Hi everyone! Here's the next chapter.?

To find the previous chapters, go here:
Chapter One:?https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=75176
Chapter Two:?https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=75186
Chapter Three:?https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=75213

(I do apologize for having my layout on in the previous chapters, against the rules).

Also, my friend told me that this is a slice-of-life story with adventure and fantasy thrown in. I'm curious to know if you agree!


The family ties that are forged
Are not easily spoken;
But if they are, by fate’s design, destroyed,
They are even harder to be unbroken.

BLOOD IS THICKER THAN HIGHWATER (PLUS, THE BONUS APPEARANCE OF TAXES)

Coffee.

Bitter, disgusting coffee.

Ellie hated it, but the filter in the fridge had betrayed her and was now conspiring with the forces of the universe against her, obstinately refusing to work. Ellie wasn’t going to drink from the tap; she’d tried it that morning, and it burned her throat. It made her place a call at the city’s water department about the water supply, and was pleasantly told that “they’d look into the problem,” which was really government-jargon for “We don’t have time for this; look into it yourself and don’t blame us if your water’s poisonous.” ?

Luckily, Damien had managed to make a pot of coffee before the filter broke, so Ellie was faced with the choice to either die of thirst or put up with it.

Ellie sat on the couch, Damien’s coffee mug that she was using without his permission in one hand (“I hope he doesn’t mind!” ) and a textbook resting across her knees. Although she had yet to speak to either Damien or her tutor about it, Ellie wanted to take a high school equivalency exam. College was currently out of the question, and would likely remain so. It wasn’t that she particularly needed a degree, as Damien’s presidency in his company provided for the both of them. It was rather more as to give herself credit.

Around noon, she ate a buttered toast and sat down to take care of the taxes. Actually, she said ‘take care’ of the taxes. But it’d be more accurate to say ‘fought them with her heart and soul.’ They were stupid, boring, and unfair- as taxes always will be- but Ellie was determined to stay busy. If she settled down, her mind would drift to yesterday, and that was someplace she did not want to go. Wasn’t that a stage of grief? Denial? Urgh, she’d just been studying psychology; she really should have retained the information better.

“No way,” she said, biting the pen cap. “The tax rate’s gone up. Ergh, I need a calculator.”

Ellie did not often use calculators. She prided herself on being a person who could do most arithmetic in her head and not being dependent on the calculator, but the paper-pushers in the government had found her weakness: logarithms.
“Why,” she asked the air as she searched every drawer for that one calculator she knew she owned (somewhere), “do the taxes require logarithms! It’s not like our money grows exponentially! I wish it did.”

The phone rang as Ellie had finished checking every spare inch and was weighing the pros and cons of braving the attic. “Hello?” she answered. “Morvant estate.”

“Hiya, sweetie.”

“Oh, Damien.” She twisted the cord around her finger, as she often did when using the corded phone. Oddly enough, she tended to do it only when the speaker was Damien. “Something wrong? You don’t usually call when you’re at work.”

“I forgot to tell you. I need you to pick out a dress.”

“What? Why? Where’re we going?”

“The opera.”

“The opera!” Ellie laughed at the thought. Both she and Damien hated the opera. She supposed this was one of his fits of ‘spontaneity.’ “Oh, wow. When’d you get the tickets?”

“About ten minutes before you woke up. I phoned in and reserved two seats in the box.”

“That’s so sweet, Damien. Whatever for?”

“Because I love you.” Then came a sound like he was kissing the telephone. “Mwah.”

He hung up.

Ellie put the phone down and clicked her tongue. “This is about yesterday,” she sighed. “Drat his misplaced guilt.” At least it gave her an excuse to put off working on the taxes. Seriously, though… logarithms in her tax rate! Were they trying to swindle her?

(No, scratch that; of course they were. The question was, where they trying to swindle her even more?)

“And maybe I can get a new calculator on the way back,” Ellie murmured, admitting finding it was a lost cause.




“Andrew, this is the third time this week,” Miss Highwater said, folding her hands on her desk behind the neat placard that displayed ‘HEADMISTRESS’ in bold, gilt capital letters. The desk wasn’t messy, but a healthy amount of papers was strewn about.

Andrew sat across from her on a plastic stool, tugging at his collar. He seemed uncomfortable in his school uniform, even though the cotton polo and green sweater vest made him look very adorable. He glared at Miss Highwater as she spoke. His shock of red hair was technically too long according to school rules (it was not supposed to go past his collar, which it did by at least an inch), and a lot of it fell into his eyes, irises the same hazel-green as Miss Highwater’s. “So expel me,” he mumbled. “You don’t want me here anyway.”

“Andrew, you know that’s not true.” Miss Highwater pulled a thick folder out of the filing cabinet and showed him the first paper inside, his transcript. “Not only is your behavior slipping, but your grades are plummeting as well. You’re failing your mathematics class, Andrew. I know you can do better than that. What’s going on?”

“You’re not my mother. What do you care?”

“I care for all my students, Andrew.”

“Well, not all your students care about you, obviously,” Andrew shot back.

Miss Highwater pursed her lips. “Andrew, I know that. It can’t be helped.” She spoke with infinite patience. “This is, however, not about me. It’s about you.”

“So I’m a wrecking ball. I tarnish the good name of the Academy. Just give me detention and stop yapping; your empty rhetoric is more tiring than your face.”

Miss Highwater set his folder down and groaned. “I give up. Why do you do this to me?”

“Because I can.”

