The Haven High Book Series (Wattys2017)

Chapter 36

Lauren's third class was Translation of Ancient Magical Scrolls. She just loves everything about the class. The smell of the books, the feel of the leather bound tomes in her hands, the hefty weight of the knowledge they held, the library itself and all the mysteries that lay within.

Truth be told she has a secret of her own.

One that she knows Zach would be very interested to learn. She's well aware of his opinion of her intelligence. In fact, she gets a kick out of letting him think she's a genius, but it would surprise him very much to know she isn't as intelligent as he thinks she is. Oh sure, she has a head for facts, but the real reason she seems to know so much stems from being part dryad.

It's one of her many talents.

She needs only to pick up a book to know its contents. The paper the book is printed on speaks to her in a language only she can understand. So in an age where 99.9 percent of the population runs to the internet to obtain knowledge -- Zach adorably calls it using his Google-Fu -- She is the only one running to the library as a research strategy.

Another of her many reasons to love this class happened when they crossed the magic barrier between worlds:

Zach smiled.

It was almost as if he couldn't help himself but remember just in time that he should be punishing himself still for having survived. He went back to his morose self and walked up to the index table to begin looking for council related books while Lauren just sighed and joined him.

Another thing to love about the class was their teacher's teaching style.

No one was expected to sit at rapt attention listening to her drone on about the subject of the day. No they were encouraged to explore the library as she spoke and to find dusty old tomes, crumbling papyrus scrolls, and moldering books on the subject and to bring her the ancient manuscripts for her perusal.

Her class was very much a hands on class and she couldn't think of a better way for them to become familiar with the layout of the library and its contents. What a clever Muse.

This freedom of movement and autonomy allowed her and Zach to wander the library for forty minutes and to unfortunately discover that they had barely made a dent in the books stored there, even with her hidden talents.

There was nothing to be done but to ask Clio, so before they left they cornered her in an alcove near the door and asked if she knew anything about the council and what caused the crackdown on Halfblood magical creatures.

"Well my lovelies, you know I prefer that you do your own research, but if you give me a minute I'll grab a few texts on the subject. "

Lauren and Zach waited in awkward silence. She itched to ask him what his deal was, but couldn't drum up the courage to get the words out of her mouth.

She just kept thinking a sentence through in her head and then rejecting it before it could leave her lips which just resulted in her doing a lot of looking up and then looking at him and then ultimately looking down, so in point of fact looking like a complete nutter as they say in the good old UK.

It felt like forever before Clio came back, but when she did, Lauren unceremoniously grabbed the stack of books from her grateful for something to do and quickly thumbed through them while Clio looked on with a quizzical stare.

"Nope thanks I've read these ones before there's nothing about that in them," Lauren lied unconvincingly.

Clio answered, "Oh I can see you're very well read." She delivered that statement with a fair bit of incredulity.

When Zach started looking at her funny she began to panic and sputtered, "Is there anything you can tell us that will help us pinpoint the information."

"Yeah," Zach agreed, "Were you around then?"

"No I was not in the colonies at the time." Clio added spurring them on with the roll of her hand.

Aha Lauren thought they're going to play a little game of 'is it bigger than a bread box'.

"Soooo . . . you're saying that whatever happened to cause the crackdown it happen her in North America?" Lauren asked.

"Yes that's right." Clio added.

"So that was after the colonies were settled?" Zach asked seeming to catch on to the game.

"Correct again."

What was going on here? Why weren't they allowed to tell us anything? What was the council trying to hide? Lauren wondered to herself.

"How long has the crackdown on halfbloods existed?" Lauren threw that one out not expecting Clio to hit it out of the park, but she did.

"Well I would say: it's been a little more than one hundred years since the council formed."

Lauren was about to ask another leading question when the students for next period started noisily entering the room.

Oh dang, she thought I'm late, and why oh why did her next class have to be 4th dimensional psychics?

She just hung her head at the thought. Usually Zach would have been the first to console her but he'd beat a quick retreat and disappeared before she could even blink.

Lauren snorted out loud. 

Apparently Zach's new super power was ditching her without her noticing.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the inconvenience of the shorter chapters. I'm still in the moving process, and until the first I'm going to be hellishly busy. I won't have time to respond to emails and I won't have any internet, but I will try to keep upping chapters if all goes well. I hope you like it anyway. Thanks for understanding. Catch you on the flip side. LOL

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