فصل 22

22

Nemesis Dreams

“Have you seen my pajamas?” Hort whimpered outside Sophie’s door. “The ones with frogs?” Swaddled in his tattered bedsheets, Sophie stared at a window she’d sealed dark with a black blanket.

“My father made them for me,” Hort sniffled. “I can’t sleep without them.” But Sophie just gazed at the blackened window, as if there was something in the darkness only she could see.

Hort brought up barley gruel, boiled eggs, browning vegetables from the Supper Hall, but she didn’t answer his knocks. For days, Sophie just lay still as a corpse, waiting for her prince to come. Soon her eyes dulled. She didn’t know what day it was. She didn’t know if it was morning or night. She didn’t know if she was asleep or awake.

Somewhere in this grim fog the first dream came.

Streaks of black and white, then she tasted blood. She gazed up into a storm of boiling red rain. She tried to hide, but she was strapped to a white stone table by violet thorns, her body tattooed in a strange script she’d seen before but couldn’t remember where. Three old hags appeared beside her, chanting and tracing the script on her skin with crooked fingers. Faster and faster the hags chanted until a steel knife, long and thin as a knitting needle, appeared in the air over her body. She tried to wrest free, but it was too late. The knife fell with vengeance, pain flooded her stomach, and something inside her was born. A pure white seed, then a milky mass, bigger, bigger, until she saw what it was. . . . A face . . . a face too blurry to see. . . .

“Kill me now,” said the voice.

Sophie jolted awake.

Agatha sat on the edge of her bed, wrapped in Hort’s stained sheets.

“I mean, I don’t even want to know what’s on these.” Sophie didn’t look at her.

“Come on. You can borrow my nose clips for Yuba’s class.” Agatha stood, lit by a small tear in the window. “Day three of ‘Know Your Animal Dung!’” Strained silence ticked by.

Agatha slumped to the bed. “What should I have done, Sophie? I couldn’t let him die.” “It’s not right,” Sophie said, almost to herself. “You and me . . . it’s not right.” Agatha scooted closer. “I only want the best for you—” “No,” said Sophie so sharply Agatha lurched back.

“I just wanted to get us home!”

“We’re not going home. You’ve seen to that.” “You think I wanted this?” Agatha said, exasperated.

“Why are you here?”

“Because I wanted to see how you were. I was worried about you!” “No. Why are you here,” Sophie said, looking at the window. “In my school. In my fairy tale.” “Because I tried to save you, Sophie! I tried to save you from the curse!” “Then why do you keep cursing me and my prince?” Agatha scowled. “That’s not my fault.”

“I think it’s because deep down you don’t want me to find love, Agatha,” Sophie said, voice calm.

“What? Of cour—”

“I think you want me for yourself.”

Agatha’s whole body went rigid. “That’s—” She swallowed. “That’s stupid.” “The School Master was right,” Sophie said, still not looking at her. “A princess can’t be friends with a witch.” “But we are friends,” Agatha sputtered. “You’re the only friend I’ve ever had!” “You know why a princess can’t be friends with a witch, Agatha?” Slowly Sophie turned to face her. “Because a witch never has her own fairy tale. A witch has to ruin one to be happy.” Agatha fought back tears. “But I’m not—I’m not a witch—” “THEN GET YOUR OWN LIFE!” Sophie screamed.

She watched the dove flee through the rip in the black window, then crawled back under her sheets until all the light was gone.

That night, Sophie had her second dream. She was running through woods, hungrier than she’d ever been—until she found a deer with a human face, the same milky, blurred face she glimpsed the night before. She looked closer to see whose it was, but the deer’s face was now a mirror and in it, she could see her reflection. But it wasn’t hers.

It was the Beast’s.

Sophie woke in icy sweat, blood burning through her veins.

Outside Room 34, Hort huddled in his underpants, reading The Gift of Loneliness by candlelight.

The door cracked open behind him. “What is everyone saying about me?” Hort stiffened as if he’d heard a ghost. He turned, eyes wide.

“I want to know,” said Sophie.

She followed him into the dark hall, joints cracking. She couldn’t remember the last time she stood up.

“I don’t see anything,” she said, searching for the glint of his chest’s swan crest. “Where are you?” “Over here.”

A torch ignited, swathing Hort in firelight. She staggered back.

