Chapter 3: Let's Do This

Alice was sitting on top of the teacher’s desk across the room from Mandie. “So, where do you want me to start?” She asked, leaning against the door making it seem like Alice wasn’t allowed to leave.

“From the beginning I guess, wherever that may be,” Alice had the feeling that she was missing out on a lot. The beginning had to be as good a place to start as any.

“Alright, let’s start there and see where we end up. You know how there’s a thing that supposedly goes bump in the night?” Mandie asked gently.

Alice nodded, after all, who didn’t?

“Well, it’s real. All of it. Actually, not all of it, but most of it.”

“So, like, ghosts, zombies, vampires, and such?” She asked, skepticism hinting in her voice.

“Ghosts mainly. There are some spirits around that you might consider vampiric in nature, but they’re not actually vampires. As for zombies, those are a complete myth. And for stuff like demons and monsters, well, we can get to that later."

“Does that make you guys ghost hunters?” Alice asked, beginning to grasp the situation, but she still wasn’t ready to completely accept it. Who would be? You couldn’t just pull someone aside and go ‘by the way, ghosts exist, have fun dealing with that’ without giving them proof. She could tolerate the existence of ghost hunters, but that didn’t mean that ghosts were real.

“You could call us that, yes, but we prefer to go by the term exorcist or spiritualist. We take jobs around the world exterminating ghost like beings from places like this for the safety of the greater population. A main aspect of our job is to make sure that people don’t find out about the life we lead. But, because of the rising danger of the job here and your unfortunate involvement, we have no choice but to tell you about what we do.”

“What do you mean my involvement? I haven’t done anything.”

“Whether it was voluntary or not, you’re still a major part of it. The spirit here has made an attempt to trap you twice in the past day, which is something even I’ve never seen before.”

“Why would a ghost target me? And what’s a Trap?”

“A Trap is exactly what it sounds like,” A muffled buzz sounded from the pocket of Mandie’s brown leather vest. She pulled out her phone, glanced at the screen, then locked it and continued on, “A ghost can alter the energy around a person and pull them into a sort of labyrinth or maze. Like what happened with the voices right before you met Gale or before when I met you in the hallway.”

“How did you know about the voices?” She hadn’t told anyone about the voices, she hadn’t even thought about them since she had meet Gale. So how did this lady know about them?

“I took an educated guess off of what Gale told me.”

“And how do you know what happened before we met? I don’t even know what happened before we met!”

“Another educated guess , but this one I got from years worth of studying the interactions between spirits and humans. Anymore questions? No?”

She hadn’t even waited for Alice answer.

“Good. Moving on, as soon as I felt energy focusing around that section of the school I sent Gale over to check it out-”

“Wait, you sent Gale?” So that hadn’t been just a random encounter, he’d been specifically sent to find out what was going on in that area. He’d just been doing his job. Alice was almost disappointed. Of course the one time she bumps into a cute guy,  it turns out that he’s a crazy ghostbuster wannabe.

“Yes, it’s my job to make sure everyone is safe and it’s Gale’s job to do whatever I tell him to. Now stop interrupting. Anyway, during that time you were the only person in the area, which is weird, because spirits don’t normally target a single person, they like groups.”

“So why did it go after me?” Alice repeated.

Mandie glared daggers at her for a split second with eyes that said ‘I thought I said not to interrupt’, then they softened. She shrugged, “I have no idea why they’re going after you, but I’m hear to make sure nothing goes wrong, so if a student was about to get caught in a Trap, I had to intervene. And seeing as Gale needed the practice, I sent him to destroy it before it could ensnare you.” Mandie moved away from the door and sat on the desks across from Alice, "He's also around your age, so I figured you'd take to him more than any of us,” she took a breath, paused for a moment, then continued to speak, “Well, actually, there is always Chase, but he’s probably a bit too old for you."

“What do the Traps even do anyways?” Alice huffed, she was getting frustrated with Mandie’s off topic, almost causal explanations. She thought things would’ve been explained better, but so far it felt like Mandie had only been giving her half truths. She’d told Alice that the spirit haunting the school was after her, that the spirit had tried to catch her in a Trap, and that it was her job to keep everyone safe. Did that mean that the Traps were deadly. She guessed being stuck anywhere for a long amount of time was deadly if you didn’t have food or water, but from what Mandie was saying it seemed like the Traps were more dangerous than just killing you over time.

