Hawthorn Academy- Year Two

by D. R. Perry

"Yeah, that's tonight." Lee twirled the spoon in his empty bowl. "He might appreciate more people rooting for him than little old me."

  "I'll be there." I nodded. "With friends from town, hopefully."

  "Oh." Logan gazed at the crumbs on his plate. "I probably shouldn't go off-campus. Not unless Headmaster Hawkins says it's safe."

  "Huh?" Lee peered at Logan. "Why not?"

  "He's avoiding the cops." Dorian grinned. "You should have seen it. They almost arrested him in the middle of Essex Street."

  "Even if I can't make it, go with Lee. You'll meet a ton of cool people, Dorian. Including Dylan." Logan got up, snagging his tray. "I should unpack and track down the headmaster. See you all later."

  "Wait." I got up. "I can't be on campus without you until school starts, remember?"

  "Oh, sorry." Logan paused, his back toward our friends at the table. "I'll walk you out."

  "See you guys later!" I waved at Lee and Dorian.

  We walked together in silence, dropping off our trays at the dishwashing window. He didn't speak until we got into the vestibule between the lobby and the exit.

  "Sorry this is so hard." I reached out and patted his shoulder. Ember landed on mine, then craned her neck toward my friend, peeping softly at him.

  "I didn't expect it to be easy, but the police?" He hung his head. Doris trotted over, rubbing her body against his legs. He opened his arms, and she jumped into them.

  "Listen, if you need me, send a message out with Lee or Dylan. I'll stop by."

  "Thanks." Logan cuddled Doris, who put her paw on his cheek. "I wish I could look on the bright side, but I'm not sure there is one."

  "It got Dorian on your side, at least. He seems like a rebel, but now maybe he'll take advice from you?"

  "We'll see." He shrugged. "I'll ask the headmaster if you can come to the library this week. I'm bringing Dorian there, so maybe Hawkins will—"

  "Maybe I'll what?"

  Last year, we would have jumped out of our shoes at the sudden interruption, but we'd gotten used to the headmaster's habit of randomly and suddenly appearing on campus.

  "Allow Aliyah to come and go freely to campus. To help Dorian." Logan peered at him. "Just so he knows more about his classmates."

  "That's difficult." The headmaster frowned. "I'd need a fully detailed academic agenda, which you haven't learned how to make yet. You can try, but I doubt you'll make a qualifying one before school starts." He reached for the door to the lobby.

  "Headmaster?" I stopped him. "Can Logan come out into town tonight? It's for a friend's event."

  The headmaster's shoulders drooped. He answered my question but addressed it to Logan instead of me.

  "I'd advise against your leaving campus until further notice, Mr. Pierce." He shook his head. "I'm sorry if that means you miss out socially, but you'll be safest here."

  "I trust your judgment, sir." Logan bent his head, letting Doris rub cheeks with him.

  Just like that, Headmaster Hawkins let go of the doorknob and vanished.

  "Maybe we can record Dylan's performance for you," I offered.

  "Nah, it's Essex Street." Logan shrugged. "See you, Aliyah."

  I didn't leave campus until the lobby door closed behind Logan. The entire walk home was spent hoping his situation might improve. Maybe I should have prayed instead.

  Chapter Eleven

  Open Mind Night

  Dylan

  On any other day, I loved the aroma of coffee and cookies—weird for a kid raised on tea and biscuits. But it was night, the kind with microphones at the Witch's Brew.

  They’d packed the place to the rafters. Instead of five or six patrons rattling around like the last handful of peas in the tin, at least thirty people milled about.

  I never minded being the center of attention. That was why I’d thought writing a spoken word piece and setting it against the backdrop of every power chord I could muster was a good idea. But the prose that came out wasn't my usual fare. Nothing humorous or even eye-rollingly corny visited my mind. Emo was more like it. Ugh.

  Apparently, music magic was a thing. I couldn't use it, but once I saw the sizeable crowd, I thought maybe I should've tried learning it anyway. I hadn't bothered doing the research, and I’d called myself an overachiever back in London. So much for local coffee shop stardom. I'd flop, I knew it. Nothing felt more sure at that point in my life, less than a week after Grace Dubois had dumped me outside the Engine House, then sat there with our friends like the world hadn't ended.

