Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,41
kids went missing every year. And when you put that together with what Doctor Ambrosius said about them having enemies somewhere out here—
Well, maybe the school isn’t that safe a place after all.
And it wasn’t like the teachers or Doctor Ambrosius would actually tell you that kids were being grabbed by the Bad Guys right off the campus! That would just start a panic, which wasn’t what the faculty would want. She stopped where she was and looked around. She could see the beams of flashlights flickering off in the distance, and could hear people calling Camilla’s name.
No, no, that was stupid. Really, that was stupid, Spirit insisted to herself. Camilla was just—maybe she heard something and fell in a hole and twisted an ankle. Maybe someone else was trying to play a prank on them all. She shook her head and kept walking. Maybe—
Maybe it’s the townies. Spirit didn’t know much about Radial, but once in a while some of the kids that had been at Oakhurst for a while got to go there, and from what they said, there was a lot of resentment from the town about the kids here. The townies seemed to think that everyone here was living some kind of Rich and Famous lifestyle, where they all lounged around in mink bathrobes, didn’t actually ever do any work, and got handed top grades just for showing up for class. Which was stupid, of course, but even if Doctor Ambrosius let people from Radial on the campus, they’d probably still believe stupid stories like that, just because the place did look like a resort. And if Radial was anything like the rural towns where Spirit came from, the schools were getting by on shoestrings, and what Oakhurst spent in one year just on computers would probably equal the entire district budget.
She was almost to the Chapel, and the five of them had agreed to meet there when they’d finished checking their search areas. Burke was already there, standing on the steps; she didn’t need to ask him if Camilla had been found, because she could still hear other people searching.
“What if someone from Radial decided to play a prank on us?” she blurted out as soon as she reached him.
Burke shook his head. “They might want to. But if you don’t belong here—or aren’t wanted here—you run into a bunch of big-time protection spells. The teachers call them ‘wards.’ Mr. Wallis told me they just lead anybody who doesn’t belong here straight to the front door, no matter where they think they’re going.”
“Mr. Wallis?” Spirit said in surprise.
“Well, yeah,” Burke said. “He’s my magic coach. Doesn’t make sense for a Combat Mage to have a magic coach who can’t do martial arts.”
By now the other three had arrived—Addie and Muirin together, Loch by himself. “We checked the whole Sunken Garden,” Addie said. “Nothing.”
The Oakhurst campus was what Loch called “extensively landscaped.” But at this time of year, what the campus mostly had was bare-limbed trees and bushes and flowerbeds already in their winter protection. The Sunken Garden was a couple of acres where the ground had been dug out to a couple of feet below ground level, then shored up along the edge with a brick wall. Ms. Holland, who taught the art classes, said it was partly for beauty and partly for warmth for the more delicate plants. There was a fountain in the middle (drained for the winter), and trees planted along the walls, and flower beds covered in burlap for the winter so that they looked like giant pincushions. Even so, it was one of the best places on the campus to hide—or to be hidden.
“I took the main path all the way down to the train station. I even looked inside,” Loch said. He shrugged, not needing to say he hadn’t had any better luck than Addie and Muirin had. “Maybe she’s in the stables. Or the greenhouse.”
“Maybe she’s just disappeared,” Muirin said angrily. “Like Seth. Like all the other kids who’ve just vanished.”
“How many kids?” Spirit asked, looking at Burke, Addie, and Muirin. None of them said anything. “Which of you’ve been here the longest?” she asked.
“Me,” Burke said quietly.
“And?” Spirit demanded. “How many?” she repeated, when Burke didn’t answer.
“Not many,” he said at last. “Three or four or . . . six . . . or so a year. But sometimes, uh, kids just leave early, like if Oakhurst sends them off to a regular college or something.”