The exorcist paused, had Alice managed to knock her off guard? Was that even possible? “You’re smarter than I thought you were. Most people are just satisfied with my usual ‘they’re dangerous, stay away’, but you figured it out,” she looked at Alice quizzically, her eyes dead focused and filled with an untrusting glint.

That was the first moment since they had meet that Alice felt like she shouldn’t trust Mandie. She’d gotten into something bigger than she had thought, and it seemed like Mandie was analyzing her, instead of helping her. The exorcist was looking for something, but what? “Figured what out?”

“You figured out that Traps are more dangerous then I’ve been letting on. As I said, not many people do that; I’d honestly say it’s about one person out of a million that figures that out.” The glint vanished as quickly as it appeared, had Alice imagined it? Probably,  she’d been told dozens of times by Teresa that she had a habit of seeing what she wanted when she was frustrated.

“Whoop-dee-doo, so are you going to tell me or not?” She was trying hard not to let sarcasm leak into her voice, and was drastically failing. Alice took a shaky breath, balling her hands into fists.  She needed to calm down. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been this worked up over something.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” Mandie responded, completely ignoring Alice’s sarcasm. “Traps are basically designed to capture people and slowly drain their natural energy, both physical and spiritual. As a result the person captured dies and the spirit gains all the energy from that person’s life force, which makes them stronger. That’s why it really is better if we don’t let people get trapped.”

“So Gale destroyed the first trap,” Alice was just happy to get a solid answer of once. Not a half explanation or a side comment, a complete answer. On top of that, the events of earlier were starting to make sense. She had to put emphasis on that starting, she still wasn’t sure if she completely believed Mandie. For all Alice knew she could be talking to a bunch of psychopaths.

“Correct.”

“What about the Absolute Trap, or whatever?”

“Those? That’s just a fancy way of saying that the spirit is really going out of its way to capture you specifically. Instead of creating a labyrinth and trying to trick you into walking into it like they normally do, the spirit used extreme amounts of energy to build a maze centered around you.”

“Wouldn’t someone notice that?” From what Alice had gathered these exorcists could see energy. If a spirit, and that’s a pretty strong if, had used a lot of energy to create an Absolute Trap one of them definitely should’ve seen it.

“Not really. By the time most people realize they’re in tan Absolute, it’s too late for them to do much about it. And by the time an exorcist on the outside realizes that an Absolute has formed, it’s too late to get a person out.”

“So you’re saying that an Absolute Trap is a-”

“-trap that’s absolute, yeah. They’re completely inescapable once fully formed. Although they’re not normally a problem because only ridiculously strong poltergeists can form them, and we don’t run into that many of those,” Mandie had trailed off after her last sentence and was looking at the door of the classroom they had gone into to talk.

Alice hesitated for a moment, listening for whatever Mandie had heard, bust she could only hear a slight rumbling in the distance. That was odd, there wasn’t supposed to be a storm that night, but it wasn’t out of the ordinary for a weather forecast to be wrong. She put it out of her mind and continued, “What’s the difference between a regular spirit and a poltergeist?”

“Well,” Mandie continued like nothing had happened, “Poltergeists are a hell of a lot stronger than your average dark spirit. They’re more brutal too. Once they’ve decided they want something, they’ll stop at nothing to get it, and I mean nothing. Which is the only reason I can come up with for the spirit here attacking you twice.”

“Because it wants me?” It had been making sense. Things that  normally would have freak her out seemed to make perfect sense. The existence of ghosts, sure, Alice guessed she could accept that; there certainly wasn’t any better explanation for how she’d been trapped in the school for six hours without anyone seeing her. But a spirit wanting to kill her for no apparent reason? That was confusing.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time, if a spirit fails at something, they won’t attempt it again. But poltergeists just don’t have that learning capability. Their minds are too far gone by that point, and their desires overpower them. That fact that you were targeted twice is an anomaly that can only be answered with a poltergeist. Just take solace in the fact that we’re here to protect you.”

Alice didn’t know exactly how much comfort their protection could offer her. Supposedly a stronger poltergeist than normal, and that’s saying something because from her point of view poltergeists were the scariest ghosts around even without power boosts, was out to get her and she was going to trust a bunch of strangers, who might be crazy, to keep her safe? Sure. That sounded smart. That’s good decision making right there.