  There’d been no way to argue with her. I wanted to be with her, and I cared about her more than anyone I’d been with. She wanted to take things to the next level, and I’d kept her waiting on that for over six months.

  Something about the idea of sex with Grace didn’t feel right. Mum always said that when Dad kissed her, the world went away. Nothing close to that ever happened when Grace kissed me. I told her I just wasn’t ready, but the truth was, I might never be, and I didn’t know why.

  I'd avoided everyone since then except for Lee Young. He was the chillest person at Hawthorn, so it was nearly impossible to feel awkward around him. He'd never been particularly good friends with Grace either, unlike the rest of my school chums.

  I glanced down at the sign-up sheet. Fortunately, two people had signed up before me, so I wouldn't have to open, at least. I wouldn't have to perform at all if I didn't want to. I still hadn't taken the essential leap—inking my name on the paper. Without that last action, I'd be off the hook.

  I almost walked away. None of the locals or tourists in this place cared if this particular air magus got on the stage. I wasn't famous, though some of my regular customers from Walgreens nodded and smiled in greeting.

  That was it, then. I set the pen down and almost let it go. Maybe I could practice for another week. Perhaps I'd even manage to write a piece with at least one pun for the following Sunday. Nobody would know or care, I thought. I was wrong.

  Gale, my dragonet, snored on the coat rack. Maybe he had the right idea—sleep this impulse and my misery off. But before the pen contacted the table’s surface, I glanced up. Big mistake. I couldn't walk away since most of my friends had shown up.

  Lee Young held the door open and Aliyah Morgenstern walked through it, leading the usual crew. She hadn't just brought Izzy and Cadence, either. Oh, no, practically everyone followed her in, kids from town and Hawthorn Academy and one I didn’t recognize, a goth guy only slightly taller than Hal Hawkins.

  There was one blessed absence from the usual crew, however. Grace Dubois was nowhere to be seen. If I'd spotted her, I would have done my best to look invisible and beat feet out the back door. I'd rather get up in front of Parliament in my skivvies than perform in a coffee shop with her in the audience.

  Don't get me wrong. There's nothing horrible about Grace. It wasn't her fault my heart was broken. But the last thing I wanted was for her to hear these words I’d written about her. Her absence gave me strength.

  I twirled the pen in my fingers, pointed the business end of it at the paper, and wrote my name on the third line. After that, I took a deep breath and carried my guitar over to the ordering line. A nice cold drink was a requirement at that point.

  In the UK, I would've snuck a flask of whisky from Dad’s study. But crossing the ocean was impossible, so I settled for red zinger tea on ice, extra honey. As I waited in line, something tugged at my elbow.

  I looked down to find Ember, Aliyah's familiar, clutching my sleeve and peeping up a storm. She peered at the area around my neck and even tried looking down my shirt. Clearly, she hoped to see Gale. Our familiars were all friends, too.

  "Peep?" She tapped my nose with her snout, then pulled her head back, blinking.

  "He's over there, Ember." I jerked my chin at the coat rack beside the stained glass clock.

  "Peep!" Ember took off, sweeping up toward the perch to meet her friend. He woke instantly and they jumped up and down, greeting each other and waving their tails. If only I
was that happy to see my friends, but their presence only made me more nervous than I'd expected.

  When the barista handed me my tea, I took it in a trembling hand but remembered to tip. I’d worked food service long enough to appreciate how much work she'd done. The glass was slippery and I worried about dropping it, even though I was one of the best athletes at school. I'd never been clumsy—an asset, I guess, with all the jobs I needed just to afford Hawthorn Academy.

  I had a scholarship for tuition, but supplies and the mundane aspects of living were more expensive than most kids my age understood. You needed personal care items and clothes, basic stuff almost all of my classmates took for granted. That brought me back to why I'd ended up in a relationship with Grace: she knew that struggle firsthand. I closed my eyes, wishing I was back in my dorm practicing. At least that had felt something like solace.

