Sorrow and Joy: Gallows Hill Academy: Year One

  Sorrow and Joy

  Gallows Hill Academy™ Year One

  D.R. Perry

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2021 D.R. Perry

  Cover by Mihaela Voicu http://www.mihaelavoicu.com/

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

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  LMBPN Publishing

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  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  Version 1.00, 2021

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-64971-843-3

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64971-844-0

  The Sorrow and Joy Team

  Thanks to our Beta Team:

  Larry Omans, John Ashmore, Rachel Beckford, Billie Leigh Kellar

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Dave Hicks

  Diane L. Smith

  Jackey Hankard-Brodie

  Deb Mader

  Jeff Goode

  Zacc Pelter

  Paul Westman

  Debi Sateren

  Editor

  The Skyhunter Editing Team

  Contents

  Night of Sorrow

  Chance for Joy

  About A Girl

  Night of Sorrow

  Part One

  Chapter One

  The bus to Danvers stank intolerably. I wasn’t on it. I’m a raven shifter, so I never set foot or feather on public transportation. But sometimes I take it, in a manner of speaking.

  Since I could fly, you might be wondering, why not use the shortest route instead? I like my privacy. My family was murder. Literally and in more ways than one. So, I rode the bus’s fragrant wake. When I shifted behind the low stone wall separating the brick building from the street, I didn’t have to worry about my clothes. The shell locket I’d had for as long as I could remember meant I didn’t have to lose them when changing from one form to the other.

  I’m getting ahead of myself. Story of my life.

  The entire reason for following the bus in the first place was visiting my asshole brother, who was lucky to be in Danvers Sanitarium instead of max security for trying to kill his girlfriend and a boatload of her friends and classmates.

  Our mother forbade the rest of us from visiting him. There I was, doing it anyway.

  Or trying. The automatic glass doors opened to a lobby, mostly empty on Sunday at the dinner hour. Chairs and tables sat on the other side of a low wall painted to look like fieldstone. One pink-cheeked young woman in a pale blue dressing gown hummed as she snapped pieces into a jigsaw puzzle. I knew she couldn’t see or hear me, so I walked on.

  Danvers Sanitarium was a psychiatric hospital, but absolutely not one that belonged in a horror show. Faeries ran it, treating the residents with surprising humanity and kindness. Rumor had it, the doctors appointed by the state of Massachusetts held ducal ranks in the Fae courts. But they didn’t do direct patient care.

  That duty fell to the pure fae, which I still had three years to learn about at Gallows Hill Academy, the local charter school for shifters and changelings. The pure weren’t human, though some supposedly came close. I’d only seen them from a distance before that night.

  One of the walls and the entire floor was wood. Murals covered the rest, most of magical creatures in an Impressionist style. Soothing was a decent word for it, but I liked bucolic better.

  The fact that I’d never been in here before didn’t matter. I knew the drill. Before he’d left for college, my brother’s ex-best friend Bartholomew told me how things worked here. So I faced that wooden wall and announced myself instead of fumbling around like an ignoramus. Always a good thing not to be.

  “Mavis Merlini, here to see her brother Crow, same last name.”

  “We have no records of a Samelastname.”

  “Crow Merlini. Uh, Cornelius. Sorry.”

  “Apology unneeded. Proof of blood requested.”

  “Okay.”

  I went to the wall, which upon closer inspection, did have some actual rock incorporated into it.

  “Ow.” I winced. Something sharper than any of those rocks stabbed me.

  “Blood relation confirmed. Prepare for vanishment to Aggression Wing, room 111.”

  “Oh no, not vanishm—”

  I blinked and found myself in a much smaller and more rustic space. Like the inside of a cabin in the woods. Not the creepy kind you see in horror movies. This place was a secure and tidy domicile but the sort that took hard work to live there.

  Of course, they’d glamoured it. Pure were far better at that sort of thing than the teenage changelings I knew, or even the tithed faeries they’d eventually become.

  Even with illusions likely, the brick building didn’t have room for all of this. So the ward Crow was on might be situated in the space between the mundane world and the fae Under. One glance at the nonexistent bars on my phone confirmed that theory.

  The cabin had a fireplace, banked and smoldering, with a hook and pot hanging over the flames on a hinged arm. The aroma of a fish-based stew wafted from it. An unfinished table, chair, and bed frame were the only furniture. Hides on the bed partially covered a rough straw mattress. I saw a locket hanging from a nail over the bed, the same as mine but more battered. One thing was missing, the most important.

  “Um, I came to see my brother, and he’s not here.”

  The voice didn’t answer. Instead, I heard a creak then felt a gust of unseasonably nippy air behind me.

  “Of course he is. Look again.”

  I turned and walked out the door into a small, brush-ringed yard. The babbling sound of a stream or creek sounded from somewhere out of sight but nearby.

