Chapter 7: Sigils

Ms. Potter tried to leave her room as the final bell sounded, but she was detained by several of her students who had questions about their respective projects. By the time she got free of them, it was three minutes after.

She got to E Hall just in time to see the last girl walk through the illusionary locker doors to enter the hidden room.

She banged on the real-feeling metal lockers. “Let me in! Please, let me in!”

On the other side, Henry let out a sigh. “This could be a problem. I guess I’ll have go talk to her.”

For a second the appearance of the lockers waivered and the young man who ravaged her the day before appeared. “Moon, you have no place here. Go away.”

The teacher fell to her knees. “But yesterday...”

“Yesterday you wanted the two rugs, and I and my girls wanted to have some sex. We came to an agreement, for that day only. It is over. Go home.”

“Henry, isn’t there any way...”

“No, and if you persist I’ll have to make you forget what happened. That will also require me remove that thrill you get from those rugs.”

Ms. Potter’s jaw dropped. “You can do that?”

“I can and I will. As a matter of fact, I will remove your knowledge of my room’s location, when you leave.”

“Don’t you need me ... you know as a teacher on the inside?”

“If I do, I’ll let you know. At that time, we’ll come to a new arrangement.”

Crestfallen, the teacher turned away.

Henry called after her. “Oh, and congratulations, you’re pregnant.”

She turned around, stunned. “How do you know?”

“I know. And it’s a ... boy.”

Moon looked at him, at a loss for words.

“You should be delighted. You’ve always wanted a child, but that wasn’t in the cards, with your ex shooting blanks.”

“How do you know that?!” she cried.

“When he is born, name him after me. You can always say that he was named after your father.”

With those words, he turned and went back through the illusion.

While Henry was out in the hall, May talked to Serena. “I know you had nothing to do with deciding to do it, but I’d still like to thank you for this wonderful body you gave me.”

Serena nodded. “Just make sure to keep it in shape. You need to exercise every day to keep it looking this good.”

Henry walked back in the door. “Actually, she doesn’t. Her body is linked to yours, Serena. If you put on weight, so will May. You will see the implications of your dietary changes right in front of you.

“May on the other hand can eat what she likes. It will all be hidden, at least until Serena dies.”

While they were thinking about this new revelation, Bonnie cut in. “Master, is Ms. Potter really pregnant?”

He nodded, “So is your mother.”

“What?!” shrieked the blonde gymnast.

“All but two of your mothers are pregnant, though it is too early for them to tell.”

“Who are the two?” asked several girls, overlapping each other.

“Iris and Angie’s mothers were too old.”

Serena looked upset. “That means you fucked our mothers?”

“May walked in on me screwing her mother. You can ask her.”

“Why did you impregnate them?” asked May.

“Because I can; sometimes I like to stir the pot, just to make things interesting. Besides, your parents are losing you for all intents and purposes, so I am giving them a replacement. It will make forgetting you much easier.”

“Does that mean we’re pregnant?” asked Jenny, the former goth girl.

“No, I only impregnate the women I want to. Eventually most of you will all bear one or more of my progeny, but that will not happen for several years.”

While the girls were trying to absorb this news, Henry moved onto the next piece of business. “There is one more rule of hygiene and appearance that I want to take care of tonight: no unauthorized tattoos.”

Jenny still had her butterfly tattoo on her butt. “I’ll go have it removed right away,” she said. The dirty blonde freshman got up and headed for her clothes.

“Don’t bother. I’ll take care of it. Come here.”

With some trepidation, she approached her master.

“Turn around and show me your tattoo.”

She did, displaying the little butterfly.

Henry winked at his audience. “You’re going to like this.” With a wave of his hand, the ink insect tore in two. The two halves went in opposite directions under Jenny’s skin, across their shoulder blades and up her arms. The two ink blobs wound up on her palms, shaped into different shapes.

On her right was a symbol that looked like a “2” but with a longer base. Through the base was a vertical line.

The symbol on the left palm had what looked like an upside down “4”.

Jenny looked at her palms. “What are these?” she asked

“They are sigils; magical symbols.”

“The left one looks like the symbol for Jupiter,” said May.

“Very good,” said Henry.

All the other girls stared at her. “How did you know that?” asked Bonnie.

The sophomore blushed. “When I was ten I had a brief fascination with astrology and horoscopes. I learned things like that during that phase.”

“Actually, that symbol has several meanings. Those two symbols together are my personal signature. No matter what body I am in and what name I am going by, you see these two symbols and you know who you are dealing with.”

“Are there others out there like you?” asked Misty.

“There are two others that I know of. One is a former apprentice. He learned enough and became powerful enough that he could switch bodies like I can. When gained that ability, he was no longer my apprentice. We are on good terms, though I haven’t seen him for about a hundred years. He is not as accomplished as I am, but he’s getting there.

The other is my equal, maybe stronger in some aspects. She is at least as old as I and has no sense of humor. We have had our disagreements, and our personalities clash, so we try to stay away from each other. Last I heard she was in Russia.”

“So, she’s not your mortal enemy?” asked the Hispanic sophomore, Monica.

Henry smiled. “One does not live as long as I have by developing rivals like that. If you hate somebody that bad, you kill them ad, you kill them as quickly as possible. If they are too strong, you work out a long-term peace treaty. You will o

live your enemy.

“If the person can live as long as you can, then you either become friends or stay well away from him. I have found that people as driven as I or the other two to live centuries, do not want conflict. They don’t want that risk.”

“How old are you, really?” asked Joy.

The sorcerer smiled. “To tell the truth, I don’t know exactly. When calendars change, the years get muddled. I can tell you, I was not alive when Alexander the Great conquered the known world, but I was alive when Julius Caesar was assassinated. That leaves about a four-hundred-year gap.”

Everyone pondered for a minute. Dawn, the black-haired freshman from a Christian family, said, “That means you were alive when Jesus was.”

“That’s right.”

She bounced in kneeling position, “Did you meet him? What was he like?”

He shook his head. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but Joshua bin Joseph, as he was known back then, was not a major subject in the Roman Empire. Only hundreds of years later, when his followers spread his faith, did he become well known. Judea and Galilee were considered backwater provinces, only desired because of the trade routes to Arabia, which went through there, and for Roman pride. They wanted to be the sole ruler of the Mediterranean. The region of the Gospels was generally regarded by the Romans as dirty, dry, primitive place, occupied by strange people with strange beliefs.”

“He wasn’t called Jesus back then?” asked Dawn.

“Jesus is the Greek version of Joshua, like Juan is the Spanish version of John. When the gospel writers wrote, they wrote in Greek, which was the closest thing they had to a universal language. When trying to reach non-Jews, they called him Jesus.

“But I am getting sidetracked. The sigil is a sign of ownership. Anyone who sees those markings on Jenny’s hands will know not to mess with her, that she belongs to me.”

“Shouldn’t we all get sigils?” asked Iris, the student body president.

I was about to get to that. All of you line up in front of me.”

May happened to be at the head of the line. Henry had her raise her palms as he held onto her wrists. He concentrated intently on her hands, never seeming to blink. Sweat poured down his face. May did not feel a thing.

Finally, he closed his eyes. “There, it’s done,” he said with a sigh.

May looked at her palms, and sure enough, the two glyphs were there. She ran her fingers over each symbol and the skin there didn’t feel any different from the rest of her hand. She returned to her position kneeling on the floor.

The next girl in line was Jenny. Her time getting her sigil took only three minutes. May supposed that he was getting more into the groove, and the successive ones were easier.