Havermouth's Triquetra

Chapter Three

Monday

It had rained during lunch, washing the pavement clean, picking out the tiny granules of quartz mixed into the tarmac. The sun was warm through the grey cloud cover, and the pavement steamed, releasing a strong scent of wet stone.

A bicyclist, escaping school early, rode through a puddle, its spray wetting Aislen’s shoes. She glared after the careless rider in irritation whilst his friends jeered as they passed her too close so that she had to hold her books tight to her chest and make herself as small as possible to avoid being hit by them.

“Arseholes,” she called after them.

She hated Havermouth she decided. She had gotten lost after recess and had been late to class. Thankfully, it hadn’t been one she shared with Cameron.

There had been a blonde boy there who had caught her eye. Werewolf, she’d decided, because he was like a movie star with his square jaw and serious grey eyes. His hair was short but stylishly cut, and he was tall and as well-built as Cameron.

She’d seen him look at her during the class, but she’d avoided meeting his eyes, and at the end, the teacher had held her back to ask about her previous school and whether she thought she’d need to catch up to prepare for exams, and by the time she’d gotten away, the blonde boy was long gone.

She’d eaten her lunch in an empty classroom, hiding in the corner whilst she’d gone through the contents of the envelop, finding a map of the school grounds. Her final two lessons of the day were art class, and that was a relief. She left her lunchtime haven early in order to get to the class before the bell. She lived for art, and there was no way that an art class could go wrong, she reasoned.

Until the boys on the bikes had harassed her, and now she was struggling to maintain her wards again, and the headache that had been threatening all day was thumping at her forehead. Luckily lunch was still in session, and she had time to pull herself together.

The art class was in a section of the school that had been landscaped with rambling garden beds filled with natives, and portable classrooms placed seemingly at random amongst them. Each classroom was marked with the room number above the door however, and with the map, she soon found her way to where two portables were placed close together – one for studio art and the other for ceramic art.

There wasn’t anyone else around, and the unusual arrangement of classes and the garden beds filled with scrubby bushes and native trees made it feel very private and isolated. She set her bag down by her feet and leaned back against the classroom wall with a sigh of relief, closing her eyes.

She could smell cigarette smoke. And now that she was concentrating, she could hear a faint murmur of another mind. A teacher sneaking a smoke before class? Or a student hiding out for the same purpose. Either way, it had nothing to do with her.

Or so she thought until he strolled out from the narrow gap between the two classrooms, still blowing out his last lungful of smoke.

Another werewolf, by his height, though he was lean, almost skinny. He had a shock of overgrown dark hair that brushed the collar of his uniform shirt and fell into his eyes, and a lip ring. He wore his uniform as if he were half-way undressed, the collar open and crookedly tucked into the jumper, one point out, the other under, and his tie undone. His shirt tails were out, showing beneath the hem of the jumper, and the sleeves were rolled back to his elbows, revealing that not only had he spent a good part of the day drawing on himself with black marker, but that he was artistically talented.

“Oh,” he stopped and looked at her through his hair. “I didn’t realize there was anyone else here.”

“I’m not going to tell,” she assured him. He had eyes like amber, a lovely golden brown.

“Tell?” He was confused.

“That you were smoking,” she blushed, embarrassed. She’d meant to come off as coolly confident, someone who wasn’t bothered by his rule-breaking, but instead she’d done the exact opposite.

“Thanks, I guess,” his smile was crooked. “I’m Rhett.”

“Aislen,” she was relieved he wasn’t going to make fun of her.

“You’re the new girl. Everyone’s talking about you.”

“Why?” She felt a frisson of alarm. Why were they talking about her? Had she done something weird? Had she upset or insulted someone? Broken a social rule she wasn’t aware of that would make them hate her and make her life difficult?

“Because you’re new,” he dropped his school bag to the floor and leaned against the wall next to her. “We don’t get new often. Not this late in the year, and the last year at that.”

“Yeah, timing wasn’t great,” she agreed.

“Oh, I don’t know,” his smirk was flirtatious. “I think the timing is pretty great. So, Aislen, tell me about yourself. You’re from Kabramatta, right? What do you do in Kabramatta?”

