Clubs & Clues
Harry floated basically on Cloud Nine up to his dorm after his date with Tyler. He’d seen other people snog before, but Harry had never imagined himself being someone that anyone would want to snog. But he hadn’t thought of that in the moment, he’d only thought about the warmth of Tyler’s mouth and the electricity that crackled in Harry’s stomach when their lips met.
As far as snogging went, Harry didn’t imagine it got much better than that.
Even without the kiss though, there was something about Tyler that made Harry feel like it was more than just a crush. It was as if they were connected, like they understood each other. Which was probably stupid, considering Tyler was Harry’s first ever date and Harry had no idea what a relationship was even meant to be like, but Harry enjoyed the feeling of being close to someone anyway.
So lost in his own happy and content thoughts as he was, Harry didn’t even notice the shadow that lingered just outside his door until it reached out and grabbed him.
Harry yelped, but a hand slapped over his mouth, silencing him.
“Quiet.” It was Wednesday who hissed at him, her dark eyes peering at him unblinkingly in the dark shadows. “Come with me, I found a clue,” she whispered.
When Wednesday’s hand slid from his mouth to his elbow, Harry had no choice but to allow himself to be drug along by his friend.
“Where are we going?” Harry whispered to her when Wednesday took the stairs downward instead of toward her room, like Harry assumed they’d be going.
“You’ll see,” Wednesday said curtly, never really looking at him.
“What’s it about?” Harry insisted, curious about what Wednesday would find so important past curfew.
“You’ll see,” she said again. Harry resigned himself to being quietly curious until Wednesday led him out of the building that house the dorms, tearing across the courtyard, and entering the main building of the school. It was eerily quiet that late and Harry felt jumpy as every shadow was ominous to him.
“Here we are,” Wednesday said, directing Harry to the statue in the main square of the building. It was a black onyx statue of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most famous of the prior Nevermore students. He held an open book in one hand and had a raven perched on his opposite shoulder. There was a sparkle in his eyes, something mischievous and malevolent to Harry.
“What are we doing here?” Harry whispered, terrified of getting caught and being in trouble once again with Weems.
Wednesday reached in her inner blazer pocket and pulled out the drawing that led Rowan to trying to kill them.
“This,” she said. She pointed to a watermark on the top right corner of the drawing and Harry had to squint to make out a flower design of some sort inside of a round insignia.
“Er… what is it?” Harry asked. He was curious about the prophecy that Rowan thought would lead Harry to destroying Nevermore, but at the same time, Harry just had to decide not to do it and he wouldn’t. A prophecy couldn’t come true if Harry didn’t act on it. He just needed to avoid torching the school and Harry would be in the clear.
“It’s for the Nightshades, an old elitist club that the school had,” Wednesday told him. “I scoured the library for information, but Miss Thornhill told me they disbanded twenty years ago after a local normie boy, Garrett Gates, died and one of the members was arrested for his death.”
“Oh.” Harry blinked and nodded. “So?”
Wednesday sighed and then scowled at Harry. “So don’t you think we should find out more about the Nightshades and see if they knew anything more about Rowan’s belief that you and I will destroy the school?”
Harry shrugged, “I guess so.”
“Your endless curiosity toward unsolved mysteries is truly one of your better characteristics,” Wednesday said drily. She glared at Harry from the corner of her eyes. “You would make a terrible investigative reporter.”
Harry supposed it was a good thing he’d never considered it as a career.
“I’m going to edit your novels for a career,” Harry said with a shy grin. “Then we can work together.”
Wednesday scoffed, “I promise to not run a background check before I hire you. Now, are you in or out? I believe the Nightshade’s lair is somehow linked to this statue.”
“Er… why?” Harry asked, wrinkling his nose in confusion. “I’m in,” he added hastily, “but why do you think the supposed lair is linked to the statue?”
