was a little sad but she didn’t mind. She looked at the place as an opportunity to reinvent herself; at her old school, everyone knew her as the girl who was reading all the time or the quiet girl or “Brendan’s older sister”, because Brendan had such a personality – but not here. Here Cordelia was the person who had started the Student Tutoring Program.
It hadn’t been so hard, and it had come together quickly. In her first two weeks at Bay Academy, Cordelia noticed that a lot of freshmen and sophomores were getting tutors outside the school, which seemed silly, because there were very smart juniors and seniors who could tutor them just fine. And those juniors and seniors wanted extracurricular activities for their college applications, so Cordelia thought: Why not start a programme that turns older students into tutors for younger students?
She went to the Student Union Office to talk about the idea. There she met Priya, student body treasurer, who liked it and liked her. That was how Cordelia found herself participating in student government – or “school politics”, as people called it, but for her it really wasn’t about politics; it was about helping. She set up the Student Tutoring Programme in two weeks and it was a big success, with twenty pairs of tutors and students already signed up.
Maybe helping people is what I’m supposed to do, she thought now as she passed the Student Tutoring sign-up board in Douglas-Kroft, the building that held high-school classes. Help people. It feels good, and it makes me stop thinking about myself, or Will, or what I’ve been through. Priya, the treasurer, had suggested to Cordelia that maybe she should run for class president next year. It was an idea that scared Cordelia and excited her – or maybe it excited her because it scared her.
Cordelia went into her first class, history, with Mrs Mortimer, and sat in the middle of the room. She tuned out her thoughts and got into the work of school, which was something she always had the ability to do … until she felt someone looking at her.
It was a nasty, prickly feeling. Cordelia had felt it a few times in the last few weeks, at school and at home, and she always stopped what she was doing to try and catch the watcher. This time was no different. She sat stock-still and moved only her eyes. Was one of her classmates looking at her? She dropped her pen to give herself an excuse to look behind her. No, it wasn’t any of the students – but it was someone!
Suddenly she saw somebody – out the window, moving away. She couldn’t see the person’s face, just a long black body that quickly disappeared.
She stood up, aghast, but stopped and sat back down.
Something was happening to her hands.
It started with the veins. Below her skin, which was fair, her veins were not things she paid much attention to. But she knew she didn’t have veins on her fingers. Who had veins on their fingers? Old people.
And yet: She had them now. They were dark, and thick, and rising to the surface of her skin.
It was like she was seeing it from outside her body; the veins were stretching, fattening, and the skin around them was shrinking, becoming paler and paler, drying up as if it were going to flake off, like she had a disease, or …
Like I’m getting old, Cordelia thought.
This is a nightmare. It has to be. I’m not really even at school. My mind is sabotaging me. I’m not here at all. She flipped her hands around – her palms had deep lines. Her nails were growing, turning orange, becoming dirty underneath. As she looked at them, a piercing cold hit her side, like a frozen bullet biting into her. Cordelia wrenched over in pain, biting her lip to keep from crying out.
Her hands were curling now, becoming like tangled, dead-grey roots. She remembered something she had learned about foot binding in social studies, how when Chinese people used to foot bind women, the goal was to make their toes turn inwards, to make a “golden lotus,” the most beautiful kind of foot there was, a foot you couldn’t even walk on, and that’s what her hands were turning into – a dead lotus, cold inside—
She screamed.
Everyone in class turned to her. Cordelia quickly hid her hands beneath her desk.
“Cordelia? Are you all right?” Mrs Mortimer asked.
“May I please be excused,” she said. It wasn’t a question. She shoved her old-woman hands inside her bag, got up, and rushed from the room, using her elbow to open the door. Mrs Mortimer protested as kids behind her gave one another looks and started laughing.
But Cordelia felt a different look. She felt the look of the person who had been watching her – back again, seeing what she was going through, and feeling pleased about it. She whirled around at the window, but no one was there. I’m losing it!
She could only think of one place to go.
Cordelia dashed down the hallway with her hands in her bag. Why had she not worn something with pockets today? Because, she thought, I wanted to wear leggings with this vintage sweater.
Tim Bradley, from her chemistry class, suddenly appeared at the end of the hall. He was tall, on the basketball team, with shaggy red hair, blue eyes and a sweet smile. He sneaked glances at Cordelia in chemistry when he thought she wasn’t looking – but Cordelia always knew when someone was staring at her. Especially a cute guy.
Still, Tim never talked to her. Maybe he didn’t have the courage. Except now he was waving at her, holding a hall pass.
“Hi, Cordelia … are you okay?”
“Can’t talk!” Cordelia said, moving past him. She couldn’t believe it. Boys never knew how to time anything.
“But … wait! You’re going into the—”
I know, thought Cordelia as she dipped inside the women’s faculty restroom.
She closed the door. The faculty restrooms were like hidden temples at her school; no one had ever been inside them and they could contain anything. Luckily this one was empty. Cordelia pulled out her hands to examine them.
They were worse. Like gnarled old sticks with grey hide pulled over them. Like fossilised snake skins. With great difficulty, she managed to lock the door, noticing as she did that her hands were still getting older, shrivelling and cracking in real time, like they were going to fall off and leave her with stumps—
Like the Wind Witch, she realised. Who had a hand like this? Dahlia Kristoff, that’s who.
Cordelia’s hands were cold. Ice-cold. Suddenly she had an idea. She used her elbows to turn on the sink’s hot water.
When we were on the pirate ship, what did the Wind Witch do to me? She turned me to ice. And what’s the opposite of ice?
Cordelia shoved her hands into the sink. The water burned; she jerked back but held firm. Steam rose into her face. Tears came out of her eyes.
This is good; this will help. Beat the ice. Beat it with heat.
She
