A Tale of Two Proms (Bard Academy) Read online

  “No,” her voice was barely a whisper. “They’re gone. They’re all gone.”

  “Parker, are you okay? What do you mean ‘they’re all gone’?”

  Again, silence. Maybe this was her plan. Maybe it was all some elaborate joke. Somehow, though, I doubted it.

  “Parker, say ‘yes’ if you’re in trouble.”

  “Yes,” Parker whispered.

  “Say ‘yes’ if you can’t talk about it on the phone.”

  “Yes,” Parker said again. Her voice was hardly a croak. She sounded scared, and that made me scared. Very little scared Parker Rodham. I had the sudden vision of her hiding under the end table in the common room of the dorm, her mascara streaked down her face and trying desperately to avoid a masked killer/homicidal ghost/possessed demon/insert-your-own-horror-movie-freak.

  “Is someone there? Someone trying to hurt you?”

  Silence.

  “Where are the faculty? Are they there?”

  “No,” Parker said.

  “Can you go get one of them? Can they help?”

  “No,” Parker said, her voice so soft I could barely hear her. “They’re gone, too.”

  Now, I felt a shiver of cold down my back. Something was going on at Bard. Something bad. Had Catherine taken over the girls’ dorm? Or did Headmaster B have everyone on lockdown? I couldn’t think of a good reason why Parker felt she couldn’t talk on the phone.

  “Where did they go?”

  “I don’t know.” I heard some shuffling in the background. “He’s coming,” Parker said, urgently. I could almost feel her clutching the phone. “Miranda, he’s coming. You’re the only one who can stop this. You are the only one.”

  “Who’s coming? Parker – what’s going on?”

  Parker cursed and then she let out a scream.

  “Parker!”

  But the line had gone dead and there was nothing but a dial tone in my ear.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I put down the receiver and Lindsay and I stared at each other.

  “You sure you want to go back there?” I asked her. “You can still change your mind. Stay here and overdose on chocolate.”

  Lindsay glanced around at the airport terminal. Then she met my eyes again.

  “No way am I letting you have all the fun,” Lindsay said. Her words were joking, but something in her voice wasn’t. She was a little scared. And, frankly, so was I.

  I had no idea what we were walking into when we returned to Bard, but I also knew we didn’t have a choice but to go there.

  On the flight back, I tried to think of anything except how scared I was. Parker had said I was the only one who could stop whatever was happening there. But, a strong part of me wanted to ask the pilot to turn the plane around. Yes, I’d faced down all kinds of horrors at Bard. I should be used to it by now. You’d think that nearly getting killed a half a dozen times would make you braver, but the strange fact was, I was more afraid because I knew just how close I could really be to biting it. After awhile, you start to wonder just when your luck is going to run out.

  Lindsay didn’t seem her usual plucky self, either. She tried not to let it show, but she was worried, too.

  “What if we’re just going back there to save Parker?” Lindsay asked, breaking through my thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Parker said Hana and Samir and Blade and the faculty were gone, right? But what if they’re all dead? What if the only person alive is Parker and we’re going back there to risk our lives to save… Parker?”

  I thought about this a moment. “We don’t know that anybody’s dead. Maybe they’re just missing.”

  “Yeah, but it’s Bard. If they’re missing then they could be who knows where.”

  I saw Lindsay’s nerves. I felt my own, too. “You know, Linds, it’s not too late,” I said. “You could go home. When the plane lands, you could just hang out at the airport and fly standby on the next flight back to Chicago.”

  Lindsay looked at me for a long while. “But you wouldn’t come with me.”

  Even though part of me did think I was crazy for going back to Shipwreck Island, not even knowing what I’d find there, I needed to know that my friends were okay.

  “No,” I said. “I’m going.”

  Lindsay nodded at me. “Then I am, too.”

  When we landed in Maine, a taxi took us to the wharf where the ferry would leave for Bard.

  We stood underneath the old wooden sign that read “Shipwreck Island” in scrawled red letters. The wharf was empty. The ferry was sitting in inky black water and it was waiting for us. As usual, a heavy fog had rolled in and it clouded the view of the island. All you could see from shore was the peak of some rocky mountaintop in the distance, ringed by gray murky fog.

