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UNLIKE THE fourth floor of Pent College, the first floor the following morning hosted a wide, bright hallway with tall ceilings and gothic windows. Not the normal atmosphere Vix was expecting based on her psycho interaction with Dean Wallstone over the phone.
Typically Vix preferred her reprimands and punishments be doled out privately, but as the four of them walked toward Wallstone's office, she found herself actually glad for the company. For the first time, she didn't feel shame, or shame energy, and that surprised her. She always knew when she was in the wrong. Always. Rarely, however, did she let that stop her from still committing the crime—stealing canned cat food, lifting eyeliner, making out with her friend's boyfriend after too many margaritas. Maybe a naked text.
Today was different. This was more confession than arraignment.
Unlike at night, there were other people in the hallways during the day, people Vix assumed went to the school, upperclassman or graduates turned staff perhaps.
She and her crew skirted around groups of individuals talking and continued until they reached the last door at the end of the hall with calligraphy lettering etched into the glass.
Pentagram College
Dean Adare Wallstone
Protection for All.
As they pushed the door open, a wind chime above them announced their entrance. Patchouli incense swirled in the air, thick like spiderwebs, and a small desk fountain trickled water on a table in the corner framed by two plush armchairs. While one whole wall was lined with bookshelves which spilled over with books and papers in a hundred shades of cream, the other held a china cabinet rich with skulls, feathers, animal teeth, and crystals. Along the back wall were massive windows with lush plants covering the windowsill. Ferns, palms, lavender, rosemary, and a dozen others.
In the center of the room, a candle hung suspended from the ceiling. A single flame burned large within it, but upon closer examination, the base of the flame parted and was fueled by three wicks.
Vix looked on in awe. “What the shit . . .” but her voice trailed off.
Everything about Pent College had seemed so matter of fact, so cut and dry, but the dean's office was . . . legit magic, and the static-like charged energy pulsing through the air was both cleansing and guarded at the same time.
She thought back to her phone call with the woman she assumed was bat-shit crazy at the time and now things clicked. Wallstone was in it; Vix was the outsider, the unknown. The Return to Sender. Wallstone was protecting herself from her, even through the airwaves. Vix had to wonder: what did she need protection from?
The door closed behind them followed by the sound of a latch sliding into place.
While two weeks ago Vix would have jumped out of her skin and started swinging, this didn't even throw her. She remained facing forward while the other three turned to check behind them.
A gauzy curtain just beyond the glass cabinet shifted and a woman stepped through a doorway Vix hadn't noticed before.
Dean Wallstone stood before them, average height, long wavy brown hair, and earrings dangling small bells against her neck. Not that Vix had any idea what she expected, but this woman in a black tunic, jeans, and black sandals wasn't it. She seemed so . . . normal. So like . . . like . . . So like Susan Sarandon it was unreal.
And when she spoke, the words which came from her rolled like ocean waves—with power, drawing energy toward her and shoving energy away. “I wondered when we would finally meet. Come in.”
Vix totally faltered. Her feet didn't want to budge, and it didn't seem any of her classmates were beating her to the punch.
“I'm sorry,” Wallstone said, as she moved toward them and blew out the candle. “Now, you can come in.”
Instantly, she could move again. Her feet were her own and she easily stepped toward this woman as if nothing happened. She side-eyed the candle as she passed it. How could that have stopped her from doing what she wanted?
Following the dean into the other room, the already heightened energy ratcheted up once more. As if entering a dark forest, Vix couldn't shake the feeling that she was prey here. They all were.
“Take a seat,” Wallstone said, motioning to the circle of multi-colored, bean-shaped pillows spread on the floor over a massive mandala-patterned rug.
Of course they complied and snagged spots around the room. One larger pillow at the deans’ feet was clearly hers. She lowered onto it and crisscrossed her legs.
“How are your lessons coming, Ijemma?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“Desmond?”
“Very well.”
“And you, Takon?”
