Chapter Text
Nina couldn’t believe that she’d punched Victor. And then stepped through Senkhara. She wasn’t sure which action she’d feared the consequences of more. Though, Senkhara had been obvious with her displeasure and had told her that her “Punishment would be to punish.” Nina didn’t know what that meant, but she wasn’t eager to find out. Whereas Victor had lied to the nurse about the cause of his injury, promised that he wasn’t going to expel her, offered to help, and comforted her when she cried. She didn’t know which of those things seemed more impossible, but she refused to believe that the only consequence for that action would be bruised knuckles and a strained wrist. After she’d returned to the house, she brushed off everyone’s concerns and questions about her hand and wrist and anxiously went to bed as she waited for the other shoes to drop.
When morning came, and the only nightmares she’d had had seemed to be purely created by her subconscious, and not Senkhara, she found herself relaxing, just the tiniest bit. If her knuckles and wrist weren’t hurting so much, she could almost believe that what had happened last night had just been part of the nightmares. But even if it was, her Gran’s illness wasn’t, and she was still rather morose when she went down for breakfast. Nina listlessly messed with her cereal, unable to bring herself to eat any of it.
“Hey, you okay?” Fabian asked.
She looked up at him and put her spoon down. “Yeah, just thinking about gran.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile.
“And something weird that happened to me last night.”
Fabian leaned in, but was interrupted by Alfie rushing into the dining room with a camcorder before he could say anything.
“It’s the morning of the Ping-Pong tournament and the entire school is holding its breath,” Alfie narrated. He noticed Amber’s breakfast and pivoted over to her and pointed the camera at her. “Whoa, Amber, waffles before a big match? Is that really a good idea?”
“A, you’re not my coach anymore. B, they’re low-carb waffles. And, C, there’s mush on your lens,” Amber replied.
Alfie turned the camera around and inspected, “No there isn’t.”
Amber grabbed something from her plate and pressed it onto his lens.
“Ah, well now,” Alfie admitted.
Joy and Patricia laughed from where they were sitting at the other end of the table. Alfie picked the bit of food off of his lens and ate it. Nina winced. He was so gross sometimes, a lot of the times, really.
Alfie resumed filming. “It’s all getting tense in here. Waffully tense.” He cracked up. He hit Nina on the arm. “Get it, Nina?”
“Oh, ow, Alfie!” Nina said.
“Waffully tense?”
Nina pushed him away. “You’re just a big kid.”
Alfie grabbed at his leg, near where his mark was, if Nina recalled correctly. For a brief moment she’d swear she could hear Senkhara laughing. He started sucking on his thumb and finally walked over to his seat to eat breakfast. Patricia and Joy mocked him further. Nina turned to Fabian.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?” he replied.
“Senkh-”
Nina cut herself off when Victor entered the room. She briefly made eye contact with him, and saw the splint on his nose and his two black eyes, and immediately looked away.
“Woah, what happened to you?” Amber asked.
“Did someone finally punch you?” Patricia asked.
“I tripped and hit my nose,” Victor lied. “And my injury will not be a source of gossip amongst you! I am here to inform you that this morning, before the Ping-Pong game, there will be an assembly in which Miss Jaffray will be apologizing to Miss Devenish for the libel she printed in her article, and all of you will be required to attend!” He left the room.
Mara visibly shrank into herself and groaned.
“I bet someone actually hit Victor, and he came up with that tripping story to cover his ego,” Eddie said.
Nina looked down at her cereal.
“I could see Victor lying about that,” Fabian said.
“I’d love to shake the hand of whoever punched him,” Patricia said.
“Me too,” Joy said.
“And maybe he actually tripped and fell.” Nina hated how her voice squeaked and her cheeks warmed.
“What, like down in the you know where?” Amber whispered.
“Without an amulet?” Fabian whispered back.
Nina considered getting up and leaving before her bad lying gave her away.
“I can’t believe they’re actually making you go through with a public apology!” Jerome said to Mara.
“Well, apparently, all of my evidence was wrong,” Mara sighed. “So, it’s only fair.”
“Not as fair as I would like it to be,” Vera snipped from the kitchen.
“I’m publicly apologizing, have a month or so of detentions with Victor, and am being removed from the school paper? What else do you want? For me to be expelled?” Mara snapped. She stood up from the table and left the room.
