فصل 8

Chapter 8

Unforgiven

“We’ll be late for your first challenge!” Beatrix frowned from the door, two satchels of books in hand.

Sophie didn’t move, glaring at Agatha.

“Now you want to stay?” she said leerily, perched on the middle bed in her school uniform, a crystal diadem glittering on her head. “You said it was Evil to stay.” Back turned, Agatha stared at the painting splashed across the wall, once a pink vision of dashing princes kissing their princesses—now a life-size mural of her kissing Sophie back to life in a starburst of blue light. I’m just seeing him. I’m not choosing him. I’m just . . . seeing him.

“What about seeing Tedros?” Sophie lashed, remembering the Dean’s warning. “What about seeing your prince?” Agatha didn’t answer.

“Well?” Sophie pushed.

Agatha turned, pale limbs jutting from her uniform, diadem slipping down her hair. “I’m still here, aren’t I?” Sophie exhaled, the Dean’s echo trickling away. Like the School Master, the Dean couldn’t fathom the strength of their friendship. Agatha would never go to Tedros. They’d been through too much.

“You forgive me?” Agatha asked, surprised by Sophie’s silence.

Sophie looked up, smiling to answer. But suddenly Sophie wasn’t seeing Agatha anymore.

Suddenly all Sophie saw was the girl who’d wished for a boy. The girl who’d stabbed her in the back. The girl who’d ruined their Ever After.

An old fire of suspicion kindled inside.

Forgive her, Sophie thought, fighting it.

But her muscles were clenching . . . her fists curling . . .

The Good forgive!

But now her heart swelled to a witch’s rage—

With a gasp, Sophie flung off the bed and hugged Agatha, jostling her friend’s tiara. “Oh Aggie, I forgive you! I forgive you for everything! I know you’d never go to him!” Agatha reddened, averting her eyes. “What is this cursed thing?” she murmured, diadem now somehow in her mouth.

“Duh. Your Captain crowns,” Beatrix crabbed, foot tapping impatiently. “You were the top Ever when you left, and Sophie was the top Never.” “Well, we’re on the same side now,” Sophie beamed and gripped Agatha’s hand.

Agatha felt her palm sweat and let go to grab a satchel of books from Beatrix.

“Your rankings start over today, though,” Beatrix said. “If we ever get to your first challenge.” As Sophie followed Beatrix’s bald head out, she glanced back at Agatha, who was frowning at the book spines in her satchel: Men: The Savage Race

Happiness Without Boys

The Princess’s Guide to Princelessness

“Ready for our new school?” Sophie said, holding open the door.

Agatha looked up and did her best to smile back.

Professor Anemone gave Agatha a loaded glare as she trudged into her blue taffy-coated classroom for Debeautification without any of her usual manic flounce. Twenty girls straightened to attention in neat rows.

“This week we continue to debeautify everything a prince expects of his princess,” Professor Anemone huffed, bright-yellow gown devoid of the brassy jewels, feathered bustiers, soaring headdresses, and fur regalia she used to parade. The classroom too had been stripped of all her old Beautification flourishes, including her antique mirrored stations from Putzi, before-and-after portraits of her most improved students, and shelves upon shelves of grooming equipment. Now all that was left were the white-fudge desks, a licorice chalkboard, and blue-taffy walls watermarked with Sophie’s smiling face and a marshmallow speech bubble: Beauty Is a State of Mind!

“To review,” Professor Anemone grouched, flashing Agatha another blameful scowl, “first we debeautified diets as insidious plagues and encouraged a girl to eat anything her heart desires . . . even candy.” Agatha coughed. Professor Anemone reviled candy so much she’d once punished her with two weeks of scrubbing dishes for eating it. Yet the Evergirls didn’t seem at all fazed by this about-face. Indeed, Agatha noticed a few holes in Reena’s fudge desk, and suddenly her plumper appearance was no longer a mystery.

“Second, we debeautified hair and a prince’s preference for long, lustrous locks,” the teacher continued, “instead advocating that each girl experiment and find a style that feels right.” Agatha saw her grimace as she took in Giselle’s blue mohawk, Beatrix’s hairless pate, and Millicent’s dirty red mop—hair that Professor Anemone’s old class had once spent months grooming to perfection.

“Third, we debeautified makeup as a pawn of patriarchy designed entirely to attract men,” the teacher went on, wincing at the sea of unwashed faces, proudly worn blemishes, and Nevers who’d applied it curiously, like two-year-olds left to face paint. “And today, we move on to our fourth unit—” She turned to the chalkboard, words appearing as she moodily slashed her finger across it— DEBEAUTIFYING PINK

The last letter appeared with a nails-on-board squeak and girls shielded their ears. “From last night’s reading,” the teacher grumped, “what are three reasons why pink must be exterminated?” Agatha frowned. Professor Anemone worshipped pink.