Wednesday stared deadpan at Harry then pointed at the inscription on the cover of the book Poe held. It looked like the same one off the drawing from Rowan’s mum’s prophecy. It did make it seem likely that the statue was somehow connected to the club that was somehow connected to the prophecy that was somehow connected to Harry and Wednesday, but that was too much information for Harry to keep track of.
Luckily, it seemed like Wednesday wanted to take the lead on solving the mystery behind the prophecy so Harry didn’t have much to do.
“We just need to find a way to…” Wednesday trailed off as she climbed up on the pedestal of the statue and peered down at the pages of the book Poe held. “A riddle,” she said, an excited edge to her voice. “Harry, give me a piece of paper,” she ordered Harry in an absent murmur.
Harry stuck his hands in his pockets, checking everywhere, before he shrugged.
“I don’t have any,” he told her. “Can we come back tomorrow? When it’s not past curfew and we have paper?”
“No,” Wednesday snapped impatiently. She stared down at the book and her lips began silently moving, mouthing out whatever she read to herself. “Let me think…”
Harry stood patiently and watched Wednesday work out her oh so interesting puzzle. Truthfully, Harry was more interested in the monster they saw in the woods than he was the drawing Rowan had, but if Wednesday wanted to investigate the old club the school had, Harry was happy to help.
And by help, he meant stand quietly while Wednesday worked out the puzzle.
“I’ve got it!” Wednesday said abruptly. She jumped down from the statue and pulled Harry back a few steps so they could face the statue. “Ready?” she asked.
“Sure.”
Wednesday held up both her hands and snapped her fingers together twice. At first, nothing happened, but then the statue of Poe began turning slowly, and as it turned, the panel behind the statue slid up to the ceiling and revealed a staircase behind it.
“Woah,” Harry breathed. He gave Wednesday an impressed look. “You were right!”
Wednesday scoffed and flicked one of her braids off her shoulder. “Of course I was. Now let’s go, let’s see if we can find anything.”
Yeah, into the dark tunnel that was hidden behind a creepy statue seemed like a place Harry wanted to investigate. Wednesday turned her head after Harry hadn’t moved to follow her and quirked a brow at him.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
Harry sighed heavily. He’d been having such a good day too.
“Yeah.”
The tunnel behind the statue led to a staircase that spiraled downward. The only light they had to guide their steps on the metal stairs were candles that flickered eerily on the walls. As soon as they hit the bottom step, Harry and Wednesday both made quiet noises of surprise.
The staircase led to a large and well lit library; a circular room with walls completely covered in bookshelves, all stuffed with books. On the wall opposite where the staircase ended, there hung a large portrait of a man with steely eyes and a thin mustache.
Harry glanced down at the floor and saw that there was a beautiful and detailed star pattern in the wood with one of the five points pointing directly at the painting.
“Let’s start looking,” Wednesday said. “Anything on prophecies or a book with missing pages or—”
“Or any book about bug eyed monsters we take?” Harry guessed wryly.
“And sorcery,” Wednesday said seriously. “Something to help you control your powers.”
Harry felt like he drank something warm when Wednesday said that. As much as he didn’t fancy being out of bounds after curfew, Harry never would have told Wednesday no because who else cared about Harry and his powers before?
They went opposite directions, Harry to the right, Wednesday to the left, and began browsing the hundreds of dusty tombs filling the shelves. None of the books had titles on the spines, which meant Harry had to pull them off the shelf and flick through them to decipher their contents.
The first one Harry grabbed was a handwritten book with blotchy ink. He read a paragraph, flipped to the middle of the book, read another paragraph.
“This one’s research on the siren song,” Harry said loud enough for Wednesday to hear before he carefully set it on the floor in a pile of useless books.
“This one details the lycanthropy curse,” Wednesday said, sounding faintly disgusted. “Some might see it as a gift.”
Wednesday tossed the book in her own discard pile and they both grabbed another one.