  “Yeah, like this isn’t a postcard for Serial Killer Camp,” Lindsay said, eyeing the picture in front of us. “Got to love Bard. There is no end to the creepy. I missed you over-the-top foreshadowing!” Lindsay shouted to the island in the distance.

  “Foreshadowing? Seriously?”

  “What? Sometimes my lit nerd comes out. Sheesh.” Lindsay rolled her eyes.

  “Sometimes?”

  “Ha. Ha.” Lindsay gave me a playful nudge. Then she grabbed my arm and tugged me to the plank leading up to the ship. “Come on, sis. Let’s go save the day since those loser friends of yours got into trouble.”

  “They’re not losers,” I protested, as we boarded the ferry.

  “If they’re not losers, how come we’re always saving them?”

  “Sometimes they save us.”

  “Technicalities,” Lindsay said and shrugged. We glanced around and saw the ferry was empty. There wasn’t a single person around. That had never happened before. Sure, I’d ridden on ferries with only a few people on board. But there had always been somebody else. But now, none. “Hello? Anybody here?” shouted Lindsay. Her voice bounced off the steel walls of the ferry. We waited, but nobody answered.

  Usually, there were new recruits coming in or kids who’d gotten leave to go home. But, then again, it wasn’t a major holiday or anything. We’d taken a special absence. Still, it was weird that no one else was on board.

  “Let’s go to the bridge,” Lindsay said and pulled me along. “Maybe there’s someone there.”

  Lindsay took me upstairs to the guidance controls for the ferry. Nobody was in there, either. And suddenly a green light came on, a lever moved by itself and then we were slinking away from the pier.

  “Now that is creepy.” Lindsay glanced at the boat controls, which were moving themselves.

  “I know,” I said. “I never get used to that.”

  The ferry to Bard never had a captain. The boat was completely automated and remote controlled. Today, given the fact we were the only people on the boat, it was particularly goose-bump inducing.

  We glided through the fog, the black water slapping against the sides of the ship as we went. The ocean was a little choppy so we dipped and rolled a bit. I held on to the railing and looked out at the clouds hugged the island. Shipwreck Island seemed just as gloomy as usual. I could imagine how sailors of years past would’ve been afraid of it. Many boats had crashed there.

  When we approached the sun-bleached dock, the ferry landed with a bump and a loud creak of metal bolts against steel sheets. There was a loud clank of a metal chain unraveling, and the anchor came down into the water with a splash.

  “We’re heeeere,” Lindsay called in her spookiest voice.

  “Quit it,” I said.

  We grabbed our backpacks and walked down the stairs and off the ship. The bus to Bard was waiting for us, but it was empty. No Mr. Thompson, either.

  Okay, now I was really starting to freak.

  “What’s up with this?” Lindsay asked. “Where’s Mr. T?”

  “I don’t know.” I said. We climbed inside the bus and took our seats. We waited for what seemed like ever, but Mr. Thompson never showed.

  “This is officially weird,” L
indsay said. “If Parker really is the only one left on this island, I am totally getting on that ferry and getting the heck out of here.”

  Just as the words were out of Lindsay’s mouth, a loud metal-on-metal wrenching sound behind us told me the ferry was pulling up anchor. In seconds, it was steaming away from the shore, as if it didn’t want to stay a second longer than necessary.

  “Nice,” Lindsay said, frowning. “The spooky haunted ferry is chickening out and doesn’t want to stay here, either.” She rolled her eyes. “Coward!” she shouted at the retreating boat, before it slunk into the fog and disappeared.

  “So much for a speedy exit in case things go wrong,” I said.

  “Call me crazy but if things go wrong, I think we’ll have an exit,” Lindsay said. “Untimely death, stage right.”

  “You always know just the right thing to make me feel better.” Even Lindsay would have a hard time missing the sarcasm in my voice.

