Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,13

is fine,” Spirit said vaguely. How many kids were there in this school? There must have been twenty doors on this hallway alone.

Nodding, Ms. Corby opened the door.

Spirit wasn’t really expecting a room just like the one in the brochure. And she was right.

This was better.

The color scheme was pretty neutral, and even though the dorm-wings had obviously been built after the house itself, it had still been decorated in the “rich man’s rustic” style (and the school colors), with the addition of some pink. Just standing in the doorway she could see a dresser, a desk, a bed (so she’d have a room all to herself!), a huge closet . . .

“Your school uniforms are in the closet,” said Ms. Corby, as if she was reading Spirit’s mind. “There’s a copy of the Oakhurst Code of Conduct in the desk; we expect you to become familiar with it quickly. The uniform for Young Ladies is blazer and skirt during classroom hours; trousers may be worn by special arrangement with your instructor. The computer here is for your personal and academic use. The music library is networked on the school server and other media is available in the library. Attempting to download material from the Internet is in violation of the Code of Conduct. I’ll leave you to make yourself comfortable. Dinner is in two hours; you will need to be in uniform. Welcome to Oakhurst.”

“Thanks,” Spirit said. I think.

Ms. Corby turned away and walked briskly off down the hall. Spirit walked carefully into the room, trying not to hold her breath, although she felt as if she should.

Everything since she’d left the hospital this morning seemed utterly unreal, and this might be the most unreal thing of all. This was a huge room, more like an efficiency apartment than a room. It contained a mini-fridge and microwave, a gleaming laptop, and a mini entertainment center with a flat-screen TV.

There was a set of wireless speakers—so she wouldn’t be stuck with the tiny tinny ones laptops had if she wanted to listen to the school music library—and a set of high-quality in-ear earphones if she didn’t want to use the speakers. And through a door to the right, next to the desk, she could see her bathroom. She’d never had her own bathroom; there’d only been one for the whole family.

She turned away quickly and opened the closet. It was only half full, and it still contained more clothes than she’d ever had in her whole life. And not all of them were in Oakhurst brown and gold—she saw some of the things that she remembered had come to the rehab facility. It looked like someone had brought her stuff to her room and unpacked it while she’d been . . .

. . . being turned into a mouse and told she was a magician whose life was in constant danger.

Spirit walked over to her bed and noted in sheer disbelief that the gold chenille bedspread had the school’s coat of arms as its central design. She sat down and looked out her window. From here she could see a vast sweeping expanse of . . . nothing.

Oh it was pretty, and green, but it was like having suddenly been dropped into the middle of Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth. Or Narnia. Or some other green weird empty place where the whole world had been turned upside down. This was nothing like Indiana, and the sheer difference suddenly made Spirit realize all over again how much of her life was just gone. And now she was in a place so strange that she felt completely lost in it. Even the hospital room had been more familiar.

She choked back a sob.

“Don’t tell me they set you up with a playlist preloaded with Polka Dance Party. I’d cry over that, too.”

She turned, startled. There were two girls about her age in the open doorway, both of them in the school uniform. At least, more or less, because one of them was wearing a lacy black blouse under the brown blazer, black tights, and black boots, while the other looked like she’d stepped out of an English boarding school, with a starched white shirt, chocolate tie, white tights, gold blazer, plaid pleated skirt, and brown Mary Janes.

The Goth-y one had flaming red hair—cut very short and spiked up—and vivid green eyes, and was wearing more makeup than Spirit was willing to bet was allowed in the Oakhurst Code of Conduct. The green-eyed Goth was