The Doldrums and the Helmsley Curse

Oliver wiped away his chocolate mustache. “I don’t believe in curses,” he whispered.

Adélaïde pointed out that Oliver also had something of a chocolate beard before responding. “I don’t either. But you have to admit that all of this is very strange.”

“My father says the Chronicle is tabloid trash,” Oliver replied, reading the story once more. His father, Mr. Glub, owned a much smaller Rosewood newspaper called the Doldrums Press. “Archer’s grandparents lost their minds? They wanted to vanish?”

“Who would make that up?” Adélaïde asked, swirling a finger through the steam rising from her mug. “Do you really not believe any of it?”

Oliver opened his mouth to respond, but filled it with hot chocolate instead.

♦ THREE HOURS BY TRAIN ♦

“We’d better go,” Oliver said, gulping the last of his hot chocolate. “They’ll be picking up the mail soon.”

Adélaïde and Oliver left the café and crossed Foldink Street. The postbox was buried in the snow. Oliver wiped the door clean and pulled hard to open it. Adélaïde dropped the letter inside.

“How far away is Raven Wood, anyway?” she asked.

“Three hours by train,” he replied.

And by train was exactly how their letter would travel. It was picked up later that evening, sorted at the post office, sent in a dirty bag to Rosewood Station, and tossed into a mail car. The train pushed north through Rosewood, clanked across a bridge spanning the frozen canal, and continued far outside the city. It snaked a rocky shoreline, billowing smoke high above snow-covered pines, till it arrived in the village of Stonewick. The letters were sorted once more and placed into the back of a mail truck. The truck puttered off into a thick pine forest, slid beneath a crooked wrought-iron gate, and entered a clearing where stood, at the edge of a cliff, Raven Wood Boarding School.

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CHAPTER (#ulink_4da24a2f-f851-594a-8370-4662f9a47d5d)

ONE (#ulink_4da24a2f-f851-594a-8370-4662f9a47d5d)

♦ RAVEN WOOD (#ulink_4da24a2f-f851-594a-8370-4662f9a47d5d) ♦

Archer couldn’t sleep. He stretched a frozen hand out of bed and fiddled with the radiator knob, but it was no use. Like many things at Raven Wood, the heating was terrible.

Across the room, his roommate, Benjamin Birthwhistle, was snoring loudly.

Keeping his blanket pulled tight about him, Archer tiptoed to his desk and stared out his drafty window. Morning snow was falling onto the ocean waves, breaking against rocks. It wasn’t exactly a cheery view, but Archer liked it. That ragged coastline connected him all the way back to Rosewood.

He grabbed a pen from his desk and put another X on his calendar. “One day left,” he mumbled.

The train for Rosewood would leave tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow he’d be reunited with Oliver and Adélaïde. But would anyone else be waiting for him? Archer’s parents hadn’t spoken to him since he’d left for Raven Wood, which didn’t surprise him. But during his two and half months at the school, he hadn’t heard from his grandparents either. He hadn’t heard a word since they’d sent him a chunk of iceberg in the post. Were they already inside Helmsley House? Archer didn’t know. And not knowing made him anxious.

Behind him, Benjamin stopped snoring. Archer glanced over his shoulder.

“Why are you up so early, Archer?” Benjamin asked, blinking at him sleepily.

“I was too cold. I couldn’t sleep.”

Benjamin stuck his feet out from beneath the blankets. They were twice the size they should have been.

“Your feet are swollen,” Archer said, sitting down at his desk. “Did the spider come back? Did it bite you?”

Benjamin grinned and shook his head.

The night before, the two boys had gone to war against a large spider that had crawled into their room. Archer threw a lamp, three books, and to Benjamin’s horror, a potted plant, but the eight-legged fiend had escaped unharmed.

“They’re just socks,” Benjamin said over a yawn. “I’ve got four pairs on.” He rubbed his long, tousled hair. A leaf fell out. “But I wonder where that spider came from.”

Archer thought it was obvious. Benjamin’s side of the room was filled with plants, and Benjamin’s desk was barely visible beneath them. They were strange plants—plants unlike any he’d seen growing in the Willow Street gardens.

Archer leaned over to poke at one on Benjamin’s desk. “This one looks like it would sprout spiders.”

“Is that my bog weed?” Benjamin asked. “Or the didactus that sprouted yesterday? If it has pink speckled leaves, then it’s pugwort.”

Archer had learned enough during his time as Benjamin’s roommate to know the plant he was pointing to wasn’t any of those. This one had long, spiraling stems covered in bumps, as though something inside was trying to get out.

“Oh,” Benjamin said, stumbling stiffly to his desk. “That’s my Paria glavra. Be careful with that one. It can be a bit hostile.”

“Hostile?” Archer repeated, and quickly withdrew his hand.

Benjamin opened his notebook and inspected the plant more closely. “Like most Parias, the glavras starts off harmless,” he explained. “But eventually it will become dangerous. Deadly, even.”

Archer threw off his blanket and hurried to the corner sink to wash his hands. The last thing he wanted was to die before meeting his grandparents for the first time.

“The thorns haven’t sprouted,” Benjamin called, measuring the bumps with a pen. “The thorns are what you need to watch out for.”

Thorns or not, Archer should have learned by now not to touch plants unless Benjamin said it was safe. He soaped his hands as Benjamin noted growths and observations in his notebook. It was almost like homework. Benjamin had once told him that if he knew what plants could do, he’d understand. But all Archer thought was that, in a funny way, Benjamin’s long, leafy hair and tall, sticklike body made him resemble one of his seedlings.

“I want to go to the mail room after breakfast,” Archer said, drying his hands and shoving his feet into his boots.

“Again?” Benjamin replied, struggling to pull a third sweater over his head. “That’s why you couldn’t sleep, isn’t it? It’s not the cold. It’s your grandparents.”

Benjamin was right. Archer hadn’t slept for the past week.

“Maybe they finally wrote.”

Benjamin sat on his bed to tie his shoelaces, staring as Archer pressed his ear to the door. Not many students attended Raven Wood, but when the few converged in the dusty, dimly lit corridors, they became something of a thundering horde.

“Let’s wait a moment,” Archer said. “You don’t want to get trampled again.”

“That was terrible,” Benjamin replied, laughing. He pulled a collared shirt from his trunk. “Look. The footprint still won’t wash out!”

Raven Wood students were kept to a very tight schedule, and there were steep consequences for being late. Archer was often late, but he never got into trouble.

Benjamin tossed the shirt back into his trunk. “You’re lucky Mr. Churnick likes you.”

♦ FORTUNATE CONSEQUENCES ♦

Mr. Churnick was Raven’s Wood’s head of school, a somewhat crusty and thickset man whose overgrown teeth were often speckled with bits of cheesecake. Mr. Churnick was terribly fond of cheesecake. He was also quite fond of Archer, which was surprising considering his welcome when Archer had first arrived.

“I’m not in the habit of allowing troubled children into my school, Archer Helmsley. But as it is, Raven Wood has fallen on hard times. So against my better judgment, there you sit.”