Secrets in Phoenix Read online

  On the right side we found Sam and Todd’s bedroom. The blue and black striped wallpaper was peeling in the corners, and was faded where the window’s sunlight had bleached it. In the centre of the room were two fold-out beds, a metal clothes rack, and not much else.

  My bedroom proved to be slightly more enigmatic, insofar as we couldn’t find the darn thing. In fact, the hunt alone occupied sixty of those ninety seconds of search time. Perhaps the reason why the room was so hard to find was because the door wasn’t a conventional door; it was a curtain. A weighty, red velvet curtain that, until pulled back, had appeared to be concealing just another window. To our collective shock, we discovered that the curtain actually veiled a small, circular area—a space that seemed more like a structural accident than a legitimate bedroom.

  Of course, my first thought was, Why me? But as I dumped my rucksack on the floor and gazed around at the makeshift furniture—mostly upturned boxes with sheets draped over them—I began to feel almost moved. There were tea lights and fresh white roses lined up along the window ledge, pink chiffon drapes tied open with purple ribbon, and a soft pink throw blanketing the tiny bed.

  Ness had built me a girl’s room.

  I’d never had a girl’s room before.

  We set to work unpacking our bags. Again, it was a task that didn’t take much longer than a couple of minutes. It baffled me to think that all my worldly belongings could fit into one rucksack—although travelling light had proven to be to my advantage, considering the size of my new bedroom.

  Once my clothes had been safely tucked into boxes, I joined my brothers in the den. It was around eleven o’clock when we made the harrowing discovery that Ness didn’t own a television. It was around ten past eleven when we began to pine for television, and at around eleven-fifteen we decided to substitute television for sight seeing.

  By eleven-twenty, the torrential rain began.

  Betrayed by the weather, we were forced to abort our plan and make the best of being cottage inmates.

  Todd and I found a tattered backgammon board. Since neither of us knew the rules to backgammon, we settled for a poorly structured game of monopoly on a backgammon board. We sat in the den, pretending to have fun, while the wild raindrops hammered against the roof and echoed inside the chimney.

  Sam paced in and out of the room, desperately seeking entertainment. Preferably entertainment that didn’t involve sitting still.

  He stormed into the den. “Argh!” he bellowed. “I can’t take this anymore! I’m going to… Argh!”

  “Sit down,” I suggested. “Join our game.”

  “I’m not playing board games,” he hissed, outraged by the idea.

  I scowled at him. “Go away, then.”

  I felt mildly guilty when he actually did go away.

  However, moments later, he called to us from the hallway.

  “I’ve got a better game,” he declared.

  Todd and I looked up from backgammonopoly.

  Sam stood in the passage between the den and the kitchen, holding a broom in one hand and an orange in the other.

  “Cottage Cricket,” he announced.

  The name alone set off major alarm bells in my head.

  Sam tossed the orange to Todd. “You bowl,” he instructed. Then, looking at me, he said, “You field.” From where he stood, there was a straight run to the den.

  “You’re going to bat?” With a dubious expression, I eyed the broom in his hand. “That’s your bat?”

  He shrugged. “It’ll do. It’s better than a mop.”

  “And the orange is the ball?” I guessed. “Won’t it explode when you hit it?”

  Sam’s eyebrows knotted together in irritation. “No. Of course not.”

  All of my senses told me to stop the game, but instead I said, “If it lands in the fireplace, you’re out.”

  So we took our positions: Sam lined up to bat, Todd clutching the orange, and me not really doing anything.

  The game began.

  Todd pitched the orange to Sam. Sam swung the broom.

  I heard the thump, followed by a blur of colour whizzing past my eyes like a blazing bullet. The orange hit the stone wall of the den and ruptured open. Pulp and peel splattered over the wall.

  We all gathered around the remnants and stared at the rug as segments of fleshy orange seeped into its multi-coloured fibres.

  Sam rubbed his jaw. “Huh.”

