The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 1) (20 page)

“
Varenga!
” Mr. Chanson stretched out his hand. The racing broom swerved and returned to his grasp.

“Wow!” Rachel murmured, impressed.

There was a cantrip she wanted to learn!

The class ended, and the students departed. Mr. Chanson beamed as he thanked Rachel for “her excellent help and participation.” She curtsied and hurried off to gather up the students’ brooms and put them away in the broom closet. Then, she left to rejoin her friends.

She found them gathered downstairs in the Dare Hall music room to hear the princess’s news. Rachel and Nastasia were joined by Siggy, Joy, Valerie, and Kitten. Joy and Kitten had been with them in the dorm, so Nastasia invited them along. Nastasia had invited their other roommate, Astrid, but the shy girl had declined. Siggy had invited Valerie.

The music room was downstairs, below ground level. It was a vast area designed for concerts, with a low raised dais that served as a stage, which could be hidden behind red velvet curtains. A grand piano sat next to a drum set and some music stands. The walls were of wood paneling, positioned around the stage area so as to optimize acoustics. The middle of the chamber was open space. To the right were racks of folding chairs and a door leading to a workshop for repairing instruments. On the far left, a fire burned merrily in a large fireplace. Comfy armchairs had been placed in a semi-circle around a blue and purple braided rug. The air smelled of pine smoke and sawdust.

The students gathered by the fireplace. The princess’s Tasmanian tiger padded around the room sniffing things and rubbing his cheek against them. Lucky the Dragon flickered in and out among the chairs, occasionally pausing to let one of the girls pet him. Joy’s huge fluffy white cat played with a piece of string that she dangled for him. Kitten’s tiny lion rested on the warm flagstones before the hearth. Valerie stretched out on a thick shag rug, her head resting on Payback’s stomach. Only Rachel’s familiar, the elusive Mistletoe, was not present.

The princess sat very straight, her back not touching the chair. She looked like a young queen enthroned among her subjects, her golden ringlets spread out around her like a royal mantle. Joy sat on the floor between her and Sigfried. In one hand, she held the string for her cat. In the other, she clutched a pink and blue Witch Baby—a bobble-headed rag doll that was a popular collectable item among the children of the Wise. Rachel had glimpsed at least six of the multi-colored Witch Babies on Joy’s bed and three on Wendy’s bed. Kitten had one, too.

Rachel did not own any herself, but Laurel had received two as gifts. Dolls were not Laurel’s thing. Her sister had shorn their hair, painted their faces with black lipstick like Goths, and attached strings to them, so she could fly around on her broom at night and dangle the ghastly toys in front of the windows of Unwary children—much to Rachel’s parents’ dismay.

Folding her hands neatly in her lap, the princess cleared her throat. “You may all be curious as to what happened to me.”

“That’s the understatement of the century!” murmured Valerie. She sat up and opened her notebook, pencil poised.

“I will go directly to the meat of the matter. When I touched Joshua March, I found myself standing on a glacier. It was extraordinarily cold.” She chaffed her arms as if even the memory of it chilled her. “The scene was horrific. An older version of Joshua March was undergoing an ancient Roman form of torture. He hung from outstretched arms with his stomach slashed open. His internal organs had spilled onto the ice.” The princess seemed perturbed but did not shiver at the memory, though several of the others did, including Rachel. “There was a creature with him, a very tall man. Beautiful but in a painful way. He had wings of smoke and fire. He tried to keep me there, but something pulled on me, and I came back.”

Outrage contorted Siggy’s features. He socked his fist into his palm with a satisfying clap. “Did you happen to get the rotter’s name and address and preference of armaments?”

The princess held up her hand, as if requesting patience. “There is more. I came back quickly, but they kept me in the Halls of Healing for observation. Agents came by to guard me. I spent the night being protected by Agent Standish Dorian and…”—a sweet smile flickered across her face, as if she anticipated the effect her words would cause and wished to apologize before hand—“Agent James Darling.”

The other girls cried out in delight. Joy actually squealed and insisted on high-fiving Nastasia. Rachel grinned appreciatively. A soft sound behind her made her turn around. Kitten had fallen asleep in the rocking chair near the fire, her head nodding against her starched white shirt. Leander sat purring on her lap. Rachel had not realized that lions could purr. Perhaps, only the tiny ones did.

