Under a Spell

Chapter Three

I was congratulating myself for nearly getting through my first day at Mercy while my last class of the day was filing in. I went to turn around and found myself nose to cosmetically perfected nose with Fallon.

I cleared my throat and gripped my briefcase so tightly that I could feel my fingernails digging little half-moons into my palms.

Think, Sophie, THINK!

My mind sprung into action and I pasted on a grin, then relived—in rapid succession—every humiliation I had ever suffered in these halls, at the hands of girls in identical skirts.

I felt myself start to tremble.

You’re the grown-up.

I quickly whipped up a memory of staking a big baddie vampire, of defeating a couple of crazed psychopaths, of having the super-popular-girl luck of seeing a fallen angel and a Guardian naked.

I was pretty kick-ass.

“Are you mute or something?”

The snark in the comment—and Fallon moving toward her seat—thunked me back to the classroom and I blew out a sigh.

“No, sorry, ladies. I was just thinking about when I was a student here at Mercy.” A few girls leaned forward, a few raised their eyebrows, showing vague interest. Fallon whipped out a file and went to work on her right hand.

“My name is”—I paused, scanned—“Ms. Lawson, and I’ll be taking over for the time being while Mrs. Prusch is on medical leave.”

“You mean in the nuthouse.”

I was beginning to recognize Fallon’s voice with every part of my body. Just the sound of her spitting words poked at my stomach.

“Shut up, Fallon.” The mumbled quip came from a girl sitting in the front row. I smiled.

“Hi, again.”

Miranda looked up at me. Sitting in front of me at her desk, she somehow looked much smaller than she had in the cafeteria. She didn’t greet me, just went back to her book. I scanned my girls, then looked back at Miranda.

In real life, she was pretty. She had deep olive skin with thick, black brows and a head of fuzzy, dark curls that rolled over her shoulder. In high school world, however, she may as well have been wearing a kick-me sign: she was enviably thin (from a thirty-three-year-old’s point of view) with curves that the mean girls would call fat. Her curls were gorgeous and natural but neglected and unruly (similar to my own, which had earned me the quaint nickname Electric Head), and she bore the high school equivalent to leprosy: a decent case of acne that peppered her nose and chin.

“I had the pleasure of meeting Miranda at lunch today.” I looked up, thinking my connection to the obvious outcast would make her seem adult and cool. But the mention of her name—as if it were the punch line of some untold joke—caused a quiet ripple of laughter through the classroom. I felt myself bristle, then grabbed Mrs. Prusch’s role book and went through the hallowed high school ritual of butchering the students’ surnames and, in this decade of Ja Net (pronounced Jenae), Niola, Suri, and Jacita, their first names as well.

Didn’t anyone name her kid Jennifer anymore?

“Uh, Kayleigh?”

“Here.” A strawberry blond raised her hand as if it weighed eight hundred pounds and her one-word response would be the last she’d ever utter.

“Finleigh?”

Kayleigh’s neighbor to her right gave me a finger wave and a dazzling smile.

“And . . . so—I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to pronounce this.”

Big blue eyes rolled backward like a slot machine. “It’s pronounced so-fee,” the other girl sandwiching Kayleigh groaned. “Sofeigh.”

I wouldn’t have believed it if it weren’t there in ballpoint and white. “Interesting. I’ve just never seen it spelled that way.”

Sofeigh gave me another eye roll and then exchanged the are-you-kidding-me gaze with Fallon and the other ’eigh-ers. I felt sweat beading at the back of my neck.

You’re the adult, Sophie.

“Okay.” I snapped the roll book shut and slid up on the front desk à la every sexy actress playing a teacher in every film I’d ever seen. “We’re talking today about The Scarlet Letter. Who wants to explain to me a little about the book?”

A heavy silence washed over the room and every eye was turned on me, every pair blank.

Where is a swirling vortex of hell when you need it?

