Chapter Three

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"What makes the night so scary?" Ben asked, coming to sit on the corner of his desk. In his hand, he held a worn copy of Paradise Lost. Everyone else had an identical copy open in front of them.

The class stared at him. It was the first question Ben had asked after they recapped the recent chapter they read; no one was sure where he was going with this. To Gabrielle's left, Aaron Champlain raised his hand. "Because it's dark?"

"Yes, and what about the dark is so scary for humans?" Ben asked. When he was met with silence, he offered, "Why do we bring a flashlight when we go in the basement?"

Ben was the Honors English teacher at Mountmend, and as one of the younger ones, was a bit New Age. First of all, he preferred everyone call him by his first name rather than Mr. Johannson. At twenty-six he was young enough to be giggled about in the halls, and hip enough that most kids got along with him. He did, however, have a penchant for being purposefully obtuse, and probably liked to think himself more profound than he really was.

Usually Gabby didn't mind. But a day had passed since the raven incident, and although she hadn't seen it again, she still felt a strange sense of trepidation. Like something was wrong and she just didn't know it yet.

"To see more?" Katie asked.

"Yes! And what does our sight give us?"

Gabrielle started to frown. English wasn't her worst class, but it was prone to discussions of interpretations and literary theory, which was rather boring for her. She preferred the solidness of History, and asking more interesting questions like "What if?" and "What don't we know?" In English, it was more about what the green light in The Great Gatsby symbolized, or the meaning of the name Pearl in The Scarlet Letter. Why did it matter? And talking about darkness wasn't exactly her favorite topic, but Gabrielle still hadn't gleaned what this was about; the class seemed to be going along with it, though. The questions seemed simple enough.

"So we know where things are?" Jimmy Duvall answered.

"We can read?" Aaron suggested.

"Exactly!" Ben held up a finger, grinning. "Information. Light reveals, and darkness hides."

Gabrielle, having lost her patience with this seemingly unrelated tangent, raised her hand and spoke without being called on. "What does any of this have to do with Paradise Lost?"

Ben blinked at her, before answering with a smile, "Of course, how does this all tie back to the subject at hand? Well, as we've just read, Lucifer is often compared as the darkness to God's light. We know from the original source material — AKA the Bible — that he's someone to be feared, that he's evil. Equating him to a natural fear of humans is a sort of subtle clue that we' aren't supposed to trust him? And yet we've found ourselves feeling sorry for Lucifer. If the darkness is to be feared, then why doesn't it override our sympathy for the Devil?"

He chuckled at his own joke. Gabrielle wasn't as amused; maybe she was just in a bad mood today, but she didn't like that Ben assumed everyone had the same perspective on Milton's character. The rest of the class stared blankly until Ben cleared his throat and continued, "Because we see that the Light — in this case, God and the other angels — can be just as fearsome as Satan. Dark may be evil in this case, but Light can be just as foul. You might even say the darkness is necessary, in order to see past the blinding power of light."

Gabrielle imagined that this was supposed to be some deep metaphor or something, but she was still annoyed. Again she raised her hand, and again she spoke without waiting to be asked. "Okay, but I don't think Lucifer's that sympathetic. He's just as bad as people say he is. Everything he does is selfish."

Ben paused, smile starting to fade. "Oh?"

Before he could inquire further, Katie stepped in, demanding, "What do you mean? Lucifer had some good ideas! You know, like democracy and all that? It's not his fault that God wouldn't listen to him."

"So?" Gabrielle just shrugged her shoulders. "Lucifer still did bad things, and that's why he got cast out of Heaven.

"Well, God's decisions aren't really that great, either," Aaron pointed out. "He practically laid out that Tree of Knowledge as a trap for Adam and Eve!"

"Just because some all-powerful deity is doing bad stuff doesn't give you the excuse to do the same," Gabrielle replied, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. A headache was starting to form behind her eyes. "Sure, God didn't have to do that, but Adam and Eve were innocent. That's like their entire point of existence. Maybe Lucifer was right to mess up some of God's plans, but that doesn't make it okay to hurt innocent people, who have no idea what's really going on. Lucifer goes on and on about how awful it is he got kicked out of heaven, like he's the victim in all of this, but really he's just an asshole —"

"Language, Gabby." Ben frowned, while the class tittered.