“This one mentions monsters!” Harry said excitedly, seeing the word on the first page of the second book he grabbed from the shelf. “Oh, nevermind,” he said, disappointed. “It’s talking about Medusa’s children.”
“Gorgons,” Wednesday said knowingly. Harry heard her flicking through pages of her own book. “This one is about Vincent Thorpe.”
“Yeah?” Harry turned his head as he discarded his second book. “Isn’t that Xavier’s dad? Famous psychic?”
Wednesday hummed in agreement even as she tossed the book with her first one and grabbed another.
They carried on like that for a while, occasionally making comments on what they found, until Harry’s discard pile was seven books high and he hadn’t found anything about prophecies, monsters, or magic.
Harry paused after throwing aside his eighth book. He stretched his arms out, cracking his fingers and rolling his neck. Some of the books were hard to decipher, causing Harry to squint at the tiny print even with his glasses, and other books were so boring. One book though, Harry felt a thrill go through his fingers when he grabbed it, like an electric shock going through his body. He eagerly flipped the cover open and his eyes snapped on the word ‘witchcraft’.
“Wednesday! I found—”
Harry’s words choked off as he was suddenly enveloped in black as something was thrown over his head. He kicked out blindly, panic seizing him as strong arms locked around his torso.
“WEDNESDAY, RUN!” he yelled, certain it wasn’t her playing a prank. Harry struggled when the arms locked around him lifted him in the air and he heard Wednesday making similar sounds of struggle behind him.
Harry slid the book in the waistband of his jeans while he was being moved, struggling and kicking as hard as he could to mask the movement.
“If you hurt him, I will make your worst nightmare look like a daydream,” Wednesday snarled to their mystery attackers.
Whoever had Harry began carrying him, hissing when Harry kicked their knee with the back of his shoe. He didn’t kick hard enough though and was abruptly slammed down in a chair.
“Harry?” Wednesday asked from beside him.
Harry made a noise, something indecipherable and panicked. He couldn’t breathe. It was dark and he couldn’t see and the power that flowed in him at times seemed to be sparking, asking what he wanted from it, but Harry couldn’t think straight enough to tell it to help him.
He couldn’t breathe.
He was going to suffocate.
Harry’s chest ached with the insufficient oxygen he was getting from his short panting gasps of air.
Someone wrenched Harry’s arms behind the back of the chair he was in and tied them together, Harry hardly noticed.
Someone was speaking softly, soothingly, and Harry hardly heard it either because he couldn’t breathe.
*****
Wednesday was plotting multiple homicides that would be so elaborate that future killers would take note of her technique.
She tried to murmur quietly to Harry, reassure him that they she wouldn’t allow him to be hurt, but Harry didn’t seem to hear her. Probably because he was breathing like a kid having some sort of panic attack because some morons thought putting bags over their heads and tying them to a chair was a good idea.
When the bag was ripped off Wednesday’s head, she immediately turned to Harry and saw that his chest was rising and falling much too quickly and his face was pale and slick with sweat.
“Who dares enter the lair of the Nightshades?” a voice demanded.
Wednesday sent a scathing look at the six figures in long robes with hoods pulled low over their faces. Before she could even call her classmates out, one of them stepped forward and took his hood off.
“Oh, shit.” It was Xavier who knelt down beside Harry’s chair. He looked toward the others, “I think he’s having a panic attack.”
“You think?” Wednesday bit out. She quickly untied her hands from the knotted rope they had attempted to hold her with - honestly, Girl Scouts tied better knots - and cupped Harry’s cheek carefully.
“Harry, you’re fine,” she told him firmly, meeting his glassy eyes with her steady ones. “It’s just Xavier and Bianca being brainless morons.”
Another kid stepped forward, Ajax, and stared at Harry with wide eyes.
“We weren’t trying to kill you—”
As if their horrible attempt at a kidnapping could be mistaken as a murder attempt.
