Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 1 (9 page)

Ms. O’Dell seemed to
get over her annoyance when she realized she had at least one
student in her English Literature class interested in discussing
English literature.

Practically
mid-sentence, Aradia noticed
The-Most-Handsome-Boy-I’ve-Ever-Seen
get distracted, as if by a sudden thought or realization. She
wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been entranced and staring. His
nostrils flared and he sniffed twice, sharply.

He turned and looked
directly at Aradia. Her heart stopped.

For a brief moment,
their eyes locked. She just froze and stared right back. The boy
gave her a little wave, but when Aradia did not respond, he turned
away.

"Who is that?" Aradia
asked Rhonda in a whisper, more concerned the boy would hear her
than the teacher.

"Who’s who?"

"The boy that just
walked in.”

"Oh. That’s Dax. Dax
Dayton. His dad is the head of the zoning board, or something like
that. I think he's a sophomore."

"He's..."Aradia
stammered, "magnificent."

Rhonda
grinned.

Chapter
Seven

"So where are you
from?” Rhonda asked. She and Aradia shuffled to the end of the
cafeteria line.

"Arizona," Aradia
replied as she placed $2.75 in the cashier's outstretched
hand.

"Wow," said Rhonda.
"That’s a way’s away. What's it like there?"

"Boring, hence why we
left," Aradia said.

"Mmm," Rhonda replied.
After a pause, she raised an inquisitive eyebrow and asked,
“We?”

"My parents and I,"
Aradia explained. “No siblings.”

Rhonda
nodded.

The pair slowly made
their way through the mass of tables crowded into the lunchroom.
Even with that many tables, there was still hardly an empty seat,
and Aradia wondered how the area stacked up against Salem fire
codes.

“Geez,” she muttered,
“it’s packed.”

“It’ll be less jammed
when the weather is nicer out. You should have seen it before they
split it up into two lunches,” Rhonda replied.

“With all the talking
and shoving, it feels less like a school and more like a Nine Inch
Nails concert,” Aradia quipped.

“Nine Inch Nails? Is
that an Arizona band?”

“And I thought I was
sheltered,” Aradia replied.

Soon, Rhonda had led
them to a table a bit more isolated from the rest. Aradia had a
feeling she was at what would be known in school TV dramas as "the
loser table."

She glanced at Rhonda
who was already joining the others seated at the table. She
struggled with herself over whether this was the direction she
wanted to take her social standing. Rhonda looked over and, braces
sparkling, asked, "So you sitting down or what?"

Realizing that just one
day prior she had been encouraging her dad not to worry what others
thought, Aradia decided to practice what she preached. With a
mental shrug, she took a seat next to Rhonda.
Besides, Rhonda seems like a good, honest
person. Her friends are probably real friends to
her.

“Everyone, this is
Aradia. She’s new. Aradia, meet everyone. This is Everett,” she
introduced, and gestured to a large, friendly-looking boy who
seemed a bit bashful. When Rhonda gestured toward him, he gave an
awkward grunt and fidgeted with his glasses.

“This is Felix,” Rhonda
went on. Felix had wispy, blonde hair, which looked a bit like he’d
given himself a good static charge with a balloon just moments
earlier. Aradia suspected it always looked that way. He was short,
but not too short. She could tell his height because when Rhonda
introduced him, he stood and shook her hand. Aradia later learned
that his pointy nose and eyes were pretty much permanently glued to
a comic book, so she took it as quite a compliment that he greeted
her so politely.

“And last but not
least, meet Calvin,” Rhonda finished up. Calvin wore his jet black
hair in spikes and had a white, rodent-like face. Aradia thought
his hair looked amazing, but that he wasn’t doing himself any
favors with his sneering attitude.

Everybody was reading.
Everett had a gaming magazine with a picture of a Mechwarrior in
combat on the front cover. Felix was engrossed in a Green Lantern
comic. Calvin had a large pile of books on the table, and was
currently reading a particularly huge one.

“Calvin’s family is one
of the richest in Salem,” Everett leaned over the table and loudly
whispered to Aradia.

“Can it,” Calvin
replied. “I can hear you.”

“That’s really neat,”
Aradia said to Calvin, as if she hadn’t heard his protest. “I hope
if my family were that rich I’d still wear normal clothes, not
pretentious silk shirts like… some people might.”

Without looking up,
Felix said, “I think the name you were looking for was
Tristan.”

Aradia blushed. She
realized there had been a lot of blushing, lately.

“So what does your
family do?” Aradia asked.

“Er…” Calvin grumbled,
mood seeming to turn even more foul at the question. “We uh, they…
sell plumbing equipment.”

Without missing a beat,
Aradia replied, “Well, there’s always a market for it.”

Aradia was thrilled by
how accepting this motley crew was of her, an outsider. As they
were all discussing their experiences on their first day and a half
of school, Aradia heard a warm, familiar voice from behind her.
"Hey speedy, 'sup?"

Aradia grinned wide as
she turned to look at Roy and replied, "Hey there
yourself."

“I’m sorry I missed you
for lunch yesterday,” he apologized. “My family had a
thing.”

She waved it off.
“You’re here now.”

With a glance around
the table, Roy asked, "Do you want to sit with me and my
crew?”

Aradia didn’t quite
like the implication in Roy’s voice, and her enthusiasm at seeing
him again suddenly vanished, as did her big smile.
Benefit of the doubt,
Rai
, she reminded herself.

In an edged tone, she
asked, "What’s that supposed to mean?"

Roy shrugged, careful
not to spill his tray in the process. "I’m just saying..." he
began, but trailed off as if the rest of the thought were clear
enough that it did not need to be spoken aloud.

Aradia scowled. Rhonda
interjected, "You know, we'd understand if you want to sit with
him, Aradia."

