by Bob Dattolo
She laughed again, this time sounding as if she’d pee herself.
“Then, uhh, one of the teachers came in and stopped me and we had an argument about those that are strong getting to do what they want, but he didn’t want me to fight back. So I tore out his eyes as well.”
I swear she fell from her seat at that.
“Yeah, so Corey freaked and lit himself on fire and started to shift, and…I don’t even know what happened. I grabbed him by the head, and it felt like everything sucked inside. His fire went out entirely, but then I woke up in the nurse’s office. They had me down with some sort of spell and what I think were magical bands of some sort? Everything clicked inside of me and I was able to tear my way out to stand. I don’t think I was supposed to be able to do that. Corey’s still in the nurse’s office, stuck between shifts. They think he may gain enough power in a bit to finish his change.”
Her laughed continued for long minutes after that. When it petered out, she sighed. “Oh my, Ceri, that’s simply wonderful.”
“Thank you?”
“As for your original question, you’re a young girl. I know you’re uncomfortable about this, but sex and masturbation are normal. There are some spells for some mages and fey where abstinence is important, but not for building up power or pressure. In fact, most mages and fey will actually gain more power through sex or masturbation. It helps power move through the body.”
“Uhh, I, uhh…”
“You’re young, Ceri. So very young compared to me. You didn’t grow up in the supernatural world, so this is outside of your comfort zone. But it’s your body. Yours and yours alone. You need to be comfortable with yourself before you can be comfortable with others. So explore. Spend some quality time with yourself. I’ve spoken with demons and angels and neither of them care about that in any way. That or sex. The only downfall to sex is disease or unplanned pregnancy. Since the disease portion doesn’t apply to you, then it’s only unplanned pregnancy. And…I’m not certain you need to worry about that. Take normal precautions there, but you should be fine.”
Even though I was on the phone, blood rushed to my face. It wasn’t as bad as it would be if she were here in person, but it’s pretty bad. I’ve never had someone be so casual about it. “Thank you?”
“Ahh, Ceri, you’re a breath of fresh air. You would be amazed how infrequently people want to speak with me because of what I am. They’ll do so for work or obligation, but not at this level. Truthfully, I almost wish you would have asked to stay with me. I would have cherished the years we had together before my people came for me.”
That made me sniffle. “Thank you, Rasphael. That…that means more to me than I can even say. If you getting in trouble wasn’t an option, I would have selected you immediately. Even though I can feel your power, and it’s frankly scary, you showed me more honest interest and compassion than my parents have that I can ever recall. I…does what your king said mean that you shouldn’t be speaking with me?”
“No, Ceri. Just that I can’t raise you as my child. Would you like to continue speaking with me?”
My heart felt lighter at her question. “I’d love that? I know you can’t talk a lot because of your job, but it would help a lot to know that there’s someone I can talk to.”
“It would be my pleasure. I will send you my contact information and e-mail address as well as other sites I visit. I may not be able to be your mother in truth, but…maybe your mother in spirit?”
Tears started falling hard. “I’d love that.” My voice broke three times before I could get it out.
“You will have it before you’re asleep tonight. And, now you should be off. You can still make your appointment on time.”
“Appointment?”
“Entrance testing.”
“Oh! I…yeah. I haven’t had a good time since getting here.”
“I understand. You should have paperwork on where you need to go, so you should be about that.”
“Thank you, Rasphael. For everything.”
“You’re welcome, Ceri. Good luck on your testing.”
Dropping my phone on my bed, I sorted through my paperwork until I found one that talked about entrance testing. Thankfully, it gave a building that I’d been in, so I ran back to the administration building, where I found the room by the rock-solid method of checking every single door on the first floor then heading to the second. A thick-chested man was at the desk, holding a packet of papers.
“Ahh, Ms. Driscoll?”
“Yeah? Ceri, please.” He didn’t offer to shake my hand and I didn’t think to attempt it.
He waved at the table in front of him. No student desks here, just six-foot-long tables, each with two chairs. “Please have a seat.”
I sat down, clutching the paperwork I had been given as well as a pen and pencil.
“Nervous?”
“Yeah? I’ve never been in a school before or taken an entrance test.”
I expected an odd look, but it wasn’t forthcoming. “I understand. We have students come to us with very…nontraditional schooling backgrounds. You’re far from the first.” He set the packet on the table and towered over me. “To start, I’m Mr. Mitchum. I teach English and have some involvement with the magical discussions. This is an entrance exam that will help us determine where you are scholastically so that we can tailor your learning. I’m sure your introduction discussion walked through how we teach here?” He paused.
“No. It ended early when she told me I should expect to get attacked.”
He looked flustered at that. “Okay. That’s not quite what I’d expect, but I’ll skip that for now. Backtracking a little, we don’t keep normal high school grades here. We mix and match the ages to some extent, although your dozenal is primarily junior year. That doesn’t mean you have to stay for a senior year. Learn enough and pass the tests, and you can graduate this year. That being said, I do not believe any of your other classmates are anticipating that.” He seemed to get back in the groove again. “You cannot fail this. It’s an assessment of where you stand, that’s it. If you do poorly, you won’t be kicked out. We’ll just need to work harder to catch up. That’s it. That’s all it does.” He tapped the paperwork. “Any questions?”
