We do not understand failure on Labyrinth Gardens

The Post Owls of Sonora

March 22, 2014 11:30 AM

We do not understand failure by The Post Owls of Sonora

Athena was proud of her role as one of the post owls of Sonora. Whatever the journey, whatever the weight of the missive (the brief scribbled notes of thanks going out tended to be lighter fare than the hefty care packages coming in...), she made the delivery. And whatever the weather. That was a point of pride. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night would stay this courier from the swift completion of her appointed rounds.

Therefore, as she looked out of the owlery and saw strange purplish clouds swirling above the gardens, she was not in the least put off. True, the weather was unusual for the normally temperate Sonora but that was no cause to get one's feathers ruffled. Thus, when a missive was handed to her, she set off, as she always did, determined to deliver it.

Soon she was swamped on all sides by the purple fog but she remained calm. She wasn't a Sonoran post owl for nothing, and even without her sight to aid her, she knew where she was going. She had a keen sense of direction. If she just kept heading up and onward, she was sure she would break out of the storm soon enough. And lo, after an hour or so of steadily beating her wings, the clouds began to clear.

She could see her way again. And then a building loomed in front of her. An impossibly familiar building. But no... She had been flying North the whole time. She trusted her sense of direction more than her eyes, especially as her eyes were showing her something that could not be. She flew in at a window, finding herself beak to beak with a group of very familiar owls...

“Hoo?” she asked, disbelievingly. What place is this?

“Hoo-hoo,” chortled her companions. Why, Sonora of course. “Hoo-woo?” But what are you doing back here?

Athena clicked her beak irritably, relating her tale to them – how she had flown through the clouds and found herself turned around, in spite of heading constantly North. It was apparent that they did not believe her – an insult, given her years of flawless service – and she turned her back on them, feeling huffy but also humiliated. How could she have failed? However, as more owl were sent out, only to return disoriented an hour or so later, it became apparent that the fault was not Athena's. They could not get out.

13 The Post Owls of Sonora We do not understand failure 0 The Post Owls of Sonora 1 5

Malcolm Carey

March 24, 2014 1:23 AM

I think I should be careful what I almost wish for by Malcolm Carey

Mal had never been the type for becoming one with the groups he happened to find himself in, for getting deeply involved with the people around him, and so didn’t really think of himself as a Pecari in any meaningful way, but after three years, he had begun to feel comfortable in the Pecari dorms and common room, and around the Pecaris, even the ones he was distantly related to. He had never quite decided what he thought it meant, so many Careys being Sorted into the House – Theresa and Brandon had the excuse of being siblings, but he and Morgaine were only a little more closely related to each other than they were to Brandon and Theresa – but expected that the rest of the family would not like it if he ever did.

If not for the tendency, back then, for North Carolina Careys to end up murdered, he sometimes thought he might have almost wished he’d been born back in the bad old days, when they either hadn’t worried so much about being respectable or else just hadn’t been able to control themselves enough for worrying about it to change anything. Life would still have never been as spontaneous as it was in a lot of the Pecari common room, but at the very least, it would have been a bit less unendingly, stiflingly boring.

However, considering that he still worried, sort of, in the back of his mind about being murdered before he was old enough to get to the really boring part of life, he guessed overall that constant boredom was not such a high price to pay. That was thought going through his head when he stepped out of the common room, past the suit of armor, and noticed that the air looked…strange.

The sky looked even stranger. Mal craned his neck, looking up at the swirling clouds, then had to move quickly when he realized someone else was trying to get out behind him.

“Sorry,” he said, stepping out of the way. “The weather…looks funny today. Hope we’re not outside at all.” He squinted at the clouds again, trying to think if he’d ever seen them quite that color, moving quite that way, before. He spent a lot of time, at home and sometimes even here, lying on his back looking at the sky, just to get out of his head for a while, and he couldn’t remember seeing anything like this before. Not even right before a thunderstorm, or during one, the time he’d snuck out of his room at home just to prove he could, and had spent the next week debating with himself whether the forty minutes of feeling really alive had been worth the bronchitis he’d gotten from the adventure. “Great note to get a year started on, isn’t it?” he added dryly. It was one thing to want to be rained on, but another altogether to not be able to avoid it because someone had thought it was a bright idea to build the common room outdoors.

