Mother of Crows Read online

  “Hey you. How are you feeling?”

  “Headache. And it feels like I licked every inch of the road home. I should have just left when you did. “

  “Well, if it helps, I still woke up with a pounding headache.”

  “That hardly seems fair. But yeah… It helps a little.”

  She giggled, relaxing. They were okay. She and Nate would always be okay.

  He pushed his hair out of his face. He had scratches on the backs of his hands exactly like Abby’s. “Meeting with the headmaster?”

  She nodded. “You?”

  “I’m the scholarship kid. With me, they get to pretend they’re egalitarian.”

  “See you at lunch?”

  “Yep.”

  “Mr. Baxter?” the office worker called, beckoning him toward the door.

  “Why do I feel like I’m about to be sacrificed?” Nate asked as he left.

  The words gave her a chill. Maybe it was a side effect of their strange, forgotten night… Some kind of residual distrust. The world hadn’t quite returned to normal, so they were stuck looking at everything through a lens of nightmares and questionable choices. Abby nodded to herself. That had to be it.

  She went off to class.

  6

  Accelerated Track

  The dizziness and the loathing came and went over the course of the day. It appeared at random, and always at the sight of a person. Sometimes it was a student; at other times, it was a teacher or a staff member. The sensation abated as soon as she moved away from them. She couldn’t see a connection between any of them. She was probably just sick.

  Sindy found her in the hallway between third and fourth period as Abby was going to Biology. “Hey there, Abs. You don’t look so hot.”

  Unlike Abby, Sindy was a blooming picture of health. Her cheeks were rosy; her blue eyes were bright. Her arms were unbruised and unscratched. It was the happiest Abby had ever seen Sindy look at school. “How can you possibly look like that after last night?”

  Sindy shook it off. “Good genes. And these. Here.” Sindy handed over a couple of big, circular pills.

  “Sindy! I’m not doing drugs!”

  “Oh, calm down, PSA. It’s Vitamin C.”

  Abby inspected the pills before trying one. It was Vitamin C, all right.

  “You really made an impression on everyone. I don’t think they’re used to people telling them no.”

  “Great. I’m sure they’ll have me over to rain on all their parades from now on.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. They were totally impressed. Hunter was the one that suggested we go find you.”

  “You remember last night?”

  “Yeah, of course. I tried to tell you to slow down once we got near the water but you were totally doing your own thing.”

  “What happened?”

  “Wait, you don’t remember?”

  “Some of it. Other parts, not so much.”

  Sindy laughed. “Same here. Ah, the indiscretions of youth!” Sindy’s laugh sounded brittle. Later, Abby would reflect that it had been put on. Right now, she could only concentrate on the horrid waves of nausea rushing through her.

  “Sindy, come on.”

  “We’ll talk later. At lunch, meet me and we’ll go say hi to Bryce and the others. After your performance last night, it’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”

  “Okay, yeah.”

  “That brought your color back.”

  Abby smacked her arm.

  Sindy smirked. “See you at lunch!”

  Abby went into her biology class and had her worst attack yet. One glance at her teacher-Mr. Harris, according to the blackboard-and the dizziness nearly drove her to her knees. Her head blazed with renewed agony, trying to drive her eyeballs right out of her skull. Absurdly, she blamed Sindy. Maybe the Vitamin C had exacerbated things.

  Mr. Harris had nothing in common with Mr. Weatherby. He was an average height, and handsome for an older man. His deep brown skin was almost entirely unlined, though his short hair and beard were predominantly gray. He was dressed in a simple dress shirt, bow tie, sweater vest, and slacks, the unobtrusive and harmless uniform of any standard-issue high school teacher. Abby should have found this man’s presence comforting. Instead, the mere sight of him was almost enough to incapacitate her.

  The biology classroom was filled with high tables, each with a pair of stools behind it. Abby hauled herself onto one and shut her eyes, waiting for the spell to pass. Gradually, the pain ebbed away like the tides. She took a deep breath while her belly untied itself and her mind slowly stopped spinning. She opened her eyes and had a look around, careful not to look at Mr. Harris. The walls were lined with preserved specimens. A large aquarium held local saltwater fish. Each desk had drawers with brass fittings. She counted these, and with each one, she felt a little better.

