Lucy watched as Avery’s leg bounced, nervous.
At the back of the room, students who had remained were restless, leaning against walls, their eyes boring holes into the back of the heads of those students who’d just escaped indoors.
Past them, windows on either side of the front doors showed Shellie and Rae peering through. Shellie was talking and Rae answered.
The windows narrowed, then disappeared, becoming simple stone walls. Lucy blinked, turning. Raymond held a remote, not even breaking stride in his lecture.
“…and the line grows fuzzier as we introduce the middle ground elements. An object of prominence has a complex spirituality. In the right circumstances, sometimes something as simple as using particularly trained Sight, that spirituality may be made manifest with its own personality. As an object is used, with history leaving its mark in minor wear and tear, damage, chipped paint, and whatever else, that spirit gains a memory. It can pick up echoes, playing into the complex spirituality. Where do we draw the line, then? When can we say that this is simply an object that has witnessed life, and this is an object that has life?”
Ray walked across the stage.
Verona was paying rapt attention. To look at her, and see her taking her notes in a cursive that had never felt easy or natural for Lucy to do, it didn’t even seem like the notion that they’d just poked the bear, their headmaster, and put themselves between Bristow’s students, his Aware and Bristow himself.
If this class wrapped up, they’d lose the protection that Raymond gave them.
You wanted to do this, Verona. I hope you’re on the ball.
A diagram flared, momentarily distracting Lucy. Raymond had touched the keyboard of the laptop he’d placed on a lectern, off to the side.
A small bike moved away from the wall. It squeaked a bit, disused, as pedals moved and it wobbled, nearly tipping over twice as it crossed the stage right-to-left, turned, heading into a near-collision with a shelf, then turned, crossing the stage again, left-to-right.
“Use your Sight if you’re not already,” Raymond said.
The bike’s rider was like a stained glass window in the rough shape of a person, but the individual panels and what was viewable through them differed, and the edges were soft. Some of the ‘staining’ in that stained glass mirror was especially evident at palms, at knees, at hands, even a spot at the cheek.
The squeaking of the wheels had changed. She touched her earring, tilting her head.
“Hah hah hah, wheeeee,” the Bike squeaked out the words, faint and reedy and barely audible. The ‘hah’s went along with pushes of the pedals, the ‘wheeee’ coincided with it coasting for a few times, the stained glass figure lifting its legs up.
“Pay attention to the movement mode of the living object. Objects that can propel themselves, like this bike and its spirit rider-”
Raymond paused to give the bike a firm push as it looped past him.
“Wheeeeee,” the faint voice could be heard. The figure on the bike lifted hands and feet away from handle and pedal, all four limbs lifted into the air, prompting a violent wobble as it corrected and made a right turn.
“-Simple enough,” Raymond continued. “They move easily. Virtually any power could be used to get them moving on their own. Through that movement, they may perpetuate an action or help keep themselves going. If they can’t, the energy may be spent. If there is unattended energy freely available, it may drink them in. This particular complex spirit collected energy from unattended practices and things that had been set up to gather and bank power, then ignored. It fed and gained clarity through attention. Most weekends, the bike would roll downhill from the old eccentric’s house, then stubbornly and carefully make its way around back, avoiding all possible interaction and nearly spending itself of power before arriving at the property, refilling on its fuel, then repeating the process. If it ran out, got too much innocent attention, or fell, chances are good it wouldn’t have resumed moving.”
He walked a few steps to intercept, then put a hand on the bike, jogging along with it, pushing it as he went. It circled the stage with more vigor and energy.
“What, then, of other objects?” Raymond asked.
He tapped a key on the keyboard. Another diagram flared on the stage, and a matching diagram on the ceiling made it possible to see what that diagram looked like. Pretty simple, really. A lot of ‘pluto’ signs in diamonds.
