Wuthering high: a bard academy novel
suddenly touches another hand.
    “Ack,” I cry, recoiling. “Who’s there? Who is that?”
    No one answers me. I put a foot out in front of me, but no one is there. Tentatively, I put my hand back on the wall, but I just feel the cool, smooth tile. Stay calm, I tell myself, and just get to the door.
    My hand falls on the door and I push it open and stumble out of the bathroom. Outside, I smell smoke. Something is burning. At the end of the hall, I see Hana turning the corner. Before I can call out, I realize that the smoke in the hall is coming from my room.
    I rush in, pushing open the door. There’s no sign of Blade, but there is a fire burning brightly in our trashcan. Without thinking, I stomp on it, trying to put it out, and in the process semiruin my favorite pair of Pumas.
    Could this be Kate’s doing? Did her ghost set this fire?
    “Hey!” cries Blade, appearing at the door. Ms. W appears right behind her, frowning.
    “Are you all right, Miranda?” Ms. W asks, worried.
    “I’m okay,” I say, feeling glad that somebody around here cares if I live or die.
    “I’m fine, if you consider that my roommate just tried to burn down the dorm,” Blade says.
    “Me? I didn’t do this,” I exclaim. “It had to be you.”
    “Wasn’t me. I was in the den,” Blade says.
    “Now, Miranda. I thought we talked about this.”
    I suppose she’s referring to the acting-bad-as-a-way-to-get-attention talk during our session.
    “But I didn’t do this — I swear!” I hate that she thinks I’m responsible for this. “I understand that acting out isn’t going to get me the kind of attention I want. And look, all I want to do is go home. Setting a fire isn’t going to do that.”
    I try to show that I’m logical. I’m reasonable. Still, Ms. W looks at me with some doubt on her face. Blade looks at me, too.
    “It could always be the vampire,” she says. “He’s definitely a troublemaker.”
    I smack my palm against my head. Vampires! First, my room has a ghost, then a pyromaniac starts a fire in my trashcan, and now my roommate’s going on about her vampire obsession. It has got to stop.
    “I told her to wear garlic,” Blade tells Ms. W, “but she won’t listen to me.”
    “That’s nice,” Ms. W says, clearly not believing Blade. “As for you,” she says, looking at me, “I will send you to the headmaster’s office if I so much as even see a match in this room, you understand?”
    I nod. “Yes, Ms. W.”
    “Good. Now both of you — to bed.”
    “But it’s only nine,” Blade whines.
    “To bed,” Ms. W says in a tone that doesn’t leave open room for argument.
    That night, I have the same nightmare — again — and wake up even before the bugle. It’s the same, in fact, for the next five nights in a row. My Worst Day Ever turns into my Worst Week Ever; between my nightmares and not getting any sleep, I am even more of a zombie than I was the first day of classes. I keep showing up late, and getting lost, and pretty much making a fool out of myself at every available opportunity. I still don’t know who started the fire, and Hana says she didn’t see anything.
    I don’t know why, but I think the fire, Kate Shaw, and my nightmares might be connected somehow, but I don’t know how. In my (very little) free time, I try to find out more about Kate. Oddly, in all the newspaper clippings, there’s no mention of a family or siblings. It’s like she didn’t have any ties at all.
    I also discover that she checked out other old yearbooks from the library, not just the 1855 one. She checked out almost all of them, at one time or another, but in particular, the ones she checked out the most were 1855, 1848, and 1849. She borrowed those four separate times, which means she had them out for two months apiece. And, in each one, it seems like she might have circled a picture of a faculty member. And each picture is too blurry to make out the teacher’s face. I have three of them in my room, trying to

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