Hey so we’re supposed to be meeting our teachers down the hill for the first day of our Bellhoof tour, but Bass forgot his bag in his room before breakfast, so I’m waiting for them. Also Bass brought up the deaths again just now at breakfast, and he made a solid observation so I thought I’d jot it down real quick while I wait.

So, Bass has actually been bringing Robert, Katharine and everyone up all weekend. I wouldn’t say that’s exactly surprising, I think everyone is still sorta talking about them. But this morning Bass pointed out that if it had been him that unexpectedly died during his studies, his family wouldn’t have rested until they knew the intricate details of what had happened to him, until they’d tracked down whatever was responsible and strung it up by it’s toes with a sign explaining exactly what it had done. They wouldn’t have quietly come to a memorial service at the school, shaken Lana’s hand, and then gone meekly home, as Robert, and Katharine, and everyone else’s families had.

“Well, no, but your family is also literally your coven,” I pointed out. “They have their own ways of dealing with things.”

“And you think these old Palefish families don’t?” Bass asked, which was a very good point. “It just seems weird, right? Like… weren’t they even surprised?”

“We all know our studies are very dangerous here,” Andie said. “Especially the grad students. My parents knew a group of students who died when they were here, too. It’s not entirely unexpected.”

Andie sits with us at breakfast sometimes. Usually they sit alone at the end of the table with their nose in a book, but sometimes we leave our room in Minnnow house together after the exercise hour, and they sit down with us.

“Yeah but still,” Bass said. “Wouldn’t they at least want answers?”

“Maybe they have answers,” Rook said quietly.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Bass said. “Maybe they all know more about what happened that they’re not telling us.”

“If Chancellor Sorely isn’t telling us, I’m sure it’s for a reason,” Andie said and Rook and I accidentally exchanged a look, and then awkwardly looked away. See, we were both there when Lana put Cara through the rift. Whatever trust Andie has for Lana or any of her teachers, we don’t share it.

It was a quick conversation, and it didn’t lead anywhere or anything. But I’m still sort of thinking about it because it’s true, you know? No one seems particularly surprised by what happened, and I just don’t think everyone knows research at Palefish is dangerous as hell really explains their easy acceptance. Like, if I got a phone call from Bev saying the Hawthornes had been killed on a hunt, I would still be fucking shocked, you know? And it’s not because I don’t know how dangerous hunting is, I know intimately.

On the other hand, if the boys told me they were hunting… I don’t know, more sludge, and then Beverly called and said they’d been killed, I would still be shocked and horrified, but I would also already know exactly how dangerous their situation was. Does that make sense? Like I’d have context, I would need to search for answers.

Let’s face it: I know exactly how far a person will go in search of answers when their loved ones go unexpectedly missing.

So like… do they all know what their kids were studying? And if they knew it was dangerous, so dangerous that they were likely to die, why didn’t they stop it?

Okay sorry I have to go I can’t stop imagining getting The Bad Phone Call from Beverly now, I need to go knock on wood or something or I’ll be tortured by it all day.

Bellhoof is the shit. Like, I knew it was going to be my favorite of Palefish’s three colleges, but I didn’t know how instantly the relief was going to set in.

For one thing, we didn’t meet in a classroom. Instead we met at the arena and clambered up into the rows of wooden benches on the end to wait, all sorta hunched together against the chill. It’s been rainy and dismal all weekend, and not much better today, so yeah I did miss the indoor auditorium I guess, but once our teachers showed up I sorta forgot about the cold.

They were two grad students, Elena Ortiz, a very tall, skinny girl with two long braids, and Sammy Ruskin, a sandy blond guy with a deeply tanned nose and sunbleached eyebrows. They both loped into the room with their uniforms and billowing professors robes bunched into pairs of big ass waterproof fisherman’s waders. Elena was wearing what looked to be a welder’s glove, and perched upon it serenely was a dusty pink owl with three faces, which I immediately recognized to be a temple owl.

The whole class gasped.

“Hi everyone!” Elena called. She beamed up at us. “Welcome to your last week of intros!”

