Fantastic Schools: Volume One (Fantastic Schools Anthologies Book 1)

by Christopher G Nuttall

  Butterfly shook her head. “My parents don’t listen to the newscasts. They subscribe to some internet stuff that they follow, mostly political stuff.” She scrunched up her eyes in thought. “Ya know, I think I heard them saying something about that, but Mom blamed it on global warming.” She shook her head. “You’re telling me, you’re positive, that actual magic is real, somehow? And it started with that lightning storm?”

  Janie nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. Here. Let me show you the video of that night. It’s on here, too.” She scrolled to another video, and opened it up. The video showed a team of men and women, dressed in black tacticals, taking control of Jackson Square. Then the woman in the earlier video, wearing the same brown outfit, walked out of the darkness to a particular point in the square and, kneeling down, bowed her head. A tall man, dressed in black tacticals, stepped up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, as if to brace her. As the video unfolded, the woman bent over and her arms went down to the ground. As she kneeled on the ground, the air around her began to ripple as if it was being shaken. Then, with a roar, bright, golden energy ripped up out of the ground, streaming through the woman. She was thrown back into the arms of the man, her head back and eyes shut, arms outstretched, as the energy tore through her. It erupted, lighting up the sky for what appeared to be miles around. Even as it started to dissipate, small points of light began appearing all around the square and started congregating over the woman. She was helped to her feet, and, accompanied by the man and what was clearly her security team, walked out of Jackson Square. Before the video cut off, Butterfly saw people actually starting to kneel as she passed.

  “I don’t get it. What does it all mean?” Butterfly demanded.

  “I don’t really know, but people in New Orleans are saying that those lights that appeared? They’re fairies. And you saw the flying horse. They say there’s a whole colony of different beings living outside of New Orleans now. There’s crazy stuff going on,” Janie said, a big smile lighting her face. “I’d love to see, I don’t know, even a fairy,” she said, looking away from her friend for a moment, imaging what they could be like. She turned back to Butterfly, a poignant smile on her face. “But I haven’t seen anything yet. Now, if you do,” she said, elbowing Butterfly, “let me know. OK?”

  At that moment, the bell rang, calling the students into class. As Butterfly started getting up, Janie put her hand on her arm and leaned her head in close to Butterfly. “Just be careful. I’ve heard rumors. Keep your head down and don’t be afraid to run.” Butterfly looked quizzically at Janie. “Remember. Just be safe, OK?” Janie urged her, seriously. Butterfly nodded, and then, grabbing her backpack, joined the crowd entering the main building.

  Head down, roughly combed brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, Butterfly elbowed her way down the main hallway that ran through the crowded, old, inner-city Dallas school. Around her, the kids moved back and forth in the hallway. They were laughing at each other for the most part, pushing and shoving, occasionally deliberately bumping into Butterfly.

  She sighed. This was why she hated this school. 95% of the kids weren’t there to learn, and the ones that tried were treated as outcasts, like Butterfly. There was minimal discipline in the school, and virtually none in the halls. The teachers fed the students the answers to the annual advancement tests, and learning was hit or miss. The kids showed up, the school district got the money for the kids being there, and the gangs actually ran the school. For kids like Butterfly, survival was the name of the game. And survival was a fact. Just last week, two gangs had gone at it in the hallway; two boys were knifed in the fight. One was in ICU, the other in jail.

  Shaking her head, she pushed through the crowd, headed for first period, just hoping that Angelina Ramirez and her gang missed her this morning. Angelina had been harassing her for a month now. “Hey, you. Butterfly. Hey, girl, I’m talking to you.” Damn. Here we go again.

  With a deep sigh of resignation, Butterfly stopped and turned around. Of course; there was Angelina, along with her whole gang, over a dozen girls. Most had served time in juvenile detention for crimes ranging from simple shoplifting to armed assault, and were only in school because of the free lunch or to keep the probation officers off their rears.

  “What do you want, Angelina?” Butterfly asked with a sigh, as if she didn’t know.

