Omens Of A Bad Curse

Agatha

I stared out at the passing trees, the driver wasn’t very attentive to all the potholes, making it hard to focus on the pretty scenery. Empty forests, only a couple houses every mile or so. I clutched a letter in my hands. Stared for a moment too long before opening again the last I received from him.

‘It’s gloomy here, so bring some of the joy you have, and hold on to it, that gets lost here.’

And yet it didn’t frighten me. I came here by invitation, my family had received it and soon after I got contacted with someone from the academy, Riland.

We were skeptical, despite being a burden to my family for twenty years they didn’t want me to go.

The invitation made it sound like an academy to learn and grow but it was more like an observatory, that much I knew, but I chose this for myself.

Riland was straight forward with it - it was a place for people like us. For those who are too much for the real world, too much for the mundane. A place for the misfits that can’t speak of their abilities.

We came to a stop at a huge manor, the driver looked in the rearview mirror, silently. I figured he wouldn’t help me. I got out and got my suitcase and a bag. My parents told me they would send more stuff once I was sure I wanted to stay. I didn’t think they thought I would stay at all, my father was ready for my call five minutes from now, but I had always been scared of things, places and people. I had to change that. Maybe I chose to take this as some kind of challenge, maybe the dumbest decision I had made, not that all the rest have been that brilliant.

I walked up the stairs, the doors were wide open. I saw a shadowy figure standing on the staircase inside. I turned my head back to where the chauffeur was. “Are we at the right spot?” I asked but he was already gone, not even a car in my sight. And dead silence that made me paranoid.

I cleared out my throat and slowly stepped a foot into the ill lit space. “Hello. I was informed that everyone was aware of my arrival.” The manly figure on the stairs didn’t say anything. I didn’t even fully see him. “I’m Agatha Oak.” I said in echoed darkness.

I took a step forward and right then some footsteps approached from the side. “Oh, that is a rather happy color.” One young woman said, eyeing my bright yellow blouse. They lived in all black. Not a single color in sight. I felt like I had stepped into a funeral service.

More people came out all wearing the same moody colors. None of the girls seemed to wear any makeup either. I had some, and wanted to be pretty for my arrival. They all stood so tall and serious.

The shadowed man came down and it appeared that he was younger than he looked from afar, about in his mid twenties. But he also looked a lot angrier. “This is my son. He looks over this place alongside me.” Older woman came forward. Skirt to the floor, skinny with gray hair in a neat bun, so tight it looked like her cheeks were pulled up. Angry grimace at me, as she took a look at me. “I am Magda. The headmistress, the children call me mother.”

“Hardly any children here,” the woman, in her early twenties, said, pitch black hair in a high ponytail. “Maybe Gregory,” she pointed to a teen boy in a suit and jelled hair, he was dressed so classy but had pink fluffy ear muffs.

He came forward. Took my hand and kissed it. “Don’t be fooled by my boyish face. I’m the manliest in here,” he said flirting but I pulled my hand back awkwardly.

Magda came and put hand on his shoulder. “They are all my children here, no matter how old.”

She turned around looking at the shadowed man. “Only this one, my offspring by blood, all the rest by fate.”

“Silvester!” she spoke at him, he didn’t even care, turned on his heels and left upstairs, without a word, not caring, not bothered.

Not a hint of surprise, it seemed like he was always like this.

She pointed at the girl who spoke earlier. “Karla, you should get on well. The same age,” but she didn’t look very friendly, or even liking the idea of me, yet she kept staring at me.

“Nigel,” Magda pointed to a guy with dark brown hair. His face was very friendly looking, the most of all. He even smiled at me. “And Conrad,” she pointed next to him to a man who was smirking at Nigel, the crowd clown maybe. Blonde with sharp blue eyes. Then the man next, “Leny,” with light brown hair to his shoulders.

“Monica, here will show you to your room.” Magda said.

A girl came over and instantly her eyes shot to my bright colored blouse. “I’m Monica.” As we went up she leaned in for a whisper. “Happiness. That doesn’t last in here,” she scoffed. The same was said I received in my letters.

“Oh… I didn’t notice the rules about color,” I told her, having read through the sheet of the rules they sent me.