Looking around, his eyes fell on an intersection and he frowned at the sight of two prairie elves crossing paths. Typical, he thought, now that one of the hated Brockerts was in charge of the school - he couldn't even control his elves, keep them decently out of sight. He kept, however, this observation to himself. Some people would take it the wrong way, and even those who would not could never know how much he despised that family - not yet, anyway.

0 Malcolm Carey I think I should be careful what I almost wish for 256 Malcolm Carey 0 5

Chloe Jareau

March 24, 2014 8:03 PM

But it's so fun to wish! by Chloe Jareau

Chloe had thrown on a new skirt and an old tee shirt when she had gotten out of the shower that morning. Her mother and her had done some shopping over the summer and Chloe had made the conscious decision to dress more like a girl. Her mother was quite happy by this and made a girls’ day, with Ayita, go give Chloe a makeover. She wasn’t completely there yet, she had started to like wearing skirts, but dresses were still not a concept she was ready for except to look super pretty at a party. Maybe, there would be a day when she could feel comfortable in a dress, but not at thirteen. She still wore her sneakers with her skirts and tee-shirts instead of blouses, but her mother said it was her own style and that was what mattered.

Her long blonde hair was braided into an upside down braid with a bun at the top of her head. It was an easy and fun way for her to not have to really try to make her hair look pretty and it kept her hair out of her face for her first day back to classes. Although she hadn’t quite made it into the realm of makeup, she had started to wear flavored lip gloss. This might prove more of a problem as she often found herself licking her lips after she put it on. Mid-way of trying to put on her lip gloss and get out of the door, Chloe realized she was blocked and nearly tripped on her own feet trying to stop herself from knocking into the person and ended up getting gloss on her cheek.

“Oh, that’s alri-whoa!” Chloe stopped mid-sentence as she had stepped outside and seen the sky for the first time. “Mom is going to freak when I write to her about this.” Chloe commented. Her blue eyes stuck on the clouds. She was a mixture of amusement, excitement, and bewilderment by the color in the sky. Even morning dawn wasn’t like this. She finally looked away from the sky and to Malcolm. In an unreasonably excited voice, Chloe asked, “Do you think the air is poisoned?” She said it with a gleeful smile which Malcolm could take whatever meaning he wanted from it. Chloe’s thoughts behind her question wasn’t actually malicious or excited at the idea of something dreadful happening, but just at the idea of the story that would come from it.

“Probably not though, since we seem alright.” She answered her own question, looking somber as she started walking again. “It certainly is a strange way to start the term.” Chloe said, finally answering his question. Chloe was certain that only Emery and Ji-Eun had grown used to how did reacted to things. She talked herself into silence and then answered questions when they finally made their way through her endless thoughts to register with her. “I found an house-elf in my trunk this morning. Nearly dropped dead from fright. “ That was the weirdest moment in her life, but also pretty funny. Evening remembering it now, she giggled to herself. “How’ve you been, Malcolm?”

6 Chloe Jareau But it's so fun to wish! 267 Chloe Jareau 0 5

Mal Carey

March 25, 2014 6:56 PM

I always found it kind of depressing, myself by Mal Carey

The sight of Chloe Jareau in a skirt – admittedly, combined with her other garments in a way which he thought might be nearly on a level with Charlie Longname’s mid-level outfits, but a skirt – and with a streak of something he would call a misplaced cosmetic on her cheek if he had to guess was not as surprising as the sight of the sky today, but it was still not quite what he was used to from her. He thought she’d looked better in some of the trousers, but since this fell squarely into the category of things that weren’t his business and he didn’t feel the payoff from bringing it up anyway would be worth the risk of getting slapped over, he kept that observation to himself, too. Besides, he had more to be taken aback by than how Chloe was dressed; she thought, as he hadn’t, of the possibility that the air was poisoned, and seemed utterly excited by that chance.

