I, Raven, am sorry about the shortness of the previous chapters. Spy (and a
few others) has hinted that she would like to have more of the story
published quicker, and some of my readers might also have thought so. I am
mainly working by Spy's reminisces, and she also reads over my work to make
sure they are as close as possible to what happened. This chapter will be
MUCH longer than the first three.
I, Spy (no pun intended) wish to say that the books mentioned in this chapter are not mine, though they are my life. The only reason that they are mentioned is to give you a clearer picture of my personality, and it's contrast with Myra's.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I finished all my homework long before Spirit woke up again. It helped that I didn't have to move a muscle to research my paper, since I could easily project myself to the Ice Age exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History. In fact, I was able to write all 800 words in an hour and a forty- five minutes. Having nothing better to do, I decided to unpack Silent Spirit's things for her. Yes, looking back I realize that this was very impolite, but the thought never occurred to me at the time.
The room had been designed for sharing, being perfectly symmetrical. There were two single beds, two windows, two desks, two lamps, and two chairs. My half of the room was closer to the door, but Spirit's was closer to the bathroom. The carpet was dark green and the walls were a creamy white. Her side had nothing personal except for her previously mentioned backpack, but mine had a bookshelf full of mysteries and horror (two genres that to me have always seemed very closely related), along with a poster of "The Gashleycrumb Tinies", a frankly ancient and morbid alphabet poem by Edward Gorey. Have you heard of it? The first three lines are:
"A is for Amy who fell down the stairs,
"B is for Basil, assaulted by bears,
"C is for Clara, who wasted away,"
It continues on, through the entire alphabet and a grimly funny illustration for each untimely demise. No, I was not a Goth and am not one now. I just have a very dark and twisted sense of humor. I was very much a rabid mystery reader as well, with the occasional ghost story for variety. They were all there. Books by Agatha Christie and reliable old Sherlock Holmes stories. I had Edgar Allan Poe, who is less known for mysteries than horror, though at one time he was known as the father of the mystery novel. I loved the little known but hilarious Meg Lanslow mysteries by Donna Andrews. Various thrillers from the late twentieth century were there. I had little patience with popular horror, the kind with swamp monsters lunging around, serial killers, and loads of blood and guts. I preferred classics of horror such as "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", and stories by H.P. Lovecraft and John Bellairs. Stephen King was good, but I usually didn't like his language. What I wanted in a story was supernatural creepiness, with drama and mystery as major factors.
This mindset was a sharp contrast to what evidences of her personality that I found in Silent Spirit's belongings. The black case poking out proved to contain a clarinet, or was it an oboe? I had never learned the difference, having no musical talent whatsoever. She had a clear folder containing a massive amount of sheet music, both vocal and instrumental. On a more practical side there was a box of bandages and bottle of antiseptic, both nearly empty. Deeper within was a wallet containing twenty dollars and three photos. There was also an ID card, with Spirit in the same pair of sunglasses, looking forlorn. The card said:
Tall Cedars Orphanage, Washington DC. Name: Myra "SS" Sing. Sex: F Birth date: November 18, 2005 SPECIAL INFORMATION Powers: Unknown, have not yet manifested. Temperament: Compliant and quiet, but deceitful. Should have this card at all times. If found outside of Tall Cedars, notify the orphanage.
I bristled at the "Special Information". It reminded me of identification descriptions used for slave papers in pre-Civil War times. "Deceitful"? I couldn't reconcile that with my acquaintance with Silent Spirit.
I looked at the other pictures, which were less infuriating, though somehow just as sad. There was a school photo of a Hispanic girl about eleven years old. Scribbled on the back were the words, "Lisa. No matter where you go, I will find you, if it takes a thousand years." I recognized the line from a song I had once heard. The sentence gave me a flash of clairvoyance, one of the involuntary visions of past and future that I sometimes have. There was a car driving away, with a tearstained face at the window. "Myra!" the face kept screaming, "Myra! Myraaaaaaaaa!" It must have been a piece of her past. I flashed back to the present, a little dizzy.
