Villainess 5: Janet's Second Retry

Red Pill 23: Titles, Signings

With the last gulp from RuRu’s bottle going down her gullet and collecting into the pool of her stomach, Janet felt lightheaded as she tried to stand up from her chair. She heard RuRu’s voice calling out to her, yet her words were garbled through Janet’s addled brain. Janet looked over at RuRu approaching her, yet her outline kept shifting in and out of focus as Janet keeled over and blacked out . . .

Yet instead of hitting the ground, Janet opened her eyes to blurry shapes coming in and out of focus. After blinking a few times, she regained her senses and found herself in a wide clearing with an enormous fountain therein, its base bigger than that of the fountain in front of the Royal Palace, taking up twice the circumference of Janet’s own darkness affinity pool. In the center of this fountain was a huge two-tiered basin, a smaller upper basin spouting green spraying arcs into a larger lower basin, which overflowed into the teeming dark red reservoir of the rest of the fountain. The admixture of green into the wine-red pool surrounding it created a green phosphorescence over its dark red surface, giving it a surreal appearance.

Then someone whistled behind her, so Janet turned and saw RuRu stepping in beside her and saying, “Now that’s what I call a gorgeous fountain, wow!”

“Is this my fountain?” Janet said.

“It’s yours, all right,” RuRu said. “My sisters will be super jealous when they see this thing, and that’s not all,” and she waved her arm across her surroundings. “Take a look around you, Janet. Your garden is gorgeous!”

So Janet turned and took in the full sweep of the moonlit scenery: huge elms reaching its green-laden branches towards the night sky, and big royal poinciana trees here and there with blooming red flowers, and big clumps of green vertigo grass all over the clearing and beds of creeping red thyme carpeting the ground. The effect of two kinds of trees and two kinds of shrubs fluorescing green and red beneath the moonlight was like a scene taken out of a fairytale.

“All of this is mine?” Janet said.

“Yep, all of this is yours,” RuRu said, beaming back at her. “Now get ready for your pledge.”

“My pledge?” Janet said, thinking of a knight swearing his life and his sword to the service of his lady. “You mean, like a knight’s pledge of allegiance?”

“Eh, kind of,” RuRu said, walking to the edge of the fountain and climbing its ledge and crouching over the surface, then waded her arm in the water and pulled out an arming sword and stood back up on the ledge. “Janet, you come from two famous knights in this Kingdom: one is Sir Jude Fleming, the Captain of the Old Guard, and the other is Duke Wilhelm Bartleby, the Captain of the Black Guard.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Janet said.

“As you should, for they are your ancestors,” RuRu said. “Also, when the High Court and the Church of the Holy Light canonized Lady Graves as the Patroness and Protector of All Saintess Candidates, I also gave her a title, but she refused it. Do you know why?”

“No, I don’t. Why did she?”

“Well,” RuRu said, “she wanted that title to belong to the realm of the living as a title that others can look up to in times of need.”

“What title is that?” Janet said.

“You’ll know soon enough,” she said. “Now take a knee and put your hand over your heart.”

So Janet kneeled on one knee and placed her right hand over her heart, then said, “Like this?”

“Perfect,” RuRu said. “Now clear your mind of everything and focus on my words.”

And Janet did so, breathing in and breathing out and closing her eyes and focusing on the sound of RuRu’s voice that said, “Lady Janet Fleming, know that you are about to receive a blessing from the Guardian of the Darkness. As such, respect is your flag, compassion your cloak, patience your staff, wisdom your shield, and truth your sword. Now swear to me: Do you swear to use your flag to remember the dead, your cloak to comfort the weary, your staff to assist the weak, your shield to protect the innocent, and your sword to prosecute the guilty in high and low places?”

“I swear,” Janet said.

“Do you swear,” RuRu added, “to fulfill the duties of the office I am about to bequeath to you?”

“I swear,” Janet said.

