Once again I head out of the history class with a letter burning in my bag. I obviously haven't have the time to read this one yet, but I have read all the other ones from the guy who calls himself Omega has left me in between the history book in the class. And as much as I hate it, I'm almost starting to trust him. He's been opening up to me about the weirdest things and trying to convince me there is something weird going on in the school.
I, for one, haven't noticed much. I mean, there have been a few odd instances this term, but what I've heard from some of the older students, they're nothing compared to other stuff happening around the academy from over the years.
There's a mass of people standing around in the hallway in the direction I'm heading. They're obviously looking at something, but I can't see what, at least not yet.
"Aww, man, what's going on over there?" Tauria says, walking to lunch with me from the class.
"I have no idea. But I'm hungry. It's probably nothing. It usually is nothing," I say. A scream comes from somewhere in the crowd.
"Or it's something," I say, heading into the crowd instead of around it like I was going to. Tauria nods and follows me. Together we push through to the front of the crowd.
There's a girl, a youngish girl, probably a first or second termer, sitting on the ground. She's plying with a rubber ball. I look at the girl for a while, then turn to a guy standing next to me.
"What's going on?" I ask him. He shakes his head.
"Look," he says.
A girl from the crowd is stepping into the circle of people, to the girl in the middle. She looks scared, and about as young as the girl with the ball. She has scratches all over her arms.
"Amy?" she says, with a shaking voice, "Amy, it's me, Annie. Amy?"
"This didn't work the first three times," the boy next to me whispers.
The girl is reaching out an arm, to touch her friend. Before she gets close enough to actually touch her, the sitting girl's head shoots up. I get a flash of her face. Her eyes are weird. Her pupils are a wrong shape, a non-human shape. She attacks her friend, clawing at her, scratching. She gets a scratch on her face, screams, stumbles back into the crowd. With the other girl gone the girl sitting on the floor, Amy apparently, goes back to her ball.
"Pixie possession," Tauria whispers next to me. I nod. We've read about this, in both animalogy and medical classes. Not enough to have any chance at helping her, we don't have the skills. But I would. It suddenly hits me. I think I could help this girl, with my magic. I didn't realise it at first, because I was busy thinking about something else: there are no pixies in these parts of the world. They don't come this north. They hate the cold. It summer now, but still. They're not a species that would migrate much.
So the two competing thoughts blur my head, all too confusing to react to either. A pixie shouldn't be this far north. But even so, I could help this girl. Except I can't.
"Someone has gone to get a professor, right?" I ask the boy beside me.
"Yeah, a couple of prefects showed up a while ago, and one of them went, but the campus is big, you know. It's a long way to the teachers' quarters. The other one stayed here to look over things," he points to where the girl's friend is now, shaking, crying, talking to a tall guy who wears the prefects' token on his sleeve. I guess he had tried to stop the girl from trying to talk to her friend, but the friend was to persistent.
Suddenly Amy looks up and tilts her head, as if listening. I tense too, trying to hear what she's hearing. Footsteps, coming closer. I get a glimpse of professors' robes coming towards the crowd with hurried steps. Amy jumps off the ground, hissing, heading in the opposite direction. She knocks down a couple of unfortunate bystanders that don't react fast enough, leaving her scratch marks on them, but the rest of the crowd moves out of the way fast enough to give her free passage. She disappears down the hallway, the teacher now running after her.
My head is about to burst. What just happened? Why are there pixies around here? First faeries and now this? What is happening around here?
"Tauria," I say, still staring after the girl, even though she's long gone from sight. She hums in response. "There's something I need to take care of. It won't be long. I'll catch up with you in the dining hall, ok?"
I don't wait for her to answer. I start towards the third floor, digging paper and something to write with from my bag. I'm able to write the one sentence I need to while hurrying along the corridors before I reach the unused supply closet.
We need to talk.
________________________________________________________________________
Why is there no one home this is so weird it's just me and dad what is happening here?!
Anyway
Your topic for Monday is Bag.
~matu
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