  Making a spectacle out of myself wasn’t an issue until my feelings got involved. Not just feelings. I’d had those all my life and expressed them, but up until this summer, they'd been overwhelmingly positive. What bothered me was expressing the other side. I thought nobody would tolerate negativity. The things you learn in school, right?

  "You mind if I come do this with you next week?"

  I turned, finding the unfamiliar Hawthorn student behind me. As it turned out, he was slightly more punk than goth, though almost equal parts of both. A familiar perched on his shoulder, a white gryphon with the head of some sort of seabird.

  "For open mic? No, I don't mind." I shrugged. "But I don't know why you'd need me around."

  "Because if I'm not a complete idiot, you're Logan Pierce's roommate from Hawthorn Academy. I'm Dorian Spanos, your new classmate." He held out his hand. The gryphon tilted its head, cawing softly. "And this is Mercy."

  "Dylan Khan. My familiar is Gale, the blue guy on the coat rack." I went to shake his hand, but he pulled back quickly.

  "Too slow." Dorian grinned. "Seriously, man, thanks. Your roommate talked about you for like an hour today. He thinks you rock harder than diamonds."

  "Logan?" I blinked. "He's here?"

  "No, he had to stay on campus, but he asked me to say hi. He's mentoring me because I transferred from the Academy." Dorian snorted. "Lucky me, I get to start school on probation."

  "Isn't that a task for the best student in the class?" I was surprised because my roommate couldn't have the top grades. He had a learning disability. More than one, with accommodations and everything. "Logan's—"

  "Yeah, I know, right?" Dorian threw back his head and laughed. "Definitely doesn't seem like the brand of straight-laced on most eggheads, but there you go."

  "Okay." I wasn't sure what Dorian meant by that. Logan took practically everything seriously. Had he changed? I didn't want to know, at least not during a bout of stage fright. "You're a poet, then?"

  "Oh, no way." Dorian glanced at the barista waving at him. "You'll see sometime. Later, dude, my order's up."

  "Later."

  I scanned the room for an empty seat, someplace I could take a load off while waiting for my turn at the mic, but I saw nothing nearby. The only empty tables were over by the entrance, and I didn't want to walk all that way once they called me. Fortunately, there was a counter with plain wooden stools where I could set my drink down and lean for a while, so I took that option.

  "Heard you were coming." I turned, finding Aliyah’s brother Noah behind me. "Overheard a couple of other things too. Sorry about Grace."

  "Oh, thanks, Noah," I said and nodded. "I didn't expect to see you at open mic night."

  "I'm usually here in the summer. Just not last week." He glanced at my glass of tea, where my hand gripped it. "Nervous? It's okay if you are. Elanor gets butterflies every single time she sees the light that means they're recording. Calls it red-light fever, and she's been in front of a camera since birth, practically."

  "I'm not usually nervous. It's just that tonight, the piece I'm doing is personal." I glanced at the crowd. "I thought it'd be totally dead in here."

  "Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles." Noah elbowed my arm. "At least you've got a whole table of people rooting for you."

  "Why don't you go sit with them?"

  "They're all Aliyah's friends. And yours. Not mine."

  "I'd like to think we all could get along."

  "That's easier said than done in my experience." Noah turned his hand, curling his fingers to study his nails. "Things get complicated, especially when certain relationships end."

  I didn't have much to say to that. Not anything I wanted to hear come out of my mouth, anyway, so I nodded. Even if I only partially agreed with Noah, his feelings were valid. He'd been through a bad breakup too.

  The first act went on, a guy who introduced himself as Ethan. It was the telekinetic psychic who worked at the Engine House. He waited tables and ran the register there, using his powers to aid in his work. At times I envied him.

  Levitating food and beverages to customers would have made my food service job on campus so much easier. But we are what we are, and I was an air magus, not a telekinetic psychic. Maybe someday I'd have enough control of my element to create that effect.

  Ethan had music playing during his act but didn't utter a sound the entire time. His whole performance was telekinetic, done while standing almost perfectly still. He turned himself into something like the eye of a storm using various stuff from a bag he had on stage with him plus random things patrons brought up. They stepped forward one at a time, adding to the whirling collection around him.

