The three of them surrounded her, leering with movie-bad-guy grins. How had she not seen this coming?
‘Hi guys, long time no see. How are you?’
She smiled brightly and was rewarded with glowering. They’d clearly been practising, cause it was almost scary. Almost. Unfortunately, it was the side of scary that was funny and she giggled.
‘What’s funny?’
He tried to growl, but his deep, deep, voice cracked halfway through and she burst out into full-blown laughter.
‘Come on, what’s so funny? What, still laughing over kicking me in the balls?’
Scarlet took a deep breath. She had to control herself and calm down. She giggled again as she saw in her mind the guy’s face after she booted him. ‘Honestly, I haven’t thought about it for months, but now you mention it, it was quite funny.’
He growled and came closer, his face a few feet from her own. ‘You aren’t welcome here.’
‘It’s funny, cause that’s not what the guy who offered me a full scholarship said.’
All three looked like they’d been stung by something large and venomous and she worked to keep the smugness from her face. What the hell. She let it all hang out, beaming at them as they exchanged looks. The third sat on the bench beside her and put a hand on her leg. She shoved it off and he tried to put it back.
‘We can make life very uncomfortable for you here.’
She grabbed his hand and banged it against the table. One of the fingers caught and bent back and he howled, yanking it from her grasp. It was like being back in infant’s school, only worse cause these guys wouldn’t run away and tell teacher. They’d keep it secret and keep doing it again and again.
She stood, getting in their faces. ‘I’ll make it simple. Screw with me and I’ll take you to see a friend of mine. He lives in The Shadows and won’t take kindly to someone stepping on his turf.’
She was super aware of threatening to do to them what had been done to her, but hopefully they wouldn’t actually make her do it. Judging by the doubt on their faces, they didn’t believe her anyway.
‘No one’s ever been to The Shadows.’
Scarlet smiled. ‘I have. It’s not the only dimension I’ve visited, but it’s certainly the coolest. How about you guys, get around much?’
They still didn’t believe her, not completely, but there was doubt there now. ‘Hey, check with Banner, he knows.’
‘I think we’ll do exactly that.’
He sneered and stomped away across the canteen, followed by the other two. They even walked funny, like they were in a gangster movie. It was like watching Lara try to talk street. She’d done it a bit when they started dating, throwing the odd ‘swag’ and ‘blud’ in there and Scarlet had been in stitches.
She looked at her hands. They were shaking. The three had left the canteen, but that was by no means the last of it. She sat on her hands and took some deep breaths and thought about Lara some more. Dammit, phone. She had to send a text. She had to work out how to get into her room.
The thin lady came back to the hatch and raised an eyebrow at Scarlet. ‘You want food?’
With a sigh of relief Scarlet grabbed a tray and plated up, noting with approval the fish fingers and slices of pizza. She’d heard from Lara about this private school that cost, like, twenty thousand pounds a term or something and they served fish fingers and beans for every meal. The parents went crazy but the students loved it.
She wondered how much it cost to come here as she tucked into her meal. How did people know about it? What sort of students came here anyway?
A bell rang somewhere outside the canteen, but the sound carried in, loud enough to make her wince. In dribs and drabs, students and teacher came in and got food. She was surprised at how like her school it felt. There were people here from all over, lots of nationalities, and she heard at least three languages just in the queue.
Magic, it appeared, was an international thing. That boded well for someone crazy enough to be gay and magically inclined. No one came to sit with her and she finished quickly and headed for the door. Maybe she could try to make friends in class. Maybe better to avoid it altogether and not be disappointed by rejection.
She reached the door and was stopped by a conversation at the nearest table.
‘So did you manage it?’
‘Yeah, but it took me ages. He kept saying ‘think about the entrance’, but I was just confused.’
The mention of entrance was enough to turn her head and she saw a boy and girl sat at the table. They were her age, probably, or maybe younger. And they looked as out of place as she felt. Digging her nails into her palms, she went over and cleared her throat.
‘Um, look, sorry to, like, bother you, but are you new?’
They nodded and the girl gave her a smile. ‘You too?’
Scarlet nodded back, shocked at how relieved she felt by the admission. The girl shifted up and indicated she should sit. Scarlet looked across at the boy, who also smiled and held his hand out. ‘Josh, hi.’
‘Hi, Joanna. Nice to meet you.’
The girl was called Sandra and apparently also very pleased to meet her. She wasn’t convinced they still would be once they’d talked to her, but for now she had warm and fuzzies.
‘So, like, were you talking about getting into your room?’
Josh nodded. ‘How did yours go?’
Scarlet blushed and shook her head. ‘I haven’t managed it yet. They didn’t give me any hints at all. I’ve been learning a bit out of school so they just assumed I’d know what to do.’