Every inch of the black wall behind him was covered in posters, banners, graffiti—CONGRATULATIONS, CAPTAIN! TRIAL TRIUMPHANT! READER TO THE RESCUE!—accompanied by depraved cartoons of Evers suffering miserable deaths. Beneath the wall, carnivorous green bouquets littered the floor, carrying handwritten messages between the blooms’ sharp teeth: Wish I had your moves!

Ravan

You’re the ultimate Thief of Hearts!

Mona

Tedros deserved it!

Your friend, Arachne

Sophie looked dazed. “I don’t understand—” “Tedros said you used him to win the Trial!” Hort said. “Lady Lesso named it the ‘Sophie Trap’—said you even fooled her! Teachers are saying you’re the best Captain Evil has ever had. Look!” Sophie followed his eyes to a row of eel-green boxes amid the bouquets, wrapped with red ribbons.

She opened the first to find a parchment card: HOPE YOU REMEMBER HOW TO USE IT. PROFESSOR MANLEY Beneath it was a black snakeskin cape.

In the boxes that followed, Castor gifted her a dead quail, Lady Lesso left an ice-carved flower, and Sader enclosed her Trial cloak, asking if she might kindly donate it to the Exhibition of Evil.

“What a genius trick,” Hort fawned, trying on the cape. “Hide as a plant, wait until Tedros and Hester are left, then charge in and take out Hester while Tedros is wounded. But why didn’t you finish Tedros off? Everyone’s asking, but he won’t say anything. I said it’s ‘cause the sun came up.” Hort saw Sophie’s expression and his smile vanished.

“It was a trick, wasn’t it?”

Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. She started to shake her head— But there was something else on the wall in front of her.

A black rose, note speared through thorns, dripping with ink.

Sophie took it into her hands.

Cheater. Liar. Snake.

You’re right where you belong.

All hail the witch.

“Sophie? Who’s it from?”

Heart throbbing, Sophie smelled the bitter black thorns laced with a scent she knew so well.

So this was her reward for Love.

She crushed the rose, spitting Tedros’ words with blood.

“This will make you feel better.”

In Room 66, Anadil scooped murky yellow broth from her cauldron into a bowl, dripping on the floor. Immediately her rats converged, eight inches bigger now, biting, clawing each other to get first licks.

“Your talent’s coming along,” Hester croaked.

Anadil sat on the edge of Hester’s bed with the bowl. “Just a few sips.” Hester managed only one, then fell back.

“I shouldn’t have tried it,” she wheezed. “She’s too good. She’s twice the witch I am—” “Shhhh, don’t strain.”

“But she loves him,” said Dot, curled in her bed.

“She thinks she does,” Hester said. “Just like we all once did.” Dot’s eyes bulged.

“Please, Dot. You think she’s the only Never who dabbled in love?” “Hester, enough,” Anadil pressed.

“No, let’s have the truth,” Hester said, struggling to sit up. “All of us have felt shameful stirrings. All of us have felt weakness.” “But those feelings are wrong,” said Anadil. “No matter how strong they are.” “That’s why this one’s special,” Hester said wryly. “She almost convinced us they were right.” The room lapsed to silence.

“So what happens to her now?” asked Dot.

Hester sighed. “The same thing that happened to all of us.” This time their silence was broken by distant clacks in slow, menacing rhythm. The three girls craned to the door as the clacks swelled towards them, cruel and clean like whip cracks. They grew louder, sharper, impaling the hall, then ebbed past their room to silence.

Dot farted in relief.

The door slammed open and the girls screamed—Dot bellyflopped off the bed— A draft blew the hanging dresses past the torch over the door, casting flints of light on a shadow’s face.

The hair gleamed, spiked and slicked, black as smeared eye sockets and lips. Ghost-white skin glowed against black nail polish, black cape, and black leather.

Sophie stepped into the room, high black boots stabbing the floor.

Hester grinned back at her.

“Welcome home.”

From the floor, Dot peeped nervously between them. “But where will we find a new bed?” Three pairs of eyes found hers.

She didn’t even get time to collect her snacks. In the dark, dank hall, Dot pounded on the iron door in banishing silence. But it was no use.

Three witches made a coven and she had been replaced.

The Evers didn’t celebrate when Tedros received his Captain’s badge. How could they, when Sophie had made a fool of him? “Evil had returned!” the Nevers gloated. “Evil had a Queen!” Then the Evers remembered they had something the Nevers didn’t. Something that proved them superior.

