If you're a reader of my Asylum story - sorry! I haven't posted a chapter in quite some time, Lana and Wendy would be disappointed in me. But I'm working on it!

Love Checkauf, a young witch who can dance between life and death with no penalty, enlists the help of Cordelia Goode to control her dark abilities. A specific Hell haunts her nightmares when she starts attending the Academy - Misty Day's neverending torment.

Cordelia blames herself for Misty's death and undeserved entrapment, but Love could be her token to pluck Misty back to the land of the living - but portals that are opened may not stay closed.

White Nothing

"What is interference?"

Cordelia glanced across the audience of young ladies who were, almost exclusively, trailing their eyes on her like she was their individual beacon. Cordelia could barely resist noticing the way their energies hummed around her whenever she spoke, whether it was teaching, scolding, or asking what was requested for breakfast. The way desperate creatures looked from their splattered-across-the-road resting places - their eyes mimicked the sheer innocence of pea brained deer in contorted ditch positions.

Striding across the front of the greenhouse, the headmistress brushed her fingertips across the top of her hazel plant. With a silky sigh under her breath of surgere amicum, the spiny yellow petals grew upward, reaching towards the stone ceiling. The intelligent eyes trained on her again, and she smiled. Cordelia had a very attractive smile, the kind that drew people in. One thing she inherited from Fiona, though Delia's was completely sincere. Unfortunately, something she was incredibly self conscious about.

"As Americans, we have a special horror of giving up control, or letting things happen in their own way without interference. William Borroughs once said that." She put her hands on her hips and brushed her fingers against the waistband of her pants. "So, what is it? Interference..."

"Is it..." The first voice began, softer than usual, and Cordelia picked out the head of a brunette girl resting near the back wall. Her eyeliner was extremely thick and winged at the ends, she reminded her of Hamlet's Ophelia. The stringy locks of hair hung halfway in her face, though she didn't bother with it. "A disturbance."

"Getting there, Bree." The Supreme leaned against the rectangular wooden table and tapped her manicured nails against the rough surface. Greenish bits of parsley were still stuck underneath them from earlier. "According to Oxford's English Dictionary, interference means "to prevent a process or activity from continuing or being carried out properly." Pausing, she raised an eyebrow.

"The point of me asking is this - there is extreme importance in control. If you were to ask William Borroughs, he would imply that we fear this. In fact, we struggle to understand the vulnerability of our powers - they are given to us by nature, the power of magic. You aren't just reading incantations, you're performing them. Disrupting the very same earth that gave us our abilities. It's very important," striding to the other side of the work bench, she picked up a water can and sloshed the water around inside. "To balance natural with supernatural."

"Miss Cordelia," another voice piped in. The girl was a natural redhead with splotches of freckles dotting her ashen face. She had similar appearance to a shrew with her narrow, long nose, and fragile-looking wrists. "Aren't we always interfering with nature? There can't possibly be a balance."

The blonde woman nodded as she finished watering the pink foxglove, resting between two overpowering ferns. "Dana, will you please move this by the window?" Dana willingly took the potted plant from Cordelia and lugged it towards the cracked-open portal. Sounds of late robins and cooing finches radiated through the small space, cooling the slightly muggy atmosphere inside. "And the answer to that, Rachel, is yes. We are interfering with nature, but in a measured way that, if correctly executed, can ultimately success the environment."

Cordelia waved her fingertips over the fraying leaves of a plant with grayish leaves that dripped seeds from garish pods. Some of the plants they grew reminded her of the giant fly traps from Jumanji. "That's why most of you girls don't develop your powers until you're older. You need control, because control means equity. You have to be mature enough to allow your skills to "interfere" with name-of-game boundaries."

"What about the people that develop their powers earlier than that, Miss Cordelia?" Another out of the fifteen or so voices piped up, a smaller girl with giant glasses that didn't quite fit her face. Her name was Winnie, one of the first files Cordelia could recall viewing after exposing witches to the world. Winnie was barely thirteen, but her power of Divination was incredible at such a young age. Needless to say, she was excellent at hide and seek. "How old were you?"

