A Curse of Stone and Fire: YA Fantasy Romance Read online

“People call me Mae.” I corrected her. My blood boiled and simmered, my glare icy. “People who know me call me Mae.” I added.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Aye, course they do.” She muttered something under her breath, but I couldn’t catch what it was. Her accent was thick, almost unintelligible.

  I settled back with a defeated sigh and sipped at the scorching tea held within a tiny cup. I couldn’t fit my finger through the delicate handle, so I gripped it from underneath. Mrs Cox frowned at my lack of etiquette. “I still can’t believe my aunt isn’t here to greet me.” I pushed further. “I haven’t seen a family member in ten years—didn’t even know I had one—surely she should be here…” I trailed off when it was clear Mrs Cox wasn’t going to sway under my sob story approach.

  She smoothed her skirt with her hands. “It’s a regrettable inconvenience,” she waved her fingers in the air and smiled. “But, I assure you, I am here, and I will do everything I can to help you settle into your new life. I want you to feel at home here.”

  “New life? This is only a visit.” A tight band wound its way around my rib cage. “I can’t stay. I won’t stay.” I could have added that there was no way on this side of forever I was going to stay in the school once I’d turned eighteen. I shook my head. I should never have come. Never opened that damn letter. Should have run away.

  “Do you have somewhere else to be?”

  I hesitated. Of course I had nowhere else to be. It was the fundamental story of my life. “Well, no. I’ve been put in homes I haven’t wanted before; it’s part of being a child orphan.”

  “You aren’t here because you are an orphan, Mae.” She paused for a moment, her sharpened gaze sweeping over me. “You are here because you're family and this is where you belong.”

  “I’ve never belonged anywhere,” I muttered, but I was running out of steam. “I’m tired, the flight is catching up with me.” Exhaustion washed over me and my legs and arms began to pull with a heavy ache, like I’d been running a marathon, or been finally defeated in the tenth round of a fight.

  “You will be happy here.” It was a statement I wasn’t meant to argue with. Mrs Cox gave me a nod of her head and a small smile. “Come, you’re tired.” I bit my tongue from a fast and loose response—they’d got me in trouble before. “Let’s get you settled.”

  I humphed in response, but she dismissed our conversation and motioned for me to place my tiny cup on the tray of tea things she’d had laid out on a small card table by another member of staff. I drained the cup and clattered it down onto its saucer. “Sorry,” I mumbled, when she frowned at my heavy-handedness with her fine china.

  “Not to worry, dearie. It’s just an old family heirloom, a mere trifle, I suppose.” She shrugged, waving her hand and opening the door. The room had become toasty and warm from the fire in the grate, but a chill blasted with the opening of the door, much like a stiff north-westerly wind.

  I shivered and rubbed at the goose bumps spreading along my skin as we marched along the dim corridors. It seemed schools were damp in Scotland although I wasn’t surprised. Occasionally, as we wound through the maze of low-ceilinged passages, I sought a glimpse out of a lead window. Although the glass was aged and yellowed in some places, it didn’t detract from, or improve, the dismal view outside. Heavy thunderous curtains of wet gloom obscured any view further than a couple of measly feet. There must be scenery out there somewhere—it was just invisible from the inside of the stone walls.

  “Does it always rain?” I ran to keep up with Mrs Cox’s short legs. She moved with surprising speed and I resembled an elephant crashing through foliage in her wake.

  “Sometimes it shines.” She shouldered on, barely glancing in my direction.

  “The sun?”

  “The sun, the moon, sometimes the stars.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t have any other answer to give. The crumbling building wasn’t giving off warm and cosy inviting vibes—I didn’t think walking around at night would be at the top of my to-do list.

  “So, how many students do you have?”

  “Just two hundred.” Her gaze slipped to the side, running over me. “Your uniform will be ready; your aunt has it all arranged.”

  Uniform? Was she batshit crazy?

  “Has she? Yet she’s not here. How did she know what size I would be?” I filed away the thought of only two hundred students. That was the same amount of one single year in my last school. Mrs Cox didn’t answer how my aunt knew my size despite never laying eyes on me. And honestly, I couldn’t even think about it—I flew all this way to meet an aunt I didn’t know—was I crazy?

