Poison and Mirrors Page 5

Say nothing, she meant.

  I eyed the class. Nobody even looked nervous anymore. It was like Mr. Rain had taken Mrs. Landry's place and put everyone to sleep. It was almost as if someone had walked in and sucked the real memory of the disaster out of everyone's heads. Even Nort and Joey sat there with crappy pants from the lost and found and even crappier school mascot T-shirts.

  Mrs. Landry made a face at us and motioned to three empty chairs. She let out a nervous breath and eyed me again.

  She still remembered, and she wanted me to stay quiet.

  Me, Sara and Eric were the only three students who knew the truth.

  "I had to go to the bathroom," I managed.

  "I don't blame you," Moanna said. "Those ants—some of them crawled up my pants."

  It was true, then.

  Everyone in here thought ants had crashed the party. That man in black had erased everyone's memories. Mrs. Landry might have even called him.

  I wanted to shout at the class that Mrs. Landry was lying and something stupid had happened, but they'd never believe me. I'd just end up making everyone think we Haven House kids were crazies, too.

  "You were checking for ants?" Mrs. Landry asked us. She gave us a little nod. "Correct?"

  I struggled to come up with something sarcastic to say but there was nothing. The air grew thick with tension and Sara gave in. "Right," she said. "I think class is about to end. Can we go a little early and check again?"

  "Sit down," Mrs. Landry demanded.

  "You know," I said. "We weren't checking for ants in our pants. Isn't that a game or something? We were just off checking out some naked guys."

  The look of horror on Mrs. Landry's face gave it away. She coughed and turned away from us and wrote something on the board, erased it, and then wrote again.

  "We were not!" Sara said, holding her hand to her mouth.

  "I wasn't," Eric added.

  And then the bell rang.

  Everyone got up from their seats and headed for the door, putting a small crowd between us and Mrs. Landry. Sara and I backed out of the way and let everyone pass.

  "We'd better go," I said to her and Eric. "I don't like this."

  Sara and I walked away from the classroom about as fast as we could. Eric pushed through everyone. "Are we the only three people who aren't ignoring that every law of physics just got broken out there? We were the only three people not in class during the last twenty minutes."

  "You're right," Sara said. "We weren't in there. Mara and I saw a guy in a black robe leaving the room right before you got back from the bathroom. The air turned all cold and now it's like nothing even happened. The class remembers nothing. I mean, that's great for Nort and Joey but it's bad for the rest of us. What if our teachers are running experiments on us all and screwing with our memories? What if there are things we don't remember, too?"

  I shook my head.

  Yesterday.

  I'd been just like the groggy Foods class.

  Something weird might have happened yesterday and my memories of it got wiped by Mr. Rain and the man in black. Maybe I had a whole day's worth of false memories.

  Or more.

  Terror filled the space under my stomach. My life could be a lie.

  I opened my mouth to tell Sara about it, but she'd walked ahead of me a little and joined the river of students. Fear propelled her forward. Maybe I'd doomed the three of us by mouthing off to Mrs. Landry, but she deserved it. I would not stay silent about it.

  The crowd grew thicker around us. I struggled to keep up with Eric as people poured out of the band room. I had to go to Mr. Rain’s class next right along with him and Sara. That would be an adventure. I wondered if he had got back to the school early enough to get our assignments started or if he was still out there, staking out Haven House. That was something I wanted to tell Sara before we got to class.

  But she had gone ahead a little.

  Sara was walking next to Eric, and they were deep in conversation.

  Chapter Five

  Mr. Rain was in class, still tieless. Sweat had gathered around on his neck which made him extra gross. He’d been outside. It was obvious. I hadn't been seeing things after all. The air got hotter and hotter in the classroom. The man in black had left and it didn’t seem like he was coming back. Mrs. Landry knew him. Mr. Rain might even know him, too.

  And they both had red marks on their arms.

  I wondered if that had anything to do with it.

