Gothicana

He pressed another hard kiss to her mouth. “Your lipstick tastes good. Pomegranates?” he mused, licking his moist lips. “Wipe it off me.”

Corvina stared at the little of her purple shade that had transferred to his mouth, getting whiplash from his constant back and forth, and shoved him, creating enough space to walk away. “Wipe it off yourself.”

So much for smudge-proof lip colors.

 

**

He came to the class as Mr. Deverell again, not Vad, the untamed, uninhibited man she knew existed under that cold, controlled veneer. It was like two different sides of one man, a social self and a shadow self. 

His mouth was its usual, pomegranate-free color.

She hated him slightly for looking at her casually, like he hadn’t tasted her, demanded her, possessed her again, while her insides floundered. But she must have been good at pretending too because Jade sat by her side, chattering about her elective, not suspecting a thing.

“Alright,” Mr. Deverell clapped his hands to bring the class to attention as he sat on his desk. “For this semester, you have to study a play and a classic. I’ll give you options for both.”

He hopped down and uncapped the marker, dividing the board in two with a vertical line, writing in big bold letters with his left hand on top of each section.

 

PLAY

CLASSIC

 

He went back under the ‘PLAY’, and wrote in his crisp, bold strokes:

 

MACBETH

DOCTOR FAUSTUS

 

He turned to the class, tapping the first play with his marker. “A tragedy about the political ambition of power.” He tapped the second one. “A tragedy about a man who sells his soul to the devil for knowledge.”

The girl from the front who always raised her hand, Ria, raised her hand. “Why both tragedies, Mr. Deverell?”

“I’m a tragic kind of guy,” he quipped with a straight face, and Corvina snorted, slapping her mouth with her hand when his eyes swung up to her, along with half the class.

“You find that particularly amusing, Miss Clemm?” he asked her, his face expressionless.

Corvina felt her face burn at all the eyes on her, and looked down at her notebook, willing herself to disappear and everyone to simply resume the class and ignore her.

“I asked you a question,” his deep voice echoed in the classroom and Corvina took a deep breath, ignoring the flush she could feel on her face. She equally loved and hated when he used that tone on her. She just didn’t want to be around people when he did.

“No, Mr. Deverell,” she said quietly, keeping her eyes on her notebook before looking up. “It’s just that I prefer happier endings. Tragedies are beautiful, but they always take more than they give. A story can be tragic but it doesn’t have to end as one.”

“Ah, a romantic.” His silver gaze gleamed on her as a corner of his mouth twitched. “I see.”

Corvina gripped her pencil, wanting to throw it at him as he turned to the class again.

“Those who want to study Macbeth, raise your hands.” A few hands went up in the air.

“Those for Doctor Faustus,” he said, and Corvina raised hers, along with the majority of the class.

Mr. Deverell went to the other side of the board, writing under ‘CLASSIC’:

 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

DRACULA

 

He looked at the class, pointing to the titles. “They’re both extremely well-written classics that established an entire subgenre of literature. I’m sure you must have heard of them both.”

Almost everyone in the class nodded.

“So which one?”

Same as before, a show of hands followed. Dracula won by a majority.

Corvina lowered her hand just as Mr. Deverell’s eyes came to her, his tone level. “It doesn’t have a happy ending, Miss Clemm.”

Corvina stared him in the eyes, knowing he would understand the subtext of her next words, “It has a devil in an ancient castle falling in love. What can be more interesting than that?”

His eyes blazed. “Indeed.”

The bell rang soon after and he left, taking whatever air was in her lungs with him. Corvina slumped slightly in her seat to find Jade watching her in concern. Giving her a reassuring smile, Corvina picked up her bag, ready to get through the entire day without thinking about him.

 

**

 

‘The tower, Vivi.’

Mo’s voice made her hand pause over her notebook, her muscles tensing. She looked up and around Dr. Kari’s class. It was her last class on Monday, and most students were jotting down notes as Dr. Kari gave his lecture, the sunlight muted as evening approached.

Something was wrong, more wrong than it had been before.

Corvina didn’t know how she sensed any of these things, she just did.

A shadow flickered in the corner of the room near the door, floating along the wall towards the exit, and paused. Corvina blinked, shaking her head, trying to clear the trick of the light. It had to be a trick of the light.

‘Can you hear me? Help him.’

Two strange, foreign voices resonated inside her head, bringing the metallic scent of blood with them. Phantom ants crawled over her skin and Corvina shuddered.

What the hell?

The voices had been quiet. The shadows had disappeared for weeks. Why come back now?

“Are you alright, Miss Clemm?” Dr. Kari’s voice jolted her out of her head, making her aware of other students who turned to stare at her. “You’re muttering something.”

She was?

God, no, no, no. Not here.

Swallowing, Corvina shoved her notebook in her bag with haste and headed towards the door. “Please excuse me, Dr. Kari. I’m feeling unwell.”

Without waiting to hear his response, she broke out into a run as soon as she was in the corridor, needing to get outside. It was a long way down from the fourth level of the tower, but Corvina flew down the stairs, her braid whipping behind her, her skirt trailing behind her, her nerves shot as the shadow moved a few paces ahead on the wall.

Tears tightened in her throat, her eyes burning as she ran down.

No.

It couldn’t be happening.

She’d been okay for weeks. She’d thought it was done and everything was fine.

It couldn’t be happening. 

Just as she turned on the third-level staircase, she smacked into a hard wall.

“Fuck,” the expletive in that deep voice she recognized in her marrows reached her muddled mind a second later, making her blink down at him as he stood two steps below her, balancing her body from falling with the tight grip on her arms.

Corvina steadied herself on him before taking a hold of the railing, her eyes moving to the shadow that hovered behind him, her heart pounding.

“Miss Clemm?” She felt him shake her. “Corvina! Look at me.”

The harsh authority in his voice had her eyes going to the silver, and she took a deep breath to center herself.

“What’s got you so spooked?” he stepped up, bringing their faces on the same level, his gaze searing her.

“I just need to get to the tower,” she whispered, her eyes going back to the lingering shadow.

He turned to look behind himself, seeing nothing but the castle walls, lights already turned on in their rusty holders and the stairs that went down. He probably couldn’t see that shadow flickering under one of the old lamps, waiting, beckoning.

“What do you see behind me?”