Chatoyant College Book 2: Initiates

Chapter 7: She's Back!

Those were the only two classes Edie had on Mondays, and she wasn't sure what to do with the rest of her day. She didn't know where Dawn and Corrie were--she made a mental note to suggest they all swap schedules so they could find each other if necessary. Since they'd had an emergency before classes even started, being able to find each other quickly might be important.

She decided she might as well walk back to the dorm; she could read or knit in peace there. When she reached the path close to Gilkey, she saw a familiar head of hair that made her speed up. "Lorelei!" she called. "You're back!"

Lorelei turned and grinned when Edie caught up with her. "Hi, Edie! Yeah, they let me out when they couldn't really find anything wrong. They did give me an inhaler though."

Edie nodded. "That's good. You don't know when you might have another attack."

Lorelei shrugged. "I'll probably just avoid talking about, well, you-know-what, but it's nice to have an inhaler just in case." Edie held the door open for her as they entered Gilkey--it was polite, and anyway, the RA might still be weak. "So how did it go?" Lorelei asked.

"What do you mean?"

Lorelei frowned at her. "You know what I mean. Did you get Annie back?"

"Oh!" Edie shook her head. "It was weird... but yeah, we did. They kicked us out, but then Ever sort of... traded herself, I guess."

"Ever did what?"

"She offered to join them so they'd let Annie go. Apparently she was a faerie."

Lorelei stopped and stared for a few moments. Then she shook her head slowly. "Well, that's... not what I expected. Are Corrie and Dawn around?"

"I don't know. They were in class when I left but I've been away for a while. You want to come up with me to see if they're there?"

"Yeah."

They were quiet as they walked up the stairs. Edie wasn't sure what to say. She didn't really want to think about what had happened on Sunday any more than she had to. And there was no reason she should have to. They'd had a happy ending, right? Annie was back. Ever was gone, but it had been her fault in the first place that all that had happened. And she was back where she belonged, right? If she was a faerie, it was only right that she should live with the other faeries. She had certainly seemed to want to, even if it had only been so Annie could go back.

When she tried her door, it was unlocked, to her surprise. That must mean Corrie was home. She pushed it open. "Hi guys!" she said, seeing both Dawn and Corrie inside. "How have your classes been?"

"Completely weird," said Dawn. "We had Intro to Magic, and--oh, hey, Lorelei!"

"Mind if I come in?" she asked.

"Of course not!" said Corrie, waving her inside. Edie dropped her bag on the foot of her bed and joined them at Corrie's computer as Lorelei did the same. "I'm glad you're back from the hospital," Corrie continued.

Lorelei grinned. "Me too. And I'm glad to hear you got Annie back. What are you looking at on the computer?" She leaned in closer. "Is that a list of all the professors?"

Dawn nodded. "I wanted to see if I could tell if any of the others are faeries. I guess I can't see anything from pictures, but at least I know what Professor Lal is supposed to look like now."

"What are you talking about?" both Lorelei and Edie asked at the same time. They all laughed. "You mean your Intro to Magic professor is a faerie like Ever?" Edie continued, leaning on the back of Corrie's chair.

"I'm totally confused," said Lorelei. "How do you know Ever is a faerie? And what do you mean about Professor Marie?"

Dawn turned around to look at Lorelei, frowning. "I thought you knew she was a faerie. You sure seemed to know more than we did."

Lorelei gestured at her throat. "Well, I can't really talk about what I do know. But if there are any faeries on campus, I didn't know about it. Edie said Ever traded herself for Annie..."

Dawn chewed on her bottom lip. "We saw Ever turn back into a faerie after she went back to the faeries. And in class this morning I saw something completely different from the professor whose picture is here. She really has these creepy black eyes and long, pointy ears. She knew I could see her, too, and asked about the faeries from the woods."

"So if you don't know much about faeries, how did you know about the ones in the woods?" Corrie asked.

Lorelei grimaced. "I had a run-in with them once."

"Do you think this faerie took over the professor's job?" Edie asked, looking at the picture up on the screen. She saw a pretty but ordinary-looking Hispanic woman. But then, she wouldn't see anything unusual in the photograph, especially if Dawn couldn't.

"I hadn't thought about that," Dawn said slowly. "It seems unlikely. She looks a lot like the picture except for the eyes, ears, and hands. She really made it sound like she's just a professor who happens to be a faerie."

"Hiding in plain sight," Lorelei said. "How many others could there be?"

"That's exactly what we were wondering," said Corrie.