#spectreopen

the news was still so blatantly fresh he could hear the mumbled whispers as students passed, heads locked onto phone screens as they went. While he himself wasn’t too bothered over the fate of one Oberon Ashcroft (at all really, ) the reappearance of Octavia and the urgency and fright her words had caused left him unsettled, searching. And so he sat, on the bottom steps of the staircase that led to the corridor of the east wing. Alexandre somewhat avoided the location before this moment, content to skirt around it, find other paths that led anywhere but that tiled hall. His eyes couldn’t seem to waver from where she’d been found for long, the to go coffee held in between his hands losing its searing heat and dulling to a low warmth. It did nothing to quell the unheard roar of thoughts within his own mind. The one thing that could, was nowhere to be seen.

Talk to me! He wanted to shout, walking up and down those halls until she’d appear before him. What’s happening, what can you see that I can’t? I’m doing what I can but this was never meant to be my play. It was you, always you. The ones who believed in her ghost whispered of how vengeful she’d grown, that the bubbly girl he’d known her entire life was morphing into something more wicked than anything before. It scared something in him, and that alone was enough to dismiss himself from morning lectures. Use ME if you have to, O. I can take it. Please don’t go this way. Because that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Whatever Xandre had come to do, it wasn’t enough. Secrets were lodged so deep in every corner of this fucking school and where was he? Wasted in a bar to dull the roar in his thoughts. A heaviness weighted down every thought in his mind, every instinct screaming to reject, rebel, remove. Even now he could feel the urge within him to escape, find anywhere but this school and lose himself in just about anything else. Bodies, bottles, anything but THIS. Reaching into his coat pocket for the flask within, he popped open the lid of his cup and poured in a few swallows full to his americano. A different kind of warmth spreading down the male’s chest as he took a deep pull, huffing as he heard approaching steps across the stairs. 

“ --- IF it’s a lecture, save your breath.”

              she’s translating daphne, naiad of the laurel leaves, pleading to the river god to unmake her body. it’s something, theresa’s found, that haunts the prose of the ancient greeks ; the transformative power of women, how female bodies are constantly in a state of flux, boyish limbs wrung out into girlhood adolescence and remade as a woman. she thinks of octavia’s body cold on the east wing floor. she thinks of clasped hands, hushed voices, the juice of a nectarine split in an offering ---  a plea to remake her, to summon the voice of the dead. their game of fate, it if had ever been a game, was an act carried out in the shadows, eclipsed by the winter formal. you passed out, iskra had said. we think you hit your head. had they believed what she felt?  the way she had felt utterly emptied when she stirred ; the way something inhuman had clawed it’s way up inside of her and taken hold of her voice? perhaps now they would. 

                    it’s that thought, rather than the weight of feeling watched, that causes her to glance up at all, eyes landing on a figure three aisles over, the tables that stretch lengthways like plumes somehow reminiscent of a banquet hall, only the feast here is one composed of plato and aristotle. there’s an itch in the weight of locked stares, something that moves snakelike beneath the surface of her skin. all of them are bound by a secret and sooner or later, secrets grow too heavy to hold. with a sigh, theresa motions to the courtyard, and plucks her papers and tobacco from her coat, sliding them into the pocket of her dungarees. already, it feels like a weight has been lifted just by tucking in her chair, by venturing out of the library where she’s been cooped up, catching up, for hours. “out with it, then.” she brusquely states when the two of them meet on the library steps. “i could see you itching to speak from three rows across. it looked almost like there were a swarm of bees trapped inside your mouth.” she holds the door for them  --- oak and heavy as a corpse --- as she descends the stairs, sits on the second to last slab of stone and tucks herself in against the railing. her hands pull out a roll of papers, a filter, and her tin of tobacco. she begins to assemble her cigarette if only for something to do with her hands. “i can roll you one too, if it’ll make it any easier. i find tough conversations are best washed down with a stiff drink, but it’s not yet tea-time, so i suppose nicotine will have to suffice.”