  “Ew.” I crinkled my nose.

  Todd wiped a splash of rogue orange juice from his cheek. “Who’d have thought that that would happen,” he mused.

  I resisted the urge to remind him that I had thought it.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Sam. “Let’s use a sponge! I bet she keeps one in the bathroom.”

  Wow, I noted silently. Sam suggesting we clean?

  “Good thinking,” I said encouragingly. “And I’m sure she’s got some stain remover, too.”

  “No, no,” Sam laughed and cuffed my shoulder, “not to clean up with. We could use the sponge as a ball! I’ll go find one.”

  “No, Sam!” I yelled. “Clean this up first!”

  He was already gone. His footsteps boomed like surround-sound as he thudded up the old wooden steps. Then, abruptly, they came to a stop.

  “Sam?” I called.

  Silence.

  I shared a look with Todd.

  “Sam?” I tried again.

  After a long pause, his voice returned to me. “Get up here.”

  “Which one of us?” I shouted back.

  “Both!”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to come here!”

  Todd was the first to go. I followed after him, emerging into the upstairs hallway to see Sam stooped down on all fours.

  I stared blankly at him. “Problem?”

  He muttered something, his eyes fixed on the wall, his head bowed away from us.

  Todd and I peered down at the wall-mounted air vent that appeared to have Sam entranced.

  “Look,” Sam murmured.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s a vent.”

  “I wonder where it goes,” he muttered to himself.

  The rectangular grid on the wall looked like any other air vent, except it was perhaps a little bigger than what I was used to.

  “I think it leads outside,” said Todd.

  “But it doesn’t,” Sam insisted. “Listen to the wind outside.” He gestured to the roof overhead where the gale bore down on the cottage. “It’s wild out there, right? Now listen to the vent duct. Nothing. This doesn’t lead outside.”

  I folded my arms. “So? Who cares?”

  “Well,” he went on, “if it doesn’t lead outside, then where does it lead?”

  Todd shrugged. “It’s just an air vent. They don’t really lead anywhere.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Sam yanked on the metal grid until it came apart from the wall.

  I watched him, wondering what he was planning on doing. Surely he wasn’t going to crawl into the—

  Oh, wait. That was exactly what he was planning on doing.

  “Sam!” I grabbed hold of his ankle before he could vanish into the duct.

  He kicked his leg free. “Follow me!” he shouted, his voice tinny inside the metal confines.

  “Sam, get back here!” I cried. “You’ll probably end up in a sewer or something!”

  Todd let out a nervous yelp before climbing into the duct after Sam.

  “Todd, not you, too!” I exclaimed. “You’re better than this!”

  His trainers disappeared into the tunnel.

  Great, I thought. Now what am I supposed to do? Go with them? I took a moment to contemplate the alternative— stay in the hallway alone.

  With a weary sigh, I shrank to my hands and knees and crawled into the vent. I heard the clang of metal ahead of me.

  “Todd?” I called. “Sam?”

  Sam’s voice floated back to me, “See? You can always count on me to find something fun to do
.”

  “Fun?” I grumbled. “I wouldn’t exactly call this fun.”

  “I didn’t hear you coming up with any better ideas,” Sam shot back.

  “Backgammonopoly!” I reminded him curtly.

  Considering the fact that the cottage was so tiny, the vent passageway felt never-ending. The light of the hallway had faded into the distance, taking with it our sight. We shuffled on in complete and utter darkness, which only added to our so-called fun.

  I was on the verge of suggesting we turn back when I collided into Todd.

  “Why did you stop?” I asked, untangling myself from his feet.

  “Sam stopped,” he told me.

  “It’s a dead end,” Sam reported back, his voice closer now. “Wait a minute… maybe not. It might be some sort of hatch.”

  There was a rattling sound while Sam scuffled with the blockage, followed by a bright light lancing through the tunnel.

  “No way,” Sam murmured.

  “What?” I tried to peer around Todd to get a better view.

