The School Of Mystic

I moaned sleepily when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I decided to ignore it, so when it came again – this time, a little more persistently – I turned away; burying myself into the soft leather I was sleeping on. When I felt the tap again, I let out another moan – which distantly I was aware of, was a bit hysterical – and blindly reached up to smack the hand away.

“Mira, get up, we’re here; we need to get off the plane.” With much effort, I blinked my eyes open to stare blearily at black leather. I turned my head slightly to see Minh staring down at me – looking a little sleepy herself.

“Minh,” I managed to croak out in a muddle.
“Yeah, Mira?” Minh responded back.
“Will you carry me?” I asked her drowsily.
“Err; I don’t think I can do that, love.” Minh said, as she tried to hide a smile. I groaned as I realized that I would have to walk, but sucked it up and decided bitching was for... well, bitches. I rubbed the rest of the sleep from my eyes, and unsteadily started to get to my feet.

I started stumbling down the hall of the airplane as I glanced around for Lela or Ria. I would occasionally let out a huge yawn – to the amusement of the onboard passengers, whom I would glare at – but eventually, my sleepiness started to ware off.

I finally spotted Lela walking a few seats ahead of us, and I began to jog slightly to catch up with her. As I got closer, I noticed that a little ahead of Lela was Ria, and striding ahead of them both – walking like Queen Elizabeth herself – was my mother. I scowled momentarily at the back of her head, before snapping out of it suddenly, and looking away.

“You and your mother have the loveliest relationship, don’t y’all?” I glanced over to Minh, the one who had spoken. She gave me a sympathetic look while nodding to show she understood. I just shrugged and kept on walking.

“Okay, so we’re here, what do we do now?” I had finally managed to catch up with Lela and Ria, and we were all currently huddled in a tight not, trying to get to the baggage claim.

“Well, according to this,” Minh started up while waving a piece of paper in front of my face, “We’re supposed to catch a rental car, and just drive there.” I glanced over at the creamy white paper to see elegant script detailing our travel instructions. Sure enough, a rental car had been ‘provided for travel usage’, and there was another map – including the one we already had – detailing the route to SOM.

After shoving our way threw the throngs of people, we finally reached the baggage claim. I started gazing down at the conveyor belt – seeing if I could spot any bags that looked familiar to me. Finally, a bulky black suitcase came into view, and I quickly snatched it up, setting it down beside me. After the same process was repeated a few more times, I finally had all my bags. I stepped to the side to wait for Lela – being the only one still looking for her bags – to finish up.

It seemed as if it had taken Lela hours to claim all her bags, when most likely, it had only taken a few minutes. I was very anxious to get to the boarding school though, so everything seemed to be passing in slow motion, and Lela having her mountain of bags to look for didn’t slow time down any. When we all had our luggage, we started to make our way towards the rentals.

As I passed by one of the airport restaurants, my stomach let loose a rumble of hunger, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten a single snack on the plane except for a bag of chetos. I would’ve stopped to grab a quick something to go, but Mother would most likely disagree to do so, and I didn’t feel like arguing with her quite yet. So instead, we walked on, surprisingly, with no conversation accompanying our group. For some reason, we were all tense and nervous about SOM, and though normally that wouldn’t have stopped us from having our normal chatter, it did.

“Welcome to Rental’s, where you can rent any car you need! I’m Miss Jacob’s, how may I help y’all today?” I glanced up from the linoleum floor I had so intensely been studying, when I heard a slightly accented voice speak right in front of me. I was surprised to see that we were already at rentals; I stood in front of a chest high – to me at least – marble counter. Behind it and facing me, stood a delicate-looking teen, and pinned to her jacket was a badge reading ‘Jacobs’. I stepped back a little, and left the car renting thing to my mother.

After a few minutes of standing around, we finally got the key to a blue mustang, which I liked a little bit. After a few minutes more of signing papers and ‘logging the information into the computer’, we were ready to take off.

I bit my lip and started to sway side-to-side all of a sudden. I kept shifting and switching the placement of my feet, and with a start, I realized I had to go to the bathroom. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed the signals my bladder was sending me until now. I quickly glanced around the airport for a bathroom, and sighed when I found none.

“I’ll meet y’all in the parking lot, okay?” I asked – but not really – the group. Not waiting for a response, I dashed off in a random direction, and started to search for the bathrooms. As I walked, I had to move steadily faster as the pressure in my lower belly began to build.

After walking for a few more feet, my search grew too frantic. I think I would’ve started sprinting down the passages of the airport if not for a random guy stepping into my path.

“Move it,” I barked instantly – forgetting what the word nice meant as my body started screaming for me to not stand still. I started shifting around since I couldn’t walk ahead, and huffed when the boy in my path tried to hide a smile at my expense.

“The bathrooms are that way,” he said, indicating the hall I should take by jabbing a thumb in the direction. “Take the hall, and you’ll see the sign in a few steps.” I nodded my thanks to him, and ran off in the direction he had pointed at.

After I had finally taken care of my business, I pulled out my phone to call Minh and ask her where they were. I told them to meet me in the parking lot, and that was where I was headed, but I wanted to be on the safe side.

