The Fay-tapped

She shrugged and knocked on Patricia's door. There was a muffled groan from two doors down. Alyssa was pretty sure it was Diana's room. But the groan sounded like a man's.

"Good morning Alyssa," Patricia said.

Alyssa turned and smiled. Patricia beckoned her in with a kind look. She shut the door behind her and Alyssa found a chair. The room was like a decadent apartment sans windows.

"So, how was your first night?" Patricia asked, settling in behind a desk and fixing her blonde bob.

"You mean before or after all the screaming?" Alyssa said.

Patricia tugged a book off a stack she had sitting on a corner.

"Devin's okay," Patricia said, "you'll be happy to know."

"That's a relief," Alyssa said, fingering the bones on her crystal ball. How was that possible? Wasn't the dagger stuck in his chest when she saw him? Alyssa looked at her fingertips, remembering their heat slipping into the cold surface of Devin's dead body. She shivered.

"Anything happen with your crystal orb yet?" Patricia asked.

"Is something supposed to happen with it?" Alyssa asked, tapping on the glass with a nail.

"Of course," Patricia said, "it chose you after all."

"I don't know about that," Alyssa said, gazing into the fish-eyed reflection of the room glittering in the weighty bubble.

"What makes you say that?" Patricia asked.

"I just picked it last minute, I didn't want to be without an object at the end, like Sarah or Luka." Alyssa confessed. She grimaced up at Patricia.

Patricia studied her and then belted out a sharp laugh, "don't be silly. It wouldn't have let you pick it up if it didn't want you to."

"What?" Alyssa asked.

"Look, I want you to spend this week looking over this book I found for you," Patricia said, sliding an old, weathered volume towards her.

"What's this?" Alyssa asked, slipping the crystal ball between her legs and lifting up the book with a grunt.

"An old book on orb gazing," Patricia said, "go down to the library and give it a read. Maybe something in there will help you."

"What am I supposed to see the future with this dumb thing?" Alyssa said, smirking.

"No, I think that one only sees the present," Patricia said, tapping her left index finger on her lower lip, "also, have you felt any different since you've arrived?" Patricia licked her lip and perked up an eyebrow of flax.

Alyssa shifted in her seat, "no, what do you mean? How should I be feeling?"

"Nevermind," Patricia said, squinting.

Alyssa left Patricia's office balancing the crystal ball on top of the book. Eason was leaning against the wall across the hall. Alyssa glared at him.

"Alyssa, come here," Eason said, shuffling a deck of cards in his hands.

"Why?" Alyssa said, rolling her eyes. She wished he was ugly so she could hate him but his analyzing eyes sparked bright divots in her chest.

He peeled off the wall and approached her, "pick a card."

Alyssa sighed and juggled out a hand, plucking a card from his deck, "here, here's your stupid card." She thrust it back towards him and he took it.

"The Lovers," Eason said, tapping the card on the top of his deck before shuffling it back in, "interesting."

"What's so interesting about it?" Alyssa said.

"That's not my place to tell," Eason said, turning away from her and spotting Miyu, "Miyu, come here."

Alyssa spotted Miyu fixing her hair, glasses, and dress as she surfaced from Sea's office. She glanced at Alyssa and then at Eason.

Eason accosted Miyu with his deck and Alyssa blew by, trying to reach the library so she could drop off her heavy burden.

-

Alyssa spent most of the morning in a cubicle on the outskirts of the library. A dense fogged had rumbled into a mellow storm. Out the narrow windows that ran along the right wall, water trickled, sprayed, and sprinkled rhythmically. There was a path of rusty needles running along the windows under the shade of pines. The dark wall of trees limited the amount of light into the library despite their length and right now only a diffuse grey was rippling across her desk. The gurgling of the rain massaged her mind into a cozy stupor as she leaned over the vast pages of small print.

She yawned and rubbed her hazels with the tips of her cold fingers. Alyssa stretched and fixed the over-sized clip holding her hair up. What a boring book. She gazed at the crystal ball forced aloft by a spiral of bones. What was she even doing? What was all this woo stuff? Was this what MU was?

Alyssa longed suddenly to see her mom. Homesickness elbowed about her stomach and chest like a mosh pit.

The crystal ball sparked an image and Alyssa fell forward in her chair, exploding her eyes. The vantage point of the teeny-tiny vision was like a fly on the wall. It was a hospital room. Alyssa slipped forward to the edge of her chair and pulled the bony base closer towards her. The image focused into incredible detail and lit up in the ball, it was like she was there. She rotated the scene around, it wasn't like a movie on her phone, but three dimensional, as if the scene were actually taking place inside the sphere.