The second picture was older. It was a family of three, Spirit looking like a four-year-old, so she was probably five or six at the time, and wearing a blue dress and cute red-rimmed sunglasses. There was one adult, presumably her dad. He was decent looking, with black hair and ordinary skin with a faint tinge of yellow. Or *did* he look normal? He was wearing sunglasses, too. Did they have the same eyes? There was a boy in the picture, whose age I guessed at six or seven. He was completely normal looking, and was a miniature version of the father, minus the sunglasses. On the back, in tiny printing, it said, "Dad, Charles Sing, 1971-2011. I'll never forget you. Ryan, 2003-? Are you still alive? Where are you? Me, age five. Who would've known what would happen next?" Not very cheerful stuff. It was a mystery, and I felt this would be a fairly tragic one.
The last photo showed a fairly pretty woman in her early thirties, with black hair, normal dark brown eyes, and delicate, fine features. Though she wasn't gorgeous, or even very beautiful, kindness and sensitivity seemed to radiate from her face. She looked exactly like how Silent Spirit would look as an adult, if she hadn't been born a mutant. Another message was written on the back. "Mother, Lily Sing, 1970-November 18, 2005. I'm so sorry." Spirit's mother must have died giving birth to her, I decided. I carefully put the pictures back in the wallet, and set the wallet on the desk.
There were four small books in the bag as well: an old paperback copy of "Watership Down"; a leather-bound collection of inspirational poetry; a diary that even I had the tact to leave alone; and a book called "Peace to the Mind, Peace to the Body, Peace to the Spirit: How to bring serenity and calm into your life." I arranged them neatly on her shelf. She must have been unable to part with them.
Besides the Band-Aids, the practical items were a completely dry water bottle, a road map of the U.S., and the remains of a packet of water purification pills. There was also a pen, a bottle of aspirin, a few remaining sanitary pads (hey, she was running away for two months, right?), and a roll of duct tape, which is said to solve everything.
I didn't have to wake Silent Spirit up, since she woke on the exact two- hour mark. She yawned without a sound, rubbed her eyes, and asked wistfully, ~Did you hear me yawn?~
~No,~ I told her.
She sighed, again without a sound. ~Oh, dear. I must be completely inaudible to other living people. Can you hear this?~ She clapped her hands. I still couldn't hear anything, and told her so.
~Oh well," she thought regretfully, ~I suppose everyone has a price to pay. What time is it? Can you show me around the mansion? There's a whole lot I want to know about this place.~
~It's time for lunch. I'll give you the tour after eating.~ There were many things I wanted to know as well, but they would have to wait.
Everyone gathered in the main cafeteria for lunch. It was not a really huge cafeteria, the student body being around seventy or so, giving it a friendly and homey air. I hadn't made any good friends yet, but was on decent terms with everyone, so could I usually grab a seat somewhere. This time I saw two empty seats at the end of a table, next to the "Famous Couple", Rogue and Iceman. Their renown around the school came mostly from Rogue, due to her kidnapping in the "Liberty Island Incident", and because Wolverine, towards whom all the teens felt a mixture of fear and awe (and several girls were star-struck over), was her protector and mentor. The aforementioned Wolverine was still lingering around the mansion, wavering between becoming a PE teacher or wandering off again to find more of his past.
The teachers sat at their own table, talking about various school matters. The exception was Mr. Wagner, whom the students called Kurt outside of class (He taught the required Geography class, as well as tutoring in German, Latin and various other European languages which for some reason he was completely fluent in), and who was on lunch duty. All the teachers took their turn patrolling around the tables at meals to ensure nobody was setting anyone else on fire, or turning them to stone by mistake, or anything like that. Many of them liked to stop and talk with the students as well.
"Do you mind if we sit here?" I asked Iceman. He and Rogue were sitting across from each other.
He looked at me for a few seconds before recognizing me. "Not at all, Spy," he replied. I sat down next to him with my tray of spaghetti and apple juice, and Spirit, after a cautious look at Rogue, sat down with her salad, chicken, and milk, and started straight in.
Rogue looked at Silent Spirit with mild surprise at her appearance. Emotions are the easiest part of thoughts to detect, and even a telepath as feeble as I was at the time feels them without others noticing. "Hi," she said in a friendly way, with her faint trace of a Southern accent, " are you new here?"
Spirit, of course, couldn't hear her, so I answered for her. "Yes," I told Rogue, "but she can't hear you and you won't be able to hear her. Side effect of her power." ~They're asking about you,~ I told my roommate.
~Tell them they can call me SS, and that I'm sorry I can't hear them,~ she thought, looking at Rogue again with an apologetic smile. In order to keep eating, I transferred Spirit's statements to Iceman and Rogue's minds. The conversation thus continued with the two of them speaking, and the two of us thinking. When we explained Myra's abilities, Iceman's jaw dropped.
