This is my contribution to the
Literotica Halloween Story Contest 2024
! Happy reading, I hope you enjoy it!
All characters are over 18.
*
It was a regular autumn morning at Courtington High. The students were all in their classrooms, or getting there. The teachers were taking attendance. The janitors were roaming the halls to make sure it stayed nice and tidy for everyone else. It was business as usual.
However, we're not going to focus on those aspects of the story, or the boring day-in and day-out workings of this place. We're only focused on a select few students, in particular.
To be precise, Rowan for now. She was a nineteen-year-old in her senior year. Having taken a year off had naturally made her a year older than all her fellow students. And if that wasn't enough to stick out; she was also a witch. A Wiccan. Auburn hair with a buzz cut on one side, dark eyes, wool skirts with black nylon stockings, knitted sweaters, and wearing an old necklace she had inherited from her grandmother, who had been a notorious witch in Louisiana before she came up here to Indiana for a fresh start.
For all intents and purposes, Rowan was a strange young woman. Not someone who was particularly popular. She didn't care about such things. That was what you would usually think about her, but she wasn't exactly a "lone wolf". She had a small group of people that she got along with... Outcasts, for the most part. They could hardly be called friends.
Except Katie of course, whom Rowan met when Katie had just moved to the area. To everyone else, Rowan was a weird hippy clinging to unorthodox traditions and living in a fantasy world of spells and magic, potions and amulets, and crystals. They all knew about what Rowan did. They thought she was a freak, even the people in her group. Katie however, from the moment they met, had become Rowan's best friend.
In fact, that lack of popularity with the school's higher echelon was partially why she wasn't in her classroom and why their teacher wasn't taking her attendance. Rowan was, in fact, locked in a locker, thrown in there by none other than Cris, one of the local bullies. A metal box that she was shoved into, with suitable taunts telling her this was a good dark place for her and her wicked ways. The doors had been sealed shut by something big and heavy that Rowan was simply unable to move.
Rowan had tried to run but was quickly caught up by the hulking quarterback, and with Katie sick for the day, Rowan was stuck. Once upon a time, Rowan would've been upset, but this time around she sighed and fumed, clutching her necklace. Her upbeat nature was disturbed by Cris and his antics.
The necklace she grasped in her hands was a simple thing, today even without an amulet, which was supposed to provide protection and strength. It didn't. It was just keeping her company until someone would help her out of there. Most likely it would be one of the janitors. But while waiting in this place, in the darkness of the metal box with her small battery-powered flashlight, Rowan contemplated just what the problem was with Cris and why he treated her like she was the biggest freak in the school. Perhaps she was. She and Katie were no doubt the odd bunch of the school.
"Merde Cris, pis s'il y avait d'l'aide, je prierais pour qu'elle vienne à moi asteur," Rowan had muttered, clutching her necklace. It wasn't in any of the spell books, but it was just something her grandmother had told her. It was nothing that would curse Cris. Rowan had tried to curse him so many times and it hadn't worked yet. Rowan was never good at spells, but it at least gave some solace to whisper her grandmother's chants. She had passed a few years ago, leaving her this necklace. She was the reason Rowan moved to Courtington, to get away from her bullies from another bumfuck village. That didn't quite work as planned. "N'importe quelle aide"
The problem with her spells before, the canon spells at least, was that Rowan never did them without the visualization, without the proper intent, she was told. However, sitting in the dark rather than in her bedroom, clutching that amulet, Rowan pictured perfectly what Cris would be subdued to. His face was swollen with mucus and phlegm coming from his nostrils, the runny yellow eyes, and a belly ready to burst with some crazy infectious disease. It didn't take long before Rowan smirked and almost snickered at the picture.
Yes. Rowan had quite an imaginative mind. Rowan smirked. Even here in the dark.
Suddenly a faint ray of light opened in front of her as the door to the locker creaked open. Slowly, and without a sound. The ray expanded and soon enough, Rowan was able to step out of her little nest. How had it opened? Looking around, Rowan couldn't see anybody. Not even Katie. The room was dark and shadowy, with a bit of light from the waning fluorescent strips on the ceiling, though it was still much brighter than the small locker.
Stepping down from the locker, Rowan glanced towards the entrance door. It was open slightly and was indeed ajar enough for someone to simply open the locker and be on their way just as quickly. Rowan moved toward the door, feeling a certain tingling, almost numbing sensation coarse from the palm of her hand and up her arm.
"Shit," Rowan muttered. She had clutched her chain too hard and her skin felt weird. She loosened her grip, but the numbing didn't go away.
Where had all the light gone? As Rowan stumbled awkwardly away from the locker, she noticed that the fluorescent strips in the ceiling weren't waning anymore; they were completely gone. The only light was from the corridor outside.
Rowan made her way over to the mirror. She had a slight sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her hands were slightly shaking as she washed her hands and splashed her face. Looking back up at herself, her eyes suddenly shifted to something that caught her attention behind her. Eyes stared back at her. Yellow cat-like eyes gleamed from the shadows of the bathroom.
*
"Katie!" Dad called from downstairs. It was a morning like any other. Mom was first out the door, leaving Dad to morning duty which consisted of waking me up, making me breakfast, and making sure I got out of the door before the bus left without me.
