Рейчел Хоукинс: Hex Hall

I watched one girl laugh as she offered a tube of lip gloss to another, and something in my chest tightened a little bit.

I felt something cold brush my arm, and I jumped back, startled, as a pale woman in blue swept past me.

"Ah, yes," Mrs. Casnoff said with a small smile. "Isabelle Fortenay, one of our resident spirits. As I'm sure you read, Hecate is home to a number of spirits, all of them the ghosts of Prodigium. They're quite harmless--

completely noncorporeal. That means they're unable to touch you or anything else. They may give you a fright now and then, but that's all they can do."

"Great," I said as I watched Isabelle fade into a paneled wall.

As she did, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see another spirit standing at the foot of the stairs. She was a girl about my age, wearing a bright green cardigan over a short flowered dress.

Unlike Isabelle, who hadn't seemed to notice me, this girl was staring straight at me. I opened my mouth to ask Mrs. Casnoff who she was, but the headmistress had already turned her attention to someone across the foyer.

"Miss Talbot!" she called. I was amazed at the way her voice crossed the huge room without sounding even remotely like yelling.

A tiny girl, barely five feet tall, appeared at Mrs. Casnoff's elbow. Her skin was nearly snow white, as was her hair, with the exception of a hot-pink stripe running through her bangs. She had on thick, black-rimmed glasses, and even though she was smiling, I could tell it was just for Mrs. Casnoff's benefit. Her eyes looked totally bored.

"This is Jennifer Talbot. I believe you'll be rooming with her this semester, Miss Mercer. Jennifer, this is Sohfee-yuh."

"Sophie is fine," I corrected, just as Jennifer said, "Jenna."

Mrs. Casnoff's smile tightened, like there were screws on either side of her mouth. "Gracious. I don't know what it is with children these days, Ms. Mercer. Given perfectly lovely names, and determined to mangle and change them at the first opportunity. In any case, Miss Mercer, Miss Talbot is, like you, a relative newcomer. She only joined us last year."

Mom beamed and shook Jenna's hand. "Nice to meet you. Are you, um, are you a witch like Sophie?"

"Mom," I whispered, but Jenna shook her head and said, "No, ma'am.

Vamp."

I could feel Mom stiffen beside me, and I knew Jenna did too. Even though I was embarrassed for her, I shared Mom's freak-out. Witches, shapeshifters, and fae were one thing. Vampires were monsters, plain and simple. That whole sensitive Children of the Night thing was total b.s.

"Oh, okay," Mom said, struggling to recover. "I . . . uh, I didn't know vampires attended Hecate."

"It's a new program we have here," Mrs. Casnoff said, reaching out to run a hand over Jenna's hair. Jenna had a polite, if kind of blank look on her face, but I saw her tense up slightly. "Every year," Mrs. Casnoff continued, "Hecate takes a young vampire and offers him or her a chance to study alongside Prodigium in the hopes that we can eventually reform these unfortunates."

I glanced over at Jenna, because . . . unfortunates? Ouch.

"Sadly, Miss Talbot is the only vampire student we currently have, although one of our instructors is a vampire as well," Mrs. Casnoff said.

Jenna just smiled that weird nonsmile again, and we all stood around in awkward silence until Mom said, "Sweetie, why don't you let . . ." She looked up helplessly at my new roommate.

"Jenna."

"Right, right. Why don't you let Jenna show you your room? I've got a few things I want to go over with Mrs. Casnoff, then I'll be up to say bye, okay?"

I looked toward Jenna, who was still smiling, but her eyes seemed to be already looking past us.

I shifted my tote again and went to grab my trunk from Mom, but

Jenna beat me to it.

"You really don't have to help--" I started, but she waved her free hand.

"No problem. The one bonus to being a bloodsucking freak is upper-

body strength."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just lamely replied, "Oh." She carried one side, and I grabbed the other.

"No chance of an elevator, I guess?" I was only half joking.

Jenna snorted. "Nah, that would be too convenient."

"Why don't they just have, like, a luggage-moving spell or something?"

"Mrs. Casnoff's a real stickler for not using magic as an excuse to be lazy. Apparently, carrying heavy suitcases up stairs is character-building."

"Right," I said as we struggled past the second-story landing.

"So what do you think of her?" Jenna asked.

"Mrs. Casnoff?"

"Yeah."

"Her bun is very impressive." Jenna's smirk confirmed that I had said the right thing.

"I know, right? I swear to God, that hairdo is like, epic."

There was only a trace of Southern lilt in her voice. It was pretty.

"Speaking of hairdos," I ventured, "how do you get away with that stripe?"

Jenna smoothed the pink streak with her free hand. "Oh, they don't really care about the poor vamp scholarship student that much. I guess as long as I'm not munching on my peers, I'm free to have any hair color I want."

When we reached the third-floor landing, she studied me. "I could do yours if you want. Not pink, though. That's my thing. Maybe purple?"

"Um . . . maybe."

We had stopped in front of room 312. Jenna set down her end of the trunk and pulled out her keys. Her key chain was bright yellow and had her name spelled out in sparkly pink letters.

"Here we are!"

She unlocked the door and pushed it open. "Welcome to The Twilight

Zone!"

The "Holy-crap-that's-a-lot-of-pink" Zone would have been a more accurate description.

I don't know what I was expecting a vampire's room to look like.

Maybe lots of black, a bunch of books by Camus . . . oh, and a sensitive portrait of the only human the vamp had ever loved, who had no doubt died of something beautiful and tragic, thus dooming the vamp to an eternity of moping and sighing romantically.

What can I say? I read a lot of books.

But this room looked like it had been decorated by the unholy lovechild of Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake. It was bigger than I expected, but still small. There was enough room for two twin beds, two desks, two dressers, and one battered futon. The curtains were beige canvas, but Jenna had twined a hot-pink scarf over the drapery rod. Between the two desks was one of those old Chinese screens, but even this bore Jenna's stamp, as the wood had been painted--you guessed it: pink. The top of the screen was draped with pink Christmas lights. Jenna's bed was covered in what appeared to be deep pink Muppet fur.

Jenna caught me staring at it. "Awesome, right?"

"I . . . I didn't know pink existed in that particular shade."

Kicking off her loafers, Jenna threw herself down on her bed, upsetting two sequined pillows and a ratty stuffed lion. "It's called 'Electric

Raspberry.'"

"That's the perfect name for it." I smiled as I pulled my trunk over to my bed, which looked as plain as . . . well, as plain as me next to Jenna.

"So, did your old roommate like pink too?"

Jenna's face froze for a split second. Then the strange look was gone, and she was leaning off the bed to scoop up her pillows and lion. "Nah, Holly just stuck with the blue stuff they give you if you don't bring your own. You brought your own, right?"

I opened my trunk and pulled out the corner of my mint green bedspread. Jenna looked a little disappointed, but sighed, "Well, it's better than regulation blue. So"--she flopped back onto the bed and began fishing around in her bedside table--"what brings you to Hex Hall, Sophie Mercer?"

"Hex Hall?" I repeated.

"Hecate is kind of a mouthful," Jenna explained. "Most people just say Hex. Besides, it feels kind of appropriate."