She eyed him and noticed his constant fussing over his hair to keep it out of his eyes. “You really need a haircut.”

“So give me one.”

“Do you want to provoke me?”

“I don’t want to,” Andrew smirked. “I am.” It was a point for him, and he knew it. “It seems looking out for me is harder than you thought it’d be, huh? Oh, the woes of the woman playing Mother! I heard you were terrible playing house when you were little.”

“You can’t be terrible at playing house,” Miss Highwater snapped. “Who told you that, anyway?”

Andrew’s lips tugged upwards at her blushing. “Father did.”

“And what would he know? He wasn’t present at my childhood.”

“Mother concurred, and my mother was present at your childhood because she’s your mother too.”

“I know, Andrew.” She sighed.

“Admit it. If it wasn’t for Mother, you would’ve shipped me off to reform school by now.”

“Yes, okay!” she exclaimed. “Are you happy now? I would have shipped you off first chance I got! You’re a screw-up, Andrew! I don’t know what to do with you!”

“Glad you’ve finally come clean,” Andrew beamed. “So, detention?”

“Yes,” moaned Miss Highwater. “Two weeks’ worth.”

“Okey-doke.” Andrew jumped to his feet and nearly skipped out the door. “Now that we’ve finally cleared that up… I love you, Sariel.”

“I love you too, Andy-Dandy,” she sighed, but he was already gone by the time she got the words out. She allowed herself the slimmest of smiles, then stood and looked out the window. The Academy was on a hill overlooking the lake, giving her office a perfect view. Oh, the irony that she’d see the lake every day when it was a lake that had caused all her agony so long ago…

A knock on the door brought her out of her thoughts. “Yes?” she called. “Come in.”

Iris entered, arms full with a bundle of papers. “I picked up those forms you needed, headmistress.”

“An, wonderful. Set those down on that stool, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. Did Ellie end up coming up yesterday?”

“Ellie?” Miss Highwater raised an eyebrow. “She was in town?”

“Yes,” Iris replied. “I saw her down at the station. She said she’d come up after she talked with Baxter and Gracie. I’m guessing she ended up not coming?”

“Hmm. No, she didn’t come to the Academy.” Miss Highwater scribbled a note and handed it to her. “Could you give that to the tutor, Mr. Sentin, please?”

“Of course.”

“And then head to class! I appreciate your help, Iris, but you’ve got language this period, don’t you?”

“Literature,” Iris corrected. “All right. See you later, headmistress.”

“Bye, Iris.” She gave a little wave as Iris left, then sighed once more and gingerly touched the framed photo of her wedding day on her desk. Like many her generation, she’d married ridiculously young. Seventeen, was it? Or perhaps younger? It’d been a while. Was it twenty years already? It felt like longer, especially since the last ten were spent widowed and lonely. “If only you could see me now,” she whispered.

“Still talking to the dead guy?”

Miss Highwater jumped and nearly screamed. It took her a moment to calm her frantically beating heart, and she turned to face the albino raven perched on the window sill. “Corub!” she exclaimed. “By all that is good in this world, don’t scare me like that!” Gentler, she asked, “How was your trip?”

“Terrible. Your relatives are all brutes that like to eat ravens,” Corub reported, and gave her the evil eye. Since ravens’ gazes were already set to the evil eye by default, this death stare was enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine, but Miss Highwater was quite used to Corub’s glares.

“It must have slipped my mind,” she quipped.

“You’ve eaten raven before, haven’t you?” Corub accused.

“I couldn’t help it, any more than you could help eating worms for your first months in that form!” Miss Highwater defended. “It’s what my father fed me. I don’t like it anyway. The meat’s too bland.” She stuck her tongue out. With Corub, she allowed herself the luxury of not acting her age. “What, you thought I’d eat you?”

“I’m not a raven!” Corub protested. “I’m just stuck in its form for the time being, that’s all. But it’s not like your relatives would listen when I told them. You’re going to get rid of this curse, right?”

“I’m working on it,” she said, which was as good as saying that she’d made absolutely no progress since the last time he’d asked.

“Anyway, your family- giants, all of them! Seven, eight, nine feet tall… your father was ten! Ten! Giants!” Corub squawked and flapped his wings at the end of the statement, as if to emphasize his point.

“Not giants,” Miss Highwater said, with mock offense. “Merely vertically inclined.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Corub sniffed. “You also didn’t tell me just how far west they were! Past the desert? Really? I almost died of thirst crossing it.”

“But you didn’t,” she pointed out sagely. “So, what did they say?”

“Your father says he loves you and respects your wishes but couldn’t care less about your Academy and wants you to come back right away or he’ll come and fetch you himself.”

“Uh-huh. That sounds like him.” Miss Highwater frowned. “I don’t suppose you could-“

“No! Get another frickin’ messenger!” Corub snarled. Imagine a raven snarling- it was not a pretty sight. Then he flew out of the open window before Miss Highwater would reprimand him for his language. Still, she chuckled and left the window open, in case he wanted to come back.

Precisely five minutes later, he did. “I forgot to mention,” Corub screeched. “Your father wanted you to know the Ice Witch is worried about you.”

“I’m not a threat to anyone,” Miss Highwater scoffed. “I just want to stay here at the Academy.”

“I know that. Your father knows that. The Iceheart chick- I forget her name- knows that. But…” Corub eyed her again. “That doesn’t make you any less a threat.”

A user of this : I guess not... maybe they don't have creamer in the alternate reality?  

I thought that this chapter was really funny, and I enjoy books that have a bit of humor. Keep up the good work!