“Yes, Beatrix,” her teacher said, for Beatrix was waving her arm like she needed to pee.

“Because pink is a color associated with weakness, helplessness, and anxiety. But Professor Anemone—” “Another reason, Dot?”

“Because pink is the opposite of blue, a color of strength and serenity, which boys have appropriated for themselves without giving girls a choice,” Dot preened, earning high fives from her Evergirl coterie. Hester slingshot her with a shard of taffy and Dot yelped.

“Professor Anemone—” Beatrix interrupted—

“You had a turn, Beatrix! Arachne, the last reason?”

“Because pink is a sign of infection around a cut. And pinkeye means you have fungus in your eye—” “Take this as a reminder to do your reading before you answer, Arachne,” Professor Anemone snapped, adding under her breath, “and a reminder why Evers and Nevers should be in different schoo— WHAT IS IT, BEATRIX!” “Professor Anemone, why are you wearing pink?”

Professor Anemone tracked her eyes to a heart-shaped pink barrette clipped in her own wild blond hair. Her cheeks ballooned red, about to blow— Then she saw a butterfly on the windowsill.

“Oh dear! Am I?” She magically turned the barrette blue with her finger. “Turning a bit color-blind in middle age. Now please hand in your homework diaries on what steps you’ve taken to debeautify.” She stomped through the rows of girls to collect them, giving the butterfly a dirty look as it flew away, presumably because it could only hear and not see. Agatha scanned the loamy blue walls, once the same color as Sophie’s favorite pink dress before the Dean had her way with it. Agatha never liked pink (it reminded her of baby vomit), but why shouldn’t Professor Anemone decorate her classroom how she liked?

She glanced at Sophie in the next desk, ogling her watermarked face on the taffy walls. Allergies to candy were cured by celebrity, it seemed.

“Aggie, I’ve been thinking,” Sophie said, turning to her. “Why do you think Tedros hasn’t tried to see you?” “What?”

“You’ve been here all morning. No Romeo sneaking through your window. No lovers’ embrace . . . he hasn’t even sent you a note.” Agatha stiffened. “Doesn’t matter, does it?” she said, and feigned listening to the teacher.

“Well, it’s even more reason not to try and see him,” Sophie sighed, polishing her Captain’s crown. “Who knows if he even wants you to? In any case, we have our first three classes together, then we have different schedules. Wonder why the Dean separated us. Don’t think we’re even in the same Forest Group . . .” Her voice trailed off as Agatha gazed out the window at Halfway Bridge, obscured by swirling gray fog. She was still thinking about what Sophie had just said.

Why hasn’t Tedros tried to see me?

A blue barrette dropped on her desk and clinked to the floor. As she reached for it, a hand seized hers—“Clarissa is livid,” Professor Anemone hissed in her ear. “You must seal your ending with Sophie or Tedros immediate—” She silenced, because the door swung open and Pollux the dog staggered through—or rather, his head staggered through, wobbling atop an antelope’s body he clearly didn’t know how to use.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, raising his nose snootily. “I had private counsel with the Dean about the need for more aggressive pink removal. Indeed, I found a thread of it in the fourth-floor carpet and had it exterminated at once.” Agatha and Sophie exchanged startled looks, for both were undoubtedly thinking the same thing. As one-half of a two-headed dog, Pollux frequently lost the battle to use their body to his brother, Castor, who taught in Evil. Since Castor was a vicious male dog, Agatha wasn’t surprised he was evicted from the castle with the boys. But up until now, she’d been quite sure Pollux was . . .

“Male too?” she whispered to Hester behind her.

Hester eyed Pollux’s weak jaw, scanty fur, and rosy nostrils. “I’d say he has about as much male in him as there is pink left in that carpet.” “My dear Professor Anemone,” Pollux said in his strident voice. “I believe there was an unfortunate incident involving a pink barrette this morning. Perhaps I should administer today’s challenge, if you’re not up to your best?” Professor Anemone glared blackly. “What about your pink nose?” Pollux looked like he’d been slapped. “It’s—it’s an inherited condition—” “Since choosing a challenge is the one freedom I am still allowed,” Professor Anemone said to the students, “today’s competition will be—” The door opened again. “WHAT NOW?”

The Dean slipped in with a warm smile. “Since it’s our Captains’ first day, Emma, perhaps it might be more appropriate if I choose the challenge?” Professor Anemone muttered grimly and dumped herself at her sour-candy desk.

