Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 54

"Ursula, we have to go back to school." Alice is standing staring out the attic window, blowing curling arcs of blue nicotine vapour out into the night.

I feel cold. I sit up.

"Why?"

"There are things you need to learn."

I feel the hot prickling under my skin. See the red raw areas where I've been scratching. And I have to admit, I'm getting sicker. We've been riding all over town together for months. Feels like a dream. But the glitching attacks are getting worse.

"I won't be allowed in."

"We can get you in. There is a place in the Gap the Weavers can't touch. Siren territory. We can disguise you. Bring you in with my coven."

"Sounds dangerous, I'm dangerous, remember?"

"Think of your sisters, Sula."

And when she says Sula, it's like a spell has suddenly ended. The twins come flooding back into my memory. Where did they go? How the hell did I let go of them? I'm horrified at myself. Like I've just discovered I have dementia.

"They've got this new guy, who says he can fix witches." She makes finger quotes in the air when she says "fix".

"Conversion therapy. They're making a big noise about it. They're going to do surgery on all the girls on that boat."

I feel sick, my eyes flooding with tears of shame. I've been partying. Playing at being on the run while not so secretly having the time of my life. And the twins have been abandoned, rotting in a cell waiting for a lobotomy.

But somehow, I can't get angry with Alice. How could I blame her for any of this? She's the only one who's been there for me. I try to pull it together.

"You got a plan?"

"We can make a run on the boat Sula; we have people on the inside."

"You'd do that for me?"

"You're my Corazon, right?"

"So, why go back to school?"

"We need to teach you a new trick, how to scare people."

"That's..."

"Black magic? That's what the Weavers say. But Fear and Desire are just two sides of the same coin, and it's our coin. We'll need it to get on that ship."

###

My eyes open inside the Gap for the first time in months. I touch my face, strange to be somebody else. I'm wearing one of Alice's coven sisters' skins. We're in an attic, somewhere in the top of the Siren side of the Secret School.

"Welcome to the Hidden Curriculum." A voice I don't recognise. Powerful, beguiling.

The teacher is wearing an elaborate Venetian mask, and a long black gown.

"The principle of today's lesson is simple. We are learning how to conceive terror in the mind of an enemy."

My hand is in the air. Always the first kid with their hand up at school, old habits die hard.

"I can't read minds, even with the Rhizome, this tech makes me into a computer of a kind, but I'm not connected to the brain of any random person I meet. How can I upload terror into the brain of someone who has no implants, no WIFI so to speak?"

"You have learned to manipulate desire, sister. Tell me what you know about that."

"Everyone in London has a data trail. My Rhizome can access that data trail using wireless internet. I can download a shiver that is an expert in reading that data trail, and then I can use it. I can learn about an individual's desires, but also, I can do a lot of guesswork just by knowing general principles of human desire."