Sarah Benadine is Dead

Chapter XIV, Part I

Professor Nadig found Shannon Malone before classes started on the following Monday morning. Shannon had gone in early that day, hoping to meet up with Caleb and Allison before they had to go to class. She'd successfully located Caleb with Ollie, Ginger, Jared, and Dexter, but Allison was nowhere to be found. Ollie's injury had healed up fine; the gauze pad had been removed, and the bite marks could barely be seen. She'd dolefully related how her older siblings Archie and Eve had raised hell when they'd seen it, but she'd successfully come up with a plausible story involving a safety pin that had fooled them. Of course her parents had not been home to see.

They talked sparingly of the events of the past Friday. It was the topic all of them most wanted to breach, but none really knew what to say. The truth was plain: vampires still existed and at least two were in Clearwater. That went without saying. All the deeper issues...no one had quite collected their thoughts on those. Shannon had been pulled away before anyone could.

To be brutally honest, Professor Nadig scared Shannon. At least, she did in this instance. The only experiences Shannon had had with her were after the cow head incident and after Dougie Wein's skull had been found. This was hardly a vote of confidence as Professor Nadig sought her out and asked if she could have a word with her in her office. The faces of her friends—caught somewhere between surprised and she's-just-been-sentenced-to-death—were in no way helpful.

Professor Nadig did not begin to speak immediately when they reached her office. She offered Shannon a chair and began to rifle through desk drawers, humming softly. Shannon had almost begun to believe that the woman had forgotten she was there when she looked up, folded her hands, and regarded Shannon with a perfectly arched brow.

"Miss Malone," she said delicately, "I hate very much to do this, but Headmistress Lea and I think that it is perhaps for the best."

In those first moments after hearing that, Shannon's mind went to expulsion. She could think of nothing else that Headmistress Lea would be concerned about with regards to her. She had only seen Lea twice: at the beginning of the year banquet and the night of cow head incident. The headmistress was still quite a mystery to her.

The thought of expulsion made an odd pang in her chest. She was still so much an interloper here, but she had grown to like it. It was quite a dangerous world she was trespassing on, but she'd made friends, and she liked her professors. The mixed feelings confused her, made her uncomfortable.

"Now, I'm no fool," Professor Nadig continued. "I've been here since the school reopened in 1937, and I know my students quite well. I know they have a way of...bending the rules. I can't say I always disagree with them."

She looked to the other wall, lost in a train of thought. Shannon stared at her, confusion taking over and fogging her thoughts.

"But that's unimportant," Professor Nadig said with a flip of her hand. She looked at Shannon again. "But I don't think I am wrong in my assessment that some of the friends you have made here have let slip little things about what we really do at this school, am I?"

Shannon blinked. Her own expulsion seemed less likely now, but she wondered if this was some sort of trap to implicate her friends. Perhaps Signora Moretti had not kept quiet about what had happened the other night like she said she would. She did not know how much trouble the others would be in if she told Professor Nadig how much they had told her, but it was obvious it would be serious. Shannon felt suddenly like she should be apologizing, though she wasn't quite sure for what.

"Um..." she said intelligently.

"You don't have to name any names, dear," Professor Nadig said. "No one's going to get in trouble for this. I'd have to discipline most of the school if I went after every student who had a little slip of the tongue or a small conversation."