Seven for a Secret by Elizabeth Bear Page B

reflection. She needed larger shirts. Adele came up beside her, pushing her braid aside to kiss the side of her neck, and Ruth slipped an arm around her waist and tugged her close. She felt the prickle of Adele’s wolfskin through her blouse, too, and leaned her head on Adele’s shoulder.
    Adele kissed her ear. „Do you think anyone will do it tonight?”
    Ruth shrugged, and let her arm slide free as she turned to the door. „There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
    Downstairs in the long high-walled garden, the class shivered under a striped awning that kept off the rain but not the chill. Ruth and Adele were not the last to come down, though, and even Katherine, who was, still arrived four minutes early. Herr Professor would be punctual, which meant the girls had a few moments to straighten their shoulders and adjust one another’s collars and hairpins, and wonder what might be under the canvas tarpaulins covering a single long table set against the wall. They would not lift the edge of the drop cloth, however. Not where Herr Professor might see.
    By the time the sliding door from the headmaster’s quarters opened and Herr Professor appeared framed against the light, his uniform cap tugged low and his greatcoat collar turned up against the rain, the girls had lined up side by side in two rows. It pleased him when they were ready for him.
    Neither rain nor cold seemed to affect him as he descended the steps from his patio. He carried a swagger stick under one arm. His glossy boots clicked decisively on stone as he strode along the walk through thumping raindrops.Ruth would have given anything to cross her arms over her chest. The wind iced through her thin cotton blouse. Her whole body was goose pimples and shivers, and the only way to keep her teeth from chattering was to clench her jaw. Judging by what similar tautness did to Beatrice’s face, perhaps it made Ruth look stern.
    She knew this was to toughen them, but it didn’t make her hate it any less. Still, she kept her chin up as Herr Professor’s gaze skimmed across her. He spoke in German; whatever he said, Ruth let the words wash over her. The response was ritual, always the same: Protokoll, Dekor, Kraft, Mut, Treue! She had to unlock her jaw to chant in unison with the other girls. Protokoll, Dekor, Kraft, Mut, Treue! Protokoll, Dekor, Kraft, Mut, Treue!
    Over and over, until the words had no more meaning than the ones Herr Professor bellowed. Ruth did not want the words to have meaning. She did not want to believe them.
    She did not want to believe them in German. In English, they were her life.
    Or, she thought calmly, her death, more likely. But that was okay.
    It would be worth it.
    She was still clutching that thought to her breast as if it were warm when Herr Professor held up a hand to interrupt the call and response. With the others, Ruth fell silent. She pressed her arms against her sides as if to trap some ghost of warmth—a useless gesture—and tried not to shiver too loudly as she waited.
    Herr Professor scanned the girls, inspecting each one’s uniform and deportment with a gimlet eye. Adele and Jessamyn, he each tapped with his swagger stick, but lightly, to improve their posture. Ruth would like to do the same to him, but she thought she kept the fantasy from illuminating her expression.
    Finished, Herr Professor set his shoulders and said, „You know you have been chosen for a great purpose. A great destiny. You have each risen to a tremendous challenge, and each proved yourselves worthy of the glorious Prussian Empire.
    „But now you must rise to an even greater and more terrible task, my children.”
    A new kind of shiver tightened Ruth’s spine. Her arms twitched, as if to fold around her. Only with an effort did she straighten them.
    „You must become Sturmwölfe. Tonight is the night when you cease to be students, and become warriors.”
    He passed between them, moving at last to the mysterious long table. With