Chapter Six Gaslight at the End of the Tunnel
My phone keeps ringing in the total silence of the room. To spare further familial humiliation, I pull it out of my pocket to decline the call. It’s my friend Serena, who graduated last year and is now living in Phoenix, so I fire off a text telling her it’s Conclave and I’ll call her when it’s over. Then I slide into my seat—third from the left on the far side of the table, same as always.
“Nice of you to join us, Clementine,” my mother says coolly, brows raised and crimson-painted lips pinched. “Perhaps next time you’ll make sure your uniform is clean before you do so.”
She’s staring at my chest, so I follow her gaze only to find a large brown stain directly over my left boob. I must have pulled this uniform out of the dirty clothes basket and not the clean one.
Because that’s just the kind of day I’m having.
“I’d offer you some tea,” my cousin Carlotta snickers, “but it looks like you’ve already had some.” She’s in tenth grade this year and is downright sophomoric about it.
“Don’t listen to them, Sugar,” my grandmother tells me in her syrupy-sweet Southern accent. “The nice boys like a girl who doesn’t put too much stock in her appearance.”
“Don’t be talking to my sweet girl about boys now, Viola,” my grandfather scolds her with a wave of his hairy-knuckled hand. “You know she’s too young for all that business.”
“Yes, Claude,” my grandmother replies even as she winks at me.
I give them both a grateful smile—it’s nice to have someone in my corner. Sometimes I wonder if things would be different if my dad hadn’t left before I was born. But he did, and now my mother has made it her mission to punish him by taking his fuck-ups out on me—whether she realizes it or not.
“Now that Clementine is here, I hereby call this Conclave to order,” my uncle Christopher says, banging the gavel on the table hard enough to rattle all the tiny porcelain tea cups my mother insists we drink out of. “Beatrice, please serve the tea.”
Within seconds, the conference room is filled with kitchen witches pushing tea carts. One is loaded down with tea pots and all the accoutrements. Another is piled high with finger sandwiches, while a third has a variety of scones and elaborate pastries.
We all sit in silence as everything is perfectly arranged on my mother’s favorite floral tablecloth.
Flavia, one of the youngest kitchen witches, smiles as she puts a plate of small cupcakes on the table next to me. “I made your favorite cream cheese pineapple icing for the carrot cakes, Clementine,” she whispers.
“Thank you so much,” I whisper back with a large smile, drawing an annoyed frown from my mom.
I ignore her.
Flavia is just being kind—something that’s not exactly prized here at Calder. Not to mention she makes a crazy good carrot cake.
Once the oh-so-pretentious Calder family Wednesday afternoon tea is served and everyone has filled their plates, my mother ceremonially takes the gavel from Uncle Christopher. She’s the oldest of the five siblings currently gathered around the table. It’s a position she takes very seriously since she inherited it from their oldest sister when she died, sometime before I was born…and something she doesn’t let any of her brothers or sisters—or their families—forget.
Though she has the gavel in hand, she doesn’t do anything as gauche as bang it. Instead, she just holds it as she waits for the table to fall silent around her. It only takes a second—I’m not the only one in the room who has suffered one of my mother’s endless lectures or diabolical punishments—although I still maintain that chrickler duty is way better than when she made my cousin Carolina clean the monster fish tank for a month…from the inside.
“We have a full agenda today,” my mother begins, “so I’d like to break protocol and start the business part of the meeting before we finish eating, if no one objects.”
No one objects—though my favorite aunt, Claudia, looks like she wants to. Her bright-red topknot is quivering with either indignation or nerves, but she’s so shy and introverted that it’s hard for me to tell.
My mom, Uncle Christopher, and Aunt Carmen definitely like to be the center of attention at these meetings, while Uncle Carter spends most of his time trying, and failing, to focus the spotlight on himself. It’s a manticore trait, one that only Aunt Claudia and I seem to be lacking. Everyone else fights for center stage like it’s the only thing standing between them and certain demise.
