Supernatural School Chapter Two

Chapter Two! I'm still trying to work in the lore of Reapers a bit into this one.  I do go into that more in chapters 10/11 but I would love to get some foreshadowing in here. 

For those of you familiar with the first draft of this Here:   http://caffeinewitchcraft.tumblr.com/post/155059805484/supernatural-school-pt-2

You might notice it cuts off a little sooner. That's because Chapter three goes more into Gauge's interactions with the parents and it was a little too long for this chapter's pacing. 

Enjoy! It needs a little more cleaning (as always) but I do like the edits I've made and the info I've added!

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The sun blinds you when you stumble out of the animal husbandry building which doesn’t help the throbbing behind your temples. It’s probably not a good idea to rejoin Sam, Amanda, and Lexi in the cafeteria right now. You always feel closer to the other side after a reaping, even one as pleasant as this one.

You only feel closer to the other side. As a Reaper, your place is in this world and you won’t ever get to see what’s through that white light.  It doesn’t bother you. Afterlife isn’t something you crave though you could really go for a nap right now.

You’re halfway back to your dorms, cutting across the field you’d stormed through earlier, when you see Ms. Jan, Mr. Tee and Principal Finn rushing towards you.  Mr. Tee’s upset enough that his mane has burst free of his button-down shirt and the sun catches on the fur sprouting along his cheeks. Ms. Jan, all banshee characteristics gone, is composed as she leads the group, strides long and purposeful. Principal Finn is in his “adventuring” chair, the one with the monster truck wheels, bumping along next to the two, and listening seriously with a grim expression on his face.

That is, of course, until he sees you.

“Ah, Ms. Raptis,” he calls loudly. You hide your incredulity behind a blank expression. Principal Finn is the worst at keeping secrets.

Ms. Jan and Mr. Tee’s heads whip around to stare at you, eyes narrowed suspiciously. There are no classes today and Ms. Jan knows you don’t take any animal sciences. There’s no reason for you to be out here.

“Hi,” you say, pushing your hands into your jeans’ pockets. You’re not worried. In the last two semesters you’ve dealt with a lot closer calls than this. “Do you know if cleaning staff already came this week? Amanda asked me to grab her notebook, but it’s not where she said it was.”

Ms. Jan and Mr. Tee’s shoulders ease and you watch as Principal Finn darts a quick look at them as if just realizing they’d heard him call out to you. He clears his throat. “Oh, yes, unfortunately. Speaking of, I do need to talk to you about your project. It should only take a moment. Ms. Jan, Mr. Tee, do go on. I will be there shortly.”

It’s lucky that Principal Finn is widely respected by the staff because nobody else would take what he said at face value. You watch as the two teachers stomp on, Mr. Tee’s tail jerking behind him.

“Did you see what happened?” Principal Finn asks.

You subtly flick your fingers, muting your conversation. Mr. Tee is a shifter, one powerful enough that he can’t stay fully human, and you don’t know how good his hearing is. “Yes.” Your brow furrows as you watch the teachers’ backs retreat across the parking lot. “You’re going to need to actually give me a project now. Ms. Jan will remember you said that. And that you implied it had to do with cleaning.”

As usual, Principal Finn waves off your concerns. “We can say it’s a detention.”

You press your lips over the first thing you want to say and take a deep breath through your nose. “For what? I don’t have any write ups.”

“Fine we’ll say it’s for the festival.” Principal Finn manipulates his controls so that his chair is facing you. From this angle, his sharp cheekbones cast the hollows of his face in stark shadow, making his aqua eyes seem larger than they are. “Was it natural?”

Your teeth grind, but you make yourself nod anyway. It’s against everything you’ve been taught to disclose anything about a reaping, but it’s part of the bargain that allows you to attend school here. No one wants to invite Death onto a campus--no matter their form--and Principal Finn wouldn’t be an exception if he weren’t so controlling. 

