Detention

Chapter 5
The spectator

Chapter Description: There is a new student who has shown up to Lilith's class. She isn't enrolled yet, but she seems enthusiastic enough. Maybe she'll turn out to be a superb student during the next quarter.

Lilith bawled in front of her bathroom mirror. If an assassin was not yet after her, then one would soon be. She had stepped well outside the boundaries of what was considered acceptable use of forbidden magic. She could not possibly cover her tracks this time and broke out into a violent outburst of shuddering. Despite all her movement, her reflection remained still and serene, giving her a dark stare.

“Oh my fucking god, snap out of it.” Lilith glanced at the mirror to see her reflection yelling at her. She was very shocked and surprised. As she shifted her attention toward her misrepresented reflection, she noticed that it was just her reflection; a teary-eyed, adult woman staring back at her. With this she left her bathroom to go get some sleep since she was going to be administering an exam tomorrow.

***

There was a new spectator sitting in on her class today. Lilith tried to tell her that today wasn’t a good day for that since she was only giving out an exam today, but the new girl insisted that she just wanted to get a feel for the class, including exam days. Lilith made it clear that she was not to disrupt the class in any way, to which this stranger agreed. Lilith laughed at herself in spite of this since her kids were usually louder than the students when they woke up, but the stranger seemed polite enough to neglect to mention that. Lilith felt like she’d met this girl before, but didn’t know where. She shifted her attention toward her pre-exam pep-talk and handing out the exams. The visitor motioned her over and requested that she be given one as well, just to see what the material Lilith covered was like and promised not to write on it. Since Lilith was used to her students being more rebellious and less willing to learn, Lilith agreed to her inquiry and handed her the paper. The class proceeded to test. The smarter students finished first, while the lazier students seemed to take the whole class, with a few deviating from the general rule of thumb. Luckily her kids stayed asleep for the duration of the class. The visitor stayed the whole class period.

The classroom gradually emptied until it was only the unregistered student who remained. Lilith really didn’t like where this was going, but as an instructor she couldn’t very well snap at this newcomer based on prior bad experiences, she seemed mild-mannered enough to not want to cause trouble at any rate. Lilith looked up from her desk where she had started to grade the exams in order to accommodate this guest of hers. “Well, what did you think?”

“Your students seem disciplined enough, although I wouldn’t go as far as to say you’re an outstanding professor; most of them looked like some of these questions were the first time they’d been exposed to that particular material and some of the students didn’t even finish.” the stranger replied. Lilith thought the girl was just here to take a look at how the class would work out, not critique her every flaw in teaching. She continued, “The material itself was covered in class, but you left it to the students to explore the topic instead of walking them through it before you presented them with the exam. Everyone I’ve talked to in the class says you always bring a couple of babies with you that you say you adopted out of the kindness of your heart, but I have also heard that there were a couple of students who gave you grief earlier in the year…” She trailed off as if Lilith were under speculation. Lilith bit her lip, hoping this wasn’t going where she thought it was, especially considering her last few attempts at spell casting hadn’t worked out at all. She didn’t think that this girl was a witch, but she had been completely wrong about the last girl who confronted her. “All in all I’d say that this class deserves another observation, if you’d be so kind as to allow me to sit in on it again.” Lilith was slightly relieved that this student was just immensely interested in the class and not her personally. She consented to having her sit in on her next lecture.

As Lilith drove home she reconsidered how her life was turning out. Her new kids weren’t so bad and if she were to get more students who cared that much about class procedures as to actually interview people to find out what it was going to be like then it was probably going to be all for the better. She pulled into the apartment parking lots and unloaded the children she had taken under her custody. Maybe, just maybe, things would settle down and she could stop worrying about the penalty of the spells she had cast.

***

Tonight Lilith’s vision was of the 1800’s when the ban on spell casting was set. She had been opposed to setting the ban, but at the majority decision in favor of it she just had to consent. The sisters in her clan who hadn’t were all facing execution, forcing them to go into hiding, although that’s not what the official statement of the coven had been at that time, ‘they all just needed time to adjust to the ban in their own way.’ had been the popular opinion shared by all consenters at the time. Over the years the view toward witches who used their magic had changed from that of complete understanding to that of them being vile and traitorous. They would surely give them all away if they weren’t dealt with in a timely manner. This had invigorated and prompted the witches of many clans to mercilessly hunt down their former comrades. Lilith had participated but she was not a willing volunteer. She was on the hunt for one of her favorite sisters when all of a sudden…

Lilith awoke in a cold sweat. It had been at least fifty years since she had dreamed of those times. There was something about them that she couldn’t seem to remember, they were just memories that had little meaning to her, if any at all… they seemed so faded and unreal, but she knew that they were definitely hers. When she thought about those times she wondered if she had been a different person entirely. The fact was that she didn’t know and there was no way of finding out. If and when witches met, it was only to track down one of their own who had gone rogue. There was never any discussion of times before the ban or even life in general.. It wasn’t anything like the way things used to be. Was the ban even necessary? Maybe; there were definitely some witches out there who had gone rotten to the core, using human sacrifices and hexing undeserving mortals, but still… there had been good witches too. Lilith thought she was one of them, but couldn’t really remember the times that well. She was interrupted from her reminiscence by the wailing of both Kevin and Sara.