Pausing, the Supreme blinked for longer than she intended. Behind those eyelids, she saw the static image of a bony girl, pin straight hair cropped at her shoulders and free of bows or clips. Rather plain-seeming as she glanced back and forth at the swing opposite of her own. They were empty, swaying in the springtime breeze. Cautious, always cautious, she would close her eyes and set her hands in her lap and make the swing chains rattle with her mind. These were not very fond memories.

"I was very young, only nine. For some, it comes sooner than others. It's only natural, at least natural for us." Smiling, she handed Winnie the half-full watering can and the girl wobbled back and forth in her tattered rubber sneakers, carrying it to the counter. She stood on her tiptoes to water the ferns on either side of the foxglove, and Cordelia gestured for the girls to gather around the bench. "Now, what did we come in here for?"

XXX

She was past deep breaths, as the soles of her shoes had already crossed the threshold of the wrought iron gates. Turning her head slowly around on her shoulders, Love admired the regally positioned weirs; they were something part of Old Man Withers' mansion, straight out of a Scooby Doo episode on Boomerang.

And she could have sworn they had still been open a second ago. Come to think about it, she'd never heard them close behind them. Eerie, how quiet things seemed on the premises of this old place. The history was quite literally seeping in through the ground, wrapping like vines and climbing up her ankles.

"Miss Robichaux's Academy for exceptional young ladies." Her father cleared his throat and scratched his face for no reason. It was completely smooth shaven and free of whiskers. "Well, you're both young, and acceptional. Not to mention a lady."

"Dad." Love's teeth had begun chattering, so she started towards the building - a mansion really, a massive marble mansion kept somehow immaculately clean on the outside. There hadn't been a building within her sights as beautiful as this. She hadn't expected it to be so - white.

Mr. Checkauf followed her slowly, though not as unsure as her. God, she'd never been so unsure of anything in her life. Her fingertips were strangely icy as she reached to brush a loose lock of black hair from her rosy cheek. Supposedly, her dark hair came from her mother, but she wouldn't know. Whatever she looked like, Love knew she appeared more like her father than anyone else she knew. They were both wiry, and particularly average sized. Aside from the drastic hair color difference, they were peas and carrots.

The steps were glassy, made of granite if Love had to guess. The age seeped up through her legs again, timelessness permeating through the beat up rubber lining her shoes. She had no urge to rush up them; in fact, they creeped her out, but she ran up them anyway. The bengle bracelets lining her left wrist jingled against her pulse that hammered away in her wrist as she jogged towards the landing.

Love's father was far behind, resting at step number three. Love bit her lip guiltily while watching him struggle. He'd walked with a cane for quite a while now. His right knee was crushed in a car accident - she could remember being only thirteen, hiding in the doorway of the shitty old house her grandfather lived in, watching Terry's Tough Towing haul their accordion-ed station wagon into the gravel driveway.

"You're gonna have to visit me, huh?" Her father smiled, panting when he reached the top, and Love mustered a weak "I'm-surely-going-to-vomit" smile. "Too many damn steps. Suppose this place isn't made for old cripples though, so I'm the oddball."

"Dad."

"It's only an observation." He admitted, rolling his plain gray eyes back and forth between the spiraling plants positioned on either side of the large door. Love gulped and took her father's hand, wrapping her fingers in the warm creases. It felt like a coarse croissant, but it kept her chilly, bluish fingertips warm. Love knocked.

The door almost immediately swung open to her alarm, and she jumped back quickly. Her dad seemed startled too, but less so than his jumpy daughter. Anything could have scared Love on that doorstep though; a bunny rabbit, a daytime soap opera, a can opener.

"Hi." The boy who greeted them wore a spiffy purple button-up all the way up to his neck, and a deep satin bow tie to match in a darker lilac. It was strange, as if he'd been anticipating her knock and ultimate arrival. "How long you been standing there?"

