My Dark Academia

The first rays of dawn’s golden light snuck over the horizon. But for Charlotte it would be some time until she saw them, the light hidden by the trees. Instead, she gazed as the bands of colour in the sky changed from the pale blue into a rosy pink. The gold would come soon, she knew, but by then she would be long indoors and tending to her father.

Standing in the doorframe to the garden, she waited. The cold morning air should have been bracing. She should have been shivering, dressed in nothing more than jeans, boots and a t-shirt. But she didn’t.

Charlotte never felt the cold, or the heat, or the wind, or the rain. No elemental force was strong enough to penetrate her porcelain skin; she was a Marionette - after all. A simulacra of a woman with pretend skin, fake white hair, and soulless blue eyes.

A Doll.

Gently, her fingers brushed against her stomach, tracing the outline of the hatch to her hollow void within. She knew she had a soul, Father had told her as much, but that felt almost inconsequential when magic was the only thing keeping her alive. Something stirred in the woods at the back of a well-kept yard, several hundred feet from where she stood in the kitchen doorway. The shadow in the woods stood on two legs, taller than an average man. It was broader too, its wide shoulders heaving with each heavy pant. The warm air ejected from its long muzzle condensed in the fall morning air, creating plumes of mist that followed it as it moved.

The shadow looked at Charlotte, its amber eyes apparent even over the distance. The creature was a nightmarish beast. Its black lips pulled back to reveal a maw of yellow fangs, some longer than a man’s finger. Charlotte should have been frightened; any other young woman would have slammed the door shut and run up the stairs as fast as their thin legs could carry them. Up, into their bedroom, where they could tell themselves that the monster was just some bad dream. But Charlotte knew the difference between dreams and reality, and in her world, such monsters were everywhere.

Slowly, the beast emerged, step by ponderous step. Revealing itself beneath the twilight of overhanging trees. The werewolf’s shaggy black coat sparkled with trapped morning dew, the long stripe of gray down his front an indication of his advancing years. Despite his powerful arms and wicked claws, the beast gave no indication of malice; if anything, he just seemed tired.

“Good morning, Father”, Charlotte said as the old wolf lumbered past her, “did you have a nice run last night?”

She had to move out of the doorframe to make way for his menacing bulk. The scent of woodland and fur trailed behind him as he passed. The wolf grumbled deep in his chest and ended with a plaintive whine. In her twenty years of life, Charlotte had never been able to understand her Father when he tried to communicate like that. However, it was a nice ritual for the two of them when he returned from a long night out.

Charlotte Saw the twitch in her father’s shoulders as he paced to the other side of the kitchen island. She knew he wanted to shake the dew from his fur before changing back. Charlotte loathed cleaning the splatter of wet wolf from the kitchen surfaces after a good shake . She never understood why he just wouldn’t do that outside.

“I have towels and pyjamas ready for you” she said, pointing to the two piles on the island. The old wolf looked at her, then at the clothes. She could see the animal part of his brain struggling to comprehend the direction. With deliberate slowness, he reached out a clawed hand as he forced the change upon himself. His claws retracted, and the fur pulled back under his tanned skin. Muscles and bones reshape themselves back into something human. Lastly, the wolfish keening morphed into the long hiss of a man in pain.

Theodore Lokan stood, naked, in his kitchen. The bitter cold of the early morning air stabbed at his skin from all angles. He always missed his fur in the first few minutes after changing back. He missed many things about his other form, but he tried not to dwell on those thoughts. Doing so would make it harder to come back.

It would be so easy for him not to come back.

When he was a younger man, Teddy laughed at the folktales of old wolves throwing themselves into the wild. However, as he approached being two hundred years old, he could feel the weariness in his middle-aged body. The discomfort was worse. The hangover was worse. The loss of sensation and vigour was worse. If it wasn’t for Charlotte he might have given into the wild long ago.

“Thank you, you are always so considerate,” Teddy said, gripping the towel with a shaking hand. He padded the dew and sweat off his skin before pulling the pajama pants on one leg at a time.