There was a woman with sagging, wrinkled, and spotted skin. She was lying in the dingy gloom of a yellowing hospital bed and Alyssa recognized her as her Nana. She didn't seem conscious and a bruise blasted half her face with eggplant and olive. Though no sound emitted from the crystal ball, Alyssa could almost hear the beeping of the machines and the spluttering of the tube poking from her Nana's mouth.

A woman entered the room and Alyssa squinted. It was her mom. She collapsed in a chair next to the blinking hospital bed and put her purse down. She reached out and grasped her Nana's hand. Alyssa watched awe struck. Was this really happening or what?

The image flickered, swirled, and vanished as the ball relinquished the trapped particles of light it used to craft the vision.

Alyssa thrust herself back in the screeching chair and dashed out the library towards the front of the school.

She whirled into the dining room looking for the phone in the small kitchen. Rain streamed down the windows and slithered grey shadows about the room as she found the phone.

It was an old black phone with a coiled cord that attached it to the dial pad on the wall. Alyssa picked up the receiver and frowned at the chunky white of the digits. The device felt foreign to her. She dialed her mother's cell from memory and tapped her foot as it rang with a tone that sounded like it was fetching demons from another dimension.

There was a click and her mother was there on the other side.

"Who's this?" She asked.

"It's Alyssa," she said, smiling through the phone.

"Oh hey dear," her mother sniffled, "I hope your first day was okay, I texted you but didn't hear back. Why are you calling me on a different number?"

"You know that special program they have me in? Well there's no service out here, so we have to use a landline," Alyssa said, "how are you doing?"

Alyssa dabbled agitated fingers along the spiraling gaps of the rubbery cord as she listened intently to her mother on the other end of the line.

"Oh everything's fine here dear," her mom said.

"How's Nana doing?" Alyssa asked on tippy toes.

There was a small pause in the static tides before her mom replied, "I'm sure she's fine, why do you ask, hon?"

"Just making sure she's okay, where are you now?" Alyssa asked, her heart squishing between her ribs.

She heard her mom sniffle, "oh I'm... I'm out doing chores, you know how I am."

Alyssa heard a machine beep and a door open.

"Look, I have to go dear," her mom said, "why don't you give me a call later, love ya, enjoy your classes, bye."

"By-"

The line went dead.

Alyssa yanked the phone away from her ear and stared into the nine holes of the speaker. Was her mom lying to her? Or was the crystal ball lying to her?

She slammed the phone back on its base, jangling the bell, and stormed out the kitchen.

Swerving around the corner she ran into a lithe wall.

"Ow," Alyssa said, rubbing her nose. She opened her eyes and they filled up with Devin.

"Sorry, are you okay?" Devin asked, patting his hands gently on her shoulders.

"Yeah..." Alyssa said, volleying her hazels against his wonderful face. She inhaled the soapy musk of the young man and it gushed the moment straight into a box of her favorite memories.

He continued past her and out the front door. Alyssa spotted a black hilt glint from the waist of his jeans. Alyssa detected a storm of her own sogginess brewing betwixt her thighs.

The sudden thirst of her flesh forced her to choke out, "h-how are you doing?"

He turned in the doorway and held the door open with one, outstretched arm, "I'll be fine."

The way the overcast of the day matched his eyes and intensified their shine slapped her directly across the pink grooves of her brain. It was as if the entire sky peered into her through his sullen gaze. It was like he was the storm.

She swallowed.

His frame darkened her doorway and tattooed his trim solidity upon the skin of her heart. The bottom of his hoodie rose enough for her to glimpse the starved strength of his tapered core. The rounded hilt of the dagger poked against his waist like a warning, or was it a promise? He clenched his brooding eyebrows and squinted at her, as if he could barely discern Alyssa.

"Sorry for the trouble," Devin said, rubbing his heart gently and slipping out the door.

Alyssa stood, shook. Her eyes fluttered shut and the image of his midriff stuck in the webs of her neurons vividly. She swallowed as she imagined trailing her knuckles down his abs and stuffing her hands into his pants while his eyes gazed steel storms into her hazel skies. A lingering breeze caught up with her and stiffened her nipples.

She shivered with lust and strolled back towards the library, forgetting all about her Nana.

