Intense, indescribable embarrassment consumed her, burned up her body until it settled on her neck and cheeks. She stood and began picking up her clothes. She slipped her sweater over her head then her underwear and her pants with tears stinging her eyes. She was about to walk to the kitchen and unpack to distract herself when her knees gave way under her. She collapsed onto the couch. Sobs racked her body, tears of shame and anger, of helplessness and confusion. Was her life already laid out for her? Had some ancient seer predicted her future? Did it include a life of loneliness and misery? Desmond had said she belonged to another. She wondered what the hell that meant. She wanted Desmond, not this mystery person he’d spoken of. And with her luck, the other man would not be a man at all, but some awful troll of a being she’d be forced to spend eternity with.
Too many questions turned in her mind. Surely someone had the answers, someone willing to share them. Desmond merely offered her cryptic clips. She did not know where he’d gotten his information from or how he’d gotten it, but she wanted to know more. It was her damn life, after all.
Arianna wiped her eyes with the bottom of her sweater and walked to the kitchen, determined to finish unpacking the kitchen, at the very least, and to make a conscious effort to forget about Desmond.
Chapter 5
Streaks of sherbet orange colored the early morning sky. For the first time in her life, Arianna had awakened without the blaring of an alarm clock. Her eyes had simply popped open of their own accord to see a violet predawn canvas giving way to ribbons of salmon pink. The view from her bedroom was nothing short of breathtaking and would take little time getting used to. Her last bedroom had boasted scenery through a rectangular sliver of a window that had included an oversized satellite dish and the top of the trailer beside it. Between those two eyesores, she had only been able to glimpse a slice of the outdoors. To say her new view was better than the old was a gross understatement.
She rolled over onto her back and stared up at her freshly painted ceiling. Everything was different at her new cabin, including the glaring fact that she was alone. New bedding, new clothes and a nice new place to live were, well, nice. But she would trade all of it to have her mother back.
Thoughts of her mother allowed familiar pangs of grief to encroach. That, and the events of the night before rushed to the forefront of her mind and jockeyed for the distinguished title of which would make her cry first. Being stark naked and about to have sex with a guy, only to have him reject her flat-out had wounded her ego badly. She had strong feelings for Desmond, had wanted to indulge in something pleasurable for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. But even that had been taken from her. She was not the kind of girl who was prone to pity parties. If she’d spent her life bemoaning all that had happened to her, it would have consumed her completely and been a twenty four-hour-a-day job. She’d always taken life as it came, and dealt with it accordingly. But nothing that had happened since the dawn of her powers had been easily dealt with. Death, destruction, humiliation and loss after loss made regaining her footing on her path next to impossible. Arianna felt her cheeks burn with shame, frustration, and plain old sadness. She did not want to begin her first day at the last high school she’d ever attend with swollen, red eyes, so she drove each painful thought to the back of her mind, forcefully evicted every one of them until her mind was left with a strange numbness. She’d return to them later. She’d have plenty of time after school, and in the future, to mourn.
A glance at the clock on her nightstand revealed it was just after six o’clock in the morning. Her first class did not start until seven thirty, but she assumed she needed to get there early for her obligatory meeting with the principal and guidance counselor, and for a tour. Arianna groaned aloud at the memory of her last tour at Herald Falls High School. Going through the whole welcome-to-our-shitty-school rigmarole again seemed like cruel and unusual punishment, especially since she’d been through it so many times. Surely, a statute of limitation on such acts of torture existed somewhere. The only redeemable part of it all was that today would be the last time she would ever have to endure it. Her mother was gone and moving was up to her. Arianna had never liked moving from place to place like a gypsy. She’d always envied people who had true roots to where they were, people who had lived in a town, or state for that matter, for their whole life. The length of time she and her mom would spend in a particular area had always been dependent upon her mother’s fickle taste in men. Such was no longer the case. Now she was in charge, and the taste of power was bittersweet.
A single tear slipped from her cheek. She quickly brushed it away with the back of her hand and sat up. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. The plush carpet was warm and soft beneath her feet as she padded toward the small bathroom in her bedroom. She’d never had more than one bathroom in any place she’d lived. And she’d had to share it with at least one other person. Now, she had two bathrooms and lived alone. Two seemed decadent. A small smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth at the notion of having two bathrooms. She would have killed for two when she and her mother had lived at Carl’s place before they’d moved to Herald Falls. Carl’s bathroom habits and his utter lack of cleanliness had left much to be desired. But Carl was a part of a past that seemed distant. And today was the first day of her new life, one that included the title of Sola, a role she was still uncertain of how to perform. She would figure that out, and many other things in her life, another time, though. Presently, school awaited her arrival and she needed to ready herself for it.
