The Cultivated Girl

Chapter 8 - School Starts

The story so far...

Elizabeth has used a mystical paidirean to navigate an underground labyrinth to her lair.
(Batman, you have nothing on these witchy women!)
She then summons the Council of Women World Leaders and gives them a cryptic message.
What is Operation Dragon?
And what part does Simone have to play in this?

I can't wait to find out where Elizabeth is off to next!
Care to join me?

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"Ma cherie, you're awake."

"Of course I'm awake," mumbled Simone crossly, stumbling over the words. Her tongue felt fat. She glanced at the ceiling. Thank goodness. Rough, textured ochre rock. It made a change from marbled black.

Down, she thought. The hammock eased its way down to a soft landing on plush, burnt-umber rugs.

Very nice.

The room was snug and cosy compared to the large holding cave Simone had started out in. Black silk sleeping hammocks, shot through with burnt-umber thread that matched the cave rock, lined the ceiling. Cleverly positioned nooks and crannies dotted the walls, all irregularly rounded and sporting different colours. Some were large enough to curl up in – lined with warm, comfortable beanbags and situated in such a way that you could either be completely private or enjoy a conversation with someone in the next nook. Simone thought it looked like the perfect place to while away an afternoon with a good book. That is, if they had books here. She couldn't see any in the room.

"Um, thanks, you know, for not letting me drown," she said.

"No worries cherie. I got your tail," said Joli.

She sat with three other girls at a large, polished blonde wood table that grew organically out of the ground.

"Nada," said Simone. "You made it." She was a bit pathetic but Simone didn't really want the fragile looking girl to drown.

"Oh, and so did you," said Simone with a start.

The pale girl, Alexia, stared through her. "Unbelievable. I don't quite understand how...".

Simone flared. "What? How I made it through?" She glared at Alexia. "Joli here."

"No. How the others didn't."

Alexia's silver eyes looked like puddles reflecting rain clouds, like she was trying not to cry.

"Her, uh, hive sisters, cherie. They didn't make it," explained Joli.

"Sorry." Again. Simone mentally rebuked herself. She really wasn't good at this making friends and influencing people thing. More like how to peeve everyone off, she thought, vowing to try harder.

"Hi, I'm Simone," she said, holding a hand out to the final girl seated around the table. It was the girl she'd noticed in the holding cave, laughing and singing although now that she was bald, the flowers were gone from her hair. The girl looked up at her with large, lush green eyes and laughed.

Simone heard a voice in her head: Blodeuwedd, keeper of the seventh forest, as Nada said in a small voice, "She doesn't talk, I think something's not right with her head." She tapped the side of her delicate skull for emphasis.

"But, whoa," said Simone out loud.

"It's not that surprising," said Nada. "Maybe she's just in shock. It's been a terrible day." She looked like she was about to burst into tears again.