He sounded stunned, as well. "She talks to dead people," he said slowly, as if he were hoping that he had heard wrong.
"And she can't hear anything else," I added.
"There's no-it's-it's impossible!" he stammered.
Rogue stared at him. "Bobby, using that logic it's also impossible to blast ice from your hands, and it's impossible to suck the life out of people you touch."
That shut him up.
~They can do that? Amazing.~ thought Spirit, awed. It 'sounded' like a wide- eyed statement, but since I couldn't see her eyes I had no way of knowing whether it was or not. I started to choke on my juice.
Iceman continued to protest. "But-I mean, does that mean there's an afterlife?"
"Of course zere's an afterlife, Bobby." Iceman nearly jumped. Kurt had appeared behind him. "Hello," he said pleasantly to Silent Spirit, "are you zhe new student? My name is Kurt Vagner, but in zhe Munich Circus they called me zhe Incredible Nightcrawler." Everyone had heard his spiel a hundred times, but he still introduced himself that way.
"She can't hear you," I told him, "she can't hear-" My explanation was cut short by SS turning around and bombarding me with mental hysteria. This surprised me, since even though our blue-skinned, yellow-eyed, pointy- eared, devil-tailed, and fanged teacher sometimes inspired this reaction, he didn't look much stranger than Spirit did herself.
~He was the assassin! He was on the news, and that was what made me have to leave, and it was ALL HIS FAULT!~ she repeated over and over so 'loudly' that I had to break the mental connection for a second before the force of it knocked me out. I reflexively put my hands over my ears my ears. I also put a hand on her arm to calm her down.
~He was innocent, Spirit,~ I told her, ~he was being controlled by a drug that forced him to do it. It was all a plot to generate anti-mutant sentiment.~
~Are you telling the truth?~ She looked me in the eye.
~Yes,~ I promised her.
"Did somezhing happen?" asked Kurt innocently.
Spirit took a deep breath, producing from her pocket a pen and the same notepad she had been using with Mr. Summers. She wrote a message on it and handed it to Kurt. He read it and nodded to her with a warm, though rather pointy-toothed, smile. "You have a very good friend," he told me. "Vill you two come to my classroom with me? Lunch is nearly over."
As we deposited our trays and left the cafeteria, I heard Rogue ask nobody in particular, "What was that?"
I, Spy (no pun intended) wish to say that the books mentioned in this chapter are not mine, though they are my life. The only reason that they are mentioned is to give you a clearer picture of my personality, and it's contrast with Myra's.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I finished all my homework long before Spirit woke up again. It helped that I didn't have to move a muscle to research my paper, since I could easily project myself to the Ice Age exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History. In fact, I was able to write all 800 words in an hour and a forty- five minutes. Having nothing better to do, I decided to unpack Silent Spirit's things for her. Yes, looking back I realize that this was very impolite, but the thought never occurred to me at the time.
The room had been designed for sharing, being perfectly symmetrical. There were two single beds, two windows, two desks, two lamps, and two chairs. My half of the room was closer to the door, but Spirit's was closer to the bathroom. The carpet was dark green and the walls were a creamy white. Her side had nothing personal except for her previously mentioned backpack, but mine had a bookshelf full of mysteries and horror (two genres that to me have always seemed very closely related), along with a poster of "The Gashleycrumb Tinies", a frankly ancient and morbid alphabet poem by Edward Gorey. Have you heard of it? The first three lines are:
"A is for Amy who fell down the stairs,
"B is for Basil, assaulted by bears,
"C is for Clara, who wasted away,"
It continues on, through the entire alphabet and a grimly funny illustration for each untimely demise. No, I was not a Goth and am not one now. I just have a very dark and twisted sense of humor. I was very much a rabid mystery reader as well, with the occasional ghost story for variety. They were all there. Books by Agatha Christie and reliable old Sherlock Holmes stories. I had Edgar Allan Poe, who is less known for mysteries than horror, though at one time he was known as the father of the mystery novel. I loved the little known but hilarious Meg Lanslow mysteries by Donna Andrews. Various thrillers from the late twentieth century were there. I had little patience with popular horror, the kind with swamp monsters lunging around, serial killers, and loads of blood and guts. I preferred classics of horror such as "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", and stories by H.P. Lovecraft and John Bellairs. Stephen King was good, but I usually didn't like his language. What I wanted in a story was supernatural creepiness, with drama and mystery as major factors.
