“Why are you barging into my classroom? If you’re a student, you are very late.”

The stern looking teacher, in her sixties looked at Enid over the top of her reading glasses. She had grey hair and blue eyes. Enid closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Almost fifty years she had been living amongst these mortals and still she had trouble treating her elders with deference. Hard to find someone who was your elder when you’re one of the oldest sentient things on the planet. She chose to settle for her most comfortable English accent which happened to sound Scottish.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Wells. I got a bit lost.”

The class of fifteen students sat up in their seats when the heard her speak. Enid offered up a piece of paper to the teacher who snatched it out of her hand. She pushed her reading glasses up and her eyes traced the lines on the paper.

“Enid Aurelius, very odd name you have, young lady. In the future, be on time for class.”

“I am sorry.”

Mrs. Wells nodded and seemed to be happy with her show of deference and motioned to a seat at the front of the class. It happened to be beside Maria. Enid did her best not to stare at her sister and slid into the seat and went to pull out her laptop.

“No need Ms. Aurelius, we use books and paper in this class. Its as closest to papyrus the school will let me use. We are studying Latin after all.”

Enid nodded, and pulled out her Latin textbook, a pen and her binder. Maria gave a side-long glance to the new girl in class. Something about the flowing red hair and piercing green eyes stirred a feeling in the pit of her stomach. It made her uncomfortable. Such feelings were not proper. She opened her unnecessary textbook and did her best to focus on the printed words. Translating Latin was like reading English to her, there was no functional difference, in fact Latin was easier to understand.

Enid glanced at her sister out of the corner of her eye. She noticed she was uncomfortable, shoulders hunched. She seemed ill at ease. Enid remembered her body language like they had been laughing under a tree yesterday. She’d seen this before. She was nervous about something. Enid whispered in Hebrew to see if Mariana would remember.

“No need to be worried, I don’t bite.”

Maria looked straight at her eyes wide. Enid nodded, she had understood. Mrs. Wells was less then amused by the whispering.

“I don’t know how things work in Scottish schools Enid, but here when its time to do translations you do translations. If you’re already done perhaps you can write it out on the board?”

Mrs. Wells pointed to a chalk board. Enid sighed. She’d forgotten how some high school teachers were drunk with their power. She glanced at the paper on her desk, read it over and walked the board and wrote out the translation. Then went and sat down. Mrs. Wells looked at her sheet of paper then back at the board and frowned.

“If you finish early again, just sit silently or study something for another class.”

Enid nodded. And slouched in her seat. She pulled out the tablet she had and started going over the math book for her next class. Algebra was something she wasn’t great at and she did need the refresher. She glanced at Mariana who still looked extremely uncomfortable in her presence. The buzzer went off and Mariana who had been holding her breath rushed out and away from Enid. Enid tried to follow but the teacher called her name and she sighed and turned around.

“Why are you in this class?”

“What do you mean?”

“You translated that like you were reading English, why are you bothering with level one Latin?”

“My mother picked my classes. I guess she wanted something to make up for my Math marks.”

Mrs. Wells nodded.

“Well some of the students are struggling, I would appreciate if you helped them out when you finish your work. You are new, I know what that is like and it would help you get to know them.”

I hate high school. Another three years of this. Kill me now.

“Sure, Mrs. Wells, I would be happy to help.”

“I’m glad you’re trying to talk to Maria, she has had a hard time and doesn’t have any friends. But please don’t do it during class.”

Enid nodded and hiked her bag on her shoulder and walked towards her Math class, which Mrs. Wells had just made her late for. Enid rolled her eyes and knocked on the door and after another lecture about the virtues of being on time she took her seat and did her best not to stare at Mariana. Enid’s mind drifted to the council meeting. Mariana lay there on the marble alter. Unconscious, broken. The struggle against her father to stop Amara from killing her. The words she spoke to the woman she had loved as an Aunt. The hurtful things she had said to her father. The threats against the council. The satisfied smirk of Lucius. She was snapped out of the painful memory when the buzzer went off again. She felt moistness on her cheeks and she touched it.

Tears, glad I was in the sun that would have been embarrassing.

She looked up and Mariana was no where to be seen. She gathered her things and rushed out of the room into the hall it was mess of students. She couldn’t see her sister anywhere. She sighed and glanced at her phone. Lunch time. She headed to the cafeteria. She looked over the gathered students and saw Mariana sitting in the corner on her own no one around her.

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Finally. I can talk to her.

She turned and went through the line, she went with the best tasting foods, rather than the healthiest it’s not like she’d have a heart attack, or gain weight. She ended up with a tray full of desert and a hamburger. As she’d told her daughter. She was damned if she was going to eat rabbit food when she’d spent a couple thousand years on a steady diet of blood. She took her tray and started walking towards Mariana. She reached the end of the table and was so focused on her sister she didn’t realize someone was about to grab her arm. Her first instinct was to put the owner of the hand, out of her misery but she stopped herself from reacting with her warrior instincts. And looked over to see what most would consider an attractive girl, brown hair, eyes grabbing her arm.

“Don’t sit with zombie girl. Do you want to destroy your reputation on your first day?”

“Zombie girl?”

“Look at her she looks like she just walked out of the morgue. She has like cancer or something come sit with us.”

She motioned to a couple of other girls. Enid was about to say something scathing but then she looked up and noticed Mariana had vanished. She frowned.

Might as well gather some intelligence. Mariana doesn’t seem to want to be social.

“Sure.”

Enid turned and followed the girl and sat down.

“Hi Enid!”

She was greeted warmly by the other two girls.

“I’m Heather, and that’s Julie, and that is Kerri.”

Enid nodded to all three and looked them over. She was dressed similarly to them. Eyre had picked out her wardrobe.