“Pollux dear,” said the Dean, sashaying in front of Professor Anemone’s desk, “might we remind our Captains how rankings are awarded?” “Certainly, Dean,” Pollux sniffed. “All students in the School for Girls are ranked in class challenges from first to last. Given there are 20 students in each class, the best performer in a given challenge will receive a rank of 1, with the most feeble student receiving a 20. These ranks will determine whether you are tracked as a Leader, a Follower, or a Mogrif, the last referring to those girls who will undergo transformation into animals or plants.” Students murmured, perhaps having forgotten that in this world free of Good and Evil, some of them would still end up newts or ferns.

“Given our new and improved school,” Pollux continued, “the Dean has chosen to wait until the start of third year to award tracks. So I suggest you continue to mind your ranks with urgency—” “And perhaps, Pollux,” the Dean cooed as she sat on the desk, backside in Professor Anemone’s face, “there is another reason why now is a good time for the girls to mind their ranks?” “Groom Room,” Agatha mumbled, remembering the medieval makeover spa that once rewarded the highest-ranked girls.

Hester shook her head. “Incinerated. Part of Debeautification.” “Of course, Dean,” Pollux said. “As you know, odorous and poorly dressed princes have been gathering in force at the Woods gate, ready to kill one of our own. With our Captains’ arrival today, they will no doubt redouble their efforts. Though our castle enchantments have kept the princes out thus far, we must be alerted if they fail. Thus, beginning tonight, the two students with the lowest rankings at day’s end will stand guard at the Woods gate from dusk until dawn.” Agatha grimaced as girls buzzed around her. Last year, failing in Good and Evil meant being turned into a guard for the opposite side. This year, girls who failed in their lessons against boys would get slaughtered by them first. So much for “new and improved.” “The first challenge is called Unforgiven,” the Dean said. “In order to protect each other in the war to come, you must learn to resist the attraction of men. Each of you will face a phantom boy from your past for whom you’ve had feelings. Slay him ruthlessly, even if you want to forgive. He is the enemy now and sees you as the same. The more savagely you kill him, the higher your rank.” Agatha tensed. She and Sophie would face the same boy.

Beatrix went first. The Dean pointed a sharp nail at her heart and, as if carving with a knife, drew out a wisp of blue-lit smoke that congealed into a phantom and stepped from Beatrix’s body like a shadowed self. Chaddick, the burly gray-eyed Everboy who had once asked her to the Ball, bent to one knee before her in a haloed blue haze and held forth a rose with a dashing smile— Beatrix stabbed her glowing finger and blasted him to dust.

“Come a long way, hasn’t she?” Anadil mused to her spooked rats, peeking from her pocket.

Professor Anemone was hopping with fury. “Evelyn, this challenge is cruel, nefarious, and hasn’t the slightest to do with Debeautification,” she fired, standing at her desk, “so I suggest you—” She stopped because candy claws had magically grown out of the desk and gripped her by both shoulders, preparing to evict her.

“Suggest I what?” the Dean asked.

“Continue,” Professor Anemone rasped, and the candy claws vanished back into the desk.

The girls resumed buzzing for their turn, clearly siding with the Dean. Meanwhile, Hester glowered at Agatha with a told-you look.

As more students took turns against their heart’s blue phantoms—Kiko struggled to dispatch red-haired Tristan, Giselle made tan Nicholas grow braids that strangled him, Dot bombed when she could only give weasel-faced Hort a pimple—Agatha’s thoughts drifted back to Tedros. She could barely admit it, but Sophie was right. Her prince would have come somehow if he wanted to see her. Suppose she’d missed his note? Or the Dean had intercepted it? Should she still go through with the witches’ plan tonight— Agatha swallowed a scream. Have I gone mad? Risking her best friend’s life for a boy she barely knew? She thought about Sophie’s lit-up face in their room, so relieved that they’d made peace. This wasn’t about Evers and Nevers. This wasn’t a battle between a prince and a witch. This was about her and Sophie, striving to forgive each other’s mistakes, fighting to save a friendship.

Agatha winced at the irony. She had forgotten the lesson Sophie had almost died learning.

Her prince was a fantasy. Her best friend was the real thing.

Agatha took a deep breath. “Sophie?”

“Mmmm?” Sophie said, stealthily signing autographs for two Evergirls.

“You sure you forgive me?”