Then again, Mandie did seem reliable. Not necessarily trustworthy, but not someone you shouldn’t trust. Despite Alice’s reservations about the exorcists, she did feel comforted by the fact that they were there and that they knew what they were doing. She never knew what she was doing, she didn’t even know how she’d managed to escape the Absolute Trap that Mandie had told her about. Wait a minute?

“Hey, I have one more question” Alice called Mandie’s attention away from the wall clock on the other side of the room.

“What’s that?” Mandie asked as she stood up and stretched. Alice glanced over at the clock, 11:34 pm. When had it gotten so late?

“If the spirit was forming an Absolute Trap, how did I get out?”

“Good question. Sorry to say I’m not really sure. It’s impossible to escape once an Absolute is fully formed, so there’s a chance that the Trap hadn’t completely formed yet and you just got lucky. There’s also a chance that your escape was a complete fluke that’s likely never to happen again. As soon as I figure out what happened, I’ll let you know. Because believe me, it’s probably driving me crazier than it is you,” She laughed for a moment, but Alice couldn’t see why that was so funny.

“Right,” Mandie smiled, “You wouldn't get that joke. Sorry, exorcist humor. Don’t mind me. Anyway, if that’s all the questions you have for now, we should head back to base camp. Something is about to happen, and I need to make sure  everyone is prepared and you’re safe within Jackson’s new barriers.” She looked at her watch, “he should have them set up by now. Hopefully.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Alice was still skeptical, but she hopped off of the desk and headed over to the door. There was a slight vibration in her sweater pocket and she could see the light from her phone coming through the fabric. She'd almost forgotten she had it with her.

She pulled out her phone and checked the lock screen.

Teresa-

Hey, bday girl! Mnt to txt earlier but

I got distracted, sry. Anyway, weve

gotta do something tonight! Srsly,

you turn 18 in like 20 min! What’s…

“That looks interesting,” before Alice knew what had happened, Mandie was on the other side of the room with her phone.

“Hey! Give that back!” Alice demanded.

Mandie was thoughtfully reading the message on the lock screen, “I didn’t know today was your birthday. You really ought to mention things like this.”

“It’s not, technically. Not for another…” Alice looked at the clock, 11:37 pm, “twenty three-ish minutes. Not until it’s the eighteenth.”

“You were born at midnight? That’s awfully convenient,” this time Mandie was eyeing her skeptically. My how the tables had turned.

“More like nine in the morning, Berlin, Germany on December eighteenth. That’s why I’m so adamant about my birthday being on the eighteenth and not the seventeenth, even though it comes out to midnight over here.”

Mandie was looking solely at Alice, the phone completely forgotten. “That’s interesting, very interesting. That could explain a lot actually,” she seemed to be talking more to herself than at any one in particular.

“What could explain a lot?” Alice asked, she knew Mandie wouldn’t give her a straight answer, but it never hurt to try.

“Nothing.” Mandie tossed her back her phone from across the room, Alice almost dropped it, but managed to grasp it tightly at the last second. “Now then, we really need to get back to base,” she opened the door and motioned to the next room over, “After you.”

Alice began to walk out the door when her phone buzzed again. She swiftly pulled it out, thinking it was just Teresa nagging her about doing something later. Panic flared through her as she read the name on the screen.

“What’s the matter?” Mandie asked, she must’ve seen Alice tense up when she had pulled out her phone. Alice didn’t think she’d been that readable whenever that name popped up on the screen, that explained why Teresa always knew who was on the other end.

“Umm, well. When I left to come look for my book I left my neighbour this note saying I’d be home straight after. And, uh, well, obviously it’s, uh, past eleven, and she just texted me freaking out and asking me where I’ve been for the last few hours,” Alice managed to spit out through a nervous stutter.

“Is that all, that’s not too bad,” Mandie brushed off.

“Are you kidding me? Billie’s gonna kill me!” Alice panicked

“Relax, okay, I’m sure you’re blowing this way out of proportion,” Mandie attempted to calm her down, but Alice only shook her head adamantly.

“You don’t understand,” Alice insisted, “Billie isn’t like a normal guardian. She’s unrelenting about curfews. I’ve gotten in major trouble before because I was making up a test after school and forgot to tell her. Something like this, she’ll kill me.” Alice’s mind was a blur. How was she gonna get out of this one? She couldn’t just say she’d forgotten to text. That would never work. But she couldn’t tell her the truth either. That’d be even less believable than a lie.

