Dead Ravens Society

Chapter - 13 - Drawn by Your Own Sweet Skill

To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,

And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

- Sonnet 16, William Shakespeare

Gansey

Gansey somehow managed to fall asleep after the events of the evening before, but when he woke up he wished he hadn't. 

It was 3 pm. Meaning he had slept for over 15 hours and missed all his classes for the day. 

He looked over to Adam's empty bed and begrudgingly cursed the other for not having woken him. He would've made sure Adam made it to class in time. But then his eyes landed on the journal lying on the other's pillow, something yellow stuck to its front. 

Once he got over the realisation that Adam had managed to remove the journal from under his pillow without waking him, Gansey grabbed it and realised that the 'something yellow' was a post-it note.

Written in a sleek cursive, it read:

I'll tell the staff that you're sick today. I'll take notes for you.

/Adam

Gansey smiled at the note despite himself. He knew his father wouldn't be merry with him missing classes, but he had perfect attendance this far, so it shouldn't be too long of a phone call. And truth be told, he'd needed the rest. He had a slight headache right then and he knew it would've been even worse if he'd gone to class.

He opened the journal to the page about leylines. Scribbled on various spots on the page was a beaked triangle. The actual text was sloppy, as if written in a hurry, and was divided into bullet points.

Leylines 

I spoke to Mr Mallory about leylines. He was reluctant to give me any information, saying he didn't want to risk his job by 'encouraging nonsense', but he did hand me some old manuscripts he wrote about the topic when he was our age. There was a lot of straight-up gibberish - I guess he never went back and edited them - but the key points it boiled down to are as follows;

* A leyline is a perfectly straight, supernatural energy path that connects spiritual places. It's invisible, so it will be hard to find.

* The leylines sometimes transmit voices across its length;  over thousands of miles and years across time. Recorders, stereos or a psychic can be used to hear them.

* Black dogs, demonic presences and ghosts often appear in their vicinity.

* Leylines and electricity are linked.

* The Virginia leylines are hard to dowse. - WHY???

There were plenty of paragraphs going into further detail on each of those five points, but Gansey decided to listen to what Mr Czerny had told them during one of his lessons and to get his information first-hand. 

After some quick phone calls, with worthless formalities, he got ahold of just the number he wanted. He dialled it carefully and then waited patiently as it rang out.

"Hello, this is Mallory," a voice on the other side said once it picked up.

"Hello, this is Richard Gansey, from Aglionby Academy, and I'm sorry if this is a bad time, but I'd really love to speak to you about leylines," Gansey said, putting on his best impression of his father.