Second Sight

Easy Enough

The first day of classes made Ava realize just how hard this first semester back was going to be. It wasn't just because junior year made most history majors want to jump into the ocean and never look back, but things had just been more complicated for her than she would have hoped.

Even before she was given these... powers, Ava had registered for classes one could only hope to find at a college in Salem, Massachusetts. And after everything she had seen in the forest that one fateful night, she was grateful for the class. Her schedule read it loud and clear: "HIST378: Pre-Colonial Massachusetts and the Salem Witch Trials." If it was any indication from Jasper's fear of the ancient Wiccan symbol etched in stone in the Causeway's caverns, there was something to be discovered about what happened to Ava just from digging into her state's history.

She knew this class was going to be interesting, but when she entered the small classroom and sat down, she was surprised at just how fascinating it could be.

"Just so we're all clear," the figure at the front of the class began, "you are all here for Pre-Colonial Massachusetts and the Salem Witch Trials." His voice sounded like it belonged in a university in England; old, wise, and far too proper for the small college in Massachusetts.

Beholding her new professor, Ava's brain said "teacher, professor, human," but her eyes withheld something entirely different. Standing in front of her, or well, hovering in front of her, was a ghost-like man with tattered black robes and half-moon spectacles balanced on his thin nose. This course, this history course, was being taught by a man who may very well be as old as the Village of Salem itself.

"I am professor Hawthorne," the man croaked, pacing—or rather, floating—across the front of the space. "I am sure you are all aware that this is a level three-hundred history course, and therefore," he paused and spun towards the class with a threatening air, "it will not be easy." He stopped and stared directly at Ava for a moment. "I am teaching this course for a reason, as colonial America is my specialty. Do not try to pull any tricks on me. As you can see in your syllabus, plagiarism will not be tolerated. Am I absolutely clear?"

Professor Hawthorne's severity on the subject sent a chill across the whole classroom, or maybe that was a side effect of the whole being-a-ghost issue.

"If you are here to only learn about the witches of this town's rich history, or you're here to see pictures of women in robes being burnt for crimes they did not commit, I firmly request that you leave." His voice boomed throughout the classroom for a moment and made most of the students who couldn't see his ghostly form jump out of their skin. "This class is not designed for your entertainment, much to several of Salem State's attendees' chagrin," he paused to take a (much unneeded) breath, "and it is rigorous beyond comparison."

He brushed past... or rather, he brushed through the corner of Ava's desk and began pacing amidst the small crowd of students. "I assume you all have your textbooks, yes?"

Ava's classmates shared looks across the room to see how many students actually did have the textbooks. To no one's surprise, each desk was empty.

"You'll be happy to know that no text assignments are due until next Monday," Professor Hawthorne continued, "but I urge that you get on that. Books that you order online do take a while, that blasted electronic," he muttered his last statement under his breath, but each student could still hear him and stifled chuckles.

"Alas, you do all have access to pencil and paper, or one of those horrid laptops. We will begin with the first lecture today."

Groans echoed across the classroom. This was the only class so far that started with material on syllabus day, but Ava looked at is as an opportunity. Knowledge was the best weapon of them all. She didn't know if, or even think that she would need a weapon against Belphegor or Arabelle, but it was better to be armed than hopeless. 

Let the information begin, she thought, and speedily typed away as Professor Hawthorne's first lecture of many took off.

Each day at the school was more and more interesting. Ava was having a hard time telling if her "powers," the best way to describe what she had been given in that cave, were getting stronger... or if she was just paying attention. Across the campus, everywhere she looked, Ava could see more and more creatures that were thought to be legendary, mythical... ones that seemed to jump straight from story books. She had proven to herself the exact opposite; creatures like bigfoot, like werewolves and satyrs and demons and ghosts—they were all real.

Especially at Salem State University, it seemed like she was discovering more and more classmates that lead double lives under the human noses of their compatriots. Sitting in the back corner of one of her junior seminar classes was a well-dressed student, but when he stood up, she was able to see that he had an extra two heads that more closely resembled dogs rather than humans. Research later in the day made Ava realize that he was some sort of relative to Cerberus. The three-headed dog straight out of Greek mythology textbooks and children's books.

Before Ava travelled abroad, she remembered always walking across the quad and seeing a girl who sat with her friends. She was the standard college student that, unfortunately, no one expected to succeed; she was always wearing a baja hoodie and had dreadlocks knotted into her hair. More recently, Ava had not seen the Baja Hoodie girl on the quad. Rather, she saw a lean, spindly woman-like creature sprawled across the grass, soaking up the sunshine. She had a green tint to her skin, branch-like antlers coming from her head, and leaves growing on vines that made her look like part of the Earth itself.

"... A wood nymph?" Ava muttered to herself, and the girl looked up at her, as though she heard Ava from across the span of grass between them.

"What was that?" Adilynn, a girl who Ava felt as though was the last real human in her life, asked. They had been walking across campus to get from their last class back over to the library.

To keep her life balanced, Ava hadn't told this poor girl her secret. Not everyone needed to know that there was a freak on campus who could see everything from Bigfoot to ancient witches. "Nothing, I was thinking of ideas for a research project." Ava let the concern in her voice evaporate like thin air as she swatted away the notions of her psychosis.

Adilynn looked up to the sky and mused. "I suppose you're right—we're going to have to do some research soon enough." Her eyes wandered back to Ava. "What was your idea?"

"Mythology and how it effects historians," Ava saved herself. "Imagine—why do all the Greek myths have that same theme of unnecessary relationships? It just feels like mythology could help tell us more about history, you know?"

"I guess," Adilynn shrugged, and smiled at Ava's thought. "You're so creative, though!! Everyone else would probably settle with one particular period. But you just... go above and beyond!" Her enthusiastic praise of Ava's work ethic was emphasized by her arms being thrown above her head. Ava could stand to live with this sort of ego boost for a while.