  “Long time no see,” Nate said, taking a seat next to her.

  Class was long, but it was the first day, and the bulk of the lecture was an overview of what to expect. The only scary part was Mr. Harris’s dire warning about his difficult final projects and closed-book tests. Abby took diligent notes, doing the best she could without looking at her teacher.

  When the bell rang, the class had visibly deflated. Mr. Harris had put the fear of God in them, probably intentionally. Abby snuck a look at him and glanced away again immediately. Was she racist? Was that why she was feeling sick? There was nothing wrong with Mr. Harris. He was a little demanding, but this was one of the finest private academies in the country. Excellence was assumed.

  Nate followed Abby toward the dining hall. He was as quiet as she was. A sudden hand on her shoulder made her nearly jump out of her skin. “What’s up, A.P. nerds?!”

  Abby whirled around. Sindy grinned at her.

  “Jesus Christ, Sindy. What’s your problem?” Nate clutched at his heart. Sindy ignored him and threaded her arm through Abby’s.

  “What could you possibly be so cheerful about?” Abby said.

  “It’s lunchtime, Thorndike. You ready to go meet Bryce?”

  “Bryce?” Nate scowled.

  “Yeah, Bryce,” Sindy said. There was clear challenge in her tone.

  “Ugh. That guy is just a rich douche.”

  “No, he’s a nice guy who partied with us last night. You were kind of douchey to him, though.”

  “He’s trouble,” Nate said. “One night with him and his cronies, and I wake up with amnesia. He probably roofied all of us.”

  “Wait, amnesia?” Abby said.

  Sindy rolled her eyes. “You blacked out. So did I. Stop being dramatic.”

  Abby looked to Nate. “You coming?”

  “Nah. No thanks. Have fun, though.”

  Abby had never heard quite so much venom in a simple ‘have fun’ before. Nate disappeared into the press of students before they could say anything else. Sindy hauled her toward the dining hall. The dizzy spells returned in fits as Abby’s gaze swept over a student’s face, or a janitor’s, or a teacher’s. Am I going to feel like this when I look at Bryce? she wondered. Dread buzzed through her. What was wrong with her?

  Bryce’s group was easy to find. It was the largest and by far the most boisterous in the dining hall. Abby had expected to see a similar table of juniors and seniors holding court over the underclassmen, but they ate alone or in pairs, curiously subdued. Bryce was at the center of the group and he drew Abby’s eye effortlessly. To her relief, she felt the same things she always did when she looked at Bryce.

  “Seriously?”

  Abby’s head snapped around. Sindy was looking at her, one eyebrow arched. “What?”

  “Don’t be so thirsty, Abby. I mean, hint that you like him, but the sighing and the staring…”

  “Was I staring?”

  “I guess it’s possible you were reading his mind.”

  “Oh, God.”

  Sindy laughed. “It’s okay. He probably gets stared at a lot.”

  “You’re not helping.”
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  “Come on.”

  Abby made Sindy go first so she could discreetly follow in her wake. It felt very familiar. Before boys had made her boring, Sindy used to be the adventurous one, always goading Abby into trying something new. Abby had been grateful for it. Without Sindy, she’d probably already be in a convent somewhere.

  They picked up lunch and went to join Bryce’s group.

  The group was even larger than it had been the previous night. Every person who had been at the carnival was there, some suffering from their hangovers more obviously than others. They were spread out around a long table. Some sat on the table itself; others perched precariously on the backs of chairs. Most of them had lunch trays. Ben and Hunter were already using theirs as makeshift weapons.

  Sindy walked right up to a pair of empty chairs. “Are these taken?”

  Abby wished she had that level of confidence. She focused on keeping her cheeks from turning bright red.

  “All yours,” Bryce said, gesturing.

