Questions of Life

Holly

~Poor little guy. It’ll all be over in a minute.~

I watched as my roommate’s tiny little goldfish gasped for his last few breaths of life on the cold stone floor of my dormitory.

I wasn’t a sadist. It brought me no joy to see animals suffer needlessly. But I had to practice my resurrection spell for my lesson with Professor Zillana in a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, my roommate Serena’s pet was the only creature around I had any chance of successfully reviving.

As the piteous little goldfish twitched his last twitch, I put my hand over his scaly little body and began to chant the grotesque incantation that Professor Zillana taught me.

I removed my hand to see that the poor fish was still lifeless.

I tried once more.

Same results.

I couldn’t figure out why I was having such difficulty.

Earlier today, I’d successfully revived a couple of fruit flies and even a squashed caterpillar.

But for some reason, this goldfish was giving me trouble.

Maybe it was because I was psyched out.

If my roommate caught me with her dead fish, she was liable to report me to the RA.

That certainly wouldn’t go down well.

I paused for a moment and took a deep breath.

I purged my mind of doubt, stress, and any external pressures, and devoted my full faculties to channeling the residual energy of the deceased lifeform.

Once I felt that I was truly attuned to the aura, I placed my hand again over the lifeless fish’s body.

I chanted the spell, savoring each staccato syllable on my tongue.

A moment later, I felt the goldfish’s scaly little tail smacking against the palm of my hand!

I’d done it!

I’d raised the dead!

In a matter of a few hours, I’d advanced from insects to a goldfish.

My mind raced with excited thoughts!

Who knows where this capability could lead?

Maybe someday I’d even be as skillful as old Joan Cabot. Just… not so evil and all.

I scooped up the little fish and placed him back in the water.

In a couple of seconds, he was swimming around as though nothing had happened at all.

As I rose from the floor to put the goldfish bowl back on the table, my roommate walked in.

“What the fuck are you doing with my fish?” Serena demanded, rushing over to grab the bowl from me.

I tried to think up a lie fast.

“Uh… I was… just… studying him for my… Bestial Anatomy class!”

She cocked her brow at me, clearly not buying my lie.

“From now on, you touch only your stuff unless I tell you otherwise. ~Capice?~”

“Yeah! Sure! Totally! Sorry!” I rambled nervously, grateful that she hadn’t walked in a moment earlier.

I looked at the clock on the wall.

It read a quarter to eight. Fifteen minutes until lesson time.

~Thank goodness.~ I thought to myself.

I needed an escape from the tense atmosphere of the dorm.

I reached for my book bag and rushed out of the room for my lesson.

As I strolled through the campus on my way to the library, a pang of guilt hit me.

I felt kind of bad that I hadn’t really been around to get to know my roommate or any of my other peers.

From what I understood, the first week of college was when you were supposed to cement friendships that grow over the next four years. Instead, my every extracurricular moment had been spent in private sessions with Professor Zillana or practicing for them.

Of course, I was still thrilled that such a smart, savvy witch had taken such a personal interest in me. But I hoped that it wouldn’t continually get in the way of establishing a full, well-rounded life at college.

I made my way back into the forgotten alcove of the library and opened MAG SCI 66.6. The elevator began a steady, smooth descent into the underground laboratory.

~Thank God she fixed this.~

As I stepped off the elevator and proceeded down the corridor to the laboratory, I was surprised to find Professor Zillana amicably chatting with some nice-looking young custodian.

“Oh, hello, Holly!” she greeted me.

“This is Juan. I asked him to come down here and give this place a good scrubbing.”

“It sure needs it,” Juan chuckled in a thick Portuguese accent. “This place is dusty as a tomb. But don’t you mind me, you just go about your work! I’ll be as quiet as the dead.”

Professor Zillana shot me a wink as the jovial janitor went to work at mopping the floors.

“Juan, I want you to know that I find you wildly attractive.”

My jaw dropped.

~What the actual fuck?~

“But I simply can’t marry you, darling,” she continued. “I, so old, and you, so young. It would never work.”

I had no clue what the hell was going on.

Just then, Juan dropped his broomstick and rushed over to Professor Zillana on bended knee.

“But Jhoka! Jhoka, ~meu amor~! I love you more than life itself! I would steal the moon from the sky if you asked it of me. You must be my wife! Say you will! Oh, say you will!”

At first, it all seemed like some bizarre skit. Like a gag.

But then I got a good look at Juan’s face.

Tears cascaded from his sparkling brown eyes. His brow furrowed in anguish. His lips quivered in desperation. He was dead serious.

