Lock and Key Read online

  I could be wrong, but that seemed like a large percentage of the population that claimed to be different in such a small town. I couldn’t help wondering what nationality they were. What exactly did other mean? And what would I find when I finally reached my destination, the freaky little town of Frostproof?

  Well, if Google Earth was any indication, mostly just a lot of orange trees.

  “Yup, looks like we’re stuck together for the next couple years,” my aunt said, mirroring my thoughts in that uncanny way she had sometimes. “Come on, let’s get back to the car and crank up the AC. Now that you found something nice to wear on the first day of school, I need to be getting back home.”

  I followed her, picking my way through the milling crowd, my arms crossed tight across my chest. The key sat like a lump of ice in the hollow of my throat but it wasn’t going to be there for long. The minute we got back to Aunt Delliee’s house, I was going to find some pliers and cut the damn thing off.

  There was no way in hell I was wearing the weird key necklace to my new school or anywhere else.

  2

  The pliers broke.

  I sat there on the faded blue bedspread of the room Aunt Delliee had designated as mine and stared at them in horrified fascination. There was a huge notch carved out of the rusty metal, as though I had tried to cut a diamond instead of the thin, fine-linked chain. And these weren’t dainty jewelry making pliers either—they were heavy duty. I had found them in the tool shed out behind the drafty old antebellum mansion which Aunt Delliee called home. My home too now, I guessed.

  What the hell was going on here?

  I lifted the pliers to try again but the necklace chose that moment to tighten warningly. I put the pliers down and it loosened, the key settling in the hollow of my throat like an unwanted lump of ice.

  I laid the pliers on the bed and stood up, crossing the creaking wooden floor to the full-length mirror in the corner of my new room. I wasn’t sure who had stayed in this room before me, but it was made up like an old-fashioned nursery. There was a rocking horse in the opposite corner and several china dolls with blank faces crowded each other on top of the bookcase.

  Actually, it was kind of spooky.

  Ignoring the blank stares of the dolls, I examined myself in the mirror. A girl with long, auburn-brown hair and green-gray eyes looked back. All the woman in my family had the same eyes. My mother had them too, but she’d been dead almost two years now.

  I pushed the morbid thought away and looked at the necklace which felt heavy and cold around my throat. If I painted, I would have done a self-portrait and entitled it Girl with Key. Or maybe Girl with a Freaky Necklace that Won’t Come Off. Ha-ha, Megan, very funny.

  Hesitantly, I reached up and brushed just the tips of my fingers against the jewel-studded black metal. The key throbbed at my touch like a live thing and I jerked my hand away with an indrawn hiss of breath.

  I’d read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy—not because of the movies or for AP English but because they were the kind of books my Dad used to recommend to me. Before Mom had died and he became an absentee parent, that was. Anyway, the key around my neck reminded me of Tolkien’s one ring. Especially the way he described it as Sam and Frodo got closer to Mordor. The way it got heavier and heavier—the way it seemed to have a mind of its own…

  The comparison freaked me out. It was bizarre and more than a little scary.

  I thought about trying to talk to Aunt Delliee again, but when I opened my bedroom door, I heard the faint sounds of Middle Eastern music drifting up the broad central staircase. Oh right, she had told me she was teaching a belly dancing class this evening—that was the whole reason she was in such a hurry to get home. Well, that and the fact that she wanted me to get plenty of sleep on the night before my first day of school.

  Like that was ever going to happen.

  I closed the door and decided to try and forget about the necklace and its weird key and concentrate on my clothing options for tomorrow instead. Not that I was some kind of a fashion maven, but school had already been in session here in Frostproof for a couple of weeks so I was walking into hostile territory.

  It’s always best to be prepared.

  Of course, I had always gotten along fine back home in Seattle. I more or less blended into the background—just another college fast-track academic nerd. But there was only one small high school in Frostproof and I was sure most of the kids there had been friends since kindergarten. Any hope I had of fitting in, or at least going unnoticed and being left alone, might depend on a good first impression—or maybe no impression at all.

  What I needed was a nondescript outfit that didn’t draw attention to me, I decided. I began to unpack my one large suitcase, hanging clothes in the single dusty closet. I considered my options as I went along.

  Unfortunately, everything I owned had long sleeves.

  There was a good reason for that. I pushed up my Henley’s sleeves and looked at myself critically. The neat rows of tiny pinkish-white scars marching up and down my inner arms looked like a ladder. They were much too visible against my pale skin—much too noticeable.

  I didn’t need to spend my first day at school being labeled and judged. So it looked like I’d be wearing a long-sleeved shirt no matter how hot it was. I sighed as I look at the scars again. But I didn’t regret a single one of them.

  Yes, I was a cutter—or I used to be, anyway. But not for the reasons you might think.

  I had started back when Mom was dying. Dad and I both knew she was going and she knew it too. That was awful—too awful to think about and yet it was all I could think about. I literally couldn’t turn my mind off.

