Chatoyant College Book 14: Ghost Stories

Chapter 9: Crushing

"This is a good start," Ginny said at last. "As your homework, I want you to continue with this exercise through the tarot. Tonight, find the Magician card and write down a few impressions of it from your chosen deck. Then choose another random card, put it next to the Magician, and write down the impressions you get from that. Continue tomorrow with the High Priestess, and so on until we have class again on Tuesday. Any questions?"

The class was quiet until Derwen suddenly lifted her head. "Uh, how do we know what the order of the cards is?"

"The numbers are marked on the Major Arcana of most decks," Ginny said, not seeming surprised by what Corrie thought was a pretty silly question—even if the numbers weren't marked, they had learned the order in Intro to Magic. "Or if you search online, it's very easy to find a list. We'll go through the Major Arcana this way and use a different method when we reach the minors. Anything else? Very well, class dismissed."

Corrie, Annie, and Roe gathered up their things and left the room with the rest of the class. Corrie was hoping she would remember the homework assignment—she hadn't brought a notebook, not thinking she would need one for any magic classes.

"That was fun," Roe said. "I thought we would learn a little more than that, though."

"We definitely got more depth into each card than in Intro to Magic," Annie said.

"Yeah, but I thought Ginny would actually tell us something about the cards, not just ask us for our impressions."

"If we'd missed something important about the Fool, she probably would have brought it up," Corrie said. "We're just smart enough that she didn't have to say anything."

Roe laughed. "I guess that's a good way to think of it. What else do you guys have today?"

"I have Intermediate Elementalism later," Corrie said. "Edie's in that, too."

"I just have an English class," Annie said. "What about you?"

"I'm heading to math now," Roe said, wrinkling her nose. "I don't know what I was thinking signing up for a math class at lunchtime."

"I do," Annie said, laughing. "You could only find two classes to meet that requirement, and the other one was first thing in the morning. You didn't want to get up for that."

Corrie grinned. "I can help you wake up first thing in the morning. It's easy once you get used to it."

"Get away from me with your early mornings," Roe said, flapping her hands at Corrie. They'd reached the exit to the magic building. "Anyway, I'm headed there now. See you guys later."

Roe went left, and Annie and Corrie turned right. "Want to get some lunch?" Corrie asked.

"Sounds good," Annie said. Her eyes darted briefly away. "Will Edie be joining us?"

"I didn't schedule lunch with her," Corrie said, smiling. "I don't think she has a class right now, though, so she might be heading for the cafeteria, too. Still crushing, huh?"

Annie twisted a lock of her fine, fair hair around her finger, but didn't say anything. Corrie took that as a yes.

She thought Annie had a pretty good chance with Edie, now that Edie had finally found some closure with her faerie ex-girlfriend, but she didn't want to say anything. What if it was just wishful thinking? She would love it if the two of them got together, because she really liked seeing her friends together, and because Annie had been interested in Edie for so long. But Corrie didn't want to force anything, and she'd been careful not to say anything to Edie about Annie. And she didn't want to explicitly tell Annie to go for it, either, because she was sure that if Edie were interested in Annie, she would have said something to Corrie. Since she hadn't, Edie probably didn't think of Annie as a potential relationship prospect. In fact, Edie probably wasn't thinking about dating at all, since she'd struggled so much with her relationship with Leila.

And Corrie was definitely overthinking this. She hitched a smile back onto her face and led the way to the dining hall. What she really needed right now was a cheeseburger.