Clearly, Chloe was more interesting than he had realized.

“We are,” he agreed. “If you wanted to grab a random person – “ maybe his future brother-in-law, that would be entertaining – “and lock them out, we could test it, though….”

He said it lightly, a joke, with a thin smile which faded when Chloe mentioned a house-elf in her trunk. “Really? They go through our things?” he asked, alarmed, though he knew it was irrational. His trunk was full of nothing but boring things, almost all directly off the list he had been sent for fourth year. He didn’t, however, like the thought of them being rifled through without his permission.

He shrugged at the question about his well-being, still rattled by the thought of the elves going through his trunk while he slept, or while he was going about his business during the day, and making plans to burn every letter his mother sent this year as soon as he skimmed it enough to figure out what he needed to placate her over this time. His mother’s letters made him too sick to his stomach, as he slid into a nasty place somewhere between anxiety and rage, when he looked over them and imagined her voice intoning the phrases, to read them fully; he didn’t like mail anyway, but his mother was the worst, and got worse every year. Or maybe his tolerance for her was just dwindling as he got older. He didn’t know and didn’t care, but didn’t want to think of anyone else reading the things much more than he wanted to read them himself.

“Well enough,” he said. “No family reunion this summer, thank all merciful entities. I spent time with my brother, though.” Andrew looked startlingly like the few pictures of their same-named father now, something which Mal found irritating. He also felt like a stranger after three years away, which was worse; Mal had never been attached to him, he was not a thing Mal saw as his own the way Lu was, but Mother had explained to him early in life that it was important for Andrew to fear him, since Andrew was the person in the world with the most motive to kill him when they grew up. The terms of Father’s will had been so specific, in their attempt to keep Mother from cheating Mal’s half-sister Amber, that Andrew would most likely get nothing at all. Great-Grandfather had died for less. At least Andrew seemed almost like he wanted to be friends, now, but someday…already Andrew could probably hit harder than he could, Mal had never been strong, and there was no reason to suppose he was a Squib, either. Mal could only hope his brother proved one of those odd, soft, nice peculiarities the family sometimes managed to produce in spite of itself, or at least that the family’s progress toward civilization moved quickly enough in the next ten years that the cost wouldn’t be worth the reward by the time his brother was old enough to think of it.

“And you? Glad or sorry not to be the Headmistress’ daughter anymore?” he asked, curious about that. He would have guessed there was a balance in that, good to bad, perks to disadvantages.

0 Mal Carey I always found it kind of depressing, myself 0 Mal Carey 0 5

Chloe

March 26, 2014 9:14 PM

Why? Wishes are AMAZING! by Chloe

Chloe giggled at Malcolm’s suggestion. “I doubt that’ll work. Everyone has been coming in and out already; I think we would have already heard if it was poisoned.” She had really been hoping for a really good story to write home to her mother about. Purple clouds was one thing, but this was a magical school and it was quite possible that someone just messed up a spell they were working on and it somehow changed the color of the clouds. If they really had been poisoned, the school would be full of lawsuits and no one would ever want to come here anymore.

Amusement remained on Chloe’s face when Malcolm seemed perturbed by the elf found in her trunk. “Not usually. They aren’t thieves, it’s not in their nature.” Chloe stated to reassure him. “If they are looking through trunks, I’m going to assume it’s under the Headmaster’s instructions. He seems the type, doesn’t he?” Chloe probably shouldn’t say negative things about the Headmaster. He was from one of those families, one like her father’s and biological mother’s, that used their power to put people in misery. “Emery says that he reminds him of what a grumpy neighbor would be like. The sort in stories you know, who yell ‘Get off my lawn!’ to the kids. I can totally see it.” She giggled again, thinking about the Headmaster in a bathroom shouting at the children and shaking his fist at them with a rolled up newspaper in it.