“What does it test? What subjects?”
“English, math, science, social studies, magical species, defense, and magic.”
I laughed. “Okay, since I didn’t even know I was a supernatural before, I’m pretty sure I’m going to get a record low on the last three.”
He laughed. “I was warned about that possibility. But like I said, it’s not a big deal. Shall we get started?”
“All right.”
He broke the paperwork out into seven piles and pointed at each of them and gave me the names. “This is timed, but you can take them in any order. Just let me know which you’re starting with and when you move to the next so I can track your times. Let me know if you have any questions.”
I looked at each mysterious packet in turn before pulling the English one. “I’ll start with English.”
“Excellent. Good luck.” He went and sat back down at the desk and made some notes on his paperwork as I opened the packet.
Reading through the instructions was pretty simple, then I jumped into the questions. I expected to have a ton of problems with the test, but the questions flowed by pretty quickly. I don’t know if my parents were good teachers or what, but it all seemed simple. Before I was ready for it, I got to an essay question, which appeared to be the last one in the test. I’ve written essays before, thankfully, so it’s nothing new to me. Essay done; I closed the test. “Done with English. I think science next?”
He grunted and made more notes as I opened the test.
Science was harder, but not by much. The questions were all over the place and kicked my butt pretty hard, but I felt good about it when it was done. “Science done. Starting social studies.”
Social studies was odd. It was a bizarre combination of history
and a bunch of other subjects. This was harder than the other two and there were definitely questions I didn’t know the answers to, especially as they may relate to supernaturals. That test took far longer to complete, and I was sweating when I was done. “Social studies done. Starting math.”
Math felt like a joke. When I got to the end I even looked up at Mr. Mitchum. “Umm, I’m done with math, but was that really the exam?”
He nodded and smiled. “It was. Why, did you have problems.”
“No? At least I don’t think so. It felt too easy.”
He nodded and made a note. “All right, which test next?”
I groaned and grabbed the next test. “Magical species, I guess.”
Dang, this one is hard. Even with multiple choice answers for most of it, I struggled. Some of the questions talk about species that I have never even heard of. Species that I can’t even guess about. Hell, I could be sitting on one of them and not know it.
He called time on it before I was through. “I’m sorry, time’s up for that one.”
I shoved it aside. “I’m pretty sure that one’s a fail.”
He chuckled. “That’s not uncommon. Don’t worry about it. Next?”
I took a few deep breaths. “Defense.”
Again, the test sucked. Hard. It asked questions about fighting defenses and what to do in given scenarios based on who you’re against. It asked about magical defenses. It covered things I’ve never thought to ask or even wonder about. After about 20 questions I gave up and flipped through the rest, looking for anything that looked like I’d know it, until I reached the end. “Okay, I’m done with this one.”
“Giving up?”
“Pretty much. I don’t even know enough to make decent guesses.” I fingered the last one. “So I guess it’s magic now.” He made more notations.
The entire room went black when I opened the test, then I felt something tearing its way through me. Did I scream? No clue. I know I wanted to, because it hurt almost as badly as what the vampire did to me. It seared through my brain and left behind illuminated lines, like flash-frozen lightning in the blackness of my mindscape.
As it rolled along, the pain became worse and worse as more of my mindscape lit up, making me feel as if I were in a deep, dark cavern with the searing light of a nuclear dawn appearing out of nowhere.
Without warning, my body appeared in my sight, although I didn’t realize it was me at first. After all, how often do you see yourself in your own mind? Not often, in my experience. As the lightning spread and the nuclear hellfire increased, an unfelt wind hit the vision of myself, sending my blood-red hair flying. I was so distracted by the spectral wind that I could see and feel across my skin, that I didn’t even realize I was naked. For a fleeting moment I wanted to hide myself before realizing I was alone, so it shouldn’t matter.
Much.
My state of dress faded as a concern as the ceiling, walls, and floor of the immense cavern shined down on me with a vengeance of a thousand suns. Between the heat hitting me and the pain, I expected to disappear in an agony-filled wisp of smoke, but it never happened. Instead, the heat turned to pure pleasure that warred with the pain until it grabbed the pain by the throat and turned it over my knee.
Once that happened, everything began pouring into me. The light, which had been part of the cavern, pooled out like molasses before streaming across the space into me as the little form in my brain threw its head back and laughed. Laughed and laughed, arms thrown wide and head thrown back, letting it all course into me and fill my empty insides.
Everything flowed into me faster and faster and I grabbed at it, fingers spread, and pulled. It’s mine. All mine. I. Want. It. All.
If anything, the cavern became brighter and hotter and I swear filled with screams that weren’t mine as the influx of light and heat became a torrent. When the image of myself looked down, my eyes were glowing a strange color through the deep black of my new look. As soon as I realized that, I was thrown back into myself and was staring at the wall of the cavern.
Enough of this.