  That was why I started cutting. The physical pain seemed to release the emotional hurt somehow. When the blade sliced my flesh, I had a brief moment of respite from the never-ending loop of Mom’s dying, she’s leaving me, I’ll never see her again, she’s dying that ran over and over inside my head constantly. It always came back, of course, but in that brief moment of bright, sharp pain, I was free of it.

  I’ll take physical pain over emotional agony any day.

  So yes, I did start cutting for the usual reasons. (Well, if you can call your mom dying of terminal lung cancer usual.) But that’s not why I kept it up.

  Near the end, Mom was in so much pain that nothing they gave her helped. The cancer had metastasized which is a technical way to say it spread all over and it was eating her up from the inside out. She would lie there in bed, her face shiny with sweat, and try to talk to me like nothing was happening. But I could see the pain in her gray-green eyes. And I could hear her moaning when she thought I couldn’t hear.

  It was awful.

  One day it was too much. I was sitting with her when she woke up crying, the pain was so bad. I rang for the nurse and then ran to the bathroom. I knew I ought to wait until I got home but I couldn’t help it—I needed to cut.

  I took out the tiny, thin razor blade I had wrapped in tissue and hidden in the folds of my battered Choco Cat wallet. Mom had given it to me for my twelfth birthday when I was still into all things Hello Kitty. Remembering that made me want to cry, made me need to cut even more.

  With trembling fingers I drew the blade across my arm, making a shallow slice just below the crook of my elbow. And suddenly, I felt it—an agony so deep and throbbing it took my breath away. It filled me like water fills a cup, pouring into my body until I didn’t think I could stand any more.

  But at the same time, my mother’s cries lessened and then ceased. Despite the weird pain, I had a moment of blind panic—was she dead? Feeling like I was one big ache, I opened the bathroom door a crack to reassure myself that she was still all right. To my surprise, she was breathing peacefully, a look of relief on her thin, wasted face.

  “Mom?” I made her name a question and she turned her head to look at me and smiled.

  “Megan,” she whispered, smiling. “It’s gone. I don’t know why but the pain is gone.”


  I frowned. “Did the nurse come already to give you something?”

  She shook her head. “No, no one came. They’re giving me everything they can but up until now it wasn’t helping. Maybe…maybe it just kicked in.”

  I had my doubts about that. But it seemed too far fetched to believe anything else.

  “Maybe so,” I told her. “I’ll be right out.”

  I retreated back into the bathroom and washed the shallow cut in the sink. I still felt the dull, aching pain but it seemed to lessen as the water ran clear and the blood stopped flowing from my wound. By the time I put a tiny bandage on the cut, the weird pain was almost gone.

  I went out of the room, hoping to have a real conversation with my Mom for once, instead of just asking her if she was all right when I could see clearly that she wasn’t. But she was already asleep.

  I kissed her forehead and left but the incident had planted an idea in my mind. An idea which refused to be uprooted or pushed aside, no matter how crazy it seemed.

  Could it be that I had somehow eased my mother’s pain? Had I transferred it to myself in some way and given her a moment’s release? If so, would it be possible to do it again?

  It was and I did.

  I cut more often after that, but not because I needed to relieve my own emotional pain. The horrible feeling of helplessness was gone. Yes, my mother was still dying, yes I was going to lose her, but until that happened, I had found a way to ease her anguish and that stopped the endless loop in my head. So the cutting was no longer for me—it was for her.

  I came to see her every day after school, cut in the bathroom, and then sat with her until visiting hours were over. I usually cut once more before I left, to give her a few more hours of peace. The effects of my strange little ritual seemed to last anywhere from two to five hours, depending on how bad the pain was and what state of mind she was in. Feeling her agony inside me every time wasn’t pleasant but I took it gladly. As I said before, I’ll take physical pain over the emotional variety any time.

  Mom lasted another three months that way. I ran out of room on my forearms and started on my inner thighs instead. I knew I’d have the scars for life but I didn’t care. I didn’t care because it helped her. I didn’t know how—I didn’t believe in magic or witchcraft or things that go bump in the night—but somehow it helped.

  I never regretted the scars—they were all I had left of my mom.

  But that didn’t help me now. Now that I was staring at my limited, mostly winter weather wardrobe, and realizing that I had moved to a place where tank tops and short shorts were probably the local uniform of choice. And tomorrow I would be going to school in long sleeves and jeans.

  God, the first day of school was going to suck. Hard.

  The key at my throat throbbed as if in agreement or maybe just to remind me of its hateful presence. I brushed it with my fingertips again and I swore it jumped at my touch.

  Right. I would be going to my new school in long sleeves, jeans, and a freaky magic necklace that wouldn’t come off.

  I didn’t see how things could get any stranger.

  3

  “Meggie are you up? Are you getting ready? I have such wonderful news!” Aunt Delliee’s voice echoed down the hallway and I opened the door to my room to see her standing outside, nearly dancing with excitement. She was holding an oversized envelope made of some thick, creamy cardstock. It looked like a wedding invitation of some kind and she shoved it into my hands as though I should know what to do with it.

  “What’s this?” I asked, looking at the envelope blankly. It had my name—well, sort of—in gorgeous calligraphy on the front, Miss Meagan Latimer.