As Lilith entered her living room she considered to herself that Sara was acting more and more like a baby. Perhaps her adult mind was being swallowed up by her infant body or maybe she appreciated Lilith‘s situation a bit more since she was caring for her after all; she didn’t know for sure though. She wasn’t fully aware of the specifics of the spells she had cast that night. The last time she was fully aware of her spell casting she’d been warned that she’d be reported if it happened again, the fact that these two were regressed and living under her roof hardly felt real to her, but she just had to bear with it until her powers returned. She had tried to restore them several times the past week, but as always since her episode with Sara, she didn’t seem to be in control of her magic anymore. Her life had vastly improved since then because she never had to worry about making enough money anymore, but she couldn’t reset her environment to the way it had been and it made her all the more paranoid that her coven would find out about her misadventures in teaching. Other witches had been hunted down for much, much more trivial spells than the ones she had cast so she was absolutely terrified of being discovered. She snapped out of it, fed the kids some formula, and once they were quieted and had fallen back asleep, she herself went back to bed.

***

Elizabeth was the name of the student who kept scoping out her class. She had come by to check out her class twice since the exam and critiqued the lecture both times, but both consisted mostly of positive feedback. Lilith wasn’t so worried about her anymore. She saw her in class again today. She smiled at her. It was very reassuring to have a serious student visit her class. This girl might even be in her class next quarter, which was one of the few things Lilith was looking forward to these days.

Lilith made it to the end of class when only Elizabeth remained. The started chatting again, with Elizabeth running her usual critique, but this time she seemed like she wasn’t a student trying to figure out the general flow of her class at all. Lilith couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something really suspicious about Elizabeth. She decided it was probably just her imagination, but that’s when Elizabeth asked about her kids, something she had yet to do. She had never asked Lilith about her personal life, it had always been class-related business between the two of them. Lilith was startled, but decided to give her the same answer she gave everyone else; she had saved these children from abortions and even though it hardly fit her earnings at all, she was somehow making it work. For a brief moment Elizabeth looked like she didn’t believe any of it, but her expression changed when Lilith looked her in the eyes and she simply nodded. She left soon thereafter. Lilith felt as though she and Elizabeth were starting to be friends of sorts and felt terrible for lying like that, but as with a lot of things she was going through at the moment, she didn’t have a choice. The lies were necessary to keep the public and the coven off her trail. She didn’t know how she had lasted this long, but was grateful anyway. Maybe once she got to know Elizabeth a little bit better she could see if she would be willing to watch Sara and Kevin every now and then. She really needed a break from them but her options seemed really limited at the moment. She took the kids home and went to bed.

On the day of Lilith’s final exam, Elizabeth showed up to class again. Lilith told her that since this was the final and she wanted to limit the number of distractions her students had, she wanted Elizabeth to sit this one out. Elizabeth told her she had figured as much and told her she actually wanted to watch Kevin and Sara for her since they woke up randomly throughout her class. Lilith was grateful for this and consented. She administered the exam without the presence of her two former students and the rest of her students seemed to finish the exam a little bit faster than they would have otherwise. She was sad and sorry that she couldn’t have left them at home, but she didn’t have anyone to watch her babies otherwise. She hoped Elizabeth could step in a bit more, but knew she couldn’t impose on her too much. When the last exam was turned in and the last student left, Lilith left to go thank Elizabeth for her help and take Sara and Kevin back home with her. She was surprised to find Elizabeth waiting for her outside, alone.

“Hey, Elizabeth. Thanks for helping out today, I think that really helped my students focus.” She started.

“Oh, no problem at all, Lilith…”

“Where are my kids Elizabeth?” Lilith finished.

“Lilith, gig’s up. You and I both know you don’t have any kids. The ones you’ve been parading around were just regressed for pissing you off. The coven’s had its eye on you for some time and I’ve been sent in to investigate. The final just now gave me the perfect opportunity to perform tests to see if your children were really ‘babies’ at all. I have confirmed that they are the students with whom you have had quarrels over the last few months. I have been sent to terminate you and erase all evidence of your witchcraft.” Elizabeth stated.

“Where are they and what did you do with them, Elizabeth?” Lilith asked. “I may have had problems with them, but they are my responsibility now and I’ll be damned before I let some bitch like you take them from me.”

“Oh, they are safe from you, but I don’t know if ‘safe’ is a good word for it. The coven wants them disposed of. They can’t be returned to normal by now and even if they could, they are witnesses to your crimes against the coven, so they must also be eliminated.” Elizabeth informed her. Upon hearing all this, Lilith blacked out.