  “Girl, I told you to get lost. We don’ want your kind in this school. I run this school, not that useless principal or her staff. Me! What part of get out of here don’ you understand?” Angelina snarled as she walked up to Butterfly. Behind her, the other girls began to spread out to encircle Butterfly.

  Butterfly glanced around, seeing what was happening and remembered Janie’s warning. Oh, shit. This is bad; real bad.She started easing backwards but found herself backed into the hallway wall. Past the ring of girls, others were forming into a pack to watch what happened. Butterfly glanced down at Angelina’s hands. A knife. Oh, God, she’s got a knife! She’s gonna kill me, right here! She frantically looked around for the school resource officer but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Look, Angelina,” Butterfly stuttered, “mom makes me come. I don’t want to. Really. I just want to get through the day. I’m not bothering you, and I really, really don’t want any trouble.”

  Angelina looked away from Butterfly, looking around at the girls surrounding Butterfly. “Bitch don’ want trouble. Aw, ain’t that a shame,” eliciting a laugh from her followers. She looked back at Butterfly. Even though Angelina was several inches short of the 5’8” frame of Butterfly, she seemed to Butterfly to tower over her. Tears began leaking out of her eyes. “Aw, bitch is crying.” Angelina’s face hardened. “Well, it’s time to give you something to really cry about.” With that, she drove the knife at Butterfly.

  Butterfly, without thinking, swung the backpack she had been carrying in her hand in front of her, deflecting the knife momentarily. Frightened beyond any point in her life, adrenaline surging, she screamed, “Go AWAY!” and pushed Angelina, pushing with her entire body. But instead of just shoving Angelina back a step, Angelina flew backwards across the hall, knocking several other students out of the way as she smashed into the empty school lockers, crushing the doors, and leaving her bleeding and unconscious on the floor.

  The crowd that had been surrounding Butterfly and egging Angelina on turned away from Butterfly, stunned and silent now, staring at the school bully lying crushed against the lockers, as well as the students who had been knocked to the floor. Butterfly stood there, shaking in fear and shock. She stared down at her hands, seeing a strange glow around them. She looked up at Angelina, still lying unconscious on the floor as her cronies surrounded her, momentarily ignoring Butterfly. The crowd had worked its way between the gang and Butterfly, some checking on the other fallen students, momentarily hiding her from the gang. Butterfly looked around frantically. The school resource officer as well as the school staff was nowhere to be seen. Oh, God; oh GOD! What happened? What did I do? She looked at Angelina one more time. Oh, shit, I think she’s…did I KILL her?Terrified, with no help coming, she panicked, focusing only on escaping; escaping Angelina’s gang, escaping the school, escaping everything.

  She desperately pushed past the stunned crowd and fled out the front door of the school, oblivious to the shouts behind. As she ran across the school yard, she saw one of the city transit busses approaching the bus stop across the street. Pulling her bus pass out of her pocket, she flagged down the bus and jumped on board, not caring where it was headed; only that it was going away from that hellhole of a school.

  As she rode on the bus, she buried her head in her hands, crying both in fear and in relief; fear as to what her mother would say, not to mention the police that she knew would come for her, and relief that, no matter what, she would not be going back there. The school would be sure to expel her. After all, she wasn’t part of one of the gangs, so the principal would have no reason to let her get away with what she did, even if Angelina sur
vived. As her heart slowed its frantic beat, she started thinking about what had happened. She remembered trying to push Angelina away, but…something else happened. She’d felt a surge of strength, of energy that she had never felt before. For a moment, just a moment, she felt as if there was nothing she couldn’t do; she’d felt strong enough to rip the doors off the school, let alone throw Angelina across the hall.

  She looked down at her hands. They were still trembling from the shock of the attack, and yet, and yet it was as if there was something else there…some kind of energy around them. She closed her eyes, trying one of her mother’s meditation exercises for a minute or so, then opened her eyes again, looking at her hands. Nothing. It was all just an illusion, she thought to herself, a reaction to the shock.But it still didn’t answer the question of how she threw Angelina across the hall.