“You mean the bloke who stole all the glory from Mr. Fisher?” Siggy had crossed over to the stage and was examining a music stand. He seemed to be trying to determine whether it could be turned into a weapon. He called, “The one with the comics, who helped him destroy the Terrible Five? Ace!”

“That’s just amazing! You are the first of us to meet him!” Joy cried. She squeezed her pink and blue Witch Baby, hugging it to her. “My sister Mercy is a huge fan of the
James Darling, Agent
comics. And Faith has a huge poster of him on her wall.”

“Nastasia isn’t the first.” Rachel vainly tucked an escaped strand of hair behind her ear. It sprung free again. “Mr. Darling is a friend of my parents. He used to be my father’s partner, years ago. Together, they hunted down the remnants of the Morthbrood. They captured some of the big names: Johan Faust the Sixth, the necromancer Claudius Stark and Eliaures Charles, the Serpent Master.”

She did not add that she had a crush on James Darling’s son.

Or, she had.

“Mr. Darling gave me a broom ride once, when I was little. He’s an even better flyer than I am.”

The princess nodded, as if acknowledging the honor that had been conferred to her. Then her expression grew grim. “But, alas, Agent Darling was unable to help, because that night, the creature with the wings of flame came into my dreams—where the Agents could not protect me.”

The girls gasped. Rachel leaned forward, intrigued. “Can you tell us more about this flame-winged thing? Where is it from?”

The princess spoke gravely. “He called himself the Lightbringer. Only he said it was easier for him to go to places without light. Maybe one does not bring light to places that have it?

“Either way,” Nastasia concluded, “he did not have much chance to say a great deal, because a raven came and told him his time was up.”

“Was it the very large raven with red eyes?” Rachel recalled the moment, the previous night, when the bird saw her watching it. Remembering Mr. Badger’s warning, she shivered again.

“Yes! Exactly,” the princess continued. “So far as I could tell, they were working together. The raven seemed to be in charge of keeping things out of our world. But he had let the Lightbringer in.” A frown appeared on her perfect brow. “Also, this raven was somewhat…uppity.”

Rachel recalled the gruffness with which the bird had spoken to the lion and smiled in spite of her trepidation.

Valerie looked up from her notebook. “So now that…”

Whatever Valerie might have intended to say was lost, because Zoë Forrest stepped out of the sleeping Kitten Fabian.

One moment Kitten snored quietly in the armchair by the fireplace. The next, Zoë had stepped out from the space Kitten’s body occupied. Landing hard on the slate before the hearth, she looked up into the faces present and winced. On her shoulder, her tiger-striped quoll—which really had spots rather than stripes—blinked its beady black eyes.

“Oops,” Zoë murmured.

“Wha…how did you do that?” Rachel stared at Zoë, amazed.

Not only had she appeared from nowhere, but her hair was blue and green plaid. Rachel could not imagine how to do that with hair dye!

Kitten stretched and stifled a yawn. “How peculiar. I just had the oddest dream about you, Zoë.”

Nastasia sat with her hand covering her eyes, overcome with some emotion. When she recovered, she said simply, “I did not tell anyone about you, Zoë…as we had agreed.”

“Um…yeah. Thanks for that.” Zoë crossed the room and threw herself down into an armchair. The feather in her long braid of hair swung back and forth like a plumb bob. The quoll sniffed at it. “Not that it does me a lot of good now…but that’s not your fault. The last few days, when someone was asleep down here, it was Sarpy—Umberto Sarpento, the school custodian. Usually, when he is asleep, no one is nearby. Sarpy snores something fierce.”

“How did you do that?” Valerie echoed Rachel’s question.

Zoë stuck one leg in the air, waving strap-up, leather sandals—the kind heroes were always shown wearing in Greek myths. The soles were the same shade of silver as a familiar’s paws. “These were made for me by Aperahama Whetu, a Maori shaman. They let me walk into the Long Ago Dreamtime.”

“The what?” Joy put her doll down.

“That’s what the folks Down Under call the place where dreams take place. You know how a familiar can grab stuff from the world of dreams and pull it into the physical world? I can do something like that, only I can cross physically and walk through dreams. But someone has to be asleep nearby for me to move in and out.”

“Wow!” Rachel whispered.

“She came into my dream last night,” the princess stated softly.

