Headmistress Aldridge

Cordelia Aldridge had been headmistress of Starfall for twenty-two years, and in that time no one had seen her hurry. She moved through the corridors with the unhurried certainty of a ship through harbor water, and students parted before her without being asked.

She summoned Wren on a Monday morning.

The headmistress’s office was lined with portraits of previous heads, every one of them an Aldridge. Cordelia sat beneath her grandfather’s picture with her hands folded on a blotter, and she smiled as if Wren were a long-awaited guest.

“Miss Calloway. Sit. I wanted to congratulate you on your first term. Your marks are remarkable.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Scholarship students often are.” She said it kindly, which made it worse. “They understand what is at stake. It’s why we invest in them. I would hate for anything to distract you from such promise.”

Wren’s palms had gone damp. “I’m not distracted.”

“No? Mrs. Pennick tells me you’ve taken an interest in our archives.” The smile did not move. “Starfall has a long memory, Miss Calloway, and some of its memories are painful. A student’s disappearance leaves a wound in a community. We prefer that it heal.”

“I only wanted to read about the school’s history.”

“Of course.” Cordelia turned a silver pen end over end. “I’m sure your curiosity is innocent. But I’d like you to remember that a scholarship is a gift, renewed annually at the board’s discretion. Gifts can be withdrawn. I should hate for that to happen to someone so bright.”

It was not quite a threat. It was something more polished: a door that was being shown to her, very gently, before it closed.

Wren stood. She was aware that her secondhand blazer was creased and her knees were not entirely steady. Yet something inside her, small and stubborn, lifted its chin.

“Thank you for your concern,” she said. “May I go?”

“By all means.”

At the door she glanced back. On the headmistress’s desk, half hidden under the blotter, lay a thin brass key with a star stamped into its bow. It looked a great deal like the one Dash kept in his sock.

Outside, in the corridor, Dash was waiting with a book he was not reading.

“Well?” he whispered.

“She knows,” said Wren. “Not everything. But she knows enough to be afraid.”

“Afraid?” Dash frowned. “Of us?”

Wren shook her head slowly.

“Of whatever Nell found.”