“Okay.” Mandie sighed and shifted her weight, “Give me your phone.”

“Huh?” Alice was so consumed by her thoughts she hadn’t heard what Mandie had said.

“Oh my god,” Mandie took Alice’s phone from her hands and swiped off the lock screen, “What’s your password?”

“My what?”

“Your password. You know, the code you use so people can’t get into your phone,” Mandie turned the phone towards Alice, showing her the lock screen.

“Oh, uh, 1812.”

Mandie typed the code into the number pad, “Eighteen twe- Wait. Your password is just the month and day of your birthday reversed?”

“It is? Oh my gosh. I never looked at it like that, but I guess it is. I only had it as 1812 because that’s the year that Napoleon tried to invade Russia.”

“Why the hell would you care enough about that to make it your password?”

“ ‘Cus trying to invade Russia is stupid,” Alice responded like a robot. Why did everyone ask her that question when she told them the password?

Mandie, paused for a moment. Her face shifting from confusion to agreement, “Well, you’ve got a point. It’s still weird though.”  Mandie typed on the phone for a few moments then handed it back to Alice. “Seriously, can we hurry back to base? I need to make sure those idiots haven’t fu-”

Alice didn’t hear what came next, she was too distracted by what was written on her phone.

Oh my gosh, Billie! I’m so sorry I didn’t text. I went to get my book, and Teresa picked me up on my way back from the school. She asked if I wanted a ride and of course I said yes. Once I was in the car I tried to text you that I was with Teresa, but she stole my phone and said that we were going out to celebrate and that there was no way I was getting out of it. So she had my phone until just now when she saw that you had texted asking where I was. I’m so sorry, I’ll come home right now if you want me to.

Alice looked at the exorcist, “How did you?” Alice stammered as Mandie guided her across the hallway and into the classroom they were calling their base.

“Easy,” Mandie said as she opened the door and pushed Alice inside, “Your friends Teresa texted you about hanging out.” She waved to Gale, who hastily waved back as he pointed to the monitors then the map urgently, Mandie glanced at the map then waved him off, he turned back around and continued to watch the screens.

“You walked here, so that means you would’ve walked home. I assumed that Teresa has a car, because normally at least one friend in a group can drive, so she probably would have given you a ride home if she saw you around. From there I just casually tossed in the fact that you’re turning eighteen and Teresa wanted to celebrate, which she does.”

“That’s-” Alice stopped talking when a message from Billie popped up on screen, “Impossible.”

“Not impossible, just smart. What’d she say?” Mandie asked from over Gale’s shoulder. Alice assumed she had gone over to look at whatever Gale had been urgently motioning at.

“It worked. She told me to have fun and text her when I was on my way home. How did? This is. Are you magic?” Alice was shocked, Billie had never been this calm about her missing her curfew.

Mandie laughed, “Technically. But I excel at knowing what people want to hear in situations like this. I mean, come on, I lie for a living.”

“Absolute truth,” Gale added in, “What are we talking about?”

“Nothing too important, just the fact that I’m magic,” Mandie responded.

Gale almost laughed, “Anyone who doesn’t realize that is an idiot. So I guess that makes you pretty smart, huh Alice?”

Why did it always feel relaxing to talk with him? It was weird, but Alice was thankful for it, “I guess. Though I think I’d say I’m intelligent before I would say I was smart.”

“Why’s that?” He was smiling again. For most people smiles seemed forced, but he was different. Gale made it seem like he actually cared, or he really was interested, or he genuinely wanted to make you feel better. That’s what made it weird, but it was still comforting.

“Well, you can be an intelligent idiot, but you can’t be smart one,” Alice said, repeating the words that her mother had always told her when she was growing up.
“I guess that makes sense,” Gale said blankly, obviously he didn’t understand the family saying.

“Gale, don’t you have monitors you should be watching?” Mandie reminded him.

“Man, never a moment's rest with you,” he hissed under his breath.

“I heard that,” she said sweetly. At that moment Chase and Jackson walked through the door carrying a cylinder of iodized salt, a stack of blank paper leaflets, and a handful of Sharpies. “Where the hell have you two been?” Mandie went from teasing to angry in two seconds flat, “Incase Gale didn’t tell you, we’ve got trouble coming.”