Sophie glanced up, focused and sincere. “Aggie, you took back your wish. That’s all I wanted.” She reached over and squeezed her friend’s wrist. “Just give this place a chance, all right?” Agatha looked into Sophie’s hopeful eyes, the same hope she saw in all the other girls at this school. “There’s life after boys,” Sophie said, with a smile as bright as her diadem. “You’ll see.” For the first time, Agatha let the thought in.

“Sophie is next,” Pollux sniffed behind her.

Sophie turned to see the whole class goggling at her.

“We’re doing a challenge?” Sophie asked, bewildered. “When does the Groom Room open?” She barely gleaned the rules before Pollux shoved her forward with his antelope hoof— “Just kill him fast!” Agatha hissed at her. “You can’t be anywhere near those princes tonight!” “But I don’t want to kill anyone!” Sophie whimpered as Pollux trotted her past Professor Anemone, steaming at her desk.

Sophie took her place in front of the Dean, trying to calm down. All she had to do was slay a ghost and she’d be safe with Agatha, at least for the night.

The witch is gone.

Sophie nodded, ready to face the boy her friend had wished for over her.

The witch is gone.

The Dean raised her long, gold-lacquered nail and pulled trails of blue smoke from Sophie, slowly, luxuriously, until they began to take shape . . . and dissipated into thin air.

Sophie beamed proudly. “Like I said, I’m 100% Goo—”

Pain ripped through her chest and Sophie buckled. “Oh my God.” Agatha bolted to her feet. “Are you okay?”

But now bloodred smoke was leaking from her friend’s chest, as Sophie clutched it tighter, choking in agony. She raised scared eyes to Agatha, smoke spilling from inside her. “Aggie—help—me—” Agatha lunged over her desk too late—

Sophie screamed a cry and a rip of red light exploded from her heart.

The class slammed back against their chairs in shock. Agatha froze.

Protruding out of Sophie’s body was a phantom’s head.

Only it wasn’t Tedros’.

A massive black Beast, half man, half wolf, with devil-red eyes, dripped smoking drool as it jutted its jaws from Sophie’s chest. Sophie couldn’t breathe, staring down at the Beast who’d cursed her dreams since she killed it a year ago—the Beast now birthed from her own soul.

Step by step, the phantom crawled out of Sophie’s body, landing on knife-sharp claws, and grew erect on two hairy legs, head bowed, nostrils flaring.

Then it raised red eyes to the class and snarled.

Smashing through rows, the Beast inspected the face of each petrified girl, hunting for someone. It growled rejection again, again, snapping and seething, slobbering angrier, angrier . . . until it stopped cold.

Slowly the Beast turned to Agatha and smiled bloodstained teeth.

“No!” Sophie screamed—

The Beast launched across the room onto Agatha’s desk and slashed claws across her with a hateful roar. Then it leapt back into Sophie’s heart in a single bound, snuffing its infernal light.

Sophie fainted and crumpled to the floor.

No one moved. Agatha’s chest pounded so loud, whiting out her vision until it ebbed just long enough for her to see what the Beast had magically slashed on her in gruesome pink scars.

UNFORGIVEN

With an ugly, slurping sound, the scars shriveled and vanished into her skin.

Agatha touched shaking fingers to her healed chest and slowly looked up.

On her knees, Professor Anemone had Sophie in her arms and gently revived her with a glowing fingertip. As her teacher shepherded her to her seat, Sophie panted and shivered in her grip. “I didn’t do it—” she choked as she sat, barely audible. “It wasn’t me—” “Shhh, Agatha knows you’d never attack her, dear. In the heat of a moment, your soul just mistook her for a boy,” the Dean soothed, caressing her and Agatha’s shoulders. “Still, a model performance, despite its carelessness.” She paused and smiled at the class. “Who’s next?” Professor Anemone gave the Dean a rancid glare and left the room.

At her desk, Sophie was quaking just as much as Agatha, neither able to look at the other. As unnerved students took turns, barely killing their phantoms, Agatha saw the rest of the class give her darting glances, as if they trusted the Dean’s explanation and she should too.

Sophie looked up through tears. “Aggie, you believe her, don’t you? I forgive you—I swear—” But Agatha was staring at Hester, who had the same ominous face she’d worn in the bathroom, warning her wish wouldn’t go unpunished.

“Please let’s get the Storian,” Sophie said, voice breaking.

Agatha slowly turned to her.

“We’ll both mean our wish now, won’t we?” Sophie begged. “You said you wanted to go home.” Agatha felt no relief. Only the deepening dread that it was too late to go home.

“Agatha,” said a voice.

Agatha’s eyes lifted over Sophie to see the Dean against the window.

“You’re last, dear.”