  To my astonishment, Sam and Todd climbed out of the duct.

  We must have arrived somewhere else in the house, I deduced.

  I had been right about that, but what I hadn’t anticipated was where in the house that would be.

  A hidden room.

  I scrambled to my feet and stood with my brothers, in awe of our find.

  The room was circular and dome shaped, like a turret. Along the walls were neat shelves stocked with labelled glass jars. It reminded me of an old-fashioned sweet shop, only in this case, the jars were full of herbs and plants instead of sweets. In the centre of the room was an oil lamp burner, and above it stood a black clay pot on four legs and a tube-like chimney running straight up through the ceiling.

  In awe, I wandered over to the shelves and began reading the labelled jars.

  Canada snake root, carnation, damiana, dill seed…

  “This must be where Ness does her apothecary work,” I guessed.

  Sam grimaced. “What a nut-case. Is this for real? The woman has a whole room just for her flowers.”

  “It’s her job.” I reasoned. “She’s an apothecary. She’s bound to need a… whatever this is.”

  “Weird,” Sam went on as though he hadn’t heard me.

  Beside the huge clay pot was a wooden music stand, and propped on it was a leather-bound book. Todd picked up the volume and began flipping through the pages. The paper was stiff and yellowed with age.

  “What’s the book about?” I asked him.

  “An ode to flowers,” Sam quipped.

  Todd turned the page. “It’s recipes, I think.” His shoulders tensed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Todd stared down at the worn paper. “I don’t know…”

  Sam bounded over to him and eased the book out of his grasp. He began flipping through the pages himself, reading aloud mockingly.

  “Divine Healing…” He turned to the next page. “Drawing an Essence…” He turned the page. “To Break a…” To my surprise, he paused on that section and scanned the text. As he studied the transcript, his face crumpled into a look of confusion.

  “What does it say?” I joined Sam and Todd at the burner.

  All of a sudden, Todd snatched the book from Sam. “Let’s just go,” he said, dumping the book back on its stand.

  Sam looked at him strangely but said nothing.

  I furrowed my brow. “What’s wrong?” I asked again.

  Sam drew in a deep breath. “Nothing,” he said at last. “This is too weird. Let’s do something else.” Without waiting for a response, he sauntered across the room and ducked into the vent.

  Todd promptly clambered into the passageway behind him. I glanced at Todd’s vanishing feet, but before I followed, I lifted the old book.

  As I touched the smooth leather binding, my fingers began to tingle. It was as though the book was alive, warming my skin. Merging with my skin, almost.

  I hastily returned it to the stand.

  And then I noticed it: the brown leather cover had been engraved with gold lettering.

  Potions, Hexes, and Spells, it read.

  My mouth went dry. A spell book?

  Suddenly it dawned on me, Great Aunt Ness was a witch.

  Chapter Three

  Stuck in the Middle With You

  By the next morning, my head was jumbled with questions. Questions that I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted the answers to. I tried to rationalise with myself. After all, Ness had told us that she was an apothecary. It made sense that she had a private work room. And as for the spell book… well, each to his own, and all that.

  As for my brothers, we didn’t speak about what we’d found. In fact, we kept unnaturally quiet for the rest of that day, avoiding the topic with each other and certainly not confronting Ness on the matter. At one point, however, Sam did ask Ness in which drawer the spoons were kept, then hastily clarified his meaning by spelling out the word ‘which.’

  On that first night, I went to bed at the overly polite time of eight o’clock and awoke at sunrise. I shivered under my blanket for an hour or so before I dared to get up. I’d now learnt two things about Phoenix Holt—it was in the middle of nowhere and it was cold in the mornings.

  Fortunately, I’d been so preoccupied with fretting about my new life that I’d scarcely had any time to fret about my new school. Until, that is, it came time to get dressed. Averett Academy students didn’t wear uniforms, which, as backwards as it may have sounded, came as a disappointment to me. In short, uniforms eliminated choice. Without them, there was simply too much choice. Smart or casual? Daring or safe? Plain or patterned? After a lengthy deliberation and tornado-esque destruction of the few items I had in my bedroom, I settled upon jeans and a purple top—casual with a splash of colour.

