Cause and Effect, My Love

Chapter Six: Catherine Edgar

It was late in the afternoon when Catherine Edgar entertained herself at a playground not far from the Baltimore Institute of Learning Better Overall. She decided it was better to spend time alone than to bother with the students moving into their dormitories. She promised to return for that night's Opening Ceremony, if only for the food. Socializing was not on her agenda.

Neither was meeting her new roommate right away. She had grown accustomed to greeting her old roommate at night, but that roommate had left the school last year, depressed and homesick. Catherine briefly considered whether she had contributed to her roommate's unhappiness, then convinced herself she hadn't. If she had, there was very little she could do about it now except hope that there were no hard feelings between the two of them.

She sat down on a swing with her arms shoved in her pockets, and made the swing move with her mind. She was quite proud of that fact, and disliked that no one was there to see her do it. Her ears ached for praise, but none was given to her save the soft applause of the rustling leaves. This did not appease her pride. She shoved her feet into the sand below the swing and stopped abruptly, brooding. The empty swing next to her swung freely. She stared at it bitterly, hoping in some vague way that it would soon be occupied. Her real friends knew when she was down and were always there to comfort her. But they had not been visiting her recently. They had been just as invisible to her as they had been to other people. Catherine supposed that if she worked herself into a good humor they would visit her now like they did in her childhood. She did, thinking of the food she would eat tonight, and eagerly looked around the playground for her friends.

Presently she saw two teenagers walking towards her. She knew one of them as Michael Song, a classmate of hers at the Institute. The other she did not know; neither this person nor Michael was the type of friend she looked for. She frowned and gloomily examined the stranger, a very skinny person with short black hair, dressed in jeans, a blue t-shirt and light black jacket. She was not sure whether this person was a girl or a boy; she guessed the person to be a girl from the way she walked. From this she also gathered that the girl might be wealthy, as she had the sophisticated gait common to rich students at the Institute.

As the two teenagers drew closer, Catherine started to swing her legs. "Hello, Michael," she said to the approaching. He greeted her back, asked how she had been over the summer. Catherine stalled. To say she had been lonely would be to suggest melancholy, that she did not have any fun, and that her life was not as favorable as she wanted it to be. Instead of telling Michael the truth, she told him a lie. "I had a great summer! Miss Jackson and I went to the beach, like, every weekend. It was a lot of fun. So who's your friend?"

Michael introduced her as Capella Black, a new student at the Institute. Capella came from England and had been a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry before she transferred to the Institute. Catherine nodded her head. The girl was indeed wealthy, perhaps wealthier than anybody at the Institute. She wondered, though, why she was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans and not in more elegant clothing. Perhaps she was making a statement that she was like the rest of them. Or perhaps she was trying hard to make friends.

Capella gave a polite greeting and said little afterwards. Michael then launched discussion regarding this year's textbooks. He was very interested in discussing the various theories presented in them, and wondered if the teachers would go over them in depth during class. Catherine, however, paid more attention to Capella than she did Michael. She noticed something peculiar about Capella, besides that she was wealthy but dressed as if she were middle-class. It appeared as if she were trying to solve a mystery entailing her present surroundings, but could not quite identify the problem. Catherine smirked and said, "How do you feel, Capella?"

"All right, I suppose."

"Are you sure?"

Capella nodded, then looked to Michael for an answer to Catherine's odd behavior. Michael shrugged. He then offered to go to a bookstore and look for books to read. Capella thought this to be a fine idea and followed him, both expressing their desire to see Catherine at a later time. Catherine returned the sentiments and watched them leave, a wave of bitter resentment taking over her as a certain revelation came to her. "It's not fair," she said. "You both get to leave, but I have to stay here. It's just not fair!" She twisted the swing and let herself sway.

Moments later Catherine had a frightening intuition. She felt the presence of something approaching. She surveyed the playground. No one was there. She looked to the forest. Still no one. Then she looked to her left towards the street. A man in a green suit moved toward her. She stopped the swing and took flight to the forest. She hoped she had left fast enough for him not to see her. She ran across a path leading from the forest to the school, paved after many years' pilgrimage from one point to the other. Because of her speed she could not hear if the man pursued her. She hoped he wasn't.

Soon she reached the dormitories. She did not stop to say hello to anyone, but went directly to her room and searched for her diary and pen. When she found both lying under her bed, she wrote in a frantic hand:

"I saw HIM today."

Catherine closed the diary and laid it on her bed. She looked outside the window cautiously to see if the man had followed her. He didn't. She let out a relieved sigh. She then wondered whether to send an owl to the Oracle right away. She decided to do it later; she was too frightened to go back outside just yet.