  Eric didn’t speak to me as he shuffled to his seat. Sara sat in hers and I tried to read her expression. Eric had been talking to me at the start of Foods. He’d switched to Sara. I’d been the one with the scary salad. Sara had brought the healing one.

  For a second, I felt like I had been set up. I grabbed the sides of my desk.

  And that Sara had done it in a way that wasn’t too obvious. A way that she could avoid the guilt.

  I sat down and opened my Algebra book.

  I had to knock it off.

  Sara was my best friend. She'd been trying to set me up with Eric. I had no reason to be jealous of her. The whole stupid thing had been a coincidence. Sara hadn’t meant for any of this crap to happen. She'd just been lucky, choosing to take in the Light Side salad.

  But Mr. Rain hadn’t choked himself.

  My thoughts stormed all through class. Mr. Rain gave no sign that he had been spying on me or that he’d caught me playing hooky for twenty vital minutes. He just droned on and avoided my gaze whenever he could. I searched his arm for any sign of that red mark he had on his arm, but he wrote so much on the board that he never stayed still for more than a few seconds. The guy was all nerves.

  And the whole time, I could only think about Sara and Eric.

  They had only been talking. Like normal people.

  People talked all the time without anything more happening.

  I traced my fingers along the Led Zeppelin carving in the desk.

  And then a thought hit me.

  The man in black had demanded something from me in my dream. What if, in real life, he wanted something of mine? The apple? It was the only thing I'd been holding in the dream. I could think of other, far worse things, but I had the feeling that wasn't it.

  I sat straight up in the chair as it hit me.

  The same dark dream I had last night was the same one I had right before I woke up in Mr. Rain's class. A wave of deja vu washed over me and I tried to grasp it, but it flew away into the dark before I could. It was like some morbid fairy tale.

  I watched the clock. Mrs. Landry had her conference hour the last hour of the day. I knew that because I’d heard her mention that she didn’t like to run the ovens in the Foods room during the hottest part of the afternoon once. The last hour had to be her free one. Mr. Rain had another class after this. And Mrs. Landry knew things. She'd had a civilized conversation with the guy in black. If I could skip out next hour and spy on her…

  Ten minutes before the bell. Mr. Rain gave us an assignment and mentioned that there would be a quiz tomorrow. I was so going to fail it.

  The bell rang. I nodded to Sara and waved her out into the hall.

  “I’m getting to the bottom of this crap,” I said. “Want to join me?”

  “Mara. What are you going to do?” she asked. Sara sounded so timid. “You already made Mrs. Landry really suspicious of us.”

  “She already was,” I said. “Besides, I had to add some of my trademark perverted humor in there. She should expect that.”

  “But you didn’t have to be so specific.”

  Eric emerged into the hall. “And you didn’t have to include me in it.”

  He sounded a bit hurt and I withered inside. “Sorry,” I said. “Really. I just didn’t know what else to say to her. I didn’t want to let Mrs. Landry win. And I only meant Sara and me with the naked guys comment.” I was blowing this. This was the worst day of my life.

  “Mara. What’s the plan?” Sara asked. "Please don't let it be something dangerous."


  “I’m going to Mrs. Landry’s room. To spy on her.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Eric said. He pulled his class jacket back over his coat of arms T-shirt. “She was just medieval today, to put it politely.”

  “Who’s going to handle this for us?” I asked. “We’re the only three students who remember what really happened today and we have to keep it that way. The teachers here aren’t our friends. There could be a lot of things we don’t remember.” I gulped and waved Sara and Eric away from Mr. Rain’s door. “I felt like something had happened to my memory when I woke up in Mr. Rain’s class yesterday. I felt like the Foods class.”

  “Oh,” Sara said. “Mara—I had no idea. I don’t remember anything weird about yesterday in class, but if we got memory wiped none of us would.”

  The hall filled and turned into a river of chattering people. “Are you coming with me or not? Either way, I’m going.”

  Sara glanced at Eric. “I don’t think we should,” she said. “Mrs. Landry might invite Evil Emperor back any second.”