  We came to a stop outside a dark wooden door. “This is the girls wing. There are house rules, but I’m sure you will be brought up to speed by your new friends.

  I liked her optimism. I wasn’t going to tell her I wouldn’t be here long enough to make friends.

  “Is it a dorm?” I asked.

  Mrs Cox pushed on the door, and a shiver of apprehension stalked its way along my spine. Nothing about this was anywhere near my expectations, and my expectations had been minimal, to say the least. Of course, when I’d found out I was flying to Britain, I’d considered the prospect I’d maybe bump into a royal prince and fall madly in love, living out a wondrous and unexpected fairy tale. But, honestly, what girl didn’t have those dreams?

  I glanced up and down the dark hallway and said goodbye to the fantasy. There’d be no princes here, of that I was sure.

  The door creaked open with a Hitchcock groan. “You have your own room. Some girls share, others have singles, it all depends.”

  “On what?” We faced yet another new corridor, equally dark, but this one was lined with symmetrical oak doors on either side.

  Mrs Cox shrugged. “Money.”

  “I don’t have any.” No point pretending otherwise.

  She blinked at me from behind thick lenses. “You have family.”

  The conversation was cut short by a door further down the hallway flinging open. A girl with insanely wild, curly hair, barged through the door, her navy and silver tie askew, and a piece of toast hanging out of her mouth. Her shirt gaped at the buttons, the tail sticking out where she hadn’t pushed it into the waistband of her skirt. When her gaze landed on Mrs Cox, her face dropped in shock, her skin paling to that of an albino polar bear.

  “Late again, Philomena?” Mrs Cox’s heels clacked across the flagstone floor. The girl, Philomena, nodded and opened her mouth as Mrs Cox removed the dangling slice of toast.

  “Sorry, Mrs Cox, my alarm didn’t go off again.” Philomena dropped her gaze. She was earthy and messy, her colouring rich: with her dark hair and olive skin, and she towered over Mrs Cox's small neat figure. It was like looking at David and Goliath, and Goliath was quaking in his boots.

  “Never mind,” snapped Mrs Cox, with a curtness which made the wild-haired girl and me both wince. “Actually.” She patted her hair back into place. It was as if standing in front of the whirlwind mess of Philomena had ruffled her own smooth appearance. It hadn’t. “You can take Maeve here under your wing.”

  “Mae,” I interjected. “People call me Mae.”

  Philomena stared at me, her eyes wide like saucers. “You’re the American.”

  “Yep, last I checked.”

  “This is too exciting! A real-life American.”

  “There are quite a few of us, we aren’t a rare breed.”

  Philomena grinned and grabbed at my arm. “Never had one here before. This is going to be wicked.”

  Mrs Cox coughed, and when I ripped my eyes away from the girl clutching my arm, I found a frown of disapproval etched into the older woman’s face. “I believe, Miss Potts, you mean fun. This will be fun. I doubt very much there will be anything wicked about it.

  Philomena dropped her gaze. “No, Mrs Cox. You are right, Mrs Cox.”

  “Good.” The woman straightened, still only coming up to Philomena’s shoulder. “I shall leave you to give Maeve a tour and then you can tak
e her to class.”

  “Class? Already?”

  “Of course. I said you shall attend classes while you are here.”

  “But I’ve finished my education.”

  Mrs Cox raised an arched eyebrow. “So you said earlier, but have you really? Where's the harm in taking a few classes while you're here?”

  I went to open my mouth to tell her yes, that I’d achieved all I could achieve with the limited funds I had available, but she turned on her heel. “Room thirteen please, Philomena.” She waved a dismissal over her shoulders, her heels already clacking and echoing away.

  Philomena gasped and turned to me. I met her gaze. She was wildly attractive in an unkempt, unfinished kind of way, as if she’d been pulled from the earth and crafted from nature’s own gifts. Next to her, I was a bland, nondescript, pale imitation of young womanhood. “You’re in room thirteen.” She actually quaked as she said the number out loud.

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Philomena giggled, but it held an awkward key, like a musical instrument out of tune. “Nothing, nothing at all. Come on, let’s get you settled and then you can tell me all about being American.”

