Namu slammed his laptop shut. His conversation with Mr. Vero kept spinning in his head, stirring anger inside him, and he could not focus on his online non-magickal schooling.
He had suggested combining plant magick with something else, but Mr. Vero had disagreed. He had said that the healing plants might be worth a try, but other things with less organic matter or that didn’t have much relatability to Namu may not work. Which, in turn, meant that a healing plant might not connect with him because Namu wasn’t very healing in nature when it came to helping and healing others. It all came down to like-calls-to-like, and in this case, like-sticks-to-like, too. Also, if they did combine two things, those two things would need to connect on a spiritual level, which might be hard to do.
He didn’t even know what not being naturally healing in nature meant! Did it mean he tormented people when he was around them?
His hope had slipped from his grasp in that conversation as it had done repeatedly this past year. Whenever he had hope, his logic started building around it but then it came crashing down, burying him in the rubble until he couldn’t breathe.
He threw his head back in his chair and took a deep breath. Looking up to the ceiling, he stared in the direction of Mr. Vero’s room, which was directly above his room on floor Kenaz. It was the only hall with students and staff, although Namu swore that Mr. Vero was the only staff member there. They probably decided to bend the rules about having that hall be just the students’ hall because of the door, so they could watch it somehow without being too close. He knew they didn’t want it obvious that something was in Namu’s room so that no one would go looking.
Namu slid his key off his desk and shoved it into his pocket as he stood up. He would go to Mr. Vero’s room and finally talk with him. If he went now, they wouldn’t waste the allotted hour they had. Namu couldn’t focus on anything else anyway.
He knew it was late, at least after 8 pm, but he didn’t want to check the time. He didn’t want anything else irritating him, and he knew that seeing how late it was and how much he had not accomplished tonight would do just that.
Something thick, stiff, and long came out through one of the cracks in the hall, making Namu jump. He nearly banged his back into another student’s door. It was a tongue about the size of Namu’s middle finger in length, swiveling around, looking for something to taste before it retreated back into the wall.
Namu shivered. His own tongue now felt heavy in his mouth. It was a relief that whatever measures the school had in place ensured that no creatures could harm anyone in this hall. If those creatures had any powers, magick, poisons, or anything harmful, it dulled them. But the thought of some random tongue coming out of the wall and almost licking him revolted him.
“AH, HA! You got it!” Namu heard from a few doors down.
Then he heard a croak from what he swore was a toad from the same room as he past it.
Namu realized it was the same door the mini-troll had been standing at earlier today that the boy had let in. That seemed strange, but he could be wrong.
When the door banged open behind him, he saw he was not wrong. He caught a glimpse of the troll as the boy fell out of the room onto his bottom. His eyes were larger than normal with black diamond pupils that darted around in fear. His mouth was flat with no lips and opened for a long frog’s tongue to jump out.
The mini-troll stepped out of his room and grabbed the boy’s hand pulling him up.
“You can’t be terrified each time we do this,” he said, pushing the boy back into the room. “Now to get rid of it, you do this.” The mini-troll closed the door behind them.
It was uncommon for a tutor to be teaching extra lessons in not a classroom, but that was not his concern. Namu understood the need to practice late into the night and he was heading to Mr. Vero’s room anyway when maybe he shouldn’t be.
He just didn’t understand why anyone would want to practice transformation magick like that. It creeped him out. He couldn’t believe that was something that Mr. Vero had also done at an even younger age.
Namu missed non-magickal school.
Namu reached the stairwell that led to the other halls and headed up to Mr. Vero’s hall. He had to keep his hand off the banister to avoid touching a few dust eaters that had come out of the school’s nooks and crannies to clean. The dust eaters were about the size of his thumb, although varying in thickness, and were furry and black with big eyes that reminded him a little of the vigilplunks in the bathrooms, except the dust eaters looked softer. He was also sure that the dust eaters didn’t have teeth.