The way Malcolm commented regarding both the family reunion not happening and having to spend time with his brother, it seemed that neither of these things were enjoyable (the reunion, not the fact that it hadn’t happened). Chloe loved spending time with her siblings; having been an only child until she was roughly eight and then suddenly having a house full of siblings was like a dream come true. She had loved her father dearly, but he worked a lot and Chloe liked to have a mother and sisters, even if Harper was annoying at times. As for the reunion… she had no idea how those things worked. Her father’s family never spoke to him after he had come home with a baby and no wife to speak of. When Chloe had asked about them once, her father said it was better to have family you aren’t related to than ones that you are related to and whom chose to throw you away because they don’t like the choices you made. As a teenager, she understood it now that they hadn’t wanted her, so they kicked them out of their lives. As for her biological mother, if she was still alive, Chloe wasn’t sure she would be happy for a reunion with her or her family. “Do you not like hanging out with your brother?” She asked him, mostly to know where he stood with that and also to make conversation.

“A little bit of both, I guess.” Chloe commented. “I never really minded my mom being the Headmistress and no one ever seemed to be bothered by it either. I was proud of it, really. She worked hard to keep the school running smoothly.” Chloe would always remain proud of her parents. They provided a very good life for her and her siblings. They had given homes and families to Ayita and Angel when they could have looked the other way or put them into foster homes. They were the best people she had ever known. “I’ll miss her though. It was nice to go to her office when I was having a bad day or teach me how to do my hair. Now that her and Ayita are gone, Ji-Eun will have to deal with me more.” Chloe said that last part with a teasing grin.

“Of course, Ji-Eun’s brother is here now… I wonder if that means I have to share her?” It was more of a question for herself than for Malcolm to answer, but it would stick with her until she felt out the whole brother thing. “Oh, did you have any more relatives come this year? You have like a million relatives. Not that you seem pleased by this if you hate the reunions so much.”

6 Chloe Why? Wishes are AMAZING! 0 Chloe 0 5

Mal

March 28, 2014 12:09 AM

Except when they don't come true by Mal

“True,” Mal said, with a theatrical sigh, when Chloe pointed out that the Pecaris who’d come out before they did would be dead already if the clouds were poisonous. "Though there is a bright side, I suppose. We aren't currently being poisoned if that's so." Which was a pretty bright side, in his opinion. He didn't really feel like being poisoned and dying today.

“I wish I couldn’t,” he muttered when Chloe shared her vision of Brockert shouting at them and having their things gone through. “Aren’t there laws about going through people’s private things without their permission if you don’t have a reason to think they’ve got anything illegal?” Mal himself, of course, had gone through a lot of things in his life that he wasn’t supposed to, at home at least, but he thought there was a major difference between him doing that in his own home and the headmaster of his school doing it to him. He was fourteen and had to find out about things however he could. Brockert no doubt had all his relatives reporting on them already – it was what any Carey would have done if he or she had succeeded in taking over the school, Mal was sure – and so did not really need the extra information.

“Not that I have anything he can’t see if he wants,” he added. “But it’s the principle of the thing.”

He shrugged over Andrew. “It’s nothing like that – “ yet – “we’re just not close. He’s a lot younger than us. He’ll follow me around, sometimes, if his – er, we don’t have the same one – his mother lets him, but usually we’re with different tutors when I’m at home at all. I support his efforts to get the family to call him by his real name, but that’s about as much as we have in common.”

