In the previous chapter: Oriane woke up in the infirmary. She bumped into Uilliam when she got lost on campus on her way back to the dormitories.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
"What you do is, after you've activated the hex, you can put anything on it – that includes yourself – and it will stay afloat."
Oriane, in her everyday jeans and tank top, frowned sceptically. "You want me to sit on the bag?"
"Fly away, my fledgling witch!" cackled Marian. "Pretend it's your very own broomstick." Today, she wore a pair of black ankle boots with a thick heel, a red and green checkered skirt, a black top, and a matching scarf. To top it off, her polished spectacles had a few extra stones studded on each side.
"How do I make it move?" she asked, gingerly placing her bum on the currently floating bag. "What if I fall off it?"
"You adjust your weight, obviously. Haven't you ever tried hang gliding?"
"No!"
"In any case, you owe it to me to make good use of my mojo, Miss I-can't-do-magick-and-I-fainted," Marian chimed playfully. "Not only have you gotten me an academic warning, now I have to go see the stupid executive."
"Then erm... I'll go with you." Oriane balanced uneasily on the bag. "C-can we just focus on this right now?"
Marian rolled her eyes and once again began telling her how abouts she should be gliding on a hexed object.
It was almost lunch break. Marian had somehow managed to have an excuse for her maths professor and pulled her out of class early so she could, in Marian's words, break into the hex before lunch.
"Imagine you're sitting on a skate board," she explained. "One that can hover directly above this flooring. As long as you don't fly off outside the school grounds, you'll be fine... Hey! Concentrate!"
Oriane had fallen off. She had her hands as support so her head wouldn't hit the floor.
As the clock ticked closer to noon, more and more students walked on by with curious stares who were then fended off by Marian's glare.
"It takes practice. But don't worry, it'll come to you. At least you don't have to carry your heavy books with you anymore!" Marian reassured. "Stick those books in there and they'll float the way of the baggie. I've hexed my own bag, see?"
She drew out a pink glittery purse that was about the size of her hand. Indeed, it floated.
If she truly had everything in that little purse, it was the smallest school bag she had ever seen. Oriane stared up at her blankly. "That's great, Marian."
"Don't look at me like that! I've got all my books in there. Obviously, I had shrunk everything for easy fit." Marian proceeded to open her purse's zip and flicked through the liners. She singled in onto a miniature black-coloured paper booklet. "Oh no!"
Oriane helped herself up. "What happened?"
"One of my textbooks had turned black! I must have hexed it wrong when I shrunk it last night. I'm going to be needing it for next period. What am I going to do?"
"What class is it for?"
"Remedies," Marian answered with a sniffle. "Why?"
"Well, I'm not going to need the Remedies textbook until tomorrow so you can borrow it."
"Really? Thank you!"
Oriane nodded. "I've had enough practice riding on the floating hex anyway. Let's get the textbook and head to the dining hall. Jessica and Charlotte must be waiting on us."
"This is a good opportunity to ride the hex up to the fourth floor!" encouraged Marian. Her eyes lit up. "I'll demonstrate – if you want to sideline this one."
Eagerly, Oriane let Marian take charge. If she could barely balance when it was stationary, she was certainly going to fall onto the stairs when it was moving. Oriane would like to avoid another trip to the infirmary.
Call her cowardly but she wasn't going to control a magickal flying object any time soon.
Marian weaved up the flights of stairs quickly with ease, cheering with glee and startling bystanders, while Oriane raced after her.
It was surprising how fast a hexed object travelled. It reminded Oriane of the flying carpet in Aladdin. No doubt inspired by the occasional glimpse of witchcraft or air elemental magicks.
She wondered if one could make a hexed object talk or interact with its surroundings like in the movies?
"Slow-poke!" Marian called from the top of the stairs. "I'm tempting to fly you up here myself."
"Hold up, I'm coming!"
After the little practice balancing on a magickal object, the last thing Oriane wanted was to be propelled up into the air. She was overwhelmed enough.
Second day at school and she had already witnessed live hexing, fainted, gotten a classmate in trouble, been in the infirmary, and had gotten lost somewhere below school grounds where she was not supposed to be.
Oriane barely got decent winks of sleep last night, let alone start on any of her assignments.
When she reached the fourth floor, Marian was inspecting the space.