“Then by the power vested in me, RuRu Marionette, the Guardian of the Darkness, I hereby dub you the Black Saintess,” RuRu said, tapping the blade over Janet’s right and left shoulders. “Now rise and take up your sword,” and she threw it over her shoulder, where it fell into the waters of the giant fountain, splashing and rippling its surface.

Janet stood up, saying, “Why did you do that?”

“Oh, come on, girl,” RuRu said. “You can’t just expect me to give everything to you, can you?”

“But you just—”

“If you really want that sword,” RuRu said, “then you’re gonna have to get it. Now hop to it!”

Janet deadpanned, saying, “You’re rather quirky for a Guardian.”

“I’ve been called worse,” RuRu said.

Without further ado, Janet climbed onto the ledge of her own fountain, standing next to RuRu, but after a few moments of looking, she said, “Where the heck is it?”

“It’s right over there.”

“Where?”

So RuRu pointed it out, and Janet followed the direction of her pointing hand.

“I still don’t see it,” Janet said.

“Then let me help you out,” RuRu said and pushed an unwitting Janet into the water, a big splash overflowing the ledge and wetting the hems of her maid dress. “That’s for drinking from my bottle without my permission!”

Yet Janet couldn’t hear her words as she fell (or floated) into the depths of her mind, staying there for God knows how long in unconscious slow-wave sleep. Here she heard the screams and moans of her clones as they expired from the living world and entered the spirit world. And one by one, the thirty-one clones that Janet had met in the women’s bathroom on that awful Monday morning appeared before her, then eighty-five others that she had yet to meet appeared with them, and then numberless silent clones of Janet that were DeeDee’s proxies appeared behind them.

They all had glowing red eyes and slasher smiles on their faces, raising their fingers to their lips and carrying lamps whose lights glowed a pulsing dark red with a green corona shimmering from their edges.

And as one, they all pointed at Janet, their lips pronouncing syllables she couldn’t hear, so she looked down on herself and saw a white gown she wasn’t wearing before. When she looked up at her clones again, she found them all surrounding the enormous fountain in the same clearing she had been in, yet RuRu was nowhere in sight.

Then one of her clones (her suicide clone) took her hand and guided her to the fountain’s edge, helping her up and over the ledge, then entering with her into the seething dark red waters up to her thighs.

“Sorry about that, dear,” her clone said in RuRu’s voice. “That was just your baptism.”

Janet blinked, saying, “What’s going on?”

“Your baptism is finished,” her clone said and smiled.

Janet blinked again, saying, “Why are you—”

And Janet’s clone morphed into RuRu Marionette, and Janet found herself standing on the surface of the water, and RuRu said, “Looking good, girl!”

When Janet looked down on herself in the teeming reflection, she gaped at what she was wearing: a nun’s black veil with a white band over her bangs and a white-caped gown over her shoulders, a pair of white cuffs over the wrists of long black sleeves and black gloves, the skirt of her gown reaching just her knees and opening over her thighs, revealing black thigh-high stockings and black knee-high knight boots. She had visited Rhapsody Chapel on several occasions when she was a kid, and none of the nuns there wore anything like it.

“What the hell is this!” Janet said.

“It’s your battle dress,” RuRu said, looking her up and down. “With a look like that, you’ll catch men’s eyes and amaze women’s hearts, that’s for sure!”

Yet Janet squirmed in her new clothes, saying, “I’ll die if someone sees me like this!”

“Too late, dear,” RuRu said, pointing behind her shoulder. “You’ll just have to get used to it.”

Janet turned as the scene shifted again before her eyes and found herself standing inside the Ghost Hunting Club’s designated clubroom. And here stood DeeDee and Rowena and Lady Graves and that masked nun from last night’s dream, as well as Kevin and Ridley and Mindy and the Drevis sisters and their club advisor Baron Underwood, all gawking at her, eyes wide, Rowena and Lady Graves and Mindy and the Drevis sisters cupping their mouths in their hands. And the others (from the three statuettes and the four busts on the shelf to Sir Abram and Daniel Van Weever and Janet’s thirty-one clones and Janet’s silent clones through the open double-door entrance) were also gawking at her, eyes wide and some with their hands to their mouths, thinking God knows what about Janet’s fashion sense.