“We know you’re probably tired at this point,” Sammy added. “We all were on our third week of intros, but don’t worry, next week you’ll settle into your real schedules and everything won’t be so overwhelming.”

“And in the meantime,” Elena went on, “we’re just going to have some fun!”

Honestly they could have been saying anything, because we were all focused on the owl which kept swiveling its faces to look at us with it’s different sets of eyes.

“We’re the youngest of the Palefish Colleges and we already know that for many of you, tradition or necessity will make Willowa or Saint Niveus your obvious choice. But we also know that for some of you, studying the theoretical magics, ancient spells, and dusty histories can’t compare to the very real and present dangers lurking right in average people’s back yards.”

Wayne Muir sat up straighter. Ichabod Crisp stopped doodling in his notebook. Even Tucker Gowie was paying attention.

“The facts are,” Elena said, “that the numbers of otherworldly and paranormal creatures appearing in our wold are at record levels. Never before have we needed more boots on the ground, tracking, studying, and sometimes hunting, these creatures.”

Bass elbowed me and grinned and I couldn’t help but grin back.

Finally FINALLY this is what I’m here for.

“We offer an abundance of academic paths for students who want to be out there, in the mud, working to help people,” Sammy said. “Our students go on to study cryptids both in private collections and in the wild, to care for and even doctor these creatures, and we work closely with hunters to help manage to the populations of these creatures, to best keep all of us safe.”

Now, I haven’t heard much about anyone from Palefish working closely with hunters, except for Lana’s somewhat strained, now mostly overturned, leadership. But that doesn’t mean we can’t actually make that happen.

Those of us that were neither magically inclined, nor from a family tradition of going to magic school, were finally having our moment. We were all relieved. Elena and Sammy were both so chill, and unintimidating and like… outdoorsy lol. Wayne Muir was beaming. That girl Nia was sitting in the row in front of us and she twisted in her seat to smile knowingly at Rook, and he smiled just a little back at her. She’s literally so pretty I want to die

“Now there’s not much we can teach you in a week,” Elena said. “Those of you who decide to join Bellhoof college will do so either because you love these creatures, or because you want to make the world safer, but these professions are so difficult and dangerous, only true love and fascination is going to bring you through the education and onto jobs.”

“So instead of trying to give you any real lessons,” Sammy said. “We thought we’d just introduce you to some of the cryptids we have here in the island’s collection.”

“Starting,” Elena said (it seemed like they really had this whole lesson planned out pretty well at this point haha) “with Rosie here.”

Rosie was the owl.

“Rosie is a insert Latin name I didn’t retain here, better known as a temple owl,” Elena went on. “Does anyone know what temple owls are known for?”

I didn’t raise my hand, but knowing the answer was enough. I’m not trying to attract any attention to myself alright — partially because I’m just not that guy lol, and partially because —

Well, okay, there wasn’t one specific incident that cued me in to the fact that people here know the Hawthornes, but over the course of the last few weeks, it’s just sorta… become clear, I guess. For example, a couple days ago at dinner, Ichabod got a long letter from his parents, and after reading it, he explained that his family had been archivists for generations, and specialized in tracking chosen one spells, which was causing them some trouble of late.

“My father was on the front lines of looking for the Dog Saints,” he said. “How was he supposed to know two of them would turn out to be the best hunters in the country? It’s been a huge mess, apparently the Hawthornes haven’t cooperated with them at all. They spent all last summer in hiding, and now they’re refusing to so much as meet with anyone from the archives.” He made a sorta sad face. “I think it’s really stressing out my poor dad.”

So yeah, I’m not really wanting to volunteer that I’m the reason the Hawthornes were in hiding all summer, you know? I’m just keeping my head down, even when I do know what temple owls are known for.

It was a super enjoyable lesson though. They had all sorts of information I didn’t know about temple owls. For example, I didn’t realize that they’re a little bit psychic! Turns out their center face sees the present, and then the face on their left sees the recent past, and the face on the right sees the immediate future. They think it’s to help them hunt. So cool.