by L. M. Miller
“Francesca… She’s been here two months?” She asked them, and they both nodded solemnly, realizing that they had breached a sensitive subject. “She told me she had been living in the woods… Why would she lie to me?” She murmured, intense feelings crashing through her mind like giant tidal waves, overwhelming her.
“Seph, you’re killing me,” a familiar voice called in passing, and she looked up to see Phin holding his head as he walked by with the tall, dark, vampire girl, Sarabi?
No one else realized the context of what he meant, but she did. She may be able to block him from her direct thoughts, but she would never be able to block him completely. He would always be able to sense her emotions, and he could sense the tumultuous ones she was feeling right now. Well, he should have thought of that before taking her blood.
“You can’t reveal that you go to Monster Academy, even to a fellow being, until they’ve been formerly admitted or have previously attended the school or are an adult. She knew you hadn’t been to the school but recognized you as a creature of the night, like everyone else here. She couldn’t tell you that she was going to this school even if she had wanted to. It’s part of attendance here. You signed some type of contract the moment you walked through that archway, which is inscribed with some type of contract words. I dunno how it all works,” Linda explained rapidly. “Where has Abernathy been all day…” she murmured suddenly, scouring the hallway.
“Abernathy?” Seph started to ask when the warning bell rang, informing them that they had a minute until classes started once again.
“What! How does this always happen?!” Linda exclaimed, darting off to their right.
Rodney was still beside her.
“She’s a bit excitable,” he said with a shrug before eyeing the clock closest to them. “But I need to get going too. Don’t wanna be late for Mermish lessons. Your next class is right in front of you, by the way,” he called, sprinting down the hall in the opposite direction of Linda.
Seph looked to her right, where Linda had disappeared, and then to her left, at Rodney’s receding back. So, she had made two friends at this school, but neither of them was in her next class. She sighed, staring at the door with the black, gilded number 013 emblazoning its oxblood exterior. Time to go to class, she thought wearily, before stepping forward and opening the door to her third class.
“Out of my way, newbie,” she was nearly shoved to the marble floor as Ruby pushed past her and took the last seat in the back.
Seph glared daggers at her but decided not to get into another fight with her. Ruby had obtained that seat fair and square. They had no reason to quarrel. Seph was big enough to admit that, unlike Ruby earlier. Back in HU, she had unfairly tried to take Seph’s seat. She would gracefully accept her defeat and take a seat in the front, but in the far right corner, closest to the door, quick escape route. She slid into the seat just as the bell rang, announcing the commencement of third period classes, held by a teacher with a mean streak.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Her new friends … Linda seemed nice enough, down to earth. Then her boyfriend, Stefan… he seemed really different from Linda, but then again, she didn’t really know Linda that well. Linda obviously had a wild side to her that Seph had not yet discovered. Rodney was funny and nice. Cute too. She just did not see that much there. He was kind and all, but she saw no depth in him. He seemed to use humor a lot, a regular comedian. Then again, she didn’t know him that well either.
“I see we have a new student today, and I don’t think her mind is on task,” a crisp voice cut through her milling thoughts, and Seph flushed a little at being caught inattentive.
She looked up sharply to see a pretty witch towering over her. Her olive-toned skin matched perfectly with her black hair, which fell around her shoulders in loose curls. Her hazel eyes were penetrating and sharp, like a hawk’s. She was an intimidating, tall woman, becoming even taller as she neared Seph’s desk, which had to be right up front. Seph scoured the minds around her, searching them to see if the teacher had asked a question or something. Apparently she hadn’t. In fact, the long-haired, Asian girl beside her was just as confused as she was at what task the teacher was referring to. Then again, she had not been thinking about the class either. She had been thinking about Francesca, and how bad she had looked in the infirmary. She knew Francesca?
“Are you there, Miss Black?” The teacher was snapping her back to reality, again.
Seph was getting the impression that Madam Powers did not like her particularly. Well, Seph did not like Madam Powers already. She looked at the teacher coolly, keeping her face carefully blank.
