Orna Puella

- XIII -

I was amazed when I realized that Vicky was right. The three spells that she taught me had absolutely nothing to do with having talent. The words were bizarre and somewhat hard to pronounce, but I never had problems with memorizing stuff, and soon enough I knew all three better than I knew the Dragon Book (which, to be honest, I never studied carefully. I mean the whole “In the beginning Talath created the sky and the substance. And the substance was without shape; and void…” put me to sleep better than sleeping potions.)

Vicky warned me again and again not to use these spells unless I was in life-or-death situation. She never explained exactly what the spells would do, but she said they invoked raw power and the results would be beyond impressive. I swore over and over again that I will be very responsible and finally she believed me.

Elsie’s eyelid twitched the minute she saw the Tramp – who, as a matter of fact, turned out to be the mysterious Devona - but she kept her mouth shut. The weeks that Vicky spent at our house (and the Tramp too; he turned out to be pretty cool) were the best weeks I had in the past ten years. I almost started crying every time when I thought that it was getting closer and closer to the time when they have to leave for whatever the hell they had to do. “Eight more days,” I thought. And then on the next morning my first thought would be “Seven more days…” “Six more…”

Today my first thought was, “One more day left…” I got out of bed and got dressed mechanically, without even thinking about what I was doing. It was the last week of October and the weather was even worse now. I sighed, thinking that I will have to start taking the bus again tomorrow or in the best-case scenario, the day after tomorrow. Somehow, I had this nasty feeling that Vicky and the Tramp are going to leave before the sunrise.

I went downstairs and was surprised to find that Cerylia was gone already. I glanced at the clock. It was only seven in the morning. Hmmm, wonder if she is trying to get to Arlen before I show up at school. I said a silent prayer in my head for her to succeed and then Vicky walked downstairs and all my hopes for one more day of peace immediately evaporated. She looked gloomy and irritated.

“Selena…” she sighed.
“You are leaving right now, aren’t you?” I whispered and she simply nodded.
“I am sorry,” she said quietly. “We have to go. Come on, get your stuff. I’ll drive you and Raven to school before we leave.”

I grabbed my bag and soon enough we were on our way to get Raven. The Tramp was sitting in the front passenger seat. He was smoking one of Vicky’s cigarettes, his face as gloomy as hers. I knew better than to ask them what’s going on. They would never explain. I thought that tonight Elsie would probably throw some sort of a party because she will be beyond ecstatic that Vicky finally left. I also thought that the next week or so - until my dad finally comes home - will be pure hell for me. Suddenly I didn’t care anymore. I decided not to go anywhere near that house until dad returns. I could care less that Elsie will start spitting acid when I finally show up at home, but I couldn’t handle the thought of turning into her slave again.

We got Raven and he threw a curious glance at the Tramp who nodded to him indifferently without pulling a cigarette out of his mouth. Raven looked at my face and frowned.

“What?” he muttered when Vicky started driving again. She was saying something very softly to the Tramp and it seemed those two didn’t pay any attention to us.
“They are leaving right after they drop us off,” I said softly.
“Ugh,” Raven sighed and I felt somewhat better when I felt his arm around me.

Vicky was never good at saying good-bye. Today wasn’t any different. She didn’t even get out of the car. She rolled her window down and looked at me seriously.

“I’ll come back,” she said. “Not sure when, but definitely before the end of your school year, okay?”
“Okay,” I sighed.
“I told Elsie to stop the whole bus nonsense and let you ride the Cab with Cerylia…” she started saying and I immediately shook my head.
“No way,” I said quickly. “Vicky, believe me, I’d much rather ride the bus than being stuck with Cerylia…”

She laughed weakly at that.

“All right… Well, see you later, kiddo.”

I leaned towards her and planted a kiss on her cool cheek.

“Bye, Vicky… Bye Tramp,” I looked at him and he grinned at me, his weird eyes dark.

I straightened up and Vicky immediately took off. I sighed and looked at Raven who was kicking the gravel with the tip of his shoe absent-mindedly.

“I wanna skip school today,” I said finally and he looked at me.
“Kinda late for that,” he muttered. “We are on the grounds already.”
“Grounds-schrounds,” I grimaced. “Let’s go. What’s the worst thing that can happen? We’ll get suspended? Big deal!”
“True,” he shrugged. “Let’s go.”

We were safely far from the school and finally I grabbed Raven’s hand. He immediately wrapped his fingers around mine. It felt great. We walked aimlessly in the park for several hours, falling on the various benches now and then, and the bad weather didn’t even bother me. The entire park was deserted and it was more than fine with us. That meant we didn’t have to hide. Oh, Talath… I was so tired of hiding lately that it wasn’t even funny. I knew that Raven felt the same, and I was wondering if we could move somewhere far away from this place after we were done with the school. I knew that in the big cities people didn’t give a damn about the whole breed thing. Somehow, it didn’t matter. In this hellhole of a small town, however, it would be worse news than murder if someone found out about us.

It was around two-thirty in the afternoon when we started to walk back towards school. I really didn’t want to miss the damn bus today. I gritted my teeth and decided to go home after all. Who knows, maybe Elsie will be somewhat tolerable. We got to school just in time. The bus was almost full and we got on it two or so minutes before it took off. We sat in our usual seats all the way in the back, and I was enormously relieved when nobody paid any attention to us.

I glanced out of the window and cringed. There was Arlen, next to his car. I guess he wasn’t taking the Cab anymore. It seemed like his father got him a car. He was glaring at me and Raven. Crap, I guess he saw us sneaking out of school today… Oh well, screw him. I was almost glad when the bus started to move and I couldn’t see Arlen anymore.

The trip home was almost uneventful except for the fact that Raven never let go of my hand and nobody noticed or seemed to care at all about that.