My chest was tightening as my stomach began to feel sick. I had to keep swallowing hard so I didn't have to puke. The buzzing in my ears seemed to slowly dissipate, but there was no relief from the anxiety that had settled over me like a cloud.
Finally stepping outside into the courtyard, once again. I followed it's winding path towards the fountain and my breath had started to come a little easier before I heard a sound.
At first I didn't know what it was. It was too muffled- too odd. Then I thought it could be one of the guys from before. I looked around for a moment trying to spy where he was so I could avoid such an uncomfortable encounter. The sound got more distinct, but it wasn't the guys, I could tell that much. A movement close to the old greenhouse caught my eye, and I saw that a shape was slumped over by the bench near it's boarded up doors.
It moved again, and I manged to make out a persons shape. It was sitting but kinda hunched over, almost folded in on itself. The sound started again.
This close I could hear that it was a weird wailing- like whoever was there was in pain.
Naturally I wanted to run in the other direction, but I couldn't. My curiosity got the better. Plus, I felt it- the knowledge within me that I could not leave. That whatever was happening on that bench was something I had to face. Taking a deep breath I approached the bench.
"Hello? Uhm,..Are you okay?"
Trying to peer around the ornamental bush to see who resided the bench behind it.
"No!" That word was an eerie, whispering explosion of sound.
"Can I help you?" I asked. For a moment I thought I could see a silhouette of hair? A girl?
"It's so dark! So, so dark! Can't...breathe! Can't get out!"
She shook her hands from her face before looking up at me. I was in shock. It was a girl...With a hole where her right eye should be. A planchet shaped around it like a tattoo. Staying calm I sat down in front of her. She starred at me long, her face covered in dirt and tears.
"Y- you...can see me?" She asked.
How odd? Why wouldn't I be able to?
I questioned before noticing the rest of her was almost translucent. She wore overalls and a pink stripped shirt that were also tattered and dirtied. Her hair was the whitest and longest waves as if snow had dyed it. Her gunmetal eye met mine, its alive, churning like an angry ocean pulling me in.
I could feel myself drowning.
"Of course I can see you. Why wouldn't I?" I asked, moving myself slowly beside her on the bench. She seemed uncomfortable with my attention on her.
"I d- don't know. I've been here for so long...and every person who has p- passed... Like I'm Invisible."
She rasped. Her voice I noted had an english accent. Im guessing she hadnt spoke at all before meeting me.
Before I could ask her anything else,
Her hand moved to mine, it seeped through. It felt like a cold, lively static had just touched me.
I stood up quickly out of shock. Her gaze seemed hungry for touch before it switched to a lonley, vacant thought.
"I'm sorry...Please!..don't leave. Please..."
"I won't leave." I reassured her, softly sighing as I seated myself back down. I remembered my studies on Spiritual Beings from my old Academy. There were Five different types she could possibly be.
A Level One: Interactive Personalities- Most common in the realm, of a recently deceased person wishing to make contact with the living.
Level Two: An Ectoplasm- A spirit that generates enough energy to become embodied on historical sites, battlefields, or graveyards.
Level Three: The Poltergeist- A Dangerous Personality that uses more energy than any other spirit. With the intention of hurting or possesing the living.
Level Four: The Orbs- Lost souls lf human spirits, in most cases, who died traumatically.
And a Level Five: The Funnel Ghost- Most often spotted in historical buildings or homes. Humans might know these personalities as an odd cold spot. They are believed to be a loved one returning for a visit, or even a former resident of the building, appearing as a whisp of light or a swirling spiral.
It didn't seem possible that she could've been sleeping here, alone against a dirt path, surrounded by a multitude of trees and wandering students without being noticed.
I stare at her for a moment longer, and she shifts her hair over her shoulder, lowering it like it's a curtain between us.
"By the way, I'm Vex. And you are?..."
It was like we were in a bubble, silent and pulsating with expectation. My question hanging in the air as she looked intense with confusion.
"Ouija," she remembers in a gasp. "My name is Ouija."
I giggled to myself at her name. It slightly explained why she had a planchette surrounding her right eye.
"Ouija, like the board game?" I asked. She seemed stirred at the sound of her name. For a heavy moment she felt real. Like a Balloon that finally has been weighed down to the ground.
"What is a board game?" She asked, curiously. I was considering explaining the fact she was named after a horror game, but I found it to be not important.
"Nevermind. However, Ouija. Why were you so upset?"
I had so many questions building inside, yet I tiptoed carefully around myself not to blurt many out.
Only when she stands up does she see the hulking building looming the perimeter around us. Made of grey stone, welcoming as it starred down at us. She looked striked, almost intimidated. I felt like I was at that in-between stage of awake and asleep when it's possible for dreams and reality to coexist.
"I was stuck...somewhere. where the worms danced, and the air was sucked out."
She stares at her unfamiliar feet, wrapped in stiff sandals. Although I don't feel the cold, nor I'm guessing does she- Students walked the grounds in sweaters and lettermans. Personalities lie within the small additions: Boots, makeup, earrings, jewelry.
No one seemed bothered by this girl hunched over, fighting against the wind. So why me?
Where was her grave? Why is she here now? So many questions and not enough answers.
