Paranormals of Ilvermorny

Chapter 15

After her meeting with the headmaster, Lorelei felt much better. An invisible weight had been lifted, comfortable knowing an authority figure knew there might be a dangerous animal near the school, even though he said it was unlikely. Back to her regular classes and being the brunt of Claire's jokes, Lorelei was happy to exchange Skinwalkers for potions.

But if that was true, then why couldn't she stop thinking about Harrison and Ramona's attacks?

It was during Arithmancy that Lorelei knew she had a problem. Professor Aster had asked the class how many numbers a person who is responsible or organized would have in their name. When no one raised a hand, he called on Lorelei, always a star student, and expected the right answer. As she was about to speak, for the first time she realized she didn't know, too busy thinking about the attacks than paying attention to what she wrote down. Thankfully, Robin swooped in and pointed to her parchment. "Four, sir." Happy with the answer, Professor Aster went on to discuss how to solve for the answer.

Frustrated with herself for letting her thoughts interfere with her school work, Lorelei was going to have to do something.

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It was early November and the air was getting colder by the day. The girls were currently outside by the archery range, Robin had been restless all day so they agreed to get some energy out by shooting some arrows. Today the air was crisp enough to bite into, so they dressed appropriately in their wool cloaks, tweed skirts, and thick tights, paired with mittens. Although Robin forgon her mittens to better handle her bow.
Lorelei sat to the side, not wanting to flirt with the idea of getting shot, going over her notes about the attacks. After receiving Ramona's letter she started to use a spare notebook to keep track of information related to Skinwalkers and possible victims, to better see any potential overlying details.

The snap, thwomp sound of Robin's bow hitting the target caused her to look up; five points. "Nice shot," complimented Lorelei.

"Thanks," replied Robin a bit absentmindedly, busy drawing her bow for the next shot. "How did the meeting with the headmaster go?"

Lorelei shrugged, then realized her friend couldn't see she said, "Okay, I guess."

Robin drew back her bow, casual conversation as if she wasn't handling a deadly weapon. "Yeah? Just 'okay'?"

"I mean..." Lorelei was at a loss for words. What does she say? Yeah, we chatted and he said I was an idiot for thinking a Skinwalker could be prowling the school grounds, oh, and by the way, at one point he thought I stole from the schools' greenhouse, no biggie. Definitely not. "We talked and, in the end, he said to leave it up to him. He is in charge of the whole school after all, he has to know what he's doing."

Once she got her sight, Robin let go of the bow, effectively hitting the target again; this time earning herself ten points. "Dang it," she mumbled. This time, turning towards her single audience member, Robin replys, "I don't see why we can't just go into those woods," she gestured with an arrow, "and get rid of the beast ourselves. At least that way we don't have to worry about anyone getting hurt."

Lorelei let out a sigh. She could understand where her friend was coming from, finding it a bit frustrating being told to stop any and all research about magical creatures, but what else could they do? "I get it, getting shut down right after finding some leeway," Lorelei said in her most sympathetic voice, which seemed to calm Robin a bit. "But we can't just go running into the woods all willy nilly with our wands ready to 'Abracadabra' the thing and risk losing an eye in the process."
Robin, who has yet to draw her bow, huffed out a frustrated sigh. "I know you're right," she conceded, "but I can't just sit around and do nothing with the knowledge that something with teeth and claws is out there looking for prey."

Left in silence, the girls sat with their thoughts and tried to find a solution to their problem. After a few minutes, made worse by the cold wind, Lorelei broke the silence. "Well..." she began, her mind daring to voice what her heart said to do, "...there's no reason we can't continue writing to the attack victims."
Robin continued to stare at her, unsure of what she was insinuating. "I thought you said the headmaster told you to let go of researching?"