-

For lunch, the girls lounged back in their dorm, eating and conversing. It seemed all the meals were to be taken in their dorm. Alyssa didn't mind it, it was refreshing to enjoy meals with the other girls in the privacy of their living room. Plus, the food was delicious. There were even some types of fruit she had never seen before.

She sipped a cup of coffee and revolved a strange berry that looked like the child of a blackberry and a kiwi. Alyssa stretched her legs out on the jasmine scented carpet and jammed the gooey fruit between her lips, biting down with a squish, sending flavorful juice squirting down her throat that made her toes curl.

Riley was munching a capresi style sandwich on the couch and Sarah caught her scatter some crumbs off the plate.

"Hey, don't get our couch gross, Riley, show some decorum." Sarah said, plopping an olive into her mouth.

"It was an accident," Riley said, swallowing and gesturing towards the gilded ceramic that held her sandwich, "look how small these plates they give us are."

"No excuses," Sarah said.

Riley rolled her eyes.

"I saw Devin," Alyssa finally said, sipping her coffee with two hands.

All the girls turned and looked at her except for Miyu who glued trembling eyes to the cover of her thick book.

"And?" Sarah asked.

"He seemed... fine," Alyssa said, saying the word one way, but thinking about the other meaning.

"That's good," Claire said, dangling on a love seat, cradling a cup of tea with lemon.

"Yeah," Alyssa said, flatly.

"But ya'll said he was dead," Riley said, finishing her sandwich and sliding the plate with a clatter across the coffee table.

"He was before Sea got there," Alyssa said, staring into her coffee, "I felt him, he was cold." She stared into Riley's rusty garnets and Riley swallowed before looking away.

"I'm not surprised he tried to take his own life," Riley said, scratching her nose.

"What do you mean?" Alyssa asked, "why would he do that?"

"I keep forgetting you two aren't from around here, but last semester, his mother was murdered and his father committed suicide."

"What?!" Sarah gasped, dropping her plate to her lap. The olives rolled and scattered, a kalamata hobbled to the golden rim of the plate and tumbled to the rug. Riley raised an eyebrow at Sarah. Sarah smiled sarcastically as she bent over to retrieve it.

"He used to be Mistbury's star quarterback, our football team isn't in a prestigious league or anything I don't think, but he was their hero." Riley said, "and he quit after his father died."

"How do you know all this?" Alyssa asked, shocked.

"It was in the news," Riley explained, "that stuff happens all the time around here though. So everyone just sighs and turns the page...".

"My goodness," Sarah said, dropping the morsel of purple on Riley's dirty plate.

"All of us have family stuff, I'm sure," Riley said, "my dad left when I was a little girl and my younger sister Rain went weird on me. What about you Claire?"

Claire was quiet, holding her tea with two hands before answering, "my dad died nine years ago."

"What about you two?" Riley asked Alyssa and Sarah.

"My family is perfect," Alyssa said with pride, "my mom and dad have been together and I've never seen them argue as far as I can remember.

"Lucky," Sarah said, "my parents split up five years ago. It's not great, but I guess it could be worse." She spun a bracelet up her arm.

"What about you Miyu?" Riley asked Miyu.

Miyu just shook her head, staring at the cover of her book as if it wanted to eat her.

"Why're you so shy?" Riley asked Miyu and crawled towards her couch.

Alyssa's focus on the conversation died as she drank her coffee. She thought about Devin's parents, what kind of horrible things did he go through? Maybe Sarah was right, maybe she was lucky to have such a great family.

"Has anyone else been feeling weird?" Sarah asked.

Alyssa perked up and squinted at Sarah, "weird how?"

"You mean horny?" Riley said.

Miyu fingered the bridge of her glasses and Claire ran a finger along her neck.

Sarah nodded, "if you want to put it in such crass terms, yes."

Riley snorted, "crass? I think this fancy environment is getting to your head, Sarah. But seriously, yes. I've been feeling... more excited than normal. And it seems to be getting worse."

-

It was after dinner and Alyssa was resting in her room, playing violin. The strumming of her bow helped relax her with the rote memory of her muscles as she glided through the handful of bars she liked from Swan Lake.

The other girls were all in their rooms. Riley decided to go to bed early and try to catch up on her sleep. Alyssa had offered Sarah a spot in her bed tonight too if she needed it, but Sarah said she would be okay so long as she didn't have any more nightmares. Claire and Miyu were doing who knows what in their free time.

Her ears picked up on the haunting tune of fay moans and it threw her timing off. She dropped the violin from under her chin and stowed it in its coffin of a case.

