Page 6

Juniper

I felt Oz’s fear through the walls. It wasn’t an immediate kind of fear, but more like that type that slowly builds as you overthink things. The anxious kind. It seemed that while the wall separating us prevented us from speaking telepathically, emotions trickled through instead.

I didn’t go over to check on him since we were surrounded by other people and I could hear that Hawthorne was still around so I didn’t text, either, but I wanted to. I tried to send soothing feelings through our new magical connection and hoped for the best.

I got a sense of gratitude and love in return, though the anxiety still lay below with enough force to start my own rising.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything else I could do but be his silent support system for whatever was happening over there. I hoped Hawthorne was okay…

Once everything was packed away the best I could get it, I picked up the piece of paper detailing everything I needed to know regarding keeping the middle school campus safe and in line. From what I gathered, it was mostly about keeping some sort of structure so the kids don’t freak out. Oz and I were basically babysitters and substitute teachers. We needed to make sure they ate their meals, kept their schedules, act as substitute teachers, and keep everyone distracted from what was happening outside. No one was to leave the building, so we were going to have to create some makeshift spaces for learning. Luckily, we had the means to do so. The cafeteria would just have to suffice.

Luckily, there had already been a quick assembly outlining all the new rules so that was one less thing for us to worry about.

I placed the instructions back on the desk, using a roll of tape I found in the drawer to stick it down so I wouldn’t lose it. It was mostly a daily schedule to uphold. I was familiar with it from my own years at the middle school campus. It altered with each transition into the next school up, but it was pretty much the same across the academy. Obviously, the older we got the more responsibilities and freedoms we were afforded, but twelve to fourteen year olds were going to be rowdy enough as it was, let alone with a mystery to solve.

I was dreading going out there. I could already hear the excitable gossips trading theories about what was happening, and without any information flowing their way (or mine, for that matter) those theories were going to get out of hand. Oz and I were going to need to rally together to keep everyone from panicking, and that was going to be a task and a half with around five-hundred students to corral.

Sadly, with the clock on the wall ticking closer to lunch time, there was nothing else for it. I couldn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs all day when there were things to be done.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror hanging from the wall beside the closet and smoothed out any wrinkles in my clothes and flyaway hairs. That was when I realised I still had on yesterday’s makeup, smudged from sleep. With my hair still unbrushed and my face such a mess, I looked quite the state. No wonder Kendra accused me of having something to do with the madness when I embodied it myself.

When I stepped into the hallway Oz and Hawthorne were exiting the room beside me at the same time. I shot them a welcoming smile but the one Oz returned was a lot less enthusiastic and Hawthorne didn’t even seem to see me. My twin looked tired, Hawthorne even more so, and I realised with a jolt that Hawthorne must have had a vision. He kept it quiet, but I’d done some research when I was younger after learning about his power. There were a few different ways to receive a vision, but Hawthorne seemed to get the worst of it. Instead of dreams or precognition he was plagued with fits. The visions were more powerful, but there was always a balance when it came to magic. A give and a take. The stronger the magic, the larger the sacrifice needed to be. It was a fact that was drilled into us from an early age so we wouldn’t abuse our powers.

Hawthorne gave me a tired nod as he stalked off. Oz stared after him, the lines between his brows deepening with his concern as he walked beside me.

‘ He okay?’ I asked him.

‘ He will be. The visions take a lot out of him.’

I hummed. ‘ I bet. Anything noteworthy this time?’

‘He won’t say,’ he admitted despondently, and then he changed the subject. ‘ What’s on the itinerary?’ he asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘ You didn’t check?’

He shrugged. ‘ Had more important things to worry about. I figured you would’ve checked for the both of us.’

I sighed. ‘ How did you know to come out, then?’

‘ We heard you leaving .’

I huffed a quiet laugh. ‘ You’re ridiculous. It’s lunchtime.’

‘Good,’ he grinned, his aura brightening at the prospect of food. ‘ I’m starving.’

As if on cue, both of our stomachs growled loudly in agreement.

We shared a look that said we were going to need to get something in our systems before dealing with a horde of middle schoolers, so we picked up the pace to grab a quick snack before calling the others down for lunch. After chomping through a sandwich and an apple each, we headed over to the intercom system to start the lunch hour and were quickly swarmed by preteens eager for food.

Oz and I stayed on the outskirts, leaning against opposite walls as we watched over the students. There was, of course, lots of gossip about what was happening outside and why they were all on lockdown, but it was more excitable than worried. Youthful ignorance provided a sense of wonder whenever there was an unplanned change in routine, and I hoped they didn’t lose that too soon. Worrying was for the grown-ups, after all. At least, that’s what my mother always said.

