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New Girl

  Tales from Seelie High #1

  by Aubrey Fredrickson

  Copyright 2015 by Aubrey Fredrickson

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue - The Soothsayer

  New Girl

  Bonus Material - Interview with Kira

  About the Author

  About Tales from Seelie High

  Connect with the Author

  Discover other titles by Aubrey Fredrickson

  Prologue - The Soothsayer

  Sometime at the end of August 2014

  Goban crouched in the dark, his ear pressed firmly against the cold wall. He had discovered the tunnel when he was six. It led from the “nursery,” the dreary set of rooms where he and the other children were kept, all the way through the castle to the throne room. The entrance was hidden inside a closet filled with ancient, discarded toys. None of the adults ever went in there. As far as he knew, none of them were aware of the tunnel.

  She certainly wasn’t or she would have blocked it off long ago.

  “I grow weary of your prattling, soothsayer. Speak plainly or I will have you thrown into the dungeon.”

  Even though she could have had no way of knowing that he was there, Goban still shivered at the sound of her voice. She put on such a show of kindness when the throne room was filled with courtiers or when she deigned to leave the castle and mingle with the common folk of her realm. But that’s all it ever was—a show. This coldness was her true self, the self she had never bothered to hide from Goban and the other children. They were not worth the effort.

  “Your majesty,” a man’s voice pleaded. Goban didn’t recognize it, but it must surely belong to the soothsayer. There weren’t many in the kingdom these days. It was rumored that the power to foretell the future was fading from their world, but it wasn’t. The Queen had just thrown anyone who possessed it in the dungeon. Most had died of sickness or starvation, although the few who had particularly angered her had been killed by the guards. A handful was still down there. Goban had spoken with them—the tunnel lead down to the dungeon as well—but they had had nothing to tell him. His future, like that of the Queen’s, hung in the balance, torn between two worlds. Nothing could be foretold with any certainty.

  That was what the soothsayer was trying to explain to the Queen now. “Please your majesty,” he repeated. “You must understand that foretelling future events is never simple. The future is not set in stone, as is the past. It is like the wind, always changing, always shifting. And around you, the wind blows most fiercely, scattering possibilities in every direction. I can see only that something is coming. The wind blows more fiercely still with each passing day. Something is coming.”

  “You are as incompetent as the last fool. You are all charlatans, babbling about wind and change. The blood of the true seers has grown thin of late. You are nothing but fortunetellers, peddling nonsense to the gullible. Take him to the dungeon.”

  Goban heard the soothsayer gasp and then the muffled sounds of footsteps approaching—the guards. He imagined them placing their heavy metal shackles around the soothsayer’s wrists and dragging him across the throne room.

  He was thinking that he should return to the nursery when a sudden cry pierced through the wall, filling the tunnel with anguish.

  “She is coming!” a voice that was like the soothsayer’s and yet not, wailed on the other side of the wall. “I see her, plain in appearance and yet adorned with power. She is coming to return that which was lost. When she opens the door, our world will tremble with her coming!”

  “Take him away,” the Queen ordered. The anger was gone from her voice. She sounded bored now, uninterested in the man’s warnings. Or was she? There was something in her voice, something she was trying to keep hidden.

  There were some more muffled sounds and then Goban heard the heavy doors of the throne room open and close. The guards had dragged the soothsayer from the room.

  He heard nothing but silence for several heartbeats and then the sound began, low at first and then louder and louder as the throne room filled with her laughter.

  The Queen did not laugh easily. Could it be that she had finally heard the news that she had been seeking for these many years, as she imprisoned and killed one seer after another?

  Shivering again, Goban quickly scuttled back down the tunnel, away from the echoing laughter.

  New Girl

  September 1, 2014

  It's not like this is a first for me. I've been the "new girl" for so much of my life that sometimes I feel like that's my name. I'm about to start ninth grade and I've been to six schools in six different cities. But this time it feels different. Maybe because Dad’s not here or because this morning when she left for work, Mom hugged me and said, "We're going to love it here." She's never said that before. I think she always been afraid to love any of the places we lived because she knew they were only temporary. Eventually Dad, for whom every move was an adventure, would come home and announce, "Time to start packing!"

