CHAPTER TWELVE

There's only one spot left in class when I finally arrive, having gotten lost amongst the rush of students. Not wanting to make a scene, I edge down the side of the room and take a seat at the empty desk, thankful that the teacher isn't on time. I'm all too familiar with the new girl routine: stumbling into class late, having my presence announced by the teacher, and being forced to sit next to someone I don't know while every other student in my vicinity glares at my back. This time at least I don't have a disease to drag along behind me as extra baggage.

I dump my books on the table beside me and wait.

"Hey. Hey!" a voice says in my direction. That didn't take long. I turn my head to look at the owner of the voice – a girl with a thin face and long black hair. "You're new," she says as she steps towards me.

Obviously. I refrain from rolling my eyes. "Yeah," I say out loud, my thoughts failing to produce anything else. I can feel my mouth opening with the want to say something more but I have no words to join it. It's easy to tell I haven't socialised in a while.

She tilts her head slightly to one side and stares, a shadow of a frown on her forehead. "What school did you move from?"

I call upon the backstory I made up with Katherine. "None. I was, uh, home-schooled."

"You're joking." She says it as a statement rather than an exclamation.

"Roma!" another girl squeals, crashing into her side with a hug. The newcomer is short and sports a blonde bob, which she keeps pinned back on one side. When she looks at me, her blue eyes are like daggers.

"Oh. You're new," she says, as if that's a bad thing. Somehow she's morphed the phrase into an insult.

The raven-haired girl – Roma – laughs. "Play nice, Tori." Then she looks in my direction. "Don't mind her. She hates everyone."

At this, Tori settles a glare on her friend, one I'm thankful isn't fixed on me. Roma completely ignores it. "So what's your name?"

"Maya," I reply. For a moment, I get the funny feeling that she's seen through my lie, but then the teacher walks in and the moment passes.

"Everyone in their seats," the teacher commands as she places her things on the table.

"Watch out. This one's a viper," Roma whispers before sliding across into her seat one desk down.

"I trust you've all done your homework," the teacher says, even though it's obvious she knows they haven't. "Who'd like to put the answers up on the board?"

Everyone looks down at their desks. Roma raises her hand.

"Romania," the lady says, looking both surprised and suspicious. "Just come up here–"

"Actually, Ms Bevard, I just wanted to say we have a new student. Maya." Roma turns her head in my direction and the teachers gaze follows, along with the gaze of every person in my room. I squirm under the attention, wanting to sink down into the floor.

"Ah, I see," she says, but she doesn't seem pleased. "Welcome to Ashwell, Maya. Or should I say, Salve."

I look to Roma for help. "She's saying welcome," Roma whispers.

Ms Bevard's face, long and ovular with thin lips pressed in a firm line, is scowling when I look back at her. "Just how much Latin do you know, Maya?"

I swallow. "Uh, none."

She doesn't look happy. "I hope that changes," she says, though it sounds like a warning. Moving on to address the class, she declares, "I want to see everyone's homework by the end of the lesson. If it's not done by then, you'll be spending lunch in here with me. Remember, exams are in three weeks, and I won't accept anything lower than a pass in my class, understood?"

No one moves and she takes that as a yes. "Roma, show Maya the work. She'll just have to catch up. And quick."

Roma nods, moving over into the vacant seat beside me. I slide my books across to make room for her and the class gets on with their work, various whispered conversations breaking out amongst the students.

"You're in for a fun year," Roma says under her breath.

I think about all that's coming – Sarah's revealment of her past, the vision I hope to God never comes true, the prophecy I'm told I play a role in – and let out a slow breath. "Believe me," I say. "I know."

-:-:-:-:-

"So home-schooled, huh?" Roma asks after the bell goes. Tori sidles over to us, standing by Roma's side with a hand on her hip. "What was that like?"

I shrug and collect my stuff, avoiding eye-contact as my third lie of the day spills from my lips. "It wasn't too bad." I change the topic. "Um, what have you got next?"

"Ancient history," Roma says. She smiles. "I hate it, but my mother's an historian and she can't wrap her head around the fact that her daughter doesn't like history."

"I'm guessing your mother's the one who named you then."

A laugh escapes Tori's lips, but one look from Roma has her clamping her mouth shut. "Yeah, she spent a lot of time in Romania...studying stuff."

"What did she study, Romania?" Tori asks, and Roma slaps her arm. Tori continues, undeterred, as we leave the classroom. "Did you know that Romania was actually born in Romania? According to Legend, her dad was–"

"–Shut up, Tori! God, you're so annoying." But she's smiling, even as she says it. "What about you?"

"Me? I don't have any storie–"

Roma laughs. "No. No, I meant what class do you have next?"

"Oh, um..." I peer down at my timetable. "I have...oh." I look back up. "Ancient history."

Roma smiles, linking her arm with mine. "How convenient. We'll show you the way."

Ancient history is all the way on the other side of the school. We walk down hallway after hallway, turning left, right, left, left. We go up stairs and down stairs and then up again, until I'm absolutely positive that if you asked me which way was out, I'd have to refer you to someone else. I come to the conclusion that the grounds were built like a labyrinth on purpose – a mechanism used to ensure that students never leave. Without Roma and Tori, I'd be lost.

"Just here," Roma says, leading me into a classroom. It seems to be situated in the uppermost corner of the school. Two of the four walls are adorned with massive windows, offering extensive views of the surrounding suburbs.

