Under a Spell uda-5 Page 4

  “So much for your walk-around-and-stare-at-things plan.”

  “I have other plans.”

  “And they are . . . ?”

  Saved by the bell.

  Break time at Mercy High was a flurry of plaid skirts and high-pitched chatter, everyone stuffed shoulder to shoulder in the lunchroom as the weather outside rolled from an almost-blue to a definite, angry-looking gray.

  Will branched off on his own and I paced the cafeteria aisle, infinitely glad that I could cross my arms in front of my chest rather than have to balance a tray while working to keep my eyes locked forward, away from the bullies of my youth. I kept my head slightly cocked, hoping to hear incriminating words pop from the multitude of conversations about clothes, nails, and this week’s pop star du jour, but conversations faded the closer I got, only to start up again as I passed. At the back of the cafeteria, I spotted a girl, sitting at a table full of students who had left an empty ring around her, a solid indicator that she was alone.

  “Hey there,” I said with a wave.

  The girl’s eyebrows appeared over the top of a book and then her dark eyes, small, darting. She pressed a fuzzy strand of deep brown hair behind one ear.

  “Can I help you?”

  I cleared my throat and reminded myself that I was the adult there, so my first instinct to fall all over myself and hide my head in my turtleneck sweater was not a good one.

  “My name is Soph—Miss—Ms. Lawson. I’m going to be substituting here for a little while. Are you waiting for someone?”

  The girl’s eyes swept over the ring of empty seats. “No.” She went back to reading.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  “It’s social suicide.”

  I batted the air. “Been there, done that. So . . .”

  “So.”

  “You are?”

  The girl sucked in a deep breath and laid her book down flat. She narrowed her eyes at me and shrunk her hands into the sleeves of her sweater. “Are you really a teacher?”

  My heart started to thud and I surreptitiously looked around for Will, then attempted to send him a telepathic Abort! Abort! message. I had been undercover all of two hours and was already found out.

  “Look, I’m not on drugs, all right? If you’re the sober companion or whatever, you’re at the wrong table.”

  Relief crashed over me. “Sober companion? Me? No. No, I really am a—a teacher. Substitute. Totally. Here to teach. Things.”

  The girl blinked at me, her dark eyes sizing me up, taking me in, and finally spitting me out. “Miranda.”

  I blinked back. “Miranda?”

  “I’m Miranda. Why are you sitting here?”

  “Oh, well, I—” I picked at a dried lump of something with my thumbnail. “I just saw you sitting here and—”

  “No,” Miranda groaned. “Why are you here in the cafeteria? Most teachers don’t interact with us unless it’s on the lesson plan.”

  “Oh.” I straightened. “I guess I don’t really have anything in common with most of the other teachers.”

  Miranda looked at me and nodded, her expression blank. She went back to her book.

  “So, other than reading, what else is there to do around here?”

  She lowered her book a few inches and cocked a brow, not quite understanding. “The usual, I guess. Basketball, soccer, clubs.”

  I pounced. “Clubs! What about the clubs?”

  Miranda slid a bookmark into her book and eyed me. “Regular clubs. French club, Spanish club.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding. Miranda rattled off a few more of the basics—astronomy club, a branch of Amnesty International, Lock and Key Club.

  “Are there any others?” I asked. “Like, maybe not sanctioned by the school?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I thought fast. “When I was in school, there were all the regular ones, too, but then sometimes some girls would start their own clubs—like stoners or—” I licked my lips, pausing. “Band.”

  Miranda sat back, a reproachful look on her face. “You read the paper, huh? You want to know if there’s a coven here—if we’re all a bunch of crazy-assed teenage witches, killing the prom queen.”

  I was taken aback by the cutting judgment in Miranda’s reply, but did my best to chuckle it off nonchalantly. “Well, no. I wouldn’t think that you’d kill—I mean, no, but yeah, of course I read the paper. But the coven? I don’t believe that. Not for a second. There were always girls in my grade who wore torn black fishnets and Doc Martens with their uniforms. A little black eyeliner and everyone thought they were witches.”

