Pennyroyal Academy (3 page)

Everywhere she looked, the girl was keenly aware she was missing a dozen other things.

“Look at them!” she cried. “They're just like me!”

They came upon a circle of peasants happily clapping along to an elderly fiddler's song. Three small girls danced in the center with carefree smiles and bare feet. Something about the innocent joy in their faces drew her attention more than anything else she had seen thus far. The fiddler kept a bulging eye on the girls as they giggled and spun one another around. Faster and faster he played, luring them into an impossible game, and soon their feet tangled and they ended up in the dirt, tears of laughter in their eyes.

“Wait,” said the girl, twisting to watch as they rode past. “Couldn't we stay? Just for a bit?”

“We're late. Stay if you like, but you'll miss your chance to become a princess.”

She watched the girls as long as she could, until finally they disappeared from view. Their happiness was so pure, it made her wistful, and also a bit melancholy.
I was never that carefree.

Remington reined the horse down an alley past yet another timber-framed cottage, and almost immediately the joyous hustle and bustle of the high street was gone. The sharp pungency of rotting things made her bury her nose in Remington's doublet as the horse clopped through brackish puddles. The farther down the twisting alley they went, the more clearly she could hear something up ahead. An ominous murmuring sound.

“What is that?”

“That, my dear, is about to be the strangest day of your life.” Remington clicked his tongue and the horse cantered up a slight grade in the dirt. Finally, they emerged back into the sunlight.

Across a vast courtyard of cobbled stone there stood an imposing palace of polished black slate and mortar. Castle Marburg. It loomed nobly over a temporary marquee held aloft by three massive timbers. To the side, a line of carriage coaches waited, each hitched to a team of horses. And the sound the girl heard was the combined voice of hundreds of excited girls milling beneath the marquee.

She went numb, unconsciously clutching Remington just a bit more tightly. The girls were all of her same age, each wearing an elegant dress of such a variety of colors the girl had never seen. All different, yet somehow essentially the same.
They're just like me,
she thought.
Only nothing like me at all.

As Remington's horse crossed the courtyard, she began to notice that they had been noticed. Faces turned to them with unusual expressions. Delight upon seeing Remington, then befuddlement when their eyes landed on her. The din of voices softened. She heard whispers of his name—“Remington”—circulating through the crowd.

His mud-spattered boots hit the stone with a soft thud. “Mind your dismount. Fall on your face before these girls and they'll never let you forget it.” Alone on the horse's back, she realized that nearly every eye in the courtyard was focused squarely on her, and she began to go pale. She took his callused hand and slid to the ground. “First test, beautifully passed.”

She tried to hide herself behind him, but after adjusting a strap on his saddle, he swung back atop the horse and left her alone on the cobblestones. Alone in a crowd of hundreds.

“Right. I'm off to knights' enlistment.”

“Wait!” she said. “What do I do?”

He pointed into the shade beneath the marquee, beyond all the colorful dresses, to several long wooden tables. “You march straight over there and enlist. You've as much right to be here as anyone.”

She looked up at him with eyes full of fear.
Take me home! I don't want to be here anymore!
she thought. But no words came.

“‘Bravely ventured is half won,' as my father likes to say. The only way to find the girl on your parchment is through that lot.” He nodded to the crowd, not at all surprised by the attention coming his way. “Off,” he said, rearing the horse onto its hind legs with a dramatic whinny. Then he rode away across the courtyard, leaving a ripple of awed gasps in his wake.

B
RAVELY VENTURED
is half won.

As she stepped forward, her head dizzy and her legs weak and trembling, Remington's words rang hollow. Still, the girl's bare feet moved ahead, one after the other, into the reluctantly parting crowd.

“Is she wearing spiderwebs?”

These girls were draped in linen and lace, silk and tulle. Adorned with straps and belts, crests and symbols of faraway families in faraway lands. Their hair was brushed and plaited and curled, none of it littered with sticks and leaves. They had smooth skin of every shade, clear of the dried mud that covered her body.

“What do you expect when you open enlistment to girls who aren't princesses of the blood?”

As she shuffled through the marquee, the girl realized something else that separated her from the rest. Something much more painful.
They've all got their parents with them.

“How on earth does
she
know Remington?”

She could feel the hot sting of tears forming in her eyes, but refused to let them fall.
Just get to the table . . .

“Hey!
Hey!
Over here!”

A girl with curled hair the color of sunset motioned her to one of the queues leading to the enlistment tables. She wore a dark red riding hood over a black cloak, and the kindness of her smile was the most welcome sight the girl had seen since she'd left home.

“Honestly, you'd think we were witches enlisting instead of lowborn girls,” she said. “You all right?”

The girl nodded. Now that she had an ally, the others seemed to lose interest in her, and the excitement of enlistment day returned. But as she chanced a look around, something else became clear. The girls on this side of the marquee weren't wearing silks and furs like the rest; theirs were handmade clothes, patched and repaired and altogether less lustrous. These were the lowborn girls.