Jerome got up and chased after her. Nina glared at Vera and followed suit, leaving her cereal untouched. Jerome and Mara were already out of the house when Fabian caught up with her in the foyer.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.
Nina sighed.
“Is it just your gran? Or? You started to say something else happened last night? And reacted weirdly to Victor’s broken nose. Did you find him in the tunnels, or something?”
Nina took a deep breath, but before she could say anything, she spotted Victor looking down at them from his office. “Just forget it. Forget everything.” She turned away from him.
As she turned, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him reach for his arm, where she knew his mark was. And again, she’d swear she heard Senkhara laughing for a brief moment. Her spine felt like it’d been stabbed by icicles. She forced herself to move forward and leave the house. If she was going to deal with this, or talk about it with Fabian, she wasn’t going to do with Victor watching, or with the chance of their other housemates walking in on them.
When they arrived at school, they were conscripted into helping set up the lounge for the apology. The apology itself was infuriating. Mara was forced to admit that she’d gotten dates wrong, and had somehow thought someone alive was dead. Nina was certain that her housemate had somehow been set up. When Vera started talking, her false sweetness and instance on telling “her side of the story” made Nina want to hit her. Though she had a feeling what happened with Victor was a fluke, and that there was no way Vera would let her get away with hitting her. The harlot was way too vindictive for that.
By far, the most interesting part of the apology, was when, while Vera was speaking, the screen that’d been set up to display evidence, turned on and started to play a video of Mr. Sweet square-dancing in full regalia. Nina, along with the rest of the student body, burst out laughing. Mr. Sweet went apocalyptic, and begged Mrs. Andrews to help him turn the screen off. Eventually they managed it, but it didn’t stop the students from laughing. Surprisingly, Eddie almost immediately owned up to the prank, and Mr. Sweet demanded that he join him in his office as soon as they finished with the assembly.
After the apology, Nina and Fabian were again conscripted into helping rearrange the lounge for the Ping-Pong game. Fabian seemed to have trouble remembering how they were supposed to set up the chairs, and Nina tried very hard to not worry about it. But eventually they finished setting the room up, and the time came for the game. Amber and Jerome entered the room in their uniforms. Both were wearing the school’s red sports’ shirt. Jerome was also wearing purple athletic shorts and Amber was wearing a blue skirt. Nina was surprised; she could have sworn that Amber had designed the uniforms to be far pinker and have sparkles. She wondered if Jerome’s purple shorts were even her idea.
Poppy and Mara gathered around Jerome to give him their support. Nina and Patricia did the same with Amber.
“So, why’d you give it all up?” Patricia asked.
“Hm?” Amber asked.
“Ping-Pong, why’d you give it up?”
Amber was staring at the guy from the other school. He winked at her.
Nina and Patricia at the same time said, “Boys.”
“I can’t help it, they make me lose focus,” Amber said.
Nina grabbed Amber’s shoulders, “Amber, Jerome is counting on you, okay?”
Amber nodded, and Nina let go.
“Just grow up a little, or a lot,” Nina said.
There was a lot of people in the room, all having various conversations, so surely, surely, the laugh Nina heard wasn’t Senkhara, right?
“You’re right, I can do it.” Amber waved her paddle in front of her face. “Focus, Millington!” She winced and grabbed her elbow. “Ow, I think I pulled a Ping-Pong muscle.”
Nina and Patricia exchanged a look.
Mr. Sweet clapped to get everyone’s attention, and waved them to their seats. Patricia sat next to Nina, and Fabian sat on her other side.
“Will the competitors please make their way towards the table?” Mr. Sweet said.
They did so, but Amber looked uncertain. Mr. Sweet waved a pink handkerchief to start the match, and they began. The guy on the other team served first. Jerome tried to answer it, but the ball didn’t bounce as he expected, and he missed.
“What?” Jerome exclaimed.
Most of their school groaned and Mr. Sweet covered his face with his hand.
Patricia turned to Nina, “This could be embarrassing.”
Nina gave her a disapproving look.
Unfortunately, Patricia’s words proved prophetic. It was a disaster. Jerome and Amber never got double digit points, and, far too quickly, the other school was up two games to none with the score 2-9, the other school, in third game. With the match being best of five, it was likely only a matter of a couple of minutes until it was all over. Fabian, distressingly, was struggling to follow what was going on. Nina hoped that it was just because he wasn’t very sporty, but she couldn’t shake her worry.
“I’m sorry, explain the rules of this again?” he asked.
