The source of our problems on Sonora Lounges

Selina Skies

January 30, 2021 7:03 AM

The source of our problems by Selina Skies

Several of the staff or students had worked it out, it seemed, though Tarquin had been the one to come and break the news to her. He knew that memory would be a touchy subject. He couldn’t have predicted quite how devastating the revelation would be – that the silver lining of knowing, finally, what was going on was going to be overshadowed by the realisation that it was all her fault.

That had been in private, and she had done her best to get as many of her feelings out of her system as she could, even if it right now she felt like a flooding in room in which the source of the deluge had not been shut off – you could bail out some of the water, but the empty space remained for precious little time before fresh waves of feeling came to refill it. Thus, she was only ‘more or less composed’ as she called the staff meeting to order.

“As most of you know by now, the things we’ve been seeing around the school are memories,” she began, wondering if they could all hear that her voice was not quite as steady as it should have been. “That also tells me exactly why this has been happening. At the start of the year, I brought a damaged Penseive into the school. I was trying to repair it…” Her voice trailed off, unsure what else to say about that. That it was a personal project? Did that make it better or worse? She should have just handed it over to an expert but she had wanted to do it herself because it had been for her brother. She wasn’t about to play Leo like a sympathy card though, and so all that meant was that her personal life affected all of them negatively. It hadn’t held anything, when she had first got it. The memories she’d poured in had slipped through the cracks, and she had tried and tried everything she could to strengthen it… Apparently, she had succeeded a little too well.

“I’m sorry,” she stated in a very small voice, apologising to the balled up fists in her lap. She wasn’t sure which of them she could look at right now. Killian and Mary, who would be full of sympathy – and Killian especially would likely be piecing together more than anyone else about why she’d had this particular project in mind. Osvaldo was a stranger who she didn’t want to share her grief with. Katey, who she had felt looked up to her. Tabitha, who had only just started to trust her. Giselle, who had arrived at the same time as all this, and who she was sure had been suspected by more than one person of having something to do with it. Isis, Lawrence and Grayson were the most neutral, and Nathan was the kindest, and she couldn’t face the thought of meeting any of their eyes because if she did and they, the people who were neutral and good, were found wanting in their estimations of her all of a sudden, what could she expect to find in the rest of them? Mortimer was obviously out of the question. She was supposed to answer to him and she had no idea what she could say that would make this any better.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she repeated. And she would have to say it again, to the students, and then none of them would ever trust her again, and the owls would start coming in from parents and- her hands left her lap to support her head as it drooped further, and to cover her eyes even though that couldn’t hide the fact that she had burst into tears.

13 Selina Skies The source of our problems 26 1 5

Giselle Duell

January 31, 2021 6:09 PM

As it had been foretold... by Giselle Duell

Giselle's investigations into the phenomenons happening around school had been frustrating to say the least. She had investigated the planetary alignments for the dates and times when the apperations had appeared, at least the ones they knew about, and couldn't find any sort of common ground in that area. She'd been through her cards more times than she could count, asking every relevant question she could think of, only to get seemingly random answers. The only common thread there that cropped up was some tendency towards 'the past'. She'd tried focusing on her hallway encounter while drinking tea, but that hadn't worked any better than her cards. Finally in abject frustration she pulled out her crystal ball and assaulted it with every trick she'd ever tried to make it work for her in the past. Naturally nothing.

So when she had received notice that Professor Skies was going to hold a staff meeting about the situation, she was both eager to hear anything more about the situation that might give her a lead but also frustrated that she still had nothing to offer. Some divinations expert she was turning out to be. Would they even want her to keep teaching next year? That final final unit she'd put off until the end was still weighing heavily on her. The crystal ball unit had not gone great, why would they want to continue to employ a teacher who couldn't even teach their own class properly? She sighed to herself, opened the door and took a seat.

Memories? Shock, realization and shame all ran through Giselle as Selina explained the situation. As always when dealing with these mysteries everything now made perfect sense. All of the hints and clues that just wouldn't fit together before, now formed a perfect picture. One that she hadn't been able to see... nothing new there. She was useless, just like Lia had always said.

Memories. She just hadn't been asking the right questions. The clues she'd gotten about the one in her class 'birthday' and 'past'. The cards had been trying to tell her someone, probably one of the muggleborn, had been remembering a birthday party they had had. The one out in the hallway had just been someone remembering a terrifying wizard battle they'd.. been.. in....

That wasn't good. Her mind raced for a moment to recall what her cards had indicated about that incident. 'Fighting' and 'Darkness' hadn't been helpful... 'Maiden'? Had that been the source? Had this been a young girl's memory? It had been in German, what young German girl would frequent the hallway outside her office? Johana Leonie Zauberhexen, she was in her intermediate class. Was the girl in some sort of trouble? Should she say something? Would she have liked someone... well, the right person, to have talked to her? Yes, even now her therapy sessions were helping.

"What are we planning on doing now?" She asked to start the ball rolling in people's minds, then she suddenly realized that this was the first response anyone had given to Professor's Skies repeated apologies of the situation of the whole. Should she had addressed that? She had no idea how, so that was maybe better left to others. She blushed a bit in embarrassment, cringed and moved onward. "Ms. Alperton and I experienced a wizard battle. If this was someone's memory, then some of my own investigations into it indicates that it's source was that of a young girl." She paused a moment, "Since it was in German, I feel that narrows the field quite a bit and that it happened outside my classroom..." her words trailed off as she tried to figure out which ones should come out next. "Should someone," hopefully making it clear that she did not consider herself the right person for the job, "try to talk to Ms. Zauberhexen about this?"

2 Giselle Duell As it had been foretold... 1517 0 5