“Not much,” she was blushing so much that she was sure she would melt into a puddle of embarrassment. He was just so sexy. Amongst all the gorgeous werewolf teenagers of Havermouth, there was something about this boy that really hit her hard. She needed him to like her. She wanted him to want her. “I draw.”

“So do I.”

“So, I see,” she was finally witty, and thanked her f*****g brain for kicking into gear at the right moment. “Your arms.”

“Yeah,” he laughed looking at them.

“Mr Salem,” a man approached along the footpath. Another werewolf, Aislen decided immediately. He was handsome, though nowhere near as good-looking as Rhett. He was a few years older and dressed in jeans and a shirt with paint stains. The art teacher.

“Mr Graynor,” Rhett drawled back. He didn’t move from the wall.

“And who have we here?” Mr Graynor regarded Aislen.

“Aislen Carter,” Rhett answered for her. “From Kabramatta.”

“Hmm,” My Graynor opened the classroom door. “Long way. Are you an artist, Miss Carter?” From the way he asked, he expected her to follow him inside, and so she did. Rhett peeled himself away from the wall and followed after.

“I guess,” she stood awkwardly by the teacher’s desk whilst he shuffled art books and paperwork to the side.

“Have you got any work you can show me?” He asked.

“I guess.” She was holding her artbook in preparation for class and so surrendered it to him.

Rhett shamelessly stood next to Mr Graynor in order to see as he flicked through the pages. Mr Graynor hummed and ahhed. Rhett’s eyes darted up to Aislen’s. “You guess?” He teased. “You’re great.”

“She is very, very good,” Mr Graynor agreed. “Some pieces - not so great, but others are really quite remarkable. You have good technique and composition, and a unique style. In fact, I would say that’s probably the distinguishing difference between good and not so good work in here. When you’re doing your own thing, it’s very good. When you’re doing curriculum-mandated pieces in a style that is not your own, it’s… okay,” he closed the book and offered it back to her. “Welcome to my class Miss Carter. I look forward to seeing what you produce. As you probably know, this isn’t an exam class, so I will be evaluating you on the work your produce over the next few weeks. I’ll want to see it in progress, as well as complete.”

“Okay,” Aislen was flattered and flustered by the praise.

The bell went, and on it’s heels, students began to enter the classroom.

“Over here,” Rhett called Aislen over to a table. “Sit with me.”

“Hey Rhett,” one of the students said as they took a nearby table. “Are the Triquetra coming Friday?” The other student at the table also watched, both boys hanging off Rhett’s every movement with breathless anticipation of his response.

“Sure thing,” Rhett replied casually without looking up from his artbook, indifferent to their attention. He was drawing a triangle knotted into another triangle. As he began the third, Aislen recognized it from her grimoire.

“A triquetra,” she observed. He had them drawn on his arms and fingers as well. The symbol was obviously some sort of obsession of his.

He looked up at her and smiled. “Yeah, you know it? It’s what my friends and I are called,” he added. “The Triquetra. There’s three of us, you see.”

“Oh,” she wasn’t sure what to say about that. It seemed odd to have a name for a group of friends, but perhaps it was a werewolf thing, she decided.

“Yeah,” he continued. “You haven’t met Heath, yet, though he said at lunch he was in your Math class. You did meet Cameron, though, and left quite the impression.”

“Oh,” she swallowed hard. “Yeah, I met him this morning.”

Mr Graynor called the class to order, and began a lecture on portrait styles, complete with a slide show of famous artworks, discussing anatomy and proportion, the use of light and shadow, and expression and emotion that took up the rest of the double period.

It was well done, and a useful recap of the year, so Aislen paid attention, making copious notes. She suspected that there was a reason for the lecture, and she’d be grateful for the notes when Mr Graynor revealed it to them.

At the end of class, Rhett stretched luxuriously. “Well, another day done and dusted,” he said as he rose to his feet. “I’d better run along. Heath doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Sure,” she said with a warm glow in her chest.

He winked over his shoulder before pushing into the queue of students so that he was the first out of the door.