CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The swan fixed its beady gaze on me. There was some-thing un-nat-u-ral about its eyes—they were wholly black but for a pale cob-webbed pat-tern, like glass on the brink of shat-ter-ing. Its feath-ers had a sil-very sheen, and it glided over the lake with an al-most spec-tral smooth-ness. Ev-ery time its eyes met mine, I felt a pe-cu-liar pulling sen-sa-tion, as though it were sum-mon-ing me to my death.
Our ab-so-lutely crit-i-cal and not at all point-less “stand-ing prac-tice” had been moved down to the shore of Swan Lake, which curved rev-er-ently around the foot of the Great Lawn. We had all mas-tered the high art of stand-ing still in-doors, and so Pro-fes-sor Lawrie had de-cided a change of scenery would pro-vide a fresh chal-lenge.
“Root your-selves as trees,” he said, his clar-ion voice half-way be-tween earthy yoga in-struc-tor and King Lear.
Be-hind him the Cross-woods were deck-led yel-low and or-ange with the loom-ing ar-ri-val of au-tumn. A light breeze swayed through the holly. Above the canopy, lit-tle clouds drifted across the sky like rav-eled skeins of glossy white silk.
“Let con-scious-ness flow from the tips of your fin-gers up your arms and into your chest. Breathe it in, and breathe it out. Be where you are, and be there well.”
Ev-ery-thing Pro-fes-sor Lawrie taught us about stand-ing still seemed to con-tra-dict it-self. Ac-cord-ing to him, it was both ac-tive and pas-sive, both easy and dif-fi-cult. Stand with a low cen-ter of grav-ity, let the earth pull you down, but also main-tain a state of ten-sion, with mul-ti-ple coun-ter-vail-ing pow-ers at your waist. Feel the power draw-ing your body from the front, the power pulling you back from be-hind, the power you use to step firmly, and the power to sup-port your body se-curely. You should ap-pear to be stand-ing still, but in fact show the au-di-ence your pres-ence through in-ter-nal strength that has nowhere to go.
Ab-so-lutely crit-i-cal, and not at all point-less.
I looked around. Catalina was to my left, per-fectly still and stoic, as though she’d en-tered a state of bliss-ful med-i-ta-tion. I won-dered if her brain was some-where deep in a faerie for-est, try-ing to break an an-cient curse. Fraser looked dis-tinctly bored—the resid-ual makeup now scrubbed from his face—and I kept catch-ing his eyes rov-ing over the lines of my body.
Loathe as I was to ad-mit it, I was strug-gling to stand in place. The sun beat down with un-ex-pected vigor for the last day in Sep-tem-ber, and sweat pooled in the small of my back. I was ut-terly ex-hausted from the late night in the gallery, and ter-ri-fied of the fate I might have sealed for my-self.
As I tried to fix my gaze on the rot-ting blue boathouse, the pe-riph-eries of my vi-sion blurred and starred, and my legs felt weak and shaky. I warred with the nau-sea ris-ing in my gul-let. Pride would not al-low me to vomit in front of the en-tire class.
I was Lady Mac-beth. I was the lead. I had to act like it.
Some-thing shifted in the cor-ner of my eye, and I glanced back to Davina, frown-ing. She had taken a step to-ward the lake—more specif-i-cally to-ward the swan I had just been mak-ing eerie eye con-tact with. Only now, its gaze was locked on her.
Pro-fes-sor Lawrie, who stood with his back to the lake, held up a palm. “Ms. Burns, I ad-vise keep-ing a safe dis-tance from the swans.”
There was a small sign nailed to a wooden post be-side the lake that read: NO SWIM-MING—SWANS DAN-GER-OUS.
Davina ei-ther did not hear Lawrie or did not care to heed his warn-ing. She took an-other step for-ward, her bal-let flats silent on the grassy bank.
Clear-ing his throat point-edly, Lawrie re-peated, “Ms. Burns.”
