High Thoughts

Well, goddamnitall. This is far too early for anyone to be functional. Having our first meeting with her at six in the morning, this new advisor lady must be a sadist. The events of the summer didn’t help much either. Despite the bite of cold in the morning air, and the weight on my eyelids, I head out from my dorm room. Phillipe undoubtedly heard me leaving, but it’s four in the morning. It isn’t like anyone sane would be awake right now. I wander down to the wooded path, and sit down on my smoking bench. The pond is so serene this early in the morning, the Smoking Trail so empty and quiet. Pulling a joint out of my tin, I mutter the incantation, flicking my thumb and forefinger into a close together and light up. If I am going to have to endure a six o’clock meeting, there’s no way in hell I’m doing so sober. I take a drag and look out on the pond.

A duck lands on the, flapping its wings excessively to stabilize itself for swimming. The pond swirls with life, despite the water’s stillness. I’ve never felt more connected to the water. So much happening under its surface, but to the world around, it seems calm. I take another drag. Sitting on my bench, I watch the pond and the duck as I smoke. Gazing at the pond, I end up getting into a staring contest with the duck. Do ducks even have eyelids? I knew there’s some reason to pay attention in bio. I lose the staring contest. If ducks don’t have eyelids, though, then that must count as cheating, right? Before long, I’ve gone through my joint. I pull out a second, chant and light it, take a drag, then slowly stand back up. I should check in with Ter. Maybe get some of her special coffee to even off this buzz. I continue to smoke as I walk back out of the woods. As I hit campus, I take one last deep toke, then put it out on my jeans. Carefully laying the half-joint back in my tin, I walk up to Ter’s new room.

The door isn’t open. That hardly surprises me. I suspect she isn’t here. I text her, ‘Therese, you in? I was thinking some coffee’.

I don’t hear her phone go off in her room, so while I’m waiting for a reply, I kneel down so I’m by the door’s handle. I reach into the side pocket of my bag, and pull out a pinch of dried mugwort and whisper to it while twisting my hands around one another. With a thin stream of smoke from the mugwort, the door unlocks. I enter the empty dorm room. Looking around, it looks almost exactly like Ter’s freshman dorm. I wonder if she still has my lockpicks somewhere around here. I should definitely steal them back at some point. Half closing the door behind me, I look around her room without touching anything. My picks aren’t in plain view. I’ll come back when she and her suitemate are both out, so I can turn the place over.

Ter replies to me, finally. Around five-forty-five. ‘I’ll be in and out right quick. Start up the coffee now.’

Obeying the orders of my boss, I start the pot and sit down in the chair. Using the noise of the coffeemaker to cover my tracks, I pull out a dropper of salvia and plop four drops under my tongue. Twisting my hands into a small window, I mutter the focusing chant. After waiting a few seconds for the window between my fingers to warm up, I begin to sweep it around the room slowly, watching for the invisible glow of my lost item. It isn’t in the room. When pointed at the final stretch of wall, I see it moving along the wall, bobbing up and down. I hear footsteps. It must be in her bag, or wallet, ro the like. Quickly, I break the window so she can’t see what I was doing, and pull out two mugs.

Ter walks into her room and sighs. “You still need to get better at cleaning,” she says calmly.

“Still don’t care whether or not you know I’m here,” I reply. It’s how we greet one another, every time I break into her room for booze and conversation.

The coffee maker’s almost finished. Ter saddles up to the dresser, pulls out a third mug, leaves it on the corner of the dresser, then messes around with her drawer and some magic. She keeps her booze hidden behind a lot of complicated spells. Even if anyone actually wanted to find it, I doubt it’d be that easy. She pulls out the bottle of whiskey. “Are you intending to have any coffee with your booze, Jason?”

I nod and smile. “Please and thank you.”

She gives me a look as she pours our whiskey and coffee, adds the sugar, and tops it with some whipped cream. She leaves the pot in the machine, I’m guessing in case her suitemate wants some. Before handing me my coffee, she states, “You’re high.”

“No,” I lie. But she knows I’m lying, so she won’t hold it against me. I add, “But it’s time to head out, if we want to be early.”

She gives me a look that I recognize as her muted facade’s version of a glare, but she still hands me my coffee. “I hate you,” she lies as she walks out the door. But just like my lie doesn’t really count, neither does hers.

I follow her, locking the door behind me. As I sip on my delicious coffee and wander across the quad, Ike shows up. “Jase,” he says, “How’s Phillipe?”

“Never making noise in his room,” I reply with a smile, “How’s Alberto?”

He chuckles, “Not forcing me to hear any of my best friends’ sex noises.”

“Give him some time, I believe he could do it,” I say jokingly.

Ike shakes his head. “Clearly I have more faith in your relationship than you do,” he jokes right back.

“I’m just saying, Nat’s gotta go through that phase at some point,” I say with a smirk.

