Chapter 4- Wicked Forest

The school hallway must have been designed by a manic-depressive person, either that or someone obsessed with grey. It was dull and boring. Even the doors were painted in the same shade. The teachers had done their bit, hanging posters in primary colours, yet the overall impression was of drabness. It held no colour or light. Crystal longed to paint the doors bright colours giving the place a cheerier look. A glass dome roof would be nice with flowers reaching for the light. Perhaps a splash of colour on the walls, any bit of colour would do wonders for the drab place.
Bump. Crystal flew into the prison-hued wall, and then crashed to the floor. Standing still for too long was never a great idea. Not in a corridor full of boisterous teens.
Crystal was a day dreamer, with a creative mind.
Those two things never bode well and often landed her in trouble. A girl with long blond hair, which shined like silk sneered down at her and Crystal’s breath caught in her throat. Maria O’Conner, the queen bee. She wore tight clothing and had a perfectly painted face. Crystal looked into the girl’s grey-blue stony eyes and felt her face set like rigor mortise, her teeth locked up tight.
She had peed-off the popular girl before the school day had even started. The girl smiled at Crystal, with a smile that never meant good things. It was more of a sneer giving her an animal like look.
“Watch where you’re going freak,” Maria said, and Crystal looked at the floor. She didn’t want to provoke the girl but could feel the beginnings of anger stir in their hidden depths. Not making eye contact was a good start to keep her anger in check, yet that was something Crystal couldn’t do. She wouldn’t give the girl any reason to think she was scared of her. Raising her eyes from the ground she locked them on Maria’s.
“Look at her, on the floor where dogs belong,” Maria mocked to her followers who had joined her to see what the commotion was about. The smug smile she wore only made Crystal want to knock it off her pretty face.
Crystal stood on shaky legs, not from fear but anger. She had to be careful, yet all reasonable thought was fading. Her magic and anger didn’t do well mixed together and she needed to rein it in, before she caused a scene that couldn’t be explained. One that could expose her for what she really was.
She clenched her hands into fists and looked Maria in the eyes. “Better than being plastic,” Crystal said, brushing her shoulder hard against Maria’s as she pushed past. It was the key to dealing with girls like her. Never show them fear, stand up to them and hold eye contact. They hated it. Being challenged wasn’t something they were used too, and Crystal smirked as she saw the shock in Maria’s eyes. She was uncomfortable with the way Crystal had reacted and it showed.
The piercing sound of the bell vibrated around the corridor. The deafening noise was enough to break the crowd up that had gathered around Crystal.
She made her way to first period. History. She hated the class.
Not only did she have to attend history at school but also within her community. What her mother called real history. However, school history class and that of the community had become confusing; they mixed together in her mind leaving behind a jumbled mess.
On and on the teacher droned about some guy who had long since been buried. Why didn’t they just leave the dead alone? What happened to rest in peace and the past is the past? It wasn’t like she was interested in what happened before she was born. It was the past and should stay that way. Instead, people had ways of digging up the past, more often than not, it just caused problems.
Crystal let her mind wonder back to the forest. She was sure that someone had been there. However, looking back now she thought it was just her imagination. The never-ending warnings from her parents and the elders had just mingled with reality. Causing her to be afraid when there was nothing to be afraid of, she decided at once she would return to the forest and rid herself of the unwanted fear. It was her special place. She couldn’t let her emotions run wild, all that ever did was create a path for more intense feelings to worm their way in.
When the bell rang signalling the end of class, Crystal knocked her chair over in her haste to get out of the room. Picking her chair up, she joined the throng of students and exited the classroom. Her next lesson was math. She groaned out loud as she dragged her feet down the corridor. Her legs felt heavy as she made her way to the second floor. She thought about ditching, her brain screamed at her to just get out of the hellhole. Instead, she had to force herself to take each step. Math’s was another class she could have done without. The numbers and equations were like another language to her. How on earth did letters make it into equations? How was she supposed to know what Y equalled? It was just another way for adults to torture her. That she was sure of.
As she walked up the stairs to the second floor, she saw Drake leaning against the wall. His dark hair was a little long and drifted into his eyes. Crystal longed to brush it aside. As she got closer to him, the faster her heartbeat. As always, he was surrounded by students who could easily have jumped out of a fashion magazine. The girls draped off him and used any excuse to touch him. As she watched them, she vowed she would never be one of them girls. Desperate. They laughed, high annoying squeals, and hung on his every word. An urge to slap the fake smiles off their faces passed through her. Taking a deep breath, she picked up her pace.
His eyes met hers and he winked. Dropping her head low she scuttled past him, hugging her books close to her chest. He had caught her checking him out. Crystal’s face reddened as she entered the classroom. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. Why had she stared too long? She wanted to slap herself silly.
Taking her seat next to Hugo, a boy from her coven, she pulled out her notebook and pen. She had to at least look like she was working.
“Crystal?”
Putting a smile on her face she turned to face Hugo, he was the geeky kind, top of the class and a goody too shoes. His top goal was to impress. And he knew what y equalled which just annoyed her to no end. He pushed up his glasses that rested on the bridge of his nose, and then pressed his lips together in a tight line.
Crystal couldn’t deny he was handsome with his blond hair and blue eyes. He had a surfer body, which was a light honey colour, kissed by the sun. But overall, his overachieving personality just got on her nerves.
“I was thinking maybe we could get coffee,” he tapped his pen on the desk as he spoke, which irritated Crystal. She tried not to let it show but had no doubt that her smile by now looked more like a grimace. Her sister Ruby had always said that her facial expressions were like an open book. They betrayed her thoughts and feelings; it must be the truth as Ruby always knew how she was feeling and guessed her thoughts.
“Coffee is not for me.” She was saved from further awkward conversation when Mr Bloom entered the room and ordered for quiet. Crystal felt relieved as she continued to doodle in her notebook.
When she looked down at the page, she had no idea what she had been drawing. She had drawn a strange symbol one she had never seen before. She had meant to draw a flower and had no idea where this odd image had come from.
Picking up her pen, she chewed the end while Mr Bloom wrote equations on the whiteboard. Hugo wouldn’t stop asking her out, she knew that. Why would he? She had been promised to him since birth. She hated the coven. Anger filled her pores and ran in her veins. No one in the coven married for love. Before they reached six months old a husband or wife was chosen. It was the Starlight’s way of keeping their lines of magic strong. Did it matter how you felt about the person they matched you too? No nothing mattered to them but power.
One day she would escape the life she had been forced into. Crystal wanted love, the fairy-tale type. Not some guy her parents picked out because he came from a powerful family.
The rest of the day, dragged by, time seemed to slow down and stop at times. Crystal had no friends. Not that she wanted them. She knew it was her own fault. She never let anyone get close. The secret of the power she wielded wouldn’t allow her to make friends. She’d just become like the very people she hated. A liar.
From an early age she had been taught to hide who she was and what she was capable of. The others her age didn’t have a problem with the lies that they had to spin and thrived in the school environment. Slyly using their powers to better themselves and beat the ordinary kids. Crystal on the other hand wanted real friendships not ones based on lies. Yet it was also the labels. Once you were labelled a geek, loner, jock that was it. That label followed you through school. It’s almost impossible to get out of. It divines you and for some, places a target on their backs. It was a way for the popular kids to control, use loyalty to install fear. For if you fell from the popular crowd, you became one of the lower beings and therefore a target. Crystal wanted no part in their self-centred games. She just wanted to make it through high school and get out of the place.