"Sorry," She heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes. "Lucifer's a jerk, okay? Maybe he has some good ideas, but he's uses them to justify legit evil things. Just because you have good intentions doesn't mean what you're doing is okay, or that maybe you're just lying to yourself to hide your pride and ambitions."

"Hmm," Ben said, frowning thoughtfully. Some of the other students looked ready to continue to discussion, but Ben was starting to look a little fatigued. Perhaps he already guessed that Gabby might steal the control from him, and wisely decided to nip it in the bud. "Those are some, ah, interesting ideas, Gabby. You should hang onto them for the final essay coming up. Speaking of which —" he was drowned by a chorus of groans. "Oh, c'mon, it won't be that bad! It's only seven pages!"

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Gabby was still grumpy about English class after school had ended.

To her, it felt as if she'd lost the argument. Sure, Ben cut her off before anyone could really talk about it further, but it was clearly because he didn't like the way things were going. As she trumped towards the field past the ancient oak tree, duffle bag over her shoulder, Gabrielle promised herself she was going to write one hell of a paper for English class, all right.

"I heard you got pretty worked up in Ben's class today," Jess said to her as they were putting on their cleats.

Sitting side by side on the bench, Gabrielle have been quiet, still stewing in her thoughts. She had a vice-like grip on the shoelaces, tying them so tightly that her foot was starting to tingle from lack of circulation. She let out a huff and went to untie it again before her foot went numb.

"Just a dumb class," Gabrielle finally said, retying her sneaker. "We were talking about Paradise Lost and I kind of started a big argument."

"Isn't that the book where Satan is the hero?" Jess asked, frowning. She and Clara took regular Sophomore English, and didn't read the same books as Gabby did.

"In name only," Gabrielle muttered. "I guess the common interpretation is that Lucifer's this misunderstood bad guy with good motivations and bad luck, but I feel like I'm the only one that sees that he's still this selfish prick who's deliberating manipulating his audience to get them on his side." Gabby paused, then realized how stupid she sounded, acting like the Lucifer in the book was a real person. "Although maybe that was the point of the author."

"Uh-huh," Jess said slowly, giving Gabby a skeptical look. "You sure you're not just totally obsessing about this in a really unhealthy way?"

"I am not obsessing. Everyone just thinks Milton feels bad for Lucifer! And I don't think that's true!"

"Ignore her, she's still mad her dad isn't coming to her birthday," Clara called, coming up to them and dropping her duffle bag next to theirs.

"What? Am not!" Gabby said, offended.

"Well, you seemed pretty salty about it when you mentioned it this morning, even though yesterday you seemed fine." Clara said, raising her eyebrows pointedly. She flopped down next to Gabby, hands up. "I'm not saying I blame you! I'd be pretty pissed, too. You know how many times my mom missed our games? I can count the number of times she didn't on one hand."

Gabby screwed up her lips but found Clara to be genuine, and decided to let it go. She turned her attention back to the ground. Her grip tightened around the splintery old wood of the bench beneath her. "I just wish he told me earlier."

"Did you tell him that?" Jess asked, but at that moment Coach blew the whistle, calling everyone to center field.

Instead of answering, Gabrielle got up and walked away.

She could feel Jess and Clara's eyes on her, as they gathered around Coach and were directed to do warm-ups: first the basics, like lunges, jumping jacks, and high-knees. Then a quick three-minute jog around the field, and afterwards further stretches. Gabby took this as an opportunity to keep to herself; still not in the mood for talking, she hoped some exercise might ease the headache that had been throbbing behind her eyes for the past couple hours. She'd taken some ibuprofen at lunch but it didn't seem to have helped any.

By that point, Coach had already pulled out a net. Once everyone was good and sweaty, she had everyone get their gear and form a line. Practicing throws again, with alternating goalies. Drilling throws and catches.

So far, Clara and Jess had left her alone, seeming to understand Gabrielle needed time to herself. But not everyone on the team understood that.

"So, Gabs," Vanessa called from somewhere behind the line. "I heard your birthday party's this weekend — I'm invited, right?"

I'd rather eat a cactus. Gabrielle winced inwardly. She hated it when Vanessa used any sort of nickname with her. Slowly she turned, found Vanessa three girls down. Vanessa had a bright smile, as if she knew exactly what Gabrielle was thinking. But Gabby kept her face neutral as she said, "Well, yeah. The whole team is invited."

