Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 13

Something about Marketta makes me go cold. I feel it creep into the core of my body, sensing the pathways as it creeps though the capillaries and veins, deep into the nerves, the organs, the bones. It's slow motion. High definition. She doesn't move at all. Like a statue with her eyes fixed on me.

She's as pale as the moon and her salt and pepper hair is pulled back into a severe style. She makes no effort whatsoever to explain to me what to do with my bony little self. I'm like a lost twig in a whirlpool. Don't even know if I have the courage to ask. Trying to find my voice. When it comes it paints my fear in fifty-foot letters on the wall.

"May I sit?"

MAY I? When have I ever said MAY I? Am I in a costume drama? And all of a sudden, visions of every single thing I've ever done wrong flood my brain. And I'm absolutely certain that my tongue will betray me. One question in the wrong place at the wrong time and I'll tip over like a vase full of jumping beans. And all my secrets will scatter across the little windowless room.

How do you find a windowless room in a school? And she speaks, interrupting all of this with a single word. Her glittering eyes never shifting, seething with intelligence, does she even blink?

"Sit."

And I sit. And I wait while she appraises me. Her hands on the desk in front of me festooned with all manner of silver rings. And her eyes, I try to look anywhere else in the room, but they have nailed me to my chair.

"I'm worried about you Ursula."

You're not the only one. I think.

"Oh, I'm fine."

I say, in a voice that is literally begging for help, drowning in a turbulent sea looking for anyone strong enough to pull me out. She looks so strong.

"There are... some disturbing groups of people operating in this very school. I think I can be frank with you. You look like an intelligent young woman."

I just nod. Then I'm thinking of the twins. If the witch hunters have any reason at all to suspect you Ursula, then we're all going to get arrested. Grandma's voice seems distant, competing with the magisterial presence in front of me.

Subtly, but very expensively dressed. High style, timeless classical style. Could be a photo of a president's wife from any decade in the last twenty. Then again, something odd about her too, some arch wildness that you cannot put your finger on, like maybe it's a mask and the person wearing it is shrieking with laughter, like a flock of magpies chasing off a crow.

"They are molesters, child. They are a secret ring of perverts and terrorists. They target schools, particularly schools where there are many...and she turns this word over in her mouth slowly...vulnerable girls."

And I'm thinking of the com sci teacher. What do they call it here? ICT. The ICT teacher, and her face is screaming out of my eyes, projecting itself on the wall while I try and do anything but mention her name.

"That's awful." I mutter.

Barely moving my lips. Trying to defend my position with one pawn and no idea of the rules of chess.

"I'm certain the school is doing its best, but there are some issues, a certain liberal attitude in the management here that is making it a little too easy for these perverts to operate."

"Mhmhm."

Some kind of noise of assent. Waiting, in a permanent filch for the sucker punch I know must be coming. She is so slow. Moving like a cat.

She leans imperceptibly forward. Maybe less than an inch.

"They take girls like you, isolated girls, girls with broken families."

That hurts. Like a jab in the solar plexus. Unexpected.

"And they make them, dependent, lead them on, tell them they're special, offer them power and wealth, offer them.... magic."

Hissed, that last word, like saying something disgusting. And yet this twinkle of complicity in her eye, like if you just say the word, I'll drop this act and we can really talk. So compelling. Just wanting to please her in any way. But no, hold on to grandma's voice.

"I had heard some stuff. But things are not so bad in New York, I didn't know, how bad it got here."

"Surely a mistake to bring a young woman here to London in the middle of all this. But families have their own logic I suppose."

I don't even know whether to nod or freeze. It's coming.

"Your mother was an interesting woman."

Heavy blow. I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. Mom's face, mom's voice conjured up like a rabbit from a hat. I'm way off balance.

"If only she were around to keep you safe."

Hot tears. Not even with it enough to raise my hands to my face. But some kind of anger now too, just enough defiance to hold her gaze while I cry, as if I'm not feeling all the shame and confusion.

"Amanda would tell you what I'm going to tell you now Ursula. Give her up. The woman who made contact with you. Give her up now, because she isn't a friend Ursula. She's a predator. She wants you for their perverted experiments Ursula. Another doll for their back street chop shops so these gangs can test another illegal cyberTech before they flood the black markets of the world."

She tosses pictures across the desk. Horrific. Like slasher movie scenes.

"Girls we found after the witch cult finished with them. Disposable. Garbage. To them."

I can hear the glitch whispering at me. The girls in the pictures move and dance, winking at me in their horrific ballet. I can taste vomit at the back of my throat.

"They are liars Ursula. Look at me."

She grabs my hand, icy grip, pulls me in close.

"Look at me."

As my eyes meet hers a vision. Agony upon agony. Seven magpies circling. A hundred thousand murders. Tied up and screaming. Surrounded by people. Watching me burn.

"It was Ms. Grigore! She tried to recruit me! She offered to tell me about mom!"

She's gone almost before the words have finished their path of vibration through the static air.

I'm alone, sobbing. Is it minutes, is it hours? My throat is so raw. But I don't dare move. Nobody comes.

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