Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Vash, Ty and me, we're walking, half-running out from the back of the Secret School under a persistent drizzle, and I feel bone cold, the water seeping through my simulated Victorian school clothing. We're late for class, and we only just now found out the lesson is somewhere in the school grounds. Why the hell do they have to make it rain? Who is at the damn controls?

"I don't get why we're going to school right now, we have the tape we need to take it to the media."

"You heard Mel for the fiftieth time Ursula, if they figure out what we did last night the Weavers will expel us from school. We have to act like we want to be here."

Across the dismal sports fields that expand out unseemingly far across the Gap, washing out at the edges into a world that is increasingly made of falling water, the smell of old England in the rain, England before the temperatures and the waters rose, there are trees at the edge of the school grounds and all kinds of archaic sports equipment, and we can see the teacher standing at the edge of a river with a few covens huddled around her.

"But if we don't move on it now then the hunters will break the story first. We can't be wasting time in here." I almost can't believe I agreed to jack in.

"Ursula, if you don't trust Mel then jack out now, otherwise stop whingeing and get on with it." Ty says.

I'm so stressed I feel like I'm going to say something stupid.

Ty grabs my arm, "Don't say a word. Alice is here."

And I see Alice, looking directly at me as we finally arrive, late to class again.

Rhiannon is here. And that makes me feel a little better. She does not break the flow of her teaching, just nods to us as we join the group.

"So, my little pumpkins, Weavers do not rush, we do not strike out spontaneously, impulsively, we do not follow our anger or our fear, we follow the patterns, we follow the patterns and we count the stitches and we count the rows, and gradually, between us all we weave the new world into existence."

Her voice alone calms me. Makes me feel safer. She's like a mug of Oaxacan chocolate with cinnamon.

"We repair the rips, the fraying edges, we connect with all the other weavers in the world, and in that way we take on the demons, not with fury and raging, but with patience that is without end.

Do I imagine that she looks at me when she says that? Or does it really happen?

"But of course, we do need to let loose at the weekend like anybody else. A bit of catharsis here and there ay girls."

A ripple of laughter.

And I look into the river, which somehow is getting wider and darker, and the currents are growing stronger. And there are little glitches in the rendering of the water, little glimpses of the digital weave behind the multi-sensory illusion we all share.

And I feel the voice inside of me, it's just a whisper, but it's there. And I'm thinking about what might happen if I blurt out the wrong words, give us all away, a coven of criminals breaking the ancient weaver laws.

And it feels like Alice is reading my mind, undressing me with her stare, not in a nice way. I feel so exposed.

What on earth was I thinking? We broke into a kids house last night, threatened her with violence.

What are you Ursula Loveless?

And now Rhiannon sings an incantation under her breath, a strange combination of nursery rhymes and computer languages. And lily pads arrive to carry us down the river. I almost fall into the water as I step out onto one.