Agatha lost time in those moments, unsure how she made it from one point to another, until she stood before the Dean at the front of the room, listless and scared. Her chest simmered with heat, as if the slashed message had drawn under her skin and tattooed inside her. For the first time, she didn’t hear the voices of Good, telling her to believe her friend. Instead, she heard the witches’ voices, telling her that for the second year, there’d been no Great Mistake in why she’d come to school.

Because she’d wished for the right ending after all.

The Dean thrust her finger at Agatha and yanked smoke from her with so much force that Agatha toppled backwards. Billowing high, the blue wisps pooled in the air like a suspended cloud, about to reveal its phantom. . . .

Then the mist turned black.

The Dean’s eyes widened. Thick as thunderclouds, the smoke began to swirl, faster, faster, funneling to deathly black fog. Agatha scrambled back. “What’s happeni—” Lightning exploded from the cyclone and black wind ripped from its vortex, knocking girls to the ground and smashing the Dean into the sour-candy desk. The wind tore across the taffy before it blew all the butterflies off the Dean’s dress and blasted them like a cannon through the window. Swirling and howling with vengeance, the black gale snatched the door off its hinges and pinned girls against the wall, leaving only Agatha untouched. Sophie tried to crawl towards Agatha to save her, but the wind threw Sophie across the room into a cabinet. Then with a last burst of force, it picked Agatha up and sucked her screaming into its cloud.

Gasping, spinning, Agatha felt and saw nothing but black walls of wind, rising higher on all sides, shielding her view of the room. The wind bashed her from wall to wall with hellacious force, shredding and swallowing her Captain’s crown, the roars growing louder, louder, splitting her ears—until all at once the winds died away, leaving her in a quiet eye of darkness.

The black walls around her started to thicken with dimension and light, morphing into the same ghostly shadow on all four sides . . . masks . . . giant silver masks . . .

Tedros’ searing blue eyes gleamed through each, glaring down from every direction.

“Tonight,” he boomed, voice resounding. “Cross the Bridge.” Dwarfed beneath him, Agatha faltered for voice. “But—but—” Tedros vanished. The black winds ripped into her heart with a thunderclap, leaving Agatha back in the silent classroom without a hair out of place.

Girls slowly looked up from their disheveled heaps to see the room blown to smithereens, except for Professor Anemone, Professor Dovey, and Lady Lesso gawping through the doorway. The door magically slammed in their faces.

“Who was it?” The Dean staggered up, a windswept mess. “Who’d you see?” Agatha’s eyes lowered to the Dean’s blank dress, emptied of butterflies. She couldn’t hear everything, it turned out. Agatha glowered back at her, defiant.

The Dean’s face melted into a slow, cryptic smile and a “20” burst into smoky maggots above Agatha’s head. “For failing the challenge completely,” the Dean declared, magically restoring her own looks as she awarded the rest of the ranks (Dot wrestled a putrid-smelling “19”). A thousand blue butterflies hatched from the Dean’s dress seams like cocoons and flew into a new pattern.

Agatha sat down, catching girls’ suspicious looks at their crownless Captain. Meanwhile, Hester and Anadil both had the same anxious expressions, demanding she answer their questions after class.

“It was Tedros, wasn’t it?” a trembling voice said next to her.

Agatha didn’t move.

“Aggie?” Sophie’s voice squeaked. “What did Tedros say?”

Agatha hesitated, then lifted her eyes to her friend’s bloodless face— Her heart stopped.

There was something on Sophie’s neck. Just under her collar.

A black wart.

“Aggie?” Sophie shifted and her collar obscured it. “What’d you see?” Agatha wheezed for voice.

“Well?” Sophie said, face darkening.

Agatha hid her shaking hands—“You were r-r-right,” she stuttered, trying to look ashamed. “He—he said he’d never c-c-come for me.” Sophie gaped at her in disbelief. “He . . . did?”

Slowly her emerald eyes hardened into suspicious, knife-edged disks. Agatha held her breath, feeling them cut into her soul and hang a noose around her lie, about to pull tight. . . .

“What did I tell you, Agatha?” Sophie breathed with quiet fury. She clasped her friend’s hand. “I told you boys are Evil.” Agatha stared at her, stunned.

“Don’t worry, Aggie. Nothing can stop us if we work together,” Sophie vowed, her Captain’s crown sparkling. “We’ll get the pen from him. We’ll get our happy ending back. Just like last time.” Heart hammering, Agatha gazed past her at Halfway Bridge, leading into fog.

This time, she knew it wouldn’t be together.

“Tonight?” Sophie smiled at her hopefully.

Agatha smiled back in terror, hearing her prince’s voice as her own.

“Tonight.”