At times like these, strung up to the umpteenth extremity of death by shame, Janet did the only thing that any sane woman would do in this situation.

She fainted.

 

The next two hours passed in humid dreams of the Prince grabbing her wrist and wrenching down on her forearm as she screamed for him to let go in Classroom 1-3C, yet he wouldn’t let go even as she was on her knees hoping for Baron Palmer or Viscountess Durham to come, till she found herself bowled over with an arm-lock behind her back. This reminded her of the same vision from this morning during Homeroom 2 when the Prince had confronted her over something Lady Dorian had done in the hallway, yet the context had changed. Instead of this morning, it felt like it happened the previous day on that fatal Monday morning before the start of Homeroom 1, in which she was staring into the mirror and witnessing firsthand the events that led to her double’s suicide.

When she came to, Janet awoke with a residual pain in her wrist instead of the massive hangover that RuRu had predicted when Janet was chugging from her bottle. She opened her eyes to her sleeping mother by her bedside holding her left hand within hers, her head resting over the sofa cushion. She looked past her mother and saw her peers and club advisor and Lady Graves and the masked nun and DeeDee and even RuRu seated at the table, while her clones were gathered around it, all of them listening to DeeDee and RuRu at the head of the table talk about affinity pools and the Prince’s atrocious conduct. Yet of all her clones, Janet recognized her suicide clone standing beside DeeDee at the head of the table. As such, the moment she turned over and propped herself up on the sofa, she woke up Rowena from her slumber and caught the attention of DeeDee and the rest, turning their heads in her direction.

“Mom?” Janet said, noticing her mother’s pale complexion and sweating temples. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

“I should ask you that,” Rowena said, then to DeeDee at the table: “What time is it?”

That’s when Janet remembered the time and said, “Is it past midnight already?”

So DeeDee said, “It’s only a quarter to midnight, Janet, so we still have time before the signing.”

And that’s when Janet remembered the weird outfit she had been wearing and looked down at herself, only to find herself back in the modest attire of her school uniform.

“Don’t worry, Janet,” a smiling RuRu said. “Nobody outside of this room will know.”

Janet glared, fisting her hand, but she winced and pulled away from her mother’s grasp.

“Are you okay, Janet?” Rowena said.

“I think so,” Janet said, moving her hand around her wrist joint to assuage the pain accumulated there.

“Does your wrist still hurt?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s definitely not ‘nothing,’” Rowena said. “Did you have a nightmare about that oaf of a Prince?”

Janet stared at her mother: “How did you know?”

“You were talking in your sleep, dear,” she said. “Can you stand up?”

So Janet then got up and followed her mother to the head of the conference table, where the others were seated or gathered around it.

“What did the Prince do?” DeeDee said.

“He grabbed her wrist and put her in an arm-lock,” Rowena said and shook her head. “My God, that boy is such a brute!”

“Wait a minute,” Janet said. “What just happened?”

“Don’t worry, dear,” Rowena said. “I only looked into your dream while you were sleeping.”

“But how did you—”

“I’m a medium,” Rowena said. “I looked into your dream after we heard you talking in your sleep,” and then she bent down and whispered something into DeeDee’s ear.

“I see,” DeeDee said.

Then Rowena took a seat at the table in front of Janet’s lamp, glowing dark red with a corona of green shimmering at the edges, so Janet sat with her mother. Kevin and Ridley and Mindy and the Drevis sisters and Baron Underwood and Lady Graves all asked if Janet was okay, and Janet said she was fine. Then she looked over at the masked nun with gray hair and said, “I remember you from last night. Who are you?”