"It's the third door on the right," Oriane said as she fumbled to find the fob to her room in her pockets.
"You know, I've never been up here before," Marian said as she twirled around the corridor, her skirts fluttered around her knees. She stopped and her eyes caught sight of the glass windows over-looking a view to a dense forest to the right of school grounds. "I've certainly never seen the forest from this high up before."
Oriane looked up as she pat herself down. Where was the bloody fob? She grabbed her bag. "Can't see the same view from the other buildings?"
"There's a huge physical wall protecting the back buildings. Haven't you noticed? The only place you can see the forest is from the Main Building or the Chancellor's Upper Courts."
Found it! The fob was in one of the the front pockets.
"I find the gardens a lot prettier to look at, and my room faces it." Oriane held the fob towards the door until the red blinker flashed green, and opened the door. "Come in."
Marian turned away from the window and went to Oriane. Immediately, she was awed. "Major redecoration job much! I love that pink wallpaper and the carpets. How long did it take them to prepare all of this?"
"Apparently, not long. Witches helped?"
"Even witches have their limits," remarked Marian. "Anyway, so can I borrow your Remedies textbook or what? I'll give it back before dinner time, no hay problema."
"How long would you take to redecorate this room?" Oriane asked as she went through her bookcases for the textbook. She had two shelves, one in the living and one in her bedroom. Sometimes, she found the books swapped places in her absence.
"You've got, what, a living, bedroom, bathroom, dining, and even kitchen. This is a luxury. It'd take me a few days to shop for all the furniture and accessories and a few more to put it all together. A week, at least – that's with the help of my coven sisters because, you know," she chortled under her breath with a tilt of her spectacles. "A witch does not simply redecorate by herself."
Was she always designated this room, then?
So much for giving me a choice! Oriane rolled her eyes. Though, what's changed?
The Remedies textbook was in the living room after all. She found the text lodged between a few of her Jane Eyre copies.
Marian took the book and tucked it under the arm. "I won't risk hexing your textbook, still have to figure out what had gone wrong with mine last night. Let's go."
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Lunch had just started when they reached the cafeteria. The clock ticking at five past the hour. Marian had attempted to persuade Oriane to glide down the staircase on her hexed bag, but to no avail.
Students at Mystic High poured in through the doors trying to get to their tables or in line at the buffet.
The hall itself was enormous as much as it was grand.
Golden beige stone floors decked the area. Round tables dotted across the massive expanse of a room surrounding the buffet circle in the centre fully equipped with a live grill, compressors, and various soup pots. There was also a refrigerator in the corner which nobody touched. Must be the blood fridge.
Lunch was separated by race as well. Elementals had the first share at noon sharp, the werewolves and fae were allowed entry half an hour later, and lastly, at one, the vampires, who didn't use the buffet for obvious reasons.
Classes resumed at quarter past one.
The hall was far cry from Hogwarts and their magical benches.
Air elementals lifted food straight from the buffet circle onto their plates and fire elementals borrowed fire from the bottom of soup pots to warm the food on their plates.
Oriane supposed the school didn't care much if fire erupted in the middle of a meal or they already had security measures to prevent that from happening.
Jessica was seated by the window, talking animately with another girl, while Charlotte was out of her seat getting food.
Marian led Oriane to the table and sat haughtily opposite Jessica and budged into their conversation.
"Say Jessie, did you hear about Daren's failed attempt at Alchemy yesterday?" Marian bubbled, then turned her attentions onto the girl. "Oh, I'm sorry, Debbie. He's your twin brother, isn't he? Tell me, did he try to hit on Elle over the summer or what? Everyone is talking about it."
'Debbie' turned bright red and her eyes widened at Marian's words.
"No– I–" she stammered.
Marian nudged Oraine, who frowned, to join in. "It must have been so embarrassing for him. Elle is one of your best friends, right?"
Debbie blinked helplessly at her for moments before she finally smiled stiffly and got up from the seat. "I... guess I'll see you later in class, Jess."
She ran off and out of the hall immediately after.
"'Jess'? You're on nickname terms now?," fretted Marian.
"Yes, we are," Jessica answered stiffly. "But you absolutely did not need to say that to her."
"You do know she's one of Elle's groupies. Have you forgotten what those girls did to you last year; or do you need a reminder?"
