Hunt and Power. Stephen Hayes

students just because of something like that,” said Charlie. “If they did, they would never have let Stella in at all. In any case, they’d be too scared to cross the Hammersons. I doubt either her or Amelia have ever been disciplined properly at school.”

      “Nothing is to change yet,” said Carl, getting to his feet. He was quite tall, and when he towered over all of us, his authority seemed unquestionable. “Frederic Woodward will know what to make of this, and what the right course of action is. I think all of you should stay inside the house today, at least, so that you’re safe.”

      “Sounds good to me,” said Peter, also getting to his feet before any of us could stop him. “Come on John, James; we should do some homework.”

      * * *

      It was an odd sort of day after that. The shock of Daniel’s death spread through the two houses as though the buildings themselves could hardly believe it. This was worse than what we’d experienced with Lisa’s botched death; on that occasion, it had been easy not to think about it, because we had been so preoccupied by the obstacles guarding the Sien-Leoard crystal, and when the danger had passed, we had been reunited with her.

      Now, however, I came to the realization that there was no way to be prepared for something like this, never enough time to say what should be said. The abruptness was so complete that I half expected Daniel to come striding through my bedroom door, laughing and ready to show us American football moves. All of us were generally quiet, and the three girls were often seen to be rubbing their eyes, but none were coping worse than Nicole, who seemed unable to accept our reassurances that it wasn’t her fault.

      I was rather preoccupied myself. I didn’t hold myself responsible for anything; I knew that none of us had influenced Daniel’s decision to be bold. What bothered me was the thing I would have to live with for the rest of my life—my last memory of Daniel. He had tried to catch me on my way out, and I had as good as ignored him completely. He had wanted to tell me something important, no doubt related to what we had been discussing earlier. Now, I would never know.

      Nicole and I met up a handful of times away from the others throughout the day. She seemed like she wanted to cry, and though she had no shame in doing so in front of the rest of the family, there were a lot of other things pushing down on her that she didn’t want to tell the others. It seemed that something had happened between us the previous night, as though we had somehow built some stronger bond of trust than we had ever had before. It wasn’t stronger or weaker than that I had with Peter and James, just different. I wasn’t sure if her view of the matter was the same as mine, but I gathered it probably was.

      Shortly before dinner, we received a text message from Marc, announcing that an urgent meeting was to take place at midnight that night, in the usual location. He also said that we were to tell no one that we were leaving. Other than the word urgent, he didn’t say anything about the meeting’s contents. I had the distinct impression that there was more to it than Daniel’s death. Something else had happened, and something else must be done.