Spiral Path (Night Calls Series Book 3) (17 page)

“
We
do need to deal with the situation as it exists, Mrs. Livingston,” the doctor said
to his wife.

“
Indeed.”
My cousin looked back at me. “And this concerns not only you, my dear, but also
your mentor here at the school, Miss Rutledge. I do not want any of the mentors
to think their task is a light one. They are responsible for the new student
under their care, until that student is familiar with the school and its rules.
So it is necessary, for appearances, to punish you both for this misadventure.
It was impossible to keep secret your return from town.”

“
You’ll
need to learn how to slip back onto the property,” Dr. Livingston tossed in,
dropping his eyeglass and reaching for a cookie.

“
Dr.
Livingston! I would like her to be more familiar with our school before she
starts tramping off on errands for you!”

The doctor lifted his eyebrows in response to Cousin Esme’s
sharp comment but nodded agreement. Li Sung remained still.

“
Thinking
it over, I believe the best balance for a punishment is to place you both on
kitchen duty for this coming Saturday. In fact, Miss Rutledge will be in charge
of planning the meals, and you will assist her. I do not know if she has any
experience in planning for a large group, but she should. That will be
punishment enough. Am I correct that the kitchen holds no terrors for you?”

“
Ma’am?”

“
You
do know something about cooking, do you not?”

“
Yes,
ma’am.”

“
Good.
You will assist with the three meals served this coming Saturday. For now, we
will have my husband inoculate you—“ She turned to Dr. Livingston and added: “The
usual place for young women.” Twisting back to me, she said: “in the back fold
of the arm. It is annoying as it heals, but will not be obvious when you wear a
sleeveless gown.”

As if my mother would allow me to appear, living or dead, in
a sleeveless gown!

“
If
you have no problems with the vaccination, you will report to me tomorrow after
breakfast. I will test you further for class placement, and then take you to
the advanced teachers for whatever private lessons you may need before learning
basic ritual. Your presence here will be less secretive, and attract less
attention, if we slide you into the regular classrooms.” Cousin Esme smiled at
me.

She did not seem angry.

And that, as it is said, was that.

The vaccination turned out to be simple, but I did not get
to really see what was done. Cousin Esme took me back to my room to exchange my
dress for my robe, although I left on my long chemise. Then she took me down to
what I guessed was some kind of private sitting room close to her bedroom.

Dr. Livingston appeared carrying a large black leather
satchel that was long and flat at the bottom. I could see that this inoculating
business involved a long swab, a needle and a small jar with something
moldy-looking in it, but everything was going on behind my back, so that’s all
I learned right then. The actual vaccinating hurt no more than a cat scratch.

“
Thank
you,” I told Dr. Livingston. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t grateful.

“
You
are welcome, my dear. Good night to you, now. I have a few more things to
attend to before bed.” That said, he closed up his jars and black medical bag,
and left us.

“
Let
us return to your room,” Cousin Esme said, gesturing for me to follow her.

“
I
can find my way back, Professor Livingston,” I said, making sure my robe was
securely tied. I waited to see if she would correct me. It felt like “Mrs.
Livingston” was her title socially, and “Professor Livingston” was for other
times. That was my guess.

Cousin Esme did not correct me.

“
The
ability to retrace your steps would not surprise me,” she replied, opening the
door. “But I will be more comfortable once you are back in the female side of
the dormitory. Come along!”

o0o

Cousin Esme took me to the huge oak door leading into the
older women’s wing. She wasn’t taking any chance with me wandering off into
some portal in only my robe and slippers. We said good night, and then I went
through the doorway and into the wide hall of the girl’s dormitory.

Once the great door closed behind me, I stood, aware that
the hall was cool but not cold, conscious of something wrong. I could hear
someone weeping.

Was the sound real or a ghost?

I know.

I just don’t look at the world the way most people do.

Moving slowly down the hall, I realized it was coming from
one of the rooms. Sometimes it helps to have someone to share troubles with. So
I knocked.

The door was open. Only a crack, but I could see firelight
and candlelight within, so I knocked again, so quietly that the door did not
even sway.

The gasping sobs grew quieter. “Yes? Who is it?”

It sounded like Miss Rutledge. “Alfreda Sorensson,” I said. “Miss
Rutledge? May I come in?”

A long pause . . . and then she said: “Yes.”

I pushed open the door, and found her sitting in a rocking
chair next to a small fireplace.

She wasn’t alone.

There were at least three ghosts standing around her, and I
thought I saw a wisp of something ghostly peeping out from the end of her bed
curtains.

Of course good manners said I should concentrate on Miss
Rutledge, so after noting the ghosts standing around, I looked back at her.
Miss Rutledge had grown noticeably paler.

Pushing the door shut behind me, I started toward her. “Are
you all right?”

“
I . . .
I am fine,” she got out faintly, inhaling deeply. This seemed to steady her, so
I halted two steps into the bedroom.

One of the ghosts, who seemed young and female, reached over
as if to pat her cheek with a wispy handkerchief. Another ghost, also female
but a bit older, had knelt down by her chair and was embracing her. This ghost
would have been too close to the fire screen if she’d been alive, but the heat
did not seem to affect her.

The third ghost was much older, female, and stood looking on
severely but not unkindly. The spirit peeping out from the bed curtains was
bouncing up and down. I decided it was more of a child, but I wasn’t certain if
it was male or female. The suggestion of clothing the ghosts wore looked
familiar, like things my mother would wear. These were not old ghosts.

Twisting my hands together behind my back, I decided to
curtsy to Miss Rutledge. “Please don’t cry, Miss Rutledge. I will tell everyone
that I was to blame. You are entirely without fault in all of this,” I said. I
had a feeling that I had caused this, and that Miss Rutledge was not used to
being in trouble.