“There aren’t any, but the ones coming here know that it’s not a vacation. Anyhow me and Silvester will be by your side though the course,” she instructed.

“The course? Will we actually study? I thought this was just a live-in situation.”

She snarled a laugh. “Living is not the word I would use for this.”

“I was told this is the best for us?” The misfits who don’t belong in the real world. Descendants of a thousand year powerful beings with powers beyond our comprehension, only through generations the powers weaken and less and less of us are born.

“The best? No. This is the only spot for us. The only place where we can do what we please and no one disturbs us. The outsiders think we are a psyche house disguised as a living community.”

That’s why we didn’t belong in the real world. Those who opened their mouths about their abilities were quickly gotten rid of, to keep safe what was left of us. But truth be told we had little to no use for our abilities now. The wars of entities were long past, we were all but a figment of their future. Just humans living from paycheck to paycheck.

Us… we were not blessed with our powers, but cursed with having to bare them on our bodies. Useless talent we held.

“But you get to live with your own, no?” I tried to understand her skepticism to this place. When they invited me it all sounded so fitting for me.

“What is our own?” She asked rolling her eyes. “The ones who have been here from birth, all of us, we have never been our own. The rest who come here, don’t stay long. You won’t either.” she skeptically said and opened a door for me. My room.

I walked in, a nice, cozy room. Table, closet, a window to the field. “I might like it here,” but I wasn’t so sure, I already wanted to go back with that sinking feeling in me, but I didn’t tell her that.

“Not many even decide to come here,” she admitted. “They get the offer but at the last minute change their mind.”

“Are there many?” I asked, turned towards her. “Sighted. Like us?”

A heavy sigh from her. “There's enough of us, but most living in denial among humans.”

She sat down at the edge of my bed. “You are not like us Agatha, we already know. You have a good family, a life. So why are you here? Sure you have troubles among humans, what would that make you? Just a strange human. There are worse faiths.”

I stared out the window. Thinking of the things that led me here. “I am holding them back on a lot of things. My parents, they are normal, not like me.” My fathers side carried this illness I had, but he only got a hint of it while I was buried with it.

“So then leave, live alone somewhere in the middle of the woods,” Monica suggested.

I felt kind of relieved to talk to her about it. “I can’t live alone. I have this fear of something horrible always happening. Superstition that gets in my way.”

But what I didn’t tell her was that since arriving in this place that feeling had become stronger, I hoped it was just that I was nervous.

“Yes, I heard about it, your sight, your abilities. A premonition. But it must help in some cases, to know you are going the wrong way, or know someone is bad news, no?” She curiously asked.

“That’s the problem. Most of the time it’s hard to tell the difference. It kind of never stops.” Which made me struggle among humans.

“Fear?” She asked. I nodded and she asked again. “Of what?”

“Of something bad happening.”

Her eyes squinted. “Even now?”

Yes, very much, but I didn’t say it. “Not more than usual.”

After a long breath she stood up. “I’ll leave you to it. Magda says she will bring dinner to your room. She believes it is necessary for the first arrival to be at peace with yourself.”

I didn’t protest, felt like it was very considerate to not throw me with everyone right away.

I managed to remember to ask before she left. “What is your sight?” I asked.

She sweetly smiled. “I feel lies being told.” There was a sweet but wicked smile on her. She knew I lied to her about my fear of this place but didn’t say anything and left me to settle.

The evening didn’t drag as I kept on rearranging my few things until I was happy with it.

The dark had already set outside, my room was brightly lit but out of nowhere the door creaked open. There was pitch darkness in the corridor, and there that bad feeling rose up the more I stared at it.

Heart beating in my chest and breath quickening. It felt forced that I had to go and inspect. If I didn’t I wouldn’t sleep and it would only make me much more nervous.

I peeped my head outside and saw an open window at the far end, the drapes were swaying in the wind. I looked both ways, no one was there. I stepped into the darkness, with each step the fear in my chest increased. It was quiet and gloomy. My steps quickened.

I ran through the corridor and right around the corner slammed my body into something very bad. The bad feeling of my breath stopping and heart clenching. This was much stronger than what I had felt this whole day. The bad feeling didn’t come from this place, but from someone.

Silvester.