“Oh Juan.” Professor Zillana giggled. “You know I can never resist you. Go upstairs and wait for me on the quad. I’ll be along soon. Together we’ll elope and sail off to some distant land!”

Juan leaped to his feet and planted a long, sensuous kiss on Professor Zillana’s hand.

“I shall count the seconds, sweet Jhoka.”

The love-struck janitor rushed past me and back towards the elevator.

My professor giggled as her coquettish suitor skipped gleefully down the corridor.

“Ah, to be young again,” she mused.

I didn’t know what to say.

I still wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.

Professor Zillana smiled as I stood with my mouth agape like a codfish.

“Don’t worry about Juan. By the time he reaches the quad, he’ll have forgotten he was ever here.”

“What was that?” I finally managed to ask. “Some kind of love spell?”

“Not quite.” She smirked.

She paced over to a bubbling cauldron in the fireplace.

“Today’s lesson. Mind control.”

***

It was nearly midnight when I stumbled into my dorm room.

I was greeted by the jarring glare of bright, fluorescent lights and the booming bassline of some trap music on the radio.

My roommate sat in a white bathrobe in front of a large make-up mirror, with blinding LED lights. Her desk was covered in bottles of every type of cosmetic imaginable.

“Well, well. You’re home late,” she said, curtly, as she applied bronzer to her cheekbones.

“Yeah,” I yawned. “A late study session. You gonna be ready for lights-out soon?”

“You’re kidding, right?” she scoffed. “Tomorrow night is the first sorority rush event, and I’ve got to slay! I’m gonna be up trying out different looks until I find the right one.”

I groaned as I threw on my pajamas and lumbered up the ladder to my bunk.

I tossed and turned in bed, trying to ignore the bright light and bumping music, but to no avail.

I wished I could make her go to bed. Then I realized…

I could now.

Professor Zillana’s instructions ran through my mind.

~First, you have to tap into a person’s most personal awareness. Their insecurities. ~

My roommate’s vulnerability was literally as plain as the nose on her face. Her looks.

~Next, become that person’s insecurity. Use it to control their thoughts. ~

I concentrated on my roommate’s thoughts and channeled her fears in repetitive messaging.

~You’re ugly! Your nose is too big! Your skin is too pale! Your eyes are lopsided!~

As I inundated her mind with these thoughts, I could sense my roommate applying her makeup ever more furiously.

~Finally, once you govern their thoughts, use them to do your will. ~

I concentrated intently for a moment, exerting my desires on my roommate’s consciousness.

All of a sudden, the music stopped.

After wiping her face clean, she switched the lights off.

Everything was going as planned. But how could I be certain it wasn’t just a coincidence?

As my roommate settled into bed, I thought of a way to prove whether I’d truly taken control of her mind.

~Goodnight Holly! Sweet dreams!~

“Goodnight Holly! Sweet dreams!” I heard her yawn from across the room.

Holy shit!

I had done it! I’d taken control of her thoughts!

Part of me was proud of catching on to Professor Zillana’s instructions so quickly. But another part of me felt kind of guilty for using a person as a test subject.

Still, it wasn’t like I’d done anything to harm her. I just sped along the sleep that I so desperately needed.

I smiled as I settled back into the sheets, silently praising my own accomplishment.

~I guess power isn’t such a bad thing when it’s in the hands of good people.~

Bambi

I sat quietly at the breakfast table, trying not to face plant into a plate of quiche. I had not slept in nearly two nights.

Both had been spent in the company of Tyler.

While the first night had gone relatively well, last night’s bizarre run-in with Alpha Hunter had the poor witch too scared to speak.

I wanted to bring it up to Ela, but she’d just started to really get close to her new mate. I didn’t want to throw a wrench into things if I didn’t know for sure what was going on.

RING! RING!

Alpha Vladimir’s butler came in carrying an old rotary phone on an antique tray.

He took the call at the table.

“Hello… Really?! You will?! Ah! Capital! We’ll be over directly!”

Alpha Vladimir slammed down the phone.

“That was Chair Fakari! He’s returned from South Africa and said that he is ready to receive the prisoner this morning!”

Ekon and Leonardo clapped enthusiastically, happy to be rid of the witch.

But the news left me with a knot in the pit of my stomach.

If we gave up Tyler, we would lose our best chance at finding Devina and the Rogues.

But if we kept her, we’d undoubtedly be accused of harboring a criminal by Chair Fakari.

Either way, we would lose.