  She sat up in the worn bus seat, looking out the dirty window, and realized she was in downtown. That’s far enough. They won’t look for me here. They’ll be at the house, if anywhere.She reached up and pulled the cord, stopping the bus at the next corner. Climbing off, she realized that she had no idea where to go. She had her cell phone, but who to call? The police and the school would be calling her parents, and there is no way they would listen to what she had to say. She opened up the small billfold she carried; the bus pass; her cafeteria card for the school, useless now; and five dollars. At least Angelina and her gang hadn’t taken that from her, but that wasn’t going to help much. It wasn’t going to even get her lunch.

  Butterfly looked around, and realized that she had been dropped across the street from the Dallas Museum of Art. Shrugging, her backpack tossed over one shoulder, she walked over to the doors. She could see the staff moving around inside, but the museum was still closed since it was still early morning. Aimlessly, she wandered the grounds around the museum, walking past the brown jumpsuit-clad landscaping crew tending the grounds, and found herself at the rear of the museum in the wooded and landscaped sculpture garden. Spying the benches on the shaded patio overlooking the garden, she sat down, thinking about what she could do. Again and again she went over in her head what had happened, and she couldn’t make sense of it. How did I push her across the hall, she thought. How did I do that? I don’t have that strength. And then…my hands. Did I really see something around them?

  Deep in thought, trying to figure out what had happened and what to do, she had not seen the tiny being hovering near her, nor did she pay any attention to the crackling sound near her. It just faded into the background noise of the bustling city. She didn’t even know she wasn’t alone on the bench until a soft female voice said, "Hello."

  Deep in the depths of her morose thoughts, she glanced around, catching the sight of brown pants and boots. Someone from the landscaping crew, she thought, turning her head back down, staring at the ground in front of her.

  “Hi,” she mumbled.

  ”My name’s Sherry. What’s yours?” the woman asked, quietly. Butterfly shook her head, immersed in her inner sorrow, the drone of the big city a background to her pain. “Come on, now. I told you my name. Now, please, what’s yours?” came the quiet, calm voice again.

  Finally, Butterfly gave into the urge to talk to someone, anyone. “My name is Butterfly. Butterfly Lane and I hate my name.” She didn’t know why she added that, but it felt right to let it out.

  “Hello, Butterfly. So, why do you hate your name? It’s a lovely name.”

  “My mother, a useless hippie at heart, came up with it. She told me that it would fit my floating and flying soul. She didn’t give a damn of how others would react to that name. I’ve been picked on for it for, well, forever,” Butterfly muttered.

  “Don’t your parents love you?” the soft voice asked. “Your clothes are not bad; you’re clearly in good health. Is there something else going on with them,” the voice continued, coaxing Butterfly to let her open up her soul, perhaps for the first time.

  “Huh. You’d think. I go to school, I come home, I go to my room. I study on my computer, I go to bed, get up in the morning, and do it all again…and again…and again. My father is a vice president at some downtown Dallas bank. Mother, well, she’s a lawyer for some do-gooder group. She spends far more time and is far more interested in helping the so-called downtrodden. I mean, I can sometimes go almost a week without saying a dozen words to her. Really, she’d have us living in some commune, having me weed some group garden instead of going to school if dad let her get away with it.” Even as Butterfly finished, tears came to her eyes as she gave voice to the heartbreak of her broken family. All she had ever wanted was to be loved, to be held, to be cared for. Instead, she was treated as a piece of furniture by her parents.

  “I’m so sorry, Butterfly. You shouldn’t have to live like that. So, you ran away from school and now you’re sitting here because you’ve reached the end of your rope with your family?” the voice prompted.

  Butterfly’s shoulders dropped, and the tears began to flow. “No,” she choked out. “I was in a fight at school. A girl tried to kill me. I fought back, and I hurt her. I mean, I really hurt her bad. She might have died.” As the sobs came out, Butterfly felt the woman’s arm reach around her and pull her in close. “Are you going to call the police? I mean, I know they’re probably looking for me right now.”

  The woman’s voice laughed softly, and she gave Butterfly a gentle shake. “No, I won’t be calling the police. I don’t think that is going to be necessary. Do you, Elinane?”