I let him call a few times again, my body warm and comfortable under the covers. Eventually, I heard a soft knock on the door and the doorknob turned slowly, opening my door. The sudden bright light stung my eyes as Dad entered my room, in jeans and shirt and disheveled from the battlefields of our morning routine.
"Apple," he said, tossing me an apple. "You're late."
"I know."
"Rowan is downstairs waiting for you," he said, exiting the room to go shave.
Rowan and I had been friends since the start of high school. I was relatively new to the area, and by the time I entered the classroom for the first time, I was already an outcast. It wasn't like I did anything to get that mark, except wear frameless glasses, jet-black dyed hair, thick eyeliner, and a heavy metal band concert tee. I guess I looked too abnormal.
Lucky for me, Rowan's almost gothy look made her stand out just enough to let me know I had at least one haven that wouldn't judge me as harshly. Hopefully. And that was not just hope. It wasn't long until we were the best of friends, fellow fiends allied against the axis of bullies, snobs, and tormentors.
It probably helped that she once upon a time was the new girl as well. She was also a year older at nineteen, which made hell, erh, I mean, school so much tolerable. I knew it was just one year between us, but just that added maturity just gave the things she said extra confidence.
I learned that Rowan was actually not a goth, but a Wiccan. It was something I guess I had been quite judgmental of before, but beggars can't be choosers, and it turned out that Rowan was quite the adventurous, lively, friendly spirit. Her dark aura was a style that made me think of her as a metalhead, and while Rowan did like her harsh guitars and rough-looking bands, just like me, she was more into folk songs and alternate stuff and certainly wasn't opposed to trying new things. And heh, that had led to some funny adventures that I swore I'd make into a book one day.
I was out the door right after eating the apple my dad had handed me. I picked up my backpack from beside the door and then opened the main door out to the driveway and met Rowan's smiling face. She was smoking a cigarette, looking at me with her dark eyes, her free hand fidgeting with that old necklace she always wore. I think she told me she got it from her grandmother who was a witch too, but I tried not to pry too much in all that. I just found her the coolest friend anyone could wish for, so I didn't mind.
"Are you not feeling well?" she asked, blowing out a puff of smoke and grinning. Her eyes trailed to my new black lipstick. "Badass."
"Just another day at Courtington Penitentiary," I groaned, the two of us walking down the cul-de-sac.
It was an almost idyllic community and the perfect backdrop for a happy American suburban youth movie. But as the great John Lennon once said, life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. Our plans didn't involve winning popularity contests, nor was our plan to leave a long-term memory when we finally left this place. So the choice to act the role of bad girls had come pretty easy to both of us and besides, it helped with dealing with bullies and stuff.
"Not for long."
"Right, the semester is almost over. Then one more and college next, then I need to find a nice man with a good job and become a housewife," I said. Yes. Gloom was my poison and written all over my face and the rest of my body.
My clothes were like Rowans in some ways; skirts and stockings and dark colors, but a much more modern twist. If Rowan was a little, eh, grunge girl-esc, my attire fitted my emo personality, though certainly more gothic than straight-up emo. Call it a phase, a preference, or whatever. It was cool, it was mine, and it fitted my role in society perfectly.
"Ah, college. Where we learn to drink and smoke weed," Rowan smiled, suddenly taking my hand in hers. I was a bit startled, it wasn't something she usually did. Rowan was always uplifting and complimentary, and we hugged and all that, but holding hands while walking to school?
"What's in that cigarette? PCP?" I asked, half-joking, looking at the glowing tip of her cigarette.
"No, silly," Rowan smiled, flicking away the cigarette, and pulling me closer by wrapping an arm around me. Being slightly taller than me, Rowan could easily put me under her wing. "It's just me."
I blinked once then twice. Okay. I guess I'd just shake it off.
"Anyway, did you see how Mrs. Richardson glared at us last night when I got home? Like she couldn't be any more condescending!" I said, changing the subject.
The bus ride wasn't that long, but dread still filled me as I saw the school buildings come into view. Rowan and I had already taken our seats in the back, next to the window. We were far enough from the other kids that they couldn't hear us, but close enough that they knew we were there. The usual stares came, the same disgusted looks, the same whispers. The usual.
Rowan smiled and then reached out to gently touch the side of my neck. The sudden contact made me shiver. Her fingers were so warm, and I could feel her soft skin against mine. I found myself closing my eyes before I caught myself. She had done this before, but not to this extent.
"It's going to be fine," Rowan said. Now, that was something she usually did. Said things to ease my mind. Her touching me was something new, and while it made me cringe a bit from being touched, it wasn't unwelcome.
"Heh, I'm not a dog," I told her.
"Sorry, just a bit whimsy this morning," Rowan said, looking out across the bus. "Like, I woke up this morning thinking that life is more than just school. This time next year, none of what happened at Courtington High will matter anymore. All of it will be gone, and we will forget how important it all seemed."
"If you say so," I muttered, looking over at Cris. He had his usual smirk. He was the king of our little high school. The quarterback of the football team, the captain of the basketball team, and the star of our debate club. He was one of the most popular kids in the school, and he was one of the most annoying guys in the world. He thought he owned the world, and that Rowan and I were stains on his perfect well-being.
"I do say so," Rowan nodded, turning to me with a smile. She was beautiful when she smiled, but then she always was. "And you know what else?"
"What?"
