Chapter 5
Alice sat at her desk looking over her notes. The underlined words from Damien’s session bored into her brain. She swallowed, closed the notebook, and after just a minute, reopened it.
‘How is it possible?’
As she read the rest of her notes and idea occurred. Picking up her clingfilmed falafel sandwich and banana she made her way to the staff canteen. The Head Teacher had said she could eat there if she wished to, but Alice initially decided eating in her little office with the window open might be more pleasant. She wasn’t in the mood to make the polite ‘getting to know you’ conversations with a bunch of stressed-out teaching staff.
‘Well, now I have no choice,’ Alice thought, using the key card on her lanyard to open the door.
A friendly face looked up, waving Alice over to her table.
“Hi Deb,” Alice said, genuinely happy to see her. She could ask about the English teacher and get the gossip on Damien without any polite small talk. She’d already gotten to know Debby yesterday during her tour of the school.
“So, I hope they aren’t giving you too much bother,” Deb said with a sympathetic smile.
“Erm, well, there’s a kid called Damien—” Alice began.
“Ah.” Deb jumped backwards, making a cross with her fingers. “Not creepy Damien.”
“You’ve had dealings with him?” Alice asked.
“Ugh,” she rolled her eyes. “The kids a perv, but he’s smart about it. He makes gross comments and pretends he was talking to an inanimate object.”
Alice let out a startled gasp before laughing. “The little prick!”
“There are so many weird rumours about that guy I don’t even know where to begin,” Deb said, leaning forward.
“Anything about magical powers?” Alice asked.
She figured not by Deb’s reaction. The girl pulled back, a deep frown drawing over her brows.
“Just stuff about blackmailing teachers,” Deb said, still frowning.
‘Great,’ Alice sighed to herself. ‘Now my only friend here thinks I’m mad.’
“Do you know the English teacher?” she asked, to change the subject and because she needed to speak to the woman.
Deb pointed at a woman sitting alone by the window. Dressed in plain clothes with greying hair and lines around her mouth, she looked like she was a few stressful days from giving up on everything. Her eyes were both hard and sad as she looked up.
The woman wiped her hand on her dress before offering it.
“Marjorie Helen, English teacher,” she introduced herself.
“I’m Alice, the new counsellor,” Alice replied in kind.
“Oh, I don’t envy you. These kids…” Marjorie tutted and shook her head.
“You have a student called Damien?” Alice asked, getting straight to the point.
When the English teacher looked down and continued to eat her salad, Alice went on, “He told me he was going to cure your daughters, erm, problem.”
Marjorie sighed deeply as she chewed her mouthful of lettuce.
“That kid… how does he know things?” Marjorie asked, rubbing her temple.
“Did it work?” Alice asked.
The teacher’s eyes shifted from Alice to the windows, then down at her hands.
“Yesterday she came home, telling me she’s clean. What you must understand is, she does this a couple of times a year. It usually means she needs money,” Marjorie said.
“Oh shit,” Alice muttered, completely involuntarily. “Sorry.”
When Marjorie questioned her, Alice told the story about douchebag Steve, watching as the woman’s face transformed with confusion, shock, and finally panic.
“I need to—” the woman left her salad and her drink, rushing from the cafeteria without saying another word.
When Alice turned around, she found Deb watching her.
“Making friends I see?” Deb smiled warmly. “Don’t take it personally, she’s not the most sociable person I’ve ever met.”
Alice chuckled as she sat back down to eat her food. She made light conversation, steering away from the topic of Damien and Marjorie. The remainder of the lunch hour passed quickly thanks to the good company. When she said goodbye and made her way back to her office, she was a little surprised to see Damien waiting for her. He wasn’t scheduled in for today.
“Hello, Damien,” she said.
“You’ve been talking about me,” he stated. “Are these meetings not confidential?”
“I, erm, I’m sorry Damien, I just had to know,” Alice admitted. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”
It was impossible to read his mood, his face completely blank and devoid of emotion.
“Please don’t be mad,” she blurted out, his deadpan face making her nervous. “I really had to know.”
“Hmm.” Damien let out a small chuckle. “I’m not mad. Just… don’t do it again, okay?”
The way he spoke was odd—as if she was the adolescent and he was the adult, yet it didn’t make her feel small. The only thing she felt was a rush of relief.
A horrible thought occurred to her. If he could change the world to help her out, what would he do if she pissed him off? What would her life become if she made an enemy of him?
It made her think back to a disturbing short story she’d read—'I have no mouth and I must scream’ by Harlan Ellison. In the story, a God-like AI makes horrible changes to reality in order to torture the few remaining humans. The thought made her shudder.
“I’m really grateful, Damien,” she said, hoping to ingratiate herself to him. “Really, I don’t even know what to say—”
“Just say, ‘Thank you, Damien,’” he advised flatly.
“Thank you, Damien,” Alice reiterated. “Really, thank you, it’s… unbelievable.”
“You’re welcome,” he said before turning and leaving. A pretty girl who’d been lingering by the lockers opposite ran after him, clinging to him like a limpet.
‘That’s his girlfriend?’ Alice frowned. She did not look like his type.
Watching the way that girl fawned over him, Alice became uneasy. Something about the situation was all wrong.
'Not that I'd dare confront him over it,' Alice thought with a sigh.
One answered wish in the space of a day could be a coincidence. Unlikely, yes, but possible. Plus there was the slim chance Damien had planted the images on Steve's computer.
The likelihood he'd solved Marjorie's problem by a conventional method was pretty much zero.
Two prayers answered at the same time... it could not be by random chance.
'Where does his power come from?' Alice wondered. She was desperate to talk to him again. Instead of focusing on the notes for her next appointment, she made up a list of questions for Damien.
The top question: Why do you want to wipe out humanity?