"Eh..." Love bit her lower lip shyly, but Mr. Checkauf placed a hand on her shoulder and answered.

"Not that long."

The boy's eye twitched and Love wondered if her father caught it. His hand still on the doorknob twisted it constantly and quickly, like his nervous facial tick. He was like a lagged video game, though - it would suddenly stop and resume. Something was just millimeters off, she could swear it.

"Good. You have bags?" He smiled - a handsome smile. Love blushed as his eyes watched her hands knot at her stomach, which incidentally was twisting too.

"Not with us, uh - in the car." Love looked at her feet and cleared her throat. "Sorry."

"I'll get them." The boy suggested. He was much taller than both she and her father, and his hair was blonde with, dare she say, a slight curl. The way his body was positioned in the doorway, she could barely see inside of the academy, and she didn't know if she wanted to. But she didn't want the boy to leave her alone in this place, a stranger, even with her father.

"Kyle? Where have you-" a small girl ducked underneath the boy's (Kyle's?) arm that was draped across the doorway, looking up at him and back to Love and her father. "Oh. You found the guests?"

"They found me."

"Sorry." The girl smirked in a melancholy fashion, offering one small hand. "I'm sorta supposed to be the welcome wagon, but I'm not doing a fantastic job. I'm Zoe."

"Hi." Jesus. Why did she have to act so shy around strangers? Love honestly didn't care about what others thought of her. People were just people, they could move on if they didn't like her slightly unkept hair, raggedy cardigans, Cleopatra sandals. But suddenly, for some reason, she felt one in the same with Zoe. She could sense her depth, somehow, even through the atmosphere. She decided to extend her hand, clasping Zoe's tight. "I'm Love."

"And Love's father." Her dad spoke for the first time in quite a while. Outspoken might be a hefty word to describe him. Most of his talking he did with his daughter or his clients. He was an accountant, a straight up boring tax accountant.

"Great." Zoe didn't have many words yet, but she smiled. Kyle started playing with one of her loose pigtails, but she shooed him away with a piercing but loving glance. Almost a look you might give a child, or a puppy. "Why don't you go get Love's bags from the car, and I'll show them to Cordelia's office?"

Kyle pressed his chin to the top of Zoe's head - a type of hug, maybe - and moved between Love and her father, disappearing in a slightly lumbering gait towards the iron gates. He was strange, to say the least.

"I can give you a quick rundown," Zoe swung her arms at her sides, traipsing through the parlor hall. It was surprisingly still, as calm and tranquil as the white and silver backdrop. Girls milled around, talking as they tramped down the pearly staircases, calling back and forth between second floor bedrooms.

Lagging behind by her slow, limping father, Love gazed adoringly up at the crystal chandelier that was at least twenty-five feet up, suspending on the highest surface of the ceiling. The entire place was - well, much less creepy than she assumed it would be. "This is the parlor, we don't do much here accept track in mud. And this," Zoe sidestepped a girl with red braids into a large open space lined with cabinets. A butcher's table sat in the middle of the large room, aged wood with a dip-down crevice in the middle. "Is the kitchen. Do you want anything to drink?"

"Do you have milk?" Love stuttered, and Zoe shrugged, rummaging in the fridge until she surfaced with a bottle of chalky brown, sloshing it up and down in her hand like a Shake-Weight.

"Do you mind chocolate?"

She didn't mind, so Love uncapped it and swished the choco around in her mouth. The flavor hadn't permeated throughout the bottle, so she shook it and took a second swig as Zoe led them down another hallway.

The interior of Miss Cordelia Goode's office was everything Love expected it not to be. Ordinary was one word to describe it. A large Oxford dictionary laid open on one side of the desk, and a stack of Manila files lay untouched on the other. A clutter of pens and sharpened pencils were scattered across the surface, and a few refrigerator magnets were clipped to the side.

