62: Mesmerist
Katrina could still remember the hectare of overgrown weeds from spring the previous year, when Ms Chiltern had first brought them here. An important part of their study in nature restoration was to study the process first hand. The hoed field in front of her now, split into a labelled patchwork allotments and flower beds, was the result of that study, and of the long hours the students had spent out in the sunlight, working with archaic tools and bare hands to bring colour back to the wilderness. It was a far cry from the forests of the east, which stood as testimony to the work of generations, but at it was something – and it was theirs. Maybe one day, like the seeds they’d planted months before, it would bloom into something greater. Presently they were here to observe their efforts and to begin the autumn harvest in lieu of the upcoming festival.
At least that had been the original intent, set out by Ms Chiltern a week ago. Since then things had changed, but although Kat saw Ms Chiltern in a new light, having been through Hell with her less than a week previously, there was something else at work. Something else was twisting the atmosphere of the lesson: much like Ms Booton, Ms Chiltern was smiling.
Sitting surrounded by flowers, her attention had wandered from the lesson. Ms Chiltern’s attention never wandered. Only Survival teacher Azarat Haan was stricter, and much like the intimidating warrior with his never-impressed frown, she said to smile at most three times a year. Yet here she was, a broad grin across her face with eyes that sparkled in the sunlight, entwining daisies into her dark hair – and all because of one word. A name. That name. Kat wondered if his ego distorted reality, given how Mr Adonis had made himself the centre of everything.
“I think you’ll find he smells like lilacs,” she said, her voice a sigh, as if she were a teenage Hawk daydreaming about their current celebrity crush.
“Ya think?” asked Ceres, “Thought he were more like hyacinths meself,”
Kat had expected the purple-haired witch to be as much a victim of Adonis as anyone, given some of the rumours of her polygamy that passed through the Veritas ‘office’, but something wasn’t right. Ceres had been the one to bring up Adonis in conversation, but while others were content to stare wistfully off into the sky as they droned on about him with happy sighs, the tree-dwelling girl was instead making notes in a palm-sized pad and swapping knowing looks with Korrigan.
“Mr Adonis smells of roses,” stated Elizabeth, standing with the rest of Astrid’s posse at the back of the gathering, “Your sense of smell must be contaminated from your promiscuous behaviour,” It was rare for the quartet of Godhand girls to speak out since their return, and especially to lash out at those around them as they had done so often in the past. Kat checked, and again Ceres was jotting down notes.
“He smells like a creep,” Lyra snarled under her breath, bringing a gust of fresh, if bitter, air to the disturbing atmosphere of idol worship. A stern glare from Ms Chiltern reminded Kat of when the two of them had clashed in the rotting underground shelters.
“Lyra Byrne! I won’t have you—“
“Ah, shut the feck up already. I know what yer gonna say. He’s all ‘lovely’ and ‘nice’ and ‘perfect’, ain’t he?”
It was a far cry from the forests of the east, which stood as testimony to the work of generations, but at it was something – and it was theirs.
Should this be:
It was a far cry from the forests of the east, which stood as testimony to the work of generations, but at least it was something – and it was theirs.
Or some such…