Page 3 of The Goddess is Awakened
Michael flipped us both off. I adored my big brother. He probablywouldgive us a hard time if we made an ass of ourselves over something, but if anyone else tried to give us a hard time, he’d beat their asses and never tell us. We were only a year apart, so we gave each other a hard time a lot.
We’d been on the grounds of the Academy of the Profane a lot as kids. My mom was the librarian of the Library of the Profane, and the entire top floor of the library was living quarters, so we lived in a library. My mom always gave talks at the Academy, and my dad had been teaching Dark Arts there since before I was born. They’d been trying to get the God of Chaos to give a guest lecture there forever.
We knew the whole campus layout, so we didn’t have to worry about getting lost. We knew Shrieking Woods was haunted as fuck and not to go there. There was alotof magical stuff we’d heard about that we didn’t have all the details on.
The Academy of the Profane was also haunted as fuck. That didn’t scare me. So was the library. The site where the academy, museum, and library were built was where one of the largest supernatural massacres in the country ever happened. The humans killed them, burned their bodies, and then dumped the bones in a mass grave.
Supernaturals couldn’t move to the Aether when they died unless the specific rites for their race had been performed. They turned into ghosts and haunted places. They mostly wanted revenge and not to be ghosts anymore. If it was just one body, the rites could be done. If it was a mass grave like this, it was pretty much impossible.
Ages ago, a brilliant witch named Beatrix Halliwell devised an idea to reclaim the grounds. A library where supernaturals could read, a museum that housed supernatural relics, and an academy where they could be educated. There was no way to eliminate the ghosts, so she gave them another option. She gave them something to do for eternity.
The library cards were decided by blood and the ghosts. I knew the spirits did a lot at the Academy, too. I knew there was some big magical ceremony that involved food and ghosts that determined dorm placement and your roommate. During prohibition, the spirits were getting rowdy. Now there was a magical speakeasy on campus that I only knew wasn’t an urban legend because of my mom, aunt, and Minerva. It was invite-only from the ghosts, but no one told me how to get one.
I knew many things would happen when we got to the Academy of the Profane. Kaylee Krauss would have her magic now and would definitely be using it on me. Her mother was headmaster, even if she didn’t deserve it. We wereexpectedto work out our issues with magic as long as we didn’t do any permanent damage.
I might not know what any of the magical surprises might be because my mom wanted me to be surprised, but Ididknow that Lindsay Krauss wanted revenge because Minerva left everything to my twin and me instead of her.
She’d be looking for any excuse to expel me, and there was only so much Gabriel could do as a professor to keep that from happening.
george
Many people at my high school acted like they were mortified to be in the same building as their parents, and were pretty awful to them. All of my parents were rather famous, even the ones that weren’t a god. They did some shit before I was born. Matilda and Iwantedthem here on our first day, even if my dad and Balthazar could be a little extra sometimes. Especially when they started playing off of each other.
All the freshmen were in Grimsbane Auditorium with their luggage. We wouldn’t get our dorm assignments until dinner. This was mainly a meet and greet. My mom said she had to get her class schedule on paper back in the day, but it was online now. Since Matilda was a Hellhound and I was pretending to be a witch, we had classes like history and basic freshmen potions together, but the rest of our classes would be different. As we progressed, we wouldn’t have potions together anymore but might end up in the same history class.
There were a bunch of ass-kissers fawning over my dad, but I was used to that. It was one of the reasons I hadn’t taken my necklace off yet. My dad could conjure whatever he wanted, helped make the universe, and sprinkled chaos on the world to create balance, but people acted like he could grant wishes, and he couldn’t.
People always came in two groups around my dad or Loki. They were either trying to curry favor or avoided them in terror. I paid a lot of attention to my classmates, who just treated him like a typical dad here for his kid.
The parents were getting ready to leave when I accidentally bumped into someone. I turned around and saw a pixie who was shorter than I was. They had bright-green hair and an elven face. When the humans turned on the magical community, pixies had a tough go of it because of their brightly colored hair and pointed ears.
“Oh, my shit. I’m so sorry!”
“No worries. I’m George,” I said.
“Dexter.”
Dexter shot me a confused look. I very much had long black hair, an hourglass figure, and silver eyes like my dad. I was also wearing a dress today. My dad named me Tempest when I was born because I caused a storm on the way out. The thing with most gods is that they are never kids. They are shat out of the Aether full adults. People on Earth usually pick their names, or the god chooses it.
My dad went by many names he didn’t choose. He picked Reyson this time he was on Earth. When I was four, I decided I liked the name George. My dad never corrected me. As a little mini-god, he figured it was my right to pick whatever name vibed with me.
I could have picked something fancy when I was older. I could have picked a traditionally female name. I didn’t. I liked George, and sometimes I liked wearing men’s clothes. My name was George. My dad took me to officially get it changed when I was fifteen. I was wearing a dress today, but I just told Dexter my name was George. I opened my mouth to explain, but he held up his hand.
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he said, pointing to a pin on his jacket. It was a trans flag with his pronouns.
I pointed over to Matilda and Bram.
“That’s my twin sister Matilda. You should eat with us sometimes.”
I joined my family since they were all getting ready to leave. Only Gabriel would be staying. Gabriel always ate dinner at home except during orientation dinner. Gabriel ran his hand over his blond bun.
“IknowI can’t stop you, and I’d never try, but when you magically shorten your uniform skirts, try not to get too obscene. Lindsay is a prude, and at the first faculty meeting for the year, she said she wants to get rid of the campus moon orgies.”
Every last one of us gasped. I was pretty sure Balthazar was clasping his pearls. Moon orgies weretradition.I’d never been invited to one because I’d just turned eighteen, but witches and shifters would throw these massive moon orgies every full moon. It was supposed to be this huge honor to get invited to one, and the magical community would shun you if you acted up at one.
“Why the fuck would she do that?” Mom growled. “They’ve been doing them on campus since this university was founded.”
“What kind of monster cockblocks an entire university?” Balthazar groaned.