Nairne, the ner-vous girl I’d helped out dur-ing au-di-tions, shifted on her feet, then whis-pered to the boy be-side her, “Do you think it’s true that they can sense im-pend-ing tragedy?” Her voice was so feather-light I al-most didn’t hear her. “The swans, I mean.”
“I heard it was a sense of a star on the rise,” mut-tered Priyam. “Pre-dict-ing who’s go-ing to be most suc-cess-ful.”
Lawrie shook his head tersely. “I can as-sure you that the swans are just swans, but their beat-ing wings can be fe-ro-cious. Ms. Burns.”
Davina had taken sev-eral more steps for-ward, and was now sub-merged in the lake to her bone-white an-kles. The swan was only a few feet from her, but it did not hiss or blus-ter—just stud-ied her in-tently, as though try-ing to com-mu-ni-cate some-thing. Davina seemed ut-terly trans-fixed, un-able to tear her-self away, un-hear-ing of the teacher’s cau-tions.
A cold thrill ran up my spine, but I couldn’t say for cer-tain why.
“Didn’t a swan kill a stu-dent once?” asked Nairne, now talk-ing not only to Priyam but to the whole class. “Like a hun-dred years ago?.”
“Oh yeah,” said Fraser. “She went for a swim, right? And a swan whacked her with its wings and she sank be-low the sur-face, un-con-scious?”
“Please—” started Lawrie, but he had dropped the reins of our col-lec-tive at-ten-tion.
Nairne nod-ded, en-thused. “I heard that an-other stu-dent saw it hap-pen from the com-mon-room win-dow and ran down to help, but she’d dis-ap-peared. They couldn’t find the swim-mer’s body even af-ter days of search-ing.” A mean-ing-ful pause. “She was never seen again.”
“Please,” Lawrie all but shouted, clap-ping his hands to-gether, and fi-nally the chat-ter died. “While I un-der-stand the ap-peal of ghost sto-ries, I would cau-tion you against spread-ing un-nec-es-sary fear. Ms. Burns, for good-ness’—”
Davina was inches from the swan now, nei-ther of them flinch-ing, just hold-ing that un-canny eye con-tact. It looked for a mo-ment as though they might kiss.
Then the swan let out a phan-tas-mal hiss and raised its wings to full span.
In an in-stant the spell was bro-ken. Davina stum-bled back, and Maisie lunged for-ward to catch her by the el-bow and haul her out of the wa-ter. The swan gave them one fi-nal glare and glided away.
Davina sat back on to the bank, star-ing down at her feet as though they’d be-trayed her in some fun-da-men-tal way. The rest of us had re-laxed our sol-dier-straight po-si-tions, but I had to fight the urge to slump to the lakeshore my-self. The dizzi-ness was only sharp-en-ing, my eyes swirling and ed-dy-ing like the rip-ples on the wa-ter.
Lawrie pinched the bridge of his nose. “I un-der-stand that stand-ing still is not, per-haps, your most tit-il-lat-ing ses-sion. But the skill is in-cred-i-bly im-por-tant in your foun-da-tions as a stage ac-tor. And your grades in this class will count to-ward your fi-nal de-gree.”
Fraser scoffed in-cred-u-lously. “We’re be-ing marked on this?”
“In-deed you are. And so I sug-gest you all start tak-ing it a lit-tle more se-ri-ously.” An-other thun-der-ous clap of the hands. “Now. Again.”
With a fi-nal flour-ish-ing swoop, my vi-sion dived earth-ward, and I fainted.
De-spite Catalina’s firm in-sis-tence, I re-fused to seek med-i-cal at-ten-tion. How was I sup-posed to ex-plain to a physi-cian what was wrong with me? How could I tell a sound-of-mind doc-tor that I’d teth-ered my-self to an ar-cane gallery, doom-ing my-self to per-pet-ual hunger and faint-ing fits? Did they have a drug for that?
