16. Benson
Benson
The Enemy of My Enemy is Extremely Attractive
The cafeteria line is backed up again. Three witches are fighting with the worker about their salads having fatty dressing. I let out a sigh as I wait. The witch in the back spins around.
“What’s your problem, ore-brain?”
“Apparently your dress size,” I respond. Her friends spin. Eyes narrowing. Oops. Stupid smart mouth.
“You would pay attention, mosshead,” her red-haired friend says.
“You sure you want to be insulting me with hair like that?”
She looks like I offended her ancestors. Probably did. Good.
“This hair enchantment cost more than you make in a year.”
“So same as mine, nothing.” I smirk. Unable to help myself. I do love good banter.
She starts making a face like a fish and it ruins it. Her fingers flicker with magic and I know I’ve crossed a line.
I calculate if I can make it to a curse breaker before it sets.
“There a problem here ladies?” Zair’s smooth voice cuts in, his smile stretched from ear to ear.
They fall over themselves, the flickering magic and my existence forgotten the second he comes into the picture. I know I shouldn’t be annoyed. Somehow, I still am. He puts his hand down on my shoulder and the girls glare at me like it’s my fault he won’t touch witches.
The line takes even longer with them stopping every two seconds to ask Zair if he likes a certain food. They’re blocking access to the lasagna.
“Yes. The answer is yes,” I finally snap at them. Maybe I’m just hungry.
Zair quirks his lips as I push past them and get a sandwich instead.
They probably would’ve cursed me if Zair hadn’t intervened. They seem like the kind of witches who curse people.
All witches are.
I look to where Zair is still talking to them and reroute to sit at a table of goblins, instead of outside with Zair and Dylan.
Lately, I’ve been struggling with being friends with Zair.
It’s nothing he’s done. Always been a good friend.
It’s that damn Goblin History class that kills me.
Every day afterwards, I’m annoyed with him again. Do I still have time to drop?
Reuben sits down beside me, his cobalt hair enchanted brown.
“You know, they wouldn’t realize you were a goblin if you enchanted your hair.”
“Even if they don’t know we are goblins, the only thing that would change is the insults. They think everyone is less than them.”
“Yes,” Reuben concedes. “But not the bottom.”
I grunt as an answer and start eating my lackluster sandwich that does nothing to fill me up. I’m going to have to pick up something before soccer practice from the student store.
Bernard and Dylan are tossing a football outside as Zair chats animatedly while eating his lasagna.
They probably don’t even notice that I’m not there.
Zair has been so MIA lately that I doubt he’s even listening to himself.
I thought making friends with a witch was bad.
But at least he didn’t like other witches.
He didn’t let them touch him, so I thought he was on the same page as me.
But now he’s met that girl. Scanning the cafeteria, I can’t find her. I’ve never gotten a good look at her. Only ever seen her from a distance as he disappears with her. She must be beautiful if she made him forget about all his rules. Or cursed him.
I should probably check him for marks. The idiot.
“Ready for history?” Reuben asks and my stomach grumbles. We make our way to the bunker that houses all the goblin specific classes. Like they think we will learn better underground. I’m guessing when they finally decided to let goblins in, they didn’t consult any on school design.
My seat creaks as I drop into it hard enough to break in any other class. I’m about ready to tune out the lecture when I see the board.
I focus on steadying my breathing, and pull out a notebook.
“Today we’re going to be talking about The Grandfield Uprising,” Professor Kline says.
“This was the first successful uprising and what started the downfall of the Goblin Internment. In 1809, goblins working at Grandfield had one of the better lives. The witch overseers only cared about production and as long as it was met, goblins were able to live their lives in peace. They married and started families. Can any of you trace your families back to Grandfield?”
My hand goes up in the air along with one other. Most Grandfield survivors flocked farther south.
“One day, the witch in charge went from benevolent to merciless overnight. Rounding up everyone in the camps and cursing each woman. If her partners stopped working, her skin would start to slowly peel back.”
Jamin had described it once, what his mother’s skin looked like. Even young, he remembers that vividly.
“Single bonded couples were dead within a fortnight. In throuples, the women suffered constantly, even during short bathroom breaks. The men started working without breaks and they started making mistakes, leading to injuries and deaths that led to more women dying. The remaining women got together and formulated a plan. All of them drinking poison to free their men from this.”
The room begins to shake as forty goblins attempt to control their anger.
“They learned the secret from the goddess to breaking their bonds. Men who had nothing to lose revolted and went mine to mine, helping the goblins there escape. Once witches knew that we knew, they freed all goblins, and in our benevolence, we allowed them to live.”
“That was a mistake,” a goblin in the back of the room says.
Definitely.
We just wanted freedom, we should’ve gotten revenge. They enslaved us for two thousand years. We killed ten witches.
For that, they cursed us.
All female goblins died within a year.
None have been born since.
The bell rings and I walk to crafting. Normally my favorite class. Zair sits next to me and starts talking animatedly. I can barely manage a response as he tells me all about his girl, Thea.
“And then she let him walk right into the trap, she was up and around his neck, choking him out.”
“Cool,” I say with no enthusiasm.
“It’s like she forgets she has magic sometimes. I always default to using it in a fight and she seems to think of it only as an afterthought.”
“Of course you do,” I mutter under my breath. He raises an eyebrow.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“Thought you didn’t date witches,” I accuse.
“We aren’t dating. I don’t like her like that.”
Well, at least there’s that.
When Vance calls us to attention I focus wholeheartedly on my forge. Attempting to beat the anger out of me.
I push it too hard. Soccer practice afterwards is brutal, and I can barely even lift my arms to block the ball.
Any other player would be fine, but as goalie, I really need my arms.
I haven’t even finished showering when Zair vanishes with his girl again. Dylan tries to calm me down but I want nothing to do with it. I go to my room and order a pizza, eating the entire thing and falling asleep.
The next morning is better.
My nightblind English class always makes me feel better. Not because I learn anything, but there’s a girl in one of the classrooms upstairs.
Every day I get there early to watch her walk in, then wait for her to leave.
One of these days I’m going to get up the nerve to talk to her.
School’s only been in session a month. I’ve got time.
For now I’m content to watch, it’s like the world calms when I’m in her presence.
She comes down the stairs after class and I take a deep breath. She smiles at something as she passes me. I decide to follow her to lunch, see if I can get in line behind her and start a conversation. She watches the sky as she walks, like she knows how precious it is.
She turns. Shoot. Not heading to the cafeteria. The library.
Still works.
Not the library either. I should abort this mission.
She goes behind the library.
Wait, behind the library? Is she spiritborne?
Then I see Zair and his face lights up. He falls into step beside her.
It’s her.
Thea.
His witch.
Of course she’s a witch.