Inhibition

Chapter 3

They got ready for school the same as always, though now a day their relationship was more than a little strained. Other students joined them in the elevator, and Cat couldn’t say she was disappointed.

It did irk her though that all these people around her had no idea what happened over winter break. All they had been told was that Sari had caught a seemingly ordinary disease and died over break. People weren’t even that sad. Nobody had really known Sari. They had unconsciously recognized her as different. But while they had paid attention to Cat because they knew how she was different, they didn’t know what was up with Sari.

Cat did.

It turned out that Sari’s dad was a Magus that sat on the Council for the Adder family, married (Cat had no idea if he was happy in it or not) to someone who was not Sari’s mother, with multiple children, Cat’s age or older. Which meant that Sari had been the illegitimate daughter of a very powerful person. Cat wondered how many people knew that little secret. Mr. Adder could probably count them on one of his hands.

The elevator (as Cat had taken to calling it. Who knew what it really was?) went up and then down, randomly stopping. People filed in at each stop in ones and twos. Cat saw Aidan get on, but she didn’t say anything. Not even when he sidled through the crowd to stand next to her. She ignored him.

The three of them, Finley, Aidan and Cat, hadn’t spoken much since they got back. But the two of them were getting increasingly hard for Cat to ignore. Aidan was in all of her classes, and Finley lived with her.

Aidan ran his hand down her arm, and Cat flinched away. She gave him a look equal parts What the hell? and Okay, I get it, you won’t be ignored. At his grin, she realized that was what he wanted; to startle her into paying attention.

They exited the elevator together and started towards the Academy. Finley was already long gone. Cat exhaled heavily at the thought. Aidan noticed, but didn’t say anything.

When they started up the stairs to Mrs. Ackley’s room, Cat quickly left Aidan behind, using her smaller body to her advantage. She weaved between the people, just barely keeping herself from tripping up the stairs. But when she got to Mrs. Ackley’s room, she almost wished she hadn’t moved so fast.

She threw open the door, completely oblivious to the fact that this was Mrs. Ackley’s room, not hers. And that Mrs. Ackley might be in it. And that Mrs. Ackley was a Mrs.

“MY EYES! My poor, beautiful eyes!” Cat covered them quickly with both hands as Mr. and Mrs. Ackley jumped apart. She heard a random noise, a pop as the space where Mr. Ackley once stood was filled with air.

“You can open your eyes now.” Cat could hear the grin in Mrs. Ackley’s voice. When she opened her eyes, Mrs. Ackley was alone and smoothing out her hair. Cat hadn’t even seen what Mr. Ackley looked like. His hair was darkish. That’s all she got. Not that she wanted to repeat the experience just for curiosity’s sake.

“Whew. Give a warning next time, please?”

“Sure, I’ll give a warning whenever my husband stops in randomly. Sorry, honey, I have as little warning as you do.” Mrs. Ackley was still smiling, her voice still kind. Luckily, she didn’t take offense at Cat’s comment, or childlike innocence, or general Eww, cooties! outlook.

Other kids filed in soon after, and distracted, Mrs. Ackley left Cat alone. Mrs. Ackley went behind her desk and messed with some papers. Cat sat down in her seat and craned her neck to see what the paper was. Didn’t help. Being short sucked.

Cat recognized the paper though. It was white and started out crisp. Now it was crumpled from all of the times Mrs. Ackley had taken it out. There was writing on it, neat handwriting that spanned half the page. That didn’t surprise Cat; there was no technology here, so it made sense that the notes were all hand written.

What surprised Cat was that the handwriting had struck a familiar chord in her. She had only gotten a quick glimpse of it, not enough to read it, but the first time she had seen it, she had recognized it. It wasn’t that she knew who wrote it, more that she had a feeling about what would happen because of the letter.

It wasn’t just one letter either. Or rather, it was one letter that had been copied and handed out. Every day of the last week that Cat had been back, she had seen each of her teachers take out the letter at least once in the class that she had them. The teachers would all pull the letter out, look it over quickly (obviously not reading it) and then get a stressed expression. The area around their eyes would tense up and their mouths would purse. Whatever was on that letter, it was worrying a lot of people.

It made Cat really want to know what was on it.

An ache started to form between her eyes the more she struggled to see it. She absently rubbed it, hoping the headache would go away quickly. It didn’t. But then again, they usually didn’t. The headaches had been coming more and more frequently, and were almost as disconcerting as the reoccurring dreams.

“Hi.”

Cat spazzed, complete with the unintelligible words and the arm flailing. She then turned to glare at her tormenter.

Aidan just smirked at her death glare. “I will never get tired of that.”

“You-” Cat paused, thought for a moment, and expelled a lung full of air. “Yeah, probably not. Dang it.” The last part was almost growled.

“Whatever, I’m going back to staring off into space and pretending that you’re not there.”

“Fine.”

“Cat?”

“Hello, Cat?”

“Cat!”

“WHAT? I was in pretend world exploring never land.”

He obviously didn’t know what to say to that. But he recovered quickly.

“Sorry, but class is about to start. I was raised to think it rude to not pay attention to your elders.”

“Well, you’re just a kill joy. Besides, I was raised to think it rude to interrupt someone’s day dreams. So, ha!”

People turned to look at her overly loud exclamation. She just shrugged and gave a wide eyed innocent look. And then used both hands to frantically point at Aidan when his back was turned. How mature.

Aidan turned around, not oblivious to the frantic gestures. He just gave her a look.

“You know,” Cat started, sounding on the verge of something profound. “You’re kind of a wuss.”

Aidan choked on air. Cat just smirked.

Mission accomplished.