  Miranda didn’t say anything and I felt pinned under her gaze. Finally, I relented and dropped my voice. “Do you know anything about any covens on campus?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure you’re safe—no one’s going to turn you into a goat.” She stacked her books and slid a hand under them, then stood up. “I’ve got to get to class.”

  Miranda left me sitting alone at the lunch table, feeling just as stupid as ever.

  “Well, love, ready for this?” Will sunk into Miranda’s abandoned seat.

  “Ready for what? We’ve checked out half the school and asked around and”—I made an O with my fingers and eyed Will through it—“zero.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “You found something?”

  Will laced his fingers behind his head. “The geezer in the office agreed to lend me some yearbooks. I thought I would do a little research, see what I could scratch up.”

  “The geezer?”

  “The old bird.”

  I frowned. “Heddy’s not a geezer. She’s . . . seasoned.”

  Will shrugged and produced a bag of Skittles, picking out the orange ones.

  I leaned forward. “So, did you find anything?”

  I prayed Will would whip out last year’s yearbook, open to the photograph of last year’s coven, complete with names and addresses, so I could skirt Mercy High and leave these hallowed halls back in my nightmares where they belonged.

  “Not yet. She’s getting them together for me.” Will cocked his head and the bell rang. He grinned and downed his whole bag of Skittles while my stomach dropped into my groin and threatened to expel everything I’d eaten in the last twenty years.

  “Looks like we got some classes to teach. You okay? You’re looking kind of green.”

  I just nodded, somehow certain that opening my mouth would lead to a spew of vomit or one of those blood-curdling banshee yells. Who ever thought it was a good idea to let me teach people?

  My heart thundered in my ears as I stood up and followed Will. I closed my eyes and thought of Nina, of her glistening eyes as she danced around and told me these girls were lucky to have me. I was the adult.

  “I’m the adult here,” I whispered under my breath.

  “What’s that, love?”

  “Uh, I’m just, uh, thinking about the case.”

  Will stopped and turned to me, the back of his hand softly brushing over my cheek. His eyes held a sympathetic softness that I had never seen and my body started to melt into him. “Don’t be nervous, love. The girls are going to go crazy for you.” His voice dropped; it seemed slightly choked. “How could they not?”

  He gave me a half smile, and when his soft palm left my cheek I was acutely aware of what wasn’t there.

  Will left me in the hall with my traitorous body piqued, every synapse and nerve on high would-you-make-a-goddamn-decision-already alert. Which is why I nearly choked on my tongue—and launched my big-girl briefcase through the window—when I walked into my classroom and was met by thirteen pairs of made-up eyes, some curious, some scathingly judgmental, most bored.

  I got through my first class without throwing up or making a complete fool of myself. I think I may have even passed as a semi-decent substitute teacher. The lunch bell rang at the same time Will knocked on my door frame.

  “So,” he said, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Did you get through you
r morning classes okay, Ms. Lawson?”

  The way Will’s lips curved over my name sent an inappropriate bolt of lightning right through me. “It was fine,” I stammered. “You?”

  “Fine.” We stood there in an awkward beat of silence.

  “We should finish our tour of the school, see if we can find anything.”

  “Aha. This side of the school is the evil side. Cauldron in the gymnasium. Flying monkeys in the lockers.” He grinned, produced an apple from somewhere, and took a huge bite.

  I couldn’t figure out whether I wanted to smack him or lick the tiny dribble of apple juice from his lip.

  “Come on.”

  We made the rounds, poking in empty classrooms and nonchalantly trying to overhear student conversations, ears piqued for anything suspicious, anything that sounded remotely like a teenage girl firmly entrenched in the dark arts. We learned that someone named Carlie was a slut, that no one used Facebook anymore, and that the boys from St. Ignatius were so sex-starved, they would buy you anything if you showed them the top of your boobs.

  “I don’t know,” I said to Will. “I kind of think this might be a dead end. We should be out looking for Alyssa, not playing around here.”