  Up close, Abby could see the wear and tear of the night on Bryce’s face. She thought the look worked for him. Maybe if he just-

  “Abby?” Bryce said.

  “Huh?”

  “I said, ‘How are you feeling?’ You seemed like you had a rough go of it last night.”

  “Better off than the rest of us,” Hunter said. “We should have gone with her to the funhouse instead of drinking your lumberjack moonshine.”

  The very mention of the funhouse sent a flurry of images through Abby’s mind. The sea-creatures outside. Mirrors, faces, distorted bodies and flashes of light and then nothing.

  “I guess Abby’s just smarter than you, Hunter,” Bryce said. “Which is like barely a compliment.”

  Hunter and the rest of the table laughed good-naturedly. Abby smiled. With just a few words, Bryce had erased the awkwardness she felt about last night and made her feel welcome. He had an uncanny way of putting her at ease. She picked up her sandwich and took a big, greasy bite. Chewing, she finally surveyed the rest of the group, offering smiles and nods to the ones she recognized. Sindy was in the middle of introducing her to everyone when Abby’s gaze fell on Eleazar Grant.

  Her belly instantly tightened; her mind spun. She saw his face ripple like water. Her throat seized up. She wanted to look away, but for the first time, she could not. Eleazar’s narrow, brooding features flattened out. It was like his face was made of liquid smoke. His whole body vibrated with the energy of a bad dream and impossible shadows all around him pulled forward into his face. Something inside her head battered against her skull, trying to flee. She felt like she’d become an egg; whatever was hatching inside of her would tear her life and sanity out by the root. The agony of looking at him was more intense than anything Abby had ever experienced.

  She might have screamed. She could only hear a single tone, a broken line fading into nothing.

  Then there was only black.

  7

  In Plain Sight

  Abby opened her eyes. Everything was blurry. She blinked a few times. Why couldn’t she see anything? Where was she? The ceiling was white. It could have been home. It could have been nearly anywhere.

  “Stay still. You fainted.” The voice was thick and sweet, like honey would if it had a sound. She turned her head toward the voice, and she felt no wash of dizziness. She felt fine. Rested, actually. The speaker was a dark, blurry shape with points of white around the edges.

  She patted her face. “My glasses?”

  “Of course.”

  Her glasses sharpened into view. Abby took them and put them on. She was in the nurse’s office. It looked like a particularly fancy doctor’s office. She bet that the painting on the wall-a still life of a bowl of fruit-had a famous name attached to it. She blinked, and found the nurse again, sitting by the table. She was a heavyset woman with coarse black hair, a kindly face, and intelligent eyes. “You gave us quite a scare, Miss Thorndike.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s all right. How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty good, actually.”

  The nurse watched her for a long moment. “We’ll see about that. I’m Miss Thayer.”

  “Hi.”

  Miss Thayer clicked on a penlight. She checked Abby’s pupils, then moved on to simple balance tests. After a thorough exam, she said, “No sign of concussion, but you should see a doctor.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  “What happened?”

  “You fainted. Right in the middle of the dining hall.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “You’re sure you aren’t sick?”

  “I was out late last night. And you know, new school. Lots of people.”

  “Mmhmm,” Miss Thayer said, clearly unconvinced.

  There was a knock at the door. “Miss Thayer?” The voice was Mr. Weatherby’s. “Is Miss Thorndike up to receiving visitors?”

  “She says she’s fine,” Miss Thayer said, rising. “And as far as I can tell, she is.” The nurse opened the door. “Let’s see what she says to you.”

  Abby plastered a fake smile on her face, ready to charm the headmaster. When he stepped into the room, her smile contorted into a grimace. Mr. Weatherby was gone. There was something there, wearing the big man’s suit, but the creature inside was not remotely human. Its glabrous skin was an oily blue-black. Its hands were webbed paws with needle-like claws at the end of each finger. Spines and fins sprouted in irregular patches across its exposed skin. Its eyes were colorless and milky. Its gills were ragged and bloody red. Thick strands of a clear mucus dripped from its mouth and hands. Its mouth was a circular hole studded with yellow fangs that spiraled inward toward its throat, as though beckoning Abby to become a meal. The creature’s shadow loomed larger than its body-a writhing, tenebrous thing with some strange false life of its own.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Thorndike,” the creature said with Mr. Weatherby’s voice.

