Wildefire by Karsten Knight Page A

innocently.
    She turned and didn’t look back at him but gave him a friendly wave with the racket as she disappeared off behind the bleachers.
    He wasn’t the only one left wondering when they’d meet again.
    Ash was counting on her after-practice nap, but by the time she’d gotten out of the shower, toweled off, and slipped into sweats, there was a knock at her door—
    Darren and Jackie, ready for dinner. In the end the growls of her stomach won out against her heavy eyelids, and she trudged across the quad to the dining hall.
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    The students buzzed from a combination of relief that the week’s classes were over and of excitement for the coming night’s festivities. The campus activity board sometimes organized optional Friday night events—mock casinos, bingo with food-oriented prizes—but these were so poorly attended that Ash wouldn’t have been surprised if they were eventually shucked from the school budget altogether.
    No, the students of Blackwood had other, more illicit activities on their mind. One of the perks (or disadvan-tages, rather, depending on whether you asked students or faculty) of attending a school in complete isolation was the sense of independence cultivated among the student body. Sure, the arrival of Headmistress Riley on campus had injected a little fear into the teenagers at Blackwood. But hormones, adolescent rebellion, and seclusion were a powerful recipe for trouble, and in this regard the students were master chefs. With each return from vacations, students smuggled in liquor supplies in their duffel bags, bottles swaddled in sweaters and polos to prevent any rattling or breakage while they were being trafficked onto campus. The students had perfected the art of holding “soirees” in their dormitory rooms. They had memorized the foot patterns of patrolling faculty on weekend evenings, identified which prefects were more lenient than others, which professors were the most careless. Curfew and separation of the sexes were mere formalities.
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    And then there were the more adventurous students who rendezvoused in the woods. It was hard to resist the seductive pull of the forest, an open canvas for trouble.
    The forest was Ash’s favorite off-limits nocturnal activity, even beyond cocktails and people-watching at the Bent Horseshoe. For her there was nothing better than frolick-ing through the towering redwoods with nothing but a few friends and a couple of electric lanterns. The vague sense of fear, the imperceptibly sinister intentions of the night . . . Maybe it was her tribal ancestry speaking to her, but the thought of the earth under her bare feet as she darted between trees and over roots brought her an unbridled sense of tranquility.
    However, tonight the only evening plans Ash had were with two aspirin and her pillow. Ordinarily she lived for the buzz of the dining hall and the endless opportunities for mayhem that Friday night offered. But in her exhaustion the din of the cafeteria echoed in her ears until she developed a throbbing migraine.
    “Are you in?” Jackie was asking her, and Ash faded back to reality from her daydream. “Or do you want to just stir your macaroni and cheese for the rest of this fine spring evening?”
    Ash looked down at her bowl, suddenly aware of the spoon clutched in a vise grip between her thumb and pointer finger. She’d been stirring so much that she’d traced a spiral trail through the bread crumb coating. Even the macaroni looked ragged from the abuse. “Could you 105

    repeat the question?” Ash asked tiredly. “And maybe sum up the essay leading up to it in a few succinct key points.”
    Jackie sighed. “Darren managed to hook his hot plate up to a big portable battery so we can take it out into the woods. He’s got s’mores makings, although he’s not quite sure if the marshmallows are going to melt or just stick to the hot plate. Either way, he invited the guys from his hall. Should be a hoot.”
    “Upperclassmen?”