This mindset was a sharp contrast to what evidences of her personality that I found in Silent Spirit's belongings. The black case poking out proved to contain a clarinet, or was it an oboe? I had never learned the difference, having no musical talent whatsoever. She had a clear folder containing a massive amount of sheet music, both vocal and instrumental. On a more practical side there was a box of bandages and bottle of antiseptic, both nearly empty. Deeper within was a wallet containing twenty dollars and three photos. There was also an ID card, with Spirit in the same pair of sunglasses, looking forlorn. The card said:
Tall Cedars Orphanage, Washington DC. Name: Myra "SS" Sing. Sex: F Birth date: November 18, 2005 SPECIAL INFORMATION Powers: Unknown, have not yet manifested. Temperament: Compliant and quiet, but deceitful. Should have this card at all times. If found outside of Tall Cedars, notify the orphanage.
I bristled at the "Special Information". It reminded me of identification descriptions used for slave papers in pre-Civil War times. "Deceitful"? I couldn't reconcile that with my acquaintance with Silent Spirit.
I looked at the other pictures, which were less infuriating, though somehow just as sad. There was a school photo of a Hispanic girl about eleven years old. Scribbled on the back were the words, "Lisa. No matter where you go, I will find you, if it takes a thousand years." I recognized the line from a song I had once heard. The sentence gave me a flash of clairvoyance, one of the involuntary visions of past and future that I sometimes have. There was a car driving away, with a tearstained face at the window. "Myra!" the face kept screaming, "Myra! Myraaaaaaaaa!" It must have been a piece of her past. I flashed back to the present, a little dizzy.
The second picture was older. It was a family of three, Spirit looking like a four-year-old, so she was probably five or six at the time, and wearing a blue dress and cute red-rimmed sunglasses. There was one adult, presumably her dad. He was decent looking, with black hair and ordinary skin with a faint tinge of yellow. Or *did* he look normal? He was wearing sunglasses, too. Did they have the same eyes? There was a boy in the picture, whose age I guessed at six or seven. He was completely normal looking, and was a miniature version of the father, minus the sunglasses. On the back, in tiny printing, it said, "Dad, Charles Sing, 1971-2011. I'll never forget you. Ryan, 2003-? Are you still alive? Where are you? Me, age five. Who would've known what would happen next?" Not very cheerful stuff. It was a mystery, and I felt this would be a fairly tragic one.
The last photo showed a fairly pretty woman in her early thirties, with black hair, normal dark brown eyes, and delicate, fine features. Though she wasn't gorgeous, or even very beautiful, kindness and sensitivity seemed to radiate from her face. She looked exactly like how Silent Spirit would look as an adult, if she hadn't been born a mutant. Another message was written on the back. "Mother, Lily Sing, 1970-November 18, 2005. I'm so sorry." Spirit's mother must have died giving birth to her, I decided. I carefully put the pictures back in the wallet, and set the wallet on the desk.
There were four small books in the bag as well: an old paperback copy of "Watership Down"; a leather-bound collection of inspirational poetry; a diary that even I had the tact to leave alone; and a book called "Peace to the Mind, Peace to the Body, Peace to the Spirit: How to bring serenity and calm into your life." I arranged them neatly on her shelf. She must have been unable to part with them.
Besides the Band-Aids, the practical items were a completely dry water bottle, a road map of the U.S., and the remains of a packet of water purification pills. There was also a pen, a bottle of aspirin, a few remaining sanitary pads (hey, she was running away for two months, right?), and a roll of duct tape, which is said to solve everything.
I didn't have to wake Silent Spirit up, since she woke on the exact two- hour mark. She yawned without a sound, rubbed her eyes, and asked wistfully, ~Did you hear me yawn?~
~No,~ I told her.
She sighed, again without a sound. ~Oh, dear. I must be completely inaudible to other living people. Can you hear this?~ She clapped her hands. I still couldn't hear anything, and told her so.
~Oh well," she thought regretfully, ~I suppose everyone has a price to pay. What time is it? Can you show me around the mansion? There's a whole lot I want to know about this place.~
~It's time for lunch. I'll give you the tour after eating.~ There were many things I wanted to know as well, but they would have to wait.