  Will may have answered me, but I couldn’t be certain because all sound was drowned out by the screeching wail of the fire alarm.

  “Drill?” I yelled.

  “Don’t think so,” Will said, shoving by me. “It’s outside.”

  Heavy plumes of smoke were choking the clear glass windows.

  “It’s coming from the faculty lot,” Will said, breaking into a run.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Will looked over his shoulder. “It’s just a fire, love.”

  “Could be supernatural. Could be a hellfire.”

  “Just come on!”

  When Will wasn’t guarding me and my amazing ability to seek out people who wanted me dead, he was a bona fide San Francisco fireman. I could have left him to it—probably should have—but I was half expecting a dragon to be on the other end of that huffing fire.

  Heddy and Principal Lowe met us at the bottom of the stairs, Heddy thrusting a fire extinguisher into Will’s hands.

  “We’ve made an announcement to the ladies that they’re to sit tight. The fire is out there, at the Dumpster. There’s no danger of it reaching the school.”

  Will and Lowe went running toward the door and I followed behind them, panting like a puppy.

  Note to self: focus on cardio this month.

  The Dumpsters sat between the back lawn and the faculty parking lot. I briefly considered rolling my car up against the flaming Dumpster, using it as a fire wall, and, once it was heroically charred, claiming the insurance money. But alas, I was too much of a good girl and Will already had the fire extinguisher aimed, huge white clouds choking out the black ones snaking from the box.

  Within minutes the whole thing was extinguished. A cheer went up from the girls pressed against the window; they hugged and shot thankful googly eyes at Will as though he had saved a bus full of puppies rather than a Dumpster full of now-charred cafeteria waste.

  “Any idea on the cause of the fire?” Principal Lowe wanted to know.

  Will handed him the expelled extinguisher and hiked up on the edge of the Dumpster, looking inside. “I won’t be able to really get in there until the smoke clears and everything cools off.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m going to tell the girls that everything is fine. Will, I’ll take charge of your class for the rest of the hour, and Sophie, Heddy can look in on yours.”

  I waited until Principal Lowe disappeared through the front of the school before tugging Will’s shirtsleeve. “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Does anything about the fire look suspicious?”

  “Other than the fact that garbage rarely bursts into flame on its own? No, not really, though I won’t be able to tell until the heat dies down.”

  I sighed. “We don’t have that kind of time! Here.” I snapped a branch from one of the trees lining grass. “Use this.”

  “As what? A bippity-boppity?” Will bobbed the twig wand style.

  “God! Do I have to do everything?”

  I snatched the twig out of his hands and threw my weight against the rim of the Dumpster, the toes of my dress shoes thunking and squeaking on the dirty metal. “Can you at least give me a hand?”

  Will gave me a good hard yank and I situated myself next to him on the side of the Dumpster. With my twig held fishing-pole style and our legs dangling into the Dumpster, we would have made a lovely—though twisted—Norman Rockwell painting.

  I leaned slightly forward, stretching out one leg. “It’s not hot anymore.” I poked my stick into the blackened rubble and fished out the remains of something that had once been white. I pulled it closer to me, then delicately touched it with my index finger.

  “Oh, see, not hot at all.”

  “That’s brilliant, love.” He snatched my catch from the end of the stick, gave it a cursory look, then tossed it back in the box. “You’ve found a sock. Notify the queen.”

  “Shut up, Will. We need to see what it was that started the fire. If there are witches here, they must be lighting candles. Maybe they tossed one in the trash.”

  Will cocked a brow, lips pressed together. “No one is dim enough to throw away a lit candle.”

  I craned my head, scanning the debris.

  “You might want to watch yourself, love. It’s a bit moist out here—”

  Will may have finished his sentence. I wasn’t sure, because I was face-first in yesterday’s cafeteria lunch, my ears, I was fairly certain, clogged with some sort of maggot-type brain eating insect.

  “Ugh! Oh, God!” I kicked and dog paddled my way through a mass of spaghetti, then found my footing on a garbage bag filled with something hard.