  The items from his bag all gave off light somehow. Some of them were glow sticks, the kind kids carried on Halloween while trick or treating. Others were flashlights, which he flipped on their axes to make strobing patterns. Napkins, stirrers, lids, and even cups joined them. He made patterns with the items, moving them back and forth around over and under each other. When he finished, he set everything down simultaneously in a semi-circle behind him on the small platform that served as a stage.

  I was glad I wasn't second. I pulled the sheet of paper with my poem on it out of my pocket, glancing down at it. I felt like maybe it wouldn't be enough. Ethan's would be a hard act to follow.

  The next performer didn't seem to mind, though. She looked familiar in a vague way, like she was related to someone I knew. Her hair was reddish-orange and riotously curly like the Disney princess who accidentally turned her mother into a bear, but this woman was decades past thirteen. She wore a green t-shirt that said Redheads Have More Fun and carried a block of clay with her.

  I blinked, shaking my head, wondering what kind of performance she could possibly do with that grayish cube of earth.

  "That's Wanda Ambersmith, Azrael's cousin. She's a sculptor." Noah jerked his chin at the clay.

  "That's not performance art." I blinked.

  "Just watch her." His smirk was like a dare.

  Noah was right. Without using her hands, Wanda shaped the clay before our eyes in a process reminiscent of time-lapse photography. She worked faster than any mundane sculptor I'd heard of, and more neatly too. In Creatives at school, some of us worked clay, but nobody in my year was an earth magus like Wanda. Time wasn't the only thing she didn't waste. All the clay became something, no excess cut off or moved aside.

  At the end of her performance, she lifted a small statue off the table in front of her, holding it up for the entire crowd to see. My heart sank more spectacularly than the Titanic because it was a moon hare—Grace’s moon hare, Lune. It even had the scar on his flank. My ex must've spent all her time with the Ambersmiths that summer. Must still be spending time with them.

  Instead of the usual rounds of applause, spectators came up to have a look at the sculpture. That gave me time to run away. I grabbed at the paper with my poem, but it wasn't on the counter anymore. I glared at Noah, who held it up, lips moving as he read the words silently.

  "I'm getting out of here," I snarled. "Give that back."

  "You'll do no such thing." Noah h
eld the paper over his head. "Your poem's amazing and needs to be spoken aloud. It's a little raw but totally moving. I understand why you don't want to do it here, not with this crowd, but you will get up there and play. I'll read this so you don't have to. Lord knows it's no foreign sentiment to me."

  "What?" I blinked.

  "Open your ears and your mind." Noah held the paper between us. "You heard me. I'll let you go if you're really not okay with this, but you'll owe me a favor later."

  "No." I looked Noah in the eye, surprised at finding an unexpected ally, one who'd been through something quite similar the year before. "No need for that. Yeah, you can read it. And if anyone asks who wrote it, we don't answer."

  "You're an odd duck, Dylan Khan, but not from a bad egg." Noah grinned when the MC called my name. "Let's go."

  Noah sauntered toward the platform, stepping on top without breaking his stride. I followed, staying behind him. I used to play MMOs, the kind of video game where you team up with your mates and slay Internet dragons. In those teams, one player got in front of the others, took all the hits, and kept the boss occupied while the rest of the team laid out heaping piles of damage. We called them "The Tank."

  Even though this open mic idea was all mine and I'd written the words, Noah Morgerstern stepped into the spotlight for me. He tanked that behemoth of a crowd, keeping their attention. If it wasn't for his decision to help, all the misery racing through my subconscious would have stayed under the surface, festering.

  He waited until I'd strummed a few bars of the cobbled-together chords before speaking my words.

  “An Open Mind

  You said we'd always be open.

  Arms, hearts, minds.

  But I can't find

  Any good reason

  In this smolder season

  Why I'm left behind.

  All the things you were

  And I wasn't.

  What mattered to you but

  Doesn't

  Sit on my shoulders

  Well, we're older