“Next!” shouted a rotund old woman sitting behind a stack of parchments, and the queue inched forward.

“I mean no offense, but how is it that you came to ride with Remington?” said the red-haired girl with thinly disguised excitement. “He's half the reason there are so many girls here, all pining to be his one true love—”

“Leave her be, Magdalena, she's covered in webs, for goodness' sake,” said a scowling bald man picking his nose behind them. His fingernails were black and he seemed in a great hurry to be anywhere else.

“My father doesn't understand why people like to gossip about royal families, but I can't help it. I find them
fascinating.
Go on, then, you were saying how you know Remington?”

The girl was about to answer, until the witch and the cottage and the candy-making machine flashed into her mind. “I don't know, really. I only met him yesterday—”

“Next!”

“All my friends were jealous when they heard I'd be in his year,” said Magdalena. “He comes from one of the most prestigious families in the Western Kingdoms. They say he killed his first dragon before age twelve. You know him better than I do, but it seems he might actually be perfect.”

The girl looked across the courtyard to where she had last seen Remington. He hadn't said a word about killing a dragon, but then, she supposed she had never asked.

Suddenly, Magdalena clutched the girl's arm, her eyes wide. A tall girl with hair like spun silk and soft, beautiful features joined the queue behind them. She wore an immaculate pale blue tunic dress with intricate gold embroidery along the trim.

“Begging your pardon,” said Magdalena, “but princesses of the blood queue up over there, Your Serene and Exalted Highness—”

“Don't call me that!” the blond girl said, cringing. Magdalena blanched, as though she had just made a horrible mistake.

“But . . . but you're a Blackmarsh royal—”

“Aye, and I hate that bloody address.”

“Forgive me, Highness.” Magdalena lowered her head and dipped a knee. Then she elbowed the girl in spiderwebs, who did the same.

“Call me Demetra. Please. And stop doing that.”

“Yes, Highness.” The girls straightened up. “I'm Magdalena, of Sevigny. Maggie.”

“Sevigny?”

“It's in the south. Beyond the Valley of Giants. No one's heard of it.”

“And you?” said Demetra, turning to the girl. “I see I'm not the only one whose parents couldn't be bothered to turn up.”

“My parents don't know I'm here.”

“Don't they?” said Maggie. “How scandalous!”

“Who's next?” said the old woman at the enlistment table. “Step lively, we're running behind.”

“I think that's you,” said Demetra.

The girl turned. Sure enough, they had reached the front of the queue. She stepped forward, then looked back to Demetra and Maggie for guidance. They gave her a smile, but were already busy chatting about something else.

“Name, please,” said the old woman, her quill tip hovering over her parchment. “Go on, child, what's your name?”

“I'm sorry, I . . . I don't have one.”

The old woman removed her eyeglasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Siblings?”

“I have a sister.”

“And I'll wager she hasn't been to the Academy, has she?” The old woman ran her weary eyes over the tangle of webs, strewn with souvenirs of the forest.

“I don't think so.”

“Where are your people from?”

With rising panic, the girl glanced back to Maggie and Demetra, but they were still deep in conversation.

“Headmistress! Over here, please!” sang the old woman, waggling her thick fingers.

Slowly, with captivating elegance, a woman with a jeweled crown and a stern bearing turned to face them. The Headmistress wore a luxuriant golden dress, the graceful arc of her crown resting atop cropped white hair. She excused herself from her conversation and strode the length of the table. The sophistication and grace she exuded from afar melted away as she drew near, replaced by an inscrutable coldness.

Another woman followed the Headmistress, angular and thin and scowling, her face as lumpy as a bag of frogs. “Spiderwebs,” this other woman snarled, scratching a quill across one of the parchments she kept clipped to a piece of snakewood bark.

“Terribly sorry to interrupt, Headmistress,” said the old woman at the table. “It's bloody hard work trying to sort these common girls out.”

“Not at all. How may Corporal Liverwort and I be of assistance?” It was a voice of authority, of lifetimes of experience.

“I reckon it'll be another memory curse, Mum. Doesn't know her name or family.”

“Not royals, you can be sure of that,” said Liverwort.

“That's enough, Corporal,” said the Headmistress. She smiled at the girl, but it was a smile of formality rather than kindness. “My name is Princess Beatrice, and I am Headmistress General at Pennyroyal Academy. I know this must be quite strange for you, but there's nothing you need fear. The reason you're finding it so difficult to remember is that you've been cursed, most probably by a witch. There is no shame in that at all. Curses happen to even the most seasoned of princesses from time to time—”

“But there's nothing wrong with my memory.”

Beatrice stared down at her, expressionless. “Very well, then. Give me your mother's name.”

