Lila sat in the morning dew, her stubby legs in front of her as she leaned on an elderly oak tree which swayed noisily in the wind. Nighttime cicadas sleepily droned from unseen places as butterflies floated about. It was a lazy day that was unfitting of the girl. She anxiously flipped pages of her leather-bound notebook, the pages mostly empty. She stared at her surroundings daydreaming, remembering something she’d like to forget. Then, she looked at one of the random scrawlings in her book, and back at nature. She was waiting for her teacher in her backyard garden, some private tutor only expensive families like her own could afford. This one was especially special, but the head of the house wanted to keep it a surprise, so Lila had no idea who it was.
Lila daydreamed once more, remembering a dragon her uncle had captured who was forced to teach her. The dragon was clearly upset the whole time and she didn’t learn much except that disobeying her family’s head was bad idea. She never knew where that dragon had gone. A shiver crawled up her spine. Shaking her head, she inspected her book for a distraction, which she promptly found. She was soon staring ahead at the clover flowers and resilient dandelions. A bee zipped by and Lila froze; she had heard that they could sting and hurt you. A few words from one of the many maids in her home, it echoed in her head as she laid impeccably still, the bee hovering closely.
“Ya just got ta ignore em,” the rusty cockney accent whispered in her memory. “They’ll leave ya alone.”
The bee, in a hurry, went away to wherever it thought it was needed and she relaxed. Lila had never experienced any real pain. Not to say she never bumped her toe on the occasional table leg or got rug burns when she tripped, but that her pampered life protected her from any real harm. She imagined what it would be like to be stung by a bee, and felt weird and awkward. She flipped to another page which featured a crude drawing only its artist could make-out. She had been trying to draw one of the various tulips on the front lawn and had always wanted to use pen to outline it. She frowned at it, being that she always forgot to outline the drawing when she remembered, and closed the book again. The sun became blotted out by a rather thick cloud and the cicadas seemed to chirp with joy for the darkness before the cloud moved on to where it needed to go.
After a few naps, Lila spotted the head of household approaching her, alone, which she thought was odd.
“Where’s my teacher sir?”
The head just smiled with the context of knowing something that she didn’t, with that power of knowledge his teeth gleamed through his cloaked face. This person had given and taken many things from Lila. He had kidnapped her and murdered her mother, but had also provided Lila with a room, food, and education which she wouldn’t have had in the slums she was born into. Lila was very upset and confused with all of this.
The reason behind her kidnapping was her ability to see the dead. This was very profitable for her kidnappers, being that their wealth was built in the practice of necromancy. Her mom had this power before she was born too, but lost it during Lila’s birth as she was told.
The birds chirped calmly on the summer morning as the house head approached Lila. The grass seemed to wilt wherever the head stepped. A rancid air floated about that she didn’t like, most likely from the reanimation practiced in the forbidden cellar. No one had ever seen the head or headmaster without their cloaks on. The head’s voice also changed on a dime, sometimes low and sometimes high. The head was very mysterious.
“What kind of rude question is that Lila?” the head joked, still walking.
A shimmer in the air, which mimicked the distortions in light from intense heat, was next to the head. When Lila squinted she could make out a blue tint to the distorted light. Finally, once the headmaster was closer, a cold air made itself present in the warm summer day. Before her stood a ghost. He was wearing a forlorn and rugged robe with ancient scripture sewn on the front of it. His posture and expression were like that of a new ghost’s, confused and tired.
