Blessed by the Dead

Chapter 4

When I wake up, I hear a strange sound, it's a pleasant sound but I have trouble imagining what it could possibly be. I rub my eyes, trying to brush away the sleepiness. Finally I look down, Colette is carving soap for some reason. She immediately seems to feel my eyes on her and turns to me.

"Hi." She says to me with an apologetic smile, possibly thinking that the noise is what woke me.

"Hi?" I shoot back. "What are you doing?"

"I watched soap carving ASMR videos last night to fall asleep and it gave me an urge to do the same. It's just so satisfying, don't you think?" She explains.

I look down to the bowl at her feet that is now full of little pieces of soap. I wonder if I look judgemental, because next thing I know she's giving me a performance on how the video would go like if she were filming an ASMR video right now. Which she isn't, and she doesn't even have the necessary material for that. Namely, the most important: a binaural microphone. We laugh about her hypothetical asmrtist career and get ready for the morning assembly.

We briefly pass by the dining hall first. Colette gobbles down a bowl of cereal like it were air while I try to match her pace (and fail) while eating a peanut butter toast with some tea. I also grabbed a banana but left it for later, finding myself not so hungry because of the speed at which I tried to eat that breakfast.

With plenty of students, the assembly hall that we had no trouble finding since everyone was heading there, looked still quite big, its full capacity not reached. And I wonder if it ever will be, I don't think there has ever been a year where the amount of students could fill the room. However, the hall was filled with chatter at the very least, to which Colette and I contributed, of course. Only did the chatter become hushed when suddenly, clouds started to gather in the hall, above our heads.

Now the conversations had gone down a notch, falling to a whisper. The older students didn't seem that impressed but they looked at us, first years they guessed, with amusement. Then someone stepped onto the stage from the shadows, that someone being the headmistress, Adeline De Smet, followed by a rowdy line of teachers, all looking like they might be key characters in a fairytale story. The headmistress is supposed to be in her early 60s but she looks at least 10 years younger, she's wearing a sophisticated white blouse with ruffles and a mermaid skirt embroidered with flowers.

At a single glance, I'm somehow almost certain that she's the one who made her clothes and that they must be enchanted, her handiwork is impressive even from afar and honestly it exactly looks like the type of stuff I'd wear once I reach her age. Hell, I might already wear such clothes right now. I look down, I'm wearing a long pleated black skirt (as I often do), a shirt and a soft brown bolero cardigan. Linda and Mom would joke about how spending this much time with oma Ineke has turned me into a grandma but really, I just find these types of clothes classy and comfy.

In any case, my eyes darted up to the stage again. The hall is silent now, awaiting the greeting speech. As expected, the speech opens with a welcome to the new students and a welcome back to the students from the upper years. The headmistress introduces herself, making a joke about how each year she gets nervous about it so she has to summon the clouds into the dining hall in order to dim out the lights and make her face less perceptible. She insists that everyone is welcome to call her Adeline and not Mrs. De Smet, although of course, if we decide to call her that she will not pester us about it. By the amused look the teachers behind her are giving us, I'm not convinced that the statement is true.

Then as she announces that each of the teachers will introduce themselves, Mrs. De Smet, or- should I say Adeline, claps her hands twice and stomps her left foot once on the stage floor. The clouds disappear, leaving the hall under a blue painted sky that somehow looks very real thanks to the sun on the ceiling shining almost as strongly as the actual sun. So despite it being September now, and the clouds filling the sky outside, our hall looks to be bathed in the summer sun. And then- that's when it hits me. If the painting on the ceiling of this entire hall is enchanted into this and the headmistress is able to control it then it must mean that she's the one who painted the entire ceiling by herself?! Colette seems to come to the same realization as me at about the same time, as she looks back at me in both amazement and mild horror. She did say that her specialty was art and painting, and mine is sewing and knitting. Well, judging by the headmistress' outfit and painted ceiling, she's a master at both.