Elemental

12. KING OF ALL HALLOWS EVE

"As you all know, the day after tomorrow is Halloween." Morgan Eldridge surveyed all the students in the dining hall as they broke put into scattered murmurs. "This year like always, we will be doing something different." Tori looked at her friends. Joe shrugged.
"This year, your parents will be invited to join in on the festivities at our annual Halloween party." Morgan went on. The murmuring got louder.

"Oh. No. She. Didn't." Muttered Joe.
Laverne laughed. "Now you can't just parade around in your boxers and pretend you're a diver or fisherman or whatever it is you say you are."
"Oh shut up!" He retorted. "And for your information, it's a swimmer I dress as, alright?"
"Well most of the time you just look like you're partly undressed for a bath." McKay added.
Tori burst into laughter, earning a reproachful glare from Joe. "The one person I rely on for support, siding with the enemy. Ouch Tori," he said dramatically.

"Settle down," Morgan called trying to contain the smattering of murmurs to a bare minimum, and continued, "one last thing, all costumes will be constructed solely by magic. Festivities and practice all in one." Beside her, all the lecturers and staff nodded approvingly. Professor Eventide looked bored but curious. Tori could not understand how he managed to pull off the look. The murmuring turned from dismayed to over excited.

Across the room, a beautiful fair blond haired girl was gleefully clapping her hands. Tori on the other hand groaned as if she was in pain. She felt like she was.
"Why? Why magic?" She bumped her head on the table narrowly missing a bowl of fresh salad infront of her. "I'll probably come as a charcoal or something like that."

"Please," started Laverne dryly, "quit with the kidding. You must have gone trick or treating before."
"Of course I have, dressed as a homeless kid. No one finds anything scarier than that." Tori shrugged as she replied. "I always got the most candy, but madam Minch would confiscate it."
"No shit." Joe looked at her in awe.
"Seriously though, I'm not kidding," Tori continued tucking into her food as Morgan sat on her seat. "First of all, none of my guardians are going to show up, I mean they're non magic and second of all, magic is a real pain in the ass, especially when I still can't figure it out yet." She took a deep breath, feeling like whiny waste of God's glorious oxygen.

"Okay look," McKay stated, "you can still hang out with us. And also, I don't think Morgan specified who was casting the magic." He gave her a small smile.
"Woohoo! Look who's giving all the sneaky advice," Joe exclaimed, amid a mouthful of steak. "I clearly underestimated you, big man."
"Don't talk with your mouth full." Laverne reprimanded.
"I wasn't even talking to you." Joe looked outraged.
"Why do you always do that?" McKay quipped. With that, he and Laverne were off again on another one of their endless arguments, leaving Joe laughing.

Tori zoned out. She had to do something about her magic by the next day so that she conjure herself a satisfactory Halloween costume.

That night, Tori found it extremely difficult to fall asleep. Despite being fatigued to her very core, her eyes and mind refused to shut. She tossed and turned for what felt like hours. Beside her, Laverne had dozed off the instant she got into bed, and was now sound asleep, her even breathing breaking the night's still and deafening silence.

Tori turned onto her back and stared into the endless darkness, at the ceiling. So much was bogging her down that she was finding it quite hard and tedious to sort out all the jumbled mess of thoughts, news and troubles that had seeped their way into her headstrong fiery brain.

Montefiore. She had to start there. She had known nothing about him until she had heard of him from the papers. The strange thing was though, that he seemed to know her, he seemed to recognise her.

What's more, he had met her mother and they had had a terrible run in, and Morgan had known about this. Something seemed amiss. Go make matters even worse, she had seemed to have unlocked some sort of sensory magic ever since she had crossed paths with Montefiore and it was causing her friends to regard her is a very shady light, making her feel like she was sometimes being kept out of their loop.