The Demon Girl by Penelope Fletcher (each kindness read aloud TXT) 📕

“Can I see it?”

“No,” I answered frankly without looking at him.

“It’s important to you.”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why?”

He was not getting that arms crossed, face turned away signaled I did not want to talk. Scowling, I faced him. “It’s all I have from my past.”

He gave me an apologetic look. “It reminds you of your family.”

I smiled tightly. “It reminds me every day that people can throw you away like trash, and to trust no one but yourself.”

“You sound bitter,” he said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, well.” I was done with the conversation. I turned away again, slid deeper into my chair but found my hand rising. Tu signaled to me with a nod. “Sorry if this is random, I haven’t been following the conversation.” I shot a pointed look at Devlin. “Why all of a sudden are we focusing on fairies? I’ve noticed my classes in the last month keep picking it up as the main study topic.”

“We have orders to increase your training on lesser known beings, in particular fairies. There has been increased activity and sightings near the Wall.”

My heart tripped a little in my chest. “Increased?”

“Forty in the last month.”

“Where?”

Tu’s gaze bored into mine. “Here, around the Temple.”

I swallowed and scrunched my hands into fists on my knees. The silence thickened, and several sharp intakes of breath sounded throughout the room.

“Do we know why?” asked Devlin.

“No,” Tu replied. “But we can make an educated guess. This is where the greatest protectors of our race are trained. A demon gaining access to this Temple would be disastrous. They know this, and since we first came here we’ve suffered the odd attack.” He pushed his hands out in an open and calming gesture. “And that is why you should not worry. Every attack made by a demon on this Temple has failed. The Wall keeps us safe, and when it is breached we erase the danger.”

He paused and paced back and forth across the classroom floor, hands behind his back, and his eyes on the floor. His face had become drawn, dark. Is that what he thought he’d done earlier, erased a danger? My stomach lurched as my eyes wandered over his crimson blazer. It was hard to look at him straight. I wanted to stand and shout and point and tell everyone how sick and twisted he was.

“Tell me, how you would identify a fairy?” he asked as if plucking the question from the air.

“Textbooks say fairies are the most diverse of all demon kind,” Jono started. “Some have bright colored hair and funny colored eyes but all are noted to have an in-depth connection with nature, and possess inhuman strength, speed and regenerative ability.” Jono’s mouth opened, breathing in deeply, no doubt about to spew more statistical nonsense.

My hand shot up.

Dark eyebrows climbing at the forceful thrust of my hand, Tu jerked his chin at me. “Rae, you have something else to add?” There was faint surprise in his tone.

I could admit I was a more sit in silence then ace all my exams type. But just looking at him had all sorts of questions swirling around my mind.

“Lord Cleric,” I said thickly then had to grunt a few times to clear my windpipe, for bile had risen at having to address this man with the honorific. “I know despite the reports of sightings that fairies are rare, but have Have you ever seen one? Up close, I mean? “

He stopped pacing, and his mouth opened then closed. He stared at me hard before rubbing a large hand over his face. “No. I have never seen a fairy. They are incredibly rare demons.”

I cocked my head and my mouth won out over logic. “Have the Clerics ever caught a fairy? They hunt vampires and shifters all the time, but I’ve never heard of them actually catching that particular type of demon.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Devlin shift in his chair. I was not surprised. People didn’t question Clerics like this. The only reason I was managing it is because I’d seen Tu in his most base form. He had lost all my respect so it was nothing to talk to him as an equal.

His eyes went wild, glassy with repressed panic. Could no one else see it? “Like I said they are so rare-”

The direction of my thought changed abruptly, “If they haven’t,” I interrupted and tapped Alex’s textbook with a finger, “how does the Sect know to put such detail in our books?”

Now I’d looked, they’d even described different variations of fairy coloring. Once you’d seen it, it was so striking it was not something you could ever forget. How could the Sect know that, and why had I not noticed before?

His eyes darted to and from mine. He placed his palms up, pushed them out. “Such beings are commonly-”

My mind flashed to the fairy in the clearing, all that blood and sizzling skin. The ruthless way he had behaved made my gut churn and my expression darken. “The Sect is lying.” Someone to my left made a choking sound of disbelief. “They must have studied these demons, and for some reason you don’t want us to-”

Tu slammed his beefy hand on the desk. “Enough,” he barked.

I jumped, snapped my mouth shut.

Stunned at his own outburst, he blustered around with some papers on his desk and cleared his throat. “That is enough on this subject for today.” His voice was quiet, distracted. “Team up and turn to page sixteen of your textbooks to discuss and summarize the proposed vampire reproduction. Start. I’ll be back shortly to check your progress.” He spun on his heel, avoided looking at me and left the class.