  I chuckled, the sound surprising me. “I think it’s the same as being British.”

  She smiled, and I grinned back. “No, you have to make it sound better. Lie if you have to.”

  “Okay. You asked for it though.” We both turned to the room with 'Thirteen' nailed in brass figures to the wooden door.

  I ignored the shiver and the inch of anxiety in my stomach. It was a room. What was the worst that could happen?

  2

  In the time it had taken for me to drink tea and eat a soggy piece of toast with Mrs Cox, Jeffries had delivered my duffle to room thirteen. The duffle sat, an island of familiarity on the bed, in a sea of the unknown.

  “Just to warn you, Alicia will want to have a party to celebrate your arrival, and numerous house rules will be broken.” Philomena broke my attention, and I turned. “So, if you aren’t into rule breaking, then I’d probably feign a headache.”

  “I’m not opposed to rule breaking.” I smiled, trying to make it an honest friendly smile and not a scary ‘please be my friend’ grimace. “But I am tired. I’ve been travelling for—” I couldn’t remember how long I’d been travelling for. “What time is it now?”

  “Nine. I’m late for class. Although, thanks to you I’ll be let off—this time.”

  “Glad to be of service.” I stepped further into the room. Sparse furniture filled the small space. Blue bedding, which seemed clean enough—I’d seen a lot worse over the years—covered the bed. I pressed my hand into the surface. Firm. Nice mattress, that was always a plus. The matching blue curtains were partially drawn. Stepping forward, I pulled them back. The room must have held a corner location because the window hidden behind the curtains was a triangular shaped bay, jutting out at a point. The glass was leaded and dark, barely letting any light in. I tried the handle to see if I could lift the catch and see what laid beyond the dingy glass, but it didn’t budge.

  “It’s… er.” I couldn’t think of any adjectives to describe the room.

  “It sucks doesn’t it? No one stays in this room longer than a few days. The last person who slept in this room swapped schools after three.”

  “Three days?” I cocked my head to the side. “Are you for real?”

  Philomena grinned and swiped her hand across her chest. “Hope to die, truth.”

  I frowned. “What? Why would you hope to die?”

  She laughed and perched on the bed. “Haven’t you heard that before?”

  “Uh, no.” I shook my head. This conversation was getting weird, so I turned it to my normal firing of questions. I was happy asking questions—not so down with the answering them myself. “How long have you been here for, and exactly how many rules are there?”

  She gazed at the ceiling. “Well, let me think. I’m seventeen now, so…” She counted on her fingers and I stared in horror as she reached her tenth digit. Peeling laughter, she waved her hand at me. “I'm kidding. I’ve been here a year. My parents are archaeologists; they found the school while they were up here on a dig.”

  “And?”

  She shrugged. “And then they had to go on another dig, called away unexpectedly. Some big find in Rome, apparently.” She studied her fingernails. “Although what’s left to find in Rome, I have no idea. That place has been pillaged and sold to the tourists.” She lifted her face and gave me a small smile. “So here I am. It’s not too bad.” She glanced about the room and I watched her shiver and curl her shoulder in. She wasn’t wrong. The room was chilled and damp. I was going to die of consumption in a decrepit Scottish castle. On the plus side, maybe a prince would come along and save me. “And, as for the rules, the staff think there are rules, but I can’t think of a single one that’s kept.”

  I nodded a little at this piece of good news. The only good news of the day. The uniform was one thing, attending lessons was another… if I had to follow a strict list of rules I had no hope of remembering with my scatter-brain approach to life, I couldn’t see me lasting longer than one night in Fire Stone.

  I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe it was jet lag, maybe it was the Scottish fresh air, but I blurted, “I’d love to be an archaeologist, it’s always been my dream.” The moment the words were out of my mouth I cringed.

  I sounded like an idiot.

  I’d never been able to explain the interest the earth held for me, all the secrets it contained. But, I didn’t need to tell a complete stranger about them.

  “Really? It always looked dull to me. But, I guess it pays well. Mum and Dad can afford to keep me here with the insane fees.”