“Sorry for the late introduction,” she said. “I’m Maxine Diddly, former Abbess of St. Avalon’s Abbey and former overseer of St. Avalon’s Orphanage.”

That’s when Janet thought back to the cloistered courtyard and said, “You said I was supposed to see something.”

“Do you see it now?” Maxine said.

“I’m not sure.”

“Look with your mind’s eye,” Maxine said. “You should be able to see my aura, Celeste’s aura, your mother’s aura, and RuRu’s aura, because I can already see yours.”

Janet did as directed and focused on her newest acquaintance and started seeing the curling whips of a black aura emanating from Maxine’s astral form. Then she took a look at Rowena and Lady Graves and RuRu in turn and noticed the same black flickering auras emanating from their bodies, so she said, “There’s a black aura around all four of you.”

“Can you see mine?” DeeDee said.

So Janet focused on DeeDee, noticing green flickering tendrils curling from her body and saying, “Yeah, I can.”

“Good,” DeeDee said. “Do you feel lightheaded or queasy or anything uncomfortable?”

“No, I don’t feel anything like that.”

“Then how do you feel right now?” DeeDee said.

Janet paused, yet she felt no dizzy spell or headache, only the aching in her wrist. If it wasn’t for her aching wrist, she would’ve gone on a midnight stroll in the Student Commons Town, so she said, “I feel better than I have in a while, but my wrist still hurts for some reason.”

“Like a physical ache?” DeeDee said.

“No, not like that,” Janet said, flexing her wrist. “It’s there, but it’s not really there.”

“I see,” DeeDee said. “Then that means you’ve fully awakened into both of your affinities, but that residual pain you feel is another clue. I think I know what it is.”

“Really?” Janet said.

DeeDee nodded and said, “Celeste, Rowena, Maxine, and I all did a lot of research into the events surrounding your maternal family before you had awakened your powers, and I also had your mother look into your dream while you were asleep in this room. The long and short of it is this: we found out an anomaly involving the death of one of your clones,” and she looked up at Janet’s suicide clone. “Out of all of them, this child was the only one who took her own life, while the others died as a direct result of Lady Dorian’s schemes.” Then she turned to Lady Graves and said, “It’s your turn.”

So Lady Graves said, “I noticed an anomaly, as well, in which your clones gave off a growing amount of darkness affinity during their deaths, except for one,” and she nodded at Janet’s suicide clone again. “Something about her suicide must have changed everything, because afterwards Lady Dorian has included Prince Blaise into her schemes involving the deaths of the rest of your clones.”

“Including the schemes against me?”

“Yep,” Lady Graves said, nodding, then turned to Maxine Diddly. “It’s your turn.”

So Maxine said, “This darkness affinity has also affected other members of your maternal family, specifically your uncle Lord Jericho Bartleby and your cousin Duke Astor Bartleby. Both had an inordinate amount of darkness affinity, which resulted in the former’s death during childhood and the latter’s persecution at around the same age.”

Janet glanced at Rowena and Lady Graves and added, “What about my mother and Celeste?”

“Yep, them included,” Maxine said. “Lady Graves was murdered in Elba House in this very room, and Rowena died in prison, and I was murdered soon afterwards in St. Avalon’s Abbey.”

“Geez!” Janet said.

“I know. We’ve all been targeted,” Maxine said, then turned to Rowena. “It’s your turn.”

So Rowena said, “Janet, when your father and I took in Astor before you were born, we both saw his violent outbursts and several odd occurrences happening around him. Only after you were born did the outbursts and odd occurrences stop, and I wondered why that was. And when I saw the deaths of your clones earlier tonight, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what, till I looked into your dream just now.” She paused, then said, “Now I know why.”

Janet stared at her mother’s eyes and gleaned from them an inkling of what she was getting at, so she looked at her suicide clone before saying, “Does it have something to do with her suicide?”

