Speculo

VI

St. Peters was quiet on Sunday afternoons. Most of the boys went home for the weekend and only the detention students were still around. Ross was among those students for the first time in the two years he'd been at this school and his mood was almost as rainy as the day. He and a freshman he hadn't ever spoken to were doomed to the musty trophy room that sat unused at the end of an empty hallway of the silent second floor. Golden medals and shining brass plates gleamed along the walls and silver cups sat behind polished glass cabinets. The maroon floor was lit with the tiny lights that shone on the numerous trophies and dust particles danced in the air.
"Jeez, does anyone but the cleaning crew come in here?" the freshman was quite a bit younger looking than Ross. Had he ever been that young? That...full of potential?
"not really, its kind of just to make the administration feel good" the freshman laughed, Ross wasn't sure how it was funny but he smiled so the kid didn't feel uncomfortable. How Ross had ended up in detention was a vexatious story having something to do with the super old piano not being cleaned properly. And so now he sported dusters and Clorox wipes on a Sunday afternoon in the darkest room of the school with only the company of a nostalgia-inducing freshman. The boy sighed. Ross mentally agreed with him. They'd best get started if they wanted to get out of here before class started tomorrow.
"you want to get the hanging plates and I can do the curvy cabinet stuff?" Ross was looking forward to reading the inscriptions on the trophies and artifacts that filled the glass cabinets and the boy quickly agreed to do the easy to clean plates. He immediately reached one down from its perch on the off-white wall and coughed as more dust flurried around him. Ross strode to the back of the room which was quite a good distance from the front and opened the first cabinet. The contents of this cabinet weren't extremely out of the ordinary, just a few old trophies a ceramic bowl and some kind of wax sealed vase. He grabbed the bowl and wiped the dust off the inside.
"are you going to do the competition for head boy?" the freshman was obviously trying to make conversation which Ross wasn't a huge fan of but niceties would sadly be required in order to pass this time with the least awkwardness possible.
"I suppose" he didn't say that he had to. He didn't want to discourage the boy if he had plans to try out. In honesty, Ross didn't want to be head boy, let alone participate in a huge waste of time competition in order to do so.
"Its gonna be killer" was Ross ever this excitable? Had he also been a sports-driven child? No. He supposed he was more musically inclined than that. He hated to say it but, more cultured.
" are you competing?" Ross tried to remember what the boy looked like without looking him over rudely but he recalled him being sort of scrawny.
"Id like to...not that I'll win but it might be a good experience" that made Ross smile. The only reason to do anything was for the experience. It was nice to win. But what really mattered was what you took out of it. What you learned. The boy didn't say anything more and Ross let his mind wander to his home as he swept the polish in shining circles. He thought of his mom and her milk chocolate hair and easy smile. How disappointed she would be when she found out about the competition. If he hadn't let his mind stray so far he would've heard the crash.
...
"Roscoe look" his mother's warm hands gripped the sides of his child's face and pointed his eyes in the direction of a blue blob.
"what is it mother?" he squinted. It looked like a blue ball on a stick, standing in the middle of the lake on which his mother's house was built.
"it's a blue herring look at him, how still he stands"
"is he hurt?" the herring didn't wobble, didn't move. It's long neck snaked from its body that stood like a chess piece on the surface of the silvery water.
"no, he's waiting"
"waiting for what mother?"Ross turned from the bird to his mother. Her cocoa eyes shone with the light that meant she would be up all night painting and asleep against her isle in the morning.
"Maybe if we wait too we will get to see huh?" and so they waited. Each morning they would sit and wait for him. And he would come. And they would all wait for whatever the blue herring was waiting for. They would sit in their waiting place and talk together, sometimes they would pretend blue could talk as well and have conversations with him about what he was waiting for. Roscoe's mom didn't finish her painting until Ross found blue dead. He was washed up against the shore, his regal neck snapped by the hands of local kids thinking they were just playing a game. Roscoe's mother's painting had been beautiful but after blue died the herring in the painting looked decidedly more like a phantom. Like the grim reaper floating above a silvery mirror. Waiting for death.
Ross was pulled, quite literally from his daydream by a clammy hand raping around his collar and yanking him back with such a force he nearly dropped the vase he was cleaning. He twisted away from his attacker and hugged the vase closer to his chest. He didn't want to think how much trouble he would be in if he broke it.
"what the" he received a well-placed punch to the gut and heaved forward, Dropping the vase. It rolled underneath a shelf and as an elbow connected with his back and a knee to his forehead. His mind spun. When did he get on the floor? Was that blood? He prepared himself for the next blow but it never came. There were s series of muffled grunts and strangled words before a very heavy weight hit the floor a few feet from his throbbing Head. He pushed the heels of his palms into the floor and brought his body up, shielding his face with his fists. The still conscious person in the room fumbled around for something.
"fuck it we'll have to leave him" Ross opened his eyes and squinted up at the stranger. They were very tall and, long. Freckled Roscoe thought. He thought it out loud.
"what?" he hoped the stranger hadn't heard him instead of had heard him and been offended.
"I'm sorry who are you?" Roscoe's head hurt. Had there been three of them in detention? No, only two. Right?
"we can introduce ourselves outside but for now we need to get out of here" Ross nodded. Leaving did sound like a good idea. He allowed the stranger to help him onto his feet. The lights in the cabinets seemed to spin and his face felt warm and sticky. He lifted his fingers to his forehead and they came away dark and wet. Shit. He stumbled through the trophy hall attempting to remember how he had gotten so far in. The stranger seemed to know the way better than him and Ross attributed this to the fact that he hadn't received a knee to the face recently. Hopefully, they hadn't gotten blood on the carpet. Lucky it was crimson colored regardless. The two boys slipped silently through the trophy room door and closed it behind them. The administration was in for a surprise when they came to collect the detention kids from their duties. How had that scrawny freshman gotten the best of him so fast? Ross must be rustier than he thought. Maybe he wouldn't win head boy after all. That was a relief.
"my cars out front, I didn't see anyone on the way in" the stranger had a warm tilt to his voice that struck Ross as rather familiar. His vision was getting less blurred along with his better judgment.
"now hold on just a second I'm not going anywhere with you" the stranger turned and Ross had to look up slightly to talk to him and Ross wasn't a short boy by any means.
"I'm sorry I've been extremely rude. Let me just explain the situation in the middle of the place where you just got attacked and I saved your ass I'm sure nobody else around here wants you dead"
" wants me dead?! Why would anyone want me dead?" a shiver ran the length of Ross's spine and he tried to ignore the overwhelming urge to run as far from the trophy room as he could.
"I'll tell you! Just stop being so fricken loud"
"then tell me"
"outside" the stranger crossed his freckled arms over his chest. Someone slammed a door down the hall and Ross jumped.
"fine, but I'm not going anywhere with you until you do some explaining"
"fine, but can we please not negotiate where everything can hear us?" Ross went to ask what he meant about everything but the stranger was already speed walking towards the stairs. Ross let out an annoyed huff and followed.
As quiet as the school was at that time when you're trying to sneak out unseen it becomes ten times louder. They had to dodge a professor teetering up the stairs with a stack of books taller than they were and that was saying something for the stranger. They snuck past an open classroom where two teachers were arguing over who would be taking the bigger chalkboard. When they finally slipped out the front doors and let out the breath they hadn't known they'd been holding the full confusion of the situation hit him. What the actual heck? He began walking towards his car.
"Hey, can we maybe take mine? I feel like my car is...more suspicious here" Ross turned and studied what the boy was referring to as a car.
"take it where? You haven't explained what the hells going on yet"
"in the car?" the boy's expression was pained and urgent. So much so that Ross finally gave in. If the stranger was going to kidnap him why would he have fought off the boy who attacked him? Maybe it had all been a skit to gain his trust so they could drive him out into the middle of nowhere and murder him. He walked down the front stairs and pulled open the rusting door carefully. "thank you" Ross just nodded. He swung into the passenger seat and tried not to slam the door too hard. The stranger slid into the driver's side and started the engine. He gave one last fearful look at the school before tearing out of the drive.
"so. Explain. Please." Ross had a mind not to add the please but the stranger had saved him from a crazy freshman.
"well first. I'm Oliver"
"Roscoe Edwards"
"I know who you are" Ross wasn't sure if he wanted to know how. "let me ask you something Roscoe" Ross raised his eyebrows. The stranger; Oliver. Looked at him sadly. "do you believe in magic?"