The bell rang and it was the single most sweet, welcome sound that I’d ever heard. The girls were up with laptops, iPads, and English books packed, iPhones whipped out and already in mid-text before the thirty-second bell ceased.

“Remember to read the Prufrock poem in its entirety,” I said to the backs of their heads. I could have raised my voice or rapped my hand on the desk to get their attention, but truthfully, watching the herd of teenage girl heads filing en masse out the door took my breath away. Their desertion of my classroom was a thing of pure beauty.

Until I noticed it wasn’t completely deserted.

“Everything okay, Miranda?”

Miranda was hunched at her desk, shoulders sloped, massive waves of frizzy curls tenting whatever it was she studied. She looked up, surprised. “Is class over?”

I nodded silently, and though I knew should do something teacher-ly and admonish her for reading during my lecture, I felt a certain kinship for her, could understand the overwhelming desire to dip into an artsy world when the real one echoed with monikers like Super Dork and Forever Virgin.

I smiled softly at her. “So, was it as bad as I thought it was?”

Miranda looked up from the paper she was doodling on with a shy smile. “No.”

I held her eye and a blush warmed her cheek; she broke my gaze and studied her notebook. “Well, kind of.”

I bit my lip. “And to think the only thing I was worried about subbing here at Mercy was . . . well, you know.” I watched Miranda’s eyes for any new flicker of recognition/witchcraft/avoidance. She just blinked at me, her face blank.

“You know, the kidnapping?” I paused, breathing deeply. “And the other stuff we were talking about earlier.”

Miranda nodded her head, solemnly. I tried a more nonchalant tactic, sliding up onto my desk, letting my legs dangle. “So, did you know her?”

Miranda went back to doodling, a blanket of hair hiding her expression. “Alyssa? Or Cathy?”

“Either,” I said, my heartbeat starting to quicken. “Or both.”

She continued moving her pencil across her paper, not bothering to look at me. “Alyssa was in this class. Fallon’s sitting in her seat right now.”

“Fallon took over Alyssa’s seat already?” I tried not to gape.

Miranda just shrugged, pushed a lock of hair between her lips and sucked on it. “I didn’t know know Cathy, but she’s kind of a legend here now.”

“A legend?”

“You know,” Miranda made air quotes. “‘The girl who was sacrificed.’”

“So that’s what kids here think? It was a sacrifice?”

Miranda raised her eyebrows in the universal sign of “duh” and went on. “Because of the pentagram. And the stuff carved into her.”

I swallowed sour saliva, hating the image the word “carved” brought up. Then I straightened. “How did you know there was something carved into her skin? I don’t remember seeing that in the paper.”

“Welcome to Generation Internet.”

“So . . . do they think it was witches, because of the carvings? Or Satan worshippers?” I tried to force a lightness into my tone—as light a conversation about a dead girl and human sacrifice could be, anyhow.

Miranda dropped her pencil and perched her chin in her hand. “Do you know that there has never been even one bona fide instance of Satanism or Satanic sacrifice in San Francisco?”

I did know that, unfortunately, and could have corrected Miranda—there’s never been a documented case of true Satanic sacrifice in all of the U.S. But I just played dumb.

“Wow. Well, what about the witch stuff? I heard some of the girls saying that maybe the—what was carved—was, like, a spell.”

Miranda didn’t answer and I rushed on. “When I went here, there were always a few girls messing with that stuff. You know, pentagrams and charms and stuff.” I stifled a manufactured oh-how-silly chuckle. “There was even a rumor about a coven on campus.”

Miranda carefully closed her notebook and laid her pencil on top. My throat went dry and a shot of adrenaline zinged through me.

“Yeah. You told me that already.”

Of course it couldn’t have been that easy.

The sun was beginning to dip and gray fingers of darkness stretched across my classroom when Will came across the hall and knocked on my open door frame.

“Ready to head out?”

I looked around my empty room as though some sort of clue or explanation would pop up, but there was nothing. I sighed and pulled my bag over my shoulder. “I feel like today was a total waste. I floundered in front of three classes and we’re no closer to finding Alyssa.”

