Before Keeper: KotLC Through Other Eyes

Chapter 1: Keefe

Keefe's dad dragged him through the halls of Foxfire. All the prodigies were running around the school, laughing with their friends, popping floating bubbles with prizes inside of them, opening their lockers and tearing open gifts in their thinking caps. Some were being consoled by their parents because they didn't pass their midterms. 

Not Keefe. Keefe had passed with flying colors. Lowest scores 98 and 99. But Dear Old Daddio didn't care about that. He, Keefe had been told multiple times, he had gotten a 100 on Every. Single. Midterm. Without photographic memory. Another thing he had told Keefe hundreds, no thousands of times. Keefe should've done the same, especially since he had photographic memory.

"Cassius! Wait!" A deep, crisp, accented voice snapped Keefe out of his mental rant.

"Lord Cassius." Keefe's father told Alden as he turned to face him, spinning Keefe around with him.

"You're leaving already?" Alden asked, seeming a little winded from jogging to catch up with them.

"Keefe needs to study. He didn't do as expected on his midterms." Dear Old Daddio responded.

"Keefe just passed midterms with the second highest grades in his level," Alden informed him. "Surely he can relax and celebrate a little with his friends."

"No, no, he's fine." Keefe's dad said, tightening his grip on Keefe's shoulder. Keefe already felt a bruise forming.

"Okay then," Alden relented. "I'm very proud of you Keefe." Keefe's emotions went supersonic with feelings of pride and joy. Then he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. 

"Let's go Keefe." His father resumed the dragging of Keefe Sencen. He was definitely in trouble.

                                                                                            ***

Keefe waited in Atlantis. His mother and father had left to go somewhere and told him to stay where he was. And he had obeyed for hours now. The balefire lanterns had been dimmed. Every person who had walked by had shot him a worried look. He was starting to get asked questions like "Are you okay?" and "Where's your parents?" Keefe had always, always replied. "My parents will be here soon," hoping that it was true. It never was. He just sat there on the fountain. He sat there so long his butt when numb. Finally, a eurypterid carriage pulled up in front of him. His father didn't even glance at him. Keefe bit his lip. But his mom did.

"Sorry we forgot you." Admittedly, that wasn't the best thing hear from your mother. But that as more of an apology that Keefe had ever gotten from his father. So Keefe walked over and leaned against his mom.

                                                                                           ***

"Alden isn't your father Keefe!" Lord Cassius practically roared at him.

"I wish he was instead of you!" Keefe spat back. He didn't want this man as his father. He wasn't going to call him that anymore.

"Well that's funny because I would rather have the Vacker children instead of this disappointment of a son." Lord Cassius sneered. "I will make you into something of worth if it's the last thing thing I do."

"Good luck with that!" Keefe snapped back. He was never going to let his father do that to him. He never wanted to become a true Sencen. He was going to do everything in his power to become an embarrassment to his father.

Lord Cassius, probably feeling this defiance through the air, smashed his glass of fizzleberry wine in front of Keefe, splattering his boots with the sticky concoction.

"Clean that up!" he shouted at Keefe. Hate burned inside of Keefe as his father stomped out of the room.

After Keefe had cleaned up the mess, he went to his room and slammed the door so hard, he was surprised it hadn't fallen off its hinges. Keefe grabbed a piece of paper, tearing it up and throwing it out of the window. He stared at the white confetti fluttering down like butterflies. He tilted his head, looking at one of them at an angle. Keefe opened his desk drawer and took out a new piece of paper and started sketching a diagram of Foxfire. After it was complete he drew a line to Dame Alina's office. At the end he wrote, Place gulon here.