As Gabrielle was met with a chorus of pleased tones, Vanessa's smirk slipped off her face. Clearly, this wasn't the reaction she'd expected; Gabby was proud of herself for being calm. Sometimes Vanessa could be predictable. She'd expected something like this was bound to happen, and wasn't going to give Vanessa what she wanted.

Of course, that didn't mean she was done yet. Realizing she wasn't going to get anything out of Gabrielle, Vanessa leaned back and called out, "Don't miss, Moo-Moo!"

In front of them, Clara had just shot the ball when Vanessa shouted. The ball went wide, soaring far left of the goal. Clara let out a curse, stomped her foot, and made the slow walk to the end of the line. As she passed, Vanessa jeered, "Ooh, bad shot! Better luck next time, Moo-Moo."

Gabby would've said something, but Clara just flipped Vanessa off and kept walking. And it seemed that was that.

She shouldn't have been so naive. They had not yet reached their usual quota of Vanessa's bullshit today.

When it was Gabby's turn to throw, she heard a sudden burst of giggles behind her. The whole team was chatting casually as they practiced, but Vanessa's voice ran out above them all: "...are those tattoos, or just new stretchmarks, Clara?"

The words caught Gabby by surprise. Anger flared hot, and her arms snapped. She swung her stick too hard.

The net and goalie Mel were just fifteen feet away. The ball came in like rocket. Mel let out a cry and ducked. If she hadn't, she would've taken the ball straight to the teeth. It whistled over her head harmlessly, smacking into the net. As Mel came back up, she threw Gabby a startled look, but Gabrielle had already turned around and was stalking to the back of the line.

She was about to say something to Vanessa when she caught Clara shaking her head out of the corner of her eye; Gabrielle paused, closed her mouth, kept going. As she passed, Clara whispered, "Don't make a big deal, she's just trying to start some drama,"

"Well, she's good at it," Gabrielle said. Clara was trying to put on a brave face, but the corners of her mouth were strained. She had yet to come up with a good comeback to any of Vanessa's remarks, and telling her to just shut up hadn't worked either.

Jess, who was right behind Clara, made a crude gesture with her hand and mouth, simulating a particular sexual act. It was pretty funny, right up until Coach barked, "Nguyen! Watch yourself!"

Jess just shared an eyeroll with them before Gabby moved on. Why Coach had a problem with Jess's inappropriate behavior but not Vanessa's was one of the many mysteries of Mountmend High. Of course, she'd discipline anyone if there were complaints, but for some reason she never seemed to catch Vanessa in the act.

Gabrielle was privately hoping maybe someone else would step in, another teammate perhaps. But with Vanessa as team captain, and a Junior on top of it all, meant she was both older and more important than the rest of them. Gabrielle couldn't stand another year with her on the same team, but until she could find an alternative sport she loved more than lacrosse (an impossibility), she'd just have to bear it.

But she wasn't going to do so quietly.

When the drilling was over, Coach split the girls into four teams, each two getting one half of the field — the idea was to attempt a mini-game, tighter quarters meaning it was more difficult to avoid touching each other. Gabby wondered if it was just bad luck that she and Clara ended up with Vanessa.

By with Vanessa, she meant that they were on the same team. Unfortunately, Vanessa decided tormenting Clara was more important than teamwork, so they suffered as the other side continued to score one goal after another. Still Clara refused to confront Vanessa, and shot looks at Gabrielle whenever she made a move towards her. She seemed determined to ignore Vanessa at all costs.

"What are you doing all the way over there? The ball's over here, you idiot!"

"What did you do, overload on the butter today? What's wrong with you?"

"If you think I'm gonna pick up your slack, you got another thing coming, Moo-Moo!"

But even Clara had her breaking point.

"C'mon slowpoke!" Vanessa called from the opposition's goal. "Get your lardass over here already! We're losing because of you!"

Clara, who was on the other end carrying the ball, came to an abrupt stop about half-way down. The other team, Katie, Mel, and Becka, stopped as well — it was obvious to everyone in the vicinity that Vanessa's disruption was affecting more than her own team. The other three didn't look like they were enjoying themselves much either, and Gabrielle noticed that they looked relieved when Clara finally threw down her stick and shouted, "Oh, go fuck yourself, Hatch! No one here's going to do it for you!"

"Oh shit," whispered someone behind Gabrielle, as Clara stomped up to Vanessa, shoulders trembling. It almost looked like she was crying, but it was hard to say with her helmet on.