“A digression: those of you who have attended lectures on the habits of Others may recall that we can have Others who only exist in the context of their nature. The ghul obitus is more ephemeral than many other types of ghoul, fleeting and vague, with a wide hunting ground and prerequisite for hunting that increase in scope as it gains power. It simply does not truly exist in a real, physical capacity when it’s not active, with no hiding place and no bed, grave, or hovel it rests in where it may be hunted. It is potential energy, an apple held in the air, waiting to be dropped, at which point it will take action for a short span of time, often days, before it makes its impact. Ghouls live on the threshold of life and death, like spinning tops perpetually wobbling, and they keep themselves going by feeding on lives on the brink of death, or the freshly dead, as close to being still warm as they may hope The ghul obitus holds off on existing, hibernating until someone passes through its sphere of influence. This particular ghul obitus looks for young people who are slowly and inevitably dying and sufficiently detached from everything else. It could be considered a vulture, circling. Some unnerve or terrify the victim in their last moments. Others simply watch, a recurring figure that eases the dying into the realization of what’s coming as they realize nobody else can see this dark figure.”
Raymond walked in front of the diagram. As he passed, a figure appeared behind him. A teenager with a leather jacket and goth makeup. She held a cassette player to her chest. She looked nervous.
“You’re safe, Musette,” Raymond said. “We discussed you coming to my class, remember?”
Musette nodded. She looked across the room. She froze, staring at one part of the room, and Lucy twisted around, looking at a stricken Laila.
“Uhhh,” Laila drew out the sound.
“Musette, would you care to explain? The-”
The bike circled around, and it cut its path across the diagram the ghoul was in, disturbing the chalk. Raymond sighed.
The girl in the circle darted out, heading for the darkness by the shelves, off to the side.
Raymond crossed the stage, heading for that spot, stopped, then went for another section of shelves. “The circle is for your own health and protection, Musette. Trust me.”
He bent down, then slid the cassette player across the floor. It stopped in the middle of the diagram.
He walked over, fixed the chalk with a chalk pen in his pocket, then straightened. He gave the bike another push in passing.
It passed the circle, and as it obstructed the view, the girl appeared again.
“Would you address the class?”
Musette straightened. She looked around, then adjusted her headphones. “Little kids like me.”
“I used to hang out there, at hospitals with lots of kids. But it’s easier to, eh, be, if I’ve got something to latch onto.”
“The cassette player,” Raymond said. “You latched onto it.”
“Belonged to a girl I got along with. She gave it to me. Perdita.”
“Once you latched onto it, you would appear here and there, often to get collected and stuck in the lost and found. But if there was a young boy or girl who fit the right profile…”
“Most are a bit younger than I look. They don’t usually have family, or they don’t like their family, if they do. Their friends have stopped visiting. I try to be like a cool big sister, when they have nobody else. Most often I’m a friend. If they’re lonely, I’m company. If they’re bored, I’m entertainment. Sometimes I’ll check in a few times, then they get better, so I move on. Once I’m sure, I give them this.”
“You’re sure because…?”
“Because it costs if I give myself over and latch on, then I don’t get to eat.”
“And the rest of the process?”
“The closer they get, the more I hang out. Until I’m there whenever nurses and staff aren’t. If they have a place they want to be or a thing they want to do, I sometimes pay a bit of myself to keep… you said we were like spinning tops.”
“Yes. Of note, I said that before you clearly manifested. You heard.”
“Yes. I keep them spinning for the last day or last few hours. One day to sneak out of the hospital, go shopping, go to a movie, or maybe go to the beach. Usually one thing. The last one, I took her back to school, after hours, so she could sit at her desk again. Then they go, I like to listen to music with them at the end. Then I eat, I leave nothing behind unless they ask.”
“Are you the cassette player?”
“I’ll give you my word, I have no intention of doing so, and I’d take drastic action to prevent it from coming to pass, but if someone were to attack the cassette player itself…?”
Musette hugged the device to her chest, eyes narrowing.
“It would harm you. You and it are intertwined.”
Lucy looked at Verona, with the full expectation that Verona would be on the edge of her seat, in love with this Other.
And maybe she was, a bit, but Verona’s attention wasn’t on the ghoul. Instead, her focus was on a window. So was Avery’s. Lucy had to lean into Verona to get an angle to see.
Shellie was outside the window, pacing and peering through. Ted was in the background.