  And Mom would stop whatever she was doing and get out the boxes. She never complained. Never. Not even when Dad told her at the beginning of the summer that his company was sending him to Germany for a year. She didn't complain or cry or even try to talk him out of it. She just said, "I want a divorce."

  I never knew divorce could be so easy. I mean, it's a marriage, a family. If something that big, that important is going to end, I always assumed it would have to be really loud and messy. When I was eight I had a friend whose parents got divorced. Her mom threw a cast iron skillet at her dad's head and a neighbor called the police. That's how I always pictured divorce.

  But it turns out all it really takes is four little words. "I want a divorce."

  I was standing in the hallway. I had headed downstairs when I heard Dad come through the front door because I wanted him to take me to the mall before dinner. I wanted to get a new swimsuit because the one I had from last year didn't fit. So, there I was, standing in the hallway. My mom had just come from the kitchen. She still had a dish towel in one hand. Dad had been in the process of taking off his rain coat and hanging it in the hall closet. It had slipped off the hangar and lay crumpled on the floor.

  They didn't argue. Not even then. They just went up to their bedroom and talked quietly for about an hour and then they came down, together, to tell me that they were going to get a divorce. That night Dad moved to a motel.

  By the end of the summer, it was over and Mom and I were moving to Michigan. Dad stayed in Portland. In a few weeks he would be across the ocean in Germany.

  "It will be great," Mom had said. "One last move and then we'll stay put. You can go to the same high school all four years, maybe even make some real friends."

  At the time, it sounded like it might be pretty nice. Now, as I stand on the steps in front of my new school, I'm not so sure. The sign above the door says, "Seelie High School, Home of the Druids."

  And all I can think is, Druid? I’m stuck being a druid?

  Things start getting weird right away. First of all, everyone keeps staring at me. I mean, I know I’m the “new girl,” but it’s everyone’s first day of high school, right? Shouldn’t everyone be worried about memorizing their locker combinations or finding out whether their friends are in the same classes? But no, they’re all just staring at me. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve suddenly sprouted horns or something when the bell rings and the teacher gets up from his desk.

  “Good morning
. I’m Mr. Kelley. I’ll just take roll and then we can talk a little about what we’ll be doing in homeroom this year.”

  He starts reading off names and it’s pretty routine until he gets to “Aislin Donaghue.”

  A red headed girl at the back of the class stands up and says, “It has begun. That which was lost has come back again. The bell will toll the hour of returning. The key shall be revealed and the way that was closed shall be open once more.”

  Okay, so that’s weird, right? But the absolute weirdest thing is that no one else in the room even looks at the girl. The other kids just keep doing whatever it is they were doing before she spoke, which mostly means staring at me. As if I’m the strangest thing in the room. Even Mr. Kelley ignores her outburst. He just goes on calling names like nothing happened.

  I’m the only one staring at her and maybe that’s why she turns her head to look at me. That’s when I notice her eyes. They are milky white. She must be completely blind. But she’s looking at me. For just a moment our eyes are locked and I can’t look away. Then it’s over and she sits down and bends her head, so that her long red hair hides her face.

  “Kira Nichols?”

  I realize that Mr. Kelley is saying my name. I turn around and raise my hand. “Here,” I say, feeling the eyes of every person in the room boring into me. Except for the milky white eyes of Aislin Donaghue.

  Remember the peddler.

  I check my phone in the hall between classes and see the text from Dad. I texted him after homeroom, telling him that there was something seriously wrong with my new school and that I wanted to come back to Portland.

  The peddler is from a story he used to tell me when I was little. It’s about a man who was cursed by a wicked witch. His curse was that he could never stay in one place for longer than a month. So, he became a peddler and travelled around the world, having adventures. Until he got tired of all the travelling and built a house. He lived in the house happily for one month and then the next morning his wife found him sitting at his kitchen table, turned into stone.