Snapped from my single-minded quest for truth, I flushed at the number of people staring at me. I shot a look at Alex who was wide eyed, pouty mouth hanging with a chocolate bar resting on her bottom lip. It was foolish for me to call such attention to myself, and plain stupid to insult the Sect. Pulling my hood up, I breathed out, and tried think of a reasonable explanation for my behavior. Skipping out of class wouldn’t help; it would confirm any suspicions. Tu was one of the Clerics who had hunted me this morning. No doubt he was on his way to inform the others of my weird behavior and the direction of my questions. Great, talk about staying under the radar.

A sharp pain on my arm made me yelp. Alex’s face popped into view. “Damn, Rae. You zoned hard.”

“What class is next?” I asked. I wondered if I should consider ditching. If the Clerics thought I was a danger maybe I needed to leave now. If they found out I was a demon Wait. How would they ever know that? Gods, I was becoming melodramatic.

“We got Subterfuge,” Alex replied, “but I might ditch.”

I eyed her like she’d lost it. Why would she do that on a whim? Disciples who were caught ditching had to do bereavement duty. It meant helping the morgue deal with the remains of any poor misfortunate’s that got taken out by demons who’d breached the Wall. You helped cremate dead bodies and notified any next of kin. Most times it was kids who’d stayed out too late, or had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the Clerics duty to protect, and when they failed they made sure they grieved with the families, and showed them respect. I only considered it because my life might be on the line.

The class divided up into little clicks and Ro came over. He made a silly face at me then grinned. I built myself up mentally, knowing what was about to come next. Hauling me up, he wrapped his arms around mine and kissed my cheek. “I missed you, Rae.” He was several heads taller than me, and my feet lifted from the floor as he squeezed. Roland, Alex’s on off steady, was nice. He’d always talk to me if he saw me around the compound even when he and Alex were on outs. I wouldn’t call him a friend since I only knew him and maintained a relationship because he was important to Alex.

And that’s why I let him hug me, didn’t punch him in the face and said, “You too.” I shifted, a subtle signal for him to let go, but he remained uncomfortably close. I extracted myself. “How was it? The assignment, I mean.”

I was genuinely curious. I hadn’t lived in the slums before I came to the Academy. I had been tied to the Sect since birth, and held in orphanages in the upper dwells. I was one of the lucky ones. Those without parents generally became panhandlers, beggars prey for any hungry demons that hid behind the Wall. Plus, I loved the creative atmosphere of the place.

“A goblin kid hid in a shack close to the Sect church, a simple catch and release.” He shrugged, shifted on the spot. “Same old thing. Dirty and cold, but it be my home, y’know?” He paused and made a clicking noise with his tongue, a sound one made unconsciously before bringing up a touchy or dangerous subject. It was a slum dwell habit I knew he’d been trying to get rid of for a while. “Something happened to you this morning?”

I pressed my lips together. Ro was perceptive, more than was usual for a boy his age. That or I looked worse than I thought. I worked hard to keep most of the kooky crap I did away from Alex. It would only worry her. The stuff from this morning would probably give her grey hairs. Ro looked like he was ready to buckle down and figure what was wrong with me. Maybe his well timed words and snorts earlier were trying to accomplish more than just derision. Maybe he was trying to cover up the fact I was giggling like a banshee during what was supposed to be a serious discussion. Whatever issues I had about how cooped up we were behind the Wall or how purist the teachings of Sect had become, the Temple was my home. Suggestions bound to get me into serious trouble stayed locked firmly inside my mind, most of the time. Disciples who’d voiced radical ideas like my own ended up failing the final exam or kicked out of the Sect. Then there were the ones who disappeared entirely. That was not going to happen to me. Ro and I had had a few very brief discussions about this. Touched on the subject more than once, how some things the Sect did and said didn’t quite add up. How Disciples going missing, after they had spoken up about the treatment of demons we captured, was just plain wrong. Ro had always been keen to talk more, but I’d always pulled back.

“I went Outside,” I said and lifted my chin. “I ran in the forest.”

Alex groaned and plucked at the skin of her throat as if it irritated her. She’d already known this and her reaction was purely knee jerk.

Ro didn’t look surprised, if anything mildly impressed. “Did something happen?”

I tilted my head, hearing something unspoken in the words. “Why’d you think that?”

“You on edge, and earlier you went pale like you seen you a ghost. You got so shook up you forgot yourself and walked right into Devlin. Rae, you always so careful and cautious about touching, and you got so distracted you forgot?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so, something big happened.”

I swallowed before I answered, “I saw-” Was I really going to tell him?

“I’ll tell you