GRAVICTA

CHAPTER 4.

Walking into Mrs Purplestorm's office after noticing the door is slightly open, I see her sitting on her chair with two other boys sitting opposite her. One is a chubby dude with dark hair and the other is the handsome hooded dude from before.

"He's here? Wait! Why's he here?" I whisper to myself.

"Welcome, please lock the door. Eva we've been waiting for you. I can call you that right?" Mrs Purplestorm asks as she notices me frozen in a spot. I quickly snap out of my thoughts and face her with a small smile.

"Yeah, sure. Um, I'm really sorry I got kind of held up," I say as I lock the door and go to take a seat beside the boys. Last time I came here; it was just a chair she had for visitors but now she's got three?

"Okay. That being said, I think it's best you know that I personally chose you three to be in my group. As you probably noticed, the other groups have more than three students but I decided to go for only you three." She smiles as she addresses us. But to think that she chose only the three of us makes me wonder why.

"Evalaine Harpfill, Puffer Michael and Zed, um..." She trails off as she seems not to know his surname. I turn to look at both of the boys.

"Just call me Zed," the hooded boy says plainly and then tries to push his hands through his hair causing his hood to fall. My eyes widen as I see his face better. He truly is handsome and even that sounds like an understatement.

But what catches my attention more is his hair colour.

"I can't keep up with this if you don't make up a surname. You've been answering just Zed since you enrolled here and it can really get suspicious, don't you think?" Mrs Purplestorm says and that leaves me as confused as ever.

"What do you mean by making up a surname?" I ask.

"At least I don't talk to anyone so they really don't even have to know my name. I mean even you didn't know my name till late yesterday. Thanks to this stupid boy for dragging me out of the house without my hood," Zed says and lands a light punch on Puffer's arm. This is the longest I've heard him talk and I dare say that his voice is overly soothing and smooth.

"I already apologized. Just drop it already." Puffer rolls his eyes and rubs the arm that Zed hit.

I look at the three of them and I'm convinced there's something they know that I don't and that's what they are talking about.

"I guess you can call it fate. I was simply meant to find out some day," Mrs Purplestorm says, grinning.

This is getting frustrating. What did she find out? Is it his name they are seriously talking about?

"Whatever," Zed says.

Now I've had it. I clear my throat so they still know I'm around. All eyes turn to me immediately and it makes me shift in my chair uncomfortably in my seat.

"Oh, Eva." Mrs Purplestorm smiles and just stares at me.

"Okay this is very strange. I'll leave so that you three can discuss in private. It seems I'm not really needed here," I say and get up.

"No, you can stay. Sorry about that. I know you're confused but never mind. You won't understand anyways," Puffer says and as much as I find that a bit offensive, I decide to sit down and forget about the whole thing.

"Actually, she will, if you'd let me explain," Mrs Purplestorm says and the boys look at her with weird expressions. Puffer has the most serious face while Zed looks a bit dull like maybe he is bored.

"You know we can't tell anyone about this right?" Puffer says and I can see Zed rubbing his hair while looking at me as if studying me.

"Well I trust her a lot. Just let me tell her please. I know she'll keep it a secret," Mrs Purplestorm pleads. I am so tired of being in this situation right now.

"Hey. I'm right here, you all know that right?" I deadpan. Mrs Purplestorm and Puffer laughs while Zed raises a brow, still looking at me.

"Whatever. As long as she doesn't say anything about it to anyone," Zed finally says and Mrs Purplestorm squeaks excitedly.

"Okay. I promise not to tell anyone," I say even if I wasn't asked to. I just want to know what this whole thing is about.

"I was going home just after talking to the Principal yesterday and I decided to take a different route to my house. I know you may be wondering why I'd be walking instead of flying." She laughs briefly before taking a deep breath.

"I've decided to resign after this set graduates. I went to talk to the Principal about it and he said I should rethink it so I felt I should walk home instead of flying, just to think about things," she explains and my mood softens.

"Why would you want to resign? I thought you loved teacher world history," I say and she nods.

"I do. It's just that I've lived so many years teaching and I feel it's time to focus on other things instead," she says and I offer a small smile.

"I understand. You have every right to rest. You've done more than enough anyways." I say.

The boys on the other hand, look so bored that I start to pity them a little.

"So, I was saying, I took a different route and ended up seeing something magnificent. I saw Puffer dragging a boy with white hair," she says while smiling with her eyes so wide. I can tell she is getting to the best part. I can also tell that the boy she's talking about is Zed.

"Aren't you wondering why I didn't mention Zed as the boy with white hair? And why I'm emphasizing on the fact that he has white hair?" She asks as she rests her back on her chair. I notice tears starting to well up in her eyes. This must be really emotional.

"I am. Tell me why, tell me why," I say as I'm beginning to get really restless and curious to know.

"It's because in the whole of Gravicta, there's only one person I knew who had white hair." She smiles.

"Who?" I raise a brow as I haven't really heard of anyone with white hair except...

My eyes widen in surprise as I realize where this whole story is getting to. The tales I heard as a child and the pictures I've seen so many times in my life were true. The only woman who had white hair in the whole world was the late King's wife.

"Queen Annie," Mrs Purplestorm says and finally, tears start rolling down her cheeks. She uses her hands to wipe her eyes while I remain where I am, completely shocked. I slowly turn to look at Zed and he still has his eyes on me.

He blinks a few times while looking at me as if trying to study my reaction for a while before finally talking. "My real name is Lucifer Junior Morningstar."