  “I’ll take the risk,” I said. “Since when do I back down from one?”

  Sara frowned at me. “You are not going there alone.”

  “I am. What do you want to do? Sit here and wait for someone to poison our food?”

  Sara balked and looked at me as if I were the one planning it. “I’m packing my own lunch from now on.”

  I had to get away from her. Sara could be in on this whole thing for all I knew. No. Not my best friend. She had no reason to be.

  “Class,” Eric said. “Then I think we should go home and forget any of this ever happened. Even though I’m never going to erase that image from my brain. Does anyone have any bleach?”

  They were both ducking out on me. I’d been hoping Sara would go, but fear glistened in her eyes. Eric barely knew me. I couldn't expect him to.

  Even though I would have really, really liked him to.

  "Maybe the two of you should go to class," I said. I didn't want to endanger either one of them. I was already on a thin, thin rope with Eric. I didn't need to make his day any worse. That rope would snap. "I'll be okay. I promise. I'll tell you if I found out anything."

  Sara waited, then nodded. "Be really careful, Mara," she said. "Swear."

  "Damn," I said.

  She laughed.

  "Well, you told me to swear," I said. "I get it. I'll be really careful. It's not like I'm going to barge in there and ask her who that guy was."

  Sara's mood had gone up, at least. "I'll tell Mrs. Kovo you had to go home sick. She hasn't done anything weird lately. I don't think she's in on this whole thing, whatever it is."

  "I appreciate it."

  She turned away and headed down the hall.

  And then Eric waved to me and followed her.

  I watched them go. Eric was jogging to catch up with Sara. The crowd got too thick and I couldn't watch them for long, but I caught a glimpse of them turning the corner and disappearing around the water fountain.

  Eric didn't have the same last period as us.

  And yet he was walking beside Sara.

  I shook my head. I had to knock this off. We had way worse crap to worry about. Sara wouldn't do something like that to me, not after she had convinced Eric to come over and talk to me. It would be the ultimate betrayal. She knew how I felt about Eric.

  I turned and headed back towards the Foods room, taking my time so I could watch out for Mrs. Landry.

  And on the way, I passed Nort.

  He was wearing one of those crappy Ellwood High School Pride T-shirts the office made people change into if they wore something offensive to school and an ugly pair of olive green pants someone had (rightfully) never claimed from the lost and found. I hurried past, but Nort didn't even give me a second glance. He looked annoyed, but far from embarrassed. I had the idea that his memory along with Joey's had been wiped, too. The man in black must have visited them both. Nort and Joey sure weren't in the Foods room after the disaster. They must have been in the office or something.

  That meant the guy in the black robe might have been in the office at one point.

  Where I had seen that strange image in Mrs. Hendry's mirror.

  I wondered if Nort remembered getting in trouble for something he didn't do. For wearing a shirt with nudity on it, maybe. Some false memory was better than the alternative. Those guys were better off now.

  Mrs. Landry walked around the corner without noticing me. She was headed towards the office. I wondered if Mrs. Hendry had anything to do with this all. She had the weird mirror. She had mysteriously let me off after being in that room with the mirror.

  Either way, I had to move fast.

  Mrs. Landry's room was empty. The bell rang to start the last class. Lit. I was so disappointed I was missing it. I checked the hall to make sure Mrs. Landry wasn't returning and I darted into the Foods room. I tore open her desk drawers to find planners and papers and recipe books, but nothing else. The heat in here was awful. Sweat broke on out the back of my neck as I thought of excuses I'd give her if she came back in. Nothing was any good.

  I opened her bottom drawer.

  Mrs. Landry had left her cell phone sitting there. Its shiny screen displayed the time and for some reason, I couldn't stop staring at it. Why would she put her cell phone in the bottom drawer? Most of the teachers kept them on top of their desks. Mr. Rain did that. He sometimes stared at it in class after he'd told us never to have ours out. Mrs. Landry wasn't a hypocrite, at least.