Rowena nodded.

“What is it?” Janet said.

“Janet,” she said, “you’ve become the target of an underground cult that has infiltrated the Church of the Holy Light under the orders of an unknown saintess. We don’t know if that saintess is Lady Dorian or not, but we do know she’s been working with sleeper agents using enchanted artifacts to hide their presence from the rest of this kingdom.”

“Those shadows?”

“Yep,” Rowena said. “With their help, Lady Dorian has killed off your clones, except for one.”

Janet looked over at her suicide clone, then turned to her mother and said, “Do you know why that is?”

Rowena nodded, but then she turned to DeeDee and said, “It’s your turn now.”

So DeeDee said, “After tonight’s signing, I want to conduct an experiment in your former homeroom class before you all return to your dorms. I want everyone to be there to witness it, because there are some questions that I haven’t answered yet,” and she looked at Mindy Kessler and Jean and Saraya Drevis seated with Kevin and Ridley and Baron Underwood at the table. “Namely, why Lady Kessler and the Ladies Drevis became targets along with you, Janet.”

“Any idea why?” Janet said.

“I can’t say,” DeeDee said. “I know it has something to do with Janet’s suicide, but I won’t know until we conduct the experiment. So I want you all there, got it?”

Everyone nodded.

“Good.” DeeDee reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a pocket watch: it read 11:55 p.m. Replacing it into her apron, she stood up and said, “Time for the signing. Everyone, stand up.” And while everyone else stood up around the table, she added, “Celeste, bring out the contract.”

Lady Graves placed her hand atop the conference table, and a contract manifested right in front of DeeDee, who took it up and said, “Have you checked this contract for any spelling and grammar errors?”

“I have, thrice,” Lady Graves said.

“No errors?” DeeDee said.

“None.”

“All right then,” DeeDee said and placed the contract flat on the table, manifesting nine copies and nine fountain pens before herself and her sister RuRu and Janet and her peers and her club advisor. “RuRu, Janet, Lord Woodberry, Sir Sydney, Lady Kessler, Lady Jean and Saraya Drevis, and Baron Underwood, I want you all to read this contract, then sign it.”

Janet took up her copy and read as follows:

‘This Agreement is entered into on Wednesday, October 12, in the sixteenth year of King Blaise XVIII, by the Grantees (Lady Janet Fleming, Lord Ridley Woodberry, Sir Kevin Sidney, Lady Mindy Kessler, Lady Jean Drevis, Lady Saraya Drevis, Baron Simeon Underwood) and the Grantors (Guardian of the Aether DeeDee Marionette, Guardian of the Darkness RuRu Marionette) with the Witnesses present (Baron Simeon Underwood, Marchioness Rowena Fleming, Lady Celeste Graves, Abbess Maxine Diddley, Lady Janet Fleming’s thirty-one Clones, the Full Moon, the Night, and Everyone else here present), collectively known as Parties.

‘1. As such, the Grantors shall bequeath a share of their minor affinities, including but not limited to camouflage, clairaudience, clairvoyance, doubt, precognition, psychokinesis, psychometry, telepathy, etc., as will suit the natural inclinations of the aforementioned Grantees.

‘2. In exchange for a share of the Grantors’ powers and protection, the Grantees are hereby bound to secrecy, so long as at least one Grantee remains alive, so that this Agreement exists.

‘3. In exchange for witnessing the Agreement between the Grantees and the Grantors, the Witnesses are also hereby bound to secrecy, so long as at least one Grantee remains alive, so that this Agreement exists.

‘4. In exchange for the Grantees’ secrecy, the Grantors are hereby bound to protect the needs and serve the wishes of the Grantees, so long as at least one Grantee remains alive, so that this Agreement exists.

‘5. Moreover, on the authority of the Grantor (Guardian of the Aether DeeDee Marionette), the Grantee (Lady Janet Fleming) shall hereby provide assistance to the Grantor in finding the Grantor’s Sister (Guardian of the Light LaLa Marionette), insofar as the Grantee is able with all the means at her disposal.

