The Magic Trick (The Card Game #2)

Ch 2 - A Haunting

CHAPTER II

A HAUNTING

None of the lanterns that lined the walkway were lit, so the blood brothers went on in growing darkness. They turned a corner and caught sight of the grey-haired lady and then hurried to close the gap.

Pit-pat. Pit-pat. Pit-pat.

Viktor listened to Miss Madulina’s footsteps as his eyes struggled to make out her curled shoulders. Soon he was groping in the dark. A door squeaked open. The footsteps died out. The blood brothers felt for an opening and stepped shakily through the threshold. 

Flash!

A burning match illuminated the old woman’s face, so close Viktor could see her cloudy cataracts. Finally the woman broke off the stare and turned to light a lone candle, and the dim light showed the space for what it was: An old astronomy classroom. Tables and chairs were lacquered in dust and cobwebs, and on the walls glimmered star charts displaying constellations.

“Miss Madulina, are you feeling alright?” said Viktor weakly.

“No, not at all,” Miss Madulina squeaked. “I have not felt right for a very long time. I heard you in the headmaster’s office. You stir up the terrible spirit that haunts this place.”

Viktor shrunk back. “We meant no harm. We just—”

“No, I see the way you judge us.” Miss Madulina shook her crow’s nest of hair. “I know what you think of us.”

“I didn’t—” Viktor began.

“We weren’t always like this, you know!” said Miss Madulina, nearly crying. “I used to be important. I used to know what I was doing. And Headmaster Antipov—do you think his mind was always mush? No, he was brilliant! All our old teachers were brilliant. Even our groundskeeper was once strong—his spine was not always curved so. This school was the gem of Great Perm. It had prestige, beauty … But none of that mattered after the shadow came. It drove everyone away, and mixed the days together, and put a thick fog around us—so very thick.”

“Shadow and fog?” said Viktor, his skin crawling. “What? What’s happened to this school?”

“A haunting.” Miss Madulina batted her misty eyes. “There is something in the water here. There is something in the air. Our minds have been tampered with, and all I can remember are the bad days, while the good ones … they seem to float away, ever since, ever since…”

Romulus leaned in. “Since the murders?”

The woman shook her head. “Since the disappearances.”

“You mean, you agree with the headmaster?” uttered Viktor. “You don’t think those three boys were murdered?”

“I think,” Miss Madulina said vaguely, “that there is something you should see.”

Viktor’s pulse shot through the roof as he watched the secretary go to a desk in the corner of the room. She used a key hanging from her necklace to unlock the lowest drawer, and from it she procured a scrap of parchment. With her trembling hands held tight against her chest, she walked back to them, the note shining in the candlelight. Viktor saw that it had clearly been ripped from a larger piece of parchment and, at first glance, its rich border seemed to imply that it came from an official document.

“I took this from the authorities’ reports,” said the secretary, “before the men went away. They had so many statements, so many testimonies, but this is the one that to me seemed so … significant … and yet to them, it was nonsense, quickest piece of evidence they rejected. Here, it is a quote of sorts.”