John took a step away from the wall, saw, and tensed. Lucy hesitated, then put her hand over his, to get his attention. She shook her head.
The number of distracted students was apparently pretty obvious to Raymond. He turned, looked, then gave the bike a push on his way to the laptop. He spent a second typing.
Lines began to spread out, with long, narrow triangles fanning out across the ceiling. Then, like the world was a broken mirror, each shard given its own context, images of a hospital with a very high ceiling began to phase in.
He typed more, and then an outdoor scene with rain falling onto a rural street appeared. They added up until there was no view out through the window. Or, presumably, in.
Raymond stopped pacing. He remained where he was, glancing around, before he audibly sighed. “I have three more things I came prepared to discuss, including a tea set with an echo in each cup, a tutelary statue of Ninomiya Sontoku from a foreign high school, and a darker choice in a sapient, death-defying mask… but it seems we’re all distracted.”
Nobody replied, but a few people nodded.
“How is a death-defying mask a bad thing?” Verona whispered.
Verona was the distracted one, Lucy judged.
“This is a topic close to my heart,” he said, giving the bicycle another push. “The Others who reside in or around items can be some of the most secure. They operate on more relaxed time scales, and as they lack the desperate edge that drives some Others, they are some of the easiest to get along with, or to study over the long term. Technomancy is a passion, but this work is a cozy space to go back to when I need to get away from the worlds of static and electricity. I hoped to impart some of that peace on students when I suggested teaching this today. I’m sorry it doesn’t work. Does anyone have any questions, or should we terminate the lecture now?”
“Can we keep class going a bit longer?” Zachariah asked.
“We could,” Raymond said. “But keeping this going doesn’t fix anything. Before we move on, Musette, are you comfortable?”
Musette stirred, as if shaken from deep thought. What had she been doing? She’d been looking at…
Lucy looked up. John was still standing by the bench, hand on the backrest.
“You can leave if you want. I can send you somewhere convenient,” Raymond said.
“This is fine for now.”
“Okay,” Raymond said.
“Everything okay, John?” Lucy whispered.
“She likes music, she’s young, she’s tied to… dark forces, I guess?” Avery asked.
Like Yalda? A bit of a connection.
John’s eyebrows knit together for a moment, then he absorbed that and said, “Yeah. Maybe.”
“This…” Raymond said, “If you’ll excuse the pivot in the subject of what I’m teaching here, is new. As a technomancer by trade, I spend a great deal of time thinking about the new, anticipating the coming trends, and in the grand scheme of it all, where we stand today is still very new. For thousands of years, practice was in the hands of a very small few. Then it was in families, who most often kept a distance from one another, sometimes trading knowledge or intermarrying. But our world is shrinking, our urban areas growing, the power we covet only grows as our competitors draw closer and multiply. We find one another at each other’s throats.”
Lucy glanced back. The few who remained at the very back were as still and quiet as the students at the front.
“I have no high aspirations,” Raymond said. “I don’t want to be rich, powerful, or world-renowned. I’m interested in my work, I want to maintain and pass on resources sufficient for my apprentices to do well, and I want to teach. I find myself in an unfortunate position where I cannot take a side, because the moment I do, I become a practitioner that the greedy and ambitious have to take into- or out of consideration.”
“Just about all of us are facing some risk,” Lucy raised her voice.
“You are. And in simpler circumstances, it could be worth it to put my neck out and take steps to handle something as important as what is happening to our school. My problem is that my work has a global presence and I would make global enemies if I crossed certain lines or displayed any agenda. I chose to stick my neck out already, consolidating information, creating marketplaces, and creating the infrastructure to bind and monitor the new Others out there in the digital landscape. For me to act now wouldn’t be me sticking my neck out further, it would be allowing the guillotine to drop.”
“Is this supposed to be reassuring?” Tymon asked.
“No. It’s only meant to be honest. For reassurance, I want you all to know that although I take no side, I intend for my classes and my office to be safe. If you are in danger, I will try to help. If you need to get away and you don’t think you can get from here to home without being targeted, I can arrange safe transportation.
“May have to take you up on that,” Corbin said.
“Corbin,” Melody hissed. She shook her head.