A Ball.

And the Queen wasn’t invited.

The first snow littered the Clearing in lumpy brittles of ice, pelting Nevers’ pails with loud pings. As they tried to grasp moldy cheese with frozen fingers, they looked daggers at Evergirls scrabbling about, too busy to worry about weather. With the Ball two weeks away, the girls needed to make every possible arrangement, since boys still refused to propose before the Circus. Reena, for instance, expected Chaddick to ask her, so she had dyed her mother’s old school gown to match his gray eyes. But if Chaddick asked Ava instead (she had caught him ogling Snow White’s portrait, so he might like paler girls), then Nicholas might ask her, in which case she’d trade for Giselle’s white gown to balance his tanned skin. And if Nicholas didn’t ask her . . .

“Mother says Goodness is making people feel wanted even when you don’t want them at all,” she sighed to Beatrix, who looked bored. With Sophie out of the picture, Beatrix knew Tedros was her date. Not that he had confirmed this. The prince had been ignoring everyone since the Trial, sullen as a Never. Now Beatrix felt his mood infect her as she watched him shoot arrows into the tree he and Sophie used to sit beneath.

Tedros ripped more holes in its heart, but there was no satisfaction. After a few days of teasing, his mates had tried to cheer him up. Who cared if he shared his spoils with a Nevergirl! Who cared if she puttered with him along the way! He’d still won a brutal Trial and outlasted them all. But Tedros saw only shame in it, for he was no better than his father now. A slave to his heart’s mistakes.

Still, he hadn’t told anyone about Agatha. He knew she was surprised by this because she winced every time he spoke in class, as if expecting him to expose her any moment. But where a week ago, he would have loved to see her punished, now he felt confused. Why had she risked her life to save him? Had she been telling the truth about that gargoyle? Could that witch actually be . . . Good?

He thought of her tramping through halls with leery bug eyes— A cockroach. That’s what Beatrix said.

So Agatha was there all along, helping Sophie to the top of the ranks? She must have been hidden in Sophie’s dress or in her hair, whispering answers and casting spells. . . . But how had she made him pick Sophie in the pumpkin challenge?

Tedros felt sick.

A goblin picked from two . . . A princess whose coffin knocked him out . . . A roach hidden on a pumpkin . . .

He had never picked Sophie.

He picked Agatha every time.

Tedros whipped around in horror, looking for her, but he didn’t see Agatha anywhere in the Clearing. He had to stay away from that girl. He had to tell her to stay away from him. He had to stop all of this— A hunk of sleet smacked his cheek. Blinded by water, Tedros saw shadows gliding towards him, wiped his eyes—and dropped his bow.

Sophie, Anadil, and Hester slunk in step with matching black hair, black makeup, and black-hearted scowls. With a shared hiss, they sent Evergirls bolting, leaving only Tedros and spooked Everboys fanned out behind him. Anadil and Hester dropped behind Sophie, who stepped up to face her prince.

From the sky, ice fell between them in jagged slivers.

“You think I faked it,” Sophie said, flaying him with her green eyes. “You think I never loved you.” Tedros tried to quell his thumping heart. Somehow she was more beautiful than ever.

“You can’t cheat your way to love, Sophie,” he said. “My heart never wanted you.” “Oh, I’ve seen who your heart picks,” Sophie smirked, mimicking Agatha’s buggy gape and trademark scowl.

Tedros reddened. “I can explain that—”

“Let me guess. Your heart is blind.”

“No, it just says anyone but you.”

Sophie chuckled. In a flash, she lunged and Tedros drew his sword, as did all his mates behind him.

Sophie smiled weakly. “Look what’s happened, Tedros. You’re scared of your true love.” “Go back to your side!” the prince yelled.

“I waited for you,” Sophie said, voice breaking. “I thought you’d come for me.” “What? Why would I come for you?”

Sophie gazed at him. “Because you made me a promise,” she breathed.

Baring teeth, Tedros glared back. “I made you no promises.” Sophie stared at him, stunned. Her eyes cast down. “I see.” Slowly she looked back up.

“Then I’ll be whatever you want me to be.” She thrust out her glowing finger and the boys’ swords turned to snakes. As Everboys fled, Tedros kicked dust at the hissing coils. He spun to see Sophie wipe tears, then pull her cape around her and hurry away.

Hester ran to catch up—“Feel better?”

“I gave him a chance,” Sophie said, walking faster.

