HAIRS AND HOMEWORK

Tonya got back to the car and Lynette sped to the hospital. They didn’t speak again until they reached Reception in the front foyer. It was a relief when Tonya recognized Donna Ashton, seated behind the glassed-in desk. The middle-aged brunette from a prominent Mod family was a member of her Mom’s choir. She was also Marta’s mother, but Old Family was Old Family. In an emergency, Tonya couldn’t be choosy.

Tonya stooped to speak through the window in Donna’s Plexiglas box. “We’re here to visit my Aunt Helen.”

Donna typed a few words into her computer and pronounced Aunt Helen discharged.

Lynette nudged Tonya aside. “What about Roberto Alvarez?”

“Not here either.” She didn’t check.

“Are you sure?”

Lynette spelled his name and provided information as Donna checked her computer.

“He was never admitted.”

Tonya stooped to speak through the window. “What about Professor Rudolph? I know he was here.”

“Full name?” Donna’s voice was chipper.

“Professor Frank Rudolph and I know he was here. My friends and I called him an ambulance because he sleepwalked off campus, all the way through the cemetery, and then lay down at the base of the Three-Century Ash.” Tonya gave her a significant look.

Donna’s kohled eyes widened. “Did your aunt know about that?” Donna tented red, manicured fingers.

“I haven’t been able to reach my aunt or parents for days.”

“That is a problem.” Donna stroked her chin. “What are you going to do?”

“I have to see the professor. Are you sure you can’t find him?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you, since you’re not family, but he checked out this morning.” She beckoned Tonya to lean in closer and whispered, “Against doctor’s orders.” She shook her head. “His color was terrible, and he walked like a robot. He had the nerve to steal the cookie tin off my desk!”

Tonya inhaled sharply.

Lynnette asked, “Know where he was headed?”

“No idea. He just walked out.”

“I’m finding him,” said Tonya.

“We still have to find Roberto,” said Lynette.

“Try his phone again. He might be home by now.”

Tonya checked her phone while Lynette checked hers. She had sent a text to Priya, reminding her she had promised to cancel or move the show. Still no reply.

Tonya followed Lynette back to the car. “We should go back to campus. Somebody must have seen him.”

“I hope so.”

During the drive back, Lynette was quiet. Tonya tried to distract her with chit chat, but the conversation died every time.

“At least you know Roberto is okay.”

“He’s been acting funny.”

“Maybe he lost his phone in the fire. I’m sure he’ll call as soon as he can.” Tonya tried to sound hopeful but suspected a darker reason for his silence. What if he spent too much time in the cemetery and wound up like Professor Rudolph?

They drove west, then south over the bridge, and back east. As they entered campus, Tonya noticed a telephone pole papered with flyers for Priya’s installation. Thinking she might have missed stripping one pole, Tonya didn’t worry until a few poles farther on she saw more. Priya’s flyers fluttered on lampposts lining the drive and the walkways between buildings.

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“Let me out in front of the dorm. You’re going to have to keep looking for Roberto on your own.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“No matter what happens, don’t go into the cemetery tonight.”

“I’ll be too busy looking for Roberto.” Lynette pulled up outside the dorm.

“I know you’ll find him.” Tonya leaped out.

In the front foyer, on the bulletin board, Tonya saw shiny posters advertising Man vs. Nature. Flyers covered the first-floor doors. Tonight, the cemetery would be full of innocent students expecting a party. Whether the eating disease spread person-to-person like an infection, or whether it was a curse cast on the cemetery, Priya’s installation would put people at risk. She’d seen what this affliction did to Marta. Nobody could save a crowd, compelled to eat until they choked.

She had to stop Priya. Tonya took the elevator to her friend’s room, but Priya wasn’t there. She didn’t have mobile numbers for the rest of the Ninjas, but she guessed where to look. She rushed down the stairs and ran for the cemetery.

She had slowed to an out-of-breath jog as she reached the path leading off campus, but didn’t dare go slower. Only she could stop this catastrophe. The bonfire would draw a big crowd, so she had to convince her new friends to move it far away from the cemetery.