  A lanky fellow stood across the yard from the door, splitting firewood. He wore a red and white flannel shirt and blue jeans. His hair was short, uneven stubble as if he’d shaved it all off maybe a month ago. My brother wouldn’t be caught dead looking like that on the streets of Salem. Still, I’d have recognized him even if he’d been wearing a ballgown and painted orange.

  I stepped carefully over a bundle of green branches.

  “Hello, Crow.”

  “What are you doing here, Mavis?” He stopped in mid-swing, back still turned toward me. “Snitches get stitches. So do the sad sacks who associate with us. You don’t want that kind of trouble from the Boss.”

  I grimaced. His life took a turn for the worse once he started calling our mother that, which was one reason I never would.

  “No one followed me. In case you were, uh, worried about that.”

  “Thank the gods.” He raised the ax again, chopped through the log on the stump, and paused. “It’s harder work than you’re cut out for, being in here. Doesn’t suck as much as expected. You’ll be in a world of hurt if she finds out you came here, though.” He set the ax down and turned.

  “I know.”

  “After what I did, I’m not worth this kind of trouble. So, why?”

  “I’m starting school tomorrow.”

  “You never make sense. You know that?”

  “I make sense to myself.
I know you don’t always get me. Why else would you say stuff like this all the time?”

  “To get you out of my face.” One corner of his mouth tilted up. “Seriously, what’s the deal? You can’t be here just to annoy your littlest big brother. Third time I’m asking, and this is a faerie-run facility. They like their tidy threes. So spill it.”

  “I’m keeping our promise, Crow.”

  “What?” He blinked. “That’s old news. Zombie horse. Water under the bridge. Wearing cement overshoes. A doornail. I failed.”

  “It’s not over. Because I’m still here. I refuse to fail.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Or give up on you.”

  “You should. Could have refused that last order the Boss made, let her kick me to the curb.” He hung his head. “Couldn’t leave you behind. If only I knew it was no-win.”

  “It’s not.” I cleared my throat. “We promised each other, and I quote. ‘We’re getting out of here. That house. This town. No matter what.’”

  “In case you haven’t noticed.” He waved a hand at the cabin, the ax, the sky. “Kinda stuck. With good reason.”

  “So consider this a warning. You’ve got three years to do the work in this place.”

  “Work?” He snorted. “Chopping wood is redemption?”

  “Rehabilitation, duh.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s why Uncle Paolo got you in here, remember?”

  “He’s not our real uncle. But whatever.” He shrugged, turned his back on me, and hefted his ax again.

  My eyes narrowed, jaw set, nostrils flared. Out of all seven Merlini siblings, Crow and I were the only ones who hadn’t let the competition built into our upbringing break the bond between us.

  “No whatevers. I’m graduating.”

  Three years ago, the night before he’d started at Gallows Hill, we’d made a vow. One he thought he’d failed at, irrevocably. He’d forgotten it had two sides.

  “Good for you. That taskmaster principal is no joke. So make like a tree and get out of here.”

  “No. Not until you understand this. Do the work, and I’ll take you with me.”

  “You think that’s still happening?” He put a hand over his middle, laughing. With the other, he wiped his eyes. “I was supposed to be the one getting you out.”

  “That’s on Mom.”

  “Don’t call her that.” He pressed his lips together. “It’s a mistake. You know what she really is. And what she’s capable of if you let your guard down. How will you keep her out of your hair?” He bent and collected an armload of firewood.

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “You suck at planning. Get better.” He walked toward the tiny cabin. “I’ll give their boring-ass therapy sessions another shot. For now, I’ve got to chop enough wood, or it’ll be a cold night. That’s how this aggression program works. Burn the rage out with survival. Don’t come back, Mavis. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Thanks, Crow. For caring even a little.” I nodded, then stared up at the high ceiling that looked exactly like an overcast sky at sunset. “I’m done with my visit now.”

  A moment later, I was back in that calming lobby. I stepped outside and made the short walk to the bus stop, then hid behind a shrub to shift into raven form. Following the bus back to Salem was easy, though still unpleasantly fragrant.

  If my parental unit or any of my uncaged siblings saw me on the way to or from Danvers, this stop was a futile exercise. Hopefully, I was wrong.

  I landed in Irzyk Park, lingering before remembering Crow’s old buddy Bar was in Rhode Island at college. I stuck around anyway. If I stayed long enough, saying I’d been there wasn’t technically a lie. Taking some time to think about keeping four hostile family members at talon’s length couldn’t hurt, even without anyone to run my thoughts by.

  Crow was the most recent in a long line of siblings and even a few cousins to try breaking free before being broken. I was the youngest. Also the last.

  If I’d been a magus at Hawthorn Academy, I would have lived in the dorms like everyone else. But my school wasn’t private and privileged. Gallows Hill was a charter school with living quarters only available to out-of-state students, starting this year.

  The one upside was, nobody at home could prevent my attendance by holding tuition over my head. Something like that had happened to a guy at Hawthorn a couple of years ago.

