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Griever: Chapter Six

Griever: Chapter Six

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Chapter SixSeph led them through the back corridors of the main hall until they reached the Elandir kitchens. There was no one else inside at the moment, but a huge pot of stew was simmering on the stove. Seph stirred it delicately as he began to speak, while Bain gestured Shaeda to a seat by the fireplace.“You ever heard of Grievers?” Seph asked.Shaeda shook her head.“It’s what they call haunted people,” he explained. “People who manifest ghosts; people like us. It’s not normal; most people don’t have ghosts, even if they’ve lost somebody they love. I mean, everybody dies, so everybody’s lost somebody. Most people just move on. You only end up with a ghost if something really messed up happens … and if you’ve got the natural magic to get yours to stay. Taste this.”He abruptly began ladling stew into a bowl, and then shoved it at Shaeda.She blinked at him, startled, then hesitantly picked up the spoon and took a small bite. It was rich, warm, savory, and phenomenal.“Oh my god,” she managed, hastily shoving another bite in her mouth.“Hey, save some for me.” Bain held his hands out for the bowl, and Shaeda reluctantly surrendered it. “Seph’s no slouch when it comes to his fledgeroot stew.”“Glad you like it,” Seph muttered. “Anyway, it’s no surprise that you’ve got a ghost; you’re from that orphanage, right? I figure you’ve seen some s**t.”He glanced over his shoulder at Shaeda, who found herself nodding.“Right,” he went on. “Well, now that he’s seen it, Sharm’s gonna try to get you to train your ghost to do d*****s tricks.”Bain sucked in another spoonful, then laid his bowl down on the nearby table.“I think we owe her a little more than that,” he sighed. “Listen, Shaeda … Seph and I are only at Elandir because of our ghost. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have wanted us.”Shaeda winced.“Professor Sharm said that’s why I’m here, too,” she admitted. “They knew I was an orphan. They were hoping I would be grieving. They wanted to see if I could summon a ghost.”“Figures,” muttered Seph. “You okay with that?”“It’s … good,” murmured Shaeda. “I can be useful, here.”Bain gave her a long,appraising look.“Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “Yeah, you could.”Seph snorted.“Look at what a little people-pleaser you are,” he sighed, and Shaeda flinched. “You don’t need to ‘help’ those shitheads learn new ways to screw people up for fun and profit. They’re plenty good at doing that on their own.”“Seph,” muttered Bain, and there was a gentleness in his voice when he locked eyes with his friend that Shaeda didn’t think she understood. Seph snarled something under his breath and turned his back on them, returning his attention to his stew.“Okay,” said Shaeda quietly. “Can you two please tell me what’s going on?”“Right.” Bain sighed. “Yeah, of course. So … you know that Seph and I have a ghost together, right?”“Together?” Shaeda frowned. “Sorry, I don’t know what that means.”“It means that we have the same ghost,” Seph shot back. “It’s Bain’s sister, Aggie. We both knew her, and she … she died. So, now she’s haunting both of us.”He turned back around to raise a challenging eyebrow at Shaeda, but she just nodded again.“Okay,” she said. “And the school scouted both of you?”Seph looked almost impressed.“They sure did,” said Bain. “Seph and I grew up together in Devina, on the coast. One day, Petwardan showed up with this nutjob Professor Sparrow to ‘invite’ us to the Academy. Apparently, people had been spreading rumors about the two freaks with the creepy ghost girl until word got all the way to Elandir. Sparrow told us that we were special, and that we could help people.”“Aggie would have wanted us to go,” mumbled Seph.“I didn’t,” countered Bain without rancor, “but Seph was pretty set on it.”Seph stared angrily into the stew pot, and said nothing.“When we got here,” Bain went on, “they started us on special lessons twice a week; taught us how to summon Aggie even when she didn’t feel like coming out.”He paused there, and a frustrated expression passed over his face. Shaeda waited patiently for whatever it was to pass.“Anyway,” he went on, a little lower this time, “once we’d mastered that, Dr. Sparrow started insisting that we drag Aggie out whenever we could, and that we try to teach her to learn the same spells we were learning. When that didn’t work, he’d sit us in these endless ‘therapy’ sessions where he tried to teach us how to focus our grief and make it more ‘productive.’”Seph slammed a spoon down so hard on the table that the rest of the silverware on the rack over the stove rattled in sympathy.“It was killing Bain,” he snapped. “Dragging up the past, forcing Aggie to be where she didn’t want to be and do things she didn’t want to do. It HURT him, like, physically hurt ...
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