  I rushed downstairs ten minutes later than I’d planned, and twenty minutes later than Ness had planned. Sam, Todd, and Ness lingered at the door, waiting semi-patiently. I secretly envied how effortlessly stylish Sam looked. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and his auburn hair was tousled with that just-rolled-out-of-bed look—a look only attainable from the literal act of just rolling out of bed. Todd, on the other hand, was far more preened. His hair was combed to the side and he wore a smart shirt-and-trousers combo.

  We set off for school on foot. Phoenix Holt wasn’t particularly car-friendly, so I figured I’d have to get used to walking. Either that or become a hermit—a lifestyle choice that I wasn’t entirely ruling out.

  We trudged through the woodland. There was no path to distinguish the route, so it felt like an aimless trek. A long, aimless trek. But Ness led the way, unwaveringly confident in her intrinsic navigation system.

  “We’re not far now,” she told us, trundling along her invisible path.

  I chewed anxiously on my thumbnail. Three new kids in a small town boarding school? We’d be straight under the high school microscope, ready to be scrutinised, dissected, and condemned.

  “What’s Averett Academy like?” I asked. “Do you think we’ll blend in?”

  “Oh, you’ll be fine,” Ness assured me. “Everyone will be looking forward to meeting you.”

  Oh, great. Just what I didn’t want to hear.

  “I won’t stand out though, will I?” I persisted.

  “No,” Ness replied. “Not at all.”

  Sam propped his arm on my shoulder as we walked. “Why wouldn’t you want to stand out? It’s a new school. You need to leave your mark before you turn into just another face in the crowd.”

  “I like being a face in the crowd,” I said.

  “Ha! You wouldn’t be saying that if you had an impostor permanently wearing your face. Walking around, stealing your good looks and patenting them as his own…” He threw Todd a quick scowl. “Of course, I’m much more handsome than he is.”

  “No, you’re exactly the Same. You’re clones,” I teased them. “A science experiment gone wrong.”

  “Gon
e right, I think you mean. Anyway, we can’t look that much alike; I never have any trouble telling us apart. Besides,” Sam carried on, “you should get used to the fact that you’re never going to blend in. You’re a Ballester.”

  Ness, who had been walking a few paces ahead of us, turned around. “So you do know about the Ballester name!” she exclaimed, her full cheeks rosy with excitement.

  The three of us exchanged puzzled frowns.

  “Only that it’s my own name,” Sam answered slowly.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Ness mused. “Yes, it’s your name.” She chuckled and tottered on ahead.

  I stared after her in bewilderment.

  “Now she,” Sam whispered, “is of a different breed altogether. Loonbags. There’s one in every family.”

  I shushed him.

  We caught up with Ness at the end of the woodland, where the trees opened into a small meadow scattered with silvery gravestones. At the end of the meadow was an old stone mausoleum. I was too far away to get a good look at it, but I could distantly make out the shape of two hunched gargoyles crouching on the rooftop.

  A trodden-down footpath ran alongside the graveyard. We picked up the trail, skirting the meadow in single file. As we walked, I watched the morning sun twinkle on the granite headstones.

  “This path takes us straight to the Academy,” Ness told us.

  Sam eyed the winding track. “Can I go on ahead, then?”

  “Of course,” Ness replied. “But wait for me outside the school entrance.”

  Having been previously constricted by the group, Sam relished the opportunity to break free. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and bolted. Todd set off in pursuit, leaving me alone with Ness.

  Super.

  It was less than a minute before the uncomfortable small talk began.

  Ness went first. “So,” so started awkwardly, “what do you think of Phoenix Holt?”

  “It’s lovely,” I managed.

  “Very different from Port Dalton, I’m sure.”