  I took off, winging from my perch on top of the decommissioned tank and away from the unfortunately empty park. My student handbook was at home, and I wanted to read it. Maybe I'd missed something. Special cases might be flexible, like a weak spot in a wall separating me from the future I wanted.

  Maybe there was another way to ask. Or a string to pull, as Paolo Micello had done for Crow with the sanitarium. An unwritten rule, a loophole, or a convoluted connection perhaps. Rules aren’t breakable, but bent is an entirely different story.

  I shifted into arms and legs on the back porch. As easy as it might have been to do it on the fire escape outside the window of my attic room, I didn’t want anyone to accuse me of sneaking. Instead, I pushed the door open and stepped into the cavernous kitchen that took up half the first floor in the triple-decker building I only ironically called home.

  I walked into a murder. Of crow shifters, not a crime scene. As the only raven in the family, I didn’t add to it. The long, scarred pine table had seven place settings, though only three of my siblings occupied theirs.

  The head seat was only temporarily vacant, like mine. The spare two belonged to Babs and Marge, my sisters both doing time for separate crimes. They remained in the family’s good graces because neither had squealed.

  Crow had ratted them out, part of his plea deal. That’s why the span of wood in front of his chair was barren, without the honor conferred by an empty set of dishes and silverware.

  The twins bickered over the biggest pork chop. Hugh lost his bid for that prize, glaring as Manny slapped it on his earthenware plate. They were twice my age and acted half of it instead. For all their uncouth posturing, they didn’t dare start eating. Not until our mother arrived.

  Branwen heaped beans, rice, and cornbread on her plate, ignoring the latest episode of our brothers’ nightly battle. Her one act of defiance in this family had been declaring herself vegetarian. In all other ways, she followed our mother’s orders to the letter. I grabbed a plate from the counter and sat across from her.

  “Hey, Bran.” I reached for the rice. “How’s tricks?”

  She’d made her bones for the family by running an escort service in the noughts when Backpage was still a thing.

  “Don’t give me any of that horse shit, Mav.” She slapped my hand away. “Where you been?”

  “The park, duh.”

  “Good answer.” She mimicked the sound of a game show buzzer. “Wrong. Try again.”

  I decided to lie along the lines of our mother’s preferred reality, in which each sibling fit a set of traits she based on bones thrown on our birthdays. My role was a trickster. I gave an entirely false but more in-character response.

  “Fine. Dodge Street Café.” I rolled my eyes, the only genuine part of that false confession. “Trying to pass myself off as old enough to drink.”

  “That I believe.” She chuckled. “Go on, kid.”

  I portioned out small helpings of each item on the table, contemplating the nest I came from but never quite fit into.

  Bran was the oldest and canniest of my siblings, heir apparent to the family business, which wasn’t actually a courier service. She hadn’t married or had kids, which also made her the most trustworthy of the bunch as far as our mother was concerned.

  The twins, Hugh and Manny, were all brawn no brains, previously directed first by Marge and then Babs. My middle sisters were both in the state pen but had managed apartment buildings Mom owned before that. The twins had that job now.

  Everybody who wasn’t in lockup or dead came to the nest for dinner each night. Even if they’d had a meal.

  It wasn’t
about the food. It was about proving loyalty. Everything was supposed to be in my family. I didn’t even dare glance at Crow’s empty seat for fear Mom would walk in and see me looking.

  But she didn’t walk in at all. Of course not.

  Finally, I realized what I should have suspected all along.

  My mother was there the whole time, leaning in a sliver of shadow in the corner to my left. Watching. Listening. And judging, of course.

  There’s an old saying about two wolves that live in each of us. The one you feed wins. Morgan Merlini’s judgment was more like a shark, constantly moving because stopping meant starvation. If there’d ever been a kinder predator inside her, it hadn’t survived long enough for me to meet it.

  My mother was a diminutive woman. Tiny, the one word we never spoke aloud in her house, and with good reason. Her capacity for rage was as limitless as the vast emptiness of outer space. Size didn’t matter. She terrified us all.

  When she paced toward the chair at the head of the table, the twins fell silent. Bran’s facsimile of a smile didn’t reach her eyes. I meant to set the spoon back in the bowl gently. Big mistake. It clattered, tipping out along with a small hill of beans.

  “Mavis, honestly.” She put her chin and both hands on the high back of her chair, eyes twinkling like graphite from beneath the dusky fringe of her bangs. She reminded me of a penanggal, one of those nearly-headless Malaysian vampires. “You’re sixteen, not six.”

  “Sorry, Mom.” I pulled my napkin off my lap and reached out to sweep away the offending legumes.

  “You’re almost too old to call me that, too.”

  I only nodded, containing my food mess in the cloth as I rose from my seat and walked toward the garbage can at the end of the kitchen counter. Her next words hit me like a knife in the back.