Her feet pounded the path and her labored breaths turned to cloud in the chilly air. Hitting a patch of ice, her legs flew up from under her and she slid along on her backside. When she came to a stop, Tonya sat for a moment, waiting for the pain to ease. What made her think she could convince them of anything, especially without demonstrating magic? If only her aunt were here. She could charm the hair off an orangutan.

Tonya got up and jogged on, despite a stitch in her side. It was a small campus with few Halloween parties advertised. Most of the student body would have heard of the bonfire. How could she, one lowly freshman, stop the majority?

She crossed the street dividing campus from the cemetery. As she passed through the wrought iron gates, Tonya saw hairy things, up in the trees. Priya had shown Tonya sketches, but in person her monsters were hyper realistic.

Priya was a macabre genius, with a theme-park mentality. From now on, every time she walked this path, Tonya would expect to get ambushed by Toyota-sized tarantulas.

Tonya was so impressed with the giant rabbit with sad eyes and blood on its chin, that she wanted to forget why she was there. She had to keep everyone from seeing this masterpiece. Somehow. Her confidence collapsed. To stop mass infection, she was going to need more than circumstantial evidence. She needed proof the cemetery could kill.

Marta’s near-miss could be explained away as an eating contest gone wrong. Tonya believed the feeding frenzy was caused by magic, and suspected the curse was related to the unnatural explosion at her aunt’s shop. A nasty magic user was at work here, one who had probably hurt her parents or forced them into hiding. She suspected their spells caused irrational binge eating, and the mindless stagger of Professor Rudolph, but how to prove it?

And what was so bad about a little binge eating? If a victim didn’t choke on their food, would the need to pig out wear off? How did she know Professor Rudolph wasn’t home right now, doing a crossword and drinking tea? Just in case, Tonya pulled her turtleneck up over her mouth and nose to keep out airborne contaminants. She feared it wasn’t only Egyptian Pharaohs’ tombs that could inflict airborne curses.

Tonya followed a meandering path through the cemetery. At the southwest end, in the oldest section, where time and rain had eroded the names off the marble headstones, she approached the Three-Century Ash. She slowed, walking with dignity in this holy place.

The Ash was revered by the Old Families who had buried ancestors there for hundreds of years, the source of their power. The longer the family had been settled here, the more powerful the magic of the descendants.

They would all be angry if they could see this. Priya had turned the tree into a monster, with slits for eyes and a mouth that looked like a slash in the bark, with fangs. At its base, the clean-picked skeletons of manufactured prey were piled in a jumble, as if the tree had devoured them and spit out the pellets like a giant owl. She did a double take. Priya hadn’t actually cut into the Ash, had she?

She rushed up to take a closer look but there were no cuts in the bark. Priya had applied a mask to the tree trunk that blended so perfectly, it looked like it was part of it. In any other place, her handiwork would be beautiful but here it was an abomination. She was surprised someone from the Old Families hadn’t discovered it and punished her already. If they discovered Priya’s blasphemy and found out Priya knew about magic, there would be a heavy price to pay.

It was a price she had paid herself. Tonya had defaced the Ash in childhood when she nailed slats of wood like rungs to help her climb up the back. Her parents had been livid when they caught her, and her aunt could hardly look at her. That was so many years ago that the Ash had long since started to grow around the rungs, but her guilt still stung.

Tonya went around the back of the tree to look for traces of her forbidden ladder. Lying on a bed of yellow leaves at its base, lay Professor Rudolph. Up through the ground, hair-like roots were growing into the unconscious man’s ears, nose, and mouth. A few more were growing upward and around the side of his face, preparing to enter through his eyeballs.

“Professor!” Tonya tugged at his arms, poked him with her toe. She slapped his cheek, but nothing would rouse him. Slowly, being careful not to disturb or touch any of the white tendrils, she put a hand on his chest. He was cold. His chest was still, without a heartbeat. His wrist lacked a pulse. He was dead.

Tonya, have you done your homework? His voice demanded inside her head. His unseeing eyes opened. She ran.