Wednesday's Week

Falling like Woe-drops

The Obstacle Race started in the dungeon. The whole coarse was mapped out with caution tape and cones. Students lined the way, hoping to get a glimpse of the contestants. It would begin in the dungeons. Each contestant was locked in a single empty cage. It was everyone for themselves. They would break out of that, run up four flights of stairs and all the way up to the tower where they would zip line right into small makeshift rafts that would be going down the very rough river and into the lake where they would go to the center island and cross along the tight rope walk to the biggest oak tree that they needed to climb in order to reach the suspended bridge that would take them to the entreated of the graveyard where whoever crossed the checkered line first would be crowned winner.

Enid sighed beside me, "I'm glad I'm not doing this. Cardio is not my thing."

Ajax held her hand beside her. "We might end up doing more running at capture the flag tomorrow anyways."

"Ya, but there won't be any stairs," she mumbled.

I pushed through the crowd in the dungeon until I got to the cages. Xavier paced it. "Some how you can't keep yourself on the right side of iron bars."

He quirked his head, "This time I put myself here voluntarily. And I don't plan on staying long."

I pressed up against the iron bars, "Make sure to give this back to me. He might help you right now." He moved to the bars and I slid the piece of paper to him. I pulled away before he did. He slipped it into his pocket. It was his own drawing of Nero. I didn't know how, but that scorpion drawing behaved exactly as my childhood pet. And he would be of great assistance with the right issue.

"Thank you, Wednesday," Xavier whispered.

I climbed back up to Enid. She was discussing something with the rest of the group. "Eugene and Kent will stay inside the school. Wednesday will be waiting at the end of the zip line, Ajax and I will be at the lake, and Divina will be at the suspension bridge. Once they've both passed your checkpoint, head to the graveyard as fast as you can." For someone who had entered the nightshades days ago, she commanded them well. And they obeyed. Maybe Bianca had some competition for head nightshade.

Ophelia snuck up from behind as I headed out. "There is never a too busy schedule for studying." She put Fockner's diary in my hands. "Something is always to be learned." She adjusted a flower on her shoulder and turned back.

She had gone to my room and picked up Fockner's diary. There must be something in here she found that she wanted me to see. I tucked it between my arm and ran off to the rafts. They were tied to the bank. Each one of them looked unstable and rickety. And the river was vicious. I sat down at a tree and unfolded the diary.

Fockner had been the one to explain Hyde's. His diary's was a fountain of untapped knowledge that Weems would rather have locked up in the nightshade library. I ran the old pages through my fingers. Notes on all kinds of monsters and outcasts. Even normies. He was a learner.

I stopped at the page for Necromancy. All of it was written in red with hundreds of warning signs.

But I didn't get much time to scan the text. The runners had somehow already reached the top of the tower. I pulled out my spy glass to watch them descend.

I could make out Yoko's black hair. It flew around her as she put her hands into the harness. There was another vampire next to her. But already half way down the line was a siren. He was picking up speed as Yoko tied herself on the zip line and dove. Xavier came up next. I watched him just grab the rope and hold it across the line instead of tying his hands. He jumped.

A metal disk shot through the air from above me. Before I realized what it was, it cut through the zipline. The siren tumbled first, close enough to the ground to not be too harmed. Yoko and the other vampire turned to bats.

Xavier watched the wire get cut. It shot him upward like a whip. He fumbled for something in his pocket before he began to free fall.

I was running through the open grass. The bees! I pulled them out of my pocket as I ran. I opened the jar and threw them up as high as I could. Xavier had been thinking the same thing.

The bees swarmed him, pulling on his uniform and slowing his descent. But he was still falling.

——-
(Enid and Ajax)

Enid smiled up at Ajax, "I see you wore the beanie I made you!" He tapped on the multicolor beanie.

"I don't think I can go back to wearing anything monochrome," he smiled, half of his mouth raising in a quirked smile. Ajax rocked back and forth on his feet, his hands fiddling with the end of his jacket.

Enid noticed, "Are you anxious?" He nodded his head in response. "How do you prefer to be calmed?"

He let out a little chuckle. "It's far too weird."

She pulled on his arm, "Trust me it's not."

"Well-" he sat down on the lake's bank. "Gorgons biggest weakness can be music. It's everything. The right tune can hypnotize us. But growing up-" he turned to Enid. "Let's just say we probably had the opposite growing up stories."

Enid watched the zip line. "My family is huge and they are part of an even bigger pack. I've never been alone."

"Gorgons are solitaire creatures. My families are hippies, trying to find inner zen and peace because we drift by ourselves. We'd probably be extinct if so many of us weren't hatched at the same time."

Enid's eyes grew wide, "You came from an egg."

Ajax's face grew red." Maybe......."

"That's not the point," he turned the subject around. "I just like to hum. I guess it isn't as weird as it sounds, but I'll end up swaying and maybe doing some weird stuff."

Enid smiled, "How do I snap you out of it?"

"Anything that will shock me. Even just smacking me."

She let out a laugh, "I'm not going to smack you."

"Well you have to if it looks like my snakes are going to come out. I'd rather have a black eye then a stone for a girlfriend," he spoke.

Enid stopped, "Girlfriend?"

"Oh, crap- I did just say that didn't I?" He put his hand to his mouth. "I was hoping to do it more romantically. Maybe a dinner, or something you'd like to do. But not public. I don't want to pressure you. But I can't-"

Enid stopped him, "I'd love to be your girlfriend."

Ajax smiled and started humming. It was a very low tune that carried a lot of emotion to it. Enid felt herself being swayed by it. And soon enough, Ajax's prediction came true. His eyes seemed glazed over as he kept humming. "I wish I could just disappear in my own head sometimes," Enid sighed.

She was so distracted by Ajax, she didn't see the rafts