“Minh.” I heard from the other side of the line as the ringing was cut short.
“Parking lot?” I asked her.
“Yeah, we’re waiting for you. You might want to hurry up, your mother doesn’t look totally happy,” she responded.
“Fuck her.”
“I think I’ll pass on that, Mira love.” I let a laugh fall from my lips before saying
“I’ll be there in a few, give me a minute or so.” With that, I hung up and started heading for the closest exit.

I think that if I hadn’t been in such a rush to get out of the airport, I would’ve admired it more. With the little glances I got of its decoration, I could tell that it was very classy and elegant, and though I didn’t like that style much for me, I liked it nonetheless. This being France though, I shouldn’t be that surprised that one of there airports was so lavishly furnished with plump stuffed chairs, and lovely paintings. All in all, the whole place had a nice dulcet ambiance to it.

My admiring was brought up short how ever, when I finally reached the huge glass doors with the sign on them reading ‘exit’. Pushing them open, I stepped outside into a gust of fresh air. I took a deep sniff, and sighed softly at the lovely smell. It smelled like dewy grass, and moist wind. I stood on the steps on the building I had just exited for a few moments more, before collecting my thoughts and heading off in the direction of the parking lot.

As I walked by the parked cars, I would take a quick look at them, making sure I wasn’t passing the car I was to go to. Most of the cars weren’t mustangs, but when I wasn’t sure if one car was our car, I would recall the image I had seen of our vehicle on Jacob’s computer. Even with the thorough search of the mustang though, I would’ve most likely missed it if it hadn’t been for Minh calling out to me.

“Um Mira? Hey smart one we’re over here.” I glanced up from a navy blue mustang – which I might add, looked disgusting – to see Minh waving at me. I quickly jogged over to her.

“Okay, so are we leaving?” I asked her.

“We would’ve left earlier if someone hadn’t decided to wander away from the group,” was the response I had gotten to my question. It wasn’t even from Minh though, it was obviously from Mother dearest.

“Excuse my bathroom needs then Mother,” I shot back angrily before forcefully opening one of the mustang’s doors and swiftly climbing in. I couldn’t help but also slam the door shut behind me.

As soon as we were all piled into the car, Mother started to drive off. Since I had nothing better to do – my MP3 died – I watched where we were going threw the window. I found that I loved the sight of Paris; the hustle and bustle of the city was so much like L.A that I couldn’t help but warm to it. Many of the sights that were common on the streets of California were common here as well; anxious mothers chased after there run-away babies, and pick-pocketters swiped wallets from unsuspecting tourists.

As we drove on, I noticed that we were heading to the part of the city that seemed to be the middle of it – or at least, down town. The two-story buildings that were common near the outskirts of Paris were now replaced by the tall elegant structures of downtown companies. I barely spotted any houses now; mostly all I saw were those gigantic buildings, or shopping centers. I was wondering why we were going threw downtown, when again, the scene changed.

The tall buildings and shopping centers were again being replaced by the small houses that were on the outskirts of town; less people wandered around here, and there was less traffic as well. I finally realized that we had had to go threw town to get to the boarding school – it was apparently on the other side of Paris. Honestly though, I couldn’t care less how we got to the school, just as long as we got there. The anxiety was getting to me, and the previously ignored hunger was also reappearing – making itself known by letting loose a rumble of protest.

After staring out the window for a few minutes more, I got bored with the scenery. For lack of something to do, and because I was genuinely curious, I brought out my cell phone and activated the GPS feature. According to it, we would arrive at SOM in a matter of minutes. ‘Thank god’, I thought to myself in relief. With nothing else to do, I settled back into my seat to wait.

“Mira, hey Mira, wake up!” I jolted forward just to smack my head on the seat in front of me. I blinked my eyes open to the site of the back of a seat. I let loose a few garbled words which vaguely sounded like “Damn idiots don’t wake me up right,” before turning to look out the window.

I stared in awe at the sight that was in front of me. We were currently driving threw a gateway, and right inside of it – fenced in by an extremely tall wall, was a forest. It wasn’t a few trees, or just woods, it was a forest. Well maybe they could be called woods, but they didn’t look like it. Practically rows and rows of trees stretched out in front of us – only a small driveway cutting a pathway threw them.

“Wow,” I said to no one in particular. “That’s... beast.”

“I totally agree, Mira,” Ria spoke up. “I can’t believe we’ll be living here, it rocks! Do you think that they would let us have our own tree houses?” I grinned over at her when she said that.

“Be practical Ria.” I joked “You would wish that though, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, definitely.” She said back while grinning.

I glanced out the window again, just to be in awe for the second time in a row. We had finally made it through the long stretch of trees, and in front of that was a lawn. It’s lush green grass swayed gently as the wind blew it, but that really hadn’t been what had drawn my attention; it just led up to the grand prize.

The lawn led up to an impressive looking... castle. That was the only way you could describe the enormous building rising in front of us – by calling it a castle. It had the pointy towers and everything! It was quite a sight though, all humor aside. It looked to be three or so stories tall – the front wall practically made of glass. Each corner of the building – there were four – held a tower – there spires pointed up to the sky. The castle seemed to be made of limestone or at least something like it – the stone looking elegant and imposing.

“Wow.” I said again. “Now that is beast.”