‘6. As such, in exchange for the Grantee’s assistance, the Grantor (Guardian of the Aether DeeDee Marionette) shall hereby provide assistance to the Grantee (Lady Janet Fleming) in finding the Saintess (Miss Rosalie Edgeworth), insofar as the Grantor is able with all the means at her disposal.

‘7. Consequently, in exchange for witnessing the duties assigned to the Grantors and the Grantees, the Witnesses shall hereby provide assistance to the Grantees and the Grantors, insofar as the Witnesses are able with all the means at their disposal.

‘8. In conclusion, all Parties are hereby bound by this Agreement to fulfill the duties included herein, insofar as they are able with all the means at their disposal.’

After that, she said, “Full name?”

“And title, yes,” DeeDee said, finishing her perusal and then writing her name on her own copy.

So Janet wrote “Lady Janet Fleming” below her own copy, while the rest did the same to theirs.

After everyone had finished signing, DeeDee placed hers flat atop the table again and said, “Everyone, put yours flat on the table just like mine.”

Janet did as she was bidden, placing hers flat on the table, while everyone else did the same.

Then, as one, DeeDee and RuRu whispered an incantation that Janet couldn’t hear, but whatever they said, it dissipated everyone’s copy of the contract in a flash of green and purple light. Then it manifested a moment later as a single contract in front of DeeDee and RuRu, glowing an alternating green and purple at its edges, that combined everyone’s signature into a list below the last clause:

‘(signed) Lady Janet Fleming, Lord Ridley Woodberry, Sir Kevin Sidney, Lady Mindy Kessler, Lady Jean Drevis, Lady Saraya Drevis, Baron Simeon Underwood (and) Guardian of the Aether DeeDee Marionette, Guardian of the Darkness RuRu Marionette’

With that done, DeeDee and RuRu placed their fingers on the lower corners of the contract with all of their signatures on it and said, in unison, “With the Full Moon and the Night as our Eternal Witnesses, we consecrate this Agreement to your acknowledgement and understanding, that we will uphold the duties agreed to herein from this moment onwards, in perpetuity, so long as this Agreement exists!”

And all at once, the contract dissipated from the table in another flash of green and purple light, just as a magic seal flashed green and purple over the hands of the signers around the table, completing Lady Graves’ spell.

Everyone was silent after that, looking at the shimmering crest on their hands, but then Janet’s three female peers started glancing her way with flashing eyes. Their glances made Janet wonder if they haven’t yet gotten over her grand entrance in that weird getup.

“What is it?” DeeDee said.

So Mindy Kessler said, “Is that all?”

“That’s all,” DeeDee said. “Is something the matter?”

“Well,” Mindy said, looking at Janet again, “don’t we also get a cool battle outfit or something?”

Janet blinked back the memory of their sparkly-eyed stares and rosy cheeks and hands cupped over their gaping mouths and said, “Are you jealous?”

“Of course, we are!” Mindy said.

“That outfit is super freaking cool!” Jean added.

“You’re so lucky, Janet,” Saraya added. “I wish we had outfits like that!”

“Then ask RuRu,” Janet said. “She’s the one who gave me that outfit before I woke up.”

At once, the trio of girls asked RuRu if she could get them similar outfits, pleading with their words and begging with their big moé eyes. Yet RuRu raised her hands in a placating gesture and said, “I don’t work with requests, girls, nor do I grant things to anyone on a whim.”

“Because she awakened her powers?” Mindy said.

“That’s half of it,” RuRu said, “but the other half involves making a vow, and I must be careful with those. When saintess candidates are chosen to become saintesses in this kingdom, they must vow to uphold the duty of their position in front of designated witnesses, specifically the congregation of the Church of the Holy Light and LaLa Marionette as their Guardian, before they’re granted an official title. But since I’m not associated with the Church, and since the Church won’t recognize darkness affinity users, Janet’s vow adds the possibility of persecution for carrying a heretical title. Do you understand what that means?”