“You’re even now. It’s over,” Hester soothed.

“No. Not until he keeps his promise.”

“Promise? What promise—”

But Sophie had already raced ahead into the tunnel. As she fled through twisted branches, she sensed someone watching. Through tears and trees, she couldn’t see the face on the balcony, just a milky white blur. Her stomach sank—she found a break in the leaves— But the face was gone, as if it was just a dream.

The next morning, Good woke to slippery lard all over the floors. The morning after, Everboys screamed after putting on coats laced with rash powder. On the third morning, the teachers found framed underpants replacing Beauty’s portrait on the Legends Obelisk, the sides switched in the Theater of Tales, and candied classrooms flooded with stinky green goo.

With the fairies unable to catch the vandals in the act, Tedros and his Everboy mates formed a nighttime guard, patrolling the halls from dusk until dawn. Still, the culprits eluded capture and by the end of the week, the bandits had filled the Groom Room pools with stingrays, warped the hall mirrors to taunt passersby, released overfed pigeons in the Supper Hall, and enchanted Good toilets to explode when students sat on them.

Enraged, Professor Dovey insisted Sophie be brought to justice, but Lady Lesso said it was highly doubtful one student could manage to cripple an entire school without help.

She was right.

“It doesn’t feel good anymore,” Anadil grouched after supper in Room 66. “Hester and I want to stop.” “You got your revenge,” said Hester. “Let him go.” “I thought you two were villains,” Sophie said from her bed, eyes glued to Nightmares Be Gone.

“Villains have purpose,” Hester snapped. “What we’re doing is just thuggery.” “Tonight we’re putting pox in the boys’ breeches,” said Sophie, flipping the page. “Find a spell for it.” “What do you want, Sophie?” Hester pleaded. “What are we fighting for?” Sophie looked up. “Are you going to help or should I turn us all in?” Tedros soon had all 60 boys on his nighttime guard, but Sophie escalated the attacks. The first night, she made Hester and Anadil brew a potion to turn the Good lake to Evil sludge, forcing the magical wave to migrate to the sewers. The brew left their hands red with burns, but Sophie made them return at dawn to lace Ever linens with lice. Soon, the girls attacked so frequently—putting leeches in the Evers’ supper punch, unleashing locusts during Uma’s lecture, sending a charging bull into Swordplay, cursing the Evers’ stairs to scream bloodily with every step—that half the Good teachers canceled their classes, Pollux stumbled on sheep legs into his own traps, and the Evers only felt safe traveling in packs.

Professor Dovey slammed into Lady Lesso’s office. “That witch must be failed!” “There’s no way for a Never to enter your school, let alone attack it day and night,” Lady Lesso yawned. “For all we know it’s a rogue Ever.” “An Ever! My students have won every competition in this school for two hundred years!” “Until now.” Lady Lesso smiled. “And I have no plans to give up my best student without proof.” While Professor Dovey sent unanswered missives to the School Master, Lady Lesso took careful notice of Sophie’s growing distance with her roommates, the fact Sophie was no longer shivering in her iced classroom, and her brutal desecration of Tedros’ name on her book covers.

“Are you feeling all right, Sophie?” Lady Lesso asked, barring the ice door after class.

“Yes, thank you,” Sophie replied uncomfortably. “I should be goin—” “Between your winning Class Captain, your new fashions, and your nighttime activities . . . it’s a lot to take in.” “I don’t know what activities you’re referring to,” Sophie said, sidling past her.

“Have you been having strange dreams, Sophie?” Sophie stopped cold.

“What kind of dreams would be strange?”

“Angry dreams. Dreams that get worse every night,” Lady Lesso said behind her. “You’ll feel as if something is being birthed in your soul. A face, perhaps.” Sophie’s stomach clamped. The terrible dreams had persisted, all ending with a milky, blurry face. The past few days, streaks of red appeared at the face’s edges, as if it was being outlined in blood. But she couldn’t recognize it. All she knew was she woke up every day angrier than before.