“—we were just going to ask how you found this place,” Ajax said. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“Clearly not secret enough,” Bianca said, finally stepping forward and lowering her hood. She fixed her pale eyes on Harry and tilted her head to the side as she studied him.
“Do you want me to order him to snap out of it?” Bianca offered with a sharp white smile that contrasted against her dark skin. “I could.”
“Not a chance,” Wednesday told her. Bianca could order Harry to do anything, and Wednesday trusted no one with that kind of power. Especially not snotty popular girls who thought that running a school was some kind of accomplishment.
“‘M fine,” Harry whispered quietly, his words shaky. He was still breathing shallowly so Wednesday made her breaths slow and steady, setting the example.
“Sorry,” Harry finally said, a small amount of color blooming on his cheeks while his eyes flicked around the six students circling them.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Wednesday told Harry before turning a look so filled with anger toward Bianca that it was a surprise she didn’t burst in flames on the spot. “You, however, had better sleep with one eye open.”
Bianca raised her hands and wiggled her fingers. “Ooh, I am so scared,” she said mockingly while her sycophants snickered. “We want to know how you got in here and why.”
“We solved the puzzle and because the draw of your little clubhouse was too much for us to bear,” Wednesday said rudely. She swiftly untied Harry’s hands from behind his back and grabbed his elbow to help him to his feet. “And now we’ll be going.”
“Wait!” Kent, Bianca’s right-hand siren, stepped forward with a frown. “We can’t just let them leave, can we? The Nightshades are meant to be a secret.”
“Do you plan on killing us to keep us quiet?” Wednesday said. She shot a look from the corner of her eye to Ajax and raised a brow. “Perhaps you’ll win in a fight against me?”
Ajax grimaced and rubbed his thigh, hopefully remembering when Wednesday stuck a blade in it. Before anyone could take Wednesday up on her offer, Xavier spoke up.
“We could let them join?” he told the others. He gestured to the wall connected to the staircase, one filled with group photos undoubtedly of past Nightshade members. “Wednesday’s mom was a legacy, she has the right to pledge.”
“And Potter?” Bianca demanded, looking dismissively at Harry. “I doubt his parents ever attended Nevermore, normies usually don’t.”
Wednesday bristled when she felt Harry’s arm jerk beneath her firm hold. How dare Biance treat Harry as if he were a nobody simply because he didn’t make a show of his power? Harry had killed Rowan with a single touch; his power made Bianca’s look like a parlor trick. In fact, the more Wednesday considered it, the more certain she was that at least one of Harry’s parents had to have shared his power. Most supernatural gifts were passed down a lineage, and Wednesday suspected that Harry was no exception.
“For all you know, Harry’s parents were too powerfully to attend your privileged school or join any ridiculous clubs,” Wednesday said coldly, staring Bianca down. “I look forward to the day you choke on the word ‘normie’. Come on, Harry, let’s leave them to their little club meeting. It’s the only way they’ll ever feel important.”
Harry was eager to leave, even though he tripped over his feet in his haste to get to the staircase. Wednesday paused on the bottom step long enough to stare down each member of the Nightshades maliciously.
“Next time you touch him, you had better kill me first,” she said in her softest and most dangerous voice. “Because if not, I will end your miserable lives.”
With the last warning Wednesday would give the other students, she ascended the stairs behind Harry.
As much of a disappointment as the Nightshade’s library had been, to say nothing of the current members of the group itself, Wednesday had been prepared to chalk the evening up to a loss. That was until Harry paused outside the dorms, rocking backward on his heels, and gave Wednesday a small smile.
“Look what I found,” Harry whispered. He reached behind him and pulled a thick leather bound book from his waistband and held it out for Wednesday to grab. “It’s about witchcraft!”
Wednesday gave Harry an approving nod. “You’re as proficient a thief as you are killer,” she said appreciatively. She reached out to take the book, but as soon as her fingers brushed the cover, she was lost to the present and ripped to the past.
