Chatoyant College Book 7: Upon What Soil

Chapter 4: The Haunted Sticker

Corrie's discomfort didn't decrease as much as she thought it should have when her dad finally dropped her off on campus and she ran through the rain, protecting the half a bagel in her jacket pocket. Not only was her hair soaked, but when she reached her room, it was empty. She tried not to worry about Edie as much as she used to, but even though she and Leila had made a truce—one that hadn't been broken in the last two weeks since Leila had fought and practically killed her own sister to keep Edie safe—she still couldn't completely trust the faerie. At least Edie had told her where and when she would be today.

She wrapped her hair in a towel and sat down at her desk to frown at her paper. Technically, this was a rough draft, but Corrie was pretty sure that didn't mean it was allowed to be incomplete. Plus, if she turned in an incomplete rough draft, she would have an even harder time writing a good final version.

Her paper compared the efficacy of two divination systems: the Tarot and crystal ball gazing. Unfortunately, since they still weren't allowed to do magic, she couldn't use any personal experience. That was against the rules for this paper anyway. She just had to use what was in their readings for the class. At least there wasn't any independent research for this one, though Professor Lal had warned that they'd have to do some for their final paper at the end of the semester.

"The Tower," Corrie wrote, starting a new paragraph. Then she frowned, erased it, typed "Strength" instead, erased that, and opened a game of Minesweeper.

Twenty minutes later, she'd increased her average score, but hadn't made any progress on her paper. It only made her surprise worse that guessing wrong and getting a screen full of bombs coincided with the door opening behind her.

She minimized the game guiltily and spun around in her chair, expecting it to be Dawn or Roe wanting to talk about the assignment, but it was only Edie. She sighed with relief (though she was careful to time the noise to be at the same time as Edie opening her umbrella to let it dry on the floor). Then she looked at her paper and typed "The Tower" again. She felt better now that Edie was home safe.

"Have a good time?" she asked, trying to keep the embarrassment at being caught not working on her paper out of her voice.

"We had a great time," Edie said, grinning and kicking off her shoes. She didn't show any indication that she'd noticed anything strange about Corrie. "Leila did some magic under her tree so the rain wouldn't fall on us while we were there, and we had a picnic."

Corrie tried to grin back. "Isn't it the wrong time of year for a picnic?"

"I guess, technically. But it wasn't too cold except for the rain, and the food was really good."

"Oh yeah?" Corrie turned sideways in her seat. Working on the paper could wait until later. "Better than the dining hall stuff?"

Edie laughed. "A hundred times better." She described sweet, ripe strawberries, then the other foods they'd had. By the time she finished, Corrie's stomach was growling, and she remembered, with the urge to laugh at herself, the half bagel in her jacket pocket. She fished it out. It was damp, but still edible. At least it hadn't had time to get stale.

"So was it magic food? I want to learn magic like that," she said around her mouthful of cinnamon raisin bagel.

"Maybe you will," said Edie with a shrug. "Ask Professor Lal. I have to say, I'm really starting to want to take magic next semester."

"Success!" Corrie coughed, then turned away, realizing she probably shouldn't have tried to talk with her mouth full.

Edie stood up and stretched, then walked over to Corrie's side of the room, peering at the wall behind her bed. "Why are you embarrassed?"

"Huh?" The question startled Corrie until she realized that Edie was looking at her mood poster. "Oh, my dad was asking some weird questions about dating... I don't remember changing it, though." Maybe it had been in between her Minesweeper games. She got up on her knees on her bed and moved the green sticker (she'd bought a pack of multicolored stickers and switched every time one wore out) over to "happy." "There, that's better."

"That's not the first time the sticker's moved on its own."

"No, it's not. Maybe it's haunted."

Edie shook her head. "Wouldn't really surprise me. What are you working on?"

"Paper for magic class. I really should be focusing on it." Now that she'd had time to relax and Edie was back from her picnic, she was feeling a lot more like working.

"Yeah, I have an essay for French." Edie sat down in her desk chair. "Okay, we can do this. Let's just remind each other to keep working if we stop typing, okay?"

"Good plan." Corrie sat down too. "I knew there was a reason I kept you around."

Edie laughed, then Corrie heard the sound of typing. She read over the last paragraph of her paper, remembered where she was going with this, and soon her fingers were moving, too.