“I know. She’s a pain in the ass.”
“What the heck is she?” Hailey demanded. “And what’s the cage?”
“She’s a bitch,” he said, angrily, “and there’s a cage in the White Forest for non-humans who act like animals. It’s literally a metal cage. They hate it. You know,” he said, looking apologetic, “I tried to get you a normal roommate, but Asher thought it would be safer for you to room with a monster than a human. And by the way, he wants to see you.”
“Really?” Hailey asked.
“Yeah…” Fin’s voice trailed off, and he looked past Hailey to the stairwell, smiling warmly.
Turning, Hailey found yet another beautiful woman making her way toward Fin’s room. “Melody,” he said, pushing past Hailey to hug a voluptuous redhead.
“Pádraig,” she sang, thrusting her chest out when he stepped back.
Hailey cleared her throat, but they both ignored her and started down the stairs, chattering like little old ladies.
“Oh, but…” Her words dissolved into a sigh as Fin moved out of earshot, leaving Hailey with no idea if she was supposed to go find Asher or if he would come find her or what. But she sure didn’t want to wait. Her list of questions about Bear Towne and the Envoys and ParaScience grew by the second, and Asher held answers to all of them.
Remembering the observatory was off limits to students, she figured she’d better just stick to her orientation schedule. That way, she wouldn’t miss any important Bear Towne information, and Asher would know exactly where to find her.
When Hailey opened her dorm room door, her one pair of sneakers—which had tapped out a flail-beat and secured her escape from the vacuum-glazed in-between—stood waiting. As soon as she stepped inside, the sneakers jumped up, ran into the hallway, pattered down the stairs, and fled out the door.
Looking longingly after them, she sighed heavily and closed her door. Now she had to wear sweat pants and rubber boots until she found a ride into town. Hopefully, Asher wouldn’t mind seeing her dressed like a clown.
“Oh…” she moaned, cringing inside as she imagined it.
Checking her closet, she found her glazed pants still on patrol, while her glazed t-shirt played solitaire on a tall shelf.
“Where’d you get a deck of cards?” she said, and the t-shirt shrugged.
Her box of broken crystals had gone—who knows where—and Giselle sat, reclined on her bed in silence behind her magazine.
Hailey reviewed her orientation schedule for the day. Even if she didn’t see Asher, the afternoon promised to be interesting with a group lunch scheduled at the Bruised Moose Café following a slew of bizarre orientation seminars at the Trinity Center, which she couldn’t wait to hear.
Hailey made her way into the seminar room and sat in a back corner just as the sky over Bear Towne opened up and unleashed a torrential downpour. Other students filed in. Some she recognized from the ParaScience campus tour, but they all sat at least five seats away from her in all directions.
The Pre-Med group began the day’s seminar with a presentation on staying healthy and a stark reminder that Hailey wasn’t in Pittsburgh anymore.
“Remember,” said the too-groomed man at the front of the room, “Bear Towne hospital is a teaching hospital that treats humans and non-humans alike, which sometimes leads to inadvertent mix-ups. Now,” he said holding up a superior finger as his nose also went in the air, “despite the rumors, we haven’t had an accidental transmutation in almost a decade.”
“Thank you, Professor Starr,” said an equally well-groomed, but younger man, who ushered the professor out of the way and took over the presentation.
“Bottom line—” he told them, “I’ve got three reasons to NOT end up at Bear Towne Hospital. Dr. Starr already mentioned the transmutations,” he said holding up his thumb. He added a finger at each increasingly horrific reason to stay away from campus health care.
“Second—and this is no rumor—the hospital has a resident banshee, who doesn’t always follow the prescribed treatment plans—if you know what I mean,” he said with a nervous laugh to a roomful of crickets.
Hailey tried not to look as shocked as she felt. Honestly, Professor Starr had her at “transmutation.” Talk about fodder for nightmares.
“Also,” he continued, “there has been an increased incidence of flesh-eating Zombitis among patients treated in the emergency room. So, do what you need to do to stay healthy, because there’s no telling if you’ll come out of the campus hospital in better or worse shape than when you entered.”
Campus safety for humans was next. The student handbook laid out most of the information on Bear Towne’s predators, but Hailey did take a few notes from the I-MET worker, who marched to the front of the room wearing a presidential mask—Reagan it looked like. For instance, she had no idea you could use a shotgun to kill mosquitos. Also, the colored flag atop the Trinity Center indicated the mosquito climate for the day, with green meaning a low concentration of blood suckers (usually due to high winds); yellow meaning no amount of DEET will protect you, and red meaning grab the shotgun.
Things wrapped up with the campus priest blessing the freshmen and reminding everyone to tend to their soul—go to church, be nice, and don’t kill anyone, was his advice.
Seemed easy enough.
With that, a very hungry Hailey collected her notes and headed to the Bruised Moose Café for lunch, where she was delighted to find Giselle sitting alone at a table next to the windows.
“Hi,” Hailey beamed, having forgotten completely that she’d vowed to keep to herself.
