Chapter Text
Different.
That was her verdict looking at the landscape outside the window.
Vermont was different from California.
There wasn’t that sparkling air of joy that had accompanied her all those years in her days; no baby blue skies with their cotton clouds or golden rays of the sun shining down on her. It was just empty.
She was there, none could have denied that; her legs, her arms, her face, they were all there, but her soul, her heart was back in San Francisco, she was aware of that.
The figure in front of her was analysing her: she tried to hide her surprise and confusion behind professional politeness, but a light in her eyes betrayed her true thoughts.
Janette caught her staring at her and the woman quickly looked away, a slight embarrassment coloring her cheeks.
Amelia Pardoe, Ms. Pardoe.
Nevermore's new, temporary, principal, only for as long as it took the previous one to recover, or so she had stated in welcoming her.
Her young inexperience made her movements awkward and insecure, although Jane had to admit that she cleverly hid it.
Her eyes had returned to the cards in front of her, partly to hide the embarrassment of being caught staring at her, partly because of the obvious confusion in which Janette's mere presence had put her.
“I’ll be honest Miss. - Jane perceived the woman's discomfort at the only thought of pronouncing her surname, limiting herself to an anonymous Miss. - our school doesn’t usually accept normies among its students, and at the beginning of the second semester mostly, but because of your excellent grades and your father's - Jane reduced the lips to a thin line - great insistence, we are prepared to make an exception.”
And by “great insistence” she meant cheque, big cheque.
“I’m honored, Ms. Pardoe.” A simple form, no note of real pleasantness could be found in her voice.
The woman gave her another quizzical look, before getting up from her chair and walking towards the door.
“Right now your classmates are having their first break, I would like to take advantage of the situation and introduce you, or would you prefer to settle into your room first?”
“I would like to meet them first.”
Her calm seemed unnatural, everyone else in her position would be confused or scared.
She was going to meet vampires, werewolves, gorgons, sirens, and psychics, all figures that until now she placed in fairytales or ancient mythology. And as a cherry on top, she was going to be the only “normie”, as the principal had called her, to attend the school, with the nearest human village a thirty-minute drive away.
Even though she had promised her relatives to write to them about her new school and her new situation, right now she found it a little bit difficult to tell them everything without giving them a heart attack.
But she wasn't the type to get anxious or panic and get discouraged; her plan was simple: escape from this school, take any means of transport that from Jericho would bring her to the nearest big city, take an airplane and fly back to San Francisco, go to court and have the judge recognise that her father is not capable of taking care of his daughter and be entrusted to some of her maternal relatives. Simple as that.
She didn’t feel guilty to do such a thing. After all, the first words that had left his mouth were:
“You were a mistake.”
Really, she couldn’t think of anything better to say to the daughter he was seeing for the first time in seventeen years who just lost her mother. She had always considered him a bad person, but then he had hit rock bottom.
The only person she slightly felt bad for was the brother he discovered she had: without a mother he had grown up with their father alone.
The principal nodded slightly at her response before lighting up in remembering something.
“I’ll give you your uniform so you can go and change to start your life here.”
Her life wasn’t here, in Vermont, in a strange school, with a half-brother she didn’t know and a father that didn’t care about her; her life was in San Francisco, in her normal high school, with her grandparents, her aunt, her uncle, and her cousins, with her friends and her boyfriend.
There was nothing here for her.
“Thank you.”
-
The courtyard swarmed with students. It was amazing how much it resembled any other high school: disordered voices merging into one big confusion, small elite groups that ruled the situation despite their clear inferiority, and glances that spoke more than words themselves. Her sense of disorientation seemed to find peace in such familiar chaos.
The principal cleared her throat, attracting everyone's attention.
“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, so I’ll be brief and concise. - a gentle smile appeared on her lips as she looked at her students - as all of you probably know by now, thanks to not-so-official sources - her eyes stopped on a blonde girl who turned red, while the boy next to her tried to stifle his giggles and whispered something in her ear that made her become even redder - a new student will join you today. I expect that you’ll welcome her with your best manners and will do your best to make her feel at home, especially since she will be the first normie student of Nevermore.”
A murmur swept through the courtyard, students looked at each other in disbelief. Janette saw the blonde girl from before, who had returned to her original colour, eyes widen in excitement, and tell something to a much darker and colder figure next to her.
“Quiet, quiet. Times have changed. But I want you all to give your best to give her a pleasant experience - she gave a meaningful look to all of them - please welcome Miss. Janette Thorpe.”
That was when the real silence crashed in the school. None dared to say anything. Everyone was either too shocked or confused to speak.
The principal tried to save the situation by giving a little applause and encouraging the students to follow her with her eyes. A few uncertain hands followed her but died out almost immediately.
Jane felt everyone’s gaze on her and a question flew menacingly over their heads like a storm: who was she?
Her surname, which had never meant anything to her, here was something. It was a symbol, almost a title. A heavy crown. Would she be worthy of it? Honestly, no matter how famous or important her father was, from a humanitarian point of view, his level was easy to achieve and overcome, but of course, only a few knew this. For everyone else, he was Vincent Thorpe, one of the world's most important and prestigious psychics.
Janette stood near the principal, in silence, studying what would be her new classmates in the coming days, if not, alas, weeks.
A few people caught her attention, aside from the blonde girl from before, the giggling boy, and the dark girl; two girls and a boy with eyes of a blue he had never seen before, unnatural, almost neon; a girl with long dark hair and sunglasses who was drinking something red from a cup and then a guy: he was tall, maybe 15/20 centimetres more than her, facial muscles contracted in a mixed expression of resignation and curiosity, but what had caught her attention had been his hair: it was of a soft brown, light, almost blonde, just like hers.
Xavier.