Angel stared at the piece of paper with an address scribbled down on it. It was the address to the school her mother went to and the one she told Angel she would love. Now that her mother was dead Angel would not let her promise die with her. Rumors flew around that her mother was haunting the halls of that very school and that was probably why Angel's aunt and uncle didn't want her to go there. They tried to keep her away with nice schools closer to home but once Angel found out her mom's ghost was at the school she couldn't get her mind off of it. It was impossible to keep her from finding out more.
"Is it a school I would have heard of?" Angel asked her aunt as she did dishes.
"No," she muttered, doing her best to stay expressionless and not look at Angel.
"Well is it around here?" she begged in response.
"No," she said right away.
"Will you tell me the address?" Angel asked.
"Absolutely not, you are to stay as far away as possible from that dreadful school!" she burst out. Angel flinched only for a second but refrained from getting angry. She took a deep breath and looked at her aunt.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Mary but this is not something I'm taking lightly or rushing into without any knowledge. There's nothing dreadful about the school except that it has ghosts that appear in it, which is great since it will let me see my mom again. I don't know what you have against her but you should really consider letting it go because like it or not I'm going to go find her. If you won't help me, I'll find the school myself," Angel said with her arms crossed, looking at the side of Mary's face. When she didn't move Angel said "Goodbye," kissed her on the cheek and packed.
Gregor was working his shift at the Lucky Stop one quiet day with hardly any customers coming in at all. The snow outside put a damper on travel and nobody passed by outside or came by the whole time. To pass the time he had his reclining chair set up behind the register and was doing books full of Sudoku puzzles. For the first few hours of Sudoku the puzzles were challenging and kept his attention but after that he got so used to it that he could do it with his eyes closed, literally.
It was around noon when a girl walked in, bundled in a large jacket and snow clothes, rolling along a checkered suitcase that was half her size.
"Welcome to Lucky Stop. How may I help you?" Gregor asked, even though it was just a gas station and he wasn't really required to say anything to people as they walked in. It's just that the girl looked like she needed help.
"Yes, actually, I'm looking for a school around here or at least I think it's around here," she said, biting her top lip and looking around in thought
"Do you know the name of the school?" he asked.
"No, all I know is that my mom used to go to it. Her name is Mae Stafford," she told him.
"Umm…" he mumbled confusedly.
"People call her Maybe," Angel added. He slowly lifted his eyes and he looked at her in a different way, more respectably.
"Are you from Hogwarts?" he asked. "You are, aren't you? How else would you know...Wait, Mae, is that you? Oh of course, it's nice to see you again but why are you here?" he asked with a smile.
"Excuse me?" Angel asked in confusion.
"It's not really safe to leave. What if someone tried to touch you," he said, coming around the counter about to swipe his hand through her.
"Don't touch me!" she said, catching on; he thought she was her mother's ghost. "Will you take me to Hogwarts?" she asked Gregor.
"Sure, nobody's been around here in ages, it'll be fine," he said. He opened the door causing a little bell to ring that didn't ring when Angel came in. "Ghosts first," he said jokingly holding the door for her. He didn't put any snow clothes on even though there was a blizzard outside. All he had on was a thin long sleeve shirt and jeans that were too baggy on him.
"Haha, yeah," she laughed. She tried to keep her excitement hidden but memories of her mother flooded her mind and all she could think of was how happy she felt when her mom threw her in the air and laughed with her, telling her she never needed to worry about anything.
As they walked away the "open" sign flipped to "closed" by itself but Angel didn't notice and wondered how he could leave the station unattended. She assumed the school was really close by and her hopes flew high. He smiled knowingly at her as if they were a part of something big. "So what do you think?" he asked.
"About what?" she asked, laughing with him as if she knew what he was talking about.
"The muggle world," he said, laughing at what he thought was a bad train of thought.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Angel said. "What are muggles?" They walked across the street and came to an entry to a train station. A few people passed by but the station was mostly empty.
"There's some," he said, pointing to Angel's aunt, uncle and three cousins, dressed in giant snowsuits and layers of hats and gloves looking frantically around the station.
"Let's hurry," she said.
"Couldn't agree more," he said and speed walked in front of her, telling her to follow him. Angel almost got left behind when she couldn't see him in the snow but she followed him as best she could and stopped right behind him next to a wall by platform 9.
"Umm where…?" Angel started to ask Gregor. Her aunt Mary had spotted Angel and was running toward them with everyone trailing behind, falling down in the snow.
"Come on," he said. Then he took Angel's wrist and pulled her quickly. She closed her eyes and shrieked as the snow blew in her face and she was dragged somewhere. When she opened her eyes she was in a new train station with the sign 9 ¾ blurred only by a lightly falling gentle snow.
"Where are we?" she asked, looking around in amazement.
"That's a bit of an odd question. We're at the train station. The train to Hogwarts is leaving right about now. We'd better run," he said. Again he took Angel's hand but he didn't go quite as fast and pulled her into the train nearby. She followed him down the aisle and into a room where they sat down across from each other.