Jessica groaned at Marian. "Yes, I do remember when they messed with a potion I made in Teas. But Deborah is not like Elle. She's nice."
"She's one of them. You want to hang around in that group? Fine, but not in front of me."
"It's been–" Jessica started, but Marian interjected.
"I'm not hanging out with anyone close with Elle & Co. You want to hang with us, you'll distance yourself from them."
Charlotte right then came back with a tray full of food. From stew beef and pan-fried snapper to pizza and salad. Somehow, she managed to carry all that with one hand, and the plates and cups balancing perfectly on top of one another.
"Hi guys, what did I miss?" Charlotte smiled when she noticed Oriane's stunned expression. "Water is my affinity. I've separated all those water molecules in the food so they're lighter and can balance better."
"That is incredible," said Oriane.
"Thank you."
Charlotte took a seat on the round table and began distributing the food, but the tension between Jessica and Marian did not dissipate.
Eventually, Jessica got up from the table with a huff.
"I'm not hungry," she spat out and left.
Her straight hair flipping behind her as she dashed off.
"Marian," Charlotte began. "What did you two fight about this time?"
"You know I can't stand Debbie, or any of Elle's groupies. But it's like Jess is always trying to antagonise me!" answered Marian. "If she wants to hang around Debbie so much, she can do that in her own time."
Charlotte sighed. "Or maybe she wants Debbie to join our group sometime?"
Marian stabbed into the plate of salad with a fork and glared at her. "That's not happening."
"What happened between you and Elle?" asked Oriane as she picked a piece of pizza off the platter.
"It's nothing," scowled Marian. She stabbed her fork into her salad, then promptly got up as well. "I'm not that hungry either. Thanks for lending me the textbook," she said to Oriane.
When Marian left, following Jessica out the door, Oriane was left wondering why there was so much drama around Elle.
She didn't see what the big deal was between born-elementals and side-elementals.
The differentiation hardly mattered when either side were equally capable in developing their respective affinities. Oriane could confirm having sat through the various classes the last day and a half.
"Don't worry about the two," Charlotte reassured, taking a bite of the stew she brought. "They'll make-up tomorrow."
"It's certainly a great start to the year."
Charlotte replied with a wry smile, "They do this almost every other week. Jessica wants to branch out and talk to the others, but stubborn Marian is convinced born-elementals are all no-good."
"May I ask why she thinks that way?"
"I know why... but it's not really my place to tell–" Charlotte suddenly gasped and turned to face the window. "They're here!"
"Who?" Oriane asked as she turned to look in the direction Charlotte turned from.
"Don't look!" uttered Charlotte, biting her lip nervously.
Then she sighed and said, "Remember that group of boys that always come into home room?"
"Yes?"
"I... I have had a crush on one of them for ages. And these days, I– I can't even look at the guy without blushing like crazy!"
Oriane giggled at her, "Which one?"
"Doesn't matter which one! They never come in here! Oh god, do I have food on my face?"
Shaking her head lightly, Oriane replied, "No, Charlotte. But why won't you talk to him? I thought Jessica was the one who had a little something for one of them. I picked that up yesterday morning when Elle flirted with one of them."
"Yes, I know that. With both Jess and Elle eyeing for the same guy, I don't even compare."
"Is it that boy wearing the blue robe?"
Charlotte pouted hopelessly at Oriane, making her mascara and liner-laden eyes look even larger, and then hesitantly nodded.
"He's cute," Oriane nodded.
"Oh no, not you too!"
"What? I'm not interested! I wanted to commend you on the excellent choice, that's all."
Charlotte smiled at her. "Good," she said and took several more bites of her food, head still turned the other way.
"I told you one of my secrets, now tell me something nobody knows about. Distract me." Oriane blushed scarlet at that. "Now I know there's something going on! Spill."
Oriane gave a soft huff and smiled. "Do you know the Defence professor here?"
Charlotte knitted her brows together and gave her a mischievous smile. "Who is also the Disciplinary Executive, yes?"
He was Disciplinary Executive? Marian would be going to see him after classes on Friday.
"Please don't say a word to Marian or Jessica about this."
Charlotte gave her a wink in response.
Rain check! She was sure Charlotte was going to let Marian in on this. "Never mind. I'm probably out of my mind."
"Tell me! Don't leave me hanging here."
"I will not. You'll have to wring it out of me!" she giggled.
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