Mindy and the Drevis sisters winced and bowed their heads, and Mindy said, “Sorry for asking.”

“Don’t worry,” RuRu said. “It’s fine.”

Then RuRu bent over DeeDee’s shoulder and asked if she could keep Janet for a little bit, making DeeDee raise an eyebrow and say, “Sure, I guess you can do that.” Then DeeDee added, “Janet, you stay here with RuRu for a bit.”

“But why?” Janet said. “I thought we were—”

“It will only be for a bit,” DeeDee said, then to the others in the room: “The rest of you, and that includes you clones, come with me to the hallway of the Academy. After RuRu and Janet are done, we’ll start the experiment.”

So Janet’s peers and her club advisor and her clones picked up their lamps and followed Maxine and Lady Graves and DeeDee with her own lamp to the open double-door entrance, where DeeDee had Sir Abram and Daniel Van Weever close the doors shut for Lady Graves to work her summoning spell. But Rowena stayed put, saying, “What are you gonna do with her?”

“Nothing drastic, Mama Goose,” RuRu said. “I just want to test out her powers.”

“Please don’t get her drunk,” she said.

“It’ll be fine,” RuRu said. “Just go on with them.”

When DeeDee called her over, Rowena picked up Janet’s lamp and skirted the conference table to where Lady Graves was crouching at the doors, her hand on the ground, whispering an incantation that set the double doors glowing. After that, she stood back up and grabbed the handles and pulled the doors open into the silent third floor of the hallway at Lassen Academy. And in single file, they all passed through: first Mindy and the Drevis sisters; then Kevin and Ridley and Baron Underwood; then Janet’s thirty-one clones; then DeeDee and Rowena and Lady Graves; and then Lady Graves turning around pushing the double doors shut, but not before saying to RuRu and Janet, “Have fun, you two, but don’t keep us waiting.”

The double doors shut with a whoosh, and all was silent again, except for Janet backing away from RuRu, saying, “You’re being creepy, you know.”

“You’re too paranoid,” RuRu said.

“Does it involve drinking?” Janet said. “Because if there’s more drinking, you can just—”

“It’s not that, I promise.”

Janet gave her a good long stare, but said, “All right, I’ll trust you.”

“Good,” RuRu said. “Just stay there, okay?”

“Okay,” Janet said.

Then RuRu took a step forward and disappeared from the room, leaving Janet alone with four sniggering busts and three giggling statuettes on the bookshelf by an empty corner.

So Janet looked over at the commotion and said, “Do you know what’s going on here?”

“We’re just spectating,” April said.

“You’re the ‘observed’ of the observers,” May added.

“And you’ve become a very interesting subject,” June added.

(“Don’t mind them, Janet,” RuRu said in her mind. “I’m here with the others at the Academy.”

“Why am I back here then?” Janet said.

“I’m testing how you use your darkness affinity, okay?” RuRu said. “Just imagine yourself stepping into my shadow, and you’ll be right here with me and the rest.”

“Can I really do that?”

“Yeah,” RuRu said. “Give it a try.”)

Right then, the four busts and the three statuettes started making bets on whether or not Janet could do it at all. The four busts bet that she could do it, while the three statuettes bet that she couldn’t.

Janet gritted her teeth and glared at those three pesky statuettes and said, “You’re on!”

“That’s the spirit!” Martin Keystone said.

“Good luck, my Lady,” Thomas O’Reilly added. “I’m sure you’ll become a fine saintess.”

“Thanks,” Janet said, smiling, then closed her eyes and imagined herself moving across an invisible threshold and stepping foot into the shadow of her intended target. She then took a deep breath and took a step forward, disappearing from the room altogether.

To Be Continued