Chapter 6 - Real Trouble

When trouble strikes Hex Academy, Katherine and Claire team up to start figuring things out. It isn't until the teacher gives them a hint as to what might have happened. Hex just got scarier.

Two weeks of the new school, and I had learned so many spells. The principal pulled me inside her office. One of the strangest rules of the school is hiding what goes on. We weren’t allowed to tell our parents of magic, of the spells that we could perform. Sure, the armband was noticeable and students were told to lie and tell their parents it was simply an accessory that the school had handed out, a symbol of their passing the entry test. Almost like it was part of the uniform we had to wear every day. It went better with my yellow uniform more than it did with Claire’s blue. She was a senior, and I was a freshman.

“We teach the students about magic, how to use it to help in only very dire situations. You can only use it with the Hex Driver. If parents knew, they might grow jealous and want to steal the Drivers for themselves.” That is what the principal told me. My parents wouldn’t believe that magic existed, like I didn’t before Claire shot a magic arrow at me, before I got my own Driver and was able to materialize my inner magic to shoot a ball at a dummy. And now I could close small cuts, working on the medium sized soon.

I might need to put that training to the test, soon, said the principal. The alarm went off two hours after our talk. The school’s PA system went on loud and clear, telling all of us students to stay in class. Luckily, Claire and I were in study hall. She had been teaching me one of her latest tricks, a spell that almost anyone could learn with the right training. Even though I didn’t have much, we needed it. Invisibility.

We stayed in the back of the room, focused our energy, and said out loud the incantation of this particular spell. Within a minute, we couldn’t be seen. I could see her, because the spell has a loophole. If you use the same spell, you can see people who went invisible using the same one. We’d keep track of each other that way.

The door opened, by Claire’s waving of her hand, and the teacher looked but dismissed it. We snuck out, went down three hallways before running into a large group of teachers. There was a lot of commotion, some of which we couldn’t make out. The principal was in the middle, ordering everyone to guard the classrooms. Immediately. When the group broke apart, we saw a young girl. She had been strapped to the wall. Her arms and legs stretched and twisted in weird ways, pinned by magic strands.

“What kind of spell can do that?” I asked Claire, who looked like she was shaking. She shook her head, eyes wide with fear. “Claire, snap out of it.” I brought a hand up to her face and snapped my fingers three times.

Claire looked at me, more aware of me standing so close to her. She pushed me away, and I bumped against the wall. “That is no spell. Someone did that by themselves.”

Now it was my turn to have the big eyes. To know someone did this to a student was horrifying. The commotion from before was too much for us to process, but I am pretty sure that someone said “one of them came here,” like they knew who it was.

Claire’s body started becoming whole, like I could see the color in her clothes and face. The invisibility only lasted so long. It must be wearing off on us now. The two of us hurried back to the classroom and returned to normal. The teacher was standing in front of the door watching the class, saw us but didn’t say anything. The PA system came on again, and the teacher quieted us. We were to stay in the classrooms, listen to the teacher in and out of the room. No using magic.

Claire and I looked at each other. The school was on lockdown, but why?

“A student was murdered,” said a voice over the PA. The students in the class let out loud gasps. “We don’t know what happened, but the whole school was searched from top to bottom.” That was certainly done fast. How many teachers or aides did Hex Academy really have? “Who ever did this has left, but for your safety, we’re going to make sure that this is true. We will call names over the system. Anyone called should come down to the principal’s office for questioning. First name: Mrs. Vine.”

The Bio Magic teacher? Why was she the first being questioned when all she knew was healing magic and turning her body into a plant. It had nothing to do with the girl’s body, and Claire thought maybe she could help determine how the girl died. Thinking back to the girl in the hallway, she wore a green uniform. Sophomore. Mrs. Vine taught a lot of sophomore classes.

“What should we do next?” Claire asked me.

I shook my head, then said, “Stay here. We aren’t going to be able to sneak out again. Plus, it could be really dangerous if we do.”

“You’re not as adventurous as I had hoped,” she said, and I only replied with a low grunt. “Hey, Simon, wanna do against-the-rule stuff?”

Simon was a senior, like Claire, who had tried showing me around a little bit when I first came into Hex. He tried protecting me when Claire first started with me and shot the arrow at us. Simon didn’t really like Claire, but the idea of doing things that weren’t necessarily with the rules was a big thing for him. One that he wasn’t going to let slide while being locked in a classroom.

While some kids played hangman, or talked among their clique groups, the three of us were in the back talking and scheming. Two seniors and a freshman.

“The girl had her arms and legs twisted and stretched out, and then tied to the wall. It was really gruesome to see, and I think Claire almost put out her lunch on the floor,” I had told Simon. Claire reached over to punch me in the arm. “Why did they only kill her?”

“Maybe she saw this person sneaking around, and he or she felt they had to take her out,” said Simon.

“Why go through the trouble of doing that much damage to her body, instead of just a simple stabbing or breaking the neck?” Claire’s question made Simon and I turn our heads toward her. The way she spoke and said it made us feel like she has thought of something like this before. Scary.

“Because they clearly were after her,” said a voice. The three of us turned to see the teacher. He clearly left his post at the door after seeing us sneak back in and start conversing in the corner of the room. He knew we had gone out and saw what he couldn’t, but at the same time, he knew more than we did. “You only go through so much when dealing with someone you want to kill.”

So the person who killed this poor Sophomore girl had targeted her? I wonder if other students were going to be targeted.