She who sees

The classroom was too bright. After the shadowed silence of the woods and the glow of Ms. Thorne's cottage, the harsh strip lights seemed to bleach the walls, leeching warmth from everything. Students chattered, papers rustled, and the hum of the heater filled the air, but Aisha felt as though she were standing on the edge of something vast and dark.
She gripped her notes tighter, the pages smudged from where her hands had been sweating. Besides her, Nathan gave a quick, reassuring smile, but his eyes lingered on her just a moment too long, as if he could sense the battle she was waging inside.

At the front of the room, Ms. Thorne shuffled a stack of papers with deliberate precision. Her gaze swept across the class, cool and unreadable, before landing briefly on Aisha. For an instant, Aisha thought she saw something flicker in the teacher's expression— not impatience, not boredom, but something sharper. Almost as if Ms. Thorne was waiting.

"All right," Ms. Thorne said at last, her voice carrying a quiet authority that silenced the last of the whispers. "Aisha, Nathan — your turn."

Aisha's knees felt weak as she rose from her seat. The short walk to the front of the room stretched endlessly, each step echoing in her ears. She could feel eyes following her— classmates curious or disinterested, Nathan steady at her side, and Ms. Thorne's gaze like a weight pressing against her back.

She placed the pendant carefully on the desk at the front, the silver catching in the sterile strip light. For a moment, she only stared at it, the thrum of its warmth pulsing faintly against her fingertips. Then she drew a breath.

"This pendant," she began, her voice thinner than she'd hoped, "has been in my family for generations. It belonged to my mother...and before that, my grandmother."
Her eyes flicked to Ms. Thorne, who watched her with an expression she couldn't quite understand.

"When i started this project, i thought it was just...sentimental. A piece of jewellery passed down. But the more I researched, the more I realized it connects to something bigger— to this town's history itself."

A ripple of curiosity moved through the room.

She spoke of Lord Sadon, the manor on the hill, the whispers of his obsession with controlling life and death. Of old carvings near the ruined chapel that carried the same spiral and sigil shapes she had been sketching unconsciously for weeks. Of rumours that Sadon's followers crafted talismans— objects meant to hold protection or power — and how one such object might have survived, woven into her own family's story.

"Some records suggest," she said carefully, "that when Lord Sadon vanished, people believed his influence didn't end. They said he tied part of himself to the land...and that symbols carved into stone, or passed through artifacts, were part of how he kept his Prescence alive."

She lets her fingers brush the pendant. It felt warmer now, alive under her touch.

"I don't know if that's true," she admitted softly, "but what i do know is that this pendant...has always been described as both a protection and a burden. And standing here, i think maybe the stories were trying to tell us something we've forgotten."

A silence stretched across the room.

Ms. Thorne's eyes burned into her— sharp and filled with something Aisha could only name as recognition.

She stumbled through her final lines, grateful when Ms. Thorne's clipped voice broke the stillness: "Thank you, Aisha. That was...unusually thorough."

Aisha lowered her gaze quickly, gathering her notes with unsteady fingers. As she stepped past the teacher's desk, Ms. Thorne's voice reached her — soft, almost casual, yet sharp enough to pierce.

"Some stories," she said, eyes fixed on the pendant, "are closer to truth than most realize."

The words clung to Aisha like smoke. She slipped back into her seat, but the air around her felt charged, as though the classroom itself were holding its breath. Beneath her blouse, the pendant throbbed with warmth, steady and insistent, until it matched the frantic rhythm of her heartbeat. She pressed her hand over it, willing the sensation to fade, but the heat lingered — alive, aware.

Beside her, Nathan leaned in, murmuring, "You sure you're all right?"

Aisha forced a quick nod, though her throat had gone dry. Across the room, Ms. Thorne bent over her stack of papers, composed and unreadable, as if nothing unusual had passed between them. Yet Aisha couldn't shake the feeling that her words — and the pendant's sudden warmth — had changed something..