Andrea Daniells and the Cup of Torment

9. The Worts

After Professor Dupplestone's story, she then told us to find out the first five sightings of the Hosts, the person, where and when it happened and to give them to Professor Mupplin the following lesson as homework. Then, she dived right into something about trolls 1230s-- I stopped paying attention there.

We followed our haeream saxa down the stairs after class. I peered at the timetable. In the next fifty minutes we had Inner Beauty. Okay, what class would an institution allow to be called Inner Beauty? Were they going to teach us how to wear makeup? Or maybe how to disguise yourself? Or maybe they misspelled the whole subject and it had nothing to do with Beauty.

It honestly sounded like one of our old school seminars where they talked about not judging someone by appearance or whatever. I never really paid attention to what they were saying. Probably not that important. 

I know what you're thinking. "Do you ever pay attention, Andrea?"

No. No, I do not. 

No one had spoken a word in quite some time so I was a bit startled when Ruby suddenly said, "That story Professor Dupplestone gave us... it's crazy, right?"

"This whole place is crazy," Matthew said. "That doesn't necessarily mean it's not true, just like Andrea said."

Their voices vibrated up and down the staircase, as the marble steps slowly turned to a reddish-brown soil.

"You sound like you want it to be true," Ruby continued as her boots squelched in the soil.

"Don't you?" Lilian said quietly, her voice almost drifting away with the cold draft that had entered. "I mean... there isn't anyone you would want to see? Just once?" She stopped in her tracks. "Again. Once again."

Ruby shook her head and answered in her vivacious manner, "Not really."

Nathan elbowed his sister to which she gave him a look of complete arrogance.

Our haeream saxa stopped at a wooden door to which they repeatedly banged at, as if someone would answer. I swung it open and heard Lilian gasp.

I was almost blinded by how green and luscious the plains in front of us were. The sun reflected on the blades of grass as if they were personally polished. The verdant, coniferous trees that surrounded us were about fifty metres tall. I felt the certain urge to run across the flat expanse of land and croak out, 'Sound of Music.' I managed to restrain myself, noticing at least that we were no longer in the Institution's grounds.

We all stepped out. Matthew did a full three-sixty, straightening his glasses and running a hand through his hair. "We're in Switzerland," he said. "How are we in Switzerland?"

Lilian gave a small squeak.

"No way. We should still be in America, or Canada or something. But not Central Europe! That's a whole mass of water to travel over."

"How can you be sure we're in Switzerland?" Nathan asked.

"Well, it's obvious really. The change in the position of the sun, plus the vegetation. All those spruce trees, about fifty metres tall. I am also sixty three percent sure those are the Swiss Waterfalls over there." He pointed to the far distance. I honestly couldn't see a thing, but I didn't tell him that.

"Or... maybe you're delusional," Ruby offered.

Lilian gave a higher squeak, jumping with the balls of her feet. "No. He's right. This isn't just Switzerland, though. Or nature. This is art."

"Yes, Miss Follan," I heard a voice behind me say. I jumped and turned around. A brown-skinned woman with dark curls, bushy eyebrows and a wide smile stood there, her long patterned skirt dragging along the grass. She wore a cotton blouse that seemed to have ever colour in existence. Dark shades covered her eyes.