Orna Puella

- II -

THERE

It was November twenty eighth and this day started just like the other ones before it. My dad left for another Catcher trip. Catchers were just like fishermen, except they didn’t catch fish. The Catchers were after mermaids whose skin and tails were ridiculously expensive everywhere in the World. Elsie was still on the tolerable side. So was Cerylia. After I told her that I could care less about Arlen, Cerylia would actually talk to me once in a while. She stopped glaring at me every time she saw me and Raven together, and it seemed like she didn’t even mind covering for me whenever I sneaked out of the house at night to see Raven. She would usually make something up in case if Elsie would wonder where the hell I was so late at night. I could actually get along with my stepsister, who would’ve thought…

So that day - Friday - started out just like any other Friday before that. The EM was okay, I didn’t suck as much as I was afraid I would; math went smoothly, and so did physics. The troubles started when we got to our last class - history of the World. I didn’t mind that class usually, but that day the elf who taught it, was sick with some flu or whatever, so we had a substitute.

The minute I saw that woman, I knew that she is one of those tight-asses who scream about virtue and purity every chance they get. Oh, Dragon, I thought gloomily. Hopefully, Lalael will be back next week. He was snotty just like Ealarauc, but he was a decent teacher and he also was one of those rare individuals who didn’t distinguish between pure and half-breeds. He treated everybody the same.

So I sat next to Raven as usual. Nobody in the class seemed to care anymore, and I didn’t even think anything about it, when suddenly there was a loud gasp from someone. I raised my head and looked around with puzzlement. I blinked when I realized that it was the substitute. She looked at me with pure horror, her face pale, eyes almost bulging. I frowned. What the hell? Is she having a stroke or something?

“This is…” she kept gasping and by now the entire classroom was quiet. “This is… Oh, Talath!! This is unacceptable!!”

I was beyond confused. What the hell is she screeching about? She was still staring at me. I carefully looked down, making sure that my shirt was buttoned up. It was fine. Did I have something on my face?

“This is unacceptable!” she screeched again.
“What?” I asked finally after she wouldn’t stop staring at me. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s why this World is coming to an end!! Because nobody even cares about purity anymore! When you mix purity with filth…” she glanced at Raven briefly. “It becomes filth!!”

I couldn’t believe my ears. She kept bleating something about virtue, morals, and something else but I didn’t even listen to her. I was getting more and more pissed off.

“Shut up!!” I barked finally and everyone stared at me.
“See?” The substitute’s face looked like she just had to swallow a cockroach. “The pure becomes…”

I was about to yell “Shut up” again, when suddenly the blackboard behind her burst into flames. It seemed like it exploded. She screamed when a burning piece of it landed on her neck and her hands started to flail around erratically. I looked at Raven. Yup, it was his doing, all right. He was almost as pale as the substitute right now and his eyes were bright scarlet. He looked scary and at the same time incredibly attractive.

Needless to say, both of us got detention that day and the history class was canceled because the substitute was beyond hysterical. She was screeching something about a half-breed attacking her or some other nonsense like that. To my enormous surprise, Edwina Colette, the principal who insisted that everyone used her both names, ignored the substitute’s shrieks and dismissed everyone with a wave of her hand. Well, everyone except for Raven and me. As I said before, we both got detention.

“I don’t care about what happened,” she said shortly. “You are not to scream at the teacher…” she glanced at me. “And you are not to set anything around you on fire!” glance for Raven. “Not in my school anyway! Both of you are going to clean the Black Shed until it sparkles, do you understand me?! I don’t care if it takes you all night to do that, but that shed better be impeccable tomorrow morning! I will check it, believe me! I don’t care that tomorrow is Saturday! Go!!”