“The same, ma'am.”
The dean tilted her head with a slight smile. “And you're also doing well, Victoria?”
But the words caught in her throat. She didn't exactly want to lie to this woman, but fuck if everything was going well.
Setting her hands on her knees, the dean let the smile bloom. “We'll begin with you then.”
A cold sweat covered her back and chest, dotted her forehead with moisture. Vix had no freaking clue where to begin or what Wallstone already knew. Like a crack head resigned to handing a cop her purse, she spilled it.
“We were there the night Opera died, but she didn't die. She left her body.”
Without batting a damn eye, “A specter, then.”
Vix's shoulders relaxed. It felt good to talk, to say it all aloud. “Not exactly. When she left her body she jumped into this guy, Dorfman, and he wasn't so chill about it all.”
“Where is she now? Where is he?”
“Nah, he's old news, unless he wants to rat us out to the cops who were there when it happened. She's in this other chick now. Marva Lee something.”
“She stepped away twice?”
Vix glanced at the others who sat there wide-eyed and gawking while she did all the heavy lifting. “Not by choice, but yes. I mean, we tried to get her back into her real body at the morgue, but, no dice.” Crap. Now she caught how deep of a hole she was digging for herself.
Wallstone's head tilted to one side, then the other, weighing options perhaps.
“Where is Opera now?”
Vix hesitated, but it was a little late for pretending she didn't swipe a hand through the cake icing. “She's at my house with Marva.”
“You can see Marva?”
“Yes.”
“Talk to her?”
“Yeah. Should I not talk to her? Dorfman was kind of an ass and she’s not much nicer, so I get why I shouldn't—”
“No! Please, talk to her.” The dean chuckled. “I can't believe you can see them. That's, what, third year material? And you're doing it now.”
At the risk of taking anything the wrong way, Vix fought back on the notion that she was special because of this. So far, it had only caused her trouble. “Opera can see them too.”
“Well, she's spectating, of course she can; her being is acting as one of them. You're . . .” Wallstone gestured toward her, but her voice dropped off. Her hands lowered. She glanced around the room, making eye contact with all of them. “And everyone else is fine? Nothing to report? You're all still very well?”
They kind of shot looks at each other, but no one talked.
“Opera was found dead a week ago, am I remembering that right?”
Vix nodded.
“And no one came to me.”
The air chilled. A pressure pushed down on them.
“And no one went to Professor LaRiche.”
The lights dimmed a notch. Vix couldn't hear the fountain anymore.
“And rather than doing the responsible thing and coming for help, you all kept a pact of silence on an incident which threatened this school. My school.”
Wallstone focused her attention on Takon. “Was the statement you gave to the police about being at the Lancer that night even true?”
“Um. Uh.” Takon fumbled. “Parts of it,” he stammered.
“Which parts?” she asked, her tone harsh, unapologetic.
He ran his hands through his hair as if trying to uncover the right answer. “I told them I was there, but that when the fight broke out, I ran.”
“What parts did you leave out?”
“That I knew Opera's body was dead and she was in the other dude. Or that I ran out the back with them instead of out the front with everyone else.”
Wallstone brought her palms together, fingertips to her chin, and closed her eyes.
They were in deep shit. Vix had seen that face a million times growing up. The how-am-I-going-to-deal-with-you meditative face. A calm before the storm face. The your-father-and-I-are-getting-a-divorce-because-we-can't-handle-you face.
After a time, the woman inhaled slowly before pushing out an exhale with force like blowing out a candle. “Right now, the police and the world think Opera died from accidental blunt force trauma to the head. That's a news story I can live with. It's tragic, but plausible. If word gets out that an untrained Pent student left her body and forcibly entered another, that's a different case entirely. I cannot have that. Who would tell that story?”
“I'm not saying anything,” Gails chimed in.
Ijemma shook her head. “I won't.”
“I said 'who', not will you?” The dean was toeing that psycho borderline. “Who would tell?”