"What're you gonna do, sit on me?" Vanessa cackled, then faked a choking gasp, stumbling back and faking injury as Clara approached. "Oh, no! Squished to death... by the...talking...ox! A tragic demise!"

The sun was right in her eyes. Gabrielle grit her teeth, turned her head away. She couldn't see Vanessa, but she heard that shrill, horse-like laugh. It made her blood boil.

"Lay off, Vanessa!" Gabrielle shouted, after seeing Clara's eyes start to go a little glassy, a sudden shuddering breath. She didn't care if Clara wanted her out of it. This had gone on for too long. She wasn't going to just sit back anymore and pretend it wasn't happening right before her eyes.

"Or what, Breit?" Vanessa just threw her a derisive sneer. She didn't move as Gabrielle stormed in, placing herself in front of Clara. Close enough to strike Vanessa, if she wanted to, but Vanessa didn't look scared. "You gonna go cry and tattle on me? I'm just trying to help! A few diet tips never hurt anyone. If anyone needs them, it's Clara the Cow —"

Gabrielle stepped forward, her fists clenching around her stick. Enough.

Vanessa's mouth was open. Teeth so white. Laughing in slow-motion, like in a movie.

Something flashed. Blinded, Gabrielle flinched, her eyes squeezing shut.

A scream.

When Gabrielle opened her eyes again, Vanessa ten feet away, on the ground, crying. Gabrielle had both hands raised — burning hot.

"Holy shit." Clara breathed behind her.

Startled, Gabrielle stumbled back. Her stick lied smoking on the ground. What the hell just happened?

The last thing she remembered was approaching Vanessa. Honestly, Gabrielle wasn't sure what she had been planning to do. Maybe just slap her. But it felt like she'd pushed Vanessa instead.

Pushed her so hard that she sent Vanessa flying?

The field had gone silent. All the teams had stopped playing. Everyone was staring at her.

"G-Gabby…" Clara sniffed, no longer looking upset. The expression on her face was more akin to shock. Her eyes were fixed, wide-eyed, on Gabrielle. "What did you do?"

"I-I…" Gabrielle tucked her hands to her chest, suddenly scared and not knowing why. She looked around for some other explanation. But the other girls were backing off, wary. They had just seen their teammate attack another. "I don't know —"

The shriek of a whistle cut her off, and next second Coach was charging onto the field, her face red to the ears. She jabbed a finger at Gabrielle, shouting,

"What the hell is going on here?" Coach Brennan rushed in like a hurricane, face red to the ears. She jabbed a finger at Gabrielle, demanding, "Breit, explain yourself!"

Vanessa was already behind helped up by Katie. She was cradling her arm, still crying. She didn't look like she was faking it this time. Gabrielle gaped at her, helpless for a moment, before turning to Coach. "I-I don't know! She started it —"

"I don't care who started it!" Coach snapped, hands on her hips. "You think assaulting other teammates is okay? How do you feel about watching the next game on the bench?"

"What?" Gabby shouted, her fury igniting like gas over a dimming fire. All at once her fury returned. "That's not fair! You can't do that!"

"Oh, can't I?" Coach laughed, but it was utterly without humor. "Well, Breit, consider yourself benched — Indefinitely!"

"But, Coach —"

"Off the field, Breit! Now!"

With a huff, Gabby ripped off her helmet and threw it at her feet. Had she been calmer, she would've been embarrassed the way the entire team stared as she stormed off. Jess tried to intercept her, but Gabby just shrugged her aside. There was no helping this now.

Her hands were still tingling as she made her way off the field. Had Gabby not dropped her stick, she would've noticed the metal crushed from her grip.

Passing the bleachers, Gabrielle caught sight of the old oak tree on Mountmend's front lawn. There was a crack down the center of its trunk — once, years before she was born, a bolt of lightning struck the tree, killing it instantly. Ever since, the its branches had been bare.

Except today.

Today, they were filled with black feathers and gleaming eyes.

Over two dozen ravens had come to roost in the oak tree. Inky forms against a bright blue sky. So many that the dead branches creaked under their weight. But not a single one made a sound.

A chill went down Gabrielle's spin. She hugged her arms and quickly trotted past.

The ravens remained there, silent and watching, as Gabby made the walk of shame back to school.

A/N: Look, I had to read Paradise Lost for school and I still have a lot of feelings about it, okay? Lol. Also this is totally not an allegory for the fic as a whole ;P