Wake Unto Me by Lisa Cach Page B

being modest. Why else would you get a scholarship?”
    “Madame Snowe thinks I have potential.”
    “Then you must,” she said simply.
    Caitlyn smiled wryly. “If so, it’s been thoroughly hidden for fifteen years.”
    Naomi laughed. “What about art? You did better than anyone else in class today. Maybe you’ll be the next Rembrandt!”
    Caitlyn shook her head, rejecting the compliment. “All I could see in my drawing was what I’d done wrong.”
    “That means you’re a true artist: you’re never satisfied.” Naomi smiled and waved a casual good-bye, and headed to her room.
    Caitlyn watched her go, then turned her feet toward her own room, lost in disquieting thoughts. What if she did decide that she wanted to study art seriously, and become an artist? Would the Sisterhood of Fortuna allow that?
    Caitlyn was beginning to get an inkling that in agreeing to the Sisterhood’s scholarship, she may have sold her soul to the devil.
    Thoughts of the Sisterhood, though, reminded her that they were the Sisterhood of Fortuna, and it had been a ghost who told Antoine Fournier to paint the portrait of Fortuna in the Grand Salon.
    Caitlyn had seen the painting before, but had not looked at it carefully. She was suddenly sure, though, that there was more there than had met her eye.
    It was time for a second look.

CHAPTER Nine
     
    “What are you doing here so late at night?” someone asked.
    Caitlyn jumped, and looked up from her book, squinting across the dim light of the Grand Salon. A moment later she smiled in pleased relief: it was Naomi.
    “Are you hoping to win the blue ribbon for most diligent student?” Naomi asked.
    “I didn’t know there was one.”
    “There isn’t.” Naomi dropped one pajama-clad hip onto the edge of the desk where Caitlyn sat.
    The Grand Salon was a vast living room on the second floor of the dormitory wing. The room had French doors going out to a wide balcony cantilevered out over the cliff. A massive fireplace was centered in the long wall, big enough to roast an ox in. At one end of the room was a flat-screen TV, while the other was dominated by the large painting of Fortuna by Antoine Fournier. In between the two ends, thick Oriental carpets, a grand piano, several desks, and three groupings of sofas and chairs filled the space. Bookshelves displayed the leather bindings of ancient tomes likely never touched by the Fortune School students, who used the space either for watching TV or studying.
    “Amalia goes to bed early and can’t sleep if I have my desk light on,” Caitlyn said, which was true but only part of the story.
    “It’s past two A.M.” Naomi looked at Caitlyn’s book. “I know that Northanger Abbey is not engrossing enough to keep you awake this late.”
    “I’m enjoying it.”
    “You’re going to start looking like this if you don’t get enough sleep,” Naomi said, and with her fingertips dragged down the skin beneath her eyes. “And you’re pale.”
    Caitlyn closed the book and sat back. “Okay, I confess. I’m not awake just because of schoolwork. I have trouble with insomnia.” Which was another way of saying that she was reluctant to turn out the lights and lay her head down, for fear that sleep would bring another visit from the Screechers. Another visit would mean more screaming, which would mean destroying the last ounce of patience that Amalia possessed.
    Naomi’s brows rose. “Then we have something in common.”
    “You’re an insomniac, too?”
    Naomi flashed a smile. “How else would I have found you here?”
    “What keeps you awake?”
    “My mother says I was born nocturnal.” Naomi shrugged. “Who can say? But all night my mind churns. If it produced something worthwhile, I wouldn’t mind.”
    “You don’t take sleeping pills?” Caitlyn asked.
    Naomi wrinkled her nose. “They leave me more groggy during the day than lack of sleep. You?”
    She shook her head. “I’m prone to nightmares. The last thing I want is to be