What was one Reaper on campus compared to having the most accurate alarm system on Earth? Nevermind the two century history of your kind’s exclusion, it was too good to pass up.

On both sides.

“Good, good,” Principal Finn says, leaning back in his chair. He rubs his gills as he hums, eyes distant. “I can’t imagine who would even be out here. On a festival day!” He shakes his head and focuses back on you. “You saw. Who was it?”

You know who it was. He was a man, a kind one, prone to fits of jealousy and then washes of guilt and repentance in the wake of it. You know his soul was the color of dew in motion, dripping off green leaves towards dark soil. You know that he was a man who loved with reservation, taught in his life not to look too long or too close for fear of censure. You know that his soul, finally free of pain, fluttered like flower petals in wind.

What you know does not translate to what Principal Finn wants to know.

Your fingers curl in your pockets. “Old man. Heart attack. Didn’t recognize him.”

Principal Finn makes that odd humming sound again and you watch it vibrate through his gills. “Good, good. There shouldn’t be any questions then and I suppose I can’t ask for it to happen at a better time. The parents are due to arrive in hours.”

Good? Good? Your breath catches in your throat and you have to willfully lock your snarl behind your teeth. You’re a Reaper, yes, an agent of Death, yes, but you love life. Death is inevitable and natural, but that doesn’t mean life ending isn’t sad. You don’t understand how Principal Finn can hear about someone’s end and think only of the festival.

“Can I go?” you ask when the rage retreats to a hard ball in your stomach. “I need to get ready.”

Principal Finn’s second set of eyelids blink, then the primary. “Oh, of course, you’ll be attending the festival as well. Go on, go on, and do try to remember to send me a message next time, hmmm? Ms. Jan isn’t as reliable as she once was. It took nearly ten minutes for her to remember where the body is.”

The leash tightens around your neck. Your nails dig into your thighs. “I’ll try.”

“See you at the festival.” Principal Finn wheels away, thick treads of his wheels kicking up grass and dirt. Your nose wrinkles as the wind changes and you’re downwind of him. As a fish out of water, he always smells like death.

Nobody at Finn’s Boarding School shares a room unless they want to. There are too many prey creatures here and, more importantly, far too many predators. There’s a legend surrounding your building--Cayman Hall--about when the school supposedly forced students to bunk up. They say that a shadow demon and a light fae were made to share a third floor room and their combined auras had an unexpected effect on reality causing the entire third floor to vanish.

Now there’s only two floors and all the fae are automatically sent to Under Hall and all the demons are sent to Crowder Hall leaving Cayman Hall to the rest of you.

You’re not sure you believe it. As a Reaper, you’re able to sniff out portals and pocket dimensions better than most, and you don’t smell it here. Only the smell of too many adolescents, too much magic, and, oddly, cinnamon.

It’s nice having a room. After you’d gotten old enough to leave your parents’ side, you’d mostly just wandered, trying to learn enough about the world to find your place in it. You’ve stayed in caves, abandoned houses and those secret places the fae built and forgot about. You’ve wandered across the Sahara desert and climbed huge swaths of the Rockies and even spent a month underwater where Principal Finn’s people live.

After all that, it still makes you smile to see your school work laid out on your desk and your bedclothes rumpled on your unmade bed. You’ve been here for nearly half a year and there are signs of your new life all around. There’s a picture of you and your friends from Yule on your nightstand and a scarf from Amanda hanging over the back of your small desk chair.

You flop onto your bed without bothering to undress. Your eyes droop and you can feel the last of Death’s chill leaving your bones, leaving only your exhaustion behind.

You are woken hours later by someone pounding on your door hard enough that the mirror hanging on the back rattles.

“Gauge!” Sam shouts. He has not once, in the entire time you’ve known him, called you Tana or Raptis or any derivative that might make more sense as a nickname. He bangs on the door again, were strength meaning that the mirror has a real chance of being knocked down. “Come on, the festival’s starting in an hour and the parents are going to show up any minute!”

