All That Lives Must Die

I think it scares her. I know it scares me.

I learned how to use the violin. My father showed me the basics, but I play like I’ve been practicing all my life. . and my music makes things happen. Magical things, like conjuring a fog filled with ghosts or charming a million hungry sewer rats so they wouldn’t eat me.

Then, once, I got a glimpse of the end of the world. I played a song about the end of things, which I call “The Symphony of Existence.” If that sounds dangerous, it was, but I had to, believe me, because I was facing the Infernal Beelzebub, Lord of All That Flies, who was trying to part my right side from the left with a gigantic obsidian knife.

When I played that song, I felt the world come apart around me, and I heard the death rattle of the universe as protons and neutrons and electrons tore into smaller subatomic bits. . and then into void.

I still hear it in my dreams. It worries me sometimes.

I’ve learned a lot this summer, but I’m ready to learn more at Paxington and find out what I’m supposed to be doing with these amazing and dangerous gifts.

September 22, San Francisco

________

Eliot watched and worried as his sister read his essay.

Her brows furrowed.

Eliot knew people liked his writing style better, but Fiona was good at putting facts together and impressing people with her logic. Besides, her essay pretty much told the entire story of what had happened to them this summer. He hoped the teachers at Paxington read his paper first.

“Well?” he asked her. “What do you think?”

“Just a second.” She held up a hand, rereading from the top of the page.

Eliot paced. Sunlight filtered into his new bedroom from the garden. Outside were rows of pink and yellow daisies, and beyond, he could make out misty San Francisco Bay-a spectacular view.

Inside their new house, however, especially in his bedroom, the view was not so spectacular-crowded with mountains and mazes of cardboard U-Haul boxes, each one filled with a hundred pounds of books. If there was the slightest shudder from the San Andreas Fault, Eliot knew he’d be buried under an avalanche of Chaucer, Twain, and Shakespeare.

Fiona looked up from his essay and brushed her long, dark hair from her face. “You don’t have all the facts,” she said. “You should have added something about your girlfriend.”

“She wasn’t my girlfriend,” Eliot replied.

Fiona meant Julie Marks, the girl he had met this summer, the girl he had liked an awful lot. She’d even kissed him. . but then ended up leaving. Every time he thought about her, he felt that he had done something to drive her away. Fiona had never liked Julie, for some reason.

He glared at his sister, suddenly irritated.

Then he understood: Fiona wasn’t trying to be mean on purpose. She couldn’t help it. Anyone would be a little nasty if they looked the way she did this morning.

Normally, he and his sister had to wear their great-grandmother’s handmade clothing-bad enough because it looked like something out of the “wrong clothes that didn’t fit” catalog.

Today was worse. They had on their new Paxington school uniforms.

The new clothes looked fine when Eliot and Fiona had first gotten them: khaki slacks for him, pleated tartan skirt for his sister, white button-down linen shirts and navy blue blazers for them both. No ties, thank goodness-they probably would have strangled themselves. Fiona had stockings and flats. He had leather loafers with no heels that made him look (if possible) shorter than usual.

All well and good, Eliot supposed. . if you actually knew how to wear such things.

But Fiona had never owned, let alone worn, a pair of stockings. Her skinny legs looked like crumpled caterpillars that had cocooned themselves and died there. Add to this that no one in the Post family knew how to use an iron (or at least, no one was willing to let the doddering 104-year-old Cecilia near an iron), and they both ended up looking like they had slept in their new uniforms.

Eliot shifted underneath his blazer-one size too big for him-and felt just as uncomfortable and annoyed as his sister must. He exhaled a great sigh, smelling something off. Maybe his clothes should have been washed first.

This was just what they needed today. He ran a hand through his hair, whose cowlicks, as usual, resisted any attempts at grooming. Not only would they have to deal with dozens of strange new students on their first day at school, but they also looked like dorks.

Eliot tapped Fiona’s essay and told her, “I see you didn’t mention Robert, either.”

“What’s to mention?” Fiona said. “We haven’t seen him in two months.”

Robert Farmington was the boy Fiona had met this summer. They weren’t exactly boyfriend and girlfriend, but there had been something between them. He had been a Driver for their uncle Henry in the League of Immortals. . before Robert got fired.

Fiona had a far-off look in her eyes-which sharpened to a glare that she aimed directly at Eliot. “Cupulate temporal cranium?” she asked.

This was the game they played to get back at each other: vocabulary insult.

Eliot ran over the line in his head, trying to figure out what she had meant. Brain. . cranium. . something about his head.

Temporal? Did that mean “time”? No, the bone on the side of the head was the “temporal” part of the skull.

But cupulate? He didn’t have a clue. . unless she was making it simple in order to throw him. Cupulate could just mean “cup shaped.”

She meant his ears.

They stuck out, and she knew how sensitive Eliot was about them.

“At least I need a cup, handles or not,” Eliot replied, “to hold my brain.”

That was a weak comeback, so he added: “Countenance of verruciform[1] ,” and then with a sweeping gesture down to her toes, “vermiform locomotion borne[2].”

Fiona puzzled over that a moment, and then her face reddened.

Good. It was pretty easy to figure out. Eliot had wanted her to get it.

“No fair,” she said. “That’s two vocabulary words at once.”

She said this, despite having just used two herself.

“Breakfast!” Cee called from the kitchen.

Eliot sniffed the air and realized that the “off” smell he’d detected before was stronger, and now recognizable-half-cooked oatmeal and carbonized bacon.

Fiona spotted Eliot’s rusty alarm clock in the corner. Her eyes widened. “We’re going to be late!” She rushed out, bumping a tower of boxes, almost knocking them over.

Of course they were going to be late for their first day of school. That would be the perfect start to this morning. Eliot scrambled after her. There was no way she was getting to the kitchen first to pick out the few edible bits from Cee’s cooking.

SECTION I — THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

1 NEW RULES

Fiona scrambled over the cool terra-cotta tiles and skidded to a halt in their new dining room. Bookshelves and half-built china cabinets were constructed along the walls. Unlike their old apartment in Del Sombra, this room had enough space for shelves without crowding the glorious picture window and its built-