Cordelia pulled the golden skeleton key out from between her breasts. It seemed 'promiscuous' or cliché, but it's the only place she trusted no one could steal it.
She turned to look around the hall and make sure no curious students had followed her. She heard one of the instructors starting a lecture and turned the key in the lock, knowing class had started.
She pushed the heavy cherry wood doors of the library open. The familiar musty scent of the chairs and old books hit her. She closed the doors behind her and locked them.
The books were barely categorized in any kind of system, so she didn't have any idea how long she was going to be in there.
She sighed and drew the curtains on the bay window. She didn't want to lose track of the time and always preferred sunlight to read in, rather than a lamp (if she had the option of choosing).
She started on the right side of the library, since the whole room was in a circular shape. She climbed the rolling ladder and started to run her eyes across the titles and fingers across the books. She coughed slightly, clouds of dust forming as her fingertips ran down the spines.
In her field of vision, she had only found one book that might help, so she grabbed it and pushed herself over to the next row of shelves.
She tried staying super-focused, but her thoughts drifted to how Zoe and Queenie and the new girls in general were doing on their first day. Queenie and Zoe had both arrived mid-semester, so she wasn't sure how they felt now that they were having a 'proper' beginning in the academy.
After a few hours of looking through the entire library, she had acquired a sizeable amount of books. She walked over to the back desk and placed the three books she had in hand on the pile she had started. She felt her stomach growl and placed her hand on it. She looked out the window, at the sun, and noticed that it was now directly overhead. At the 'top' of the sky. She figured studying on an empty stomach wouldn't do her any good.
She quickly locked and exited the library. She glanced at the clock in the hallway and saw that it was only fifteen minutes until the student and staff lunchtime. She decided she'd wait in her office and check her e-mail.
She unlocked the office with a standard key. As she entered the room, she took notice of a red box on one of her shelves. It was sitting next to a figure of a porcelain ballerina. Her mother had sent the figure from France as a gift for her fourteenth birthday.
She cautiously approached the area, looking around for any intruders. She grabbed a letter-opener from her desk as she passed it.
When she got close, she quickly poked the box with the blade. She knew 'hexes' weren't usually obvious, but her childlike sense of fear was overtaking her at this moment.
The box simply shifted against the metal. She felt her shoulders get less tense. She took in another breath and held it. She grabbed the satin box with hesitance.
"What the hell are you doing?" she heard a voice behind her ask. She jumped a little and noticed the ballerina list to the right. She grabbed it before it could break against the glass.
She quickly turned around and saw Zoe looking back at her, eyebrows knit.
"Zoe…" Cordelia firmly stated. "Don't sneak up on people like that! Especially if they have a sharp object in one of their hands."
Zoe crossed her arms and cocked her head a bit. "That's the reason I came in here in the first place." She grabbed the opener from Cordelia's hand and placed it back on the desk.
She looked back over at Cordelia. "Are you okay?" she crossed her arms again. Cordelia stared at the carpet for a second then looked up and nodded.
"Aren't you supposed to still be in class?" Cordelia still had the box firmly in her grasp.
"The professor let me out early in order to see if Kyle needed any help with the lunch." Zoe's eyes fixed on her. "I passed your office and saw you approaching your shelves with what looked like a knife, so I figured something was up." Cordelia nodded. "We have to look out for each other. Remember what you told us?" Zoe quipped and took the box from Cordelia.
"Zoe!" was all Cordelia could shout before Zoe opened it. Cordelia tensed up, afraid it would explode or something. Nothing happened and Zoe rolled her eyes a bit.
"It's a watch." Zoe said. Cordelia peered at the open box and saw she was right. "This isn't 'Harry Potter' Ms. Cordelia, no one's gonna put a spell on the box." she handed the box and lid over to her "I'm gonna go help Kyle and the kitchen staff." Zoe gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and walked out.
Cordelia looked down and saw Zoe hadn't noticed there was a note under the lid. Cordelia's lips hardened when she saw the handwriting. It was Myrtle's.
To the greatest and bravest witch I've ever known. Know that time is one of the most important things any witch can acknowledge. Live in it, not against it.
- Forever your biggest fan,
Myrtle Snow
She felt her eyes start to sting with tears and looked at the box. Inside was a gorgeous watch, with a coal black leather band and mother of pearl face. The number and hands were gold. It even had a moon phase 'calendar' on the face, it in silver.
