The Nightmare Dilemma (Arkwell Academy) (29 page)

I checked my cell phone as soon as I was out of the kitchen and read a text message from Selene informing me that she, Eli, and Paul were staked out in the theater hall and that they were going radio silent until it was over.

“I’ll fill you in when I get back to the dorm,” her message concluded.

Selene and the boys had another thing coming if they thought I was going to sit this one out. Not after the stuff with Melanie. If the Terra Tribe was up to anything even remotely dangerous, I wanted to play my part in taking them down.

I sprinted all the way across campus to the theater hall, stopping just outside the door only long enough to catch my breath. Lights were still on inside, and I figured I’d gotten here in time. I opened the door and walked in, trying to look completely at ease, as if I had business in this building. A late-night appointment with a teacher perhaps. Maybe even another detention.

I needn’t have bothered. There was no one in the foyer or down the long hallways leading off in both directions as they wrapped around the theater. The only guard the group had stationed was a sign hanging on the main doors into the theater:

PRIVATE MEETING IN SESSION

DO NOT DISTURB

I peeked through the narrow window beside the sign, saw a group of people standing on the stage, and then moved past the door, down the hallway on the left. When I came to a door marked
BALCONY
, I opened it as quietly as I could and slipped inside.

It was completely dark in here, the only light the faint gleam around the door seams. It was enough that I could make out the first couple of steps leading upward, but that was all. I walked toward them, placed my hand on the banister, then started climbing.

As the darkness increased, I considered doing a fire spell, but I held back, hoping to come across another door soon. And at least I had the banister to guide me. At last I saw the faint glow of the door ahead. Without a window on the door, I had no idea what I would be stepping into, so I crouched down, pulled it open, and slipped through as quickly and quietly as I could.

It was brighter up here, but not by much. I heard voices down below, and I crawled into the nearest row of seats. I waited for someone to sound the alarm that they’d spotted me, but when the timbre of the voices didn’t change, I risked a peek around the edge. I was too far up to see much, except for the blurred shapes of maybe twenty people congregated on the stage. Some of them appeared to be wearing the brown cloaks from yesterday.

Even worse than not being able to see them, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The Terra Tribe might be meeting in the theater hall, but they weren’t exactly practicing for a play. I pulled my head back behind the cover of the seats and then glanced around, trying to figure out if I was small enough to squeeze
underneath
the seats. Yeah right. A toddler would have a hard time managing it.

Sighing, I slowly crawled out from the row and made my way down the aisle, sticking as close to the nearest edge as I could and trying not to speculate when the last time the carpets had been cleaned. I wondered where Selene and the boys were hiding out. If they’d only told me.

I pressed forward, focusing on the sounds ahead. Soon I was close enough to catch snippets of the conversation. One voice rang loudest of them all—Oliver Cork. He seemed to be giving a speech:

“I know some of you are feeling nervous after what happened yesterday at the demonstration, but believe me, things will be different at the festival. Our message will be heard and seen and no one can stop it.”

There was a murmur of agreement. I crawled on, finally close enough to start making out a couple of faces. Melanie was there, wearing one of the brown cloaks, same as Oliver. So was Irene Stark as well as a boy from my English class.

“It’s time we let the magickind world know that we won’t tolerate it anymore, the abuse of the earth, the constant rape of her natural resources. They take, take, take with no thought or concern about the consequences. It’s bad enough that we let millions of ordinaries tear down forests and pollute the waters, but even our own leaders stand by and let the witchkinds and darkkinds do the same. But change starts here.”

I froze in place at once shocked and completely taken in by the fervor of Oliver’s speech. Who knew the guy was such a powerful speaker? For a moment my mind filled up with the images from Britney’s dream—of poisoned rivers and dead forests, animals starved and deformed.

I shook my head, refocusing. I could hear Oliver just fine, but not the others. I needed to get closer. I moved on more quickly for fear that someone down below would look up and see me.

A hand closed around my wrist, and I nearly screamed. I held back at the last second as I saw Paul’s face peering out at me from where he was crouched between the rows of seats.

“What was that?” someone said from down below.

