Molly followed Koz and Rem around the school, staying a couple steps behind. Rem kept looking back at her, but she didn’t seem annoyed that Molly preferred to stay away.
Molly found the pair intimidating in a way. They were two people who needed to only check her off their list of things to get done. She could tell they could care less to get to know her.
But they were full of information.
The first place they showed her was where her classes would take place in the basement. The class names were written on golden plates by the sides of the doors to make it easy for her to find. The other important locations downstairs that they passed, with only a wave and a small explanation, were the restrooms and the library that was bigger than the one she had in her school back at home and was not closed in but instead a portion of the basement. They then took her upstairs.
It was upstairs on the main floor that they showed her the nurse’s office, the computer lab, which was where she would be taking Technology and looked like any other computer lab she has been in, and then the stairwell that led to all the halls where her room would be.
“We will show you the halls and to your room after we grab something to eat,” Koz said.
Rem nodded more than a few times and skipped ahead to a three-level cafeteria.
It was a large room in three tiers with two open balconies of clear glass staggered on top of each other with glass steps leading up to the two floors. On each step were pudgy blue grippers, maybe so no one would slip and fall. On the floor they were on, there were glass tables with metal chairs placed around them, looking out at a giant window that reached the uppermost ceiling where all the floors could see the grounds. Under the top floors was a cafeteria. There was a counter for students to walk along to grab food and people working in crisp white uniforms in the back.
The people in the uniforms were pouring liquid from long clear bottles onto hot pans with meat that they were holding and shaking to give the meat a quick dose of air to calm the smoke. Molly was mesmerized. The meat had looked like chicken in two of the pans, but one of the slabs of chicken had turned a golden crisp with what looked like glitter on the top. When the cook pressed a spatula onto a section of the sparkling crust, it was as if the glitter itself oozed a thick cheese onto the pan before it was tossed onto a plate. The other chicken had turned dark brown from whatever liquid they had poured on it and when the spatula pressed onto that one, the brown crust produced a clear glaze.
Her mind was blown. She had never seen anything cooked like that before. She turned to ask Koz what she had just witnessed, but then clamped her mouth shut when she saw he was staring at her.
Her cheeks flared again.
“You are from the non-magickal world, huh?” Koz asked.
Molly didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to single herself out. She imagined that it wasn’t common for someone to come straight from the non-magickal world into here.
She didn’t say anything.
Rem danced over to the counter and grabbed the two plates with the chicken that Molly had watched them make. She then went over to a close table and sat down. Around them, more kids were getting into lines to get food. Classes must have been let out.
There were a few younger kids that found each other and started laughing.
“Lockdrest accepts younger kids, but it’s rare they come here so young.” Koz said in reply to her watching them. “There are maybe ten, if that.”
“Eleven.” Rem corrected. She took a bite of the cheesy chicken and somehow more cheese leaked out.
Koz sat down next to her and pointed at the seat across from them. Molly sat just as he pushed the dark brown chicken across the table to her. She put her bag on the metal seat next to her.
Rem handed her a fork.
Molly took it and sliced into the chicken with ease. She waited until Koz and Rem weren’t looking before she took a bite.
It was sweet. Almost as sweet as a donut but more hearty, full.
Koz pointed above them. “The seating arrangements look the same on the other two levels, only smaller the higher you go up.”
Molly nodded.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” Koz asked.
She tried to slow her heart. She thought by being quiet, she was being safe and that she wouldn’t drive them away like she had the boy on the plane. But now she wasn’t sure if he thought she was too dismissive.
“Um… it’s nice.” She looked up to the levels above them and to the students starting to climb the steps. “Organized. Neat.”
Koz laughed. Rem continued eating. Molly wondered why he wasn’t eating anything.
“The last thing I would say about this school is that it is organized and neat,” Koz said. His long pink lips stretched into a knowing smile. “More like unsupportive. Ambivalent. But what else can you expect from a magickal school, I guess.”
“Chaotic,” Rem said.
“Yes. Chaotic is the best term for obvious reasons.”
Molly didn’t know what the obvious reasons were.
She waited until he looked away before she took another bite of her chicken. To her dismay, he looked at her again while she was chewing. Thankfully, he glanced to Rem instead the moment she froze.
Amusement played in his brown eyes.
“I don’t want to take up your time as much as I’m sure you don’t want to take up ours. As soon as you finish your food, we will take you upstairs. But while we are here, I am curious, how new are you to this side of things?”
Molly swallowed. “Side of things?”
“What are your views on the magickal world?”
“Compared to the non-magickal,” Rem said with her mouth full.
Molly took a deep breath in and looked down at her plate. Her chicken was only half eaten, but she was full. Uncertainty had filled her stomach in the form of butterflies.
“I don’t really have any views or opinions,” she lied. “I just… I appreciate magick. I’m happy it’s here.” And she hoped it would help her. The problem was that she had never let herself form her own opinion on the topic. She had always gone off what her friends thought of it. She had always followed the trends. She hated parts of magick, like the fact that ghosts could take over her body and apparently corporeal beings, too. But she had never hated it as much as her parents did.
