Miss Mabel's School for Girls by Katie Cross Page B

her a pointed gaze. Leda concentrated on a spot on the table. Her eyes glazed over. She was seeing. She resurfaced after just a moment.
    “She’ll be okay. From what I can see of her future, it wouldn’t have been a good thing for her if she had won the Competition. There’s a chance the two of you could be friends.”
    Camille turned back to her homework with the pained sigh of a martyr. At this rate, she’d never finish.
    At least she’s started, my conscience nagged, reminding me how much I hated homework.
    “As far as game play goes, it wasn’t very smart of you to go that big early on,” Leda’s voice lowered. “Now your opponents know what they’re up against. More than that, Miss Mabel will keep a special eye on you.”
    “I know,” I said. “But entering the Competition as a first-year guaranteed that I’d have Miss Mabel’s attention from the beginning.”
    “Then again,” Leda concluded, “maybe that was what you wanted.”
    “Maybe,” I whispered, my eyes narrowing. I hated it when she anticipated my motives.
    “You’ve been planning on doing this for a long time, haven’t you?”
    Just my whole life.
    “Something like that,” I said with a dismissive wave, pondering over the homework I was putting off. Miss Bernadette would not be pleased if I didn’t turn it in with the rest, and I didn’t want the other students thinking I thought I deserved preferential treatment because of the Competition. The ice I skated on grew thin enough.
    Leda glanced to my left. Camille had scooted down a few inches to talk to Grace, another first-year, and wasn’t listening, her homework shoved off and abandoned. 
    “It all ties back to your curse, doesn’t it?” Leda asked.
    I again swallowed back the discomfort of Leda knowing so much about me.
    “Yes. Why do you ask?”
    “I’m trying to figure out why you’re doing this.”
    “Does it matter?” I snapped.
    Leda’s eyes, so bright against her creamy skin, showed signs of trouble. She hesitated.
    “It might. You’re doing this for your grandmother, aren’t you?”
    My gaze snapped up to hers in fear. She had my total attention. I leaned forward, clutching the table.
    “What have you seen? Is she okay?”
    “Nothing I can make sense of. It all comes in snippets and images. I’ve tried to keep away from your future, but for some reason I can’t. You have an annoyingly strong presence,” she muttered.
    The slow recovery of my heart made me feel weak and tired. Leda sagged back.
    “All I can really do is tell you to be careful. Some dangers aren’t worth flirting with.” She paused to stare at me. “Not even to save your grandmother from dying.”
    The slamming kitchen doors announced the incoming breakfast. I looked away, no longer hungry.
    “I forgot some homework,” I said, jumping to my feet, ready to be done with her, and this conversation. “I’ll be back.”
    I hurried up the wide staircase, leaving the busy dining room, and all its occupants, at my back.

The Second Letter
    T he letter stared at me late that night, long after the school had bedded down for the evening and tucked itself into silence.
    The two flowers had wilted in the twine knot, now nothing more than a droopy pair of petals that once looked beautiful.
    That’s just like life, isn’t it? Glorious one moment, ugly the next.
    Candles cluttered my desk and provided the only light in the room, casting agitated shadows. Outside, the wind rattled the windowpanes and sent occasional bursts of cold air through the cracks in the glass. I shivered and pulled my shawl closer around my shoulders.
    A heavy book on the proper cultivation of herbs and spices lay open in front of me, but every time I looked at the pages, the flash of butterflies in my mind distracted me. My thoughts meandered from the darkness of the first match to the unknown of the second to Leda’s conversation with me before breakfast and then to my grandmother. Did I have time to save her life?
    When