Everyone gathered in the main cafeteria for lunch. It was not a really huge cafeteria, the student body being around seventy or so, giving it a friendly and homey air. I hadn't made any good friends yet, but was on decent terms with everyone, so could I usually grab a seat somewhere. This time I saw two empty seats at the end of a table, next to the "Famous Couple", Rogue and Iceman. Their renown around the school came mostly from Rogue, due to her kidnapping in the "Liberty Island Incident", and because Wolverine, towards whom all the teens felt a mixture of fear and awe (and several girls were star-struck over), was her protector and mentor. The aforementioned Wolverine was still lingering around the mansion, wavering between becoming a PE teacher or wandering off again to find more of his past.
The teachers sat at their own table, talking about various school matters. The exception was Mr. Wagner, whom the students called Kurt outside of class (He taught the required Geography class, as well as tutoring in German, Latin and various other European languages which for some reason he was completely fluent in), and who was on lunch duty. All the teachers took their turn patrolling around the tables at meals to ensure nobody was setting anyone else on fire, or turning them to stone by mistake, or anything like that. Many of them liked to stop and talk with the students as well.
"Do you mind if we sit here?" I asked Iceman. He and Rogue were sitting across from each other.
He looked at me for a few seconds before recognizing me. "Not at all, Spy," he replied. I sat down next to him with my tray of spaghetti and apple juice, and Spirit, after a cautious look at Rogue, sat down with her salad, chicken, and milk, and started straight in.
Rogue looked at Silent Spirit with mild surprise at her appearance. Emotions are the easiest part of thoughts to detect, and even a telepath as feeble as I was at the time feels them without others noticing. "Hi," she said in a friendly way, with her faint trace of a Southern accent, " are you new here?"
Spirit, of course, couldn't hear her, so I answered for her. "Yes," I told Rogue, "but she can't hear you and you won't be able to hear her. Side effect of her power." ~They're asking about you,~ I told my roommate.
~Tell them they can call me SS, and that I'm sorry I can't hear them,~ she thought, looking at Rogue again with an apologetic smile. In order to keep eating, I transferred Spirit's statements to Iceman and Rogue's minds. The conversation thus continued with the two of them speaking, and the two of us thinking. When we explained Myra's abilities, Iceman's jaw dropped.
He sounded stunned, as well. "She talks to dead people," he said slowly, as if he were hoping that he had heard wrong.
"And she can't hear anything else," I added.
"There's no-it's-it's impossible!" he stammered.
Rogue stared at him. "Bobby, using that logic it's also impossible to blast ice from your hands, and it's impossible to suck the life out of people you touch."
That shut him up.
~They can do that? Amazing.~ thought Spirit, awed. It 'sounded' like a wide- eyed statement, but since I couldn't see her eyes I had no way of knowing whether it was or not. I started to choke on my juice.
Iceman continued to protest. "But-I mean, does that mean there's an afterlife?"
"Of course zere's an afterlife, Bobby." Iceman nearly jumped. Kurt had appeared behind him. "Hello," he said pleasantly to Silent Spirit, "are you zhe new student? My name is Kurt Vagner, but in zhe Munich Circus they called me zhe Incredible Nightcrawler." Everyone had heard his spiel a hundred times, but he still introduced himself that way.
"She can't hear you," I told him, "she can't hear-" My explanation was cut short by SS turning around and bombarding me with mental hysteria. This surprised me, since even though our blue-skinned, yellow-eyed, pointy- eared, devil-tailed, and fanged teacher sometimes inspired this reaction, he didn't look much stranger than Spirit did herself.
~He was the assassin! He was on the news, and that was what made me have to leave, and it was ALL HIS FAULT!~ she repeated over and over so 'loudly' that I had to break the mental connection for a second before the force of it knocked me out. I reflexively put my hands over my ears my ears. I also put a hand on her arm to calm her down.
~He was innocent, Spirit,~ I told her, ~he was being controlled by a drug that forced him to do it. It was all a plot to generate anti-mutant sentiment.~
~Are you telling the truth?~ She looked me in the eye.
~Yes,~ I promised her.
"Did somezhing happen?" asked Kurt innocently.
Spirit took a deep breath, producing from her pocket a pen and the same notepad she had been using with Mr. Summers. She wrote a message on it and handed it to Kurt. He read it and nodded to her with a warm, though rather pointy-toothed, smile. "You have a very good friend," he told me. "Vill you two come to my classroom with me? Lunch is nearly over."
As we deposited our trays and left the cafeteria, I heard Rogue ask nobody in particular, "What was that?"