After brushing her teeth, taking a quick shower and dressing, Arianna ate breakfast and headed to school. She drove her mother’s old Camry and decided to park it in the farthest spot in the lot from the actual school building in hopes of avoiding attention. To her surprise, there were many other cars just like hers. In varying states of dilapidation that ranged from rust to tied-on bumpers, the vast majority were older models. The area surrounding the school had looked like the average working-class neighborhood, but experience had taught her that that meant little. The parking lot always told the whole story. The one she was currently in upheld the story the neighborhood had told.
She remained in her car and lit a cigarette, the need to calm her nerves sudden. She did not know why she was nervous. She’d had enough first days of school to last her a lifetime. None of them had been nerve-racking. Why this one would be any different from those was beyond her. Nevertheless, she smoked and felt only slightly better before she climbed out and began walking to the front doors of the school.
Her first stop was at the principal’s office. Located on the right side immediately after the threshold of the main entrance, the principal’s office had been the most conveniently located to date. She strolled in and was greeted by man hunched over a copy machine.
“Stupid freaking thing!” he said to the machine. “I’ve cleared your damn paper jam!”
Arianna cleared her throat to alert him to her presence.
He looked up and she was taken aback briefly. With light brown stylishly mussed hair and big brown eyes, the man appeared to be in his early thirties and hardly resembled the schoolmarm secretary type that had gravitated to every other administrative office in every other school she’d been to.
“Can I help you?” he asked and smiled.
“Uh, yeah, I have an appointment with Principal Keller,” she said.
“Ah, yes,” the man said and walked behind an empty desk in the far corner of the office. He flipped through the pages of a date book and said, “You must be Arianna Rose.”
“Yep, that’s me,” Arianna replied.
“You’re early though,” he said and glanced at the clock mounted on the wall to her left.
“Oh, yeah, I just assumed I would have to meet with the principal then the guidance counselor then take the tour of the school and all that. If he’s not here, I can come back.”
“No, no, he’s here,” the man said.
“Okay, gr
eat,” she said then mumbled, “I can’t wait to meet him.”
“Ooh, that doesn’t sound like happiness to be here,” the man said and quirked a brow at her. “Not a big fan of principals I take it?”
“No, not really, if we’re being honest,” she admitted.
“Why not?”
“I don’t think I should say,” she said warily.
“Ah, go for it. What’s wrong with a little honesty?”
“Huh, you want the list?”
“Nah, just an answer.”
“Okay then, here goes. In my experience, which is a lot, by the way, all principals are the same.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“How so?”
“Let’s see, where do I begin? Bad breath, bad suits, bad listeners, and don’t let me forget that they’re all pompous, power-tripping windbags.”
“Is that all?”
“That pretty much covers it,” Arianna said and shrugged.
The man laughed.
“What? You know I’m right. You just don’t want to agree with me because he might hear you.”
“Who?”
“You know, Principal Keller.”
The man shook his head and said, “Come on, Arianna, I’ll take you back to his office.”
She followed him down a short hallway and into a large office. “Have a seat,” he told her then sat behind a large cherry wood desk. He leaned back in the leather chair and put his feet on the corner of the desk.
Arianna began to panic and wondered whether she’d started off yet another first day of school on the wrong foot, perhaps the worst one to date. Everything clicked and her heart dropped to her feet.
“You’re Principal Keller?” she asked.
“Bingo!” he replied and laughed.
She felt her jaw unhinge and knew she must look like an idiot. She did not know what to do or say. Surely words existed in the English language to apologize with, convincing words. Unfortunately, all of them were escaping her.
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry, you know, about the stuff I said earlier. I just, well, it’s just that,” she fumbled.
“No need to apologize. Most of my colleagues do wear bad suits, have bad breath, and, what was the rest? Oh yes, they’re bad listeners, as well as pompous, power-tripping windbags. Did I forget anything?”
“Nope, I think you got everything,” she replied and shrank into her seat.
Despite being the most powerful witch on the planet, or so she’d been told, and possessing the ability to incinerate any man she pleased including the one before her, she still felt a nervous drop of sweat trickle between her shoulder blades in her principal’s office.
“Very well then, let me properly introduce myself. I am Josh Keller, principal of this fine school,” he said and smiled. He sat up and removed his feet from the corner of his desk. He picked up a manila file and scanned it quickly. “You are Arianna Rose.”
“Yep, Arianna Rose with a big old foot in her mouth at the moment. That’s me,” she said and felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment.
“Please don’t sweat what happened. How could you have known? I mean, I’m not even wearing a suit, least of all the telltale ugly suit of a principal.”
“Huh, true,” Arianna commented. “If I may ask, why aren’t you wearing a suit?”
“Truthfully, I hate them. Really, truly hate them.”
He didn’t like a suit? Impossible! She thought all principals adored their awful suits, that they were their uniforms of sorts. She wondered whether she’d entered an alternate, Twilight Zone-y dimension. Never before had an adult in a position of authority been so honest with her. Principal Keller was unlike any other she’d ever met. Another principal would have made her squirm mercilessly before offering up a severe punishment for her comments earlier. Keller didn’t even seem offended, much less like he would seek future retribution. If she weren’t in some alternate dimension, then perhaps this new school had potential, after all.