  I sat on the bed, careful not to get too close. I didn’t want to seem overfamiliar—or desperate. “It’s not about money, or fame, although who doesn’t dream of finding a unique world view changing artefact. It’s kind of hard to explain.” I shrugged.

  “I can truthfully say I’ve never dreamed of that.” She sniggered a little, but I let it pass. She had a fair point. Sobering her face, she waved for me to continue. “Please, tell me why you like it so much. Maybe I can get Mum and Dad to give you some holiday experience.”

  Perking up at the prospect of a connection to the world I longed to join, I tucked my feet up under my legs. Philomena was the most real person I’d met in a long time. There was nothing bubble-gum fake about her. I’d known her five minutes and she was already talking about introducing me to her mum and dad.

  My cheeks blushed a warm burn. “I know it’s geeky, and I don’t go around telling everyone, but it’s like the earth is talking to me. It wants to tell me things.”

  Silence swept around us. A drip from outside the window the only sound.

  “Okay, make sure you only tell me things like that. The girls here, well, they are privately educated, a lot are snobs. Not to say they aren’t fun, and they aren’t all the same. But talking to them about the fact you want to roll in the earth and hear its voice… It’s not going to go down well.”

  I scrunched my face. “That’s not what I said.” Why did I even say anything? What was I thinking? I knew better than that. I uncrossed my legs and started to shuffle towards the edge of the bed.

  “Hey, hey. Don’t go all G.I. Jane. It’s cool.” She grasped my hand in an unexpected act of familiarity. “I think we’re going to be cool.”

  “Thanks.” My cheeks flamed with chagrin.

  “How’s your time keeping though? Honestly, if I’m going to find a new bestie, then it’s got to be someone who gets me to class on time.”

  “Bestie?” I shuddered a laugh. “Let’s not get too carried away.”

  “Hey, you’re my only American friend. It’s destiny, plus, lemme guess, you want to meet a prince.”

  “Who? Me?”

  “Don’t all Americans want to come over here, drive around in a Volkswagen Beetle and accidentally knock over the heir to the throne an
d fall wildly in love?”

  I paused. “Isn’t that a movie?”

  She shrugged. She was insane. Crazy. I liked her. “Well, I can introduce you to a prince. Come on. Did you want to get changed? Put some make-up on?” She went to grab for my duffle, her fingers on the zip.

  “No, it’s okay.” I tried to block her. “It won’t take me long.” I glanced ruefully at my tiny bag containing my everything.

  “Sure thing, New Yorker.”

  “How do you know I’m from New York?” Technically it was Queens, worlds apart, but I wasn't going to split hairs over it.

  “Let’s just say I’m a whizz with the computer.”

  “You had access to my file?” I cringed. Did she know I was an orphan? Did she know I’d spent ten years by myself?

  “I’d use the word access very loosely. But, believe me, working in the school office to pay for some of my fees has its perks.”

  “You work in the office?”

  “Sure I do. I said my mum and dad did well; I didn’t say they were rolling rich.” She fluffed out her wild halo of curls, leaning into a mirror with aged and darkened glass. Standing up, I stood next to her and peered at myself. I frowned at what I saw. Straight red hair and grey eyes peeked back at me. My mother had been a true redhead. It was one of my only memories of her; seeing her hair in the sunlight and thinking it looked like strands of fire. I had a watered down muted version: neither brown, nor red. “Believe me, it’s better than working in the school kitchen, no one wants to smell of cabbage all day.” She spun me around, her fingers on my elbow, and assessed me. Clearly approving of what she found, she gave me a reassuring smile.

  “Come on, I’ll give you a tour. Hopefully we will have missed all lessons by the time we’ve finished.”

  “That would be a plus.”

  “Come on then. Fire Stone first, and then we’ll find your prince.”

  I took one last glance at myself in the mirror, pulling down the hem of my sweater so it sat straight on my hips.

  “Sure, find me a prince.” I laughed. As Philomena pulled me through the doorway back into the draughty hallway, I glanced back into room thirteen and could have sworn I saw a stirring in the shadows by the window. Ignoring the brush of wind and the chill on my nerves, I ploughed after Philomena. Whatever this tour contained, apparently it was at top speed.