“She was in my dream, too. Just now.” Kitten brushed hair from her face and petted Leander. “I was dreaming about our fabulous magic carpet—the one that my brother Squirrel’s phoenix used to take us on wonderful trips. My siblings say I’m daft. That this never happened. Only I remember it quite clearly. We went to the beach once, and to a tower filled with treasure.”

“Treasure?” Sigfried’s eyes gleamed. “Where exactly was this?”

“What do you need more treasure for?” Valerie scoffed, her eyes dancing with mischief. “You already have an entire dragon’s hoard.”

“You can never have too much treasure,” said Siggy, who was trying to fire the music stand, as if it were a rifle. Something about his voice reminded Rachel of Lucky, who was nodding emphatically.

“Let’s talk about treasure later.” Rachel leaned forward. “I want to understand what happened.”

Zoë shrugged. “I came through Kitten’s dream just now. I should have known it wasn’t Sarpy. He would never dream about well-dressed children. You were wearing really odd clothing, Kitten.”

“Not odd. Just…old fashioned.” Kitten scrunched up her face, striving to remember. “I could swear we used to dress that way. Maybe Squirrel and Bobcat are right, and I am bonkers.”

“Whatever.” Zoë shrugged. “But I did walk through your dream, and I was there last night, in the princess’s. I wanted to help, but there wasn’t much I could do against that…what was that thing? I was going to hit him with my
patu
, but he left.” She turned to the princess. “You were so impressive. He kept threatening you, and you just defied him. You didn’t even lose your temper or anything.”

“I behaved as becomes my station,” Nastasia replied with quiet dignity. She frowned, dissatisfied with herself. “Alas, I was ineffective. I need to grow stronger.”

“You were awesome!” Zoë flipped her forelock braid containing the feather over her shoulder, to the consternation of the quoll. She grinned. “That guy was freaking scary. I would have been bawling like a baby.”

Curled up in one of the comfortable leather armchairs, Rachel played back the memory of Zoë’s arrival. It was hard to pinpoint. It was as if she woke from a dream, and there Zoë was—very much like when Jemima Puddleduck had appeared in their Art class.

Siggy put down the music stand and crossed to where the princess sat. He sank down on one knee. From his robes, he pulled a dining hall steak knife and laid it at the princess’s feet. “Ma’am, into your service, I offer my life, my strength, my fealty. I have already vowed to defeat your sworn enemy, the rabbit. Grant me the honor to bear my blade in your service! In life or death if I may serve you, I will. I have no sword to offer, but when I get one, I shall! Meanwhile, this knife will have to do.”

Some emotion crossed the princess’s face very quickly. Rachel played it back and saw sadness and something else she could not quite place. Pain, as if Nastasia’s feelings were hurt perhaps? Either way, Nastasia rapidly hid it. As gracious as the Lady of the Lake, she rose and took up the knife, tapping him with the blade on either shoulder and the top of his head. “You do me great honor. Rise, Sir Sigfried.”

“Now you have a knight, like a real princess,” Joy giggled, gazing admiringly at Siggy and Nastasia. A look of eagerness came over her face, lighting it up. “I want to serve, too! We girls can be ladies-in-waiting.”

“I’m not waiting on anyone.” Zoë waved a hand in objection. “I’ve waited enough tables, thank you!”

“Waited tables? Have you really?” Kitten looked up from where she was petting her tiny lion. “But you’re only fourteen, aren’t you? Is anyone here older than fourteen?”

Everyone shook their head.

Rachel murmured. “I’m thirteen.”

“One of my great uncles made me help out in his restaurant,” shrugged Zoë. “Besides, things are different in rural Moldova.”

“Moldova? I thought you were from New Zealand,” Rachel asked, surprised.

Zoë rolled her eyes, which she did with great enthusiasm. Her whole face looked lively. “I’m from everywhere. My grandmother was a Moth, from the far flung Moth clan. So I have relatives in every corner of the earth. More relatives than you could count in your worst nightmare. After my mom died, I got to live with them all. Or at least, it seemed like it. Nothing helps a little motherless girl discover her place in life like sleeping on the couch of relatives who talk in front of her about how much she doesn’t matter to them.

“Eventually, though, I ended up with a cousin in New Zealand who was a Maori tribesman. My mother was half Maori. This cousin had left his tribe and was living in town, working as a barber. But part of the family still lived the old way. One of them, the shaman, took me under his wing—he was a bit crazy, but he cared about my opinions. He made me these silver sandals and gave me my enchanted
patu
—my Maori war club.”