Ugh, Great Lizard… The Black Shed was one of the messiest places on school grounds. It wasn’t disgusting or beyond filthy or anything like that, no. But it had tons of crap in there that was never in order. Great, I thought gloomily. It will take us probably until freaking midnight to make that place look somewhat decent and then we will have to walk all the way home. I won’t get home until tomorrow morning, I realized. Well, hopefully Cerylia will cover for me again…

****

I was right. It was almost midnight when the damn shed looked okay. I was pretty sure that Edwina Colette will find something wrong with it in the morning but I didn’t care. The Black Shed looked cleaner and better than it looked ever since I got to this school. Raven grinned and said that this place never looked so tidy in years and Edwina should be ecstatic. I was tired as hell. I don’t think I ever had to clean so much even for Elsie. We sat outside the shed, smoked for a while, talked, and of course, eventually we ended up making out. I mean, there was not a living soul around us. It was Friday night; the place was deserted. Well, so we thought. I have no idea how long we’ve been kissing when suddenly somebody’s voice said thoughtfully:
“Well, I’ll be damned… The crazy witch was right, huh…”

I looked up, startled. It was Arlen and he was pissed off.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I said angrily. “Get out!”
“If you mix purity with filth,” Arlen said in the same thoughtful voice. “It becomes filth… You know, Selena, for someone so beautiful you have an awful taste… I can fix that.”

Raven got up and I was sure that the governor’s son just might burst into flames when suddenly Arlen pulled a hunting gun from underneath his jacket and fired it at Raven. I couldn’t even scream when the bullet hit him in the chest and he flew backwards, landing in the middle of the Black Shed.

“Now,” Arlen said casually. “Let me help you with your taste…”

I still couldn’t scream. But thankfully I could chant.

“Tantalum atque Tantali…” I was muttering with numb lips. I didn’t care if the spell erases this entire place from the face of the World.
“Huh?” Arlen squinted his eyes at me.
“Genus coercet, hic levare functum…” I whispered.
“Oh don’t try to scare me,” he snorted. “You are even worse at that crap than me!”
“Pauperem laboribus…”
“Knock it off, Selena… Let me show you just how good I can be, you’ll like it…”
“Vocatus atque non vocatus audit…”

The spell came to the end and I closed my eyes, my entire body shaking by now. I could hear some low grumbling sound, but I figured it was just the sound of my blood pumping in my ears. I couldn’t understand why the damn spell wasn’t working. I knew I said every single word right, just like Vicky taught me. Oh, Dragon, please do something… Please…

“What the hell!!” Arlen screamed suddenly and my eyes flew wide open.

It wasn’t the sound of my blood after all. The low grumbling noise was coming from underneath the ground, which started to shake.

“What did you do?” he looked scared now.
“Go to hell, you son of a bitch…” I said in a shaky voice and finally I had enough strength to get up and I moved closer to the shed.

If this place explodes and takes us along for the ride, I wanted to be as close to Raven as I possibly could get. The ground was shaking worse now. I never said any of those spells to the end before. Vicky would always interrupt me in the middle and then make me complete them after I put some random word in between. So I had no idea what was going to happen.

Arlen started to back up, his gun forgotten. It fell out of his fingers and was lying on the ground. I almost lunged at it, but at the last second the ground rose up in front of me and I lost my balance and fell on my butt, hitting the stone floor of the shed with my elbows. The ground rose even higher and suddenly broke apart with explosive sound. Good Dragon, this is disastrous, Vicky was right!

Arlen was screaming something but I couldn’t understand a single word. The noise was really loud by now, and the whole scene looked like the actual end of the World. The ground kept rising all over the school garden, exploding worms and dirt everywhere. The trees were getting ripped out and I prepared for the Black Shed to be blown to pieces.

I have no idea how and why, but the shed was the only thing in the area that was untouched. Suddenly everything stopped, the ground wasn’t shaking anymore, and everything was beyond silent. I blinked and slowly got up. I couldn’t see or hear Arlen anymore and I really hoped that he got swallowed by the earth. But it didn’t matter right now. The only thing that mattered was that Raven was dead.

I limped towards his body and fell on my knees. He wasn’t moving, and he wasn’t breathing. I kept calling his name but then stopped after my throat was hurting so bad, it felt like I swallowed a hedgehog. I grabbed one of the old blankets, threw it on the floor next to Raven’s body, and lied down. I put my head on his chest, not caring that his blood was getting all over my face and hair, and wrapped my arm around his waist. I didn’t care anymore. I am going to lie here until I die, I thought. And nobody will be able to make me move. If they will try, then help them Talath… I will unleash the other two spells on them and I will keep repeating all three until this place is nothing but a giant hole in the ground.