Janette Lennox

Chapter 11

That night, after dinner, Janette found herself standing at the door to the headmaster's office. She knew what was going to happen: she was going to deal with Winifred, Talaith, and Sybil Hawksley, the cousins who had sent her the letter that angered Headmaster Baynard. She was angry with them for not taking any time out of their selfish lives to check up on her while she was at Bethsaida.

As she entered the office, Janette heard the headmaster scolding the three women: "If you thought that you could get past me, you are sadly mistaken. I already know that you’re angry with me for refusing to marry Lilybeth, but this certainly takes the cake. How could you even THINK that I wouldn’t find out about the letter?"

"Erwin, why are you so prudish?" said Winifred.

"You already know the answer, Winnie!" Headmaster Baynard snapped at her. "I will NOT marry or join your family! I took a vow of celibacy many years ago, when I realized that I had scores of cousins who could pass on the family name. I also realized that I wasn't meant for marriage or children. Then what happened? Most of my cousins all died in that war and those who survived swore off magic and abandoned the family name. My sister and I are the only ones left; my brother died when he was just 11 years old and my mother followed him to the grave shortly after. My father refused to remarry and so it's up to my sister to keep the Baynard family name alive."

He noticed Janette standing in the doorway and then added, "Now we have Janette Lennox, who is the latest victim of your family's meddling. Helen was right to leave the family, and I was right to help her leave."

"You mean Janelle Lennon?" said Sybil.

"No, I said LENNOX," said Headmaster Baynard, "and never again will you mention the name Lennon unless you're talking about that John Lennon of the Beatles. I meant what I said about you ladies disrespecting the name of Helen’s husband. Had it not been for Linus Lennox’s idea of stealing the Book of Magic, we would have been eliminated or worse, under the thumb of the Gray Witch and her cronies."

The women stared at the girl who stood next to the headmaster. She was tall, but not as tall as the other students at the school. She had dark pale skin, long, wavy, golden-blond hair, and large dark blue eyes.

Talaith stared at Janette and shook her head, saying, "This can’t be her. That’s not Helen’s daughter."

"Indeed," said Winifred. "She looks more like her father and not like Helen."

"But as I may recall, Helen had the pale skin and the red hair, but her eyes were green and not scarlet," said Sybil.

"Even then, she had to have passed some of her genes onto the girl," said Winifred.

Sybil said to Janette, "Has your mother ever told you about our family? Anything at all?"

"Oh no, ma'am," Janette said, unknowingly slipping back into the speech patterns she had picked up while she was still in Bethsaida. "I honestly haven’t heard anything about the Hawksley family at all."

"Indeed," said Talaith. To Baynard, she snapped, "How could you keep her away from us?"

"It was not my decision about who would take care of Janette if things had gone sour with our mission," said Headmaster Baynard. "In fact, I always imagined that Linus would hide her with someone who was not involved with magic in any way. That's why he sent her to that church in Gillamoor."

"That place is a disgrace!" said Winifred. "They banned magic and magicians just because of little Vanessa Trant's mishap 100 years ago! If you ask me, which I know you never will, I say that the witch clan living there did the village a favor by removing her before she did any serious damage."