Chapter 7
The whipping started right after the dusk. A dark shade on the craggy rock, swinging back and forth with a long whip, lashed on another shade, only darker. Intermittent shrieks echoed in the cave.
A house-elf was all naked. Hands tied together. His back was bleeding. It was almost too cruel to watch—No words, nor tears and no prayers seemed to relax the intensity of the lashing; where the blood ran the longest, there it was whipped the longest. A grave punishment for the house-elf.
Zack kicked the away the house-elf. He walked out of the cave and breathed.
"Hello, Good morning!" Zack turned to St. Cyprian who appeared out of a bell flower.
"Another house-elf?" St. Cyprian peeked into the cave for a glance on the gory victim. He furled his nose at the bloody sight. "Can't believe you have to do this everyday."
"It is not so bad." Zack took out a lighter and lit up a cigarette, "Besides the feeling is just magical."
"I am disgusted." St. Cyprian said. Zack was an evil vampire who strengthened his power through eating house-elf. The whipping was just the appetizer—just to keep this game of feast more fun. The house-elf's gaunt chest rose up and down meekly. It was in great pain and could have died in just twenty minutes. He reverted his eyes and decided to ignore that house-elf even though what Zack did was wrong and violating the thirty seventh amendment of the magical constitution, which protects house-elf from the subjection to violence.
Watching this writhing and gory object on the floor, St. Cyprian almost impulsively jinxed it to immediate death.
"I have some errand that you need to carry out." Zack told St. Cyprian, "Take this house-elf to that girl."
"What are you planning?"
"Remember that Simon boy? We had better use him well."
"He is not stupid."
"That's why we need that girl."
"In order to construct the stone of life, we need both the talent of that boy as the last heir of the oldest sorcerer family and the enormous magic from that girl's daisy necklace. St. Cyprian, Aeternum!" he made a coarse and low sound of cheer at the end.
"Aeternum…"
Isabella bumped into Ann Tian. She was an Asian kid from class-2. "Sorry." Ann murmured to Isabella and then quickly ran off. Isabella frowned at her flying back—why did she hurry? Curiosity led her to follow Ann.
Ann disappeared into the next hallway.
Where could she be? Isabella looked about. A small tug at her the bottom of her pants. "are you princess Isabella?" A puny shaky voice whispered into her ear.
"What?" Isabella was startled and jumped backward. A tiny, tiny, thumb-sized blondie with wings on her back was talking to her. What the fuck?
"WHO ARE YOU?"
"I am the seventeenth servant of the ancient noble family of Catherines. My name is Orla (golden Queen)." She bowed in the air professionally. "It is a great honor for me to serve you, my seventeenth mistress." Streams of golden silky hairs flew off her shoulder, dangling in the air and shining brightly. Isabella had immediately liked this little girl who claimed to be her servant.
Wait. A fairy Servant? And wings?
"Princess Isabella, are you looking for that rude peasant?" Orla lowered her delicate head to Isabella, "do you need Orla to punish that impudent girl for offending you highness?"
Maybe she can be useful.
"Tell me where she went. Take me there." A tone of authority came out of her mouth naturally as if her body had been waiting for this day to arrive for long.
"With greatest pleasure." Orla bowed again.
So there they were. It was Dr. Kasper's history class room. "Can you hide me from them?" She didn't know why she used plural since Ann was the only one in the room. "Yes, your highness." Orla snapped her finger. Does she not need a spell or some sort of ritual to perform magic? "We fairy don't do magic like magician or sorceres." Orla explained, "the magic is us and we are magic. Your highness's daisy necklace was forged by our greatest magical smith in my fairy kingdom on request of Lady Catherine."
Fuck. Can she read my mind? Isabella nodded and pretended being nonchalant. But who is Lady Catherine?
"Lady Catherine is our savior and heroine to all fairys. It is always a great pleasure to be able to express our gratitude through our service to the next heir of Catherine family…"
"shoo. There comes Mr. Kasper."
"Ann?" Mr. Kasper looked surprised to see Anne in his room alone. She didn't bring any homework. But her face looked troubled. Almost unwittingly he asked: "what is wrong?"
Drops and drops of tears fell on Ann's face. The moment of weakness disrupted Mr. Kasper's usual equanimity. He stepped closer to Ann.
They were too close.
She could feel this coarse, trembling breath coming from him.
But they were always too far. Too far from her. Too far from him. They were like the separated baby dogs, yearning uselessly for reunion.
"I missed you."
The expression he had was electrifyingly terrified. He leapt away from her like avoiding the poison. "You can't say that. I am your teacher. Besides," he paused, "you see me everyday in the hallway."
Ann was dead silent.