Smiling like the Cheshire Cat, Lorelei responded, "He said to stop with the creatures, he didn't say anything about writing a few innocent letters."
Now it was Robin's turn to smile. "Lorelei Raywood, you sneaky little lady," she said, her eyes sparkling with the thought of going against the grain of what anyone had said. Drawing back her bow, Robin continued, "I think I can get on board with that." Letting go of the bow in her grasp, Robin once again hit the hay target.

A perfect bullseye.

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For the next three weeks both girls used their time wisely to write letters and get school work done. It didn't help that Professor Holly-Oaks assigned a three feet long essay on the unforgivable curses and why they were unforgivable.

After waiting a week, they heard back from Harrison's son Colin, they found out that the attack victim of 1967 was a girl named Dessie Staghart. Once they found that out, they had to search through Ms. Copper's Oracle Pages to locate her current address. Fortunately, there was only one Desdemona "Dessie" Staghart, so that saved some time writing letters. Unfortunately, it still took weeks for the girls to receive a letter back.

In the meantime, they went to class and tried to ignore Claire's stupid remarks about how Robin smells and Lorelei will die a lonely old lady surrounded by cats.

"You know Claire," Lorelei decided to reply, despite her own beliefs that it was worthless to, "that doesn't sound so bad."

"Yeah," chimed in Robin, "at least she'll be surrounded by people who like her, unlike you."

Claire gave the two of them a deathly glare, enough to turn a man to stone. "Well," she sneered, "I'd rather live a short life filled with people who can get me higher on the ladder than a long life surrounded by scum who will only bring me down."
It was a tense few moments as Robin and Claire starred each other down, the already narrow hallway seemingly getting smaller by the second.

"Sorry I'm late, I forgot my class book in the teacher's lounge," came the chipper voice of Professor Teagarden, gracefully unaware of the scene she just happened upon. With the classroom door unlocked, all of the students quickly filed into their seats. Sending a mental 'thank Merlin', Lorelei dragged Robin away from the hallway to two empty seats at the back of the room.

"I thought we said we weren't gonna let her get to us?" Whispered Lorelei, slowly pulling out her parchment and quill.

"I know," she said, a bit embarrassed, "just can't stand when she attacks people I care about." Lorelei's heart swelled from pride at her words. "And who even cares about social class anymore? It's not like we're living in the seventeen-hundreds!"
Her outrage caused a laugh to bubble from Lorelei's chest. "Yeah, but I'm kinda looking forward to becoming a little old lady with a bunch of cats for roommates."
Robin smiled lopsidedly, "Don't forget, I'm always gonna be bothering you for a cup of sugar. 'Oh Lorelei, your house smells like kitty litter!'" She mimicked an old lady's voice. Both girls laughed before getting down to business and writing down potion ingredients.

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Finally, after weeks of waiting, Lorelei entered the dining hall with a letter from Dessie Staghart. Clearing a space on the table, they pushed plates of stuffed peppers and roasted zucchini, fearing a grease stain or worse. Using a butter knife they carefully opened the envelope and unfolded the letter.

"'Miss Lorelei'," Robin began to read aloud, "what a surprise it was to read your letter' yada yada yada 'I recall hearing about another student having gone through a similar experience from my younger brother' blah blah blah 'his name was Charlie Dandoy, no one believed him because he was a first year'. Well, that's just rude. Sorry, anyways, 'For myself I didn't want to tell the headmaster, but the nurse said the damage to my arm was too extensive to ignore. He approached me in my hospital bed, where I told him exactly what happened. Out for a stroll... saw something in the woods... got attacked... all I remember was teeth and claws coming at me. He told me not to worry and that matters will be taken into his hands, that this will not happen again.' Well, what do we say to that?"
Lorelei's head was spinning, all of this new information causing her to rethink everything. The headmaster knew about the attack, she was seriously injured, and it looks like there were no lasting repercussions towards the safety of the students if it continued to happen again. Suddenly losing her appetite, Lorelei read and reread the letter over and over again.

There was a break coming up for Thanksgiving, so hopefully they can sort some things out with the extra time; and sending a letter to Charlie Dandoy would be at the top of the list.