The office space was light and spacious as well, matching the marvelous spiral staircase she had seen on the way in. Two wings of steps broke off from the main, seeming to float in midair. It was surprisingly quiet inside. Love had expected it to be chaotic.

"Don't be nervous."

"I wasn't Dad, but thanks a lot." She hated waiting. In the past year she'd been to so many doctors and specialists, so waiting had a whole new meaning to her. Whenever someone came back, they'd stick her with needles or make her drink some chalky metal shit or whatever. She doubted they'd harm her here, but still, the uneasy feelings were still there.

As if her heart hadn't been beating fast enough before, the sudden creak of the door jarred her intensely, and she wheeled around in her chair to view the room's third occupant. This woman she immediately registered as the headmistress, somehow. Miss Goode literally glowed - maybe in only Love's eyes, but damn, she looked - she looked beautiful. Not just her looks, but she emanated health. Her blonde hair swung by her ears as she smiled with lips bird-like and maybe even a little thin, folding her pale hands on the desk.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." She shrugged sheepishly, meeting Love's eyes. Miss Cordelia's were the color of the chocolate milk. "It's nice to finally meet you in person Mr. Checkauf. And you, Love."

"You didn't um..." Love was nearly awestruck by the exuberant woman, somewhat of the reaction she might have to meeting one of the lead singers of her favorite band. But unlike a dyed-red punk, Miss Goode was an open-faced owlish woman with kind, gentle eyes. "We didn't wait long."

"Good." Cordelia picked at her otherwise perfect looking dark purple painted nails. "I trust Kyle has gone to retrieve your trunk?"

"Kyle..." Losing her train of thought, Love scrambled for a completed idea in her mind. There was nothing quite like meeting the Supreme for the first time. "Oh right, the tall moppy guy with the eye twitch." Mr. Checkauf sent his daughter a warning glance like daggers, but his daughter was oblivious in the presence of her new leader.

Cordelia smiled gently to herself, folding her hands over the piles of Manila folders, one of which, Love assumed, was her own records. "He's a hard worker." Her bell-like voice seemed to tinkle like the flutter of china in a garden. "He'll bring them up to your room within the hour. Then I'll have Zoe show you around the Academy."

"Your kindness is very much appreciated." Mr. Checkauf pulled out a seat across from the Supreme's and waited until after his daughter was seated before seating himself with more than a little struggle. It was hard for him to do even simple things like seating himself and it not only hurt, but frustrated Love to watch his suffering. "Love hasn't received as much... kindness from other institutes."

"Every one of our girls here is special in their own ways." Cordelia's gentle smile calmed the troubled girl and her now-relieved father. "Clairvoyance, divination, sensory... Each is considered a special gift and nothing less. We are very protective in the Academy, and Love will be safe without a doubt, I can assure you, Mr. Checkauf."

There was something overwhelmingly soothing about Cordelia's voice, like a reassurance that Love couldn't help but put all of her trust into. The Academy was not a prison, but a safe haven, meant for others like her. Other "different" young women. Or, what was it Miss Goode called it again? Gifted. The word floated down in her mind like an angel settling atop a cloud, like in one of the old calendar photos Love remembered seeing in her great grandmother's kitchen, years ago.

"I'll feel much better going home with Love safe here." Mr. Checkauf rested a hand gently on his daughter's somewhat bony shoulder, a gesture Love would have found annoying and unnecessary on any other given day. But this day was different; her father was leaving her today, hopefully in a place she would learn to call home with girls, no, other witches, she would come to trust. "We appreciate your kindness."

"No thanks is necessary, I'm sure." Cordelia rose from her chair, cradling a brown, unlabeled folder against her chest. Her slight heels clicked like a lizard's claws against the wooden floor, imitating the noise of a scuttling reptile, though the Supreme was much more graceful, to say the least. "I was just reviewing your file a moment ago, Love. It seems you are... quite gifted."

"Gifted." There was that word again. With a snort through her nose, Love leaned back and crossed her legs, holding onto her beat up Converse sneaker. "I don't think I'd exactly call this a gift."

