The Crickhowell School for the Muses by Rachel Waxman Page B

was the tiny window: the moon gone now, though it was hardly light outside. A misty dark blue. She wondered if it was morning.
    The knocks on the door stopped. “Get up! We’re going now!” And then it opened, Rosaline stepping in behind it, one hand still on the outside knob. “Hurry along, now; we want to get an early start.”
    The girls struggled, finally, out of their beds.
    “You have nothing with you, nothing to gather, so hurry up!” Rosaline fiddled with the doorknob.
    Genevieve and Carmella scrambled out the door first, followed closely by Awen. Rosaline shut the door after them, moving to the front of the line in three long strides.
    “No time for breakfast,” Rosaline clucked. “We’ll eat on the way—there’ll be bread in the coach.”
    Awen struggled to keep up with Rosaline in the darkness, precariously feeling her way down the hallway and stairs. The tavern below was empty, the candles around the room now mere glowing stumps, a few smoldering as they burned down. Awen crossed her arms, bracing herself for the cool air as she stepped out into the dark morning. But the action was unnecessary: the air was startlingly warm—warmer, in fact, than it had been inside the Pickwick Inn. She dropped her arms to her sides.
    The carriage was already waiting out front for them, and Awen was glad, in the half-light, she could not see Mr. Berwick, who was probably up in the driver’s seat. Her guess was confirmed by Rosaline, who called out to him that they were ready to depart.
    Awen was the last to enter the carriage. The arrangement was exactly as it had been during the first trip: Rosaline and Tori on the bench to the right, and Genevieve and Carmella in the middle. Awen scrambled to the empty bench on the far left, sitting down just as the carriage lurched forward.
    Awen leaned back against the side wall and stretched out her legs across the bench. She closed her eyes.
    “Awen.”
    She opened her eyes drowsily, wondering if she had been asleep.
    “Bread.” Carmella had turned around on her bench, toward Awen; she held before her a cloth-covered basket. Awen reached for the basket with both hands, grabbing three hard rolls at once. She put two of them in her lap and stuffed the other one in her mouth, devouring it so rapidly that she did not have time to taste it. She ate the second piece in this same manner, slowing only for the third.
    Then Awen wiped the crumbs from her dress and leaned back against the wall of the carriage again, letting her eyes close once more.
    * * *
    Golden light glimmered before her heavy lids—the rays of early morning. Awen had dreamt something, but all that remained of it were remnants of color: golden browns, deep blue, and an ember-red that burned through the darkness. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to remember a face, a shape, a place. But she could recall nothing.
    Awen felt a change in the motion of the carriage, which caused her center of balance to shift, and suddenly found herself sliding toward the floor; she pushed her hand against the back of the other bench, steadying herself just in time to avoid falling. She glanced out the pane-less window to see that they were ascending a rather steep hill. Awen crawled forward on the bench until her face was just in front of the window. From here, she could see a very small town—a mere handful of dark stone buildings, sprinkled on either side of the path. Then, with a quick glance toward Rosaline, who seemed to be absorbed with some book, Awen stuck her head out the window to see where, exactly, the carriage was headed.
    At the top of a hill sat a larger structure—castle-like, yet at most half the size of the Crickhowell School. The castle was constructed of stone like the other buildings in the town, though this stone had a yellow hue.
    “Awen!” Rosaline snapped.
    She pulled back immediately, leaping to her original position on the bench as if by instinct. Awen expected a tirade from Rosaline, but the woman said