The Book of Miranda | gxg | ✔︎

(29) Wish Upon A Passerine

My list of things to do before I die never included bearing witness to a cult ritual, but I'm flexible. Also somewhat intrigued, which feels rude given the circumstances, but if I'm going to be eaten by a demon today, the least I can do is enjoy the scenery. Maybe I'm more a fan of horror books than I thought I was.

The book Massingham is holding is definitely the one from his school's stained-glass windows. Its carmine cover somehow both shines and glitters in the flickering incandescence of lamps whose candle flames have more trouble sitting still than I do. The book's leather cover is the kind of lovingly polished one could expect from a cherished family heirloom, and I soon identify the glittering: the angel motif embossed on both its face and back are inlaid with gold foil. If that book is anywhere near as old as its cultish origins would suggest, it must have cost an arm and relic. Maybe the Virgin Mary's finger bone. I'm not up to date on the economics of religious artifacts, but I know an expensive one when I see it.

Which makes it all the more horrifying when Leander Massingham, headmaster of Melliford Academy and cult leader of demonic worship, opens the book and tears out the first page with a sound like someone torturing paper's children.

I barely clap a hand over my mouth to stifle my gasp. Thank God, nobody seems to hear me; they're all fixated on the page Massingham just dismembered like it will bless their sins and cure their fistulas, or whatever it is that people ask of religious relics nowadays. Then they all close their eyes as Massingham begins a low chant, holding the page out in front of him like a hymnbook. A different teacher takes the wounded book it came from and lays it down on the bed. Set in the lamplight, it flops sideways with a limp resignation that reveals something wrong with its spine.

I stir myself from my hiding place with difficulty and creep one bed closer. Another gasp is in order, but I bite my tongue instead. Held in Massingham's arms, the red book seemed slender, but it didn't used to be. If its spine-width is to judge, it was as thick as my arm once—which isn't hard, granted, but that's big for a book broad enough to serve afternoon tea on, with extra cups. Someone's been tearing pages from this thing for years. Decades, probably; this school was founded sixty years ago, and it's probably not a stretch to guess that Massingham and his entourage have been doling out demon possession since the very beginning. At a student a night, though, that's more pages than this book could plausibly have contained, even at full capacity.

There was more than one book in the stained glass. There were seven.

That's so many students.

My heart aches. I've never been one to care for other people. Most other people can jump in the Dervin Channel and swim until they hit sea ice for all I care, though I'd stop short of swapping the Channel for this demon's cursed subterranean pool in most cases. But this is wrong. Everything happening here is wrong, and it's not just secondhand empathy for Exie's brother that gets me this time around. I heard Colson's scream when he fell, then Barnabas's when we burned his dove. I saw the desperate emptiness in their eyes. I can't imagine what either of them—any of them—have been through.

I don't want this cult to take any more victims.

Massingham is still chanting. As he lifts his hands, the page in them begins to fold of its own accord. I watch, horrified and mesmerized, trying to track the tucks and pleats as the paper shrinks slowly, rearranging itself into a cruel imitation of God's doves as if plied by invisible, demonic hands. That's probably exactly what's happening.

The dove has a beak, no tail, and one of two wings when I remember with a jolt that I have a job here. If I want to stop this cult from taking students, the first thing I can do is stop it from retaking one it's traumatized already. I steel myself, check that the teachers' eyes are still closed, and make a lateral bed-transfer to the corner of the infirmary. Here, I fumble in my pockets. The crackle of the ancient paper will cover the scritch of a match or two, but my heart still tries to strangle me as I lift a shaking hand to the rough stone wall beside me and make the first strike.