I stalked across the floor, dragging at everything around me and laughing until I reached the cavern wall. For whatever reason, I expected to find rock walls, but it wasn’t. Instead, it pulsed and moved and was warm under my touch, even as it flinched away from me.
I didn’t intend to do it but wasn’t all that shocked when I rammed my hands into the wall. They gave exactly the way cavern walls shouldn’t give to a young girl’s hands. They gave, and they screamed, and I laughed.
I laughed, and then bunched my shoulders together and wrenched my hands apart, tearing the walls asunder in an avalanche of sound and movement.
The classroom came back into focus, but it didn’t look the same. Not even remotely. Instead of the normal looking room with a series of six-foot desks and the teacher’s desk in front, we had a demolished space, with shattered desks rammed up against the walls in all directions.
Mr. Mitchum was standing against the walls holding his hands up in the air, with Ms. Darvel, and Headmaster Burnes next to him doing the same. A scintillating light seemed to flow from their hands, then out and around the room, as if keeping something inside.
I was shocked to see that I still had the test packet in my hands, but the pages were blank. “I, uh, I think something’s wrong with the test?”
Or that’s what I tried to say. It came out as a croak at best as I tried to show them the test. That little bit of motion became too much for me, and I fell to the ground, wondering if this means that I’ve failed the test somehow.
I’d love to say that I passed out or something, but I didn’t. Every muscle in my body felt overused and abused and my brain…I can’t even describe it. Imagine taking a little car with a tiny engine and then making it pull a heavy trailer up a long, long, steep road. Without oil. At 200 miles per hour.
That’s my brain.
Yet it still didn’t knock me out. I just wished it had.
Ms. Darvel crouched next to me and touched my face. “She’s still awake.”
“Jesus Christ, she shouldn’t be able to be awake after that!” The headmaster’s comment didn’t leave me feeling good.
“Be that as it may, she is.” She looked down at me again. “Ceri, can you talk?”
It took a few tries, but I managed a credible sound. “I think I failed the magics test.”
She laughed, but it was high and crazy sounding. The laughter from the guys wasn’t any better. “You didn’t fail, Ceri. Not at all. It’s not something you can fail. Honestly, I’d say you passed that one with flying colors.”
My body started coming back in fits and starts and I was able to roll over with only a grunt and a small mountain of pain. “What happened? I never answered any questions?”
She sighed and looked towards the door. “A little help here?”
Both men moved closer, acting like I was going to strike at them when it was a very real effort to breathe. Headmaster Burnes spoke first. “Ceri…the magics test is slightly different for each student. For shifters, we test their shifter abilities and how strong they are in their magic. Not their ability to cast spells, but as a shifter. We time their shifts and review their healing ability, things of that nature. For vampires, we test their various skills, their speed, healing, and other things. We have something different that we do for each type of supernatural that comes here, although we have some that we’ve never used before.”
“I don’t understand?”
Mr. Mitchum crouched near my head. “Ceri, the test for mages is different. It’s a magic construct that is designed to test your magical potential. It can sometimes help in determining what focus a mage should have, but that’s rare.”
“I don’t understand? Was I supposed to be sucked into a cavern?”
He rubbed his face. “Everyone pictures the test differently. For most, it’s this classroom…”
“Is it supposed to hurt?”
He shook his head. “No. No it
’s not. We were a bit shocked when you started screaming, but not as shocked as we were when everything went south.” He looked around at the destroyed room.
“I don’t understand? How did the room get like this?”
He rubbed his face again. “I’m not sure what to say. It was you. All you. Almost as soon as you opened the test, you began to scream, and things started going wrong. Headmaster Burnes and Ms. Darvel arrived within 30 seconds, but none of us could approach you. It was everything we could do to stop you from destroying the walls.”
“What did I do?”
They shared a look. “We don’t really know. Not entirely. You…you destroyed the test. Then you stripped the various spells on the room and started pulling power from around us. We were able to shield the space and stop the wave of destruction going out, but we wouldn’t have held out much longer.”
Ms. Darvel leaned into me again. “You moved from screaming to laughing. When that happened, things got worse for us.”
“I’m sorry. I remember laughing. In the cavern?”
“Is that what you really saw? A cavern?” she asked.
“Yeah. Not at first. At first, it was just pain and nothing else, just a black space. Then I was in a cavern and the pain was sort of painting light along the walls and floor? Like lightning, except it stayed in place once it was there. It got worse and worse, then everything sort of changed and I began collecting it. I think that’s when the laughing got worse. I did that here, too?”
They shared another look. “You did. How…how did you get out of the test?” Mr. Mitchum asked.
I struggled to sit up, then rubbed my face. “I sort of rammed my hands into the wall of the cavern and tore it apart? When everything shattered, I ended up being back here.” None of them said anything for a while. “I don’t understand. What does that test tell us?”
I expected them to hem and haw or not answer, so was surprised when Mr. Mitchum answered immediately. “It means you’re strong. Very, very strong. It…we just don’t know what your specialty is or why you’re different. Nothing that happened in here should have happened. Certainly not the way it did. All of us have taken this test, and none of us have ever been able to break out of it.”