We take seats at available desks near the back windows, with Tori slipping in next to Roma and myself picking the next desk over. The class is only half-filled, and most students crowd around the windows, the seats with the best views already occupied. Tori pulls out her phone and starts texting, scowling at the screen.

Roma turns to me, sitting sideways in her chair. Her long, slender legs spill into the gap between our desks. "Just so you know, you're free to sit with Tori and I at recess if you want. I get that moving to a new school can be somewhat uncomfortable."

"Sounds like you know from experience."

She nods. "My mother's job has taken us to a lot of places. Scotland, Mexico, Italy, Romania. But I've been lucky recently. Australia must have a lot to offer because I haven't moved in two years." She pauses. "What about you? Do you move a lot?"

I'm tempted to nod, but my fake backstory rises up in mind. Instead, I shake my head. "I've lived in the same place all my life."

Roma looks at me enviously. "That must be nice."

It would be, I think.

"Anyway, I can introduce you to the group."

"Thanks," I reply, smiling. Then I remember Caden. "Um, would it be cool if a friend of mine joined us? He's new here as well."

Roma smirks. "Your boyfriend?"

My immediate response is to shake my head, but I can't stop the blush that creeps up onto my cheeks. "No, he's... Well, I mean, yes, but–" I sigh. "I don't know. It's complicated."

She laughs. "It always is. Tell me, how does a girl who's been home-schooled get a boyfriend?"

"Kid next door," I say. It's a lie, but a scripted one. The real answer involves the words 'swapped' and 'magical powers'. I don't even want to imagine how that'd go down with Roma.

"How cute," she says.

"What about you?" I ask.

She shrugs. "I did have a boyfriend but not anymore. I dumped him a couple weeks ago after catching him with some other girl. It's just the kind of guy he was."

"Ass."

"Yeah," she agrees. "But I'm not upset about it or anything. I really only got with him in the first place so I wasn't the only one without a boyfriend. It was stupid really."

Just then, the class goes silent. Roma tenses, her eyes on something over my shoulder, as the scattered conversations blow out like a candle in a breeze. I can feel a force behind me, a presence that seems to suck the warmth and light from the room, and goose bumps rise on my arms. My pulse kicks up, my breathing strangely audible in the quiet.

I turn around.

There's a girl standing at the classroom's threshold, like a spectral image. Small hands drifting by her sides. The uniform hanging loosely on her petite frame. She has a thin, pixie-like face, each feature delicate and unnervingly beautiful. Even the way she holds herself – proud yet cautious, head raised, gaze focused carefully away from our eyes – suggests a fragility, a beauty, a spectrality.

But there's something else lurking beneath the delicate front she's put up, like a glaze over her true nature – something darker, something dangerous. And the closer I look, the more I see. Her skin is porcelain white and eerily unblemished. Her hair is platinum blonde, falling in long waves to her bottom. Her entire being radiates a dark, chilling energy, the tiny tendrils of it sliding through the air like fingers, and, pushed forward by some bizarre instinct, I raise a protective hand to my chest.

The movement must catch her gaze. With frightening speed, her gaze snaps to mine and I freeze, a feeling of horror washing over me. Her eyes are black.

She looks away and steps into the room, moving silently to a desk in the second row. A student who had been seated in the next desk across scatters, his feet making the floor creak as he moves. The girl's footfalls are silent.

She sits down and after a minute, the dark energy withdraws, seeming to seep back into her skin. Slowly, the room gains warmth, then the light returns. Conversations, albeit slightly quieter, break out once more.

I release my breath. "Who is that?" I ask Roma, my eyes locked on the girl.

"Kalea," she breathes, and I tear my eyes from the girl to see that Roma, too, is unable to look away. Whether that's because of curiosity or fear, or maybe even something else, I can't tell. "Might be a good idea to stay away from that one."

I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, the girl's presence like a cold hand around my throat. "Why?" I ask.

In an even quieter voice, Roma leans over and whispers, "Rumour has it, she sees dead people."

She says it in such a way that I tense up, chills running down my spine. Really, it shouldn't be so creepy – I see dead people on a daily basis, as spirits floating up into the sky – but for some reason, this feels different. As if the way she sees them and the way I see them are not one and the same. As if we take two different paths to the same destination – and hers is coated in darkness.

"And you know this for sure?"

Roma leans back but continues to keep her voice low. "Well, she sure as hell isn't denying it. Apparently, she claims to be psychic. Some kids tried to pay her to communicate with their dead father last year."

"And...?"

She lets out a breath. "No one really knows what happened. The siblings won't speak about it. But something must have happened, because they get totally freaked out whenever she's around. She obviously did something. Really, it's just a matter of whether or not you believe in that kind of thing."

"Do you?" I ask her.

She laughs, rolling her eyes. "'Course not." But her voice shakes. "Do you?" she asks after slightly too long a pause.

I shrug, and my eyes drift back to Kalea, still sitting silently in her chair, gaze focused on the wall in front of her. Her hair, hanging down by her back, doesn't quite seem to touch her clothes, as if it doesn't understand gravity. As if it's floating.

What are you? I think.

And, in a movement so unnerving I get chills, Kalea turns her head slowly, eerily.

And looks directly at me.

A/N

So, thoughts on Roma, Tori and Kalea??????? [Also, Kalea is pronounced Kuh-lee-uh.] To be honest, this chapter took me a long time to write because I was never quite happy with the way the dialogue flowed or the portrayal of certain characters. I'm still not too confident in it, but hopefully you guys liked it????

New chapter will be up in a week :) and sorry this one was a day or so late (it was Christmas, sue me).

- Shaye xx