In the Shadow

Chapter 1

“Do not be afraid; our fate

Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.” 

Dante’s Inferno 

She didn’t know what to expect, as she stood outside looking at her new school. The school itself looked dreary and forsaken, but according to her father, it was the most prestigious school in the state. Sariel didn’t know whether to believe her father anymore, but this was only the outside of the building, the inside could reflect the prestigious school that she was hearing so much at the breakfast table earlier this morning before she decided to walk there. 

No point in turning back now, Sariel thought to herself as she slowly started to ascend the stairs that lead to the front door of the school. Looking around, she didn’t see a soul in sight, causing her to wonder even more if she was at the right address. Stopping midway on the stairs, she pulled out the paper map that she had printed out the night before for her pending walk to the school. She double checked her surroundings as well as the street name and number on the building. Both the number on the building and the street name did match, she then wondered if she was on time. Pulling her sleeve up, revealing her old wrist watch, she realized that her watch had stopped working, for it was stuck at 7:30 am. Panic filled her senses as she rushed up the stairs towards the door. Only to be met with the door locked and a strange looking man sitting on a stool by the door, flipping through a book not noticing Sariel was there. 

“Um.. excuse me sir, is this Stonewall Academy?” her voice broke as she asked the man before her, frustrated with herself for being late and not knowing if she was at the right building. Several moments had passed, and Sariel didn’t know how to approach the man, she didn’t know if the man was ignoring her or was just ignoring her because she was probably at the wrong building. 

“Hello? Sir, do you mind helping me,” she asked again as she started to walk towards the man again, shyly placing her hand on the man’s forearm, hoping to get his attention this way. The man slowly looked up from his book, his eyes meeting Sariel’s. Sariel then saw something click in the man’s eyes as he frantically closed his book and pulled some wireless headphones out of his ears. Sariel backed away from the man so he could stand up, looking at him with confusion to his frantic state.

“I’m sorry about this ma’am. Welcome to Stonewall Academy. How can I be of service?” the man said quickly, losing his breath as he stood up and placed his hand in front of Sariel, hoping to make up for his lack of awareness with a handshake. Sariel slowly took his hand in hers, only not to be met with a handshake but her hand being brought to his lips as he placed a kiss upon her knuckles. Panic rose again in her, pulling her hand away from him she glared at the man before her. “I’m sorry again ma’am, old habits die hard.”

“Sure… Can you tell me what time it is?” Sariel became unsure of the man in front of her, she didn’t know if it was how the security team was instructed to act towards students or visitors or if this man did this to get a rise out of the female population. Sariel didn’t take her eyes off the man before her, as she watched the man pull his phone out, tapping on the screen til it lit up with an inappropriate photo that she wished she didn’t see. 

“It is 8:30 am ma’am, it seems you are late to the opening ceremony, but not too late to your first class. You still have time to get to the office.” The man spoke as he put his phone away and reached for a card. Swiping it in front of the door, Sariel heard the doors unlock and slowly started to open for her. 

“How did you know I was a new student?” she questioned the man as she slowly started to walk towards the opening doors. 

“You seemed lost, and most new students are hesitant to come up the stairs due to the appearance of the building,” the man said before placing his headphones back into his ears and opening his book back up to the page he was originally on before Sariel startled the man. 

Biting the inside of her check, Sariel entered the building not knowing what she was getting herself into with this school, but Sariel never backed down from a challenge, regardless of what the challenge was. She took a deep breath and set out to find the school’s office to retrieve her schedule and hopefully get a map of the school. 

Dragging her feet, she entered her new first period classroom late with no help from the school’s office or any classmen that she had passed in the hallway looking for this classroom, asking for help here was like being a beggar in a small town filled with other beggars and no income to speak of. She glanced around the room, studying the faces of her new peers, before she found an empty seat, and to her knowledge - the teacher wasn’t there yet. Quickly, she walked to the empty desk, which was conveniently at the back of the classroom far away from her new peers. She placed her belongings on the back of the chair before she fixed the hood of her jacket, making her look more mysterious than she really was. Grabbing a notebook and a pen from her backpack, she quickly began to doodle away, hoping when the teacher wouldn’t make her introduce herself, granted it was the first day of school, but that had never stopped her previous teachers from past schools.

Chewing on the end of her pen, she could feel several eyes on her, and she was trying her best to ignore them. She just had one year left in high school and she wasn’t going to make friends. It never ended well with her - the moving from town to town, switching schools left and right, she never had the opportunity to just have one full year at a school to finish her studies, and friends would only get in the way of that. Plus she, in her own mind, didn’t think she was friends material - she wasn’t as outgoing as the group around her - from what she could tell by just walking into this singular class alone. 

