ensure that their wayward Katherine is settled with the right life partner. The Academy is in many ways a business, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Madame de Silentio has found her niche, and the way of the world is such that if she did not demand recompense for her efforts she would receive none. So, good for Madame de Silentio.
Having recently been made Head Prefect, it’s my duty to write a new chapter of the handbook that each new pupil is given on his first day, that awful first day when you just think you’re not going to be able to stand it. I take this responsibility very seriously, just as seriously as I take keeping the juniors in order and being a good ambassador for the Academy when we have to leave the grounds to round up the runaways. I’ve consulted the annals of school history, and I found mention of an act of disobedience committed by two moderately promising students—it happened twenty-five years ago, and the consequences were quite grave. I conducted interviews with Madame de Silentio herself, and with those teachers who remembered what had happened, and I’ve pieced together a narrative that I’d like to try out on you. I think it makes an invaluable cautionary tale for any new boy who is thinking of defying our headmistress.
Charles Wolfe and Charlie Wulf met in their second year of studies at Madame de Silentio’s, when they were assigned neighbouring beds in the same dormitory. Charlie, at seventeen, was Charles’s elder by a year. By all accounts the boys took notice of the fact that they essentially had the same name. In diaries, and in correspondence intercepted by staff, each boy declared that there must be meaning in the similarity between their names. They felt they were brothers. Interesting, because they were very different.
Photographs reveal Charlie Wulf to have been a bit of a pretty boy. Eyes like great big puddles, Byronic waves of hair, the spare frame of a longtime drug addict—before joining the student body he had been forcibly and abruptly weaned off opium in our soundproof music room, which was placed off-limits for three weeks. It seems favouritism brought Charlie to the Academy. I refer to the letter written to Madame de Silentio a full year before he was admitted, in which his mother and father, taking turns to write a word each, explain that in the silence of the heart every parent chooses a favourite. In Mr. and Mrs. Wulf’s case they chose the same one, much to the jealousy and rage of their other nine children. Siblings always detect these things, but without proof there’s not a lot they can do. Charlie seemed to have been born an escapist; at the age of seven, having complained of a boredom that made him “feel sick in his tummy,” he broke into his father’s liquor cabinet and drank himself into a state of catalepsy. By the age of fifteen he was seeking oblivion in opium dens, and since his wealthy parents made him a separate allowance twice the size of that allotted to each of his siblings, Charlie was able to buy almost as much oblivion as he desired, running through a month’s allowance in less than a week and beatifically starving until the time came for the next installment. The letter from Mr. and Mrs. Wulf also lists certain diseases Charlie had contracted and been treated for, ending with a deadly scare that was the last straw. He’d been sent to rehabilitation clinics and boot camps, and each time he had escaped with the aid of his captors. Mr. and Mrs. Wulf believed Madame de Silentio’s Academy was the only institution without a trace of indulgence at its heart, and therefore the Academy was the only place that could clean their son up. They would give custody of their son over to Madame de Silentio if it would save his life. Charlie’s life shall be saved, Madame de Silentio assured them. Better than that—his life shall be made useful. Charlie Wulf was weak of character, consistently receiving D grades or lower for his
Having recently been made Head Prefect, it’s my duty to write a new chapter of the handbook that each new pupil is given on his first day, that awful first day when you just think you’re not going to be able to stand it. I take this responsibility very seriously, just as seriously as I take keeping the juniors in order and being a good ambassador for the Academy when we have to leave the grounds to round up the runaways. I’ve consulted the annals of school history, and I found mention of an act of disobedience committed by two moderately promising students—it happened twenty-five years ago, and the consequences were quite grave. I conducted interviews with Madame de Silentio herself, and with those teachers who remembered what had happened, and I’ve pieced together a narrative that I’d like to try out on you. I think it makes an invaluable cautionary tale for any new boy who is thinking of defying our headmistress.
Charles Wolfe and Charlie Wulf met in their second year of studies at Madame de Silentio’s, when they were assigned neighbouring beds in the same dormitory. Charlie, at seventeen, was Charles’s elder by a year. By all accounts the boys took notice of the fact that they essentially had the same name. In diaries, and in correspondence intercepted by staff, each boy declared that there must be meaning in the similarity between their names. They felt they were brothers. Interesting, because they were very different.
Photographs reveal Charlie Wulf to have been a bit of a pretty boy. Eyes like great big puddles, Byronic waves of hair, the spare frame of a longtime drug addict—before joining the student body he had been forcibly and abruptly weaned off opium in our soundproof music room, which was placed off-limits for three weeks. It seems favouritism brought Charlie to the Academy. I refer to the letter written to Madame de Silentio a full year before he was admitted, in which his mother and father, taking turns to write a word each, explain that in the silence of the heart every parent chooses a favourite. In Mr. and Mrs. Wulf’s case they chose the same one, much to the jealousy and rage of their other nine children. Siblings always detect these things, but without proof there’s not a lot they can do. Charlie seemed to have been born an escapist; at the age of seven, having complained of a boredom that made him “feel sick in his tummy,” he broke into his father’s liquor cabinet and drank himself into a state of catalepsy. By the age of fifteen he was seeking oblivion in opium dens, and since his wealthy parents made him a separate allowance twice the size of that allotted to each of his siblings, Charlie was able to buy almost as much oblivion as he desired, running through a month’s allowance in less than a week and beatifically starving until the time came for the next installment. The letter from Mr. and Mrs. Wulf also lists certain diseases Charlie had contracted and been treated for, ending with a deadly scare that was the last straw. He’d been sent to rehabilitation clinics and boot camps, and each time he had escaped with the aid of his captors. Mr. and Mrs. Wulf believed Madame de Silentio’s Academy was the only institution without a trace of indulgence at its heart, and therefore the Academy was the only place that could clean their son up. They would give custody of their son over to Madame de Silentio if it would save his life. Charlie’s life shall be saved, Madame de Silentio assured them. Better than that—his life shall be made useful. Charlie Wulf was weak of character, consistently receiving D grades or lower for his
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