Paul yanked my arm, pulling me into the row and right on top of him. My heart thudded against my rib cage like a hammer against a slab of meat. I was certain they had seen me, although that worry seemed inconsequential when compared to the shock of finding myself lying on top of Paul Kirkwood. But I didn’t dare move off him, as I braced for the shouting to start below.

I felt Paul’s slow, deep breathing as his chest moved in and out. His hand rested on my waist as if he was worried I would tumble off him. Not a chance given the tight confines between the seats. The familiarity of his touch felt nice and completely wrong at the same time. I risked a glance at his face and saw an amused glint in his eyes. He, at least, was enjoying himself. I resisted the urge to smack him, but only because I didn’t think I could manage it silently.

And so I waited, the seconds passing like minutes as I focused on the voices below. Finally, I decided that they hadn’t seen or heard me. Oliver was now saying something about their need to practice one more time. Just what they were practicing, I had no idea.

I slowly crawled forward, off Paul and onto the welcome flatness of the floor. I wasn’t particularly careful with my knees and feet as I went, and I felt a surge of satisfaction as Paul let out a groan. Served him right.

Once I was off him, I sat up, still safely hidden behind the seats. Paul sat up, too, although he had to stay crouched down to keep his head from peeking over the top.

I motioned to the aisle behind Paul and then pointed to my eyes, mouthing, “I want to see.”

Paul nodded. He twisted around so he was facing the aisle. Then he lay down on his side, his head close to the edge. He motioned for me to lie in front of him. I took a deep breath, unhappy at the idea of being in such a position, even if there was a good reason for it. Trying to switch positions would’ve been too noisy, especially after the close call we just had.

I crawled in front of him, resting on my side. I inched toward the edge, then raised my head to see what was going on below. Oliver and the other brown cloaked figures were standing center stage in a circle, each holding an unlit torch. The rest of the Terra Tribe had moved to the outside of the circle.

“Now,” Oliver was saying, “it’s important that the timing be correct. So let’s give it a try.” He held up his torch and spoke the fire incantation. The torch burst into flames. “One…” Oliver said. “Two … three…” I waited for him to stop, but he didn’t, not until he’d counted all the way to sixty. Once he did, Irene Stark raised her hand and lit her torch. Then she too counted to sixty. Another brown cloaked figure did the same right after her.

On and on it went, until finally the last of them, Melanie, lit her torch. There were twelve torches in all, twelve people. But the demonstration seemed completely pointless. What kind of message could there be in a couple of lit torches?

But Oliver Cork answered this question soon after. “Good job, everybody,” he said, extinguishing his torch. “But it’ll be a lot more impressive when we do it for real on Saturday. The enchantments on the torches we’ll be using have all been applied. Now it’s just up to us to move forward with it. And to change the world.” He raised both hands over his head in a victory salute as he spoke this last sentence, and the rest of the Terra Tribe cheered and clapped.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. So the Terra Tribe would be using enchanted torches when they did this live. But enchanted to do what? And I couldn’t see how their environmental protest could be connected to Magistrate Kirkwood’s assassination plot.

As the crowd below started chattering incoherently, I became aware of Paul’s broad hand resting on my hip and his body pressed against mine. I started to fidget, wishing the meeting would adjourn so I could get out of this position. I looked around, wondering where Selene and Eli could be.

No sooner had I thought it than I spied Eli crouched in between the rows directly across from us. It was amazing how much he could express in a single look. I could tell from his dark expression that he’d seen everything that had happened with Paul since I’d crawled down the aisle—and he wasn’t happy about it. I wanted to say that he looked jealous, but I was afraid to put that label on it. Things with Eli were far too complicated to chalk it up to something as simple as jealousy.

I looked away from him as I heard the distinctive sound of the main doors into the theater opening, followed by the soft clack of someone wearing low-heeled sandals.

“Oh, hey, Miss Norton,” Oliver shouted. The talking died down, and as I fixed my gaze on the stage, I saw Miss Norton step into view. For the first time ever she wasn’t wearing a housedress but a pair of jeans. The change in her attire made her almost unrecognizable, at least from this distance.

