you.”
“I think I’ll announce it the same way I announced the meeting,” said Marc. “I’m glad it worked; everyone’s here anyway.”
“That’s a better idea,” said Amelia approvingly.
“Right,” said Marc, checking his watch. “Thank God this meeting was quick. Does anyone have anything they want to say before we adjourn?”
I looked around, expecting everyone to be satisfied; apart from perhaps James, who was hardly ever satisfied. But he was motionless. To my surprise, however, Harry and Simon both raised their hands in unison.
“Go on,” said Marc, nodding at them.
“We had a lot of trouble getting out of our house this evening,” said Harry. “Is there any way you could use magic to make it easier to get here?”
Marc and the two Sorcerers looked at one another. Finally Stella said, “I suppose magical doors might work, like what we used a fair bit last week, but I’m not willing to do them in everyone’s houses. Plus we’d have to go get you each time.”
“Perhaps if we could teleport them all here,” suggested Amelia. “Perhaps if we put a further enchantment on the mobile phones so that they teleport the person holding them to wherever Marc is at the time?”
“That would work,” said Stella excitedly.
“As long as you still let us know before you teleport us,” said Sebastian. “You never know what we could be doing.”
“Of course,” said Amelia, raising her eyebrows at Sebastian.
“All in favour of Amelia’s suggestion,” said Marc, and every single person raised their hand yet again. “Excellent. So Amelia, do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yep,” she said. “Everyone get your phones out.”
She enchanted hers and Stella’s first, then slowly worked her way around the group, though she decided not to bother with Lucien’s, as he would be with Marc most of the time anyway. When she had finished, Marc called the meeting to a close and reopened the hidden quarters for us all to leave. The walk back in the dark made me realise just how tired I was all of a sudden, and by the time I climbed back into our room, I plonked down on my bed and fell asleep before I could even get changed. Unfortunately, my sleep was not very restful.
Twice the previous week, I had dreamt of the Main Hall on Rock Haulter—the place we had been camping and had retrieved the Sien-Leoard Crystal. At least I thought the first dream was of the Main Hall, though its insides had been slightly different to what I had seen in reality. The dream I had on this night looked fairly similar to that one. I was standing just inside the doors to the Main Hall, staring straight across to the front, where in reality, the vice principal had stood, lecturing us. I wasn’t the only one there; people were standing in two lines on either side of me, stretching from where I stood to the far end. Marc, Lucien, Tommy and Daniel stood closest to me, but they were the only other males. Katie, Sophie, Kylie and Erica were in the line to my left, while Natalie, Serena, Lena and Amelia were in the line to the right.
Stella was also there, standing between the two lines, pretty much in the centre of the area we occupied. She was staring at her feet, pink and blue party streamers hanging limply from her hands. It was one of the saddest things I’d ever seen, and filled me with such enormous pity that all I wanted to do was run forward and hug her. Yet I couldn’t; the state of the dream prevented me from doing so, but more, I just knew that this was a situation that had to be handled with great caution and care.
I took a step forward, and everyone in the room bar Stella seemed to become aware of my presence. Slowly, as though the floor beneath them were moving rather than they themselves, the dozen of them moved backward, fading slowly off to the sides of my vision and then beyond. I felt nothing with regard to this, barely noticing that both Natalie and Lena had just left me alone with Stella, and not until later would I contemplate if there were any meaning in that part of the dream, for it was eclipsed by what followed.
With my next step forward, Stella finally looked up, her eyes on some part of my midriff. Slowly, she too took a step forward, and with that step came something both beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. Her bright blue eyes finally met mine, and both her hair and the streamers in her hands suddenly danced, as though caught in a high wind nobody but she could feel. It made her look as though she were in a halo, and the sight filled me with great awe.
At the same time, upon eye contact, I felt a great swooping sensation inside my body, the same as what I had felt in a very similar dream in which Stella and I had made eye contact. On that occasion, I had thrashed around in bed for a minute before hurling myself onto the floor and, of course, waking my brother. On this occasion, I found myself crouching on my bed under the covers, drenched in sweat again and facing the foot of my bed. How I had got in that position was anyone’s guess. Fortunately, at least, Peter was still asleep.
* * *
Much of the following day passed in a blur for me, due to the fact that I was tired from not having a good night’s sleep the night before. Science and History were first up in the morning, and both subjects passed with no event. Maths and English were next, during which our Maths teacher—Mrs. Parker—gave us a mountain of homework that had to be done by the next day’s lesson.
“Evil, she is,” Peter was saying on the way to English. “I’ve got no hope in hell of getting that done, not with this loony keeping me for three more hours this afternoon.”
Recess and lunch also passed without mention of what we’d discussed at the meeting. The conversation was, as always, heading in no particular direction, although Peter actually brought his Maths homework out with him and was working on it while the rest of us were chatting. I knew I ought to follow his lead, but honestly I didn’t feel like working hard at that moment.
By the end of the day, I was fully awake. I survived IT and Commerce okay, anyway, and then realised that I’d got my wits about me just in time for my last detention. For the time being anyway, for I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to be in detention long. I caressed the hanky covering the Light Crystal as I walked towards Room 12, sure that that I was up to whatever Hall had in store for me. He turned up not long after we got to the room, pushing the trolley of terror, as ever.
“Are we going to have to do this every day, sir?” asked Simon. “It’s getting boring.”
“Indeed you are, Maivis,” said Hall, stopping and unlocking the door. “You’ve survived two days and have thirteen lying ahead of you. I must say, you’re doing a fairly good job now; you’re improving your writing skills. Hopefully that transfers over to your English work.”
There were once again eight people in detention: Justin, who was on his second last; Tulip, who was on her last; George, who was on his last; and Ellie, also on her last. I knew, however, that there were a few others from the French class still owing Hall. Detention would be full again before long. We settled ourselves down, and waited for Hall to put our lines on the board.
But instead of writing a line for me, Hall smirked. “Don’t get too comfortable, Playman,” he said, turning to me. “You asked for something more difficult to do this afternoon, remember? I am happy to provide. Just wait while I sort the rest of them out, then I’ll assign you your task.”
“Er—okay,” I said a little nervously. This might be a bit of a problem. If I wasn’t doing lines, then I couldn’t be sure the crystal would work as effectively as it had yesterday, and that might mean I was here for longer than I anticipated. Doing something more difficult.
Hall wrote the lines up for the others, told them to get to work, and then beckoned for me to follow him. He took me down the corridor, but I barely had time to wonder where he was taking me when he walked straight into Room 11. It was a classroom much the same as Room 12, and it was empty, apart from the tables and chairs. I thought perhaps he just wanted me to do my lines away from the others; well that was no more difficult at all.