They cleaned during the day, too, if there were large random messes, but it was rare, and they were barely seen during that time. If anyone wanted to see them, they had to roam the halls at night like Namu was doing now. They were not that entertaining and not that cute to look at, being only little furballs that roamed around and ate up messes, but the logistics of it had always interested Namu, especially how they could fit so much in their tiny bodies.
He remembered the first time he had seen them. He had stared at the countless little ones spaced inches apart up the banister eating away all the germs from the handprints that day. He had been fascinated and had stayed there staring at them for an hour, trying to figure them out. Many non-magickal houses would benefit from such things, which made him wonder how to obtain them and if magickal places typically used them. He knew Lily had some, but he didn’t know if it was only because their family was rich.
When he reached Kenaz Hall, the smell almost knocked him back; it was like rotten eggs or something acrid. He squeezed his nostrils shut. He had never asked Mr. Vero what exactly it was and why he continued to live on this floor. Namu might have left the school right away if he had been forced to stay in this hall.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Mr. Vero’s hall counted off by five, unlike Namu’s, which counted off by three, so Mr. Vero’s room 190 was exactly halfway down the corridor, just like Namu’s below. The smell was still reaching his nose. At least he knew that it would stop once he was in Mr. Vero’s room, like it had before.
The number 190 stared down at him as he knocked.
He knocked at the door and heard Mr. Vero groaning as he opened it, a quesadilla in his hand.
Mr. Vero stepped aside and let Namu into the room before closing the door and heading to a desk, much like Namu’s, to grab up a trendy drink that he must have somehow had one of the staff members make for him. He took a sip after swallowing the bite he had been chewing.
“A little late to be eating, isn’t it?” Namu asked Mr. Vero. His dark black hair was a little shorter than earlier today. He must have had it cut.
“A little late to be coming into my room to start a fight,” Mr. Vero stated, putting the rest of his quesadilla in his mouth while staring at Namu, his blue eyes unblinking.
“I couldn’t work.”
“And what if I was working?”
“You don’t have homework or online work. I figured you had time.”
Mr. Vero nodded, swallowing a big gulp before chewing his food all the way. “True. Although I study and do research for you and your case. You are lucky, though, that you caught me when you did.”
He went over to a red leather seat adorned with golden buttons and pulled it out for Namu to sit on. He pulled out a second one from behind a dresser. “I had just come in.”
“From bothering the staff to make you a late supper?”
Smiling, Mr. Vero took the lid off his drink and tilted it back. “What else am I supposed to do when I’ve been stuck here for so many years, longer than any child would be?”
Namu looked around the room. It was small, just like his, with an old dresser and a bookcase, although organized differently. Mr. Vero also had a few nicer things to accent it, like a red and purple Persian rug under the bed, a standing lamp in the corner, and an extra desk tucked between the other side of the bed and the window, giving no room to walk. The desk was stacked high with books and various measurement tools.
“You have your classroom,” Namu commented.
Mr. Vero sneered while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and set down his cup. “What do you want, Namu?”
“I want to talk about that door. I want to talk about how to fix me. I want to talk about why the school isn’t doing anything!”
Holding up a finger between the two of them, Mr. Vero sighed. “I told you, Namu, just ignore it. If you do not want anything to do with it, if you do not want to stay and protect it, or protect children from it, then ignore it. At some point, someone else will come along that the school will pair with the room.”
“I don’t want to ignore it!” Namu spat. “How am I supposed to ignore it when that thing is in my room with me? I still don’t understand why they would place it around children. I still don’t understand why no one warned me! I can’t stop thinking about it! How!? How do you expect me to ignore the thing that took so much from me?”
Tears, tears were wetting Namu’s hands now. Hot warm tears that he had held inside himself for so long. Tears he honestly didn’t know he still had. He wondered if the hot metal inside him, the terrible metal from that chaotic place, was contained in each drop. Maybe he was tainting the world or poisoning it.