Af-ter stum-bling my way through a day of classes and re-hearsals, I headed back to the flat to wolf down as much food as I could phys-i-cally eat. I’d bought a bunch of Chi-nese food from the su-per-mar-ket, and scarfed six won-tons, six prawn toasts, six duck pan-cakes, shred-ded beef, egg fried rice and gar-lic pak choi.
The crunch as I bit into a crispy spring roll re-minded me of the in-no-cent mouse’s skull be-neath my cruel ham-mer.
Then I wrapped my-self in three jumpers, a pair of leg-gings un-der flared trousers, and my big-gest vin-tage fur coat be-fore traips-ing back to Or-lagh’s of-fice in Drum-mond.
I had to talk to her. I had to fig-ure out how to fix this.
Cam-pus was cast in lilac twi-light, with gag-gles of stu-dents wan-der-ing down to the Cos-tumery for pints of Guin-ness and bowls of chunky chips. Dry yel-low leaves crunched be-neath my aubergine-col-ored cow-boy boots as I crossed the quad. The air smelled of crack-ling fire—the Auld Torch had been lit the pre-vi-ous day to sig-nal the start of the au-tumn pro-gram. A sa-cred Do-rian rit-ual I had missed be-cause I was hid-ing out in my room, try-ing to make my-self per-fect.
I felt a pang of sad-ness, but I dis-missed it as best I could. That wasn’t go-ing to be my life any more. Once I fixed this in-sa-tiable hunger sit-u-a-tion, I would have all the free-dom in the world. I smiled to my-self. Maybe when I got home I’d ask Catalina if she wanted to go to the union and try the new s’mores hot choco-late they’d launched for spooky sea-son.
As I en-tered Drum-mond, my eyes were drawn to the hu-mon-gous gold-framed mir-ror hung over the stair-case. It was larger than most houses—frankly too large, for a mir-ror—and it seemed to play strange tricks with the light. The chan-de-lier dan-gling over the atrium was re-flected what looked like a dozen times, in a kalei-do-scope of frac-tured light, but the shad-ows looked darker than they did in real life. If I looked too closely for too long, they seemed to warp and eddy like the sur-face of the lake.
Just as I was about to tear my eyes away, a sil-hou-ette sud-denly ap-peared in the fore-front of the mir-ror.
And pressed a hand against the sil-vered glass.
I leaped back-ward, fear bolt-ing through me, but the hu-man-shaped shadow dis-ap-peared as quickly as it ar-rived.
I’m los-ing my mind, I thought, heart pound-ing. Hal-lu-ci-nat-ing from star-va-tion.
Climb-ing the two floors to Or-lagh’s of-fice was a slog, and by the time I reached it I was dizzy and pant-ing. I knocked on the door with trem-bling knuck-les and waited for her to call me in.
Noth-ing.
I waited a few mo-ments and then knocked a lit-tle louder.
Still noth-ing.
Glanc-ing at my gold wrist-watch, I saw that I was right on time.
Had she just dozed off at her desk? We’d both been up late last night.
Af-ter a third and fi-nal knock, I tried the han-dle to see if it was locked. Maybe she’d just for-got-ten, mixed up her days. But there was a kind of shiv-er-ing dis-quiet grow-ing in me with ev-ery pass-ing mo-ment.
The han-dle turned all the way around, and I pushed the door open a crack.
“Hello?” I called into the room, notic-ing dimly how young my voice sounded.
When there was no re-sponse, in-stinct made me push the door the rest of the way open.
It took my eyes a few beats to process the dead body slumped over the desk.
Sunken eyes stared va-cantly at the wall of por-traits. The hair was long and gray, with a wispy spi-der-web qual-ity. She wore an el-e-gant navy gown, but it hung off her skele-tal frame. The hands were with-ered and sun-spot-ted, but a piece of jew-elry on the fore-fin-ger made my stom-ach lurch.
An apri-cot-gold cameo ring. Next to it, a neat brown freckle.
Or-lagh.