Alyssa scratched the space between her eyebrows with a long nail. The miniature hospital room in her crystal ball reflected in the glass of her own memories now. Was it telling the truth? Why would her mother lie? If anything happened to Nana and her mother keeps it from her, Alyssa would never forgive her. She kicked her violin case so it slid under her bed.

Like a lamp going on out the corner of her eye, her crystal ball flickered. She leapt up from her desk chair and hauled the vibrant orb off her bedside table. Alyssa plopped on her bed and deposited her full attention into the bouncing, bending, blending, and melding particles of light that stitched out another scene.

She was a fly on the wall again, but this time the room was overwhelmingly familiar. Her bedroom back home materialized and unfolded in a surge of exacting detail. She squeezed the bones with both hands, lifting the ball closer to her eyes. Alyssa rotated and pivoted the orb around as she peered into the vivid reflection of her childhood room. Seeing the pale pinks of her bed with all her stuff, showered her with warm tickles.

A man in an expensive suit entered the scene and Alyssa recognized her dad instantly. He was chatting on the phone while he straddled the corner of her bed. He checked the Rolex on his wrist and loosened his tie. Alyssa smiled as she caressed the ball. Did he miss her, was that why he was in her room?

He hung up the phone and shoved it in the pocket of his slacks. He glanced up with a smile, someone else entered the glowing globe. Alyssa's eyes bulged as a woman she didn't know in a cherry dress crawled on her hands and knees across a flowery oriental carpet towards her bed. The beautiful redhead knelt between her father's legs, undid his belt, and snatched down his pants.

"What?" Alyssa whispered.

The woman hoisted up his erection and, after gripping the head and speeding a doting tongue from the base to the tip, made the hefty device promptly disappear between her lipsticked lips. Alyssa watched in horror as her dad snatched up a sleek ponytail and bobbed the woman's head up and down in his lap.

"No, no, don't show me this!" Alyssa begged, staring into the crystal ball.

The woman braced her hands against her dad's thighs as he began to propel her head into the root of his loins. The woman's scarlet nails dug into her father's hairy legs.

Alyssa grabbed the crystal ball and fled out the room, down the hall, and into the small kitchen where the phone lived.

The kitchen was empty with only the lamp above the phone buzzing. Alyssa yanked down the handset and dialed her dad's number with sweating fingers.

She propped up the glowing crystal ball on her breast while she held the phone to her ear with the other hand. The scene was still playing out. Her dad fetched the woman's face off his erection and kissed her hard with curling tongues, smearing lipstick on his chin before dumping her fiery head back into his lap. The woman stroked, jerked, yanked, and twisted him as she sucked hard.

Alyssa groaned with pain as she absorbed the gross scene and listened to his phone ringing from what sounded like the bowels a black hole.

She saw in the ball, her dad gesturing for the woman to hand him the phone from the pocket in his pants next to her. Without missing a beat, while grinding her tongue around his plump tip, she handed him the phone.

"Hey honey," he clicked in.

Alyssa's heart pounded as she watched him talking on the phone in the crystal ball while the woman labored over the twitching length of him.

"Hey daddy," Alyssa said, shakily.

"How was your first day, sugar?" her dad asked. Alyssa heard a wet plunge in the background and her stomach lurched. The crystal ball reflected the woman slurping him back into her mouth again. Her mouth trailed a rope of drool that slung down and clung to the underside of her father's balls.

"Oh it was fine," Alyssa said, swallowing, "what're you up to?"

"Ohhh, just relaxing a little," her dad said. There was a distorted gurgle that echoed out in the static of the receiver. Alyssa spotted the woman's saliva drip from her dad's scrotum and leak onto her pretty carpet. She winced.

"Where's mom?" Alyssa asked, transfixed by the crystal ball as her father talked with her while his mistress bounced her ponytail between his thighs.

"She's down at the hospital," he said, Alyssa saw him clasp the woman's hair again and dribble the red head like a basketball, "you're Nana's not doing so well you know."

Alyssa gasped.

"Why don't..." her dad said. Alyssa saw him mute his phone against his chest as he twitched his hips with an orgasm. The woman milked him, only letting a single foamy drop slide down his shaft and disappear into the wonderful silk of Alyssa's carpet.

Her dad picked the phone back up, "why don't you give your mom a call tomorrow, I'm sure she would like to hear from you." He rubbed the top of his mistress' head lovingly, his Rolex flashing in the crystal orb.