“Dorfman,” Vix said, resigned.
Wallstone nodded. “Does he know any of you? Does he know where you live?”
Son of a shit. Vix tipped her head back and sighed at the ornate woodwork on the ceiling. “Yes. He does.”
“Which?”
“Both, sort of. He's seen all of us at the library. We kind of hung out for a bit.” Vix bit her lip. “I may have told him all about Pent.”
She pointed at Vix as if throwing a hex. “You need to get ahold of him. Talk to him.” Her finger lowered, but her disapproving eye didn't. “How could you just let him go when Opera exited?”
“What? I didn't . . . How could I know? I was talking to a ghost thinking, what harm could it be, he's a flipping spirit. Never in a million episodes of Fixer Upper Haunts Edition did I think he was going to come back to life. In a body!”
“Your inexperience in this world of magic threatens you at every turn. Never assume you know anything. Understood?”
The energy crushed in on her like she was a child again, being punished. “Yes, ma'am.”
“All of the lying stops now,” Wallstone addressed all of them and Vix was grateful for the release of attention. “You can lie to yourselves about the state of your lives. You can lie to each other about how you feel, what you know. But you can never lie to magic. It is fact, ever and always, and what you don't know can kill you if you are not careful.”
The woman rolled her shoulders back, and settled once more to stillness. The fountain trickled again in the other room.
Vix relaxed her mouth, tonguing over the tooth indentions left on the inside of her lip. Jesus, what had she done?
And yet, she didn't want to take full responsibility for everything which had happened. It was Gails’ fight that started the whole thing, and Opera was the one who jumped bodies, not her.
Don't rationalize it, Wallstone's words came into her mind, but the woman hadn't said a thing. It is, Vix. Leave it at that.
Holy shitballs. Her eyes widened, her body frozen in time, as she stared at the dean. But the dean was still talking to the group, animated, engaged in another conversation entirely. How could she—?
Stop trying to make sense of things, rationalizing, untangling. That doesn't work for you anymore.
A piercing headache struck her, like nails puncturing a sheet of metal. She pressed her temples and a dull throb replaced the harshness. Was everyone hearing her private messages? Experiencing the headache? Then, as quickly as it arrived, the pain dissipated.
“You should all be expelled,” the dean was saying. “There's no place in Pentagram College for this type of behavior. However, in this circumstance, I'd wager you need to get control of yourselves more than you realize.”
Wallstone made it a point to stare each of them in the eye for a moment, one by one, until she closed hers and tipped her face upward.
Vix glanced at Gails, then Takon. They didn't look nearly as terrified as she felt. Electricity shot through her and around her—a spike in energy, like a ricocheting bullet, needing release.
Humming sounded from the dean, low at first, then increasing in pitch with each new breath until she must've found a note she liked the best.
Man, oh man, if Vix hadn't been part of this school, if she was a bystander sitting in on this, the old her would have flipped a table, called the dean a hack, and ditched. Now, however, feeling the swirls and pulses of energy alter with each new tone, she realized she had no clue. About anything.
The energy popped, one bubble at a time, until it all settle back to the floor. From boiling to still with a single exhale from Wallstone.
“Despite my utter disappointment in the four of you, the choice will be yours,” the dean began. “Get your acts together, or you're gone. No more lying. No more sneaking. If you believe you can prove yourselves worthy, then return to class this evening. But only if you believe you can. I wish I could say I do, but I'm not sold on any of you yet.”
Vix nodded, grateful to stay in school of all things. “Yes, ma'am.”
“Thank you,” Ijemma added.
They all stood and Wallstone motioned for them to return to the entryway. As they reached the door to the hallway, her words stopped them. “One last thing.”
Vix turned to face her and gaze upon the dean's room and her presence in it one last time. What more could there be?
“When you return tonight,” she said, relighting the candle which had held them at bay from entering. “Opera returns. No matter the form, send her to me.”