"Who are you really?" Gregor asked, looking at her in excitement. She was surprised and almost scared for a second but she recovered quickly.
"Does it matter?" she asked in response, hoping it wouldn't change anything that she wasn't Mae.
"Not anymore, we've come this far. I just really want to know," he said, looking closely, his face was inches away from hers.
"I'm Angel," she said, pushing him back with a handshake which he took with a polite smile.
"And I'm Gregor. It's nice to meet you. You are a fellow student at Hogwarts, is that correct?" he asked.
"I'm just looking for my mom, it's very important that I find her," Angel said. She went to a public school a couple miles from her house that she had been to since kindergarten and made many friends in. She didn't plan on leaving and she would come back before Christmas break was over but not before Christmas, that was something she wanted to get out of.
A cart pulled up outside of the room and a lady asked them if they wanted to buy anything. Gregor pulled out money and handed it to her, then picked out a dozen of the same boxes from the cart. "I can't imagine any school better than Hogwarts. Your mom is a great spirit to have in the hallways," he said.
"So you've seen her? What's she like?" Angel asked in anticipation. Gregor opened a box and a brown frog jumped out. He grabbed it and stuffed it in his mouth. He offered one of the boxes to Angel but she cringed and he got the memo.
"Mae is great. The easiest going ghost that ever lived, I think. I can't even describe how awesome she is. Not like other ghosts like Moaning Myrtle or Nearly Headless Nick who annoy everyone," he said.
"That's a tad harsh don't you think. I mean, they're dead," Angel said. "When I die I would hope to be able to do my business without people thinking it annoying of me."
"And what business do you think they have?" he asked inquisitively.
"I don't know, I just think that they have their reasons for whatever they're doing or wherever they are. My mom is probably there for a reason, hopefully," she said, muttering more to herself than to Gregor.
"Angel?" Gregor said. She lifted her head and he looked in her eyes for something before he continued;"Do you know how your mom died?"
"I don't want to know, don't tell me," Angel said.
"Umm, okay then," Gregor nodded.
"Now you think I'm weird, how dare you!" Angel said.
"What?!" Gregor asked.
"Don't 'what' me! You're looking at me like I'm a crazy girl, stop it. If you think so you should say it, don't just leave me feeling like this," she said.
"Feeling like what?" he asked.
"Like I'm vulgar and unfit to be here," she said.
"How can a look make you feel like that?! I don't think you're vulgar and you're as fit to be here as any other witch," he said with a straight face.
"Witch?" she stopped, insulted.
"Yeah," he answered.
"Well you're a judgmental narcissist!" she shouted, standing up in front of him.
"What!?" he cried in defense. Angel crossed her arms and refused to look at him. "You're so much different from your mom," he said. Angel flipped around and looked at him with a pained expression.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I could never in a million years imagine Maybe jumping on someone with muggle insults for no reason a second after a compliment was paid to her," he said.
"You called me a witch," she cried in accusation and defense. Gregor looked confused for a second then his face twitched into a panicked expression and he looked at her with his head turned.
"You are a witch, aren't you?" he asked, pleading that the answer would be promising.
"Of course I'm not, what are you talking about?" Angel asked, remarking on how dumb of a question it was. Gregor jumped up with his hands over his mouth and stared at Angel with terror-stricken eyes. He stared mumbling worriedly to himself.
"Oh my Gosh, no, this can't be happening," he mumbled to himself. "Do you know anything about uhhh…I mean umm do you believe in… magic?" he asked.
"No, except for ghosts, which I don't think really counts as magic," she responded plainly. His eyes got wider and he paced back and forth in front of her biting his lip and trying to calm himself down. "What's wrong?" she asked him.
"Nothing, nothing, I just have to bring you back. You can't come to Hogwarts, I'll be in so much trouble," he said. Angel stood up and grabbed her suitcase protectively as the train pulled to a stop.
"No, I have to see my mom!" she said as loud as she could.
"I can't let you, there's no way," he said with a little bit of empathy in his voice but not enough to be detected by Angel. Her fists clenched so tight her nails dug into her palms and she stared daggers at Gregor, who stood in front of the train compartment exit. If she didn't get off here she would never be able to get to Hogwarts.
"Well you better make a way or I'll stampede you out of that doorway," she said, threateningly.
"I'm not afraid of you, muggle," he said. "You can't get past me." A train whistle blew from outside the compartment warning all passengers to get off for the last time. Angel closed her eyes and pushed her head forward toward Gregor. She mustered up all her strength to try and push him out of the way which was the only last minute plan she could think of with all the anger inside of her. When she opened her eyes she was not only outside the compartment doors but outside of the train and it drove past her as she turned around.
"Yes!" she screamed into the sky with her arms lifted, doing a victory dance in the middle of the mostly empty train station. When she collected herself, she started walking toward the exit with her suitcase and went in the exact direction that her gut, along with other obvious factors told her to.