“Thank you, Oliver,” Miss Norton said as she surveyed the crowd. “And thanks to all of you for volunteering for the Beltane Festival. Oliver assures me that everything is in place.” Miss Norton clapped her hands once, the sound ringing out almost as loud as gunfire. “I have a feeling it will be a day that will be remembered forever. The day that naturekinds begin their quest to change the world.”

I took a deep breath, chilled by Miss Norton’s words. It seemed the Dream Team had just identified the next subject in our investigation.

*   *   *

The meeting finally ended, and after waiting a few minutes in case anyone came back to retrieve a forgotten purse or cell phone, I finally crawled out into the aisle, away from Paul. Across from me, Eli stood up, and one row down from him, Selene did the same.

She rolled her eyes when she spotted me. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away.”

I grinned back at her, grateful for any reason not to talk to Eli right now. He wasn’t outwardly angry, but there was a smoldering, dangerous sparkle in his eyes. I decided it would be a good idea to keep myself in between him and Paul for the foreseeable future.

“Well, that was interesting,” Paul said.

Eli shot a glare at him. “Not here. Come on.” He turned on one heel and then led the way back up the aisle to the balcony door. I followed after him with Paul coming behind me and Selene bringing up the rear. When we reached the bottom floor, Eli double-checked the hallway before stepping out.

Then the four of us made our way to Room 013 of the library. We only had twenty minutes before curfew, but that was enough time to hash out our next steps.

To no one’s surprise, Eli’s first words were “We check out Miss Norton first thing tomorrow.”

“How do you want to do it?” Selene said from her usual seat on Buster. The chair had practically peeled its wheels the moment she had stepped inside. Now it was contentedly rocking side to side. How Selene could stand it without getting sick was anybody’s guess.

“We’ll hit her classroom during lunch,” said Eli. “Tra…” He paused and cleared his throat. “Travis Kelly has her fourth period and he says she’s always late. That should give us plenty of time.”

I flinched at the anger in Eli’s voice when he’d said Travis’s name. It was enough to tell me that Travis was one of the witchkinds that didn’t approve of Eli being a Conductor.

“Who’s going to do it?” asked Paul.

“Dusty and I will,” Eli said with no hesitation. “She and I work best together.”

I blinked. “We do? Since when?”

Eli scowled. “Now’s not the time for jokes.”

I smiled back at him, although I wasn’t entirely sure I’d been joking. We did work great together a lot of the time, but not always.

“We also need to check out her office,” said Selene.

Eli nodded. “That one will be trickier. We
should
wait until tomorrow night, but we can’t afford the time. But Dusty and I can ditch alchemy tomorrow to do it. Mrs. Ashbury is the least likely to raise a fuss about our absence. She only cares about misbehavior inside her classroom. And there’s a broom cupboard right across from Miss Norton’s office. We can hide in there until the bell rings and then break in. With the moonwort key, it’ll be a piece of cake.”

I tapped my foot. “Now hang on just a minute. Who says I’m willing to ditch alchemy? It’s my worst subject.” In truth I didn’t mind missing it—actually, the idea thrilled me—but I did mind Eli assuming I would do whatever he wanted. He normally wasn’t so tyrannical. I had a feeling most of it was because he wanted to make sure I didn’t volunteer for me and Paul to do it.

Eli arched an eyebrow. “Would you rather sit it out?”

Darn him. He knew me so well. “No, of course not.”

Eli clapped his hands. “Good, then, it’s settled.” He glanced at his watch. “We better hurry up if we don’t want to break curfew.”

We all headed for the door. Buster made a pathetic little noise with his chair wheels as Selene patted him good-bye.

Once in the hallway, Paul turned toward me and touched my shoulder. “Be careful tomorrow. And I’ll see you later.”

He let his fingers trail down my arm as he stepped back. Then he turned and walked away.

Selene, no doubt as aware of Eli’s brooding look as I was, quickly said, “We better hurry.” She took hold of my hand and started pulling me down the hallway after her. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Eli.”

“Wait, Dusty,” Eli said before we’d gone two steps. “Can you stay for a second?”