Page 111 of The Black Witch

I was quietly taking my seat as Professor Mage Klinmann’s chalk clicked out a staccato rhythm on the wall slate, a steady rain pelting the long, arching windows. He’s a Gardnerian, my Mathematics professor, and pleasant enough to me. But it’s hard to warm up to such a rigid man. I’m always uncomfortably aware of the glint of cruel bitterness ever present in his cool green eyes when he looks at anyone of another race.

I had just finished setting out my pen, ink and notepaper when a collective gasp went up from the Gardnerian scholars around me. I glanced up from my desk.

To my great surprise, Ariel was standing in the doorway, her wings flapping around herself agitatedly.

Mage Klinmann turned his head to look at her, then quickly jerked it away, as if the sight of Ariel burned his eyes. All of the scholars looked away as well, murmuring to each other unhappily.

Everyone except Yvan, the only non-Gardnerian in the class.

“For what reason do you interrupt my class, Ariel Haven?” Mage Klinmann questioned. His voice was calm when he said it, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking out at his fellow Gardnerians, catching their sympathetic glances as they, also, pointedly tried to avoid looking at Ariel.

“They said I’m too smart for the class I was in,” Ariel spit out, self-consciously, her eyes darting around as she fidgeted from one foot to the other. I could see her fighting off the urge to cower, her posture that of someone braced for an attack. She thrust out a piece of parchment at Mage Klinmann. He must have seen it out of the corner of his eye—his lip twitched and he turned farther away from her.

“And how do I know you did not fool your professor in some way, Icaral?” he asked, almost sounding bored. “I’m told that your kind are very crafty.” He smiled at this, still not looking at her.

I’d seen people avert their eyes from Ariel and Wynter before, but only as they passed, never during conversation. It was strange and demeaning and filled me with an intense discomfort.

“You shouldlookat me!” Ariel cried, her pockmarked face reddening, her hands balling into tight fists.

“Excuse me?”

“I’mtalkingto you! You shouldlookat me!”

Professor Klinmann sniggered lightly. “And why, exactly, is it so important that I look at you?” He eyed the other scholars, as if they all shared an inside joke she was excluded from.

“Because I’mtalkingto you!” she cried, her eyes blazing with humiliation.

This prompted outright, incredulous laughter from some of the Gardnerian scholars.

Professor Klinmann seemed to be valiantly trying to ward off a smile. “Now, now, Icaral. To look at you would be against my religious beliefs. You’re well aware of that. It’s not a personal slight, and it would be foolish of you to take it as such. So you shouldn’t let your feathers get all...ruffled.” His eyes shot up to the Gardnerians before him, twinkling, and the scholars obliged him by breaking out into polite laughter, everyone studiously continuing to avert their eyes from Ariel.

Ariel flinched back as if struck, then turned and stormed out of the room.

I half rose, almost ready to go after her, then remembered that she hates me, and slowly sank back down.

I’d never seen anything like this.

I listened to the laughter of the scholars surrounding me in horror, suddenly nauseated. I turned to Yvan, who was seated across the aisle from me. He was the only other person in the classroom not smirking or outright laughing. He looked just as horrified as I felt.

Perhaps sensing my stare, Yvan turned to me, his eyebrows knit tightly together in anger. The moment his intense green eyes met mine, he gave a start, possibly surprised that I wasn’t laughing like the others, the two of us instantly united in this sickening outrage. We held each other’s gaze for a long moment as the anger in his face gave way to something akin to astonishment.

As if he was seeing me for the first time.

* * *

“It seems like it would be terrible to always have people looking away,” Aislinn considers as I finish telling her my story. Her brow tenses. “I never really thought about it before.”

“And now,” I tell her, “Yvan doesn’t flat-out hate me anymore. He still won’t speak to me, but the other day during my kitchen labor, when no one else was looking, I was having trouble picking up a large bucket of water, and he helped me. He grabbed the bucket out of my hand and walked off with it, cursing under his breath and acting like he was angry at himself for even doing it, but he helped me nonetheless.”

“Strange.”

“I know.”

The other scholars in Professor Volya’s class are trickling in, including our rune-marked professor herself, so we cease our conversation and turn our attention toward the front of the room.

Aislinn and I are not only fast friends by now, but research partners, as well. Not able to partner with a Lupine, on the second day of class Aislinn simply took a seat next to me, sitting as far away from Jarod Ulrich as possible. Diana smugly and wordlessly took the seat next to her brother, shooting a triumphant look at Professor Volya. Professor Volya pursed her lips unhappily, but decided to ignore the slight. Jarod’s face, however, remained tense and troubled for the rest of the class.

Aislinn, for her part, doesn’t spend much class time taking notes, as I’m generous in sharing mine. Instead, Aislinn hides classic novels and poetry books in her Chemistrie text and reads discreetly through every lecture. The class we’re currently sitting in is no different from any other, and after Professor Volya begins her lecture, Aislinn plasters a studious expression on her face and dives into her secret book.

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