Wildefire by Karsten Knight Page B

seat in the foyer. Her offending ass cheek slowly regained sensation.
    Headmistress Riley gracefully sat down in her chair and leaned back, taking in Ash for a spell. Finally she nodded. “Ash, I’m going to ask you a series of questions, and as soon as I ask them, I want you to answer with the first thing that comes to your mind. Don’t try to answer with what you think I want to hear. Don’t even try to 89

    pad what you say to me. Just blurt out the first thing that comes to your mind. Do you understand?”
    “Yes,” Ash answered immediately.
    The headmistress smiled and nodded. “I see you’ve grasped the point of this very quickly. Well, here we go.
    How are you feeling at this very moment?”
    “Exhausted.” The bags beneath her eyes felt as though they were filled with pudding.
    Headmistress Riley arched her eyebrows. “I should think so. I’d be ready for a nap too if I’d been off cavorting until the witching hour.”
    Ash looked toward the window and remained silent.
    “Do you feel like you fit in here?” the headmistress asked, probing deeper. “Here at Blackwood?”
    “If I say no—that I’m having trouble making friends, and that’s why I did it—then will you let me off the hook?”
    After a pause Headmistress Riley laughed with delight—nothing sinister, just pure mirth. “Why, Ashline Wilde. You always look so serious. I didn’t realize you were a comedian, too.”
    “I do mostly weddings and bat mitzvahs,” Ash said.
    “And apparently the occasional bar night in Orick?”
    “I knew you’d understand. A girl has to pay tuition, you know?” Ash smiled hopefully. “So that means no detention?”
    “A stand-up comedian and a dreamer. Nice try, though.”
    90

    The headmistress reached over to a small stack of manila folders on the edge of her desk. Our files, Ash realized. Four of the folders were thin and manageable. One, at the bottom of the stack, was half the thickness of a phone book. Ash thought it resembled a suitcase that had been so overstuffed that it wouldn’t zip closed.
    She wasn’t surprised when the headmistress retrieved the fat file and opened it in front of her. On the top was a series of green records—report cards from junior high.
    “Someone did her homework,” Ash said.
    “I’m meticulous to a fault. Call it a personal flaw,”
    the headmistress said. “But either way, it’s very clear that your grades have significantly improved since you arrived at Blackwood. You’re obviously a brilliant young lady, and I think that a little distance from the crisis in Scarsdale has given you a second chance at life.”
    Ash stiffened. “Crisis?” She’d done her best to sweep the incident with Lizzie Jacobs under the rug so that her transfer to Blackwood would truly be a clean break.
    But if a half-wit like Bobby Jones could do his research online . . .
    The headmistress’s chair creaked as she leaned forward. “Your sister running away. Your father mentioned it during the phone interview when I asked about siblings.”
    Ash let out a long breath, though she wondered what else her parents had mentioned during their phone con-ference with the headmistress. “If it’s all right with you,”
    Ash said carefully, “I’d like to just take my punishment 91

    and move along with this. I was the one who made the choice to go off campus yesterday. I have no desire to point fingers at any unresolved personal issues from my past and blame them for why I did it. I was tired. I was having a bad day. And I just needed to escape.”
    The headmistress pursed her lips, but her eyes were compassionate. Still, when she broke eye contact with Ash, she looked more than a little disappointed that she wasn’t going to get to explore deeper with psycho-analysis. “I’ll respect your privacy with regard to the issue,” she said quietly. “And I certainly respect that you’ve assumed full responsibility for your actions last night.”
    Ash nodded, relieved. She hadn’t