Alice woke up starving. Her stomach growled loud enough to echo through the entire house, so she wasn’t surprised to find breakfast already waiting on the table. She practically lunged at the cheese-and-egg sandwiches Helena had prepared, devouring them one after another and washing them down with gulps of warm cocoa. Only when the sharp pangs of hunger faded into drowsy contentment did she glance at the old pendulum clock above the table. Six o’clock. Relief washed over her—she could still crawl back into bed, full and happy…

  "Good, you’re awake!" Gregory’s cheerful voice shattered the moment. "Your backpack’s ready. Dress warmly—it’s windy out."

  "What backpack?" Alice blinked, her gaze darting between her foster grandparents and the man in the chauffeur’s uniform.

  " Today’s your first day of school," Helena said, as if announcing the weather. "Education matters, Alice. A young lady doesn’t skip classes."

  Alice clamped her mouth shut, but her mind erupted with every crude word she’d ever overheard in the courtyard. School? Who the hell needed school? Her parents were dead, she’d been raised by ghosts, and her guardian was… well, something. No one in fairy tales sat through math lessons. The ghosts were supposed to teach her magic, and the Not-a-Doctor—he was the one who’d explain the world. She was special. Special kids didn’t waste time on stupid school. Disappointment curdled in her chest, but she kept silent. For all her bold talk yesterday, defying the Not-a-Doctor was… unwise.

  "Everything alright?" Gregory eyed her pinched expression.

  "Perfect!" She forced a laugh, a bit too shrill and too childish. "I just… forgot about school!"

  Forgot? Liar. She hadn’t forgotten—she’d refused to believe it was real. Maybe a test, maybe a joke, maybe her brain had short-circuited to avoid processing it. School? Now? What about magic? What about her destiny? She was the Not-a-Doctor’s ward, not some ordinary kid.

  “Alice, come down to the car once you’re ready,” Gregory called. “These new maps are giving me trouble—everything’s changed since I died. Might take a few loops to find the place. At least I know, how to drive… probably.”

  “Be right there.”

  She drained her cocoa, bolted to her room, and skidded to a halt in front of the vanity. Her reflection stared back—ordinary, silent. No frost creeping across the glass, no ripple in the surface, no shift in the air to signal his presence.

  “Are you there?” she whispered.

  Nothing. Her jaw tightened.

  “You’re supposed to be my guardian. So why am I being shoved into some stupid school instead of learning from you?”

  Still empty silence. She yanked open the wardrobe and began pulling out clothes. At that moment, Helena entered the room. The girl, slightly embarrassed, quickly slipped into the outfit she had chosen, then glanced nervously at her silent guardian. One second Alice was grabbing a sweater; the next, bony fingers closed around her throat and hoisted her off the ground.

  “You’re not listening to me, and I don’t like that. You’re arguing with me, and I won’t tolerate it. This is your final warning. Next time, it’s going to hurt.”

  Fire flooded Alice’s lungs. She kicked, choking on nothing, until it—he—dropped her like garbage and slowly left the room. The door clicked shut.

  “Jesus” Alice wheezed, scrambling up. “How do you even possess a ghost?!”

  Coughing, she brushed the dust off her clothes and left the room. Best not to anger him off any further.

  School was never a great place to begin with. By definition, it wasn’t supposed to be a paradise for children, but Alice only realized just how cruel it could be when she turned nine.

  She didn’t know anyone. Didn’t try to know anyone. "Be a ghost," the Not-a-Doctor had ordered—as if vanishing were that simple when every whisper in the hallway was about her. How do you disappear when your very breath draws stares? Yet she had to learn. She didn’t even want to think what would happen if she failed.

  The first day was a masterclass in humiliation. She was a leper. A city freak. The teacher’s prying questions only stopped when Alice muttered about her parents’ death—a tactical error, she realized too late. By lunch, the whispers began: Orphan. Psycho. Witch. She hated them with every fiber of her being and wished them nothing but the worst. The days blurred into a cycle of silent torment. She ignored them; they mocked her louder. She shrunk into herself; they loomed larger. Her invisibility was a lie. So she channeled the rage onto paper— crude sketches of classmates dismembered by history’s worst executions. Stakes. Pyres. Horses tearing limbs like wishbones. It was therapy for the damned, her only outlet for the storm inside.

  Then a boy snatched her notebook.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Chaos. The teacher’s face as she flipped through pages of childhood nightmares made manifest was almost worth the fallout. Where does a child learn these things? The teacher had no doubt—this kind of behavior was far from normal. The summons for her parents was the punchline. Only when Alice’s tears hit the desk did the teacher grasp her mistake. The "talk" that followed was a farce:

  "Are the children… unkind to you?"

  Alice told the truth. Watched the woman’s pity curdle into helpless fear. Not fear for her—fear of her. Fear of something broken beyond a parent-teacher meeting’s repair.

  "Bring your grandparents," the teacher insisted.

  Alice almost laughed. Helena and Walery hadn’t left the house in decades. She kept quiet. Let the days stretch. Excuses piled up like unmarked graves. There was no solution. Only endurance.

  “Alice.” The teacher’s voice was a frayed wire. “Where. Are. Your. Grandparents? No more excuses. They come to school today, or we escalate this. Do you understand? They need to come to school immediately, or we’ll send out an official letter—and then you’ll be in serious trouble!”

  Alice bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. An official letter? After days of doing nothing? How tragically bureaucratic.