  “Well, let’s go,” Lindsay said. “It’s getting dark so we should go deeper into the woods where it will be even creepier than here on the shore. Let’s go see what’s trying to kill us right about the time it’s pitch black out.”

  “Hey, no worries,” I said. “I brought flashlights.”

  I wasn’t kidding. Two of them, industrial strength spotlight varieties, in my backpack.

  “You came prepared. I like that, Grasshopper.” Lindsay gave me a fake bow of her head, but even I knew she felt better with the flashlights.

  I sat in the driver’s seat and found a key poking out of the ignition. I turned it over, and the engine roared to life.

  “How come you get to drive?” Lindsay whined.

  “Because I have my license,” I said, and put the bus in gear.

  “I have my learner’s permit! Besides, the last time you drove, you wrecked Dad’s car,” Lindsay said.

  “Would you rather walk? That can be arranged.” Lindsay didn’t, so she shook her head. “You don’t have to worry. There aren’t any other cars out here.”

  I put my foot on the gas.

  “Yeah, but there are plenty of trees, and that’s what you hit the first time.”

  “Funny. Ha. Ha.” I met her eyes in the rearview.

  “Not a joke, Miranda.” Lindsay shook her head.

  “Hang on,” I said and I steered the old bus to the road, stopping in front of a faded wooden sign, which had most of the writing worn off. I caught the letters “a” and “d” and “acad” and the sign pointed west. I knew it was the way to Bard. I’d been on this path so often after my many trips back and forth for school holidays and summers, I was pretty sure I could travel the path without any signs at all. Lindsay was sitting in the seat right behind me and I could see her white knuckles grasping the rail.

  It seemed like forever on that small, winding road. The headlights on the bus were weak, and when the sun went down, it was very hard to see anything. The road wasn’t paved and there weren’t any street lights either. Overgrown tree branches whipped the side of the bus, making an eerie scratching sound. I had never missed Mr. Thompson so much as now. Even with his quirky fashion sense.

  At times, it felt like the woods themselves were trying to keep us away from Bard, hoping to snare us and flick us back the other way. The dim headlights caught trees at every turn, and it seemed like the closer we got to Bard, the narrower the road became. Pretty soon, we wouldn’t have any clearance.

  “We’re almost there,” I told Lindsay, as I saw with relief the familiar turn up ahead that would lead us directly to campus. A giant branch blocked the way to the entrance, but I could still see the wrought iron gate nearby. I drove through the branches and when they swept past the windshield, I saw the Bard Gate. I drove through, and quickly saw that something was missing.

  Scratch that, lots of somethings. Like, the whole school.

  Instead of gothic, gargoyle-decorated buildings there was nothing in front of us but an open green field.

  There was no library. No greenhouse. No dorms. No cafeteria. No chapel. There were just big squares of dirt in the ground where these buildings had once stood.

  “What the…” Lindsay exclaimed behind me.

  I drove straight up to the round dirt circle where the statue of Shakespeare had once stood and stopped the bus. I pulled the lever that opened the doors and Lindsay and I both tumbled out, glancing around not believing what we saw.

  “What the…what?” Lindsay put her hands on her head.

  I couldn’t even speak. The buildings weren’t the only things missing. So were all the people. No students. No faculty. No sign of anyone.

  There were lots of scenarios I’d imagined finding upon returning to Bard. This was not one of them.

  “Miranda,” Lindsay said, as the reality of our situation sank in. “How does a whole school just disappear?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I thought I had seen everything at Bard, but as it turns out, I had a lot to learn about the kind of crazy stuff that can happen when you least expect it. Full dark had come and the moon was low in the sky. All I could do was walk over the patches in the ground where the buildings once had stood. They were gone. There were no students. No ghost faculty. No Blade, Samir or Hana. The moon shone a sliver of light on the patches of ground where the buildings had once stood.

  There was no Heathcliff.

  No Catherine.

  Not even Parker.

  Everyone and everything was gone, like the school had never even existed.

  I grasped my locket, the one Heathcliff gave me. Frantically, I opened it, wondering if the message on the scrap of paper he’d written for me had disappeared as well. But the small bit of notebook paper was still rolled up inside, and Heathcliff’s handwriting was still visible.

