I'll Keep You Safe - Wenclair

Chapter 4: Rumour

"You guys are not going to believe this," Ajax said as he slammed his lunch tray on the table. Wednesday took a deep breath out and prepared herself for some mundane bullshit that no one cared about. Everyone stared at him, blank-faced. Apparently they were all thinking the same thing. "I was walking back from my woodworking class, and there's another dead animal by Poe."

Wednesday was wrong, her interest was piqued. "What kind of animal?"

"Dunno. A bat or something I heard."

"Interesting." She returned to her iced coffee. Enid glared at her as she sipped, eternally mad that Wednesday refused lunch.

Xavier piped up. "I heard about that! Some guy in my art class is convinced there's some kind of evil spirit roaming the school. He reckons it's gonna go for people next."

"I heard someone say they reckon it's one of the teachers. Gonna start killing students from the inside," Ajax said, eyes bugging out of his head.

"Or maybe it's a zombie," Yoko joked.

"Or a ghoul," Enid joined in. "Oooooo," she said spookily, waving her hands all around Ajax and Xavier's face.

"Don't be stupid," Bianca retorted. "It's just some coward playing some sick prank. Nothing more." She rolled her eyes. Wednesday was surprised she was contributing to the conversation. Since what happened at the Poe Cup, she'd been giving them all the cold shoulder. A true crybaby. It was fascinating how she was unable to join in with the joke. She had seemed like the most sarcastic of the group.

"You never know," Enid said, smirking.

Bianca just rolled her eyes again.

When the lunch bell rang, Wednesday was up and moving before she even realised she was. She knew where she was going. Edgar Allan Poe. This case, however small it may have seemed to the outside eye, was important. She knew there was more than what met the eye, and she knew she would have done anything to prove it.

She arrived at the statue, and she was not surprised to be met with a misshapen corpse of a bat. Its bones had snapped and contorted in unimaginable ways. It almost made her feel squeamish. Finally, a challenge at this drab school.

She picked it up carefully with one hand, but she was not able to hold on to it for too long.

It flashed in front her eyes like a film reel.

The body of a werewolf lay, beaten and bloody at the feet of Poe. Most students marvelled over it. The werewolves eyed it cautiously.

A kid, some psychic, eternally terrified as his eyes and mouth agape posthumously. Every student who came across it shook in fear. They had not taken the case seriously up until this point. Weems stared at it with a sense of guilt in her eyes.

Another psychic lay at the feet of Poe. Flowers gathered by his feet. His friends had closed his eyes, and shut his mouth. Most students shuddered at the thought of touching the dead body, but they couldn't lay him to rest looking as terrified as he had.

An assembly.

A police car.

A dungeon.

"Wednesday?" The girl felt a tap on her back. "Wednesday. Wake up."

She lifted her head from the cold ground of Nevermore Academy. She was mortified to find that she was lying spread on the floor, however she was pleased to find that in her fall she had flung the corpse of the animal back to its original resting place. She didn't want any reason for anyone to blame her for this, especially if it escalated.