Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions (Death's Handmaiden Book 3) by Niall Teasdale (best summer reads txt) 📕

‘There’s confidentiality… But I’ll see what I can find.’

~~~

‘Well, half of what I can tell you, you could find out from the news feeds if you searched for her name.’ It was now dinnertime. Courtney had checked the school’s records and was reporting back on what she had found.

‘Yes, but it’s easier to just ask you now,’ Mitsuko said.

‘Yeah. When she was ten or so, Carina was viewed as a prodigy. Quite significant sorcerous capacity which seemed to be coupled with remarkable talent. It was to be expected, to some extent. Her mother, Ariana, was a noted sorceress. Powerful even among the Malkins. Her father wasn’t as strong, but he was no slouch. Carina was expected to surpass her mother.’

‘I’m assuming from the way you’re saying this,’ Nava said, ‘that something went wrong.’

‘You could definitely say that. She was kidnapped just after her tenth birthday. Her mother was killed trying to protect her and she was missing for fourteen days. No ransom demand. No communication. Nothing for two weeks. Then she was returned, basically unharmed. She was only ten, so when she claimed that “rituals” had been performed on her, the Malkin security people put it down as some form of molestation, though there was no evidence of sexual assault or anything similar. The thing was, when she came back, she could barely work a spell. Even now, she just barely scraped in on the capacity requirement for SAS-squared.’

‘Strange.’

‘That’s downright weird,’ Melissa said.

‘It gets weirder,’ Courtney went on. ‘Over the next few years, she seems to have constructed an elaborate fantasy as a coping strategy. She believes that some shadowy organisation was behind the kidnapping. She says they’re still watching her. However, she has the help of an invisible friend she refers to as Trudy and she now claims that she does have a lot of power, but it’s been sealed away so that this shadow group can’t get it. If she really needs it, she claims, she can temporarily unlock the seal. All that “destined guardian” stuff is probably part of her fantasy.’

‘She’s delusional?’ Nava asked.

‘She’s a chūnibyō,’ Melissa replied, grinning a lot as she did so.

‘A what?’

‘Chūnibyō,’ Mitsuko said. ‘It’s a Japanese word. Literally, “middle two disease.” It used to refer to a supposed psychological condition common in second years at middle school. Essentially, it was the age when they had aspirations to be different in some way, to stand out in a relatively uniform culture. Some became delinquents, some chose to follow non-mainstream subcultures, and some believed they had special powers.’

‘That’s the version I know,’ Melissa said. ‘It used to be common in the animated series my brothers watched. Sometimes, the powers were real. Sometimes they were just fantasies the characters had, but people just thought they were deluded.’

‘And then,’ Mitsuko continued, ‘we discovered metaphysics and sorcery. Suddenly, there really were special powers that some people had. Chūnibyō became most associated with young people who believed they had power but did not, or that they had far more power than they did. It’s become less common than it was when metaphysics was first codified, but it’s a recognised condition which still occurs from time to time. If Michiko had ended up with no talent for sorcery, for example, she might have developed chūnibyō, thinking that she should be able to cast spells like her big sister.’

‘Okay,’ Nava said. ‘So we’re saying she’s probably delusional.’

‘You have a bad habit of reducing things to their simplest terms,’ Melissa said.

‘A bad habit?’

‘Well, it’s sometimes bad…’

‘But, yeah,’ Courtney said, ‘Carina Schwartz is probably delusional.’

Nava nodded. ‘Okay. Of course, she did get kidnapped…’

236/1/16.

Mitsuko pushed away from the wall she was leaning against, right outside her classroom, as she spotted Nava and Melissa walking toward her. These days, Mitsuko waited for her housemates to arrive from the floor above because they had decided they may as well walk back to the house together. Unless they did not, obviously.

‘We need to go through the agenda for the next council meeting,’ Mitsuko said as Melissa arrived. ‘I figure we can do that at home.’

‘One of the joys of information technology,’ Melissa replied. ‘We probably need to discuss the fair soon.’

‘The Extracurricular Activities Fair? It’s more Francis’s baby… I suppose we should make sure he’s getting things ready for it.’ Mitsuko turned and led the way toward the exit.

‘And that Courtney has the security aspects sorted out,’ Nava said. ‘She lost a few key people due to graduation. Has she replaced them?’

‘A couple,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘She can’t replace her biggest loss. Finding a new Don Ilbert to handle forensics is not an easy thing.’

‘No. Really, they could do with some sort of training system.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘I’m aware.’ Exiting the building, Nava scanned the area out of habit. Chances were that there was nothing to see beyond the ordinary, but situational awareness had been drilled into her from a very young age. Today, there was something interesting. In a way. ‘Is that Carina?’

Mitsuko and Melissa followed her gaze. The question was clearly rhetorical. Of course it was Carina. The strange girl was not exactly hiding, but she had moved off down an alley between the first year’s teaching building and a small utility building. She looked kind of agitated.

‘What’s she doing?’ Melissa asked. ‘Is she… arguing with someone?’ As Melissa asked the question, Carina threw up her arms as if in exasperation, turned on the spot, and then resumed whatever argument she seemed to be having.

Nava looked at the scene through eyes enhanced with See Invisible. Then she switched to the version which worked on spirits. ‘She looks like she is, but I can’t see anyone or anything there.’

‘She has problems,’ Mitsuko said. ‘It’s not really a student council problem…’

‘But you want to help,’ Nava said.

‘Well…’

‘I admit she has me at least a little intrigued. Tomorrow. After classes tomorrow, I’ll spend some time with her. I can at least hear what she has to say.’

‘I don’t think she’ll open up to anyone else,’