“You can come to my office at any point, or follow me there after class ends. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves, if you need to. I’ll answer any questions on the material, and may fill the silence with more lecturing before declaring class over.”
The students at the back of the class, except for a Hennigar and Jarvis, all left.
It was only in the pause, the burble of conversations, and everything else, that Lucy realized she hadn’t properly settled in for the lecture. She still had her bag slung over one shoulder, sitting to her side. No books, pen, or anything out.
She forced herself to relax, moving her bag and sorting out her stuff.
“Thank you for being here, John,” she said. “I know it’s probably pretty low on your list of places you want to be.”
He was looking out, onto, and over the stage. She wasn’t sure if he was staring at Musette, and had to lean over to get a better look at his face.
Staring at where the windows had been.
His voice was quiet and firm, his hand resting casually on his gun. “It’s good I’m here.”
Lucy walked a circuit around the room, stretching, trying to get her thoughts in order. It was hard to figure out what to do. She’d given a recap of the brownie thing to their allies. There was no fire or commotion at Bristow’s building, nothing to suggest the Brownie trick had worked, but at least the Brownies hadn’t showed up here.
Then she’d peeked through the window and verified the Aware were gone. That was its own issue.
Avery was sitting in the narrow space between two bookshelves. She’d gone to the washroom with John accompanying her to guard her, and they’d come back with Snowdrop. Avery read. A few paces away, Verona lay on the bench, book held over her head as she read, positioned so she could look between the aisles and follow what Raymond was saying and doing.
“Want more company?” Lucy asked Avery.
“For sure,” Avery said.
“Raymond said this space should be mostly clear from Augurs. I’m not sure how much ‘mostly’ works.”
“Probably the same way that most things are weird with practice. Can’t say anything for sure.”
“Come on, Snow, scoot.”
Snowdrop clambered onto and over Avery, taking what might have been the most annoying, circuitous route, which included climbing up and over the textbook Avery was reading. Avery closed the book as soon as opossum tail and butt were out of the way of it.
Lucy took a seat in the little nook, beside Avery. In the shade of the shelves, with the temperature control of the building, either magic or a really quiet air conditioning, the space ran cold, which Lucy liked.
“How’s the soreness?” Lucy asked.
“Nothing too bad. It’s very all-around, except my neck. I can’t find a good position to hold my head where I don’t feel like it’s pulling. I tried lying on my bag-”
“And on Snowdrop, but neither worked. Kinda wish we could go back to our room and be safe there. And I’d find a perfect pillow arrangement and try not to move until tomorrow.”
“Hmmm. Maybe we could go get Tashlit?”
“I think she’s spent, from what Verona said. Or it’s like… she doesn’t know how much god-juice she has to spend, so she has to guess. And if she gets it wrong it really hurts her.”
“Don’t know how. Unless you want to try holding your hands up for my head to lean against, like-”
Avery tilted her head. Lucy tilted her own, providing a surface for Avery to rest against.
“That’s not… the absolute worst,” Avery said.
“I talked to my counselor this morning.”
“Oh yeah? How’d that go?”
“It was good. Shorter talk than I hoped. But I got some things off my chest. She said I should talk to you.”
“What? No, not- I don’t know how to respond to that without getting into edge-case lies-”
“Oh swell,” Avery said. Lucy could feel Avery’s half-chuckle from their head-to-head contact.
“Not what I meant. I mean I’m sure you’ve messed up in similar ways to how we all mess up. You’re doing good. I don’t think you realize just how much you kick ass.”
“When she said I should reach out, what I think she meant was… you keep asking if other people are okay. Nicolette, then the other anti-Bristow kids. But are you?”
“But besides that. Are you homesick? Because I am.”
“I don’t even know if the home I left is going to be waiting for me when I get back. Not like how I left it,” Avery murmured.
“Is it really that bad?”
Snowdrop climbed up Avery’s shoulder to wedge herself in between cheek and shoulder, like she was trying to offer support. Avery gave Snowdrop a scratch. “Probably not. But the slim chance that it might be is really getting to me.”