“The first two weeks of classes have gone exceptionally well,” my mother intones. “The new traffic patterns that the hall trolls have instituted appear to be keeping the flow of students orderly in between classes as well as keeping fights from breaking out in the hallways, just as we’d hoped. We’ve had no injuries.”
“Actually,” Aunt Claudia speaks up in a breathless voice that’s little more than a whisper, “I’ve dealt with several fight injuries in the healer’s office. But they were all minor, so—”
“As I was saying, no major injuries,” my mother interrupts, narrowing her eyes at her sister. “Which is the same thing.”
One glare from my mother and Aunt Claudia knows this is a losing battle. Uncle Brandt reaches over to pat her knee, and she gives him a grateful smile.
“There’s a storm watch in the Gulf right now, but we should be fine,” Uncle Christopher manages to interject even without the gavel. “Our protections should hold, and if it does develop further, it should pass us right by.”
“Do I need to talk to Vivian and Victoria?” Aunt Carmen asks, jumping in—as she always does—at the first opportunity. “Have them cast another protection spell?”
Uncle Christopher twists the end of his auburn mustache around his finger as he contemplates her suggestion. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. What do you think, Camilla?”
My mother shrugs. “I think it’s unnecessary, but if it makes you feel better, Carmen, who am I to stop you?”
“Then I’ll have the witches take care of it.” Aunt Carmen’s voice is nearly as stiff and cold as my mother’s. There is no love lost between my mother and Aunt Carmen, who is the sibling closest to her in age.
She’s tried several times to launch a coup to replace my mother as headmaster. They’ve never worked, but they have made family conclaves extra entertaining.
“What about the, um”—Aunt Claudia lowers her voice like she’s about to tell a secret—“the matter in the, umm, lower level…?”
“You mean the dungeon?” my grandmother corrects with a shake of her head. “At least call it what you people have turned it into.”
I’m with her. That dank, dark area definitely qualifies as a dungeon.
“The matter in the basement,” Uncle Carter says, steely-voiced, “is well in hand.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Something almost got out of its cage while I was down there earlier.” The words slip out before I know I’m going to say them. Everyone turns to stare at me like I’m some kind of particularly nasty bug.
I know I should regret saying anything, but stirring the family pot is the only thing that makes Conclave bearable.
“Everything is perfectly secure, Clementine,” my mother tells me, eyes narrowed so much that all I can see now is a sliver of blue as she looks at me. “You need to stop making false reports.”
“It wasn’t a false report,” I say as I defiantly swipe some icing from my cake with my finger and lick it off. “Ask Uncle Carter.”
All eyes turn silently toward my uncle, who turns Calder Academy red.
“That’s simply not true. Our security is top-notch. There is nothing to worry about, Camilla,” he blusters, his goatee quivering in affront.
I think about pulling out my phone and blowing up the whole charade, but it’s not worth the detention I’ll surely get.
So instead, I duck my head and lean back in my chair. This time, it’s my shoulder Uncle Brandt pats, and for a second, I want to cry. Not because of my mom, but because his smile reminds me so much of his daughter’s—my cousin, Carolina, who died a couple months ago after escaping the scariest prison in the paranormal world.
She was sent there when we were both in ninth grade, and not a day goes by that I don’t miss her. But knowing she’s gone forever has made that ache so much worse.
My mother continues the meeting per her agenda, but after a couple more minutes, I tune her out.
Finally, just when I can taste freedom, she hands the gavel back to Uncle Christopher.
“Our last order of business tonight is a little more family oriented.” He grins with pride, and so does my aunt Lucinda, who is practically squirming in her seat with excitement.
The suspense lasts mere seconds before Uncle Christopher announces, “I’d like us all to take this opportunity to congratulate Caspian on getting early acceptance into the University of Salem’s prestigious Paranormal Studies program!”
The whole table erupts in cheers while I just sit there, feeling like I’ve been shoved off a cliff.