  “No, Your Majesty, I don’t think that will be necessary at all,” came a tinkling voice in response.

  Butterfly’s head jerked up to see a small, glowing, winged being, hovering just feet in front of her. Her eyes grew wide in shock. What the hell! A fairy?Jerking her head around, she found a young, red-haired woman with slanted green eyes and pointed ears, dressed all in brown beside her. Butterfly jerked away to the other end of the bench, her head spinning as she looked from the woman to the small winged creature she still couldn’t believe was actually there.

  The woman smiled softly. “As I said, my name is Sherry, Sherry Martin. But my birth name is Sha-Ri a’ Alean de Camlin,” Sherry explained. “And I am here because you have come into your power, not to call the police.” She then pointed to the small being. “And Elinane is a fairy. She’s the one who felt you come into your power and alerted us.”

  Butterfly closed her eyes. Power? Fairies? This is insane. I don’t have any power. And yet, she remembered looking at her hands and seeing the strange glow around them. She thought back to the videos Janie had showed her, what they’d been talking about. “Wait a minute. You don’t mean magic?”

  “Young lady, you have, quite emphatically I might add, embraced your ability to control the power that exists in this world,” Sherry explained with a smile. She paused, looking away for a moment, then back at Butterfly. “You are out on the internet, looking at the videos.” Butterfly shook her head no. “Haven’t you seen the videos of people doing extraordinary things, people saying that magic has returned?”

  “No. I mean, my friend Janie showed me some this morning. She was trying to cheer me up. Mother wouldn’t let me leave school so she showed me some videos of a woman…” If it was possible, Butterfly’s eyes would have gotten even larger.

  “Oh. My. GOD! I’ve seen you, on those videos Janie was showing me. You’re who people are calling the Witch of New Orleans!”

  Sherry laughed gently at Butterfly’s reaction. “Yes, people are calling me that. Now, I am not a witch. A better term is a possessor of power. I don’t stand over a cauldron making potions to turn people into cats; I don’t make spells to do the things I do. I just have the ability to control the power that exists in the natural world, an energy that was sealed off for almost two millennia…and so do you,” she finished, pointing at Butterfly.

  Butterfly, shocked and amazed, looked down at her hands. They weren’t glowing; they looked normal…but they had glowed when she pushed Angelina. ”Bu
t, I don’t feel any different.”

  “You probably don’t right now. You haven’t learned to relate to the energies around you. Now, tell me what happened; and I mean everything. What you saw, what you did, what you felt,” Sherry instructed Butterfly. As Butterfly related all that had happened, her eyes still jerking back to the improbable fairy now floating over Sherry’s shoulder, Sherry nodded, encouraging her to tell her everything, even asking questions and asking probing questions as to how she felt when she pushed Angelina.

  As she finally ran down, Sherry nodded. “It is a shame that this is how you came into your power, but it is not uncommon. Some stress, some outside factor, it can trigger the release. In your case, it let off a powerful pulse that echoed through the power. That’s how Elinane found you. As to why she called me, well, you’re right. You are not going back to school. And you are not going to go back to your home, except to pack a couple of bags.”

  ”But…but…I’ve got to finish high school. I’ve got to face the police. I know that,” Butterfly sputtered.

  “No. There will be no police; I have friends that will see to that. Besides, it was clearly self-defense. As to going back to school, back to home, that really won’t be possible now. You absolutely have to get trained to handle what you’ve released in yourself.” Sherry’s face sobered for a moment. “Far too many people have died playing with the abilities they have, accidentally killing themselves, and sometimes taking innocents with them. You see, far too often, one of the first things that people do when they accidentally come into their power is to call up fire. You felt how much power you released when you defended yourself?” Butterfly nodded mutely. Sherry nodded back and continued. “Think how much fire you would have released had you called that up instead of pushing her. It would have incinerated Angelina, severely burned many of those around you, and possibly killed you in the process.” She shook her head sadly. “We just aren’t able to get to everyone quick enough.” Then she smiled. “But we did find you in time.”