Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,16
“She just got here this morning. Lizzie, this is Burke Hallows and Spirit White.” Spirit tried not to roll her eyes; poor kid, whether or not she liked the nickname “Lizzie,” she was going to be stuck with it now.
“Hello,” came the voice faintly from behind the wool.
“I need to report to the coach, so I’ll just leave her with you. I know you can show her the rest of the place,” Kelly said, and without even waiting to hear them agree, she turned abruptly and strode off, not quite running, but at a “walking” pace that would leave most people gasping in her wake.
The three of them just stared awkwardly at one another for several minutes. Spirit couldn’t see much of the new girl, just brown eyes and light brown hair that looked as if it was probably long. She was an inch or two taller than Spirit—which meant she’d tower over Muirin and be just about Addie’s height—and in her stiff heavy coat it was hard to tell whether she was plump or thin. After the silence had stretched so long Spirit wondered if they were all going to stand there silently until they froze, Elizabeth said, in a wispy voice, “You don’t have to go to all that trouble. I can find my room from here.”
“No, it’s okay, Elizabeth.” Spirit was half amused, half miffed to see that Burke was putting on his best “big, friendly dog” routine. “We don’t mind, do we, Spirit?”
“I only got here this fall myself,” she admitted, a little relieved because Elizabeth’s arrival had saved her from the Feelings conversation, and a little irritated for the same reason. Then, for some reason even she couldn’t fathom, she suddenly blurted out, “I hate this place. I’d give anything to—”
Then she stopped. Don’t drag anyone else into this mess. It was almost Loch’s voice Spirit heard in her imagination, but Loch wouldn’t say anything so sensible. Especially since you don’t even know her yet.
Elizabeth nodded in a jerky sort of way. “It’s not home,” she said softly. “And it won’t ever be. And Doctor Ambrosius…” She cut off whatever she was going to say, glancing skittishly from side to side as if she was looking for something. Or someone.
“Did he give you the ‘Oakhurst is your family’ lecture?” Spirit asked, bitterly.
Another jerky nod. Burke snorted rudely, surprising Spirit. She kept forgetting that Burke wasn’t the rah-rah “Be True To Your School” guy he seemed so much as if he ought to be.
“I— They were all out on snowmobiles. Out on the lake. I didn’t go ’cause I had Hamthrax. Um … flu. You know? The ice was supposed to be really thick. It was really thick! There were fishing shacks out there with ice-holes a foot or more thick!” Elizabeth’s voice shook, and when she put her hands up to her face to push the scarf out of the way, Spirit could see her hands were shaking, too. Spirit felt her own grief welling up in her throat again, and she felt a fierce uprush of pity for Elizabeth. “They said it was a freak warm spot that thinned the ice, and you couldn’t see under the snow. The temperature was twenty below. They didn’t have—” Her voice broke in a sob that called answering tears from Spirit’s eyes. “They didn’t have a chance in the water—”
Spirit made an abortive gesture toward her, wanting to show sympathy, but Elizabeth wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to protect herself and backed away. “I—I’m sorry. I—I’ll just go back now—” And she turned and scuttled away, head down, shoulders hunched.
Burke and Spirit looked at each other. Burke looked as if he wanted to say something, then just shrugged. “We can try talking to her later,” he suggested. “She sure seemed skittish though.”
Spirit sighed, watching Elizabeth pull open the door just enough to slip inside. “But not the pep talk Murr-cat and Addie gave me when I got here,” she said, a little acidly. “And do you blame her for being nervous? I wonder how Doctor Ambrosius tortured her? She probably expected us to turn into wolves and vampires.”
And it won’t do her any good to hear that the ice probably wasn’t thin, and her family’s death probably wasn’t an accident. It’s nothing I can prove, anyway—any more than I can prove what I know I saw the night our car went off the road …
Burke had been staring after Elizabeth. Now he turned back