What a cruel man. Isabella sympathized greatly with Ann. Mr. Kasper had taught them third year the junior US history. Ann was unusually talented, especially in US history. She had always been a favorite of witty, and intellectual Mr. Kasper. But nobody suspected other than the normal teacher-student relationship. Maybe He paid a little too much attention to Ann and showed a little bit more affection for her than others. But no matter how you look at it they were acting just super normal.
Besides, Mr. Kasper was married and had two daughters. He was forty-seven-year old; Ann was only seventeen.
Nobody had suspected.
"humans are so weird. Why could not he just be frantic about his feelings? Why could not he allow himself to admit his love for that peasant?" Orla said out loud.
"Shhhhhhh." Isabella covered her mouth nervously, "they will hear us!"
"Nah. They can't. Normal humans can not see me or hear me. My existence is zero to them." Orla said proudly, "but Princess Isabella is the heir of the great Catherine family which is the oldest family of sorcerers."
Isabella blushed. Okay, I will let you go this time.
"Look, Princess! They kissed!"
Ann lifted her heels and pressed her lips on Mr. Kasper. He didn't refuse her at first. Rather his arms surrounded Ann's tiny waist tightly. It was a quiet kiss—no slurping—but violent and passionate. Ann's face grew paler and paler, tears rushing off the redness on her cheek.
It was hard to tell whether she was happy or tormented.
"What a lecherous man." Orla lying down while floating in the air, commented casually. Isabella flushed from head to toe. Yeah, it was a little hard for her to watch-Mr. kasper hand slipped into Ann's uniform and grabbed her breast and squeezed. Ann sighed greatly. Then he stopped. What! Why the fuck he stopped?
Of course Ann was confused. "We can't do this anymore." He carefully buttoned up Ann's shirt, "Go home. Both of us need to calm down."
Ann pouted and was motionless. "Go." This time he sounded forceful but very gentle.
"I am too ugly. Maybe he thinks I am not hot."
After that witness, Isabella confessed to Ann what she had seen one day after school. To her surprise, Ann was not flustered but only indifferent. "What do you want by telling me this?" her voice was sacarstic.
"No..I just want to let you know that I am sorry." Under Ann's composed gaze, Isabella felt especially guilty for what she had done.
"Are you going to tell anybody?"
Isabella looked up, confused. "No! Of course I am not…do you want me to?"
Ann shook her dark long pony tail lightly.
They went to a park that day. And talked for very very long time. It was mainly Isabella talking though. Ann was exceptional listener. Unlike other girls Isabella had encountered, Ann was mature and funny and reluctant to talk about herself.
Until yesterday did Ann begin to discuss her feelings about Mr. Kasper to Isabella. She was not sure if Ann finally trusted her. But at least it was a good sign that Ann was opening up to her.
"You are intelligent." Isabella said to her, "you are witty and smart. Nobody will dislike you just because you are not as hot as Julia."
"You are painfully honest about that." Ann shot her a half-hearted glance, "But you are right."
A lonely expression on Ann's face.
For one moment, Isabella wanted to tell her that today her bun was exceptionally cute and Mr. Kasper had never kept off his stare on her back today in class. But Ann was often too engrossed in history to notice what he was doing other than teaching. Maybe that is another reason why Mr. Kasper had liked her-a great genius with an extraodinary curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Or truth rather.
"You know, it feels good to kiss him." Ann suddenly said, "I like the taste of his tongue."
"You guys tongue kissed?"
"yeah."
"That's disgusting."
Ann chuckled. Yeah, normally girls would either get mad at her for saying that or blush or laugh harshly to cover their embarrassment. But Ann just chuckled softly, like nothing mattered to her that much.
"I am sorry. I just, just never had that experience before…and I was a little curious and…maybe jealous I guess…"
"I know." Ann said with composure. Her dark brown eyes sparkled.
"Can I ask you why you like him?"
Ann thought for a long time. The elongated period of silence almost rendered Isabella to give up and just say "never mind" to Ann. It was almost grueling to wait for an answer. She really took her time.
"I don't know." Ann started.
What the fuck.
"He is old. Much older than me. Thirty years span. He has two kids and a wife. He is not super handsome. He never gives me full point on my essay and always finds faults in my homework. He comments a lot but I can never recognize his writing or get the courage to savor his words. But he cares about his students. I mean, he really is a cool teacher…"
"But I didn't know ask what you think of him as a teacher—"
Ann was sobbing.
"But I like him. I just really like him."
Anne buried her face into her knees.
"Is there anything wrong with that? If being born to this world with freedom, then why could I be with him? Just because he is my teacher and married?"
Isabella stroke Ann's hair softly.
"No." Isabella hugged her softly, comforting her back, "there is nothing wrong with loving somebody. Rather, it is always a beautiful thing."
