Person Behind the mirror

I. St. George's Academy

"Short auburn hair, brown eyes, light complexion, black ruffle-collared shirt, black trousers, black coat, black boots....so much black........is that you Charlotte?" asked Julian, dreamily, putting his spectacles, that were residing beside him on the bench, back on.

I glared at him, angrily. True, my name is Charlotte, but thanks to my masculine appearance, my name has pretty much been changed into 'Charles'. And I feel 'Charles' sounds far better than 'Charlotte'. So, I must confess, whenever anyone calls me 'Charlotte' I do get quite enraged.

Julian backed off, and muttered, "Sorry."

"So," started Florence, clearing her throat, "who wants to stroll outside the castle premises."

Julian, Laura and I exchanged glances. Florence was always a bit of a daredevil, getting into trouble more often than anyone else among us. But this behaviour of hers is what made hanging out with her, fun. And even if we refused to come along, Florence would still drag us with her. So, we all sighed and gave in.

Sneaking out of the castle has always been our speciality. The problem was Laura; she certainly didn't have any previous experience on sneaking out without the guards noticing.

Laura clung to my shirt, as we slowly sneaked out, through the backyard. There were several guards at the back gate, twice the number of guards who generally stand there, possibly to guard the castle from threats that could ruin the party.

Julian and Florence exchanged looks and stared at us. Signalling us to create distraction so they could sneak out.

I was about to direct Laura as to what to do, but before I could say anything, she did something unexpected. She threw a squeaky toy towards the other end of the garden. All of the guards rushed to the other side, to see this toy intruder. In this short while, we slipped out of the premises.

We ran till we were sure we were far enough from the castle premises. We looked around us and realised we were outside the gates of the Seminary's dormitories. We were about to walk away, when the grand clock situated beside the Seminary dormitories touched seven. The pendulum banged seven times signalling everyone nearby, that it was seven. We saw several children scurrying back into the dormitories like little rats who smelled cheese.

We walked away, after all this wasn't our school why should we care about its timings. After a while of walking, Julian suddenly exclaimed, "Look at the sky!"

All of our eyes shot to the sky. And lo, behold! Up in the sky, floated a number of balloons, their strings were connected to each other. Was someone releasing balloons in night? We were sure the balloons will go away in a while. But no, the balloons were descending, upon us!

Suddenly a few balloon strings wrapped themselves around Laura's waist and took her to the sky. Wailing, she tried to escape. Next was Julian, the strings of a few balloons wrapped around him and pulled him up into the sky. Florence wasn't spared either, balloon strings wrapped around her as well and took her away. Knowing I was next, I tried to run away, but all my effort went vain, some balloon strings wrapped around my limbs, and up into the sky, I went.

We looked down and saw that we were being taken to the seminary building. There was a room with a coloured glass window, in this room sat a rather elderly man, the Headmaster of St. George Academy, I assume. A young woman dressed as a maid opened the windows for the balloons to enter. As soon as the balloons entered the room, they exploded, dropping us on the hard ground.

The young woman curtsied and exited the room. The old man frowned, kept the tea he was drinking, away, stared at the watch he was holding, and then laid his glances upon us.

"D'you, know what the time is?" asked the man, keeping the watch down.

"You have a watch, why don't you see for yourself?" snapped Florence.

"You have quite a sharp tongue, don't you?" said the Headmaster, grimacing.

"Uh, sir, you see we're not of this school-"Laura tried to explain.

"Stop! Not a word out of any of you. Report to detention centre and now!" screamed Headmaster, pushing us out.

Four ladies dressed as nuns, grabbed each of our hands, and dragged us away.

"May lord teach you children some behaviour!" sighed one of the ladies.

Laura broke free of the grasp of the lady who was holding her and pressed her index finger against this lady's head.

"Explode."

Suddenly, the head of the lady, who was holding Laura, exploded, causing blood to spill everywhere. It was a rather grotesque scene and looking at this the other nuns panicked and ran away.

Florence and I looked at the bloody pieces of the lady's body, lying on the ground. Laura managed some tears into her eyes and quickly hid behind me.

"What happened to that lady?" asked Laura, innocently.

"Well, she exploded. But at least that means we get to escape-", however Julian's words were cut off when an alarm started blaring.

We looked around; there were several doors that were connected to the corridor we were standing in. In through those doors, came several masked men. The masks they wore had a raven head, similar to the masks to the masks worn by doctors during the 18th Century plague.

"Put your hands up! Drop any weapon you possess!" commanded one of masked men.

We did what we were told to and put our hands up.

I looked at Laura, she was clearly trying to sneak a chance to use her, well, what I suppose to be powers. But surrounded by masked men, there was absolutely no chance to use them unnoticed.

Suddenly, there was an explosion, a grenade, I suppose. It came through one of the various doors along the corridor, and the out this door, came a young lad, not more than sixteen. He wore a white mask with smile drawn on it, a white hat with a golden strip and he held two dice in his right hand. He wore a long white coat, beneath which he sported the St. George Academy's uniform; he had jet black hair and a light, rosy complexion. Right after him, a young lady came out as well, she bore the same attire as him, and had the same appearance as him, except her coat was blood red and she wore no mask. Her face had the same rosy complexion as the young lad, and her eyes were green with a slight tinge of mischief.

The young lady whistled, while bouncing the grenade, she held in her hand. The young man stretched his arms, as if he were exhausted.

"You guys really dunno how to not spoil other people's sleep at night, d'you?" asked the young lady, pointing the pistol she held in her other hand.

"Come on now, sister. Repair your tone. We don't want our guests to think we're criminals, do we?" giggled the young lad.

"But we are, aren't we?"

The young lad giggled like he heard a funny joke, and suddenly out of nowhere he shooting the masked men. Right after, the lady did the same. In the bare minimum of 2 minutes, they had taken down 10 of these masked men.

The masked man standing in the centre, who I assume to be the leader, commanded the remaining men, "Retreat, it's the twins!"

The masked men scurried away like scared rats, and I couldn't help but laugh at it.

Now our glances fell on the twins, a questioning look on each of our faces.

"I'm Helen." Said the young lady, stretching her hand towards me.

"From Troy?" I asked, rather stupidly.

"No, my name is Helen Leroy."

"Why, it does rhyme with Troy!"

Helen frowned again, annoying her seemed fun.

"I am Simon Leroy, a magician. Helen is a gambler, though." Said Simon, giggling.

"Now, now, we won't waste anymore of your time, will we?"

"Allow me, to escort you all to the castle."

When we arrived at the castle, I looked behind to thank them. But, they were no longer with us. They had disappeared, into thin air.