“He did tell us,” Jackson answered gruffly as he brushed past Mandie, threw the paper and Sharpies on a desk, and set to work drawing strange symbols on the leaflets.

“Which is why we decided it would be a good idea to get some salt from the cafeteria, and some paper and Sharpies to make talismans to help with the barrier,” Chase continued, closing the door and making sure salt lined the entrance.

“What took you so long?” Mandie was obviously in no mood for gaming, something serious must be coming. She’d seemed so relaxed when they were talking in the room, why was she stressed now?

“Turns out it’s really hard to find Sharpies in this god forsaken place…” Chase trailed off as he made sure the windowsills were lined with salt as well.

“Couldn’t you just use pen?” Alice asked. Chase was right that it’s almost impossible to find Sharpies in this school, but pens were everywhere.

“No,” Jackson responded without missing a beat.

“You see,” Chase explained, “For these to strengthen barriers they need to be written in a strong ink, preferably Chinese calligraphy ink, but that’s hard to come by on short notice. So your best bet would be to replicate it with a type of marker, aka not a pen. But now you may be asking why we didn’t just use a regular marker because those are also easier to find than Sharpies. Which actually is a good question, but easily answered by the fact that most markers now days are washable-”

“What he’s trying to say is that the more permanent the writing utensil the more it strengthens the barrier,”  Mandie interrupted, impatiens heavy on her voice.

Chase laughed half-heartedly, “Yeah...” Then he continued to line the room with the iodized salt. “Oh, by the way, thought you might like to know, it’s just a little bit important, but-”

“Do you make a personal point to draw out any conversation you can when we should probably be rushing to get various things done?”

“Sometimes.”

“Right, well you’re doing an amazing job.”

“Right. Um, sorry, Mandie. Moving on, I just thought you’d like to know that we found an Absolute on our way to the Cafeteria.”

“Whoah, wait. What?”

“Yeah, right by camera three. From the looks of it, the poltergeist finished making the Trap even though Alice wasn’t in it. Weird right?”

“Yeah, really weird,” Mandie mused, she sat thinking for a moment. “Are you sure?”

“I know what I saw,” Jackson responded as he stood and started placing the papers on the wall around the room. To Alice’s amazement they stuck to the walls. There was no glue, or tape, or tacks, they just stuck there, held on by some invisible force. Was everyone in this room legitimately magic? She’d been looking for proof of ghosts since Mandie had pulled her aside. Paper sticking to walls, not quite credible, but it proved enough.

“Alright then,” Mandie said, not questioning the ginger exorcist.

“What!” Chase slammed the empty salt container on the desk, “You’ll question me but if he says it you’ll believe him? Unbelievable,”

“Tell me you don’t have a habit of over exaggerating,” Mandie taunted.

Chase rounded on her, finger raised, and took a breath to protest, then stopped. He lowered his finger and turned to look out the window.

Victory flashed through Mandie’s dark green irises, “That’s what I thought.”

Alice heard rumbling again, only this time it sounded closer. Almost like it was right on top of her, but it was still soft and quiet. She glanced out the window to see if there were any storm clouds in sight, but she couldn’t see any.

“Woah, what just happened?” Gale sounded concerned, Alice’s attention was immediately dragged away from the thunder. What was she even doing? She shouldn’t be thinking about the weather at a time like this! Who cared if the meteorologist was wrong, she was trapped in her school potentially being hunted by a very powerful spirit. She had better things to be thinking about.

“What is it?” Mandie moved over to the monitors.

“Camera three just went down. Woah, and there goes camera twelve. And seven.” Gale said. Alice focused on the screens, some of them had been replaced by static. As she watched more flashed from picture to static, until all of them were blank.

“That wasn’t, you was it?” Chase directed at Gale, hope drifted on his words, but you could tell he already knew the answer.

“No,” Gale responded. Jackson placed the last leaflet on the window and walked over to the door. He clasped his hands together and bowed his head like he was praying, then he started to mumble incoherent words under his breath.

Chase took no notice, “Damn, I was hoping we were lucky,” before he could say anything else the room was plunged into darkness. Alice gasped, her heart was racing again. All she could hear was the pounding in her chest as the temperature dropped and the room began to spin. She felt isolated, alone, cut off. Like nothing was around her, that no one would be able to save her.