He had always called Andrew just ‘Andrew,’ but most of the family still tried to call him ‘Baby,’ a nickname from when he had been a baby and it had been even less useful to be called Andrew Edwin Carey, Jr. than it was now. Mal had wondered, at one point, if his brother would end up dubbed ‘Ed,’ since Great-Grandfather was more respectable than Father had ever been, but Edmond made that a problem, too, even from afar; no one knew what he’d be like if he lived long enough to settle back down in the country and take up his responsibilities, but his family had enough madness in it that no one wanted to be too associated with him.

“Most likely,” he advised her about Ji-Eun. “I’m half-surprised my sister isn’t out here making sure I’m not poisoned,” he added lightly, as much to show he was on good terms with one of his siblings – his only real, full sibling – as anything.

“I don’t hate my relatives that much,” he objected mildly. “Just family reunions. There’s about a hundred people there – I’m not exaggerating – and it’s in Virginia, so you don’t have any of your things for a week and no space, either, half of the people there hate each other, and by the next time, I’ll probably be expected to sit around and listen to all the boring political stuff, though they won’t let me say anything yet.” Morgaine spoke for him – the woman his mother said had killed his father, for all that the public record said Father had killed himself, and who everyone knew had killed her own father and sister. Everyone who was a Carey, anyway. Sometimes Mal was amazed he had lived this long, all things considered. “It’s dreadful. But I’m not related to anyone in first year, as far as I know, though I'm not the best with the family trees.”

0 Mal Except when they don't come true 0 Mal 0 5

Chloe

April 02, 2014 7:21 PM

Just have to work harder for them! by Chloe

“Yes that is a bright side.” Chloe agreed enthusiastically. She was only thirteen after all and wasn’t nearly ready to meet the end. Besides, that would just tear everything a part and Chloe would haunt this world out of guilt for leaving it so young. What fun was that?

Chloe looked at him for a moment, “Is that not funny to you? An old grumpy man?” Chloe asked him. Chloe lived in a neighborhood full of families, so if there were old people there she was oblivious to them. The only old man she was around was her maternal grandmother’s husband, Walter. He was not grumpy in the slightest. She supposed that’s why her grandmother got on so well with him. “I’m not sure if the school runs on the same law as everywhere else or if the Headmaster would even care about the law anyway.” She had heard things about some of the Pureblood families, including the Careys. She didn’t know if they were true being that it didn’t matter one way or another to her. She wasn’t someone they considered on their level, so what they did never really affected her, not yet anyway. But, if what she heard was accurate, the laws were trivial to them.

She giggled when Mal added his comment, “Oh sure, you probably have some pervy magazine you don’t want anyone to find.” Chloe joked. Most of her friends were boys back home. She was not naïve to what they did or what they liked. If Mal was into that sort of thing, it was no bother to her just as Ji-Eun’s KPOP interest wasn’t. “Just kidding!” She added with a large smile so that Mal didn’t get offended or huffy with any sort of implication to what he did on his down time. They were Pecaris though and that meant they did unsavory things.

“Oh, it’s like my little sister, Harper. She likes to tag along all the time. And we don’t have the same mother either.” She added cheekily. “What do you mean ‘real name’? What do they call him then?” Chloe’s name was too short to have a nickname of any sort, but she knew people who felt they were too ‘old’ to be called by a shortened version of their name. But, even a nickname was a ‘real’ name in her opinion.

Chloe pulled a face when Malcolm admitted she would likely have to share her friend. Having siblings, Chloe understood sharing, but she didn’t like it. “Is she a worry wart?” Chloe asked, mostly curious. “I don’t think it would occur to Emery to worry about me. It’s not that he doesn’t care or anything, it’s just not how we are.” Probably because they were busy worrying about their other sibling. They just expected the others to be safe and alright.

“Whoa! I was right, your family is huge!” Chloe exclaimed. “I have nine. Nine family members. Nine.” Her parents, her siblings, her Grandmother and Walter. “I mean, I’m sure I have tons more, but since my dad’s family booted him because I was born and my bio mom decided she didn’t want me either, it’s just the nine. It’s a reunion every dinner at home!” She added with a laugh. “I think a hundred would be so overwhelming. No wonder you don’t like them.” Chloe commented. A part of her wondered what it would be like to have all those relatives, people for her to connect to and learn about, but the other part of her was happy with her small little family of nine.