  Dad used to tell me that’s why we had to keep moving—because our family was cursed just like the peddler. Except we could stay longer than a month, but still not too long.

  “Remember the peddler” is Dad’s way of telling me that I can’t go back to Portland.

  Which is a stupid thing to want anyway because he’s leaving for Germany in a few weeks. Oh well...I guess I just have to deal with the weirdness.

  Speaking of which, I see Aislin again. She’s talking to a tall lanky boy in a basketball jersey. For just a moment she looks my way and I see that her eyes are a bright green. Am I going crazy? Did I imagine the whole thing?

  “You’ll get used to her,” a voice says at my side.

  I look over and see a short blond girl.

  “Don’t let Aislin get under your skin. She does that at least once a week. Can’t help it, poor thing. I’m Daphne, by the way.”

  “Can’t help what?” I ask. “Oh…I’m Kira.”

  The girl laughs. “I know who you are. Everyone does. We don’t get a lot of new people here. New Elphame isn’t exactly a booming metropolis, you know? Hardly anyone ever comes here. You’re big news, girl!”

  “That’s why everyone keeps staring…I was starting to think maybe I had a huge zit on my nose or something. So, um…What can’t Aislin help?”

  Daphne grins at the zit comment and then waves her hand through the air in a vague gesture. “Oh, you know…The whole prophecy thing. It runs in her family. Her mom predicted the Ice Bucket Challenge.”

  I stare at her. “Prophecy?”

  “Yeah. She’s kind of a seer...Except her second sight is broken. She never makes any sense.”

  I’m trying to decide whether to laugh at the joke or run away from the crazy girl when the bell rings, warning us that we only have a few minutes to get to class. “Better go, I guess.”

  It turns out that Daphne and I have the same classes for the rest of the morning, so she becomes my unofficial Seelie High tour guide. I guess they all had some kind of orientation at the end of eighth grade so everyone but me seems to know their way around. Daphne shows me where classes are, warns me about which cute guys are taken, and sticks her tongue out at people who stare at me for too long. She talks a lot, but she’s pretty cool. Aislin is also in all of our classes, but she doesn’t do anything else strange, so I just try to ignore her. Actually, everyone seems to ignore her except for the tall guy, who follows her around like a little lost puppy.

  Our last class before lunch is Freshman English. The teacher, Ms. Brannon, is young and seems all right. She tells us that we’ll be spending most of our first quarter writing a research paper, so she wants us to get to know the library right away. She pulls out a stack of paper and waves it around.

  “This is a scavenger hunt. We’ll break into groups and head over to the library. You’ll have the rest of the period to find everything on the list. If you finish early, find a seat and don’t make too much noise.” She pauses for a moment and then grins. “Mrs. Gorman, the head librarian, isn’t big on noise and you know she’s a banshee, so you don’t want to get on her bad side.”

  I’m surprised that a teacher would insult another adult in front of her class like that but everyone else just laughs.

  Ms. Brannon tells us to separate into groups of four and Daphne stands up, rubbing her hands together, and says loudly, “Okay, I get Kira.” Like we’re picking teams for dodge ball or something. “Who else?”

  Several people roll their eyes at her, but a couple of guys actually start heading our way. Daphne ignores them. “Hey Aislin,” she calls across the room. “You come with us. And Fin, of course.”

  The two boys look disappointed, but quickly find themselves another group to join, which is too bad because they were actually pretty cute. Aislin and the tall boy start walking toward us. I try not to frown. I know what it’s like not to fit in, so I generally try to be nice to outsiders, but something about this girl just weirds me out. I keep remembering those milky white eyes staring at me. Even if I did imagine it, it’s pretty creepy.

  The library is a huge two story building on the edge of campus, complete with a bell tower. I’m surprised that a high school has such a big library, but Daphne explains that it’s actually the town’s public library.

