Subtlety is not, it seems, your strong point.”

I feel even stupider. “How did you know it was me? I just—Cecily asked me to—“

“Cecily?” Esther raises an elegant eyebrow. “What has she to do with it?”

“N-nothing.” I should have known that child would mix up the message. Ridiculous Kitty and her insistence on anonymous Valentines; although, to be fair, she wouldn’t know I wouldn’t dare to use magic to attract Esther. “How did you know it was me?” I ask again. “I didn’t think you even knew my name.”

Esther creases her brow. “Your name
is
Anne, right?”

“Yes.”

She shakes her head, smiling bemusedly. “If you didn’t want me to know it, why did you sign your name, idiot? You really aren’t one for the Brains Trust.”

I can feel the blood drain from my face as the enormity of Kitty’s wickedness dawns on me. I hadn’t even thought to check that Kitty had indeed copied the poem out on a fresh sheet of paper. And she knows my signature as well as her own; she’s used it often enough.

I take a shaking step backwards towards the door, wanting to run for my life. Esther, of all girls. Beautiful, self-possessed, clever Esther, with her cruel tongue. She is going to utterly destroy me.

“Wait!” There is barely restrained laughter in Esther’s voice, and the amusement cuts me like a knife. “Don’t run away, poor kid. I won’t eat you.”

She steps towards me, and my hands are in hers before I realise it. “I truly am flattered. You have quite a way with words, young lady, even if you do verge a little on the poetic side. Who am I to complain, in any case? I always had a flair for the dramatic myself.”

Her hands are cool in mine, or perhaps it is my hands that are burning hot. Her lips are still quirked slightly in amusement, but I had never quite realise that her those almond eyes, that I had always thought of as hard and sparkling, were capable of looking so gentle.

“Flattered or not, though, my affections are unfortunately engaged elsewhere,” she says, her tone light. I have no idea if she is serious or not. “Thank you for the poem and your courage in leaving it, in any case.”

She leans forward and brushes my lips, very softly, with her own. I really am going to burn up. I close my eyes, too overwhelmed to look straight into her face, the touch of the kiss lingering long after it has been withdrawn.

“Next time, however, leave the fairies alone, you donkey,” Esther says, her voice as casual as if she hasn’t just kissed me right there in the chapel. “If Charley had been with me, as well she might, and seen fabled beasts abused like that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because I would not have dared risking giving you away for fear of injury to your life and limbs. Charley is quite unreasonably stern about things like that.”

“Unreasonably stern? When am I unreasonably stern?” a cheery voice asks. I hadn’t even noticed the door opening. A tall, boyish figure is at the door, running her hand through her cropped curls. “I’ll have you know I am never stern about anything. I have a reputation as a slacker to keep up.”

Esther drops my hands so carelessly and naturally that there does not seem anything unusual about the scene at all.

“Slacker or not, Charles, you
are
a prefect, and it would be bad for my own reputation to sneak to you. Why aren’t you at the meeting with the other lights of goodness and hope?”

Charley laughs, unconcerned. “Whatever are you two doing here? I played truant from the meeting in search of someone with enough brains to help me with this beastly History composition, and Frances said you’d headed off for the chapel. It seemed perfectly in the way to her, but I thought she must have been mistaken about you. Have you been struck with religion in your dotage, old girl?”

“I don’t see why not. I’d make a perfectly lovely nun. But this child is yet to dedicate herself to her faith, I own. Come, Charley my love, and let me help you blow the dust off the tome of time. Anne, thank you for this enlightening little talk, and remember my advice. And next time, try not being such an unmitigated little fool.”

Charley waves vaguely at me as Esther takes her arm, and I can hear her as they leave the chapel: “She went to
you
for advice? Is she desperate, or merely sadly misled?”

“Such lack of respect for my wisdom and goodness does not become you, Charles. I flatter myself I did her errant soul some good,” Esther says, and the door shuts behind them.

I bury my head in my hands, counting slowly to fifty, then go in search of my friend. If that is the correct term for that little devil.

“Go away, Anne, Emily and I are busy,” the red-headed creature has the unmitigated cheek to say when I track her down in the common room. “Unless you want to learn something yourself, of course. Your mathematics are hardly as good as your poetry.”

For a moment I consider grabbing her by one of her pointy ears and hauling her off squalling. Caution prevails over righteous vengeance. The dimples in her chin are enough to warn me that Kitty knows precisely why I’m in such a temper, and if I cause a scene, she is just as likely to share the joke with the rest of the form.