“I don’t know what I’d do. My family is so important to me,” Lucy murmured.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I want to punch something and keep punching it, I want to run until I collapse, I want to pull a Verona and escape onto a Path until this blows over. Bonus points if time moves differently over there and I can skip most of this summer. I want to save people. And I don’t know what feeling is coming from what and I don’t think any one of those things alone would actually make me feel better.”
“Lots of things help a bit. Snowdrop cuddles. You talking to me, right now. I was feeling lonely and left out, and this helps.”
“Do you feel left out a lot?”
“Some, and, uh, as I answer that, I think more than some. I feel left out of my own family, I feel left out of friend groups, of you two, of school.”
“I could see about maybe making an appointment for you with Dr. Mona. I’m sure if I asked my mom could pay for one session, and if you liked it-”
Avery shook her head, skull rubbing against Lucy’s.
“Kinda did that with Mrs. Hardy. She left me out too.”
“Left you out? No, I think if you wanted to talk to her, she’d be open.”
“With another teacher present. To protect herself.”
“And protect you, I’d think.”
Avery shrugged. “It’s just another person in a long line of people that I don’t get to be close with. Mom, dad, Grumble- I knew Grumble probably wouldn’t be cool with the whole gay thing even closer to the start of the year. My siblings, our classmates, Mrs. Hardy. Pam.”
“Jessica. But it’s just like… suck it up, Avery, right?”
“Is that right? I’m not sure.”
“The world’s saying suck it up. Guilherme’s saying it, I need to suck it up and grow as a person so I’m ready when the next chance comes along. Maricica basically says I should either change into someone else or stop whining. Toadswallow’s all… I don’t even know, but I’m betting it’s like, roll in this, rub this on yourself, and now you’ve got musk.”
“Musk,” Lucy echoed. “Musk to turn girls’ heads.”
“It doesn’t even have to be a girlfriend. A family member or a friend I didn’t have to cheat and use a magical ritual to tie to myself would be pretty good.”
“You think that’s why we’re friends?”
“We awoke together so we’ve got to stay together, right? Miss put us together and we went with it. Is that really genuine? And Snowdrop’s my boon companion, so that’s part of why we get along.”
“Hush,” Avery muttered. She gave Snowdrop a scratch. “I love you, Snow. But I did cheat the system to get you.”
“That’s not fair,” Lucy said.
“We’re friends, Ave.”
“But not natural friends,” Avery replied. “Not- not like- you were in my class for half a year and you basically never talked to me. It was only when magic happened that we got stuck together. Didn’t you- didn’t you say that you wondered about the Wallace thing? About our classmates, when they rated you low on the ranking app?”
“Right? It’s just like that, I’m sorry, I really don’t want to hurt your feelings-”
Avery’s voice was an intense hiss, as she put emphasis to words at the same time she tried to keep quiet enough they weren’t overheard. “But how is it different?”
“I don’t- I really don’t know. Because I’m stuck on that myself.”
“Okay, sorry, this is making my neck worse. Sorry,” Avery said, shifting position, moving the book out of her lap and onto the shelf, then holding onto Snowdrop as she got to her feet.
“Ave, I do know you’re great and I’m so glad I’m your friend, and-”
“I’m going to- I can’t walk or go for a run, because we’re closed up like this, but just let me-”
“No,” Lucy said, reaching up. She got hold of Avery’s wrist, then tugged. It took a bit of force to get Avery to bend low. Avery stumble-crouched down, and tilted hard into Lucy.
Lucy wrapped her in a bear hug, tight. It probably hurt, it was so tight, but Avery didn’t protest, let alone move.
Verona had sat up at the noise. Lucy motioned for her to lie back down, then moved her hand and bumped Snowdrop.
“Go to Verona,” Lucy said, giving Snowdrop a bit of a bump with her hand.
Snowdrop went, bounding across the floor. Verona’s hand dropped to the floor, and the opossum climbed up it.
“I had a dream, while doing my ritual,” Lucy murmured. “I didn’t actually tell Verona this, exactly. A glimpse of a future. It was my wedding, to some practitioner dude. And sure as shit, you were there, okay? You were there, and you brought a plus one and you rocked that same sort of look you had at the party. And I was so happy you were there.”