  I grabbed the phone. I was amazed it wasn't locked. She must have only just set it down. I swiped the screen and the clock vanished, leaving not a menu but pure black in its place.

  This was strange. I had never seen a phone do this before. Maybe this one was broken and whatever curse had affected Nort and Joey had spread to her phone. There should at least be a touchpad for those people who were baffled by technology and only wanted to make calls. If this phone was broke, what was Mrs. Landry staring at outside? I wondered if she'd been trying to distract herself from the horror.

  Just as that thought hit me, something happened.

  The phone screen got a bit brighter. It stayed as black as ever, but the darkness just seemed...more present. More energized, somehow. A sense of deja vu swept over me again. I'd seen something like this before. It was way back in my memory but not quite there.

  And then a vision started forming inside the screen.

  This wasn't the normal kind that showed up in phones. This one was cloudy and deep as if there was really something else on the other side. Mist swirled and I felt that if I reached inside, I could touch another realm.

  And then a dark form took shape inside the mist. It started as an ink blot at first, but grew darker within the silvery vapor and took the shape of something I'd seen earlier that day.

  The man in black.

  Before I could drop Mrs. Landry's phone, he stared me down from underneath that red-trimmed hood. He even leaned closer as if trying to get a better view. The air around me got cold. He had some power. I couldn't make out any of his features. It was all shadow under that fabric. I might be talking to a living shadow.

  "You," the man said.

  He had a voice like the void all those Lovecraftian monsters were supposed to come from. If he wasn't the guy who wiped the memories of the Foods class and stolen some of mine, it would be kind of cool.

  "Actually, my name isn't you," I said. "Get it right."

  "I see you have your same attitude," the man said. Amusement filled his voice. "I know your name, Mara."

  I should have been completely freaked out talking to some lord of darkness through a cell phone, but a strange sense of calm had washed over me. This guy might have me under some spell and I was about to get another memory wipe. I should throw this phone back in the drawer and sit like a good girl in Lit, but I'd gone too far now.

  "You know my name? That's great," I said. "Totally not creepy at all."

  The man laughed. It
echoed through the dark space behind him and through the mist. "Of course I do. You're part of a very famous story. You just don't remember any of your past life right now. You're in that world because I needed you out of my way," he said. "You're lucky I decided to spare your life. For now."

  A shudder ran down my spine. "My life?" I asked. "In case you haven't noticed, I don't even know who you are. Would you mind explaining that to me?"

  The man reached up and pulled his hood down farther over his face. "You once knew my name," he said. "That doesn't matter to you now. Mara, you might find you have more...pressing things to deal with at the moment. I suggest you look around you very carefully and trust no one."

  In the phone vision, the man turned away.

  And walked away from whatever screen he might be looking through on the other side. The hooded stranger vanished into the mist, leaving me alone. The silver mist closed. Then that faded and the clock returned so fast that it made me jump.

  Yes. After all of that, I jumped at the clock.

  Footsteps were coming down the hall.

  And that was when terror exploded in my chest.

  Mrs. Landry was coming back. I had to hide. That sounded a lot scarier than facing the guy in the phone again. I shoved the phone back into the desk and closed the door as quiet as I could manage when I was in a rush. The Foods room had no exit other than the one she was about to come through. No cabinets would fit me and the refrigerator sure wouldn't, either. The only thing I had were the large industrial ovens she kept in the room.

  The footsteps got louder. I bolted around tables and opened up the silver door of the biggest one. I climbed inside and the smell of grease and burnt assignments hit me. I managed to close the door most of the way right as the footsteps drew really close and entered the room.

  Darkness fell over me and I thought of that story with the witch who tried to cook those kids. I waited for Mrs. Landry to do something or to come over and start messing with the controls, but it never happened. Instead, her chair scraped and she sat down in the desk. I stretched my legs out a bit, but the oven didn't offer a lot of room. At least it wasn't any hotter in here. The teacher hadn't run these at all today.