Supernatural School Chapter Three

The sun is down, its harmful rays well below the horizon, when the shimmering air tears. It should still be too bright to see stars, but that’s what shines through the rip, in purple and blues and endless black. The black oozes back, further and further, dragging the grass with it until there’s a bridge of dirt and green and endless stars on the other side of the lawn.

Glowing eyes appear at the end, hundreds of feet back, bright yellow in the abyss. You can hear what sounds like roaring or wind through the impossible tunnel, coming closer and closer. Another set of eyes appears behind the first, weaving and ducking behind the creature’s body. Then another and another. The roaring grows louder, a river of sound that bounces through the dark and out across the quad to the waiting students.

The first car rolls onto the quad, red paint catching the light off the fading sky, wheels crossing the portal’s barrier with a spray of golden sparks. It pulls forward and parks neatly parallel to the ropes.

The cars following it, most of them minivans, follow suit.

It’s a tricky bit of magic, what the school’s done. They’ve create a pocket dimension with multiple doors, all around the world leading to Finn’s Boarding School. Each car is from somewhere different. You can see license plates from New York, from Germany, from Japan. It’s more than tricky, really, considering that you’d been taught that it’s impossible.

A discordant wail screeches across the quad as the cars pull in next to each other. Car horns blare as the sound vibrates through the metal and the line comes to a stop as it echoes through the air. Sam and Amanda swear, clapping their hands to their ears with half the student body. 

A black hole pops into existence over the center of the lawn, sucking at the hats and scarves of the parents getting out of their cars. The grass ripples with the force of the pull and the ropes flap wildly. Your brow furrows as you’re forced to grab your ponytail to keep it from hitting you in the face. You’d been wrong about the multi-door pocket dimension being impossible.  It’s definitely more possible than a black hole.

Lexi covers her face. “I told them to take the car…”

Seven vampires drop through, long coats like wings around them as they easily land the twenty-foot fall. They range between twenty and, you’d say, fifty years old in appearance, though, as they wind dies, you can smell that that’s not true. Lexi’s family--her coven--is well-established. Two centuries, you think. Maybe more.

“I said,” Mr. Tee says, ducking under the ropes, “no dimension altering! The spells are extremely delicate, Mr.--”

“I don’t know them,” Lexi says through gritted teeth, eyes straight ahead. Mr. Tee is waving his arms as he approaches her coven, mane on end. “I don’t know them.”

“No dimension altering?” Amanda asks, biting her lip. “Oh no.”

The black hole disappears and it take a moment for the cars to start moving again. There’s clicks and beeps and swearing as the parents silence their alarms. There are all sorts of beings littering the impromptu parking lot, dressed in shirts, dresses, sarongs, plates, and, in some cases, not very much at all. You blush and look back at where the cars are still arriving in time to catch the end of the procession.

The last car squeaks by the rim of the portal, sending a fan of sparks cascading across the grass when magic touches metal. The starry tear collapses, long path slamming towards you right before it disappears with a pop!

There’s a moment of silence and, just when you think it will break, it doesn’t.  Nobody calls out to their parents and the parents don’t move to their kids. Something is in the air now, something ominous. You shiver, a chill creeping up from your bones, and it’s a concentrated effort to keep your power locked beneath your skin. Everyone is still, some instinct telling them that something’s coming. Something big.

The trees begin to grow.

Giant firs spring from the earth, catapulting their canopies high into the air. Green needles fly as they shake from the force and, though there’s logically only about fifty feet for them to grow, you can hear more and more ripping up from the ground deeper and deeper until the trunks seem endless.

“No dimension altering,” Mr. Tee says weakly. He swallows loud enough you can hear his throat click.

“Mom brought my brother,” Amanda whispers to you. She doesn’t look like she knows whether to be happy or sad. “He can only travel one way.”

A fog begins to spill out from between the trees, creeping along the ground, swirling out across the lawn. From the depths of the forest, a shadowy shape emerges. You can’t tell how many people there are, if they are people. The shape undulates and sways as it winds through the trees, bringing with it the sound of chimes as too many limbs pluck at leaves and branches. An eeries whistle echoes through the trunks and a wind rushes out towards the students as the fog is blown away.

The woman who comes out of the forest first is clearly Amanda’s mother. She has the same feathers dripping through her hair and there’s something...glittering in her aura that tastes like danger. Her hair is darker than Amanda’s, raven black, and her wings aren’t dragonfly like her daughter’s. They’re white, feathered, and massive, arching behind her and adorned with golden crystals and chains.