We weren’t familiar with all the kids, but those that knew us stopped to say hello and ask questions to sate their curiosity. A few of the ones who didn’t know us plucked up enough courage to do the same, but most of them simply gawked at us as if we were the real spectacle here. Many of the girls approached Oz before being sent my way, their hair-twirling and eyelash batting a blatant display that had me holding in my laughter.

‘ Maybe in ten years,’ I teased him when he found himself surrounded by a gaggle of giggling teeny boppers.

He glared at me through narrowed eyes, thoroughly unimpressed. All it did was add to my amusement and I shot him a wink.

‘Oh… gross!’ I heard a girl nearby exclaim in a stage whisper to her friends. ‘Miss Olwyn and Mister Drudner are like, totally screwing. She just winked at him. Like, who does that?’

The speaker was a girl I’d had in my classes the previous semester. Harper James was the stereotypical ‘popular’ kid that everyone aspired to be or be friends with. It seemed so strange when I’d long since grown out of that phase. I no longer cared what others thought of me, and I’d long since stopped caring for fake friends. I was simply kind to everyone because I saw no need to be mean. Gossiping and tearing people down did nothing but cause harm to all parties involved, and I’d had to learn that lesson the hard way after being bullied for most of my youth. It had ended when I finally arrived at Aurora Academy. Surrounded by my own kind, I was eager to fit in and had been the ‘popular’ girl’s loyal follower. Oz had snapped me out of that phase pretty quick, thank the gods, especially when she’d turned her harsh words and cruel actions on him. I’d ditched her and never looked back, and I didn’t miss her at all once she’d graduated and didn’t bother to stay on for graduate degree. Good riddance.

Plus, killing with kindness was far more rewarding. My happiness and positivity seemed to piss people off when they were looking to get a rise out of me, so that’s what I kept doing. It was probably petty, but bullies were only bullies as long as they affected you, and I simply didn’t let them affect me.

Unfortunately for me, Oz was the complete opposite. I was never bothered by the harmless gossip, but it wasn’t the first time one of our students had made assumptions about our relationship and he was vehement about squashing any rumour that could come from it. I mean, I got that he was my brother and all but these guys didn’t know that. After a while it got a little insulting. I was totally a catch, dammit.

Thankfully, Oz didn’t hear it so I let it slide, hoping it would remain unnoticed.

Fortunately for us it was a Saturday so the kids didn’t have anywhere else to be. They dispersed once the lunch hour was over to go their separate ways. Some went back to their rooms to either study or relax while others filed into the rec rooms to socialise. While most were good kids, the staff weren’t na?ve enough to believe all of them would follow the rules so a ward had been placed around the building to prevent any wannabe rebels from sneaking out. It allowed us to keep track of everyone when we needed to take a headcount at the end of the day.

Oz and I headed back to our own rooms where I showed him how to connect his phone to the dorm’s security with a code that was provided on the list we’d been provided. It allowed us to keep an eye on the kids without hovering and gave us the opportunity to set up a study session between the two of us in Oz’s room. He pulled out the Old Fae tomes and our research notes to continue deciphering the language.

I adjusted my position on the bed, uncrossing my legs to stretch them out before pulling the tome I was studying closer to me as I glanced between my notes and the pages. My brain was getting that fuzzy feeling it got when I was close to figuring something out, but I’d been sitting in the same position for so long my extremities were starting to go numb.

The swirling markings on the pages were a lot easier to pick out now that I knew what to look for. At first, studying the words was like looking at an endless picture. The start and end of each word, let alone each sentence was impossible to pick out, but that was one of the first things Oz and I had ever figured out about the strange language. Unfortunately, there were only so many ways you could write a swirl, so many of the words blended together into a jumble of scribbles that all looked the same. The differences were so slight that many who studied the dead language gave up before achieving any breakthroughs. They were practically impossible to find without a little magical assistance, and that was the first breakthrough we’d made only three years ago.

I squinted my eyes and adjusted the book so it was tilted at a slight angle away from me, then let it lay flat again. There… could it be…?

‘Hey, Ozzie, come look at this. I think I found something.’

He was immediate at my side, leaning over my shoulder to see what I was looking at. I pointed towards a curve on the side of one word, the line slightly thicker than the rest.

‘Do you think it’s thicker or a dot that’s blended into the rest of the word thanks to the ink?’ I asked. Old Fae was never meant to be written in ink, the intricacies of the symbols too fine for something that bled so easily on the paper. It was yet another reason why Old Fae was such an impossible language to read.s

He squinted his eyes and leaned in for a closer look, then tilted the page just as I had a moment ago. His eyes lit up with excitement when he caught what I had, a grin lighting up his face.

