Auctioned off to a School for Magic

Chapter Twelve: Alice

I came back to class after using the restroom and when I sat down the potion brew blew up in my face. My face was covered in a pink sticky mixture. I saw Alice in the lab station in front of us laughing. It was obvious she messed with my potion when I was gone and my friends weren’t looking. Just when she hasn’t messed with us for a while she does it again. I don’t understand why she got so much joy out of messing with us.

Jezebeth grabbed a napkin and from the front of the room and walked back. She wiped my face while I glared at Alice but didn’t say anything to her. “Just don’t give her your attention…” She mumbled. I had to respond in some way. I’m not like Jezebeth I couldn’t just believe she’s just like that and ignore her. There had to be a reason she treated us like that and I wanted to know so it could stop.

When the bell rang I walked to Alice. “Why are you so childish?” My words came out a little more aggressive than I intended them to be.

Alice rolled her eyes. “I’m not childish Ruth, maybe you and Jezebeth aren’t that good at mixing potions.” She shrugged and walked past me. All I did was annoy her even though she antagonized me.

Grace didn’t follow her. “Alice is just really impulsive. She’s not a bad person, she just lets her emotions get the best of her.” She explained to me and I couldn’t help but believe her. Even if I believed it was impulse there still had to be a reason for her negative emotions towards us. “I’ll see you guys later.”

I watched Grace leave the lab. “Do you think we could just be friends with Alice?” I asked Jezebeth.

Jezebeth shook her head. “Whatever she’s going through she takes out on us so what's the point in being friends with someone like that?” I understood her point but I couldn't agree. “It’s better to just ignore her and maybe she won’t care to bother you anymore.” She said as if I was the only one who was bothered by Alice.

I grabbed my stuff and left the room with Jezebeth. “Maybe she’d stop bothering us so much if we were friends. It’s distracting that every class I have to worry about her messing with us or her saying condescending comments.” Sometimes she was somewhat friendly and other times she plain mean.

Jezebeth really wasn’t as bothered as I was about it. “If you don’t give her a reaction then she’d probably get bored and just stop.”

"Maybe..." I said before we walked into the elevator and we went to our separate after school sessions.

The rest of the day went normally so when I finished training with Natalie I did homework and I talked to Jezebeth until we fell asleep. I wasn’t even bothered about what happened with Alice in the morning anymore.

When I woke up I wasn’t in my bed and it wasn’t morning. I was in the mage city in my pajamas. I looked around confused and I noticed a figure at the end of the street in the street lights. “Who is that…?” I couldn’t be more confused so I walked to the figure and as I got closer I realized who it was. “Alice?”

Her eyeballs were completely blue and glowing. She looked like she wasn’t conscious but she did when her eyes went back to normal. “Ruth?” She looked around. “Not again…”

“Again? This happened to you before?” I saw few residents walking the street. Everything looked normal except the fact that me and Alice were in our pajamas in the middle of the road. “You were in a trance.” How did we get all the way without waking up?

Alice looked stressed out as she ran her hands through her straight black hair that was in a pixie cut. “A few times so the officers are going to have a hard time believing my story a third time.” She looked at what I was wearing. “I’m guessing you don’t remember getting here either? It makes sense for you to be out of control.” She said coldly. Even in this predicament she was rude. She had already experienced this two other times while this was only my first.

I sighed because she was being the same as ever. “Whatever, I'm going back.” I turned around because maybe Jezebeth was right and I needed to stop giving Alice my energy.

“Wait Ruth.” Alice stopped me. “Do you hear the whispers?” She sounded like a wounded child. Her question caught me off guard because I thought I was the only one who heard the whispers. They worried me but not too much until now since I know Alice hears them too.

I turned back around, “Yeah… ever since the night we-”

“Soaked in the lake.” Alice finished. “When we had to tell the officers if we were developing any psychic abilities I told them about the whispers and they assumed I meant I had been hearing the thoughts of others.”

I shook my head. “That’s not what thoughts sound like and I’ve never been put into a trance and blacked out because of my abilities. It’s something else.” These two things might have not be connected but if they’re not it’s strange that we both experiencing both things. Maybe they were symptoms of one thing or just related to some capacity.

Alice nodded. “That’s what the other psychic officers said so the more I described the whispers the more they felt certain that it wasn’t related to psychic abilities. I didn’t show signs of any other psychic abilities so they think it’s something else entirely. I still think it has to do with soaking in the lake and the moon goddess.”

I tried to piece things together. “It could be a new psychic ability I didn’t have before but I’m not sure how likely that is.” She looked scared and I’ve never seen her look scared before. Alice was always confident and headstrong. We all have layers and Alice was no different. “Let’s go back and then in the morning we’ll explain what happened and that it’s happening to both of us. They’re going to have to believe us, they can look at the security recordings.” I tried to reassure her.

“Yeah but they’re going to try to fix us. I don’t know what the whispering are but I don’t think it’s anything that can be fixed by The Order so they can think we just snuck out. They already know I was experiencing the whispers and they can keep thinking that. I don’t want to know about the trances continuing.”

I frowned. “Why should I do that? We finished our one week of dentition a week ago and don’t you want to be an officer? If you keep getting in trouble like this then it’ll stay on your record.”

Alice walked onto the sidewalk and sat on a bench. “If they think I can’t control myself from just leaving in the middle of the night and if they think I’m hearing whispers that aren’t there then I’m just going to be labeled as a crazy defective witch. I’d never be able to be an officer then.”

I sat down next to her. “Then I’ll lie but we have to figure this out together and you need to stop being an asshole to us.” I chuckled. Even if she was just being paranoid I wouldn’t say anything because it’s important to her. Alice had worries and desires just like the rest of us.

Alice held back a chuckle. “I’m not an asshole, I just speak my mind.” She stood up. “If you think we’re having a moment we’re not, we’re just stuck in this situation together.”

“Well have you ever tried following the whispers?” I asked.

Alice shook her head. “I can’t figure out what direction it’s coming from. There wasn’t too much I could do by myself but I still tried what I could. I’ve been researching it as much as I could.” I admired her determination. “The officers weren’t much help, they just told me to come see them if any thing else happens. They can’t identify what’s going on with the whispers at all.”

We started walking out the city. “We’ll figure it out but we should probably go get some sleep now. We’ll have a lot of time to think about it in detention.” I joked.

Alice laughed and looked at me. “Yeah I guess you’re right.”

I wish I tried to be friends with Alice sooner, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to be her friend but I’ll try. I think we had potential to be great friends.

I think that night I saw something in Alice that I wouldn't have if we weren’t both going through if we weren't both here tonight like this. I wanted to see more of her and get to know the side that wasn’t so cynical.