“We saw you about go sit by Zombie girl, we just had to save you.”

“Definitely.”

“Why would you want to do something silly like that?”

Enid looked at the three.

You are so lucky. Another day saying that about my sister you’d be in pain.

“What’s the big deal?”

“She’s Zombie girl. She lives in a convent. She’s always reading the bible and praying. So weird”

“Umm, isn’t this a Catholic School?”

“Yes, but I mean she’s obsessive, it’s weird.”

“She killed her uncle, blew up his house. Almost died.”

“Now the psycho’s here with us.”

“She is not a psycho.”

“You know her?”

“We were like sisters when we were younger.”

“I thought you were from Scotland.”

“I was living there with my dad. He died so I had to come here again. I left when I was six.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear about your dad.”

“It’s alright. So why is she living in a convent?”

Heather tapped her chin. Then pulled out her tablet tapping on it and showed it to Enid. Enid took the tablet and read the news article. She’d already read it, Eyre had done extensive research. Her daughter was meticulous.

“Why did you say she killed her uncle? It was a gas leak. It’s not right to spread rumors.”

“Well you know the news is always lying. He kept her locked inside for years doing god knows what to her. I think she finally snapped and killed him then tried to kill herself, but she didn’t die. So now she’s zombie girl. She’s creepy let’s stop talking about her.”

The others nodded their approval. Enid took comfort in her tray full of desert as she was badgered by another forty-five minutes of rapid-fire questions and conversation by the trio who seemed to have decided she was one of them now. She kept to her new identity’s story. It was easy now, after the third time to shed her old persona for this new teen age one. She regretted not drawing the line at her daughter’s choice of wardrobe she could already be talking to Mariana.

Eyre why couldn’t you just let me wear my combats and black shirt and trench coat.

Enid found herself being dragged along with flow of the hallway and her new besties as they called themselves. She sighed. This wasn’t the job. Mariana was the job. But she had to seem normal, nice, humane, good hearted so her sister would let her approach eventually. She heard her name come up in the conversation the trio was having, and they were looking at her. Expectantly.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said, you’re going to sign up for soccer, right? And volleyball too, right?”

“Err, no, I don’t do sports. It’s umm not fair.”

“What do you mean it’s not fair?”

“I uh, well.”

“Don’t worry you have time.”

“Besides we are all on the team already and we can tell the coach how much we need you.”

“You don’t even know if I’m good at it.”

“Oh yes we do.”

“Says right here, MVP for your football team at your old school.”

Enid frowned.

Eyre I’m going to do such things to you.

“Football, I thought you said she was good at Soccer? We don’t have a girl’s football team, do we?”

“Kerri, football is soccer in Scotland!”

“Oh.”

“I was hoping to focus on schoolwork.”

“Oh, if you want to get into a good university taking part in sports is a good way to stand out.”

Enid frowned.

“Fine, I’ll play, but you’ll be disappointed, your coach will sit me on the bench most of the games.”

There were squeals of delight. From the trio. The dragged her to a seat near them in the next class which happened to be religion. Mariana sat at the front of the class paying rapt attention to every word. Enid sighed.

It drives me nuts that these humans have built a whole set of religious beliefs on scrolls written hundreds of years after the people who supposedly wrote them died. Oral tradition is so easily corrupted.

The trio she had been dragged into were not paying much attention to class either. It was not that Enid hadn’t read the bible, she had indeed read it in several incarnations and languages. It just didn’t translate the gospels as taught by her nephew very well. Sure, it got the general gist, but there was a spin on it, humans always put a spin on stuff. She sighed. She glanced at her wrist. She had a fitbit, it served a purpose other then monitoring her still beating heart. She could see texts from Eyre if necessary. But she could also see the time. She sighed, another thirty minutes of the good news and what it means to her. She had heard this for how many years in Narfordshire. God sure didn’t show up and save them from the plague, no it was her. Some good news.

Whose to say he didn’t wake you up to save them?

Enid swatted away the stray thought. She wasn’t sure about much, but God was definitely bullshit. After what seemed like another eternity the class ended, and she was swept along to another class. The day ended.

If I had to do this for my entire existence, I would have killed myself a long time ago. How can high school make a day seem like it’s an eternity?

Enid collected her things and walked out of the front of the school. She could see Mariana walking towards a bus stop. She shifted to walk towards her when she noticed Eyre sitting in a very boring car. It was not like her to drive anything that didn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. She walked towards the car. She heard a gaggle of footsteps behind her she glanced back it was Heather, Julie and Kerri.

“Is that your mom Enid?”

“Yes.”

Enid leaned down giving Eyre a glare. And forced the words out.

“Hello Mom. I thought I was taking the bus home tonight.”

She looked towards Mariana who was waiting for the bus.

“I’m sorry I got off work early, I thought we would go out for supper.”

“Ms. Aurelius, can Enid come to West Edmonton Mall with us? We were going to go shopping.”

Eyre smiled. Enid squinted at her waving her hand no.

“Sure, be home by 10 Enid, and that’s PM. This isn’t your father’s roof you’re living under.”

Enid closed her eyes.

“Okay, Mom. We will talk when I get home.”

She spoke the word mom with a venom that seemed to surprise Eyre. But then Eyre laughed, and gave Enid a debit card.

“Be nice to it. Dear. And don’t buy any of those dreadful black clothes your dad always dressed you in. You’re a nice young catholic girl, not an old Italian grandmother.”

Enid snatched the debit card out of Eyre’s hand.

“Oh, I’ll be nice to it.”

Eyre drove away and Enid pulled out her phone. She pounded out a text message with a lot of expletives and hit send. The only response she got was a devil face emoji.

Brat.