“Okay, if the Ping-Pong ninjas score two more points, then it’s game over for Jerome and Amber,” Patricia explained.
A large part of the crowd started cheering for Amber. It was her serve. The guy on the other team winked at her again. She served. The other team hit it back; Jerome messed up the return.
“Jerome!” Amber shouts.
“Amber, what has happened to your serve?” Jerome asked.
The other headmaster updated the score, 2-10. Jerome sighed.
“They lose this point, and that’s it,” Patricia explained.
The guy on the other team guy brushed his hand across his forehead before he served. Jerome cleared his throat and looked at the Frobisher Shield. Amber glanced at Jerome. The guy served. Their school cheered Amber and Jerome on. The teams rallied a couple of times. Jerome lost the ball and the point. Game over. The other team won. Their school burst into cheers.
Jerome collapsed to his knees and buried his head in his hands, “No! No! No! I’m sorry, Dad.”
Alfie shook his head, “Boring!” He sucked his thumb.
Joy whacked him “Alfie!”
“Just when I thought today couldn’t get any more disappointing, losers,” Patricia said.
“Patricia, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all,” Nina reprimanded.
Nina heard Senkhara laugh again. Patricia touched Nina’s arm, and Nina turned to her. Patricia opened her mouth like she was trying to speak, but no sound came out. She held a hand to her throat.
“Are you okay?” Nina asked.
“My voice is gone,” Patricia mouthed.
Nina put a hand on her shoulder and looked up. She saw Senkhara in the corner of the room.
“Your punishment will be to punish,” the ghost repeated.
Nina turned to Fabian, “Fabian, something’s happening, I know it has something to do with Senkhara.”
“I’m sorry, who’s Senkhara?” he asked.
Nina’s eyes went wide, “Not you too.”
Senkhara laughed and Nina looked back at her. She summoned a dark ball of something and blew it a Nina. “Your punishment will be to punish.” Everything went dark.
Nina opened her eyes and found herself on a couch in the living room. Patricia and Alfie were sitting at the dining room table and were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. Nina stood up and walked towards them.
“Hey, Patricia? Alfie? What happened? How long was I out?” Nina asked.
Patricia and Alfie turned and look at her. They were scared. They got up and started to run away.
“Patricia? Alfie!” Nina called.
They gave no indication that they could hear her. They knocked over a chair in their haste to get away.
“Wait up?” Nina asked.
They ran out of the room. Nina tried to follow them. What was wrong? What had her friends so scared? Was there something behind her? They ran into Alfie’s room and shut the door. Nina turned around and saw Fabian standing behind her in the foyer. Surely Fabian would explain what was going on. He was also scared, and started moving towards the stairs.
“Who are you?” he asked.
What do you mean ‘who are you?’? Nina thought and moved towards him.
He ran and stumbled up the stairs. “What do you want? What do you want? Get away from me! Get away from me!” He made it to the top of the stairs and ran into the girls’ hallway and shut the door behind him.
What was going on? Why is everyone running? Why is no one answering my question? What’s wrong?
“Stop running, boy!” Victor shouted. He left his office and walked over to the door to the hallway. He saw Nina and got scared. He backed away and made a gesture of protection, and muttered a prayer. He waved for her to stay back, and closed his office door. What was so scary that even Victor would react like that? Was something wrong with her?
Nina followed Fabian into the girl’s hallway. He knocked rapidly on Amber and Nina’s door as she got closer.
“Amber, Amber, let me in.” He started pounding with his hand. “Amber let me in! Amber!”
She opened the door and came out and saw Nina. Amber froze with terror. Fabian grabbed her and pushed her into the room. “Get in! Get in! Get in! Get in!”
They failed to close the door fast enough and Nina was able to follow them in.
When they were backed against her bed, Fabian asked, “Why did you come in? Just leave us alone!”
He dragged Amber around Nina to try and get them past her and out of the room.
“Go away!” he pleaded.
Why were they so scared of her? Why couldn’t they hear her? What was wrong?
The door shut by itself and Amber screamed.
“Nonononono!” He tried to open the door, but it was locked.
Nina looked at her friends. Or her former friends? They didn’t seem like her friends anymore. Amber screamed again. Nina turned further and saw herself in a mirror. Except she didn’t see herself. She saw Senkhara. In the mirror, she held her hands out, and her cursed hands glowed white.
“They will all suffer, because of you,” Senkhara laughed.