“Yes?” She responded coolly, trying hard to not snarl through her teeth at the irritating woman, her temper rising hot and fierce in her chest.
“Miss Black, tell me, what did the Amazon women do to themselves in order to shoot their arrows more accurately?” She raised a carefully groomed eyebrow at Seph, awaiting the answer in a timely fashion as her heel tapped like a woodpecker.
Tap, tap, tap. The teacher was thinking it clearly in her mind, and she was also suspecting Seph of telepathic powers. This was her little test of it. Well, Seph already knew that answer anyway. She had studied the Amazons on the house computer at one point. It had been one of those days where she just surfed through the Internet, hopping from site to site, checking out whatever her random mind wanted to.
“They cut off their right breasts in order to be able to pull the arrow back better,” she replied smartly, gazing directly into the teacher’s eyes.
“And how do you know that, Miss Black?” She asked with a sneer, and Seph wondered what on earth she had done to offend this teacher.
“The Internet,” she responded smoothly, and there were several chortles around the classroom, which the teacher silenced with a single, sweeping glare.
“Well, we must not always trust the Internet now, Miss Black,” she turned her back to her and walked towards the center front of the classroom after chiding her.
Seph just shook her head. Clearly, this teacher didn’t like her for some reason. Whatever… She would live. Suddenly, a wadded paper ball hit in the back of the head and bounced away. She whirled around in her desk to look at the students surrounding her, and she saw Ruby and the werewolf guy she had been talking to in their HU class laughing quietly to themselves. She sent them a well-placed glare. He thought he was so cool with his little brown fohawk, tinted green. Only certain people could pull that look off, and he was not one of them. As for Ruby, she was a coldhearted-
“Is Mr. Oglesby engrossing your attention, Miss Black?” Seph faced forward as she realized that, once again, Madam Powers was towering in front of her desk. “Do you think he’ll return your affections?” She remarked with a smirk, and several little laughs spread around the classroom.
The long-haired girl beside her was not joining in. Apparently, she didn’t think it was that funny either. Seph felt like she had at least one ally in the classroom. That was better than none, to be an optimist.
“Oh, Mr. Oglesby may engross her attention, Madam Powers, but never the other way around,” Ruby called up from the back as more students laughed now.
“Yea, no offense or nothin’ ta the whole… get along wit’ each otha’s differences or whateva thang,” he twanged in a deep Southern accent. “But I don’t dig on no bloodsuckas,” he finished, smirking and leering at her simultaneously.
Seph opened her mouth to retort, but Madam Powers crisply cut her off.
“Do not even think about interrupting my classroom, Miss Black, with your banter,” she remarked sharply, walking back to the front of the class to continue her lecture on a text of the Amazons.
Seph glared at the teacher. She was a bitch. Huh? What do you know? Bitch rhymed with witch. How nice. She turned back to glare at Ruby and Oglesby, and he twiddled his fingers at her annoyingly. She roamed his mind to locate his first name… Ian.
No worries, Ian. I wouldn’t touch a Southern dog li
ke you with a ten foot pole, she turned back to the front after catching Oglesby’s sudden look of surprise. His eyes scanned the classroom, but he knew who had spoken to him, in his mind. Perfect. Give them something good to talk about.
She heard whispers from the back with her new, hypersensitive ears and knew that he was informing Ruby of what he had just heard. She quietly listened in on Ruby’s thoughts while all the time pretending to pay attention to Madam Powers. Ruby thought that maybe Ian had just been hearing things or maybe this new, annoying vampire had more depths than she thought. There had been the time in HU, when she thought she heard the vampire in her head than too. Either way, she was going to keep her eye on that evil, little vamp. She was a challenge and a problem to the power she had established at this school. She may soon need to be dealt with…
Bring it on, Seph thought to herself when she felt a slight shaking of her arm. Blinking several times, she turned her head to see that the long-haired Asian girl was talking to her. She was introducing herself. What had she just said?
“Hey? You there?” The girl laughed cheerily, already small brown eyes disappearing into little more than slits.