Sandra patted her hand. ‘It’s easy. It’s not really a spell. You have to make the door your own by imagining your bedroom door instead of the one that’s there.’
‘Huh?’
Josh took over. ‘So look at the door and imagine it’s yours and it opens.’
‘That’s it? No casting or ingredients?’
Sandra giggled. ‘We haven’t done any of that stuff yet.’
‘Oh.’ Decision, decisions. She could either act like a dick and be really cool, or just play it safe. This was the first time, like, ever, she’d had this opportunity. But these guys actually seemed quite nice and if she started talking about hell and the Underworld and stuff…
‘I’ve gotta get back to my room, I have to text my girlfriend. Well, my ex, well whatever. Thanks, I’ll see you in class, I guess?’
Josh’s mouth was open in a little circle and Sandra nodded, still smiling. They were nice. Maybe a little special, but nice. She headed back down the corridor until she came to 42. She stared at it, seeing the Little Mermaid sticker and the metal handle on her door and the dents at the bottom where mum had kicked it after a particularly energetic disagreement between them.
She heard the soft click and the door changed. She glanced down the hallway and gasped. All the doors were different, some wooden, others painted. Lots of them had names on, done in stickers or painted on cutesy little signs. That was cool.
She pushed the door open and grabbed her phone. It seemed to take forever to power up but eventually the screen lit up and she unlocked it. She opened the text and stared at the screen. What did she want to say? Hey, been to another dimension, almost died, please come back to me?
Hey, I miss you…
Delete delete delete
Hey, how you doing?
Delete delete delete
Hey, I miss you. I think your dad’s a dick, sorry. I’m at the Council, I’ve enrolled to learn here. Martin’s not coming back from Australia. I went to another dimension, it was really scary. I miss you x
She stared at it. It wasn’t right, but she didn’t know what was. She could look at the screen all night and not know what was right. Her finger hovered above the send button. It was so easy, all she had to do… she pressed send and sat on the edge of the bed. Waiting.
What if she was having dinner? Or her dad was giving her a lecture about the evils of girl on girl action? She giggled, then stifled a sob. Why didn’t she feel better about being here? This was amazing, it was like Hogwarts only without the beardy guy in the back garden. Actually, maybe he was here.
Was there a dark arts master? Maybe she’d actually learn how to hurt someone who was going to kill her. She blinked, staring at the wall. What had happened? When did she reach the point in her life when she wanted to hurt people? Actually, she’d always wanted to hurt people. Not for a while though, not since Martin and Lara. She sniffed, her phone vibrated and she dropped it.
She scrambled, holding it in shaking hands.
I miss you too. It really hurts. I want to be with you so badly but my dad, well, he’s being a dick 🙂 I’ve been to church three times this week and we visited the boarding school yesterday. It’s in Worcester, three hours away 🙁 I’m so sorry. I thought you hated the Council? Why isn’t Martin coming back? xx
She sounded…alright. She sounded like Lara. If people were movies, she’d be something from Disney. Jungle book maybe, or Tangled. She read the message another seven times and wrote her reply. How was she not mad Scarlet hadn’t texted at all in the last three days? Guess the dimension thing was pretty convincing.
She had to plug her phone back in while they were chatting and she fell asleep with it in one hand. She woke up when it hit the floor but dozed off straight away.
She wasn’t sure what woke her the next time and lay in bed, trying to decide what time it was. Then she heard them. Two people were talking outside her door, just loud enough for her to notice. She slipped out of bed, glancing at her phone. Half three. Gah.
She groaned. Half three didn’t look good from either end but she was feeling oddly spritely. She crept to the door and crouched down, looking in disgust at her rumpled clothes. She put her ear to the door.
‘She’s the last.’
‘Are you absolutely sure? I’m not asking that as a formality. If we aren’t sure, we cannot proceed.’
The first voice sounded gruff and not entirely human. ‘She’s the last. If there was another as powerful as her, I’d know.’
‘Then we can begin.’
His voice shook slightly, though whether with excitement or fear, she wasn’t sure. The gruff voice came again.
‘And I’m done.’
‘You are. Your payment will arrive in the next few days. He is definitely virgin, we checked.’
How do you check those things? I mean, with a girl, yeah, sure, there are ways, however gross it may be, but with a boy? She shuddered. What were they beginning and were they talking about her? She knew they were. She was powerful. Right now, she wasn’t sure that was a good thing. When the gruff voice came it carried a note of doubt.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
‘It’s already worked across a number of our sister dimensions. It isn’t as though we don’t have a track record. The war begins, we send out the terror guards and before you know it, we’re in control.’
Next Installment Wednesday 14th May