“Um . . .”

“‘Um,' she says,” said Liverwort. “She don't know what's what.”

“Young lady, quite often a memory curse leaves one completely unaware that she has even been cursed. You must trust our expertise; the Academy has the finest medical staff in all the land.”

The girl stood silently, memories of years past flashing through her mind like fish in a river. She could remember the first tree she had ever climbed, a gnarled old beech that her sister called “the weed.” She could remember the terror in her mother's eyes when she found her standing on the highest branch, and the words she had used to assign punishment.
How could I possibly have a memory curse?
Still, standing beneath the authoritative eyes of Princess Beatrice, she didn't argue.

“Put her on the standard treatment program,” said Beatrice, setting both Liverwort and the old woman to scribbling. “How many is this, Corporal?”

“This one here is . . .” said Liverwort, scrambling back through her notes. “Ten before her, Headmistress.”

“Very well, she shall be known as Cadet Eleven until our medical staff uncovers her given name. Will there be anything else?”

“No, Princess,” said the old woman. Beatrice gave the girl, now called Cadet Eleven, a tight nod, then walked away, Liverwort trailing behind.

“Cadet Eleven,” said the old lady, writing it onto an official parchment. “And you'll be assigned to . . . Ironbone Company. That coach right there.” She pointed to the line of carriage coaches off to the side. Girls were already filing onto each of them.

Cadet Eleven. I'd rather not have a name at all.

She stepped out from the marquee and looked up at the stark, black face of Castle Marburg. She tried to picture the girl on her parchment standing before it, so full of confidence and strength. That was what she had set out to find when she ran away from home. Now, surrounded by people who looked just like the girl on the parchment, she couldn't help feeling somehow disappointed. When she finally did find her, would she gossip and giggle and back away, too? Clearly this parchment held an answer, but she had never really been sure of the question. When first she had set eyes on it, the discovery had caused an unexpected pivot in her life, sending her off in a direction she had never before contemplated. Who was this girl on the parchment? And what role would she play in Eleven's life? Standing in the shadow of Castle Marburg, she was faced with the possibility that the answer might not be as satisfying as she'd wished.

I've come too far to stop now,
she thought.
And besides, where else would I go?

She realized the courtyard had emptied considerably, so she hurried to her assigned coach. With Ironbone Company about eighty girls strong, nearly every seat was already full. The coach was abuzz with enthusiastic chatter now that the enlistees had finally bid farewell to their parents. She looked down the center aisle for a place to sit and spied an opening on a bench about halfway back.

“Pardon me, would it be all right if I . . .”

The girl sitting there glanced up. Her rain-gray eyes stared back with an intensity that cowed Eleven. Her silky black hair was so dark and lustrous it went midnight blue when the sun caught it. She wore a sleek silver gown that trailed off her shoulders like stardust. There was something radiant about her, a concentrated beauty, as though the Fates had awarded her a double measure.

“I'm sure you'll find more options farther back,” she said. Even her voice was controlled, just loud enough to be heard and not a bit more. “I only just got this dress, you see, and I . . . well, you understand.” She flicked her eyes to Eleven's spiderwebs.

One of the girls in the seat behind her snickered. The other just stared with cold eyes.

“Don't be horrid, Kelbra,” said the girl with the black hair. “This is Kelbra—her father's a king. That's Sage—her father's a king as well. And I'm Malora. And my father is also a king.” She stretched her legs across the empty seat. “And you are . . . ?”

Kelbra giggled again. Eleven's stomach began to simmer.

“Over here!” called a familiar voice from the back of the coach. It was Maggie, waving enthusiastically. Eleven glowered at Malora, who stared back with eyes like dirty ice, then went up the aisle and joined Maggie.

Demetra turned back from the bench in front of them. “Sorry about her. Some girls think being born in a tower means they're supposed to look down on people. We're not all like that.”

Eleven studied Malora, laughing at a joke she had just told her friends. She was so at ease amidst all this chaos. So at ease in her own skin.

“I never got your name back there,” said Demetra.

“They told me I'm called Eleven.”

“
Eleven?
” said Maggie, grimacing like she'd just eaten something rotten. The coach lurched forward, causing a ripple of screams followed by laughter.

“RIGHT, ALL OF YOU, EYES FORWARD!”

The laughter faded to confused silence. The moment hung there as the horses pulled the coach across rutted ground, no one yet sure who had spoken. It was the voice of a woman, silvery and sweet and feminine. Yet it also contained hard authority, unwilling to be ignored.

“So this is what they've trotted out as Ironbone Company. My word. That should make my job easier. Most of you lot will be gone by half term and I can catch up on my reading.”

And that was when Eleven saw her: a fairy, no bigger than a hummingbird, floating up the center aisle, a mist of shimmering dust falling from her wings. Maggie nudged Eleven and gave her an excited smile.