Chatoyant College

Corrie shook her head. "Why would I waste my energy on hating them? Honestly, I feel sorry for them more than anything. Come on, Roe, you're the only one left."

Roe opened her cookie. "'Your life becomes more and more complicated.' They can say that again!" She laughed. "The number of visions has at least doubled since I've gotten here."

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in a Chinese restaurant waiting for their orders--mostly things like fried rice and lo mein, though Roe had gone for a fancy shrimp dish. "So how are everyone's classes going?" asked Roe.

"Pretty good," said Corrie, reaching for a fried noodle. "Some of my teachers are crazy, but that's okay. Most of them are actually good."

"You have crazy teachers in addition to Jasmine?" Annie asked with an expression of mock horror.

Corrie laughed. "I guess not really. Professor Drehmer is pretty weird, though."

Later that evening, Corrie was sitting at her computer looking for academic articles on faeries (it was mostly personal interest, but she thought she could finagle the research into a paper for Jasmine as well, if she was careful) when a knock came at the door. "Come in," she called, turning slightly in her chair so she could see who it was. She never locked the door when she was in the room.

The door opened slowly and Annie walked in. She was wearing a light blue shirt that seemed to set off her pale hair. "Hi, Corrie," she said. "Where's Edie?"

As soon as Paul was out of sight, Corrie turned and ran--decorously--to the theater building. Today, no one was outside. She tried the door, which opened when she swiped her student ID. She took a few steps inside, her steps silent on the thick carpet, then heard voices. She turned down a hallway and saw them. Byron was standing with two others she recognized--Gareth and Wendy. They were all holding what appeared to be scripts. Byron was speaking, but he stopped when she approached and looked up.

"Darcy, too," said Corrie, thinking of the lost expression that had been on the girl's face when Payton and Elena had made her choose between her friend and the club. At least she hadn't come back to the club tonight.

"I'm telling you, Corrie, you should really start your own club," said Dawn. "You already know people who would join."

Corrie couldn't help laughing at the notion. "What makes you think they would join? I don't think I would have much of a club. Anyway, I don't think the campus really needs two pagan clubs."

"We'd like to do introductions, but since this is a really big group and it would get disorganized, we're going to play games instead!" said Alec.

There were scattered cheers around the room. Corrie wondered what kind of games they were going to play that would work with the size of the crowd.

"I guess we have to get all these beanbags out of the way," said Tia.

"Right," said Alec. "Everyone push the beanbags to the edges of the room, then get in a circle as best as you can! I'll be in the middle to start out."

"Well, I have to keep up my reputation," said Lorelei, grinning as they walked toward the group. "I'm the club's best recruiter. Everyone, this is Alec, the club president."

"Hi," said Alec, giving a lazy wave. "We'll do full introductions later... probably at the next meeting, I'm thinking." He looked around. "The first meeting is always the biggest."

"People coming to see if they want to actually join the club?" Corrie asked.

"Mostly, yeah." Alec held out a hand. "Pull up a beanbag. We'll start fairly soon, I guess."

As soon as they got outside, Corrie and Edie both started to laugh. At first it was nervous laughter, but they relaxed as they walked away and laughed louder. Corrie looked up at the full moon, friendly and shining down on them, and relaxed. "That was completely insane," Corrie finally said, shaking her head.

"I can't believe they think they're--what did they say? The Goddess's marshals?" Edie rolled her eyes. "I wonder how you get to be that crazy."

Roe woke up. Unsurprisingly, it was still the middle of the night. She got out of bed and walked to the window. She could see the moon shining down on the street below. None of the other lights were on, except, of course, the streetlights. No one else was awake at this hour. But of course, she was.

"What's up?" Corrie asked, turning back to Elena. She had a worried feeling in the pit of her stomach that Elena had changed her mind about Edie's hilarity and for some reason wanted to talk to Corrie privately about it. But of course Edie stopped with her and turned to face the club leader. If Elena wanted to talk to Corrie alone, she would have to say so, or catch her on her way back from class or something. There was not, Corrie reflected, much time that she and Edie weren't together.