“Alright class, open your books,‘Dante’s Inferno” a thick English accent startled her as she accidentally flung her pen towards the teacher, “And an explanation to why you’re throwing writing utensils on the first day of class, Miss..?”

A few girls in the front row started to giggle and whisper to each other, secretly glancing towards Sariel as she was stunned that she accidently threw her pen towards the teacher.

“I didn’t mean to sir, I was lost in thought and you startled me, I’m very sorry sir,” she quickly piped out as she ran from her seat to retrieve the utensil she regrettably tossed at her teacher. What happened to not drawing attention towards yourself?, she thought to herself as she graded her pen off the floor, not daring to look up at her teacher, darted back to her seat undeniably embarrassed by the whole situation. 

“As long as you didn’t purposely try to take my head off with your pen, you will not receive detention, sorry I didn’t catch your name miss - I currently  don’t have my roster available and unfortunately  I don’t recognize you from the previous year either,” he spoke quickly in his thick english accent that made her raise her eyes slightly  in the direction of her teacher. She was stunned again by how beautiful and well put her teacher was. He would put the devil to shame, that is if the devil was real to begin with.

“Sariel, sir, Sariel Seren,” Sariel quickly spoke as she looked down at her notebook, waiting for another English teacher to make fun of her name. She didn’t have a choice in the matter of her name when she was born, granted she couldn’t say two words and her father was determined that he would be blessed with a boy and not a girl.

“Very interesting name, Miss Sariel. Welcome to Stonewall Academy,” once again she was stunned by his stance, “now back to ‘Dante’s Inferno’, now did anyone read the first hundred pages of it?” 

Sariel heard her classmates groan at their teacher’s question, clearly expecting an easy first day of just introduction to the class they had signed up for and the usual handout of their syllabus and false expectations that their teacher has for them this year. Her eyes wander the classroom as her peers sluggishly ignore what their teacher said and decide that their summer gossip was more important. Mentally groaning herself, Sariel raised her hand to answer her teacher’s question. 

“Look at this, the only one to have read the damn book happens to be a student that wasn’t here to get the summer reading list as the rest of you actually did get it. Unbelievable,” Sariel noticed the change in his accent and his stance towards the other students. His stance was more hostile towards them than it was when he had entered the classroom, and he was glaring at them and they understood that they had royally screwed up what was post to be the most laid back day of their year. “To those who didn’t read anything at all, pop quiz tomorrow on the first two-hundred pages of ‘Dante’s Inferno’, and if I was you, I would pay attention. Now Miss Sariel, what was your impression of it so far?”

“I thought it was beautifully written, and it made me wonder if Dante did in fact have his own personal tour of hell, no one can be that luck to have a sunday stroll through hell with a soul stuck in limbo because he worshiped an old god,” Sariel spoke, she was true in what she thought so far about Dante’s experience in hell. She thought the man was mad to think that that was hell. He was nothing more than a man with false hope. Biting the end of her pen, she was waiting for the teacher to laugh at her response. The laughter never came and she dared to look at her teacher, only to be greeted with an even more curious look from him. 

“Was Virgil wrong to worship an old God? Do you think he deserved that punishment?” 

“No, I don’t think he deserved to be stuck in limbo due to having different beliefs from Dante. What is Virgil was worshiping the right gods, and it was Dante in limbo, but a limbo he created - thinking he was on a quest to see the different levels of hell, because an old fling that happens to be dead, wanted to show him this will be you if you don’t straighten up? I don’t buy that,” she answered. She did feel strongly about that, she didn’t think it was right that Dante declared what gods were the right one to worship and what ones weren’t. “It makes me think about the Hindu parable; the blind men and the elephant. Each man touches a different part of the elephant. Each man describes what they feel and what they think it is. Again these men are blind and they don’t realise that they all are touching the same animal, but the animal takes on different forms to them - that whatever they feel or believe they feel is right. What if there is a higher power and he is the elephant, and we are the blind men touching a different part of the elephant.”

“An interesting insight Miss Sariel,” he spoke with interest as he placed himself on top of his desk. He was very intrigued with not only what she had to say about the subject but with her in general. “I do agree with you that Virgil’s punishment is unfit and wrong. But you have to remember the time period which Dante wrote this in. It was a time where Italy just began their Renaissance, and most of anyone's work was heavily influenced by the Roman Catholic Church, no one dared to oppose the Pope. This was also when Pope John XXII expanded the control of the church.”

She was once again stunned by the words of her teacher, she never thought about what was going on during Dante’s everyday life, the influences that affected his work greatly. If he was to write a conversty piece against the church, his life could have ended. 