Then, a warm hand closed around her’s and Alice clung to it like a lifeline, trying to clear the dizziness from her head.  . The pounding stopped and some of her warmth returned, but the room was still ice cold. A light flashed on from behind and Alice could see that Gale was holding onto her hand, his eyes glowing brilliant blue. How had he gotten over to her so quickly? He’d been on the other side of the room when the lights had gone out.

“Are you alright?” He asked softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

She nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine.” He smiled, that helped.

“It’s a damn good thing we made those spells,” Jackson gasped from the doorway, “I think they would’ve broken in if I hadn’t put them up.”

“They?” Mandie asked.

“You’re telling me that there’s more than just the poltergeist,” Chase added.

“Well, yes and no. What I’m saying is that there is more than one. But, what I’m also saying is that there’s more than one poltergeist,” Jackson said, taking time to breath deeply as he spoke.

“What?” Mandie’s voice was harsh, but she quickly regained her composure, “How many did you sense, and how many spirit are there total?”

“Well. Good news, there are only seven spirits. Bad news, they’re all poltergeists.” Jackson glared at the door and seemed to push against an invisible wall. A faint blue outline formed around his hands.

“Okay,” Mandie was thinking, pacing around the room. “Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re not going to panic. Gale, you’re going to hang onto Alice. Alice, your job is to stay calm, poltergeists feed off of fear and panic. They’ll be targeting you, so your fear will give them more strength than any of ours,” Alice nodded her understanding and Mandie continued. “Jackson, as always you’re on barriers. Keep them out as long as you can.”

“What else would I be here to do,” he grumbled over his shoulder.

Mandie rolled her eyes and continued, “Chase, you and I’ll be on offence. Do you have any top level spells memorized that you don’t have enough energy to cast?”

“Um, a few. But I’m not sure how they’ll work against poltergeists, they’re normally verbal incantations,” Chase was back over by the monitors rooting through a backpack that Alice hadn’t seen before. He pulled out an old leather bound book, flipped to a dogeared page, and handed it to Mandie. She looked over the page with a black face.

“Figure out how to do it non verbally, I’ll show you how to tweak it so it affect more than two spirits. Also, get me a list of all the herbs we have,” this solidified it for Alice, she’d guessed before, but now she knew that Mandie was the one in charge.

Jackson bit back a groan and gritted his teeth, “You may want to move up your time table, I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up and I won't be able to make another barrier after this.”

“Well then,” Chase answered before Mandie could take a breath, “Let’s get started.”

Author's Note

Do I focus on Alice enough?
Does everything make sense?
How are the characters?

Reviews

[Sarah Wilson]

You definitely know how to keep a girl reading! So many questions! I love how you so clearly define each character! I think you conveyed the sense of urgency brilliantly!
I always feel so bad not being able to edit your stuff like you do mine! Damn your skills!

[Zoë]

I'm really glad you liked it, that I'm pulling you into the story (Mwahaha, now you're trapped with no hope of escape XD), and that the characters are well defined (I'm still worried there's not enough to them yet though, so I've been adding it in my separate copy). I'm also happy that the sense of urgency got across, I was afraid I hadn't moved into it strong enough.
Don't worry about editing XD I have a friend who read all my stuffs and points out every little mistake I have, so there's not much left to pick up on unless she missed it or you think something could be phrased better :)

[Zoë]

You've also got to remember that 90% of the time I'm reading your work I'm jealous of your skills ^^

[Sarah Wilson]

Just like the absolute trap, but with much less repetition!
Whhhhaatttt? YOU'RE jealous of ME? THAT'S INSANE! :)

[Zoë]

Hahaha, I can be pretty repetitive, just try me XD
You're writing is very good, easy to follow, and you've got amazing descriptions. Plus it's an interesting story. Sure it's got small editing problems, but every story does until you go through it a thousand times (and even then, some books are published with editing errors)!

[Sarah Wilson]

I feel like other than grammar, my biggest weakness is having it all flow. I have a very stop start time with writing and I feel like you can see it.

[Zoë]

You're grammar honestly isn't as bad as I think you think it is, mostly it's just small flow problems (which is normally just small wording issues, which I just so happen to be great at finding and fixing). I don't know if I can necessarily 'see' it, but I like it.

[Sarah Wilson]

well Thank you.:)