Sophie turned. “Um, what would a dream like that mean?” “That you are a special girl, Sophie,” Lady Lesso cooed. “One we should all be proud of.” “Oh. Um . . . I may have had one or two—” “Nemesis Dreams,” Lady Lesso said, violet eyes flashing. “You’re having Nemesis Dreams.” Sophie stared at her. “But—but—”

“Nothing to be concerned about, dear. Not until there’s symptoms.” “Symptoms? What symptoms? What happens if there’s symptoms?” “Then you’ll finally see the face of your Nemesis. The one who grows stronger as you grow weaker,” Lady Lesso answered calmly. “The one you must destroy in order to live.” Sophie blanched. “B-b-but that’s impossible!” “Is it? I think it’s quite clear who your Nemesis is.” “What? I don’t have anyone that—”

Sophie lost her breath.

“Tedros? But I love him! That’s why I did it! I have to get him back—” Lady Lesso just smiled.

“I was angry!” Sophie cried. “I didn’t mean any—I don’t want to hurt him! I don’t want to hurt anyone! I’m not a villain!” “You see, it doesn’t matter what we are, Sophie.” Lady Lesso leaned so close she just had to whisper.

“It’s what we do.”

Her pupils flicked over Sophie’s face. “But no symptoms yet, I’m afraid,” she sighed and swept to her desk. “Close the door on your way out.” Sophie fled too fast to bother.

That night, Sophie didn’t attack the Evers.

Let him go, she told herself, pillow over her head. Let Tedros go.

Over and over she repeated it, until she had erased the meeting with Lady Lesso from her memory. As the words soothed her to sleep, she felt the stirrings of her old self. Tomorrow she’d be loving. Tomorrow she’d be forgiving. Tomorrow she’d be Good again.

But then another dream came.

She ran through mirrors reflecting her smiling face, long gold hair, and luscious pink gown. Through the last mirror was an open door and through the door, Tedros waited for her, kingly in his blue Ball suit beneath Camelot’s spires. She ran and ran to him but grew no closer, until deadly sharp briars, swollen purple, began to snake towards her true love. Frantic, she willed herself through the last door to save him, losing a glass heel and lunged for his arms . . . The prince melted to a milky, red blur and threw her into thorns.

Sophie woke enraged and forgot all about letting go.

“It’s the middle of the night! You said it was over!” Anadil fumed, following her into the tunnel— “We can’t keep doing these things without a purpose,” Hester seethed.

“I have a purpose,” Sophie said, whirling around. “You hear me? I have a purpose.” The next day, the Evers arrived at lunch to find all the trees on their side cut down. All except the one Sophie and Tedros used to sit beneath, carved again and again with one unmistakable word.

LIAR.

Stunned, the wolves and nymphs howled for the teachers and immediately formed a boundary between the two halves of the Clearing. Tedros stormed up to the border between two wolves.

“Stop it. Now.”

Everyone followed his eyes to Sophie, sitting serenely against a snowy tree on the Nevers’ side.

“Or what?” she simpered. “You’ll catch me?” “Now you really sound like a villain,” Tedros sneered.

“Careful, Teddy. What will they say when we dance at the Ball?” “All right, now you’ve lost it—”

“Here I thought you were a prince,” Sophie said, walking towards him. “Because you promised to take me to the Ball right in this very spot. And a prince never breaks his promise.” Gasps rose from both sides of the Clearing. Tedros looked like he’d been kicked in the gut.

“After all, a prince who breaks his promise”—Sophie faced him between two wolves—“is a villain.” Tedros couldn’t speak, cheeks splotched red.

“But you’re not a villain and neither am I,” Sophie said, eyes guilty. “So all you have to do is keep your promise and we can be ourselves again. Tedros and Sophie. Prince and princess.” With a tentative smile, she held out her hand across the wolves to him.

“Good for Ever After.”

The Clearing was dead silent.

“I’ll never take you to the Ball,” Tedros spat. “Never.” Sophie withdrew her hand.

“Well, then,” she said softly. “Now everyone knows who’s responsible for the attacks.” Tedros felt Evers’ blameful stares burning through him. Ashamed, he trudged out of the Clearing, as Sophie watched, heart in her throat, fighting the urge to call him back.

“This is about a Ball?” said a voice.

Sophie turned to glowering Hester and Anadil.

“This is about what’s right,” she said.

“You’re on your own,” Hester snarled, and Anadil followed her away.

Sophie stood, circled by stunned students, teachers, wolves, and fairies, listening to her own shallow breaths. Slowly she looked up.

Tedros glared down at her from inside the glass castle. In the weak sun, his milky face had a glint of red.

Sophie met his eyes, steeling her heart.

He’d love her back. He’d have to.

Because she’d destroy him if he dared love anyone else.