“Oh ya, sorry. I just… zoned out,” she remarked smoothly, and the girl smiled again, the apples of her cheeks crinkling her eyes.
“Oh ya. I do that too sometimes,” she said happily, and Seph nodded. “I was just introducing myself. I’m Abernathy. Abernathy Tran,” she tapped her fingertips to her lips and then her forehead.
Was she Arabic or something? She looked Asian though. Vietnamese or Chinese, maybe.
“Persephone Black, but everybody calls me Seph,” she responded, attempting to mimic the lip to forehead movement but failing miserably.
Abernathy laughed good-naturedly.
“That’s how a wizard greets someone. We adopt many rituals of human religions. You probably recognize that as Islamic. It’s just one of our many traditions. When vampires greet, and I’ve only seen this a few times because there really aren’t that many vampires here, they grip forearms, like this,” she showed Seph, grabbing her forearm and making Seph grip her forearm.
“How do werewolves greet?” She asked curiously.
“Oh, that’s easy,” she said, smiling brightly. “They just expose their neck to each other, a mark of respect.” She showed her, brushing aside her hair to reveal the side of her neck to Seph, and her eyes followed the girl’s jugular vein raptly.
“Miss Tran, you are not a werewolf. Wishful thinking?” Madam Powers remarked coldly, attacking the only person who had tried to befriend Seph in the entire classroom, further ensuring that Seph would be viewed as a pariah.
“No, ma’am. I was just explaining to Seph about the different traditions here with the different species. You stated that she seemed to be interested with Ian over there, and he’s a werewolf. I was just showing her their way of greeting each other. In case she got confused,” Abernathy grinned happily, peppiness sparkling in the drab classroom.
“Right…” Madam Powers said no more on the matter, but she watched Seph and Abernathy out of the corner of her eye carefully, just waiting for them to talk to each other so she could attack them once again.
Always on the prowl…. She must be bored, Seph thought to herself. Slowly, she inched her foot forward. She nudged Abernathy’s black heel, wondering to herself why anyone would wear a shoe with a heel to school. Abernathy shot her a confused glance and opened her mouth to speak, but Seph just shook her head. Madam Powers was watching, hazel eyes glimmering with anticipation.
Let’s keep talking this way, she suggested and saw Abernathy do the same little jump Oglesby had done earlier. She also noticed, with displeasure, that Ruby saw this also. So she was aware that Seph probably had some telepathic powers in her, some advanced telepathic powers… Oh well… she lost an element of surprise, but she could still catch her off guard. She and Ruby may be enemies, but it was not like they were in a full-fledged war… yet.
Interesting thought. I see that you and Ruby have met before, Abernathy commented in her light tone, and Seph realized too late that the connection she had opened between them had also opened her every passing thought to Abernathy and vice versa, if she bothered to listen.
Ya, we have. I also know a friend of yours. Linda? My first two classes were with her, and Rodney was with us in the last class. They both seemed to hang out a lot. She was looking for you, Seph said, watching the teacher with a blank face so that she had no idea that the two girls were having a conversation to themselves.
Ya, I was in the infirmary with our other friend, Francesca. Have you met her? Before Seph could stop them, old memories of Francesca played through her mind. Like an old movie reel, disconnected images flickered through their shared minds. There was one of her and Francesca playing at the shed, both much younger, playing wall ball while Nate hid in the shadows, deciding whether to join them or not… They were a little older now, in her cousin’s garage, holding each other’s hands while they got their tattoos… Next, she and Francesca were facing off in the woods, Francesca in her huge werewolf form… Then, the pair of them were standing together, side by side in the rain, while authoritative persons exited a slick car… Linda was saying how Francesca had been attending Monster Academy these past two months… The vase flew to smash into the wall over Rodney’s head… Assailed with these memories, Seph finally managed to pull her foot away from Abernathy’s, but it was too late.
Seph glanced over at the other girl cautiously, and her small eyes were as wide as they could be, doleful even, catching Seph’s tormented emotions as well. Abernathy slowly inched her foot forward to touch Seph’s again and reopened their connection. She waited patiently for Seph to dissipate her wall and allow the connection to flow.