“Go, Goody! Save yourself!”
A young girl, one who resembled Wednesday in the face, but with blonde plaited hair, stood outside a cottage that was sending out thick peals of smoke, fire destroying it from the inside, dressed in only a thin white nightgown while a woman with long black waves of hair was being drug by a man in a colonial styled uniform.
“MAMA!” The girl, Goody, Wednesday assumed, screamed, her voice ripping through the night. “NO! MAMA! NO!”
“Run!” the woman with the black hair and dark eyes screamed. “Go, my love!”
Goody seemed torn, wishing to help, frozen in terror. It wasn’t until one of the other men that held a torch turned to her, his smile wide and terrifying, that she gasped.
“You will burn with the others,” the man cackled, sounding just as insane as the light in his eyes made him appear. “BURN THE WITCHES!” he yelled.
“BURN THE WITCHES!” the mob of torch carrying pilgrims echoed.
Goody sent a last sorrow filled look toward her mother, whose face looked familiar just for an instant with the torchlight illuminating her, before she turned on her heel and began running barefoot to the forest.
The echoed chants of ‘BURN THE WITCHES!’ followed her until Wednesday was thrown from the vision.
Wednesday gasped and blinked upward to the green eyes and pale face before her.
A familiar pale face.
“Where’s that book?” Wednesday demanded, wrenching herself from Harry’s hold. She got back to her feet and ignored the worry that seemed to radiate from Harry.
Harry hardly needed to worry about her, she was much more sturdy than he was.
“Here,” Harry said, picking up the book from the floor. “Are you okay? Was it a vision?”
“It was,” Wednesday said curtly, accepting the book when Harry offered it to her again. She looked around the deserted hallway and shook her head, it was too risky to discuss there.
“Let’s go to my room,” she told Harry, her mind whirling with the implications of what she saw in her vision. “I’ll explain there.”
Wednesday tried to piece the vision together, decipher its relevance. Who was Goody? Who was the woman with the black hair? Who was the man with the cruel smile and crazy eyes? Did one of the women own the book that Harry found?
And did any of it matter when they already had a prophecy and a monster to deal with?
Harry remained silent until they reached Wednesday’s room. He held the door open for her and then stepped inside where he let out a sharp gasp.
Wednesday whirled around to see what had happened and saw Harry’s eyes glued to the wall behind Wednesday’s desk.
The wall that had been divided in half- the monster’s kills on one side, Harry’s on the other.
“That isn’t what it looks like,” Wednesday said quickly, covering her own incessant curiosity before Harry got the wrong idea. Wednesday hadn’t been comparing him to the monster; Wednesday strongly suspected that Harry had only ever killed in moments of extreme distress or self-defense.
And it didn’t matter to her anyway, she had simply wanted to solve the mystery behind Harry’s odd wording during the Poe Cup.
“W-why?” Harry whispered bleakly, his eyes welling up as he stared at the photographs of his five murder victims (of which Wednesday still staunchly included Rowan despite seeing him walking, talking, and breathing).
Wednesday moved to her wall and began yanking down the photos and articles.
“Nevermind that,” she said swiftly, wadding the papers up in crumbled balls. “I was curious, that’s all.”
Harry made a strangled sound and Wednesday almost felt… guilty. An odd and foreign emotion. She didn’t dare look at Harry until every scrap of evidence about his crimes had been torn down and thrown away, leaving only the information on the dead hikers left. When Wednesday finally felt able to handle looking at Harry, she immediately wished she hadn’t.
Harry stood in the doorway and looked smaller than Wednesday had ever seen him. His face was crumpled with pain and his eyes were shining with tears.
“I thought we were friends,” he said, his voice sounding as miserable as his body language screamed. “I guess I was wrong.”
Wednesday didn’t even get a chance to yell after him before Harry turned and fled, leaving her behind with just a book and a sick feeling of guilt in her stomach.