The Supreme straightened herself, smile unfaltering as she traced her fingertips over the spines of the books on her shelf one by one, as if each were an intricate part of a system. Love tried to read some of the titles - none seemed to be in English. "Even the most unwanted of talents is precious. If you've got a gift - protect it. That's what you will learn here, Love."

"Yeah, well." The girl paused, meeting eyes with her father. Identical, some called them, but his had crinkled crow's feet at the edges as if for wise emphasis. "Will you teach me to put kibosh in this shit, get rid of these "gifts" all together?"

She could have easily watched Mr. Checkauf's expression contort into one of embarrassment and annoyance at her abruptness, but she kept her eyes on the headmistress. The short and breathy sigh beside her was enough to imagine said expression.

"Censoring your powers won't do any good, I'm afraid. You're special. Just like myself, and every other girl here. Sometimes, it takes a while to realize it." Miss Cordelia peered out the window shortly and glanced back to Love. It was hard not to notice the soft details of her face. Even in the most average of lights, she appeared sparkling, like a shiny glass of champagne. "To snuff out your abilities would be to stamp away who you are."

"Love," clearing his throat, her father sat up straighter, stretching out his bad leg and placing a hand on his knee. "I love you, baby. You're the most important thing in the world to me. But this - it's just getting out of hand. You need to learn." He placed a hand on her shoulder, but Love shrugged it off.

"Being a witch is an interesting existence." Cordelia chuckled, tapping her nails on her desk as she sat again, crossing her legs. She dressed a little bit like a librarian, but then again, if she wasn't wearing Crocs or plastic flip flops, Love wasn't going to judge. "I think you'll learn that it's much - different living with other witches. Satisfying, in a way. My - mother, she brought me here when I was only slightly younger than you. I felt alone, too, until I discovered that I could do a lot of good in the world with my abilities. There are plenty of -"

"Is that why you're the Supreme?"

"For the love of God..." Mr. Checkauf muttered under his breath, burying his face in one hand. "Love."

"No. It's alright." Miss Goode's smile perked the dimples in her cheeks as she reassured them with a nod of the head. "If you're going to be part of this coven, you deserve to know, as all girls living here do. The Supreme holds ultimate responsibility," she paused, seeming to roll the words over in her mind for a second, "Just think of me as your headmistress, Love. I'm here to help you control your powers. Not suppress."

Love couldn't help but think of the first call she'd got, weeks ago. She was sitting in her Eyore pajama pants and tie-dye shirt from seventh grade, eating peanut butter out of a giant container when the phone mounted on the kitchen wall jingled in its socket. She hadn't gone to school for four days, and the old, boxy television set blared an old rerun of Golden Girls. it was easy to forget that she'd been "selected" personally to attend the academy. She'd thought about it plenty, and come to think of it, now that witches had come out of the closet, there must be a lot of fakes dying to get the witch experience.

"I want to learn." She blurted, turning to her father with sullen eyes full of tears. "Dad..."

"I'm right here. And I'm going to visit. And you can visit too, deal?" He placed his rough hand on her head and stroked down the length of her raven-dark hair. "Listen, you're going to be a lot - happier here. With other people like you."

"You will be." The Supreme added, smiling again, a smile that was easily trustable. "And if you aren't, I can't chain you here and keep you. You're free to go, but as long as you're under this roof, I'm your legal guardian. I'm only here to guide you. Don't you want to be surrounded by others who are similar to you? Believe me, it's a relief."

Love certainly believed her. She wrapped her father in a hug. "Dad, I don't want you to be alone."

"Oh," Mr. Checkauf seemed surprised, but why would be be? Love was his only companion ever since she was little. He wasn't so used to this affection Love was giving him, as she mostly kept to herself out in the "real world", but he hugged her back, tucking his chin on her shoulder. "I'll be fine. I don't want you to stay home just because you're worried about me. It'll be a decision you'll regret."

Love squeezed her eyes shut. "Thank you."