Page 16 of The Headmistress

“Well,directandhonestwere mentioned as well.” Before Sam could explode into another outburst of outrage, Magdalene waved her away and her eyes lost the playful sparkle.

“Professor Threadneedle, I will do everything and anything to ensure that the school perseveres. That it survives. Too much is riding on my success. You seem to operate under some misguided conviction that I care about what the faculty or the student body think. I couldn’t care less. That is not how this school will thrive. You have all been coddled and sheltered and left to rot in slovenliness and complacency. Orla Fenway might be a stellar teacher, but she was indeed a disaster of a headmistress.”

Sam jumped to her feet and stalked away, trying to grab a better hold on her fraying temper.

“Orla Fenway has kept Dragons alive while those people you seem to bow to did nothing to help her!”

Magdalene’s cold, angular features arranged themselves into a downright malicious smile. “The trustees are a necessary evil. They rule the school and manage the endowment.”

“Well, where were they when their management was needed? When Orla was left to fend for Dragons alone?” Sam’s eyes grew wide at her own outburst, but she felt like a runaway train now, unable to stop. This seemed to have become a recurring theme where this woman was concerned. Sam simply couldn’t help herself.

“Where were they when we had to expand the northern wing to accommodate the increasing number of students? Where were they when, ten years ago, the astronomy tower on Viridescent Cliff was left to rot, abandoned for a lack of funds? Where were they when dozens of scholarship students needed books and uniforms? Those girls had to be housed and taught. The scholarships were tacitly approved by the trustees, yet unsupported by the endowment. Where were they when students like Amanda were struggling to find a place in over ten other schools? Dragons was the only institution that accepted her! And yet all the Board ever did was throw roadblocks at us every step of the way.”

“I will leave aside for now the discussion about how the scholarships even came to be since the school’s charter specifically prohibits outside sources of funding and the endowment is beggared. Dragons took way too big of a bite and is in ruins now precisely because the percentage of scholarship students highly exceeds what the endowment can comfortably support.”

“With all due respect, Headmistress, screwcomfortable, these children deserve an education, and housing, and the best things we can provide for them.”

“It’s precisely this attitude that brought about the current situation, Professor Threadneedle. Expanding things when the money was tight, admitting new charity cases—”

“Children aren’t charity cases!” Sam felt like she wanted to hit her head against the side of the cliff. This woman was maddening, purposely obtuse, and lacking all empathy. “These girls are a miracle, each and every one of them.”

Sam paced away, trying to get her ragged breathing under control.

“And how can you be such a hypocrite? You speak of doing what’s best for the school, yet it seems that the actual best is solely for the trustees’ benefit! You are here to return the school to its religious roots, which might as well be like plunging it back into the 19th century. How can you do this, when you yourself have no problem engaging in… well… you know…” Sam gestured awkwardly between the two of them, trying not to blush since trying not to stammer was obviously not an option. “Yet you push all this sanctimony on us all. How do you sleep at night?”

“I sleep just fine, Professor.” Infuriatingly, Magdalene said nothing else as she rose from the now soiled hoodie, and Sam thought that was one hell of a perfect metaphor for what was happening at the school and in her life. Sam had offered Magdalene something out of the goodness of her heart, only to have it returned dirtied and ruined. But she thought that, just as her time on the transition committee had been volunteered, so was her hoodie, and at the end of the day, she had nobody to blame but herself.

“What will you do?” Sam felt her rage drain from her, leaving her slightly lightheaded.

“Whatever is required. Whatever those before me felt was too hard to do.” With those words, she turned on her completely unsuitable but thoroughly sexy heels and strolled back to the Academy. Sam did not follow.

7

Of Trouble Brewing & Revelations About Things Long Past

Sitting alone in the dim light of a bar sipping a substandard glass of cabernet was not all that it was hyped up to be. At least two men had already made a pass at her, and she felt exposed and uncomfortable. Books and movies really romanticized the hell out of this utterly dreary experience. She wasn’t a drinker, and she couldn’t for the life of her fathom how people did this night after night.