“Did you get the acceptance email yet?” he asked, struggling to make small talk.

Charlotte cocked her head in confusion as she slid him a cup of coffee.

“Father, it’s four in the morning, I doubt Darkwood would be sending out emails at first light. Also, what did you mean by acceptance email”.

Her Father’s puzzlement played across his face.

He knew better than to try and make conversation after a change. Thoughts were jumbled as high level concepts such as time emerged more clearly from the feral haze of his shifted mind. With sickening, sudden clarity Teddy realised he had said too much. He had given the game away and prevented his daughter from experiencing the joy of discovering that she would soon be a student at the Darkwood Finishing School for the Magically Gifted.

Of course, Teddy had known for months that she would be accepted. He was a teacher at Darkwood, after all, and word of his daughter’s acceptance had reached his office pretty soon after her application was decided by the committee. Charlotte had shown him her application after the form was submitted, and he was both proud that his daughter had written such a stellar piece of work, and quietly ashamed that she could not come to him sooner. He would have guided her, offered her advice, shown her examples to improve her work. It would have been everything she hated, and was why she didn’t come to him.

She was, afterall, her mother’s daughter.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Charlotte, I guess I ruined the surprise,” Teddy said, searching cupboards for the Tylenol to soothe his pounding headache. Charlotte slid him the pack of painkillers she had placed on the kitchen island before he came home. “How long have you known I was accepted?”

Teddy grabbed a handful of pills and swallowed them with coffee. It was a monstrous dose, enough to kill a regular human. However, it barely took the edge off Teddy’s headache. His liver would cope. “About three months now. I tried my best to keep it all under wraps. But the change -”

“I know. You are scattered and tired the day after a change. It is just unfortunate that it happened last night. You did not mean to upset me”.

“But you are upset?”

Charlotte blinked at her father impassively. She hated the soft clicking sound her eyelids made when they shut over her dead eyes.

“I did not say that I was.” Teddy sighed deeply. It wasn’t the sigh of an exacerbated parent, but the noise of a man coming to terms with the fact he had accidentally hurt a person he loved.

“Charlotte, listen. You have every right to be mad at me right now. I know how much you wanted to do this on your own, and I screwed up the big reveal. Now, if you are being quiet just to punish me, then well played. This is the most cruel and unusual punishment. But it is okay to feel, and it is okay to express those feelings, especially to me. I’m your dad, I’m supposed to make things better for you.”

The tic of irritation crept along Charlotte’s neck. It forced the tiniest of twitches, but she was sure her father noticed. There was no point trying to shield her emotions from him.

“That is part of the issue, Father. All you do is make things better for me. Darkwood is the greatest finishing school for magical beings in the world. That is a fact. I would be the first Marionette to attend since the school was relocated to America, and that is a huge honour. But yet, I can not shake the feeling that my place was brought with your reputation.”

“Charlotte, I had nothing to do with the selection committee. Earning your place was all down to your own hard work. You did that, not me.”

“And you can be sure of that? Certain that the selection committee wasn’t fully aware that the application came from your daughter? There is no way they could reject my application, as it would risk offending their lead professor of Bestiary Studies. Besides, you read my work. My essay was marked with so many of your fingerprints that it would be easy to conclude that you had a hand in writing it.”

Teddy had read the essay. Moon Sick - an autoethnography of life with a shifter. It was a little reductive in places, and presented some hard truths that were difficult to swallow. However, the entire piece was well articulated and incredibly observant.

I would have feared my Father if I knew I could be broken. His tremendous strength and voracious appetite when shifted would have terrified anyone with a mortal lifespan. My only saving grace is that I am a Marionette. I do not smell alive, like prey; I am as inconsequential to him as a rock. How my mother coped without this knowledge is something I will never truly understand.

