Teacher's · Desk

Calpurnia was spending a lot of time in the coven library. Now that the Crumrins had pointed out the oddness in the fields, she couldn't not notice, and it bothered her. She was compiling lists: spells that tapped that much power, spells that involved the night things, and recorded fluctiations in the mana levels throughout the past.

The correlations were disturbing. Spells for raising the dead, spells for summoning things from beyond the world, and an incident involving a family of sorcerors that had got wrapped up in something dark enough that they were expelled from the community. The details of the last were vague...she was sure there would be a proper record somewhere, but it smelled like something that was kept locked in the High Councilman's desk.

((It is High Councilman, isn't it? Aaah! Cannot check at work! O_o))

Courtney will get a phone call. It's Ms. Crisp.

"Courtney, I think I've found the missing link, and he's an old friend of yours. Meet us at the big rock between your house and the playground after dusk. Bring any sweet cakes you've got, the junkier the better."

((Unless you've already started interrogating our furry little friend, in which case can Ms. Crisp meet up later?))

It had been a long day for Calpurnia Crisp. They often were. Attempting to instill an appreciation of the English language and other subjects from 9 to 5, and then three more hours of "special extracurricular studies for the gifted." Among whom was one Courtney Crumrin. Gifted indeed, this girl, and also mischevious, precocious, frustrating and inspiring, but never boring.

Or at least, she had not been up until about a week ago. Since then, Courtney had been distracted and listless, barely paying attention to lessons and unresponsive enough that the teasing from the other students, usually nipped in the bud with a sarcastic quip, had gotten out of hand. In their own way, the rest of the class was trying to shake Courtney back into her usual self, and frankly Ms. Crisp would have been fine with that, but today things had escalated to the point where she had had to step in and send two children to the office. She'd already called their parents and dealt with the prerequisite outrage. Now it was time to address the other side of the problem.

It was about 7:45, just after most families would be finishing dinner, when Ms. Crisp walked up to the Crumrin house and rang the doorbell.

Well. I am awake again.

I assume this is an improvement.