“Quit yelling,” Lexi hisses. Her voice is only slightly more quiet than Sam’s. “Indoor voices, remember?”

“What if she has super hearing?” Amanda asks. She, at least, is whispering. The fae aren’t supposed to even be in Cayman Hall though no one enforces it. “If we could establish that, we could cross half a dozen species off our list!”

They’re not going away. You stagger out of bed, cursing when you nearly hit your face on the nightstand. You didn’t mean to actually fall asleep. 

“I hear movement,” Sam tells the others. “It’s alive!”

You crack the door and wrinkle your nose at the light that immediately stabs you in the eyes. “What time is it?”

Sam pushes into your space, peering into your eyes. “Light sensitivity. Somebody write that down!” He rocks back and grins, pleased with himself. “Morning, sunshine.”

“Were you actually asleep?” Amanda asks. “You’ve got to be dressed, it’s nearly seven! We can’t be late.”

Your eyes finally adjust and you see that they’re all wearing nicer clothing than they were at breakfast. Lexi, shades firmly in place despite the setting sun, is wearing a structured, red summer dress. It looks vintage but know that she wasn’t born until the nineties, like you. It must have been a gift from one of her coven.

Amanda is wearing something more tradition. Her light green eyes are highlighted with gold symbols that stand out starkly on her dark skin. They curl into her feathered brows, pulling up and into her hairline. She’s wearing a stark white dress that’s designed to show her off rather than be shown off.

Sam’s wardrobe is the biggest change, even compared to the khakis he wore during Yule.You’re used to seeing him in basketball shorts and t-shirts, but today he’s wearing  jeans and a long-sleeved, button down shirt. His glamour is toned back so that you can see the green and orange scales framing his face and running down his neck.

“You guys look nice,” you say, leaning against your doorway. You stifle a yawn and look down at your yoga pants. “I should change, huh?” You hadn’t even thought about it since it’s not your parents who are coming for the first visit in half a year.

“Not if you want to see the parents arrive,” Lexi says. “The sun’s setting.” She reaches for your wrist. “Amanda says her mom is coming on the wind and I am not missing that!”

“Either that or through the shadows,” Amanda says modestly, tucking her light hair behind one ear. “Depends if she’s bring Uncle or Dad.” She taps her chin. “And also depending if Uncle is Uncle or if Dad is Uncle today.”

You perk up, interested, While you’ve had the chance to observe other supernatural creature, you’d never had the opportunity to really be around them. Not when they were alive, anyway. “Let me just brush my teeth.”

You shut the door on their complaints and hurry into the ensuite bathroom. You brush your teeth and splash water on your face.  You hair is mussed from your nap so pull it back into a high ponytail, hoping the tangles look more like volume than rat’s nests.

It seems a bit much to see the Fae Queen in yoga pants, so you pull on a pair of jeans and slip a cardigan over your red shirt. That done, you take a look at yourself in the full length mirror. Presentable.

“That took forever,” Sam complains as soon as you open the door.

You roll your eyes and lock it behind you, slipping the key into your front pocket. “I’m set. Show me the shadow man.”

“Oh no,” Amanda sas, glittering wings fluttering behind her, “I don’t think he’s coming.”

Lexi catches your eye as she finally slips off her sunglasses. You both have to suppress a giggle.

You resist looking at the animal husbandry building as the four of you make your way to the main quad. There’s nothing there, not even a body, but the echoes of a death brush against your skin.

“Ooh, the sun’s almost down!” Lexi says. “Come on, we’re going to miss it!”

The lawn in front of the dining hall is roped off, a series of runce circles and sigils burning over the grass, directing arrival points. The entire student body and quite a few faculty  are pushing up against the ropes, squinting at the empty lawn.

The clock tower strikes seven, the pitch of the bells so much higher than the one’s your used to hearing, and the air begins to shimmer.