That passage had echoed in Teddy’s mind for three months. It sickened him to think that Charlotte had ever considered such thoughts. He always believed that he was in control of himself while shifted, but to see himself through her eyes in writing made him feel more like a monster than he ever had before. He wondered if she had always thought that, back before she created Charlotte.

“Oh, having my fingerprints on your work wouldn’t have helped. Professor Montague was on the panel, and he hates me. No, Charlotte if anything he would have recommended your selection just to spite me”. Teddy laughed at his own joke.

Charlotte continued to stare impassively.

The realization that he was only making things worse slowly dawned on Teddy. He had just admitted that his personal rivalry with Montague may have been the deciding factor for Charlotte’s selection. He had just completely minimised his daughter’s efforts to her face. Teddy felt like shit. He coughed once as his brain truly scrambled to save the situation. Something bubbled up out of the haze, and before he could assess if it was going to be helpful he spoke.

“Hey now, don’t look at me like that. If you are going to blame one of your parents for nepotism, blame your mother. Professor Hogarth and your mom were best friends when they attended Darkwood. They loved each other like sisters. In fact, Hogarth helped your mom design her first Marionette.”

“Her first?, do you mean my little body?”

“Shit”, Teddy thought. He was not handling conversation well today. If Charlotte thought he was a monster when he shifted into a werewolf, what would she think of him if she knew the truth about her mother. He didn’t like lying to his daughter, but sometimes the safest course of action was to obfuscate the truth.

“I mean - the first prototype body she created. Your mother was very talented at creating Marionettes, but she needed one to practice with before you were made. Professor Hogarth and your mom worked on that prototype together.”

“So, Professor Hogarth is like my aunt?”

Teddy laughed, hard. His muscles had not fully recovered from shifting back to human form, and the sudden heaving of his chest caused pain to fork like lightning through him. He did not care. It was nice to laugh. Charlotte’s straightforwardness just had a way of catching him so off guard that he could not help but laugh sometimes.

“Oh, I think Veronica would like that very much, to be your aunt. But, maybe don’t ask her too many questions about your mom. It’s still a sore subject for her. And it will be Professor Hogarth while you are at Darkwood, unless she says otherwise.”

Teddy drained his cup of coffee and put it on the side. Charlotte clucked in good natured annoyance, took the cup and placed it in the dishwasher.

“Mom was killed by witch hunters, right? That’s what you said. I don’t see why Professor Hogarth would still feel sore about it after twenty years.” she said, leaning into the dishwasher.

“Double shit”. That one wasn’t just a bending of the truth, it was an outright lie. He would have to think of something quickly to cover himself, and instruct Veronica on all his lies as soon as he could.

“Well, Veronica is a proud witch”, he said, “and your mom was part of her coven. Veronica still feels a lot of guilt over the fact that she couldn’t save your mom. And, to be fair, we all share that guilt. Now, sorry Charlotte, but I’m crashing out hard right now. I’m going to hit the hay before I keel over. Is that okay?”

“Certainly, Father. I know how exhausted you get after a long night of running free. IS there anything you would like me to do for you while you sleep?”Teddy scratched his jaw, while thinking. His stubble pricked at the skin of his fingers, reminding him that he needed to shave. The sensation of flesh on flesh gave him an idea, one he was sure Charlotte would like.”

“Tell you what, come wake me up at midday. I don’t want to sleep all day. Not when it’s supposed to be a great day for you. My little girl is getting into Darkwood. We need to celebrate, and I need to make it up to you that I ruined the surprise. So, how’s about you and I heading into town? I got a gift waiting for you that I know you’ll love.”

“A gift?” She asked, “and after, can we go for ice cream? I know I can’t taste it but I enjoy the atmosphere in the ice cream parlour.”

Her eyes sparkled for just a moment, and it melted Teddy’s heart to see her soul shine for a second.

“Anything for you, Charlotte,” Teddy said.

She clapped her hands once with joy, and her lips twitched into some version of a smile. Teddy smiled back before turning to head up to bed. It was in those small moments that he reminded himself that, while Charlotte was not human, she was still his little girl.