She sat on her leather chair and covered her face, a few tears streaming across her palms. She sobbed quietly and shut the door with her telepathy, not wanting the students to see her in this state.
She licked her lips and grabbed a tissue from the box on the desk, blotting against her cheeks. She also dried her hands, worried she would destroy the genuine leather if she touched it with wet fingers.
She delicately grabbed the watch, looking around it and the box for some kind of tag to remove. When she didn't see one she quickly realized this wasn't a brand new or just any watch. It was Myrtle's own.
"Oh…" she whimpered, fighting back more tears. She shakily got the watch on her left wrist. The sun hit it and the pearl turned into a million shades of the rainbow. She smiled and laughed to herself.
She figured Myrtle had put some sort of spell to either keep her from noticing it until today or one that simply made the box invisible for awhile.
She looked up when she heard the doors opening as the sound of feet shuffling and chattering filled the space.
She heard a quick series of knocks against her own door and quickly wiped any leftover tears off her face.
"Ms. Cordelia?" she heard Queenie ask "Are you in there? Lunch is starting."
"Yes, Queenie, thank you. I'll be right out." she pushed out the swivel chair and quickly put the box in her desk's drawer.
She opened the door and saw Queenie waiting for her. She smiled and turned to lock the door. When she turned back, several new students had paused and turned their faces to look at her. She wasn't used to all the attention the Supreme seemed to receive.
"Hello girls." she cleared her throat. "Hope you all had a good morning. We'll be going to lunch now, and I hope we all have and participate in a good afternoon." She realized she sounded like a grade-school teacher, but she had never dealt with such a large student body before. She was very new to trying to talk to a big group.
They smiled and a few chuckled and continued walking towards the dining hall.
Queenie looked over at her and smirked. Cordelia's eyes widened, as if to say 'I know'.
They got to the staff table, where Zoe was already sitting. Cordelia noticed she was looking down and saw she had a newspaper in her hands.
"Checking basketball scores?" Queenie joked. Zoe looked up and made a minor shocked expression, as if she had been deep in thought.
"Uh, yeah. Totally." she put the newspaper on the corner of the table.
Kyle walked over with three prepared plates. Queenie got hers and stared down at the plate of fried fish, lima beans, corn, rice and a small piece of cake with a displeased expression. She looked back up at Cordelia.
"Eat that or don't eat anything until dinner. You may be on the staff, but you're still a student here, so I'm not going to give you excessive special treatment." Cordelia said, cutting into her own fish.
She looked over at Zoe and noticed she had already finished her fish, probably because of the hunger from not eating breakfast. Zoe noticed her looking and smiled back.
"I'm guessing you never got that orange." she said and took a sip of iced tea. Zoe guiltily nodded. Cordelia chuckled and poked Zoe's leg with the head of her pump under the table.
As the girls headed off for afternoon classes, Cordelia caught Zoe's arm before she walked away. Zoe looked down at her with a puzzled expression.
"Are you okay?" Cordelia whispered. Zoe looked around and nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine. Why?" Cordelia waited for the crowd to thin. Her grip got tighter as she said "You seemed almost…" she paused as she let her eyes trail to the window. She swallowed and looked back up. "Anguished. When me and Queenie got to the table." She let her hand fall to Zoe's wrist.
"I just wanted to see if anything was wrong." Zoe looked back at her. They stared at each other for a few seconds. "Yeah, I'm good." she smiled at Cordelia.
"I should be getting to class...but…" Zoe took Cordelia's hand in her own. "-thank you for checking up on me." she smiled wider.
Cordelia nodded and Zoe let go of her hand, walking off. She looked down at her empty plate and chewed her lip.
The air still felt heavy and she wasn't completely satisfied with Zoe's response.
She heard footsteps and looked up. Kyle approached her with a stack of dirty dishes in his hands.
"Anything I can do for you, Ms. Cordelia?" he asked as he grabbed her plate and added it to the pile. He turned to her and politely smiled.
"No, thank you, Kyle. That'll be all for now." she smiled at him and got up from the table.
As she got close to the doorway, she turned her head and saw Kyle standing near the window, looking at the big oak tree.
Something about it felt off.