Hide the secrets as hard as you can, the more you hide it, the harder it becomes for you not to let it loose on your tongue.
Flora angrily walked to the disciplinary room fearfully, not knowing her faith. The punishment board would be done and which ever one the board stopped on was going to be her punishment, She took a deep breath and walked in. "Lovely day, Mistress Dovey", Flora smiled, trying to relieve her own inner tension.
"Yes, Lady Flora, a lovely day for you to pick your punishment, turn the board and get on with it", she continued the paper work in front of her. Flora took a deep breath and s[un the board of doom punishment. Was it cleaning for a month? Being a piggyback for teachers? Ellie had gotten that punishment and she was still reeling from the humiliation. Was it the dark room?
"It has stopped spinning, Lady Flora, open your eyes to know your fate", the mistress said and Flora opened her eyes slowly. Seeing what was in front of her gave her the biggest relief of her life. She had library study, 5 hours for a month, she wasn't worried, now she had excuse for Nora as to why she could spend the whole day in the library, dreaming and reading storybooks.
"Thank you so much, mistress", Flora collected the punishment slip and ran to the library as fast as her legs could take her, with bliss and happiness in her heart. An entire five hours alone with books, this was bliss.
As soon as Flora settled down and started reading inside the library, she lost sense of time and got immersed in pages, if there was something else she loved more than her sisters, then it was mysteries. The writers who wrote them were intelligent, observative and smart, she wished she could just be like them.
She was still immersed in a perfect murder story, when Moon and Sun walked in smiling to each other. Nora must see this, she wished she could use her magic to record their soundwaves into the flowers, but use of magic in the library was prohibited and she was going to get caught, after all, the librarian could smell magic.
Flora rushed over to where they were seated and put her right ear near to the wall of books to get a better hearing, all the while peeking to makes ure they were still there.
Then they began to whisper. "Are you actually Peace from the ball?", Moon whisper-asked.
"Why do you ask?", Sun asked, looking skeptical.
"Because I heard you say my name which was Strong, you were begging to be with her. So, I am going to ask you again, are you Peace?", Moon asked again.
"Yes, I am Peace", Sun breathed out and Flora's heart lunged into her throat, nearly making her scream, she covered her mouth with her hands and fell behind pushing open one of the gargoyle statue on the table where she was reading, suddenly the floor gave way beneath her and she fell into an abyss of darkness.
"Did you hear that?", Moon stood up and went to the other side of the table to check out the noise she had just heard. "I thought I heard something like a scream", Moon shrugged, the tunnel had disappeared and the gargoyle statue was back to normal.
***
Flora opened her eyes, her eyebrows were wet with sweat and she was all covered in mud and sand. It took a few seconds for her to realize that she was not in the library anymore, but she was in a witch's lair. Which witch had owned this lair, Flora wondered. Books and books of spells littered each old wooden dusty shelf and potions of different colors were inside a cupboard. As she leafed through the papers and books, she recognized the names immediately, this was the lair of Melissa when she was still a student in the same school, she needed to find a way out of here and also a way to find her sister.
There were four walls, with three shelves leaning against each wall, and a desk leaning against the fourth wall, there was a pot hanging over a dead fire in the middle of the room, cobwebs and spider prowled around the lair, and goosebumps crawled all over Flora, she was trapped, there was no window or door, no means of escape, she was trapped here forever, she had to think quickly.
And first was to grow a flower that could purify the air she was standing in, she stood up, wiped the beads of sweat on her forehead and she began to make the flowers sprout from her palm, it was as if they were in her blood yearning, waiting to be set free from the cage she called he skin, she could feel the flowers yearning, their energies pulsating and fighting for freedom, wanting to be set free, they were being rebellious, what was going on?
Usually, she could quell their energies and submerge them with her own will, but not today, or not in this room, the flowers began to multiply and the perfume began to choke her in this room where there was no air, she needed to leave this cursed place, she tried to calm their energies down but it was as if they had a mind of their own. "Please, please stop doing this, you will destroy me and then you will never be able to see the world again without my energy", Flora whispered, the humming stopped and Flora heaved a sigh of relief.
She walked to the fourth wall where the table was leaning against and Flora searched desperately for a lose brick, anything that she could turn to leave this cursed place, she turned a brick and suddenly and an entrance opened and Flora jumped towards the light of the sunset, heaving and crumbled to a heap.
***
When she woke up, Nora and Ellie were beside her, with worried faces. "What is going on?", Flora tried pushing herself up.
"Shhhh", Nora pushed Flora back down. "Rest, you do not need to worry, we will find the person who beat you up and make sure they are expelled", Nora smiled mischievously.
"My bet is on that Moon girl", Ellie said in a gruff voice and Flora took a deep breath.
"Guys, I saw something and I heard something, nobody did this to me, it happened to me, and Nora, if you see what I saw, you will be so elated that you would dance your feet off", Nora chuckled.
"What did you find and what did you hear?", Nora whisper-asked.
"Moon and Sun danced with each other at the ball, the two of them are soulmates", Flora whispered and Nora's face went red with rage.
"That girl, that girl, what do I do about her, I must do something to destroy her before she destroys me", Nora paced the room back and forth, her arms akimbo.
"If you really want to get her destroyed, then you better get dressed, Nora, cause we are going for a hell of an adventure tonight", Flora whispered.
"I don't think you can go now, Flora. We organized a search party to find you and we found you at the garden, in front of the statue of King Thistle, so Mistress is not allowing to walk around the school during nightfall, there are soldiers all over the school", Nora whispered. "But we can go at dawn, when everyone is still asleep and unaware of what is going on around them", Nora smiled mischievously.
"Great idea, Nora", Flora exclaimed.
"I know, I know, I'm smart", Nora said, smiling proudly.
Three hours later, three girls could be seen moving swiftly like shadows through the school halls, as they prowled like cats towards the school library.
Nora took her hairpin and picked the lock of the door, the door opened easily and the three of them got in, chuckling and laughing to each other.
"Be quiet", Nora whisper-hushed. Flora led them to the place where she had turned the gargoyle statue and fallen into an abyss of darkness. "Turn the gargoyle statue head", Nora whispered to Ellie. The tiles cracked open and a tunnel opened beneath the tiles. The three girls jumped in before it could close back.
Nearby, Sophie had woken up from her sleep when she saw the three shadows moving to the library, and when she went to the library, she saw that its doors were opened, but no one was in the library. Sophie yawned, she was probably dreaming, she had better go to sleep before anyone saw her.
Meanwhile, below the school, the girls were stuck in darkness, because it was night time, Flora struck a match and the firewood got engulfed in fire, making the room warm. Nora walked to the shelves of spell books, lightly touching them, she was so mesmerized by the beauty of this place, her father wanted her to be a sorceress but, Nora knew that in her blood she was a witch and this was dream she had been waiting to see happen. She jumped on Flora and hugged her.
"Thank you so much, you are the best, all we need is to clear this place up, decorate it a bit and it would be a perfect witch's lair", Nora said smiling at her sisters.
And so, the darkness of the three sisters began.