“Lockdrest is far away from non-magickal areas.,” Rem randomly said. Maybe to fill the silence. “On an island like a videogame drop-off where kids are placed on an island and have to find a way off. We even have game ghosts!”
Koz smirked before he sighed. “This is true. Even if we compare our magickal school to the smaller establishments in the city closest to this island, there is a significant difference.”
Rem nodded. Her chicken was now gone. “It’s like a video game world where the creators believed in different gods and creatures and bam, shoved them together.”
Molly was caught on something Rem said before. Something that had made her heart stop. “Game ghosts?”
Koz crossed his arms. “The game ghosts in her hypothetical scenario are only projection spirits from techno magick blending with memory magick. Not real ghosts.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Molly held in a sigh of relief. “Are there any ghosts?”
“Here? So far, no.” Koz said, looking around. “We are on an island so it’s pretty hard for ghosts to get to the school and there hasn’t been many traumatic deaths here where the spirit has lived on outside the body. The school would know how to clean up the situation if there were and hopefully pass the spirits on in some way, so they could either enter into their reincarnation cycle process or stay with the god or goddess they decided to bond themselves to.”
Molly had to take a moment to let that process. It sounded like a traumatic death was how a spirit was made, which was news to her. She had never cared where they came from. She had always been more focused on how to stay away from them or get rid of them. “So, no ghosts?”
“There are game ghosts,” Rem mentioned again.
“Besides game ghosts, no ghosts. Are you scared of ghosts?” Koz asked.
Molly could not help but to let her shoulders fall. The breath of relief she let out was so loud, she covered her mouth. It sounded like here was the best possible place she could be to learn to protect herself if there were no ghosts.
“No… Not—Kind of,” Molly answered Koz’s question.
Koz stood, took Rem’s plate, and then Molly’s. “Well, there is nothing to worry about. And the video game analogy is the best way to describe our world. It is also best, if you are new, to think of it in a similar dissociative way.”
Molly got up and followed after him. She needed to know that that meant or it would torment her. “What—what do you mean?”
“What I mean is that if you pay too close attention to what you assume may be the meaning to certain things instead of looking only to the facts, this world could drive you crazy and make you go mad.”
Rem brushed right past her a little too close, which made Molly jump. Rem then stood next to Koz as he put the two plates on a belt that moved to an opening so they could be cleaned. Rem then followed closely beside him as he led them to the stairs.
Molly made sure to stay a little behind once again, now more unsettled than ever. She decided to focus on the beauty of the hardwood in stone that made up the stairs as they climbed up until they reached the first hall, which entranced her with its beauty.
It was blinding. It was all gold, even the carpet threads between each door were.
“This is the Fehu hall,” Koz said. “Each hall is based on a rune from Freya’s Aett.” He nodded to a symbol embedded in the golden wall that was a single straight line with two lines coming out of it at an angle.
“Why Freya?” Molly asked, still mesmerized by all the gold. She remembered that goddess from Norse mythology.
“Because although the school encompasses all gods and pantheons, like Rem said, this school was made by Freya’s chaos magick. Fitting since it is believed that Norse is more intimate with the human condition with how it touches darker aspects of life,” Koz explained.
She wanted to walk down the golden hall. She wanted to touch it and let her mind take in how each door and every part of every wall was gilded.
“Fehu is assumed to mean for the rich. For those with wealth and strength. I’m telling you this so you don’t waste your time trying to look it up only to fall down a hole of incomplete information,” Koz said, continuing up the stairwell without her.
The next hall was darker. Koz said its rune represented Uruz for resentment of power and creative force. Molly swore she saw spider webs growing and disappearing along the dark walls that had no speck of gold. But she didn’t think that could be right. Why would there be a hall that would do that?
Next came Thurisaz, which Koz said was meant for extra protection for those who needed it most. It catered to them and made life easier. It made life more accessible. There was something Molly’s size strolling down the hall that made her heart stop for a moment. It was a creature with giant insect-like legs and a furry torso. She couldn’t quite make out the head as it reached a door to turn the key and slip inside.
Rem nudged her. “Not polite to stare.”
“What was…”
“Another student who happens to be an intelligent creature,” Koz said with a shrug and then continued up.
Aunuz was the hall on the fourth floor. She swore there was dust falling from the ceiling in random places. Koz said it was for those who need to be more aware.
Next was Raido, where Derrin’s room was. Apparently, it was for journeys.
Finally, they reached Molly’s hall, Kenaz, on the sixth floor. She saw the same rune that was on her key embedded in black marble on the wall by the stairs.
Koz stopped.
“What does this one mean?” she asked nervously. She couldn’t believe she would be living and sleeping here.
He paused. For a moment, she was worried that he wouldn’t tell her, but then he sighed. “Discovery. Destroying for something new.”
Her eyes shot wide. “What does that mean?” She wondered what that meant about her and how that box or the school thought this hall would fit her needs.