  “It’s the oldest building in town. Well, except for the pub. But the library is almost as old. They just built the school around it,” she says, continuing her tour guide duties. She points to the bell tower. “The bell is cracked, like the Liberty Bell.”

  I look and, sure enough, I can see a large crack running down the side of the bell. “Can’t it be fixed?” I ask.

  Daphne shakes her head. “The city council got a bee in their bonnet about it like three years ago and sent for a specialist, but he said that the only thing to do is completely replace it. But it’s like a historical artifact or something, so they can’t.”

  “There’s a legend that says the town is under a curse and that the bell will only ring again when the curse is broken,” Aislin tells me.

  “Um…okay,” I say as I inch away from her. I try to smile, like I think it’s a joke, but I see the look Daphne is giving her. It clearly says, “Why did you tell her that?”

  Maybe Daphne is just as weird and creepy as Aislin, only better at hiding it. Prophecies and curses? This is starting to sound like one of Dad’s stories. I’d better find someone else to sit with at lunch. I seem to have accidentally fallen in with the crazy clique.

  “Come on,” Daphne says. Giving Aislin one last meaningful look, she pushes through the library doors.

  We meet Mrs. Gorman right away and I have to agree with Ms. Brannon. She is a banshee. As soon as we walk through the doors, she swoops out of nowhere and glares at us. She is tall and thin and about ninety years old, all pale skin and bony elbows. I can imagine her chasing me in a nightmare, screaming about overdue fines and food stains on book pages. “Please use y
our inside voices,” she hisses.

  Since we haven’t, in fact, said anything at all, I don’t know what put a twist in her knickers. But I smile weakly and nod, like a good little girl who never talks above a whisper. The others do the same and we hurry past her.

  We stop in front of the reference desk and I look around. The library is huge. The main room has a vaulted ceiling and colored light streams in through stained glass windows set high in the walls. It’s beautiful. There are tables scattered around and a few groupings of arm chairs and couches. Not a lot of books, though. Just a few in display cases. The circular reference desk is in the center of the room and is manned by two elderly women, who look like they’re probably related to Mrs. Gorman.

  There are several staircases that lead out of the room. They are labeled things like “Fiction, adult. Non-fiction, juvenile.” I guess that’s where you go to find the books.

  “So let’s see what we’re looking for,” Daphne says, pulling out the assignment. The rest of us crowd around her to see.

  “Card catalogue?” I ask after scanning through the paper. “That’s a joke, right? No one uses those anymore. Everything’s on computers.”

  The others look embarrassed. Even Fin. Daphne gives a little laugh. “Mrs. Gorman is...old fashioned. The city council bought a bunch of computers a while back, but she stuck them down in the basement and kept the card catalogue. I’ve heard that you can use the computers if you ask, but she glares at you and it’s really creepy down there anyway, so mostly no one bothers.”

  “Okay,” I say slowly. This town gets stranger by the second. I wonder if there’s any chance I could convince Mom to let me move to Germany with Dad. Europe. That’s got to be educational, right?

  We work our way through the questions, riffling through the card catalogue and tramping up and down stairs to find the names of authors, the publication dates, and the fifth word on the seventeenth page. It’s actually almost fun. It beats sitting in class, anyway, and neither Aislin nor Daphne says anything about curses. Fin doesn’t say anything at all. I’m starting to wonder if he’s a mute. He just sort of trails around behind Aislin, watching her every move like he’s afraid she might break apart at any moment. I can’t decide if it’s sweet puppy-dog love or sinister stalker obsession.

  The only weird thing that happens really is that as I reach up to grab a book at one point, Aislin asks, “What’s that?”

  She’s staring at the purplish blob on the back of my left hand. I quickly lower my hand and rub at the blob. “It’s a birthmark,” I tell her. “My dad has one too.”

  I’m used to people asking about it, but for some reason the way that Aislin stares at it makes me self-conscious. But she doesn’t say anything else and we keep going.