I turn my back on her without a word and stomp off to a corner, grabbing a book as I go. Kitty can wait. If she’s hoping I go off the boil, she has not yet learned how long I can simmer.

“Why is Anne in a snit?” Emily asks in a voice not quite low enough to escape my hearing.

“Saint Valentine’s Day.” Kitty giggles.

Emily sighs. “I know you’re dying for me to ask for details, so I won’t give you the satisfaction. Right, you give this problem a go for me.”

My only consolation is that Kitty has doomed herself—or, I suppose, to be strictly honest, I have doomed her—to an evening being coached in maths. She detests maths. Too much like hard work.

Kitty manages to evade being alone with me for the rest of the afternoon and evening, even going so far as to sit with a rather bemused and annoyed Emily, who would clearly prefer to be with her own friends, at supper. When I make the mistake of looking directly at Kitty, she opens up her big, lovely eyes at me and looks sad and lost and innocent, but I am wary of her Charming Gift and turn away. I can bide my time.

That night, when I judge the other girls are asleep and there are as yet no snores coming from the next bed, I slip through the curtains and pull off Kitty’s bedclothes. She squeaks.

“Shut up, you’ll wake the others,” I whisper.

“It’s freezing! Anne, you beast!”

“Put your dressing gown on, then, and come into the hallway.”

She opens her mouth to protest. She must see at least some of my expression despite the darkness, because she clamps it shut, and follows me without further demurral.

Once in the hallway, however, she has the gall to break into giggles. “She read it, then? Oh, Anne, I wish I could have seen her face! And yours!”

“Kitty, really, how can you laugh? After you betrayed me like that?”

“Betrayed you? Oh, angel, no. It was only a harmless Saint Valentine’s Day prank. And I did you a favour, really. You’ve been cracked on Esther for simply ages, and you never would have had the courage to confess your feelings without me.”

“You—I—I have not!”

“Nonsense.” Kitty winks up at me. “You meant every word of that beautiful poem, you know it. As if a Colonial clod like Cecily could have risen to such heights of expression! Esther wouldn’t have believed it was her for a moment.”

“But you said…”

“You deserve it, anyway, for thinking I would have been so obsessed with revenge. What kind of friend are you? For all my faults, and I will admit they are many, Anne, I never have been known to hold a grudge.” She clasps her hands appealingly.

She’s right. Kitty is, in her own way, rather sweet natured. Her malice has no real edge.
 

A slim wedge of defiance reminds me that Kitty, of all people, has no right to accuse me of being a bad friend, but it is lost in a sudden rush of warmth for her. She is so pretty, and fluffy and endearing, really just like the kitten of her nickname, and only a complete monster could stay mad at her for some innocent mischief. Even though I know exactly what is happening to me and why, I can’t stop melting.

I really don’t know why I deserve a friend who has the power to manipulate me through magic like that. Or rather, I suppose I do. Paying for the sins of long ago.

“Let’s go back to bed, Kitty-cat,” I mutter. “It’s cold.”

She pounces on the pet name as a sign of forgiveness, and all her cockiness returns. “But you haven’t yet told me what she said, Anne! She must have said something, or you wouldn’t know I signed your name—or did you peek? Anne, you must tell me, did she open it? What did you do?”

I grin. “Back to bed, Kitty-cat,” I repeat.

“Anne!” she wails. “It’s not fair to hold out on me, it was
my
plan!”

Charm or no Charm, there are limits to my tolerance, and somehow I feel better about the whole thing, watching Kitty hop from slippered foot to slippered foot like that.

“Goodnight and sweet dreams, Lady Emmeline.” I am back inside the dormitory before she can pounce on me.

I snuggle up happily under the covers. I will need to be careful the next few days, while Kitty tries to magically wheedle it out of me, but she has the attention span of a kitten as well as the same general appearance, and I will be safe soon enough. Esther, clearly, won’t tell. She’s a sport… an absolute trooper. As well as truly the prettiest girl in the school.

She knows my name, now.

I sigh happily to myself, turn over, and slip into pleasant dreams.

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The characters and the world of Fernleigh Manor continue in
Pegasi and Prefects
, the first novel in the
Scholars and Sorcery
series, in which Charley confronts new responsibilities, a runaway pegasus, a grateful rival… and her growing feelings for another girl.

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http://www.eberesford.com
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Thank you for reading, and read on for the first chapter of Pegasi and Prefects.

XXX
Eleanor

four

P
EGASI
AND
P
REFECTS
: S
AMPLE

PEGASI AND PREFECTS

A
Scholars and Sorcery
Novel

by Eleanor Beresford

www.eberesford.com