“So, what do you think caused the clouds to turn purple?” Chloe asked, her eyes returning to the sky above them. “I mean, it’s not normal at all. They don’t look like storm clouds, but then, I’ve never been in a hurricane or tornado or anything like that and I know those things don’t happen in the desert, so maybe some other freak anomaly?” Chloe was speed talking again as the thoughts rolled through her and her mouth seemed desperate to get them all out. “Ooooh, maybe it’s some sort of game that the staff have planned? Mom said that a couple of years ago they had all the students do challenges… were you here for that? If they did it again and on the first day have them started, that would be wicked fun.”

6 Chloe Just have to work harder for them! 0 Chloe 0 5

Mal

April 07, 2014 1:22 AM

I'd rather be lazy, though by Mal

Mal thought for a minute about grumpy old men. “I…well, sometimes, but not if he’s going through my things,” he said. “Should I?”

He’d never been, he thought, very good at finding the right things funny, and he didn’t see the humor of this one. Brockert not being able to control his elves, something a five-year-old ought to have learned how to do, was funny, but Brockert ordering them to go through Mal’s things was not. That was rude, and Mal thought he was entitled to a certain degree of politeness from the headmaster. He didn’t express his thoughts on Brockert or his family, did he?

He did not, and if it was only because he knew they would take exception to that opinion and that the family would let the ones here beat him a little if they wanted in retaliation for his doing something so stupid so long as they did not do so in front of anyone else, that was no business of Brockert’s. He had rights. If they were going through Lucille’s things, too….well, he could do nothing, Evan could probably thrash him and could surely have the other seventh years do it if he could not, but the family might think differently about it, then. The Careys expected their girls, or most of them, anyway, to be treated with a degree of respect by the families they allied themselves with, and more than that, implying Lucille might possess something she should not implied that Morgaine had given them goods of uncertain quality. That was an insult to Morgaine, probably, and the Little Empress was supposed to be very touchy about supposed insults or doubts about her authority. If she persuaded the family to make them howl for the insult, he might even forgive her for thinking she could give away what belonged to him.

He did laugh, though, at the idea of his trunk hiding dirty magazines. “I admit nothing and deny any knowledge of things I might be offended over,” he said. “As my mother’s most annoying attorney might say,” he added.

If he had the chance, he might buy such magazines, but only because the day he had a chance to go into any store and buy what he wanted would already be a day when he had enough power to safely offend his mother, who would no doubt have a screaming fit if she ever saw him with anything like that. Right now, though, she could start treating him the way she’d often treated Lu before Brockert happened, if she really wanted to, once she got over the screaming fit, and she never allowed him enough autonomy to buy anything she might not approve of anyway. Sometimes, he thought he was lucky she didn’t put an actual collar on his neck and walk him around on a short leash when they went out in public, just to be surer than ever that he wouldn’t have contact with any influences she wouldn’t like, and he was sure she had gotten steadily worse since Lucille came to Sonora, worried about them meeting people who might tempt their bad blood to come out, who might make them turn out like their father had.

“He’s called Baby,” Mal said about his brother. “But his name is Andrew.” His fingers played with the clasp of his robe for a moment. “It was our father’s name, too, but Andrew and me, we don’t even remember him, so it doesn’t bother us, see? But Lu and Stepmother get weepy if they talk about him much, and goodness knows that name does nothing for Mother’s temper.” He shrugged. “Which is really a good reason for me to tell him to cut it out, but it’s not his fault Stepmother was far enough out of her mind to think it was a good idea to name him that right after Father died, and he’s well past being a baby, I mean, he can read already, for goodness’ sake….”

Lucille warranted a shrug. “Really she just likes fussing over people,” he said. He decided against mentioning the fact that Mother, at least, was likely to take it out on her if anything did happen to him. “I think, anyway.”