  Only Latimer was my mother’s maiden name—my last name was Foster. I said as much to Aunt Delliee but she waved a hand in dismissal.

  “Never you mind that, Meggie. You’re a Latimer and you come from a long and distinguished lineage through your great-great-grandmother’s line.”

  Which was kind of weird, but the envelope itself wasn’t exactly normal. Turning it over, I saw it was closed with an honest-to-God wax seal, like you’d see in a movie about kings and counts in the 17th century or something.

  Someone had actually dribbled scarlet wax on it and stamped it with an elaborate crest that looked like a castle with battlements and towers. Curving over the top of the castle in flowing script were the words, Nocturne Academy. Under it, in what I assumed was Latin, I read, Qui Dominatur in Omni Noctem.

  “What does this mean?” I asked, pointing to the phrase.

  “The Night Reigns Over All,” Aunt Delliee said quickly, as though such a weird motto was of no consequence. “It’s just the Nocturne crest—quickly Meggie, open it!”

  “Okay.” I sort of hated to break the elaborate wax seal but it peeled easily up off the paper as I lifted the edge of the envelope, so I didn’t have to worry after all. Inside was a single sheet of creamy paper folded in threes. I pulled it out and opened it.

  Dear Miss Latimer, (it read)

  It is Nocturne Academy’s very great pleasure to inform you that you have been admitted to our venerable institution of Superior Learning and Other Studies, said admittance effective immediately. Please present yourself to the North Tower at Nine of the Clock on Monday the Tenth of September, the Year of our Lord, two thousand and twenty.

  Very Truly Yours,

  Isabel Nightworthy, Headmistress.

  * * *

  Post Script: Despite your current Null status, a strong case has been made for your distinguished lineage and the possibility of talents which may emerge in the future. Therefore, no remuneration will be required for your tuition. Your room, board, books and uniforms will likewise be provided completely gratis. We welcome you.

  Qui Dominatur in Omni Noctem.

  I stared at the paper and its strange message. I had never seen a letter which actually spelled out “post script” before. Then again, I had never been summoned anywhere in “the year of our Lord” before either. What was going on?

  “Oh, they gave you a full scholarship! I knew they would. You see? You’re not a Latimer for nothing, my dear!”

  Aunt Delliee had been reading over my shoulder. Her gray-green eyes—the same color as mine and all the women in our family—were shining with excitement.

  “But what is Nocturne Academy? I never applied there.” I turned the paper over as though I might find something else on the back—maybe a history of this strange place which had apparently accepted me out of the blue. There was nothing though—just creamy blankness.

  “My dear, it’s only the premier Learning Academy for Other Studies in the entire Southeast quadrant!” Aunt Delliee exclaimed. “I applied you for admittance the minute your father promised he was sending you here to live. I didn’t want to tell you before because I wasn’t quite sure about you getting admitted,” she added. “And they certainly took their time about deliberating but the envelope arrived just in time!”

  “But where is it?” I asked, frowning. “Today is September the tenth and it’s eight o’clock now. How can I possibly get there in time?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Aunt Delliee said, plucking the letter from my hands and putting it carefully back in its envelope. “The Academy’s just down Orange Blossom Lane in the old Pearson orchard. Come on, Meggie—we have to go.”

  4

  “But I thought there was only one high school here in Frostproof,” I protested, as we drove past the building in question. It was a dull, dusty brown structure squatting a little way back from the main road with a few dirty, beaten-down pick-ups parked out front. The Florida state flag drooped listlessly from the flagpole and the few students I could see going into its flat brick front looked sullen and resentful that they had to be there.

  I couldn’t exactly say I would rather be going to Frostproof High—in fact, I had been dreading it. But at least it hadn’t suddenly popped into existence in the last fifteen minutes, complete with a fancy letter, an elaborate crest, and a weird Latin
motto about Night conquering all.

  “That’s what most people think,” Aunt Delliee said comfortably. She had taken a moment to dress up, exchanging her regular brightly flowered cat-lady clothes for a dark blue business jacket and matching skirt. The outfit was only a little marred by the long white hairs of her two pampered Persian cats, Mork and Mindy, who had apparently been laying on it before she put it on.

  I had asked if I should change my clothes too, but my aunt had waved away that idea.

  “Of course not, Meggie. The admission letter said everything is gratis—that means free.”

  “I know what gratis means,” I pointed out. “But I’m wearing jeans and a Henley and you’re in your best interview suit.” At least, that was what I assumed she wore it for.

  “Don’t worry—you’ll be fitted for a uniform once you get there.”

  She seemed so certain that I had allowed myself to be bundled into her old car and now we were on our way to the mysterious Nocturne Academy, which I had never heard of until less than an hour ago.

  I thought about asking if it was prestigious—if it would look good on my college applications. But really, what could be less prestigious than Frostproof High? Nocturne must be a step up from that. In fact, just having the word “Academy” in the name of my new high school was bound to get some colleges interested right away.

  I looked down at my faded jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt again. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about showing my scars. Probably anyplace swanky enough to make the students wear uniforms would have a blazer I could put on to cover them. So that was good.