Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,65

and then—just to top it all off—there were cartouches all up the walls of the Theater on both sides, and painted inside them were scenes of elks and snow-covered mountains and railroad trains.

“My brain hurts,” Loch said very softly, as they walked in.

“You get used to it,” Muirin said. “Just keep your eyes closed. Like the guys who painted it did.”

Loch made a rude noise of appreciation at the joke and Spirit just rolled her eyes, much as Addie would have if she’d been there. But Addie was in the choral society, so she was performing this morning.

To Spirit’s mild surprise, they were separated in the theater—boys on one side of the center aisle, girls on the other. That was a little odd, considering that the administration didn’t make any attempt to keep them apart the rest of the time. She shrugged and took her seat. She wasn’t going to worry about it. There were too many things about this day she was trying not to think about already.

But: “First Thanksgiving is rough,” Muirin whispered to her when they were seated. “First Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first birthday—they all suck. A lot.”

“Yeah,” Spirit said. She blinked hard, refusing to give in to the prickle of tears that had welled up in her eyes. I wish I was home. Even for Tofurky.

Maybe it was just as well she wasn’t watching the parade. She remembered how she and Phoenix made fun of the floats and the has-been stars, and her parents would get indignant and make comments about “rampant commercialism.” And everyone would always bitch that after coming all that way, the band kids wouldn’t even get thirty seconds on-camera. And Mom or Dad would say, “Well in my day, we got to see the whole band routine instead of two minutes of commercials.” And—

She started to choke up just thinking about it, and riveted her attention on the curtain and stage. After a few more minutes of shuffling, everybody was seated. Then Mr. Henderson—Spirit knew he was the Music Teacher, even if she didn’t have any classes with him—came out from behind the curtain and announced the morning’s program. It sounded horribly boring.

It was.

Something could be done very well and still not be something you wanted to have anything to do with, and “an exciting exploration of nineteenth-century American composers” was really high on Spirit’s list. Of course the two-hour concert began and ended with the School Song. Unfortunately, the end version was the orchestra and chorus together, so Spirit had to listen to the words. All seven verses of them.

“Okay, now let’s go do something mind-rotting that actually belongs to this century,” Muirin said, bouncing to her feet as the green velvet curtain closed.

“I—I think I just want to be by myself for a while, okay?” Spirit said.

“Yeah, sure,” Muirin said. “Don’t do anything emo or anything, right?”

“I won’t,” Spirit said, forcing a smile.

She went back to her room for her coat—and to change from a skirt into slacks—and then went for a walk. Dinner would be served early today, at five instead of six, and because the kitchens would be running flat-out all day, lunch would be a make-your-own sandwich bar. She wouldn’t be missed.

She knew she should be seizing this opportunity to plan with the others, because Burke had been right: one way or another, they either had to take a risk to get more information, or admit they wouldn’t be able to do anything when the December “Tithing” came.

Let Muirin go back down into the subbasement to look for information? There were a lot of file cabinets down there, but what they probably held was more files like Camilla’s. Whoever was doing this wasn’t going to write down all the details of their Secret Plot and then leave them lying around loose.

Recruit another student who could find out what they needed by magic? Suppose they picked the wrong one? Suppose it was somebody who was already a member of the secret society?

Yes, that was what she should be doing today. And she was too miserable to even think of it.

Come on inside, Spirit,” Burke said. “You’ll freeze, and you know Mr. Wallis won’t accept a head cold as an excuse for staying out of the demo Saturday.” He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it around her. It was nice and warm, warm like Burke. It even smelled like him, clean, with a hint of nice soap.

“How’d you know where to find me?” she asked. “Magic?” She