bonus chapter hot springs visit during graduation the end

The sky was the color of a week-old bruise, a uniform, unyielding grey that stretched from horizon to horizon, leaching the world of its usual garish color. The sea was a sullen, leaden sheet, hissing rather than crashing against the empty, pebbled shore. It was, in a word, perfect. The Society of Shadows—or as I privately, endearingly, thought of them, my little Shadows—had the entire, desolate coastline to ourselves. The beach, you see, had a certain… history. A century ago, a shipwreck had turned this cove into a mass graveyard. The locals avoided it, whispering of cold spots and sorrow. To us, it was simply homely. The residual melancholy was like a favorite, threadbare cloak.

I, Victoria Blackwood, surveyed my domain from beneath a large, black spider web themed parasol. My ensemble—a sharply tailored black blazer over a dress shirt, leather skirt, tights, and knee-high boots—was decidedly not beachwear. But standards must be maintained, even in the face of desolation. A spiderweb dangled from my ear, catching no light. My Shadows were arrayed around me: Silas, our treasurer, methodically checking a spectral ledger only he could see; Lilith, sketching the grim seascape while humming a dissonant, post-punk melody under her breath; and my darlings, Luna and Theo, sitting side-by-side on a blanket, their noses buried in different volumes of The Monk and Frankenstein, respectively. The resemblance was, as ever, a source of profound satisfaction. Two smaller, sharper mirrors of my own cold, calculating nature, complete with spectacles and a propensity for archaic syntax.

“Verily, this gloom doth nourish the soul more than any garish sun,” Theo remarked, not looking up from his page.

“Indubitably, brother,” Luna replied, her voice a dry echo. “The shrieking of gulls is replaced by the whispering of drowned souls. A marked improvement.”

The peace was broken by the arrival of Morgana and Finn. Morgana, a vision in a vintage black lace cover-up, carried a basket of artfully arranged, sinister-looking picnic foods. Finn, Luna’s ever-enthusiastic beau and our resident technomancer, was wrestling with a complex-looking portable speaker that occasionally emitted a faint, digital scream.

“The atmosphere here is priceless,” Morgana purred, her voice warm and low as she set the basket down. “Early 20th-century maritime despair, very potent. You can almost taste the salt and regret.”

“I’m getting a great signal from the ley lines!” Finn chirped, finally getting the speaker to play a low, throbbing darkwave track. “It’s like the Wi-Fi of the damned!”

After a suitably gloomy picnic featuring black bread, squid ink pasta, and pomegranates that looked disturbingly like clotted hearts, the proposed migration to the hot springs was met with unanimous, silent approval. The springs were a geological oddity, heated by subterranean fissures, nestled in a cave at the far end of the cove. The steam rose to meet the mist, creating a phantom-filled grotto.

We changed in separate, rocky alcoves. I emerged last, my spider-patterned bikini a stark black against my pale skin. I had, of course, removed my glasses and the armour of my makeup: the black eyeliner, the mascara,the shadow, the dark red lipstick. My raven-black hair,, cascaded loose down my back as it always usually does fitting for me with my own personal nature as a witch and a vamp to an extent.

I found my Shadows already in the largest pool, the water a milky, opalescent blue. Silas was submerged to his chin, his eyes closed in blissful neutrality. Theo was rigid on a submerged rock, trying very hard not to look anywhere in particular. Finn’s eyes were wide with scientific—or perhaps simply adolescent—curiosity, which Luna was monitoring with a predator’s stillness.

Then the teasing began.

“Goodness, ms blackwood,” Lilith drawled, strumming an air guitar. “One almost doesn’t recognize you without your battle paint. You look… deceptively soft.”

Morgana swam closer, a sly smile on her lips. “It’s the skin. Like polished alabaster. And your hair in this steam… it’s a proper Victorian mourning portrait come to life. Devastatingly lovely.”

I sank into the heavenly heat, allowing a rare, small smile. “Flatterers, the lot of thee. Wouldst thou have me resemble a sun-bleached skeleton, like common holiday-makers?”

“Never,” Luna said, her voice cutting through the steam. She was in a black crow-patterned bikini, looking every bit the sharp, intelligent scavenger. “The pallor is part of the brand. We are creatures of the library and the tomb, not the tanning bed.”

Theo finally found his voice, aiming for deflection. “Silas, must you… lounge so? It’s indecorously comfortable.”

Silas opened one eye. “The ledger is balanced. The water is hot. Equilibrium is achieved.” He sank another inch, a contented bubble escaping his lips. Theo looked profoundly aggrieved.

It was then that Finn, emboldened by the steam and natural wonder, attempted a quick, glancing peek in Luna’s direction. He was not subtle.

Theo moved with the swift, merciless grace of a striking adder. The paperback copy of Frankenstein, left prudently on the pool’s edge, was in his hand and then, with a damp thwack, against the back of Finn’s head.

“Ow! Scientific inquiry!” Finn yelped, rubbing his skull.

“Thou art inquiring into a realm of certain and painful retribution,” Theo stated flatly, though a faint smirk played on his lips. “Maintain thine ocular focus on the geological formations.”

Luna didn’t even look up from examining her own fingernails. “Thank you, brother. His curiosity has a habit of outpacing his sense of self-preservation.”

I watched the scene, the heat seeping into bones that always felt slightly too close to the surface. This was the heart of it. The black comedy of our existence. Surrounded by the ghosts of a forgotten tragedy, in water heated by the earth’s dark heart, we bickered and teased like any family. The macabre was our mundane.

Later, dried and dressed, I stood before a small, dark mirror propped on a rock. With precise, familiar strokes, I rebuilt my face: the kohl lining my eyes into sharp points, the shadow smudged in the hollows, the dark red lipstick applied like a seal. The mascara enhancing the eyes look piercingly cold naturally. I slid my glasses back onto my nose and felt the final piece of my armour click into place.

Lilith, now in her ripped fishnets and band shirt, nodded in approval. Morgana adjusted the antique cameo at her throat.

“There she is,” Morgana said. “The headmistress of the midnight hour.”

“It suits you,” Luna said, coming to stand beside me, her own dark lipstick perfectly applied. Theo flanked my other side, his glasses glinting.

“It suits us all,” I said, my voice once more its familiar, cool cadence. “Let the wide world have its garish sun and loud colors. We shall have our silences, our shadows, our perfectly applied gloom.”

Finn, nursing the faint red mark on his head, grinned. “Every day’s Halloween for us. It’s way more efficient.”

“Precisely,” I said. “The mystery is the point. The fear it inspires in the mundane is… a useful buffer. It keeps our little society truly private.”

We packed our things under the enduring grey sky. The sea continued its sullen sigh against the graveyard shore. As we walked back up the cliff path, a single, silent unit of black against the grey, I felt a profound sense of peace. It had been a day of delicious gloom, of geothermal warmth, of playful threats and familial snark. A perfect day, by our own peculiar metrics. The world was bright and noisy and afraid of places like this. Which was, of course, why we loved it so. We were together, my Shadows and I, in our beautiful, comforting, eternal twilight.

The end