“For everyone… the meanings mean different things. Remember what I told you? Don’t read into things without facts so you don’t drive yourself insane.” Koz pulled out his phone and looked at the time.
She turned away from the both of them to her hall and then sneezed, which made Rem laugh.
Molly’s muscles tensed. She smelled something burning.
“Take a deep breath,” she heard Koz say.
What? She glanced at him, but he was looking down her hall with his arms crossed.
They had said they have things to do.
She quickly did as she was told, not wanting to be a bother. When she took a deep inhale, there was an odd smell, something like burning hair but not quite. She couldn’t place it.
“Burning feathers,” Koz said. “Now touch the wall.”
She took a few steps into the hall and put her hand on the wall near the imprinted rune. She snatched it back, sucking air sharply through her teeth. “It’s hot!”
Rem nodded with an impatient glance at Koz.
Molly looked down the hall again, walked a few paces, and then tried to touch another wall. This time it was only warm. It was calming at first until she could picture the skin on her hand starting to melt, and she swore she could see it steam. She pulled it away, checked her palm, and saw that it was unharmed.
Why had she been placed here?
She pulled out her key and looked at the number. Room 260.
She began walking down the hall, carpeted in the same deep maroon as the stairwell that led to the basement, but then realized Koz and Rem weren’t following her.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
Rem shook her head, but it was Koz who answered.
“No. We have things to do.” He pointed up the stairwell. “The next hall is Gebo. It has tree branches that have grown with no tree. When a branch is touched, it lights up different colors and happiness flows through someone. Teachers and guests reside there. The one after that is Wunjo. Those with a key on that floor hear peaceful music. That is also a hall where teachers and guests live and stay.”
Molly glanced over her shoulder at all the doors in her hall once again. She wasn’t ready for Koz and Rem to leave her. She didn’t know what to do.
Rem pointed down her hall this time, “Every hall is different. Doors count by three, some five, some two.”
Koz nodded, “Yes. Your room numbers count off by fives.”
“Why?” Molly asked.
“Chaos.” Rem grinned. “There is always chaos in numbers.”
But that had to mean something.
“One last thing,” Koz said, already turning his body to head back down the stairs. Rem started down ahead of him. “There are two gender-neutral bathrooms, along with one girl bathroom and one boy bathroom with everything you need. There is a creature in the bathroom. Don’t worry about it. It’s called a vigilplunk and will only attack if someone is bullying someone else. They are there for that reason.”
“Oh… ok…”
He shook his head with a lazy grin and then left her all alone.
Alone to find her room…
As she made her way down the hall, her brain swam from the burning fumes. She saw right away that Koz had been right; the rooms were counted off by fives. She was now at 100, which meant she would reach her room soon.
But then she saw something that made her shriek and drop her key and bag to the floor.
Floating out of the carpet ahead of her were two creatures that could have been fairies. They were blue with slender bodies that grew translucent from the light fixtures above them as they floated to one of the doors before her. They had no wings and long fingers, with small feet with normal-sized toes.
One of them started to mess with the keyhole on a door. It looked like they were trying to get in and they couldn’t just move through the door like they had the floor.
Molly then heard students coming up the stairs. She wanted to check to see what time it was and where everyone was at with their schedules, but those fairy things were breaking into someone’s room. She couldn’t pull her attention away. What would the students think if they came up the stairs and saw her not stopping them?
But before Molly could shoo them away, they had succeeded in opening the door by using their long fingers in the keyhole, sitting on the knob, and then pulling at it together.
“Not again!” a girl yelled, running to the door and slamming it shut. The two creatures scurried away in shock, but another one rose from the ground and floated right in front of the girl’s face, looking annoyed.
A few older kids walked by and snickered.
“How do you keep on opening on your own!” the girl yelled at the door, completely looking through the thing in front of her.
Couldn’t she see it? Or was it like a spirit? Was it something only Molly and others who worked with spirit magick long enough could see?
Molly instantly felt panicked that there were spirit creatures here. She grabbed her stuff and walked right past the girl and the thing floating in front of her, ignoring them both as the older kids had done. But then something pinched her, making her shout and slap her hand to her lips. She turned around to see what it was. That thing had followed her. It was looking directly at her now as the girl stared after her, probably because she had shouted. Molly watched in horror as it reached out to touch her and stood paralyzed as its finger went right through her, convulsing her muscles in pain. She didn’t yell out this time, though. She just let tears well in her eyes as she turned and tried not to run away from it, tried not to look too panicked, too out of place, too weird.
It was her first day at this school. She did not want anyone to think she was odd or that something was wrong with her. She did not want to give anyone a reason to make fun of her or hate on her right away.
She saw her door was four doors away and ran toward it. The numbers 260 were in gold in the middle near the top. She fumbled with her key then shoved it in the hole right when she touched her door. When the door opened, she ran into the room and closed it behind her, holding the handle so the spirit thing could not try to work its way in. It rummaged with the door handle on the other side for a while until it seemed to give up and finally let go.
Molly sank to the floor and cried.