  Abby screamed.

  She bolted up, dodged past the monster in the doorway, and slammed the door behind her as she sprinted into the hall.

  The commotion made a nearby janitor jerk around to look at her. His circular mouth pumped idly as sticky mucus dripped toward the floor in slow tendrils. Behind him, his shadow writhed with a hundred tentacles. Abby screamed again and ran.

  Classroom doors opened for a passing period. Students poured into the halls. More of the creatures skulked alongside them. They were all equally horrible, like some nightmare from the deep. No one saw them for what they were. If they had, there would have been pandemonium in the hallways. She saw concern, amusement, and horror in the faces of the students who looked at her, but she couldn’t make them understand. Whenever she had breath, she could only use it to scream.

  She felt a hand on her arm and someone yanked her into a classroom. The hand was a paw. Slime dripped onto her jacket. She whipped around, wild-eyed. Another monster, dragging her to her doom. It would eat her, she knew that as sure as she knew anything. That mouth could be built only for shredding meat. She imagined the creature’s round mouth attaching to her and burrowing into her flesh, coring sections of it away. She would have screamed again, but she was already hoarse.

  “Stop it! Calm down!” The creature sounded like Mr. Harris. Though sections of its mouth twitched-she would hesitate to call any of the flabby nodules on its face “muscles” -there was no way it could have formed those sounds. Not without human lips and a human tongue.

  She struggled against the creature’s grip, but its hand might as well have been a steel shackle. The monster didn’t even seem to be straining, though it was impossible to read expressions on its evil, fishy face. It shut the door. This is it, she thought. This is the end, eaten in my own biology classroom.

  “Miss Thorndike, calm down. I will not hurt you!” It lowered its voice, speaking in a desperate whisper.

  Abby wondered again how the monster was making the sounds.

  “Do you understand me, Miss Thorndike?
Abigail?”

  “Abby,” she croaked. Her throat felt bloody.

  “Abby, then.” The smile was in his voice, even if its-his-lipless face couldn’t manage anything close. “I don’t suppose I have to ask you what you’re seeing.”

  “Monsters. You’re monsters.” Mr. Harris was a monster.

  “To your eyes. Perhaps.”

  Abby stopped struggling.

  “I’m going to let you go, Abby. All right?”

  She nodded. He released her gradually in case she screamed or ran. She did neither.

  “All right. I know this is frightening for you, but I need you to listen to me. You cannot react to what you see out there. Not to me, not to any of the others. You have to pretend that you don’t see us.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you know the answer to that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have screamed.”

  “But you’re-”

  “I’m your teacher, Abby. I will not hurt you. Now, can you do that for me?”

  “What am I supposed to do for the rest of the day?”

  “I’ll talk to Mr. Weatherby-”

  “He’s one of…” she faltered. “You.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ll persuade him that you didn’t see anything you shouldn’t have. He’ll want this situation resolved, anyway. It wouldn’t do to alienate the Thorndike heiress, would it?”

  She shrugged.

  “Can you do this for me, Abby?”

  “Okay.”

  “All right, good. Thank you. When you come back tomorrow, Mr. Weatherby will probably want to speak with you.”

  Abby cringed.

  “It’s all right. He won’t hurt you. Just remember: whatever you saw, it wasn’t what you saw.”

  Abby swallowed. “I fainted. In the dining hall.”

  “All right, good. Tell him you hit your head. You didn’t know what you were seeing, but you’re fine now. How do you feel?”

  It was odd, talking to this thoroughly rational monster who spoke in the deep, comforting tones of her biology teacher. The strangest part was that she could actually look at him without feeling ill. He was a hideous thing, but she reacted to him as though he looked normal. Human. “Good. I was feeling bad, but now that I can see… I feel good.”