Maybe if she had company. But she was alone in New York, having begged and borrowed and cajoled and pretty much bent over backward to make sure Orla found at least the pitiful funding for a train ticket and the participation fee to get her to this conference. Fate had it, that out of all the events she could have spent the pitiful travel allowance on, Sam ended up attending one of the most useless ones. Either due to poor organization or lack of insights from normally very interesting presenters, the conference was a total wash. So after wasting her time and the school’s money, Sam was down in the hotel bar, drowning her sorrows as countless pop-culture references had advised her to. So far she had found nothing but boredom and trouble.

A whiff of wild jasmine—a scent that had no place among the dank and bitter smells of the bar—reached her as a presence materialized by her side, and within a second she was looking into the most peculiar eyes, a deep aquamarine with a brilliant amber ring around the iris. ‘Central iris heterochromia at its most beautiful,’ was the last thing that crossed Sam’s mind before she lost all capacity for thought. If the eyes were remarkable, their owner was downright astounding. As the woman took a seat at the bar, it occurred to Sam that perhaps some of those pop-culture references were right after all. When the bi-colored eyes twinkled at her over the liquor menu, Sam knew that whatever trouble she had encountered before had nothing on the trouble she was in from here on in.

* * *

The Dragons were in trouble. Orla was in trouble. Joanne and the scholarship girls were in trouble. Sam was in trouble. Everything around her was changing with the speed of light, and she could barely hold on for the ride. Every day she joined the transition committee for the morning meeting to discuss the day’s plans. And every day new, absolutely ruinous—to Sam’s thoughts—plans were brought up. The only one spared so far was David, who, despite being made to endure a particularly grueling interview process, had gotten his position as History Chair back. Sam knew about this because her colleague had pulled her aside rather excitedly and hugged the stuffing out of her, just before they got caught in the rather awkward embrace by both Magdalene and George. The former frowned disapprovingly and the latter wiggled her eyebrows before whispering, “Young love, you go, Sam and David!” and hastily followed Magdalene out the door. Sometimes—whether in her personal or professional life—trouble found Sam, even when she had nothing to do with it.

And it just kept coming. That day, seated comfortably in her office chair and taking a careful sip from her steaming mug of coffee, Magdalene made an announcement with such a mellow, emotionless tone that it completely belied the disastrous implications it would have for the school.

“I am doing away with the Houses.”

In retrospect, Sam should have probably waited to drink her own brew until Magdalene finished announcing her next villainous pursuit, because she promptly choked on her coffee and proceeded to cough for what felt like forever. When she was able to breathe again, with George patting her on the back, she could see that the pronouncement had left absolutely everybody around the table just as stunned.

David, as the newly confirmed History Chair and the latest addition to the transition committee, had his jaw hanging somewhere on the floor. Even Joel seemed speechless.

And no wonder. Since the school’s inception, Three Dragons had been divided into Houses, symbolizing each dragon—Sky Blue, Viridescent, and Amber—corresponding to the cliffs that the school perched upon. At the beginning and for centuries, the girls had been sorted into the Houses according to their eye color. However, thankfully during Orla’s tenure, this division had been abandoned, both due to the school’s student body becoming more diverse and the whole concept’s distinctly racial connotations. Nowadays, the girls chose for themselves where they wanted to be placed. Once assigned, they spent their years at the school being part of that particular tight-knit community. Each House was led by three Proctors, senior girls who excelled in academics and sports, and thus were honored with a position of authority and high responsibility.

These exclusive, rather insular communities were one of the oldest and most cherished traditions at Dragons. Sure, they were also the biggest source of contention among students and faculty, with numerous conflicts arising from the sports and academic competitions. The hatred between Houses was legendary, with the arguments and competitiveness at times resulting in injury to students, but they also stood for teamwork and accomplished banding the students together like very few things did. By the time they graduated, their allegiance to each other was so strong, they felt like family.

Sam herself didn’t particularly fit in any of the Houses and had felt stifled in her Sky Blue designated one. She had always assumed it was mostly due to her being the only poor and orphaned child at Dragons at the time. Since scholarships for disadvantaged students were introduced much later, for the longest time Sam had been the only kid at school whose fee was paid by virtual strangers and the only one who had absolutely nowhere to go in the summer and for holidays. She’d stuck out like a sore thumb regardless of the color of her eyes or the whole sisterhood concept that the Houses had pushed on the pupils. And once she figured out she liked girls? Her otherness became self-imposed. Poor, orphan, and secretly queer. No, teenaged Sam did not belong and certainly had not felt like her House was her family.

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