I couldn't help but feel sympathetic towards her. I mean, imagine waking up somewhere unknown and realizing that you might be dead? (Yes, technically I'm dead as well. But I was born into it.)
But the constant people watching and no way of communication? Seeing no sight of familiarity? That's painful.
"How long have you been here?" I continued pressing for more answers. I couldn't help own curiosity.
"Well, what's the date?" It's not the answer I wanted, but maybe the one I needed.
"It's November, 2018. Monday the fifteenth."
Now Ouija realized that knowing the date doesn't help much, because although those numbers feel unfamiliar and wrong, she might know what year it should be.
She mumbled her thanks, taking a step back as she reclaimed her place on the bench. She looked glued to this spot, as if she might be found here.
"I think you mean...Eighteen- Eighteen." Ouija tried correcting. My brows furrowing as her voice cracked.
"No, seriously. It's twenty-Eighteen. And if you remember 1818, you're around 200 years old."
She laughed at me, with a silly snort before looking at her own tattered clothes.
"You're quite wrong, I'm only sixteen. You are?..."
I hesitated at her question, debating in my head whether I should tell her my real age, or my fake one.
I decided to go with my gut instead of my heart.
"I'm seventeen years old..." I mumbled. I felt rotten for lying to her because I seem to, now, be her only friend.
Great job Vex.
I thought in a silenced guilt.
"Well, Ouija. Care to join me in the library? Maybe we can see if I can scrounge up any information for you?"
I notice her go tense. Like her heart has twisted beneath the empty walls of her chest. Before her faces lights up cheerfully, into a soft blue glow presented around her.
"I would like that. Maybe you could help me find my brother? His name is Aiden Beltane."
The named bounced within my head for a moment as I pondered why the name stuck out at me.
I nodded short before standing up and brushing down my skirt at the sides and back. Her lips pursed for a moment before she smiled at me. I didn't realize how much shorter she was than I. She stood at Five-Four, Where I stood at Six-One. I know compared to human girls I'm rather tall. But most Vampyres I know aren't short.
We slipped down the dirt trail of the courtyard back to where the sidewalk abruptly begins towards the school foyer.
It's archway loomed ahead with tarnished Black, white and red metal letters.
Evaline's Charles High School
Est. 1912
Grades 9-12
Beneath it, a billboard lurches in the wind:
"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
The quote was written for the Mayor who ran in 2012. Before entering the library I motioned for Ouija to come close.
"I can't be seen talking to you, or I might look insane. So from here on, I'll use my book to ask questions or talk, and you can just speak normally. Alright?"
I held up my small leather bound journal that had the symbol of my goddess's crescent on the front in a red wax. Ouija nodded and looked closely at my book as her hand hovered over it.
"Probably for the best." She smiled before her hand returned by her side. I mimicked a bored look on my face as I pushed open the doors to the library.
It was located in the east wing of the school in a cool multilevel room that had been built to mimic a turret of a castle. The whole room definitely brought me back to the past. Probably why it had attracted my attention in the first place. It had originally been a monastery for the Saint Augustine people of Faith Monks before it was burned down and rebuilt.
"Hello dear, need something specific?"
The librarian had asked. I only met her briefly on my first day during my tour of the grounds, but I remembered her name was Lydia Adelaide.
"No thank you Mrs. Adelaide. I am quite alright. Greatly appreciated."
Mrs. Adelaide, a skinny gray-haired woman who I could smell from here, of peaches and orchids. I couldn't help myself to catch how low her pulse was behaving. Shes so distracted within her dark blue binder.
I blinked rapidly pulling my attention to the row after row of books- Thousands of them, but also a new up-to-date computer lab in the back.
"Oh! And Vex dear," she called after me, "make yourself comfortable, and don't hesitate to call on me if you have any questions."
I nodded my thanks awkwardly as I found myself walking over to the computers that sat lined up on a wooden desks. There were some students wandering in and out, but none thankfully where I was.
I signed in. Another difference from my Academy. Here they had passwords and a filtering internet system for restricting files. The students carried no respect for their academia, or professors.
I need to focus now. Help Ouija and stop reminiscing.
Alright, So I had an idea that had been milling around in my head. It was time to see if there is anything to it. I pulled up Google and typed in, "Salem Evening News," a couple hundred links popped up. I started narrowing it down. I was specifically searching for any large events that had taken place around the school.
Scrolling for a couple of minutes before finding a couple of articles. Our school also had a newspaper named "The Witches Brew," which only started in 2008 from a couple of seniors named Bridget Fergus and Dylan Coupe. They mainly covered school events like Dances, Volunteer Committee, Newly founded clubs, Charity Fund raisers, and sports. I needed however, something more close to the 1800's.
Salems local news was founded in early October in 1880 by John Celestino and David Olson. Our school being established in 1911 on Broad street and opened in the fall of 1912- Which made my research a little more difficult to find.
I glanced to my left to see Ouija. Her skin glowing softly under the honeyed light fixture, and for the first time she seemed worried. Like if she opened her mouth she would dissolve into a flock of ravens. Her eye seemed lost like the memories of her past.
If she has been here since 1818, that only meant she had to have been buried here before the school had been built. The only question still lingering was to who her brother was, and why it was important to her.
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Sorry this chapter was shorter! They are going to get longer, so I'm trying to space them out a little. Hope you keep enjoying Treason :)
C.K.