They stopped when they reached the middle of the woods, and they weren’t there half an hour before Jonas dared them to get out.
“Are you crazy?” Liv shrieked. “You aren’t supposed to get out of the car. Those are the rules!”
“Who made those rules, Liv? The ghosts?” Jonas snickered. “You just worry about your Weight Watchers rules. I’m going.”
Kaleb pulled the keys from the ignition. He couldn’t be outdone by his little brother. “Me, too.”
Alex hated to admit it, but she was curious.
“You aren’t supposed to turn off the car either,” Liv wailed.
“What?”
“You turned off the car! And the headlights!”
Kaleb shrugged. “Habit.”
Liv shook in panic.
“You’ll be fine.”
“Leave the keys,” she demanded, holding out a hand.
Kaleb fought a smile. “Are you planning to drive away without us?”
“No,” she said, but she didn’t sound completely sure.
“She's not going anywhere,” Jonas remarked. “There isn’t a McDonald’s around here.”
All participants in the dare needed to separate, and Alex found herself alone. Within seconds the air around her silenced. No movement, no whispers, no animals. It was dauntingly still, like the world after a snowfall. Alex tried to spot one of the others, but she couldn’t see a thing. She began whispering into the darkness, calling each of their names. No one answered. They couldn’t be far, so she called their names a little louder. The darkness swallowed her voice.
She decided to make her way back to the Jeep, but she couldn’t remember which way was which. She set off tentatively, crunching through the leaves. And then she froze.
She turned her head, listening for it again. The logical half of her brain insisted that she was making it up, but she couldn’t ignore the tinkling sound of tiny bells, like those on a clown hat. A jester’s hat. She picked up her pace.
They rang again, echoing in her head, except this time they’d moved to the right. Her fingers and toes grew numb with cold, and she could only warm herself with an overcoat of vulnerability. She heard a whimper escape her throat.
Chase, she thought.
Don’t worry. His voice came instantly, and Alex wondered if he had been there all along. That Jester guy is just messing with us.
Where are you now? In the dream.
Looking for you. He split us up.
Why?
He’s bored. We’re entertaining him.
He doesn’t want to hurt us, right?
No. I feel some sort of energy though, so there might be someone else out here with us, dead or alive. He might be trying to keep us away from whoever that is, too. What made you think of this anyway? Your mind must have held the memory for your dreams to carry you here.
I guess maybe because I saw the Jester mentioned in some book that Gabe was reading.
Gabe’s obsessed. But it is kind of cool that some of this world has to do with where we grew up.
The scene played out exactly how she remembered it. Each of them found their way back to the Jeep because they followed the sound of screaming. When they reached Liv, she was hyperventilating because a pair of blinding white lights was slowly traveling towards the car. The high beams grew larger and larger, and to avoid getting slammed by a car of such size, Kaleb quickly started the Jeep and veered sharply left to get out of the way.
It occurred to them on the way home that the road did not go straight ahead. The lights had been shining at them through the trees. And they were accompanied by the ringing of bells.
As the others screamed, Alex could hear giggling. It wasn’t external; it was like the laughter was inside her head.
And it sounded completely insane.
14
Brigitta’s classrooms all seemed the same: vast stadium seating, mahogany railings with desks attached, and raised stages for the instructors. The exception was Professor Duvall’s alchemy, botany, and chemistry workshops, nicknamed ABC. Alex considered the room to be a mix between a marine biologist’s dream and a mad scientist’s lab. A sheet of glass comprised the entire right side of the wall, revealing a tank filled with a variety of sea creatures from pea-sized fish to human-sized squids. To the left, jars wallpapered the room, floor to ceiling, displaying grotesquely unidentifiable contents. The one closest to Alex looked like it was filled with human fingers. Other jars were solid. She could only imagine what was hiding in those.
The only available seat waited for her in the back corner. Calla Bond slouched over the wobbly table, rocking with the precariously uneven legs. Her mousy hair fell over her freckled face, shielding her from the world. She was accompanied by two others: a boy who shared her features right down to the placement of freckles, and a portly boy scratching his scruffy blonde hair. Their feeble island isolated them from the rest of the class as though they were infectious.
Alex slid into the empty chair, and the pudgy boy jumped, gawked at her, and began to scoot his seat away.
A woman sidled into view, exiting from a misshapen door in the front corner of the classroom. She commanded them to turn to page six hundred sixty-six, and snickering filled the room.
Alex rummaged in her bag, but her stomach flip-flopped when she realized she had forgotten her book. What a fantastic first impression she’d make on this teacher. The freckled boy noticed her plight, and he scooted his chair closer to position his book directly in front of Alex.
“Thanks,” she said. “Can you see the page?”
He waved his hand, shooing the thought. “I already read the whole book.”
He had to be kidding. The textbook was the size of a small suitcase, and it was full of formulas and foreign languages. Not the sort of book one could memorize even with an accelerated brain. The pudgy boy met her gaze and winced like he was in pain.
“Ah, right,” said the teacher, “I sense new blood in the room. Where is she?” Like an anorexic runway model with her wiry hair and hollowed eyes, she high-stepped down the aisle and moved like a breeze to the snapping of the loose jewelry around her bone-thin neck and wrists. The thick, colorful beads reminded Alex of stage accessories in a dress-up trunk. Objects fell to the floor in her wake: a piece of paper in one row, an empty cup in another. She didn’t seem to notice. When she came close to Alex, she stiffened, aghast.
Alex greeted her with reserve.
Professor Duvall didn’t respond at first; she just hovered with her mouth frozen in an O. Alex should have been used to this since most of the teachers had behaved the same way. But, unlike the others, this woman’s mouth curved into a Cheshire Cat’s smile and her emerald eyes lit up. “I’ll be damned,” she murmured under her breath. “How did you do it?”
“I’m sorry?” Alex asked, confused.
Duvall waved off the question. “You are the one who took care of that dreadful gargoyle of a bench?”
Alex nodded. News really traveled fast around here.
“Good riddance. I have despised that bench for a century. I’m Professor Lucia Duvall. It’s lovely to meet you.” She regarded the other occupants of Alex’s table with derision, sucking in her already skeletal cheeks. “It would be favorable for you to occupy a seat closer to the front, would it not?”