He nodded about the family reunions being overwhelming, trying to imagine having only nine family members. What kind of network could you build from just nine people, at least in these days? In the day, the second Anthony had done it with about as many, but there hadn’t even been a country here then, never mind three hundred years of established networks to contend with. He didn’t mention that either, though, when she changed the subject to the weather.

“I have no idea,” he said. He was confident, from what he did know about weather at home, anyway, that they weren’t going to have a tornado, but Chloe was talking too fast for him to get a word in edgewise about that. “I was in first year, last time, but it didn’t start anything like this,” he said slowly. “It started with lists in the Hall, mixed-House teams - I was under one of my half-crazy Aladren cousins, Arnold's twin - and a lot of people weren’t happy about theirs, though, so maybe they’re playing us by House this time?” He reached into his pocket. “If it is like that, best have your wand ready,” he said matter-of-factly, remembering well how some of the challenges had been.

0 Mal I'd rather be lazy, though 0 Mal 0 5

Chloe

April 15, 2014 10:12 PM

But you're young! You can be lazy when you're dead. by Chloe

“Um…yeaaah.” Chloe stated as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Besides, you can’t take the searching personally since he’s doing it to everyone. It’s not like you were singled out.” She commented. Chloe didn’t have anything in her trunk or drawers to hide. Just clothing and some hobbies. Nothing that would make her look strange or suspicious in any way. Did that mean that she liked the idea of the elves going through her things? Of course not. But she had nothing to hide, so it didn’t bother her as much as it probably would some others.

“Anyway, I’m sure if the students aren’t liking this way of running the school, parents would be told and if consent was not given, the board will get tons of complaints and that’ll look poorly on the Headmaster.” Chloe commented. She could remember sitting in her mother’s office while her mother was busy going through mail. There was always a letter from one unhappy parent. Always. Her mother never said much about it in front of Chloe, other than, ‘you can never make anyone happy and you’ll only make yourself unhappy if you tried’. Chloe had to wonder if the new Headmaster cared about attempting to at least try to make anyone other than himself happy.

Chloe made a face at the nickname for his brother. What a strange nickname. She used to call Harper, Baby. Like ‘Hi Baby’ while making cooing sounds at her. But that was when she was an actual baby and could only she shapes and colors. As soon as Harper could hold her own head up, Chloe was used to calling her by her name. She tried to hide the face she made when he explained that his brother’s true name was that of his dead father’s. Chloe could understand it being difficult to call someone by the name of a dead relative, most definitely her own father. But Baby?

“Why not call him by his middle name?” Chloe asked. “I mean, you do have middle names, right?” She had discovered that not everyone was provided a middle name at birth while others were provided with several middle names. She wasn’t sure how Pureblood families worked. Chloe did have a middle name though, but she wasn’t really sure where it came from. She knew Emery’s was after her mother’s father and Harper’s was her grandmother’s name. She didn’t know if Ayita had one and Angel’s was just cruel.

Chloe couldn’t imagine being called by a different name. Chloe was too short for a nickname and she just couldn’t answer to Elizabeth. Too proper. But she certainly didn’t blame Malcolm’s brother for wanting to be called by a name other than Baby.

She listened to him for a moment while he talked about the last time they had the challenges. She had no idea who Arnold was, although the name sounded vaguely familiar, but that could be because Arnold was also the name to one of Emery’s roommates. She also didn’t know who Arnold’s twin was or why he was crazy. Following his lead, she reached into her satchel and pulled out her wand. “Why were people not happy about the challenge teams? And why is your cousin half-crazy?” Chloe didn’t think House teams were going to be just as well liked as teams chosen for them. She, personally, only knew about all of three people in her house that she didn’t think minded her being around. Not all that fun of a time.

6 Chloe But you're young! You can be lazy when you're dead. 0 Chloe 0 5