Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #17 August 2015 | Page 40

young minds, eager to learn and to discover the world
for themselves.” She reached down to gently life a
butterfly from the hem of her brightly coloured robes
and cast it up into the air with a laugh that left her
white teeth, bright against her dusky skin. “How can
you not be excited today of all days?”
fore.”

Doctor Symonds grunted again. “Seen it be-

“Well it’s wonderful and new to me. I’m Alala
Zumwasi by the way. This is my first term her as well,
I’m the new teacher of Charms and—”
Symonds interrupted her and spoke a single
word; he drew out the sound, and his voice dripped
contempt. “Fetishes.”
The woman ignored the slight. She had heard
it all before: powerful men and women looking down
their noses at her craft, and in the case of Doctor Symonds, he had a very big nose to look down.
She was about to respond when movement
caught her eye, a patch of darkness moving through
the bright colours that thronged the paved road that
ran through the centre of the campus. A patch of
darkness that everyone moved away from, all except
one young lad, so excited as he talked to his friends
he didn’t notice the group in black until they reached
him, and two of them knocked him to the ground.
“How rude, that’s not right. Excuse me while I
go and have a word. That’s not the behaviour we want
here.” Before she could even begin to move she was
frozen by a single word that hummed with power.
“Don’t!”
#
They were five in number, three boys, two
girls. One of the boys and one of the girls shared the
same golden hair and the same thin sharp faces, the
other two boys were big, athletic maybe. The remaining girl was petite, barely five feet talk and with long
black hair covering most of her face. All five of them
were dressed in black, jeans or trousers, tee shirts or

blouses, black broken only by a tuff of purple or grey.
They stopped as one and looked down at the lad they
had knocked off his feet. His sharp-voiced complaint
died on his lips as he stared up at them, suddenly feeling vulnerable instead of angry.
#
Stacey turned to her sister. “Did you see that?
What a bunch of bullies! Who do they think they are
anyway? Someone should sort them out.”
Her sister’s voice was quiet, and the laughter
of earlier was gone. She sounded so serious that both
girls looked at her in surprise.
“Stay away from them. They’re in Albany
house. There aren’t many of them, but you don’t go
near them or talk to them. You see them coming get
out of the way, and if they start anything make sure
you’ve got lots of friends handy before you respond.
Mostly their house master keeps them under control
but those are new. They haven’t learned yet