Behind her is a...you don’t think you actually know what it is. A spirit? A sprite? A nature being? The being is tall, taller than Amanda’s mother though a large part of that is due to the antlers sprouting from their head. Their neck is thick and textured like bark and leads to an equally thick body made of growing things and moss. Their many appendages take turns carrying them forward and waving at Amanda.

“We have different dads,” Amanda says. There’s a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth and she waves back. She’s clearly decided on being happy. “I don’t get to see him much!”

“Who are those other people?” you ask, eyeing the line of shadowy figures lingering at the forest’s edge. Your power tells you that they’re old, older than the likes of you can sense.

Amanda keeps waving, eyes not flickering off of her brother. “There are no others.”

Sam catches your eye and mouths Look away.

You do.

The trees collapse in towards themselves, branches snapping like gunshots and the trunks crumbling like buildings when Amanda’s mom and brother clear the treeline. Trees grate against each other groaning and crunching. When they hit the ground, they burst into sand.

“Oh,” Sam says, “I think my parents are coming through.”

Mr. Tee hears and looks at your friends, aggrieved. “Didn’t any of your parents get my letter?”

Sam scrunches his nose. “In the desert?”

Sand piles where the forest once stood, dunes forming as the sand washes across the grass. The last of the trees burst and you get the impression of a blue sky, small white clouds, and something dark and wavy in the distance. A faint sound of revving reaches your ears and you raise your eyebrows as some sort of vehicle clears a dune.

A woman whoops.

“Mom made him take the buggy,” Sam says, half-horrified and half-laughing. “Oh my god, she’s pregnant.”

The dune buggy launches itself over the nearest mountain of sand, getting some serious air, and lands on the lawn, pulling a quick donut that rips up the grass before stopping just shy of the ropes. 

“-told you we’d be fine!” the woman climbing out of the front seat is saying. She takes off the helmet she’s wearing to reveal a round, sun-kissed face and a shock of dark hair. She looks over the crowd with sparkling eyes and grins. “Look at all the little ones! So cute!”

You look over the crowd dubiously. You are not cute. No one here is cute by human standards. There are claws, scales, fur, and teeth as far as they eyes can see.

The man in the passenger seat looks like he agrees with you. He’s huge with a barrel chest and shiny, bald head. Scales race over his skin, bigger and more prominent than Sam’s where they frame his face. His slit pupils are lines in a sea of orange and his mouth is turned down into a frown. “I drive on the way back.”

Sam’s mom blows a raspberry at the Alpha lizard and slams her door shut. With it out of the way, she’s very clearly pregnant. When she spots Sam, she gives a shout of joy. “Sammy!”

Alpha Burns hurries around the car, heavy tail hitting the car in his haste. The sand is sinking into the ground as he takes his wife’s arm, supporting her as she waddles to the ropes.

That seems to break the spell the Fae Queen’s arrival instigated. Parents surge towards the ropes and the air fills with exclamations and greetings. 

You step back, letting the crowd come between you and the reunions. Your parents aren’t here, but you didn’t expect them to be. Even if you knew where they were, you wouldn’t have invited them. Reapers don’t much like being around each other, especially in another’s territory.

Sam is invisible between his parents, his mom wrapped around him and his dad wrapped around both of them. Lexi is showing her coven her budding fangs as they watch her with rapt attention. Amanda is hovering, wings a blur of motion, as she darts between being eye level with her mother and eye level with her brother. 

You watch as Amanda finally breaks away from her family long enough to spot Mr. Tee, lion’s mane still rather out of sorts. She tugs her brother by one hand towards him and you can tell by the look on her face that she’s scolding him. Amanda is big on etiquette and you have no doubt that she’s making both the Queen of the Fae and a Knight of the Seelie Court apologize to a lion shifter.

Lexi doesn’t seem interested in having her coven meet anyone, but you can see Sam already pointing out classmates and teachers to his parents. Alpha Burns doesn’t seem against meeting anyone, surprisingly, but, unsurprisingly, most everyone around them seem against meeting him. There’s a wide circle around the Burns family now that they’re done hugging, and many of the parents are keeping a wary eye on the alpha. Sam’s mouth thins when he notices, but Alpha Burns isn’t paying it any mind. He catches his son in a headlock, rubbing the top of his head vigorously, much to Sam’s evident distress.

You laugh, not bothering to muffle the sound under the din of conversation. It’s good to see Sam getting along with his dad. You weren’t sure, Sam preferring not to talk about his dad while at school.

