The classroom door creaked open.
Miss Aveline glided in, her heels clicking against the tiled floor with a rhythm that felt deliberate—like the slow beat of a clock running out of time. She carried no books, no papers. Just a piece of chalk clutched between pale fingers.
The students fell silent, every whisper choking in their throats.
"Today," she began softly, her voice carrying across the room like smoke, "we will speak of silence."
She turned to the board and began writing in broad strokes:
"Who keeps the silence holds the key."
The chalk squealed, setting teeth on edge. She underlined the phrase once, then turned. Her gaze fell directly on Gemma.
No one moved.
A boy at the front cleared his throat nervously. "Uh… Miss? What does that mean?"
Aveline smiled thinly. "It means what it says. Silence… is not absence. It is power. Secrets cannot scream, but they still control."
Her eyes flicked across the room, then returned to Gemma, lingering.
Gemma didn't look up. She was scribbling something small, faint, in her notebook. Gabriel, sitting a row behind, leaned forward slightly, trying to catch it, but her hand shielded the words.
A girl whispered near the window, "She's talking about her."
Aveline's head snapped toward the girl. "Repeat that."
The girl froze. "N-nothing, Miss."
"Louder," Aveline urged, voice velvet over steel.
The girl shook her head quickly, eyes brimming.
Aveline smiled again, slow and cold. "Fear makes tongues stumble. But silence… is safer."
The tension coiled tighter with each word. Gabriel felt his hands curl into fists under the desk. He wanted to shout at her, demand she stop staring at his sister, demand she explain herself. But his throat tightened, trapping the words.
Instead, he heard a whisper—low, raspy—from somewhere in the classroom.
"Curse… curse… she's cursed…"
Students shifted uneasily, some casting quick glances at Gemma, others at Aveline.
Aveline tapped the board once, chalk clicking like a metronome. "Whoever holds the silence," she said, her voice dropping lower, "also holds the fate of those around them. Remember that."
The bell rang.
But no one moved—not until Aveline glided out the door as smoothly as she had entered.
When the tension finally broke, students erupted in whispers.
"Did you see how she was staring at Gemma?"
"She knows something."
"She's insane…"
Gabriel stood slowly, his breath ragged. He looked at Gemma. She had closed her notebook, hugging it tightly to her chest. For the briefest moment, her eyes flicked up and met his.
And in that fleeting glance, he saw it.
Not fear. Not sadness.
Something sharper.