Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 29

So, I'm the new girl again.

I'm pacing up and down the lobby of the Weaver side of the secret school. It's like one of the Victorian scenes I remember when we were studying the industrial revolution back at real school.

Impossibly high ceilings, ornate but in a kind of brooding, angry way. Everything is real dark, all made of dark wood. Oil lamps, whispering and echoes. And behind the enormous marble front desk, a woman with strange scars across her face, of an age it is impossible to guess at, maybe in her forties, maybe a thousand years old, watches me impassively as I pace like a caged animal.

The others are gone already, led away by senior girls, some kind of buddy program for witches. Orientation day.

I'm digging my fingernails into the fingertips of my opposite hand, it's helping but the feeling is different, like pain in here has another layer of information behind it, kinda...poetic. Trying to stay focussed in here, in the Gap, it's hard.

Gotta find mom. Whatever happens, keep your eyes open (I know they're not really open) she built this whole place, there must be clues. Gotta find mom, almost muttering to myself like a crazy old woman when I nearly jump out of my skin because the doors to the north burst open like a bomb has gone off behind them and she comes into the room like Venus in a clam shell.

Alice Nutter. The. Actual. Alice. Nutter. Well, her avatar anyway.

Time stretches out like a note on a lone violin.

What was I thinking about?

Seconds dribble out of the clock, nothing happens, the look of subdued horror on her face could be in an art gallery. I openly stare.

She's New London to the core, every element of her appearance is deliberate, all adding up to an essay on identity and an arthouse documentary about the history of London Street styles.

"Oh, it's you."

And when she speaks, the slightest flavour of Jamaica colours her New London street-kid-made-good accent.

I shrug, stick my jaw out defiantly, hating myself for doing it. I try and make like I'm some kind of fierce Latina from New York. Mom always laughed her ass off when I tried that at home.

Facing off, I can't quite look her in the eye. I know the blush is coming, no way to fight it off. Hot cheeks. All simulated. Wonder if I'm blushing in the real world. I'm blushing cause I'm angry right?

She cocks her head to one side. I try to read the gesture, but every move is literally intoxicating. How does anyone get used to working with a Siren? Do the Sirens get any work done at all or are they just enraptured with each other all day?

"Well, somebody must have thought it was funny to assign me to you. I'm your Elder Sister today, we're going to do your new girl orientation."

Jesus really? She has to be my buddy at the big witch school?

"Let's try and make this nice." She lies. Letting me know it's a lie.

She leans in. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and she hisses in my ear.

"Don't get comfortable, glitch witch. You won't be staying long."

And then she leads me off through the ornate doors past the huge front desk of the secret school and into a waking dream.

This. School.

I can't concentrate on what she's saying and she doesn't care.

I know I'm walking but space doesn't work quite the same way here. And we keep shifting from one room to another, just like a scene change in a dream.