Your laughter dies in your throat when Mrs. Burns turns with uncanny accuracy and catches your eye. She raises an eyebrow, looking between you and the rest of the crowd. You’re the only one watching them, you realize, and you don’t have any of the caution in your body that everyone else has. You flick your eyes to Sam and Mrs. Burns follows your line of sight. When she looks back to you, she’s smiling.

“Hi,” Mrs. Burns calls, waddling towards you. Both Sam and Alpha Burns look up in alarm, following the pregnant woman like giant bodyguards. Mrs. Burns ignores them and holds out her hand to you. “I’m Kelli Burns. I’m taking it you know my son?”

“Tana Raptis,” you say and shake her hand. Her skin is smooth and warm in your much cooler grip. “I have no idea who that kid is.”

Mrs. Burns laughs over Sam’s indignant squawk. Alpha Burns comes up beside his wife and wraps one arm around her. You’re glad to see it’s his right arm. He’s not going to try to shake your hand.

“This is Gauge,” Sam tells his parents, shooting you a dirty look. You smile beautifically at him and he huffs a grudging laugh. “I told you about her. Gauge, this is my dad, Alpha Tanner Burns.”

You bow to Alpha Burns, not sure what the etiquette for meeting an Alpha is. You wish you’d thought to ask Sam before they arrived. You hate falling back on the old-world manners your parents had given you. They always feel out of place. 

When you look up, Alpha Burns isn’t smiling, but he’s not frowning either. “I hear you’re the one keeping my son out of trouble.”

Sam’s jaw drops. “Gauge is the one who gets me into trouble!”

“Get real, loser,” you say, rolling your eyes. Maybe you should be more polite to an Alpha’s kid, but Mrs. Burns seems delighted every time you rib her son. You smile at her. “I’m sorry, Alpha Burns, Mrs. Burns, but your son is a real delinquent. Don’t listen to anything he tells you.”

You notice your voice is significantly warmer when addressing Mrs. Burns and have to hide your wince. Some creatures and beings take tone to heart and you know that Weres can hear that stuff better than most. You chance a look at him to see his reaction and are relieved to see that he seems more pleased than anything.

Doting husband, you remember. Good. Not a misstep.

“Oh, you’re just like Sam said,” Mrs. Burns says. She steps forward and hugs you, not seeming to mind how you tense up. She smells like lavender. When she pulls back, she’s beaming. “I can see why he doesn’t know what you are!”

Your blood runs cold and you step out of her hold. Alpha Burns’ eyes sharpen on you, but he’s not the bigger threat right now. You think that might be a first. “Ah, and, um, you...do?”

Mrs. Burns is still smiling, but there’s something understanding tucked into the corners of her mouth. “Don’t worry,” she says, hidden meaning lacing her words, “I won’t spoil the game for you two.”

“No fair!” Sam huffs.

You should say something, anything to gloss over this, but you’re reeling. Mrs. Burns knows what you are? She, the human, the one with the most reason to abhor you is...smiling at you? She’s okay with your friendship with her son? 

“It’s between friends,” Mrs. Burns says. She brushes a hand over your shoulder and the kindness in the gesture nearly brings tears to your eyes. “Getting your parents involved would be cheating.”

Sam is whining about how, “no, it’s not because they’re his parents” when you let the tension drain from your shoulders. There’s no fear in the older woman, no repulsion, no subterfuge.

For the first time in your life, someone is seeing you. Someone is seeing you and they’re not screaming, not running, not dying.

Warmth blooms in your chest and you smile your real smile at her. “Thank you.” It’s painful how sincere you are.

Mrs. Burns’ eyes twinkle. “Of course.” She claps her hands together as if dusting them off, breaking the moment. “Now, I was promised a festival, Sammy. Where are the games? The rides? The churros?”

Alpha Burns rumbles. “No churros.”

“No churros,” Mrs. Burns mocks. She rolls her eyes at you. “He reads one book about gestational diabetes and sugar is his enemy.”

“No rides,” Alpha Burns says, doubling down. You can read him a little better now and you’re pretty sure there’s something close to humor at the corner of his eyes.

“Sam, quickly,” Mrs. Burns says, taking her son by the shoulders. “Show me around before he outlaws that too.”

“It is a lot of walking…” Sam trails off. He laughs when his dad takes a swipe at his head, goose stepping ahead of them. “Alright, alright! Come on. Later, Gauge!”

“Later,” you say and push your hands into your pockets.

A human accepting a Reaper. You think miracles must happen a lot more than you think.