Rise of the Night Witch

Chapter 3.2 - The Hestermoan

Recap: Last time, Marissa had her potions lesson when Isa texted her and told her that a police officer died under mysterious circumstances. Darcy also told her that her Dad is missing. Now, she wants to meet Simon to find out how that happened.

Cloaked masses drift through a forlorn park. Their tentacles seek the flesh of a helpless seven-year-old girl. She hides and runs, but fear nourishes the starving monsters. They peek into her soul and speak truths she knows.

"Not even your parents love you. Every time you do something, you embarrass yourself."

"Carter!"

My body jerked as I woke up to Mrs. Crenshaw's screeching voice. Cheek on my desk, I bolted upright into a sitting posture and looked my science teacher into her opaque glasses. She had a hunched, scrawny stature and a long, bird-like nose below her grey, nest-like hair.

Thought Professor Manaba was bad? Meet Mrs. Crenshaw. She was a playground bully who had grown up into a teacher. Her hobbies were asking questions students couldn't answer, giving grades based on preference, and handing out detentions for stupid reasons. And she didn't even teach us anything cool. Just see for yourself.

"Carter!" she said and stabbed a pencil as sharp as a claw at me. "Please, explain to us how owls see at night."

No joke, I learned more about nocturnal animal vision when googling stuff for my night vision potion than in her course.

"Em, they see well?" I guessed.

Mrs. Crenshaw grumbled. "Excellent. Your previous teachers did not waste their time on you. 'Owls see well at night', who would have guessed?"

That remark earned her chuckles from the rest of the class. Did they find it funny or were they afraid they'd be targeted next if they didn't laugh?

"For your information, owls have eyes that are rich in rods and poor in cones," Mrs. Crenshaw explained. "That means they are good at detecting light, but their color vision is more limited. And now, hand in your essays, everyone!"

Just as I opened my bag, Siris formed as an intangible, translucent aether cloud I saw in my soul. He struggled to sit still, his vibrant energy contrasting with my sleepiness.

"Let me eat your essay!" he said. "Then, you can claim that your invisible magic ghost cat ate your homework. You wouldn't even be lying."

Siris dissipated as Mr. Crenshaw plucked the essay from my desk. What a nightmare to be awake. People stared at me like I was a tourist attraction. I woke up too late to style my brown hair into anything other than a messy bun like in some clichéd Wattpad story. And while the dress I bought from Darcy's money still looked pretty, it started wrinkling and didn't make me look better.

At least science class ended and my favorite subject started: World Issues!

Our teacher, Professor Felix Weber, hailed from Whateley University not far from our high school and you knew he was a professor just by his looks: Graying maroon hair, monocle, a nice tweed jacket over his beer belly, and even the matching German accent. And he was one of the few people who got the funding to research Paranormal Psychotic Encounters.

Even though his course wasn't an AP course, he treated it like one. He sometimes let us walk over to the Whateley University campus nearby to show computer programs that determined if footage of the paranormal was authentic or not. Today, he was content with just presenting us papers on why reports of PPEs increased since the eighties.