“
No,
that is not true,” she replied, lifting her own handkerchief to her eyes again.
“I am supposed to protect you while you become accustomed to the school, and I
failed in my duty.” Her voice thickened as she added: “If they send me home, I
do not know what I will do. My parents will be so disappointed!”

Well, I moved right through those ghosts to get up next to
Miss Rutledge. They were cold, like a puff of winter wind, but otherwise they
didn’t bother me at all. I reached out to take one of her hands. “Surely they
won’t send you home over me! I’ll go home first. I bet you’ve never been in
trouble the entire time you’ve been here at Windward!” Margaret Rutledge struck
me as the kind of young woman who was a good girl. She wasn’t tearing her
dresses climbing trees or disappearing into the forest to watch animals.

“
Nnooo,
not—here,” she gasped out, trying to control her tears. “But—”

Making a tremendous effort, Margaret got hold of herself,
taking another deep breath to calm her tears. Then she gave me a long look. “You
kept your passage through the maze a secret, did you not?”

“
I
didn’t want anyone giving you trouble about it,” I replied. “It was no one’s
business but ours.”

“
You
know how to keep secrets,” she said, still giving me a long, considering look.

“
I
can keep a secret,” I told her.

“
What
I am about to reveal to you is a secret,” Margaret stated. “No one must know
any of it.”

“
All
right, no one will hear it from me. Unless a life is at stake,” I added
quickly.

Once I kept a secret so well someone almost died over it. I
didn’t want that ever to happen again.

Margaret took a deep breath and then rushed her fence. “This
is my third school! If I am sent away from here, I don’t know what my parents
will do! They are so ashamed of me!”

That shocked me. I knew I didn’t know much about Margaret
yet, but you know how you get a feeling about a person? Margaret Rutledge was
not a person who did things that embarrassed her parents. “How could they be
ashamed of you? My mother would think you were the perfect daughter!” At any
rate, Margaret certainly acted like a perfect daughter. I think my mother would
have preferred her to me, given a choice.

Margaret shook her head. “Not when she knew what happens
when I am around.” There was a long moment where she said nothing, merely
clutching my hand and using her other hand to wipe away tears. “When . . .
when you walked in, you looked so odd. Why was that?”

Normally I wouldn’t tell anyone what I’d seen, but we were
at a school mostly for magic users. Even if she didn’t have power, she knew it
existed.

Still . . . ghosts upset people.

“
I
have seen ghosts since I arrived here,” I finally said. “I didn’t expect to
find ghosts keeping you company.”

“
You
saw them?” This was low, her voice tight.

Them.
She knew that there was more than one.

I could be vague, too. “Yes.”

Suddenly her eyes brimmed; a blink sent tears trickling down
her cheeks. “I see them
all the time
.
They follow me everywhere! They
talk to me
!
I took a tour of a stately home in the Lake District, and
I could not hear the housekeeper speak for all the ghosts trying to talk to me!”

“
They
talk
to you? What do they say? Do
they actually listen to you and answer, or do they just run on like a minister
giving a sermon?”

Miss Rutledge laid her crumpled handkerchief down on her
knee and started smoothing out its damp corners. “You are not frightened of
them?”

Frightened of them? I thought back to my first ghosts. One
had been a tiny cat, burrowing in its mistress’s skirts. The other had been a
frightening apparition, dangerous to anyone whose path it crossed. I said, “Well,
some ghosts are very frightening. But most of them are merely a moment in time,
like a . . . a drawing of ice crystals on a window. Sometimes
they look real, with all their colors, just like a painting. The scary part is
when you turn back around, and they’ve vanished. No human could move that fast.
That’s when you know you’ve seen a ghost.”

“
Most
people are frightened half to death of them,” she whispered.

“
I
think that most people don’t see them—they only feel them, or smell perfume or
tobacco smoke, and know something has been there. And poltergeists are
frightening. You don’t know what they’ll do, and that’s a real reason to fear
them,” I said, waiting to see what she would say next.

“
My
grandmother sees ghosts,” Miss Rutledge confessed. “She talks to them all the
time, as if they are just normal people in the room. Neighbors come from many
miles away, hoping she will talk to their loved ones.”

“
My
great-grandmother could read the future,” I shared in turn. “People came from
days away to talk with her. She always asked them first if they were sure they
wanted to know what the future chose to share with them.”

“
People
either fear my grandmother or tell others that she is crazy,” Miss Rutledge
said flatly. “When my mother found me talking to a little girl ghost in our
attic playroom, she was horrified. Ghosts tell me things that are important to
them.”

“
Are
they little, simple things, like that they miss their puppy? Or big things,
like that their husband killed them and their children?” I asked.

Miss Rutledge gave me a startled look.

“
Because
the first story just needs you to smile and sympathize with them, as you’d do
with someone living. The second is a problem . . . is dangerous
to you and to other people.” I tried to think of a way to explain about looking
for clues. “Do the ghosts look like they died hundreds of years ago, and their
stories probably can’t matter to anyone else now, or do the burial clothes look
recent—and the killer still might be out there, endangering others?”

“
For
the most part they have been people who died young. All the ghosts I can see
right now died within a few miles of here, of illness or childbed.” She looked
up at me when she said this, which I thought a hopeful sign.

“Have
you met violent ghosts?”
I asked her.

Miss Rutledge shuddered visibly. “I visited a castle once.
There were hundreds of ghosts, walking the grounds, racing along the tops of
the walls, fighting in the courtyard.”

“
Do
you see fetches?” I asked, letting go of her hand and pulling over a heavy
chair from the table against the wall.

The young woman nodded. “Even walking down a busy street in
London, I will see people dragging their winding sheet behind them.”