Will pulled Alyssa’s burnt clothes—which were now carefully packed in Ziploc bags—from his satchel. “We found her clothes.”

“So now we know that she may or may not be dead. Great.” I held my thumb and forefinger a smidge apart. “I stand corrected. We’re this much closer to finding out some information about Alyssa.”

“What did Angel Boy have to say about it?”

“What? You mean Alex?”

Will shook his head slowly. “What’d he have to say about the uni?”

I paused, fairly certain I was wearing one of my most attractive deer-in-the-headlight looks.

“You did call him, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly.”

Will cocked a brow.

“Not at all. I thought you’d be happy about that. You hate ‘Angel Boy’ and the police and all.”

Will crossed his arms and pinned me with a fatherly expression that oozed disappointment. “It’s evidence, love. You’re supposed to report all findings of any significance to the brass. And I never said I hated the angel. I just find it hard to like someone who tried to kill me.”

I wrinkled my brow. “You tried to kill Alex.”

“Did I?”

“And I’m not deliberately hiding evidence. For starters, I’m not sure how significant a burning Dumpster—”

“With the uniform of a missing student—”

“—is. And secondly, I’ve been rather busy here, investigating. There are a lot of students to interview, Will. Lots of crevices and rooms on this campus to check out.”

Will rolled his eyes.

“And also I forgot.”

I could see Will suppressing a groan so I rushed on.

“But it’s not like that’s going to make any difference. Like I said.” I pinched my fingers together again. “That much closer to finding Alyssa.”

“We’re a little bit more than that much”—Will imitated my gesture—“to finding her kidnapper.”

My eyebrows rose. “How so?”

Will sauntered down the aisle of desks and plopped himself down in one toward the back of the room, kicking up his professor shoes on the desk kitty-corner from him. “We know that the garbage goes out on Monday mornings.”

I flipped a desk around and sat it in. “We do?”

“Okay, I know that the garbage here goes out on Monday mornings. So we know that Alyssa’s clothes had to have been dumped within the last twenty-four hours.”

“And that means?”

Will blew out a sigh. “I thought you were the crime-fighting expert and I was just the attractive sidekick.”

I felt myself bristle and let out and audible growl.

“It means that whoever dumped Alyssa’s clothes more than likely has a connection to the school.”

“Of course—” I was about to summon up my best “duh” expression, but Will held up a silencing hand.

“I mean other than as a hunting ground.”

I felt a hot blush was over my cheeks. “Go on.”

“Why would your perp—”

“Unsub,” I corrected, feeling the stupid need to contribute something of merit.

“Why would your unsub”—Will eyed me as he said the word—“return to the scene of the crime just to light up his victim’s clothes? He could have done that anywhere.”

“Maybe he was trying to make some kind of statement?” I bit my lip, considering. “A burning uniform . . . maybe his statement is that high school is like the burning fires of hell?”

“You know, you could really use some therapy for all those non-repressed memories.”

My head was spinning—and throbbing—by the time I snapped Nigella’s door shut and trudged up the steps to my apartment.

“Same time tomorrow?” Will asked as he sunk his key into the lock.

I shook my head. “I need to run some errands tomorrow so I’ll take my own car. But I’ll see you.”

Will gave me one of those exceptionally manly head nods before disappearing into his apartment. I pulled my own keys from my shoulder bag and was about to unlock my door, but I stopped, cocking my head to listen.

Music was thumping through my front door—a weirdly cheery electronica beat. I would have chalked it up to one of Vlad’s super-vamp bands, but this particular song lacked the recorded-in-a-coffin timbre and any lyrics bemoaning an afterlife pox that included Sookie Stackhouse and the Twilight cast.

“Vlad?” I pushed my key into the lock and was surprised when Nina’s dark head popped up from behind my open laptop. She was stationed at the dining table, papers spread all around her, a spiral notebook thick with black scrawl in front of her. She grinned when she saw me.