“So I see here you’re transferring from Herald Falls after less than two months there. What was your experience like there? Were there problems you’d like to discuss?”
Arianna wasn’t sure how to handle his question. She’d prepared to tell a lie, but somehow lying to Keller felt wrong.
“My mom died,” she heard herself say. “And the thought of living where I’d lived with her seemed, I don’t know, unbearable.”
“Wow,” he said and frowned sincerely. “That’s awful. When did this happen?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Shit,” he breathed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I mean, shoot,” he caught himself.
First, he let her snarky principal comments roll off his back, then he, made the suit comment, and now he cursed. She liked him more and more by the minute.
“No worries. I say shit practically every other word,” she said and wasn’t lying.
“Two weeks ago? You lost your mom just two weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“How are you and your dad coping?”
“No dad; it’s just me?”
“You’re all alone? No family to look after you?”
“Nope. I’m eighteen, so I’m on my own. Not that my mom had anyone lined up for me. She was an only child and my dad, well, who knows who he is.”
“That’s terrible,” he said.
Arianna hadn’t discussed any of her feelings since losing her mother, Luke and Lily. Hearing another human being offer a simple sentence like Principal Keller just had, his sympathy, actually mattered to her. He came across like a cool uncle or father. Of course, she did not have a barometer by which to gauge such family members, but she’d heard of them, had seen their types depicted on television. To her, kind or understanding male family members were like the Yeti: elusive, fabled beings she’d never encountered.
“It has been.”
“What are you doing here, if you don’t mind me asking? Why not finish out your senior year in an online program?”
He sounded like Desmond, but for different reasons, naturally. Keller didn’t know she was a witch, a deadly one at that, who was essentially followed by death.
“My mom always wanted me to graduate from high school. She wanted to see me in my cap and gown, walking in the procession, soaking up all the pomp and circumstance, you know?”
He nodded solemnly. “I do.”
“So I guess I just want to honor her by doing it, the old-fashioned way she would have enjoyed,” she said and heard her voice crack with emotion.
She stared at her lap and feverishly blinked back the tears that threatened, determined to make it through her first day without crying. But when she looked up and saw that Keller’s eyes had welled up, too, several slipped down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said and wiped them. “Shit, I didn’t mean to get all talk-show-guest-emotional on you.”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Are you actually apologizing for being upset that your mother died?”
She thought about what he was saying. He was right. She was apologizing for no reason. “I guess I am.”
“Well don’t. My wife, passed two years ago. Cancer. Two years, and I’m not over it, not by a long shot. And here you are two weeks out of the gate and trying to honor your mom’s memory by finishing school. I don’t know what to say. Either you are a masochist or a superhuman.”
He seemed so close to guessing what she was. Both of his guesses were wrong, of course, but close, damn close. She was a witch and therefore a supernatural being, not a superhuman.
“I’m neither,” she said. “I’m just a girl trying to push forward with her life, I guess.”
Keller pursed his lips and stared at her for several moments.
“So when do I meet with the guidance counselor and take the school tour?” she asked nervously.
“Oh, really, you were expecting those?” he asked and stroked his chin. “Well, I guess I could arrange for it, if you’d like. But I’ve alwa
ys found those things so, unnecessary, and a bit stupid if you want to know the truth.”
“You think guidance counselors are stupid?”
“No. Not really. The tours, now they are stupid. Guidance counselors just make bigger deals of things than needs to be made and get students worked up for no reason. If teachers did their jobs, guidance counselors wouldn’t be needed.”
Again, Arianna felt her mouth drop. His status in her eyes went from the outhouse before she’d met him, to the penthouse when he’d let her off the hook then made his suit comment, and now, after his guidance counselor remark, he skyrocketed to the stratosphere.
“I absolutely agree with you,” she said unable to mask her shock and adulation. “Wow, I’ve never heard a teacher or principal be so honest. Wow.”
“So no tour?” he smiled.
“No tour.”
“Good.”
“So what’s next?”
“I’ll print out your course schedule and you can head on off to class,” he said and smiled.
“Great.”
Keller’s fingers danced across the keyboard of his computer and seconds later a sheet of paper slid from his printer. He grabbed it and handed it to her. “Here you go.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it. Oh and here is your locker number and its combination,” he said after scribbling several numbers on his blotter then tearing the piece off.
Arianna took the paper from him and said, “Wow, thanks for making this so, I don’t know, painless,” she gushed. “And sorry again for before, for my whole principal rant.”
“No need to worry about it. Though your words will echo through my head next week.”
“Why? What’s next week?”
“A weekend mixer with every pompous, bad breathed, ugly suit wearing principal in the district,” he laughed.
Arianna smiled then whispered, “You left out the part about being bad listeners and being windbags.”
Planet Urth Boxed Set Page 48