Aradia glanced around
at the others with whom she had just been happily
chatting.

Turning back to Roy,
she said, "No thanks, Roy. I am perfectly happy sitting
here."

"Are you sure?" he
asked, obviously doubtful.

“You’re welcome to join
us,” Aradia ignored his question.

He seemed taken aback
by the suggestion. “Thanks, but I have people waiting for
me.”

Aradia just nodded in
response.

He seemed to search for
the right words. Apparently not finding them, Roy walked
off.

"That was pretty cool
of you," said Everett.

Aradia smiled at him as
a show of thanks.

"I think it's only fair
to warn you," Rhonda pointed out, "that sitting with us on a
regular basis will lower your Popularity Quotient at this school
several points."

Aradia shrugged, and
with a gentle smile replied, "Yeah, well, if I want to be popular,
I can audition for American Idol or something."

“Oh, can you sing?”
Rhonda asked.

Aradia replied, “Hell
no, but I don’t think that’s actually a requirement to audition for
American Idol.”

Everyone gave Aradia a
polite laugh. Even Calvin allowed his dour mood to lighten a bit.
It seemed that the tension created by Roy’s proposal had been
successfully dissipated, and Aradia took the good humor to
symbolize her acceptance into the group.

After some friendly
chatting and hungry munching, Everett put down his magazine and
turned his head to look to and fro curiously.

"What's up, Everett?"
asked Felix, noticing his odd behavior.

Everett shook his head
and very unconvincingly said, "Nothing."

"No seriously, Everett,
spill," Rhonda instructed, now curious herself.

"It’s just that people
are staring at us," said Everett.

"Dude," interjected
Calvin, rolling his eyes and rubbing his lip stud, "they always
stare at us."

Everett shook his head.
"No, it's more than usual today. It's more intense. It’s
weird."

Aradia glanced over her
shoulder and got a feeling of déjà vu. It was just like she’d
noticed in the hallways. Mostly, people ignored her, but certain
heads in the crowd would pause on her and her group for just a
moment. And all those heads belonged to people who seemed too
beautiful to be real.

Aradia shook off the
feeling of uneasiness. Still, she knew that whatever the reason
was, it was somehow about her, not her new friends.

Turning her back on the
crowd, she said, "Forget 'em. It's no big deal."

"Still," Everett
continued, "it’s just weird how they keep staring."

"Maybe they forgot to
take their medication," Aradia grumbled.

Everett’s face and tone
turned cold as he replied, "I take medication. Anti-depressants to
be exact."

Embarrassed, Aradia
tried to turn the conversation around. Deadpan, she said, "Oh, I
didn’t mean depression medication."

Everett took stock of
the situation, not sure where she was going yet, and still a little
offended.

"Anti-depression meds
are for the cool kids, like us," Aradia explained. "The weirdos are
probably taking anti-psychotics and stimulants and stuff. Plus,
those are just medications for the mind. I bet the starers are also
taking other medications, the kind that improve, you know, other
parts of the body." She added a wicked grin to drive the punchline
home.

After a brief silence,
everyone at the table burst out laughing. Aradia stretched her arms
behind her head, completely satisfied.

Aradia lay in bed, cozy
and happy. Her first week at Salem High proved long and tiring, but
she felt good about her time there nonetheless. She had made four
probable friends, which was three more than she’d ever really had
before, and one whom she hoped would become a friend despite a
rocky turn of events. She liked her classes and teachers, finding
them generally stimulating. In spite of finding one enemy, Tristan,
the student body seemed generally accepting and at worst neutral.
This simple lack of animosity towards her was a huge and pleasant
contrast to Arizona.

Then there were
The Starers
. They
were inexplicable on several levels, and they bothered her greatly.
Aradia had noticed early on that much of the student body of Salem
High was ridiculously attractive. She was now certain that the
people staring at her were all members of the
Too Pretty to be Real Students
crowd. Rather, they were members of the
Too Pretty to be Real Students
crowds, with an “s” on the end.

These gorgeous people
flocked together in close circles, and seemed to be completely
isolated from the rest of the school. They were always whispering
or nodding to each other as if they shared some sort of
code.

“It’s totally
suspicious,” she whispered with a silly grin on her face as she
drifted to sleep. “Pretty people who maintain exclusive cliques.
Especially in high school. I smell something strange
afoot.”

Still, try though she
did to talk herself out of it, she couldn’t shake the feeling that
she was missing something big. She felt surrounded by a "perfect"
race of people who were a little too interested in her. She had
troubling dreams of dangerous groups who all shared a deep, dark
secret.

Chapter
Eight

"Morgan!" the Sovereign
bellowed. "Morgan where are you?"

With her typical,
mystical entrance, she puffed into existence. Seeing that the
Sovereign was not alone, she showed deference. As the black cloud
around her dissipated, she knelt at the Sovereign's feet. "You
summoned, Sovereign."

The Sovereign looked
down at her and spat, "Rise, demoness.” She did. Gesturing to the
vampire at his right, he said, “Keon of the Night Shadow clan has
reported an anomaly in Salem, Massachusetts, in the United States.
I wish to know if what he saw was the last witch."

"As you wish,
Sovereign," Morgan said nodding.

The Sovereign turned on
his heel and put his back to the pair.

Taking a step forward,
Keon asked, "What must I do, Seer?"

He did his best to
remain stoic, but feared what sort of response he would get. From
what little he knew, most demons were beastlike hiddens, somewhere
between sentient and animal. He had heard wild rumors about the
creatures in his long life, but could count on one hand all the
interactions he’d had with one. None of those interactions had
ended well. Now he was at the mercy of the Sovereign’s pet demon
Seer. He wondered if what he was supposed to do might traumatize
him for life.