"witches." Roscoe took a sip of his coffee. When Oliver had suggested they discussed everything over a cup of caffeine Ross couldn't ignore the hope that he might catch Elis here.
"yes" Oliver looked cautiously over his cup of black coffee at Roscoe's one shot espresso, two caramel shots with extra whip cream. Iced. " witches...but more importantly, werewolves?"
"okay witches I could do" sip," but werewolves?"
" well, not exactly" Ross had sat patiently through the history of the Connecticut covens, but werewolves he wasn't sure he could go along with. "Not your traditional full moon flannel shirt hairy arms type, but twice as scary. The lupis furum is what they're worried about. If it gets bad she could, pretty much fuck everything over reaaally bad".
"And this had what to do with me?"
"the coven thinks she is trapped. That someone is trying to let her out, and us, We're all about to get really involved with it."
"all?" sip.
"me, you. Some girls I know. A couple variables we don't recognize yet."
"we?"
"the coven" Oliver sips his coffee.
"wait. So you've seen this...this cult or whatever?"
"Woah Woah not a cult" Oliver shook his hands dramatically. "coven. They're not even in the same magical ball field"
"so...quiditch?" Oliver put his head into his hands. Ross was just honestly confused.
"so anyway. If her spirit gets out its basically really fricken bad"
"like... Death bad?"
"like giant end of the world, slavery, death. all that really bad shit kaboom fricken bad"
"oh" sip. "so what can we do about it?" Ross had seen crazy people before and Oliver was obviously telling the truth about all this frick heckery. Plus Ross didn't think he could've made it up or had a motive to do so, and he generally liked to give people the benefit of the doubt.
"well first we need to find her. And whoever is trying to let her out." Ross nodded. That seemed logical.
" what about the other people?"
"I haven't told them yet"
"why do me first?"
"because Roscoe, you're one of the people she is going to change".