He looked down at his arm and saw the metal slithering through his veins. He needed to calm down.
“I know… it’s hard… trust me, I know. I tried too, came back, but….”
“No! I’m not myself anymore because of it and because of you! It took me and tore me apart! I almost DIED! Why don’t you understand that? Even after—after being away all summer—” Namu swallowed, “I—I couldn’t stop thinking of it. I couldn’t stop feeling empty. I cannot, I want to, I need—I need to heal. Don’t you understand?”
Desperation seeped from him. He wanted to be given answers to the questions plaguing him. He wanted to be understood. But Mr. Vero’s face only held uncomfortable hollowness as a deafening silence fell between them. Namu held back a sob that was choking his throat.
Mr. Vero looked away. “I was told the door is here in the school because teachers care for children. They are not looking for power or much else. Children aren’t as deadly as adults, but they are more curious.” His hand went around his throat. “Curiosity can kill. I do believe that. That’s why I…why we—don’t say anything.”
“Because children are curious? That’s your excuse for letting them die?”
Mr. Vero’s hard dead eyes breached through to Namu’s soul. “No. Listen to me. After I found out, after it was made in MY room, I decided to go inside it. From curiosity, much like yourself. Even though I knew. I KNEW that it was a place that fed off chaos. That it was THE place that got rid of weapons from people’s hands. I knew that. The headmasters told me. They told me I was supposed to only watch it, but I went in. How is a teenage boy supposed to listen when he is told to leave a one-in-a-kind thing alone? I was lucky I was saved. And after I was saved, I left. I left this school because I hated it. I hated it because of that damn door and the staff who let it be here. The staff who trusted me not to go inside. But when I left… other students had known about it too. I had vented. I had told them.”
Namu’s breathing grew heavy.
“When I was gone, when I was not there, apparently, those other students had gone into it and died. The reason why I came back was because of the nightmares. That was when I found out about my fellow students. That was how I learned that kids will find a way in if they know. And that was when I decided I needed to protect people from it. That I needed to study it. That I needed to be here, until someone else took charge.”
Namu shook his head. Deep down, he knew that was why he couldn’t tell Lily about the door, or they would go inside. But to protect people from it? The thought exhausted him.
“I don’t want to protect anyone from it. I want to find a way to get rid of it.”
Mr. Vero half rolled his eyes to stare at the ceiling. “You can’t.”
“You haven’t tried.”
“Yes. Because I know better. What has been stored in there is too dangerous to mess with.”
“Letting that door be there for children to wander through and die is too dangerous!”
“I know that, Namu! That’s why we don’t say anything! That’s why I didn’t tell you about it during your first year. I had hoped that—”
“—that I wouldn’t just stumble upon a secret door hidden behind a wall in my room?”
Mr. Vero was silent.
Namu got up to leave, pushing the chair away from him as he stood.
“Namu,” Mr. Vero tried again, “I didn’t want you to be like me. I didn’t want you to know about it until you were a little older. Until you maybe knew a little better and understood. I thought then you wouldn’t have…”
Namu’s shoulders tightened as he walked to the door. “I’m pretty sure I would have understood the same way I do now. That the school, that the staff, and the headmasters do not care about the students. They care more about a stupid door since no one seems to be trying to find a way to get rid of it.” He opened Mr. Vero’s door and slammed it on his way out.
The big question was why.
Heading down the hall, he forgot to plug his nose and let the scent burn his insides until a sickly-sweet welcoming aroma teased past him. He turned his head to look for the source. Far away, near the end of the hall, he swore he saw something, but he couldn’t make it out.
He thought it might be a spirit sprite—another perfect example of the school not caring that much about the students, since it just let the mischievous little creatures torment the first years until they figured out how to protect their things from being stolen.
All the way down the stairs back down to his own hall, Namu considered what he was going to do. He understood the predicament of not being able to tell the students. He understood the danger in that. But he was going to destroy that door. He would never let anyone else fall to the torment that was inside.