“Are you saying Alberto’s a girl?” he jokingly asks.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m saying it’s only a matter of time before Nat gets very horny.”

He sighs and laughs at the same time. Then, he notices my drink. “That’s… You’re high, aren’t you?”

“Shut up, it’s six in the morning,” I say.

He smirks. “Not quite yet, it isn’t.”

Together, we enter the library. It’s at this point that I notice Ter has already completely disappeared. Because of course she did. The kid is a goddamned ninja sometimes. I wonder what ninjas would call people who could disappear on them? Is there a word for that? There has to be, but I don’t know Japanese well enough to know the answer. I don’t know Japanese at all. Maybe I should learn it. I see the room we’re meeting in. The seniors are all already there. Hoping to suck up to one of the people who’ll be writing their recommendations at the end of the semester. So are a couple kids I don’t recognize. I mean kids as in clearly lost freshmen, not literal kids. One’s definitely like thirty. I wonder if she, the thirty-year-old, already has a college degree. Would that mean she’d have her basic knowledge coursework covered already, or would she have to retake a bunch of courses? Together we walk into the room and sit down by Tim. He likes us, somewhat at least. Inez does too, though she would never admit it. Jacob and Marge, not so much. Tim looks at me, then at my drink, then sighs. “You realize just because she said this was a casual meeting doesn’t mean she’s not going to drug test us?”

“Psh,” I spit out, “I thought ahead this year. Having a straight-laced older brother has its advantages.”

Ike sighs, shaking his head. Tim chuckles. Inez looks at me disappointed. The other seniors clearly expected such from me. The kids, on the other hand, look at us confused. One of them, the older one, gets the nerve up to ask, “What do you mean drug test?”

Seemingly materializing from thin air, Therese informs them, “Last year Jason didn’t consult me before doing something, and so our old advisor started drug testing, which they’re technically allowed to do, but generally don’t.” Then, to Tim, she explains her presence, “Sierra Leyten is in the building, heading straight here.” She proceeds to seat herself by me and Ike.

As though on cue, our new advisor enters the room. She’s pretty damn hot, and I can tell we all are thinking that. Except for the freshmen, who are staring at Ter like she’s some kind of psychic. That’s the one who predicts things, right? But, I suppose in this school, she might actually be psychic. I know she’s not, because she’s just a stalker who’s very good at reading and predicting people. But they don’t know that.

“Hello, everyone,” our new advisor says, looking us over. “Well, it seems, um,” she makes an effort of looking at her notes, “Maestro White was right. The juniors are going to give me the most trouble.” It gives me a feeling in my stomach, like when the few times Ter pretends to be human with Ali.

“Don’t be too hard on all the juniors,” Jacob insists. As though everyone and their cousin didn’t know what he means by that.

“She also says that the seniors have their lives pretty together,” she replies to Jacob with a smile. “So, let’s have everyone introduce themselves and say something people don’t know about you. Okay? Starting with, you,” she says, making the mistake of pointing to Ter.

“Therese. And everything,” she states, not even a hint of humor on her face.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Sierra says.

Tim and Marge, very different expressions, reply, “No, that pretty much is.”

To keep the flow going, I speak, “I’m Jase, I mean, Jason, and I didn’t pay enough attention in biology to remember whether ducks have eyelids.”

Ike mutters under his breath, “Not that surprising.”

Sierra looks at me, realizes who I am from Amanda’s notes, takes an exaggerated look at the notes after realizing, then says, “I see. They do, but it’s a clear membrane.”

“Ha,” I think to myself, “It did cheat.” From Ter’s expression, I see that my thinking to myself was louder than I wanted it to be.

Ike took the focus off of me. “I’m Isaac, friends call me Ike. And I successfully partied and wandered all around America over the summer without using magic once.”

“Interesting,” Sierra says, “Did you enjoy it?”

Ike shrugged. “Most of the time. Driving was kinda boring, though.”

As the clock hit two til six, three out of four juniors hurry in. “Sorry, the coffee cart took longer than expected,” Brad explains.

“You’re still on time,” Sierra forgives, “You only missed the sophomores introducing themselves and saying an interesting fact people don’t know about them.”

Liz replies, “Let me guess, Therese said something along the lines of ‘serious grunt’, Jason said something in between dumb as all getout and profound, and Isaac said something with a lot of words, but not particularly significant.”

I chuckle. “For three people you claim not to like, you know us pretty damn well.”

“I disagree,” Ter said, entirely seriously to anyone who didn’t recognize the barest hint of a smirk in the farthest corners of her blank expression, “Your statement could hardly be called profound.”

Pete, Isaac, and Tim, who all know Ter well enough to recognize her version of a joke, laughed along. I took a moment to look overly offended, then laughed so the youth understood it had been a joke at my expense. Because, from Ter’s expression, there’s no way they could have known. I wonder if she could win a staring contest with a duck? Maybe. I wonder if ducks are as easy for her to predict as people...