  Be my present and my future. Yours in this world and the next, H.

  I ran my finger over the words. Where was Heathcliff now?

  “The vault isn’t here, either,” Lindsay said, as she stood in the big muddy hole where the Library had once been. “All the books are gone, too. There’s nothing left.”

  Somewhere, not too far, I heard what sounded like dance music.

  “Wait… do you hear that?” I asked Lindsay.

  “Is that… Katy Perry?” Lindsay asked. It sure sounded like it. We looked at each other, and we were thinking the same thing: maybe Bard students were still out there. We scrambled out of the pit and back into the bus. We drove with the windows down, following the music. We took a twisted path that was barely wide enough for the bus and turned into the woods. The headlights shone into the brush, picking up the outline of leaves and occasionally the iridescent eyes of some small tree dweller.

  We were on the path that led to the river. I hoped we wouldn’t have to cross. The bus wouldn’t fit across the bridge and we’d have to get out and walk. Besides, I was in no hurry to see the other side of the river again. I’d been before. There was an old Indian burial ground there. You know, because a creepy island just isn’t complete without one of those. All we needed was an abandoned old mill or a boarded up mental institution and we’d be all full up on clichés.

  We took a turn across the path, and we both recognized the song that was playing.

  “Who’s blaring Katy Perry?” Lindsay asked, partly sticking her head out the open window to listen.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not Blade,” I said.

  Just as the path grew so narrow that it was getting hard to steer the bus, the headlights illuminated a clearing, and beyond that, a huge stone house, something that you’d expect to find in the English countryside.

  “Where did that come from?” Lindsay asked. I didn’t know. The last time I’d been to this spot, the crew house had been here. Not an ancestral estate.

  There was a massive stone fence surrounding the place, and a stone archway. I pulled to a stop right in front of the arch, the bus being too wide to go in. I got the impression the gate was designed for a horse and buggy, not a big yellow s
chool bus.

  Along the curve of the large stone arch, there was a giant swirly N. Beneath that the words Netherfield Park were carved in stone.

  “Netherfield – wait – I know that name,” Lindsay said. “But… from where?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  The music was coming from inside. We walked the rest of the way to the house, drawn to the light spilling out of the side windows. Lindsay and I crept forward and peeked in the first window. Inside, there was a big ballroom. It was decorated for a dance with glittery strands of tinsel hanging down from the ceiling, and there was a DJ station in the corner with a man in black turning knobs and two big black speakers pumping out music. Behind him, hung a giant banner that read “Bard Academy Prom.”

  “No way,” hissed Lindsay beside me. “This wasn’t supposed to be for two more weeks.”

  “That’s not the only thing wrong with this picture,” I said.

  There was the problem that while the DJ was modern, everyone else was dressed up in clothes from 1815. The girls all had those high-waisted dresses you usually see on Masterpiece Theatre.

  “Do you see anyone you know?”

  I scanned the crowd, but all the faces were strangers to me. This was weird. Bard wasn’t that big a school. I knew most people, not all. But, it was rare to have a gathering this large and not see any familiar faces.

  A burst of giggles near us exploded as two girls rushed past. Lindsay and I sunk further into the shadows.

  “Can you believe the Bennets? Making fools of themselves in front of the Bingleys. That Elizabeth Bennet is not as clever as I hear she should be, especially if she’s turning down proposals!”

  The girls rushed off across the lawn. Lindsay glanced at me. “Pride and Prejudice,” she whispered.

  Bingo.

  “Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy,” I said, realization dawning. Netherfield Park was the house near Elizabeth Bennet’s in Jane Austen’s most famous novel.

  “Wait. I see Parker,” Lindsay said.

  She was standing by the dance floor, and she was wearing a sash that said “Prom Queen” across her very modest pink ball gown. This was as much fabric as I’d ever seen Parker wear at one time. She usually gravitated toward micro minis. She managed to even make the Bard uniform look more provocative. It was just her signature style.