  “Find any clues?” Will’s grin was smug.

  I grabbed a handful of spaghetti and tossed it at him.

  He dodged it. “Now that’s just mean!” He leaned down and offered me a hand. “Come on, out with you. There’s nothing in there but garbage. Probably some of the tough birds were out here smoking.”

  I tried to move toward him, but something was wrapped around my right foot. “I’m stuck on something.”

  “It’s probably a Salisbury steak or something. Shake it off.”

  “I can’t. It’s stuck. It’s got me.”

  A little niggle of panic shot through me as I unsuccessfully tried to free my foot. My heartbeat sped up. I truly never considered my demise could be at the behest of a three-day-old hunk of cafeteria meat.

  Will hopped into the Dumpster with me, though he landed on a spaghetti-free, solid-looking bag across from me. “Take my hand and I’ll pull you free.”

  “What if it’s some kind of animal? What if it eats my leg?”

  He clamped down on my wrist. “I’m willing to risk that.”

  I gritted my teeth while he yanked; my foot came free and so did I, barreling into Will’s chest and laying us both out on a black garbage bag, ash raining down around us like snowflakes.

  “Still have your foot?”

  I yanked my leg up and examined it. “It wasn’t Salisbury steak,” I said, yanking the cloth wrapped around my foot. “It was this.”

  Will pulled us both to standing and climbed out of the Dumpster. I followed him.

  “And what exactly is that?”

  “It’s fabric. Or the remains of fabric.” I turned the charred remains in my hands. “Here’s a zipper. Oh, and a tag.”

  Something broke inside of me.

  I felt my whole face blanch, felt my chest tighten as my heart seized up. I gripped the fabric, holding it so hard that my nails bored into my palms.

  “It’s—it was—a skirt. From a uniform. A uniform from here.” I licked my impossibly dry lips. “Will, someone was trying to burn this uniform.”

  Will blinked at me, then disappeared back into the Dumpster.


  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for whatever else remains of that uniform.” He paused his mad shuffle through the trash, but didn’t look at me. “Or whoever owns it.”

  I gently laid the remains of the once grey tweed skirt aside, touching the fabric gently as though showing this inanimate object a moment of tenderness could soften the blow for its owner.

  “Find anything yet?” I asked, once I got back in the Dumpster.

  “No. I don’t know if that’s bad or good.” He stepped back. “This is where the fire was centered. See that?”

  He pointed to a blackened circle, then toed the small mountain of grey-white ash in its center.

  “I was here when I found the skirt,” I said, using my hands to dig through the spaghetti. The stench was overwhelming—burnt plastic and garbage—but I was so focused on finding the rest of the charred uniform—and hopefully not the girl who had worn it—that I didn’t care.

  “Wait.” My hand closed around something soft and I pulled. A stretch of fabric that used to be white slid through the debris. I winced. “It’s a blouse. Part of it.”

  Will leaned in. “It’s not burned.”

  “No. It’s torn.” I rubbed my finger across the sodden, frayed edge of the shirt and pulled back when something sliced across my flesh. “Ow!”

  “Something get you?” He took my hand in his and rubbed the tucked tail of his shirt over my thumb. “You’re bleeding. That’s not good.”

  “What got me?”

  Will took the fabric scrap from my hand, then produced a small, filthy pin attached at what looked to be the shirt’s collar. He rubbed the muck from the pin and I could see that it was made of a cheap gold fashioned into a tiny lock with a key inside.

  I took the fabric and examined the pin. “It’s a Lock and Key pin. It’s a club on campus. Every member gets one of them.”

  I laid the piece of fabric on the end of the Dumpster, smoothing it out and shining up the pin. It glinted in the sunlight and my heart ached. Lock and Key was a club you had to be admitted into— only students with the best grades and community service records were allowed and it looked great on Ivy League applications. When I was at Mercy, Lock and Key was basically a country club for the already perfect, a tiny golden promise to keep the classes pure.