“You were a traveler. You’d picked up that little sliver of coolness Mrs. Hardy has, where she’s traveled a lot and knows a lot and she’s collected a lot of little things from India and Africa and Europe and whatever. All over her desk. I just knew your entire life was like that desk. But magic. And you had some badass tattoos.”
Avery shifted position slightly, like she’d been holding herself a bit rigid and a bit off the ground, in a tense way, and she wasn’t putting up that fight anymore.
“It doesn’t matter how we met. What matters is I had terrific fun getting ready for the party with you. I want to help you with everything you’ve got going on. Your family, the practice, all of that. Don’t look at this as you cheating to join in. Look at it as this being so right that magic had to happen to make it so.”
“Can I get a noise from you?” Lucy asked. “Just so I know I didn’t accidentally knock you unconscious or stab you on something when I pulled you off your feet?”
“Unf,” Avery’s voice was muffled by Lucy’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” Lucy answered. “We’re a good set, us three, I think. Still some stuff to figure out, so we’re including and understanding each other, but people keep saying how well we get along. We work together well. And yeah, it’s not perfect. I’m… I’m not good at being a friend, maybe. I made, like, one real friend in my life, before all this. So I’ve got to get better.”
“Feeling pretty low, huh?” Lucy asked. “Beaten up a bit, family stuff, not sleeping right, not eating right, far from home?”
Avery nodded, her head rubbing against Lucy’s shoulder. Then she mumbled, “Bit better now.”
“Yeah. Me too. Was feeling pretty down. Just a bit better, now.”
“This isn’t helping the sore bit of my neck,” Avery mumbled.
“Want me to let you go?” Lucy asked. She moved her head a bit, judging. “I think I’d drop you on the floor if I did.”
“Don’t,” Avery said.
“Don’t drop you on the floor?”
“Don’t let go. For another minute or something,” Avery mumbled.
Lucy maintained the bear hug. She leaned her head back, resting it against the wall, then looked sideways.
John was sitting on the edge of the stage, by the magic circle with the cassette ghoul in it. He held a headphone to his hear while she played the music.
At the bench, Verona lifted her head up. She made a hand gesture.
A moment later, Verona went from being on the bench, Snowdrop and a book resting on her belly and chest, respectively, to being a cat, bounding forward while a bewildered Snowdrop tumbled to the bench, poked her head up, then followed.
I didn’t okay the cat thing.
But opossum and cat both came over, crawling into the laps of Lucy and Avery.
It got a chuckle out of Avery, at least.
Lucy watched as Raymond checked a computer, then turned a blocked off hallway into a point of entry. Durocher stepped across the threshold and crossed the room. Conversations ended and didn’t resume again, all eyes on the woman.
Avery sat with Snowdrop, and Lucy sat with cat-Verona in her lap, and a heavy textbook in her lap. She’d picked the textbook from the shelf primarily to gently squish Verona, only to discover that her friend seemed to like it. There were no protests.
“Ray. Students are complaining about the kitchen not taking orders.”
“The brownie situation. I don’t know how Lawrence managed that one.”
“I don’t think he did, Raymond. In any event, I wanted to report that he’s staved them off for now. But dinner fast approaches and we don’t have kitchen staff.”
Lucy looked over at Snowdrop, wondering if Snowdrop had snored or something, but Snowdrop was awake and placid.
She lifted up the textbook, and Verona blinked a few times.
“We have a kitchen. And Lawrence has several students new to his service.”
“I can’t imagine Chase has cooked himself a meal once in his life, I’ve seen Tanner put lemon and milk in his tea, Seth is a poor choice, and Nicolette…”
“Lived on her own for some time.”
“Knowing you, you came with an idea in mind.”
“Let’s slum it, Raymond. We’ll order in.”
“For fifty students?”
“I’ll figure something out, if you can make sure Lawrence has things in hand. If he dies, this will be a riot.”
“What’s wrong?” John asked, approaching.
Lucy touched her ear, shaking her head. “I think-”
The growling got more ominous.
“I think Durocher’s dangerous to be around with enhanced hearing.”