I guess you do know her… Abernathy murmured, and Seph nodded in her head.
Ya… I do. We’re best friends. Or… we were… she drifted off and moved her foot away from Abernathy’s again, riding on the waves of her roiling thoughts and emotions throughout the rest of the dull lesson.
“Tonight, I would like you to begin reading Orson Shade’s essay, Species Blending or Lack Thereof, which will be in your rooms this afternoon. Class dismissed,” Madam Powers’s voice rapped out just as the bell rang.
“Let’s go,” Abernathy said in a quiet voice, grabbing Seph’s arm and pulling her from the room before the general flood of students could block the doorway.
In the hallway, they relaxed, especially without Madam Powers breathing down their necks. It was a little awkward between them though. They had just met, but Abernathy had already had a glimpse into her mind and felt her feelings on a more personal subject than others. That was when Linda burst into view, flinging herself on Abernathy. She was pleasantly surprised to find that her best friend had already met Seph. Seph glanced to the left to see Rodney casually making his way over to them, nodding at a passing guy with a mohawk.
Seph stared at the passing guy. His skin was a little darker than Rodney’s, but they didn’t look related. He could pull off a mohawk, unlike Oglesby with his little green-tinted fohawk. This guy had a huge Mohawk, dark-brown and faded to light-brown at the tips. It looked perfect on him, even if it kind of overpowered his shorter form. He was a little scrawny. Maybe his mohawk should be a little shorter, but he could still manage to pull it off. The guy in question glanced over at her, and she immediately looked away after catching his storm-gray eyes. So he was a vampire, just like her. For not having too many vampires at this school, she sure saw them everywhere.
“That was Trey. He’s a vampire. In his fourth year,” Rodney commented, sliding up beside the three girls and ignoring Abernathy and Linda’s high-pitched chatter as they discussed Francesca. “What class do you got next?” He asked Seph, leaning a little closer to her so that they could have their own conversation.
“I have choices,” she acknowledged, glancing at the well-crumpled piece of paper. “Gnomish, Mermish, or Gobble…Gobbledegook,” she stumbled o
ver that last word, an unfamiliar term with a crease running through it. “Is Mermish that hard?” She asked him, recalling that he had been running off to that class earlier, and he shuddered.
“Do not take Mermish. It’s the hardest of the three. I wouldn’t have taken it if I had known,” he sighed, shaking his head disconsolately. “And the teacher! Ms. Maudlin Pike! She’s a … She’s a hag. I mean, for real, she’s a hag,” he said, shuddering again, and Seph laughed.
That was something she had been missing of late… laughter. It was nice to laugh again. It was nice to have friends again, friends who accepted her.
“Wow, you have some post-traumatic stress from this class,” she joked, and he nodded, eyes wide with trepidation.
“No, I’m not lyin’. Don’t take it. That hag is mean. Take Gobbledegook if you wanna challenge yourself at least a little. It’s a little difficult, but Gnomish is just plain easy. It’s basically English but with a few of their own slang words thrown in there and a few random words from random languages also. It’s really just a breeze-by class. You’re smart though. Try Gobbledegook. Sir Paolo Sanzio is pretty cool,” he admitted, and she considered it.
“Ya, I think I will take Gobbledegook,” she stumbled over that word again, and they both laughed. “You say I’m smart. You don’t know that,” she said suddenly, staring at him and the huge smile on his face.
He shrugged nonchalantly.
“My cousin might’ve mentioned that her best friend was smart, always helping her with Chemistry in high school, and then she would help me with my Chemistry, using your notes,” he admitted, and Seph frowned.
“Your cousin?” She asked, and Rodney’s face fell.
“Francesca’s my cousin… Her dad and my mom are brother and sister,” although anger rolled up inside her, she tried to remember if Francesca had ever mentioned a Rodney.
“She said she had a cousin around her age that was half-Arabic or something?” She said, and Rodney nodded, smiling.