CHAPTER 7 : THE ICE 🪄 WITCH
967 Words
YEMISI POV
I don’t believe in unnecessary movement.
People talk too much, gesture too much, explain too much. They mistake noise for presence and assume silence means absence. It doesn’t. Silence is choice.
By the third week of resumption, everyone had settled into patterns. I noticed them the way you notice cracks in a wall you pass every day—quietly, without staring.
Aurora walked like she owned time. Not space. Time. She never rushed, never slowed for anyone. People greeted her. Most didn’t get responses. They still tried. That alone said enough.
Dawn was different. Always light on her feet. Always smiling like the world hadn’t tried to bite her yet. People gravitated toward her the way insects moved toward warmth. She didn’t fake it. That was the dangerous part.
I walked between them, untouched.
My uniform was exact. Shirt pressed. Skirt at regulation length. No accessories except a plain wristwatch. My hair was braided straight back, neat, dark, heavy. I didn’t wear colors. I didn’t need to. When you keep things simple, people project whatever they want onto you. Fear. Curiosity. Assumptions.
Let them.
“Yemisi.”
I didn’t stop walking.
“Yemisi.”
I turned this time. Slowly.
Taye stood a few steps behind, hands in his pockets, expression careful. He always looked like he was thinking about ten things at once and trying not to reveal any of them. Tall. Quiet. Not loud like his friends. Observant in a way people underestimated.
“Yes?” I asked.
He blinked, like he hadn’t expected me to respond at all. “Uh—good morning.”
I looked at him for a second longer than necessary. Not because I was interested. Because people reveal themselves when they’re uncomfortable.
“Good morning,” I said flatly, then turned away.
I heard Dawn greet him cheerfully as she passed. I didn’t look back.
Classes came and went. Teachers talked. Students whispered. Someone laughed too loudly during Literature. Someone else cried quietly during Math. Normal things.
I liked normal.
At break, I sat alone near the back of the courtyard, my notebook open but untouched. I wasn’t writing. I was watching. Emeka and Chidera argued about something trivial. Olumide laughed, leaning back like the world was a joke he already understood. Okechukwu passed by, saying something ridiculous that made people groan and smile at the same time.
Then Taye sat across from me.
I didn’t look up.
“You always sit here,” he said.
“Yes.”
Silence stretched.
“You don’t talk much.”
“I talk when necessary.”
He smiled slightly. “Is this one of those times?”
“No.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“You don’t like people,” he said, not accusing. Observing.
“I don’t dislike people,” I replied. “I dislike noise.”
He nodded, like that made sense. “Fair.”
I finally looked at him then. “You should sit with your friends.”
“I am,” he said. “I just… wandered.”
People always wandered toward things they didn’t understand. I closed my notebook.
“Don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?”
“Mistake my silence for invitation.”
His smile didn’t fade. If anything, it sharpened. “Noted.”
I stood and walked away.
Later that day, I passed the art room and heard voices inside. Laughter. Low music. Dawn’s voice floated out, bright and animated. Someone else responded—Aurora, I thought, her tone calmer, measured.
I kept walking.
After school, the corridors thinned. I took the longer route out, past the senior lockers, past the notice board filled with announcements no one read properly. Someone argued behind the staircase—low voices, sharp edges. I slowed, not stopping, just enough to catch fragments.
“You think you’re better than—”
“That’s not what I said.”
A pause. Then footsteps moving away.
I didn’t turn my head.
Outside the gate, Taye stood again. This time, leaning against the fence, watching students leave like he was waiting for something.
Or someone.
“You’re everywhere,” I said as I passed.
“Coincidence,” he replied.
I stopped. Looked at him properly this time. “You don’t believe that.”
“No,” he admitted. “But I like pretending.”
I studied him. There was something unsettling about people who were patient. Who didn’t push. Who simply stayed.
“You shouldn’t,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because people mistake interest for permission.”
“And you?” he asked. “What do you mistake it for?”
I stepped closer, just enough for him to lower his voice.
“Distraction,” I said. “And distractions are dangerous.”
For the first time, something flickered across his face. Not fear. Interest.
“That’s… dramatic.”
“Everything important is.”
I walked past him, feeling his eyes follow me. I didn’t look back.
At home, my room was quiet. Exactly how I left it. I changed, washed my hands, sat on my bed and stared at the wall longer than necessary.
People thought they understood me because I didn’t explain myself.
They were wrong.
Silence wasn’t emptiness.
It was control.
And Taye was beginning to notice.
People think modelling is cameras and compliments and being told you’re beautiful until it starts to feel like oxygen. That’s the version they like. That’s the one brands sell.
The real one smells like makeup remover and cold floors. Like standing still while strangers tilt your chin without asking. Like being praised in the same breath you’re reduced to measurements.
At school, no one talked about it much. They just knew. The way they always know things they didn’t earn the right to.
At home, it was different.
- Writer