‘That’s definitely a thicker curve. It looks like it’s just faded over time, which was probably why it was so hard to see. Good catch, Junie,’ he praised.

We isolated the words and copied it into our notes on a larger scale just as we had all the others we’d figured out, the bigger size allowing us to see all the details so easily missed in the smaller writing. We then consulted our previous research notes to decode the word itself.

‘Do you see the positioning of the thicker curve?’ he pointed it out. ‘How it’s connecting the five swirls?’

‘Huh. Yeah, I do.’

He grabbed the tome we’d copied the word from and scanned the page. ‘Look. Right here,’ he said eagerly, pointing to the word beside it. I hadn’t noticed since it blended in with the surrounding markings, but it was a word we had already deciphered.

‘Trials?’ I read out the word, the dots not connecting inside my head.

‘With the way the word is written, the connections as well as the rest of the sentence… I think it has something to do with combining something.’

I frowned. ‘Combining what?’

He shrugged, unbothered with the fact that we didn’t yet know enough to answer that question. ‘Who knows? It’s more than we had before, so I’m counting that as a win.’

He held his palm up for me to slap, a grin stretching wide across his cheeks and revealing both dimples usually hidden with his constant brooding. I loved it when he smiled, and I couldn’t stop myself from returning the sentiment.

‘Look at us, working together to make sense of our discoveries,’ I beamed.

He froze, then turned to me with wide eyes. ‘Junie, that’s it! You’re a genius!’

I blinked. ‘Um… thank you?’

He let out a booming laugh, his joy bouncing around the small room. ‘That’s what the word means, Junie. Working together.’

I hummed thoughtfully. “Working together trials’? What does that even mean?’

‘Uniting, maybe?’ he mused. ‘Trials that unite something?’

‘Five somethings.’

‘You’re right. Five things being tested to unite. I wonder what that’s about?’

‘I don’t know. My brain hurts. I need to take a break from being smart for a minute,’ I complained, massaging my temples as a thudding headache began to build.

‘Sure. You okay? Need me to heal you?’ he asked.

‘Nah, I just need some rest. Staring at swirls for hours on end usually ends in a headache eventually.’

‘All right. Why don’t you take a nap and I’ll keep things running for a bit,’ he offered.

I sent him a tired smile, exhaustion hitting me hard and fast at the prospect of sleep. ‘You sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Okay. As long as you wake me if something happens or there’s any news,’ I bartered.

His eyes softened as he approached, wrapping me up in his long, muscular arms. ‘I promise.’

I rested my head against his chest and closed my eyes, enjoying the peaceful moment. A moment that was interrupted when the door swung open and Hawthorne stepped through with Enid on his heels.

Oz and I jumped apart like we’d been doing something wrong, though it was more to prevent a negative reaction from the curse.

‘What’s going on here?’ Enid shrieked, hands on her hips and a scowl scrunching up her face.

I winced, her shrill tone only succeeding in making my headache worse.

‘Middle school kids are stressful and I needed a hug,’ I blurted when I caught sight of the pain twisting Ozzie’s expression. Something was going on between them that I wasn’t privy to so I decided it was best to just cut my losses and get my head on a pillow sooner rather than later. The light was starting to hurt, too.

‘Let me just pack up my things,’ I said when I noticed the tomes still spread out on the bed. I gathered them up, stacking them in my arms and started towards the door.

Except I didn’t get very far. Hawthorne move in my direction the same time I headed for the door and we collided, the tomes flying from my arms into a messy pile on the floor. I winces when I noticed how many pages were now bent. Creases in the pages were going to make decoding the symbols even more difficult now.

‘Shit, I’m sorry,’ Hawthorne said, immediately bending down to pick up the books only I did the same and our foreheads collided with an audible thud. The pain of the impact worked with the growing headache to knock my on my ass, and I swore I saw stars.

‘Fuck, shit, I’m so sorry…’ he kept cursing. When I opened my eyes it was to the view of him backing away, hands raised in the air as if he was afraid to come near me again.

I didn’t blame him. Honestly, I was thankful for it. He may have been hot as hell and the star of my many wet dreams, but I didn’t think I could handle another blow. To my head or to my pride.

‘Ow…’ I complained, rubbing my head where we’d connected.

The pounding against my skull ratcheted up to a level I struggled to handle and I felt myself sway. I heard their voices as they spoke, but I could no longer pick out the words and their meanings, instead the sounds jumbling together to worsen the migraine. My eyeballs aches, my ears rang, and I couldn’t take it any longer.

When the darkness caved in around the edges of my vision I didn’t have a choice but to let the darkness consume me.