  “Are you even listening? I’m talking to you. Get up!”

  Alice stayed seated. Let the woman shriek. Let the farm-bred children snicker into their mucus-crusted sleeves. Why play along?

  “Principal’s office. Now.”

  She exhaled through her nose. What was the point? She’d done everything right—folded herself small, swallowed every insult—and still they came for her. Would the principal haunt her grandparents’ cemetery plot? Mail a sternly worded letter to two ghosts?

  Then—a knock.

  Not a sound, but a shift in pressure, like the air before a storm. The teacher lurched up, nearly tripping over her own shoes in her rush to the door.

  Alice’s pulse spiked.

  “Him—” The word escaped before she could choke it back.

  The teacher returned gray-faced, moving like a sleepwalker.

  “Alice. Hallway.”

  The giggles died as she stepped out.

  There he stood. Black jacket tailored to a blade’s edge. Hair in a heavy braid. His smile cut deeper than his frozen eyes.

  “Not even a greeting for your uncle?” the teacher hissed.

  Uncle. Clever. Alice dipped into a mockingly perfect curtsy.

  “Hello, Uncle.”

  The Not-a-Doctor sank into a crouch, pulling her into an embrace that crushed her ribs like a vice.

  “My poor, wounded girl,” he murmured. Her heart beat faster, but she said nothing. He kept talking, his voice full of tenderness and concern: "You’ve been through so much, and still you find no peace. Dear child, my heart breaks to see you like this."

  “Funny,” Alice muttered against his shoulder, “you didn’t seem to care yesterday.”

  "Shut your fucking mouth if you want my help," the Not-a-Doctor snarled.

  He gently took her by the shoulders and moved her back a little. Then said louder for the audience:

  "What can I do for you? How can I help?"

  Alice played her part perfectly. She might’ve been a child, but she understood theater. She buried her face in her hands, feigned embarrassment, dug her fingers into her eyes until they reddened, slumped her shoulders, and let her breath hitch—just enough trembling to seem broken, not enough to be obvious.

  “You’re too kind to her!” the teacher burst out, wringing her hands like a bad actress. “She’s manipulative! We’ve tried everything—counseling, patience—but she refuses to engage!”

  The Not-a-Doctor rose, looming like a shadow given form.

  “Help her,” he said, voice silk-wrapped steel. “I travel constantly. She’s alone with her grief. You know what she’s lost. I want to help, but I don’t know how to raise a child.”

  That's true, at least. You have no idea how to raise me, Alice thought, but didn’t say a word.

  .The teacher sidled closer, her voice syrupy.

  “You’re too soft. She needs discipline. Perhaps if you visited more often…?”

  Her hand brushed his wrist. Alice’s guts twisted. Encouraged by the man’s silence, the teacher gently took his hand.

  "You should come by more often. That way, we could discuss some steps together, because otherwise this poor child will never open up after those tragic events."

  Well, that was definitely a mistake.

  “Should I bend you over a desk now and simply fuck?” The Not-a-Doctor jerked away as if burned. “Or would you prefer the janitor’s closet?”

  The woman sputtered, but he talked over her like she was static:

  “Let’s review. A child orphaned weeks ago. Uprooted to live with grandparents she’d never met before. Dumped in this cesspit where your students mock her, and you—you useless cunt —make it worse. I’d rather lick asphalt than breathe your air.”

  “How dare—”

  His hand lashed out, gripping her throat. Not to choke—to still.

  “Quiet.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Look at me. Remember this.”

  Alice leaned forward, transfixed. Something rippled around him—not light, not shadow, but a pressure that seeped into the teacher’s skin. The woman shuddered, her rage dissolving like sugar in water, until—

  Nothing.

  She stood hollow-eyed, a puppet with cut strings. The energy pulsed once more, then retreated like a tide.

  "You make a terrible ghost, Alice," the Not-a-Doctor murmured, his gaze still drilling into the hollow-eyed teacher.

  "And you suck at being a guardian," Alice spat. "You did this to me too. In the hospital."

  "Not this." His finger tapped the teacher's slack jaw. "I stabilized you. Let you keep your miserable little thoughts."

  "Would've been kinder to erase me. At least I’d be who you want me to be."

  In less than a heartbeat, his face was inches from hers.

  "Want me to? You'd be useless afterward. I don't care if you fight me or worship me—only that you awaken." His voice dropped to a blade's edge. "This isn't my game. We're both pawns. Play your role. Try to kill me. Save souls. Damn them. But remember—" He grabbed her chin, "—the price is always yours to pay. I'm just keeping you alive long enough to matter."

  Alice collapsed onto the tiles, the world tilting. Before the panic could swallow her whole:

  "Then why help me today?"

  "Payment." Suddenly calm, he smiled. "You handled Gregory... adequately."

  "Was that... praise?" She choked on the word.

  "For a nine-year-old brat? Yes. Which is why tonight, you'll learn something real."

  The energy snapped back into him. The teacher blinked awake as he vanished through a door that hadn't existed three breaths earlier.

  Silence. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

  The teacher rubbed her temples, her memory a gaping wound. She recalled... a conversation with Alice's grandparents. The girl's tearful apology. A promise of better care.

  "You see, Alice?" The teacher smiled with glassy certainty. "Talking helps. Your grandparents understand now."

  "Yes, ma'am." Alice said, trying her best to hide her disbelief. "May I go?"

  "Of course."