Mystic High ✓

MH │10

In the previous chapter: Marian goes to the Disciplinary Office about the hex. Oriane interrupts to get them both out of trouble. On the way back, they overhear teachers talking about missing students.

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CHAPTER TEN

They dropped everything in the dormitory suite and first went knocking on Jessica's dormitory door. However, since no one answered, they made haste to Block Three where Charlotte and Oriane last saw Jessica.

But as expected, she was nowhere in sight. The girls were getting worried.

"Where could she be?" murmured Charlotte.

Marian shook her head and frowned. "Not here! You sure this was where you left her?" They had searched the entire floor, which was in itself a very spacious area to explore. "How could you just leave her?"

Charlotte pursed her lips, "I just assumed she knew better than to go around walking by herself. And she's been hanging around another crowd a lot lately."

Marian shook her head, "There's no way. Who would she hang out with?" She laughed dryly, "Phoebe and Elle?"

"That's a possibility," Charlotte remarked.

Marian's eyes widened. She looked down at the floor thinking, "She wouldn't... Jessica 's on our side." They continued tapping across the corridors when she turned to Charlotte again. "How did you get back? Who walked with you?"

Charlotte looked away and stumbled on her own feet. "Well, Robert, you know Robert? The-"

"Yeah, I know who Robert is," snapped Marian and waved at her to go on.

"Robert was looking for Anna, but he bumped into me instead. And since I just dropped off Oriane, he and Scott offered to walk me back..."

"Scott? Which one is Scott?"

"You know... Air affinity?"

While they bickered about why Marian ought to have known who 'Scott' was, Oriane wanted to ask Marian why she disliked Elle Lowery so much but kept quiet, reminding herself that it wasn't her place to wonder.That, and she wanted to ask Charlotte why Robert was looking for her.

Switching back to the subject at hand, she asked herself: where could Jessica be? It suddenly occurred to her-

"Would we be able to look for Jessica's location with Charlotte's crystal ball?" Oriane offered.

Marian lit up from the suggestion. "Yeah! That's the way to go. Hella suggestion, girlie." She turned to Charlotte. "Can we do it, Charlie?"

Shaking her head, Charlotte replied, "I would need something of her's. Like her hair or nails. Since we haven't got anything like that, I don't think so."

Suddenly remembering the Teas class Oriane and Jessica attended on Monday, Oriane started looking for something on herself. Luckily she had hung the small coin pouch onto the belt loop of her jeans. She remembered she had put something from class in it. "I've got something," Oriane said. "We took with us a charmed spice stick after Teas on Monday where we boiled it in some sort of soup with our essence mixed in it. Jessica gave hers' to me."

"Huh," expressed Charlotte with a frown. "What kind of essence?"

"Jessica used her hair and I snipped my finger nail," she said, as she procured two very small pieces of branch. "But erm, because we both used clove sticks and I don't remember which one was mine."

Charlotte nodded slowly, "That might work. Let me see them."

Oriane handed the clove branches to her. Charlotte examined them from her pink finger nails and three or four rings. Turning them front and back.