“So, what do you think?” she yelled over the beat.

“About what?”

“This!” Nina stood up and did a series of funky club moves that probably looked great with low lighting and a severe buzz.

“What is that? And”—I gestured to her cira-1980s full-body snake motion—“what is that?”

She clicked the volume button off and we were dropped into blessed silence—even though the electronica beat still throbbed in my head. “What is all this?”

“Okay, remember how I said that I needed something to really make my mark?”

“Because I’m a substitute teacher, enriching young minds to the point of complete and utter disdain for me? Yeah, I remember that.”

“Well, this is it!” Nina flung out her arms in a measure of complete and utterly confusing joy.

“You’re teaching the snake to a new generation of club dancers?”

Nina’s sigh was so exasperated and so long I thought her chest would implode. “No, silly. Listen.” She clicked the beat on again, started her little jig again, and again, I was baffled.

“What is it?”

“It’s UDA,” she crowed. “The Musical!”

“No,” I said, my sheer terror pushing me backward. “Just . . . no.”

Nina frowned, slammed my computer shut, and slumped down into a chair, chin in hands. “It wasn’t exactly coming together like I wanted. Nothing rhymes with Underworld Detection Agency.”

“Neens, you don’t need a musical to make your mark on the world. You’ve made your mark on me. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

Nina’s eyes were soft and she took my hand, shaking it sweetly. “Oh, honey, of course that counts for something. Just not something for posterity. What do you think about a live action show based on my life?”

I sat down next to her. “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you go back to your novel?”

Nina had had a short stint as a vampire romance novelist. Her book was awful, contrived, and a bloody love note to herself, but on the plus side, it wasn’t set to music.

“No, Soph. That was good, but this is different. I want to help. I want to make people really feel.”

I kept the empathetic smile on my face, thinking that the release of UDA: The Musical would make people feel something, all right. “How do you feel about interpretive dance?” I suggested.

Nina considered if for a second before smashing her hands against her open mouth. “Oh my God. Oh my God, I’m so awful! Here I am lamenting about myself and my contribution to the world when you’re back from your first day as a crime-fighting substitute teacher!”

Sophie Lawson: Crime-Fighting Substitute Teacher. That’s a failed book title if I ever heard one.

“How was it?”

I kept that smile pasted on my face for as long as possible, certain the second I moved my mouth, everything would shatter into a torrent of stupid, self-centered tears.

And it did.

“Oh, Neens,” I said, unable to control the hot tears that washed over my cheeks. “It was awful!”

I fell forward, my forehead plunking against a ballad about the UDA lunchroom. I felt Nina’s cold hand on my shoulder, rubbing softly. “Oh, honey! I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think it was. Come on.” She snaked an arm under my chest and pushed me upright. “Tell me all about it.”

I huffed, one of those half-hiccup, half-breath kind of wails locking in my chest.

“Did the girls make fun of your outfit?”

I looked down at myself. “What’s wrong with this outfit?”

“How ’bout I get you some chocolate pinwheels?”

I groaned while Nina rattled away in the kitchen. “The girls are awful, Neens.”

“They’re teenage girls. Of course they’re awful. It’s their job.”

I cast a frown at Nina and pushed out my lower lip pitifully. “It hurts my feelings.”

Nina blew out a long, sisterly sigh, then threw her arm across my shoulders and hugged me close. “They’re just kids, Sophie. And each one of them acts mean and nasty as a defense mechanism. They don’t know who they are yet. Besides, what’s that saying? They’re probably more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“That’s a saying about wild animals.”

Nina shrugged. “It’s not like you don’t have a defense mechanism of your own.”

“What’s that?”

“Me.” She grinned and at that moment a tiny shard of sunlight crept through the window and bounced off her glossy black hair. With her impeccable makeup, incredible outfit and now this diffuse yellow halo, she looked like the quintessential popular girl.

“You’ll come to school and be my friend?”

“I was thinking I’d eat them, but whatever works.”