MONSTER HOUSE: MY MONSTROUSITY FAMILY

Second period was supposed to be dull, History with Ms. Groff, a woman with the charisma of overcooked rice and the wardrobe of a dusty theater prop room.

Elian sat near the window, halfway tuned out, chewing the corner of his pencil and wondering if the girl in the black hoodie had really said "cocoon."

No one else mentioned her. Not even Willow, who usually intercepted psychic echoes like a dream-catcher on caffeine.

He glanced to his left, Rava was humming inaudibly beside him and sketching a death-metal logo that vibrated with low-level sonic distortion. Thing hovered behind her like smoke trying to become a person.

Normal-ish.

Then the classroom door opened, and the world tilted.

The light seemed to ripple slightly, as if the air itself inhaled.

A man stepped in. Tall. Too tall. His frame wore a substitute's bland tweed and tie, but everything about him felt… Wrong. Not evil. Not dangerous. Just misplaced. Like a predator in a zoo costume.

His eyes swept the room. Dark brown. Normal. But Elian felt it, something underneath. Something blinking sideways.

"I'm Mr. Cane," the man said, smiling too tightly. "I'll be covering for Ms. Groff while she's out. Let's continue our discussion on power structures and the decay of ruling bloodlines."

Rava visibly stiffened. Elian's fingers clenched around his pencil until it cracked.

"Page 148," Cane said. "Open now."

Students obeyed.

Elian didn't move.

The air around him had changed. Denser. It smelled faintly of old ash and burned bone. Familiar, but wrong. Like the battle-dreams of his mother. Like a memory he'd never lived.

He looked up.

Mr. Cane was already staring at him.

"Elian Mass'm, correct?" he asked.

"Yes," Elian answered without meaning to.

"You seem tired. Trouble sleeping?"

Elian hesitated. "No. Just… Normal."

Cane tilted his head. "Nothing about you is normal, boy."

Rava's pencil cracked.

Behind her, Thing growled, actually growled, a low static-thick sound.

Cane smiled. "Page. One. Forty-eight."

Elian turned to the page. It showed a medieval woodcut of a queen being burned alive. The caption read; False Thrones and the Fear of Queens.

He looked up again.

Mr. Cane wasn't smiling anymore.

He was watching Elian like something waiting to see if the trap had sprung.

And in Elian's ears, faint and sudden, his mother's voice whispered through his blood.

"Run."