“I never gave that a thought, Sir. It does make sense why he wrote such a piece, in not to enlighten the young people of his time, but to save his own neck. To show where his loyalties were,” she softly spoke to her teacher, trying to wrap her head around the discussion she had just had, not only did it make things slightly more clear about why Dante wrote the piece but to why he would of wanted his students to read this complex piece of literature on their own during the summer. 

Sariel was deep in thought that she didn’t hear another thing that her teacher had said during the rest of the class. She never had a teacher that would bring history into a literature class, which only makes sense as to why he would do it. People are affected by their surroundings, and due to their surroundings, whatever they are working on, it is affected whether they wish to admit it or not. It made her think about the different pieces of literature she had read through her life and made her wonder what influenced them to write what they did. What was their purpose? 

Her thoughts were cut short when she felt a hand on her shoulder, startling her. Sariel couldn’t believe how easily frightened she was today, she would surely die of a heart attack if she didn’t get herself under control. She looked at the hand on her shoulder before looking at who the hand belonged to. 

“You’ll be late to your next class if you don’t hurry, Miss Sariel,” her teacher said in rather a husky tone that made her hair stand up, as she felt her skin turn to goosebumps as his touch sent chills down her spin. She wasn’t expecting this from him, but she realized she was the only one left in the classroom and that she had missed whatever else he had to say during class. “Here’s a pass in case you do end up late. I think I am going to enjoy having in class Miss Sariel.” 

“What are your true thoughts about Dante’s Inferno, sir?” She asked, not knowing what else to say to him, but she didn’t want to leave just yet. He intrigued her, probably just as much as she intrigued him. She also just wanted to know what he truly thought upon the matter. He stood there, looking down at her as she looked up at him. She didn’t know why she felt so compelled to ask him, but it only made sense, he was her Literature teacher so to know his insight about the remarkable composition that survived hundreds of years. Minutes had passed and her eyes were still captured by his eyes as she waited for a reply, she noticed that his eyes were a strange shade of brown with a crimson halo around his pupils. 

“I believe that Dante’s encounter of Hell in general should be a warning to all. Even if he did make up some levels to fit what was supposedly common knowledge among his era. He was stupid enough to think that it was truly his Beatrice that had sent a man who was known to worship fasle gods as they would like to claim, and have him give Dante a crucial lesson that was needed to be passed on to the human race,” he finally answered her, “but I do think that overall that it was beautifully written, even if the man decided to make the beginning of the tale a love poem.” He watched her as she took in everything that he had just said, knowing that half of what he had said would make no sense to her, at least for now it wouldn’t. 

Sariel didn’t know what to make of what he had just said unto her, she was dumbfounded and thought his reply to her answer was beautifully put, but something was off by what he had said. 

She was lost in her thoughts as well as his unusual eyes before he coughed, startling her. Glancing at the clock, Sariel realized that she was late to her next class. Trying to gather everything that was hers, she quickly dismissed herself of his presence and gave him a quick goodbye as well.  Sariel didn’t understand what had gotten into her to make her lose so much time. It scared her how she could easily lose herself while talking to her new Literature teacher. Stopping in her tracks, Sariel could have kicked herself - she didn’t know what her teacher’s name is and completely missed it if any of the other students had said it during the period. He was a fascinating teacher, probably one of the most fascinating people she has ever meant in her entire life. There was something about his eyes she couldn’t shake, something dark and arcane about them that she wanted nothing more than to understand the secrets that they held. 

Slipping quickly and as silently as she could, she entered her next class and found a seat in the back corner of the room. Granted her Calculus teacher wouldn’t be as interesting or as captivating as her Literature teacher, but Sariel wasn’t the type of person to judge a teacher based on what they taught but how they captured their students' attention. And so far, all Sariel could think about was her Literature teacher’s response to her question and how he made it seem like he knew Dante or that he was the one that sent Virgil to Dante for his eye opening adventure. It was strange how a Literature teacher would talk as if it was his grand idea to send an italian writer to Hell and have him write about it. 

For all I know, he could be the devil himself, Sariel thought to herself, giggling at the thought of her teacher wearing a cheap halloween version of devil horns on his head, a devil’s tail pinned to his trousers and him holding a pitchfork. The thought amused her so much she couldn’t keep her giggles under control. 

“There will be no talking or laughing during class!” Her calculus teacher snapped at her, causing her giggle fit to end and slowly sliding down her chair, hoping that the floor would open up beneath her and devour her alive. Sariel, get a hold of yourself and focus, she lectured to herself before she turned her attention back to her rather boring, stuck up calculus teacher that will probably be the only teacher of hers to be  out to get her in no time if she doesn’t straighten up and pay attention to what was essential. Even though her mind continued to wonder back to her Literature teacher, whose accent filled her ears still with talk of Dante’s Inferno.