“The Augurs are around her with enhanced sight,” Verona said.
“Yeah. But maybe there’s a trick. It’s worrying.”
“Who do we talk to?” John asked.
Raymond strode from the room.
“Students!” Durocher called out. “Your attention please!”
Raymond paused, then resumed moving.
Disoriented and wary, the growling filling the room, Lucy backed up a bit, and bumped into the bookshelf.
“Please return to your rooms. Maintain the peace, keep to yourselves. Dinner should be served in a couple of hours.”
There were some sounds of protest.
Raymond had committed to holding a ‘class’ until dinnertime.
“Circumstances have changed,” she addressed the room. Not quite as powerful as before. Tired? Distracted? “Go now.”
People weren’t used to saying no to Durocher.
“And you three? Stay.”
She’d indicated Avery, Verona, and Lucy.
“What’s going on?” Avery asked.
“Stay. Your, ah, boon companion? And the soldier? They should go. I want to address you three and only you three for now.”
“Why?” Lucy asked, frowning. “What is it?”
“Do you want us to go?” John asked.
“No, I really don’t,” Lucy said.
“I insist,” Durocher said.
Other students were now leaving the room. Some shot backwards glances at the three of them.
“What’s going on?” Verona asked.
Durocher held up one finger. She walked over to Raymond’s laptop at one side of the stage.
“Are we in trouble?” Avery asked.
“I know about the business with the Brownies.”
“I overheard,” Lucy told her. The growling was obnoxious, sticking around even when Durocher was done talking. “Mr. Sunshine said he’s on their bad side?”
“Mr. Sunshine knows very little about many very important things,” Durocher said.
“Such as?” Verona asked.
“Your level of responsibility, for one thing. And how very fragile technology can be.”
The woman put a hand on Raymond’s laptop, which was perched on the lectern. She moved it, and it slid easily. There was a computer housed within the wooden box of the lectern.
Then, in a singular motion, she tossed laptop and lectern from the stage. They crashed into a bench.
All around them, parts of the room flickered, darkened, brightened, and returned to being that crafted image that was composited of slices of hospital, outdoors, and schoolbuilding.
“Why’d you do that!?” Lucy challenged her.
“Because, girls,” Durocher said. She leaped from the stage onto the pile of rubble, and landed in a crouch, atop the damaged laptop and bits of computer. She kicked it violently.
The scene flickered all around them. She looked around.
She kicked again. Slices of Faerie court appeared alongside the hospital and hillside. It looked like Ray had flattened out parts of the hill for a better presentation, but the non-flattened hill was still there on the computer, and those slices and fragments were impossibly tall, like pillars thrown around here and there.
John fired the gun. An intentional miss.
The woman didn’t even bat an eyelash. She straightened, looking around.
A flickering bit of wall that couldn’t decide if it was hospital or a slice of sunray from the outdoors was ninety percent of the room’s lighting. It made for an inconsistent flashing, as the scene jarred its way from one scene to the other.
She looked around. “Good. No way in or out for now.”
“Has she lost it?” Avery asked.
“Oh, dear,” Durocher said, stepping forward. She shook her head. “I lost ‘it’ a long…”
The flickering light shaft swept over her. When it went dark, she stood in the shadows, hair in her face.
A brief flicker took her face, replacing it with another.
It flickered again. The piercings appeared.
“John!” Lucy called out.
The woman reeled, her ‘Durocher outfit breaking first, revealing Shellie’s outfit from earlier, instead. She stepped back, then she dropped.
She turned to dust on hitting the ground.
“Glamour,” John said, his head turning to scan the surroundings, gun pointed at the ground ten feet in front of him.
“…long time ago,” Shellie said, from nowhere in particular.
“Why us?” Lucy asked.
“Because you’re strong, you’re unpredictable, and you’re not falling in line, and because I wanted to see how this goes.”
“How what goes?” Lucy asked.
“In a matter of minutes, he’ll finish making his case with the kitchen staff. And when a thing sent is returned, it is returned with interest. It’s my self-appointed duty to ensure the three of you are in no way capable of handling it when they make their arrival.”