Free Kill School: Slice by Karen Carr Page B

look for someone familiar.
    We trudge toward the main building, an imposing structure
with a glass and steel bridge leading out of it like a frost bitten tongue. We
are the last group to make it across the campus, having been in the first
compartment. Our feet crunch in the soggy snow. The dampness sinks into my
shoes, making my socks wet. I wonder why my mom didn’t tell me to bring a warm
coat and galoshes.
    I catch Demi’s red dress and see her walking arm in arm
with her siblings. The Quad Squad makes their way across campus just like the
rest of us. No golden chariot awaits them.
    My teeth chatter as I examine the imposing stone and glass structure
ahead of us. Round drum towers anchor an arched entryway. Vertical lines of
glass windows cut through each one as if made by a knife. Taller towers stand
at the east and west corner. Behind the main building, jostling towers of gray
stone and glass fight for their position in the sky. 
    A wall of mist rises in front of the building in a line
trailing far off to either side of the horizon. My mysterious new home
mesmerizes me. I decide to call it a castle. I’ve seen pictures of castles
before, ancient ruins from thousands of years ago no longer accessible. This mix
of modern and gothic will be my home for four more weeks.
    “Come on.” A small boy hails me with his hand. His voice
calls me out of my trance and I realize everyone has started to jog.
    I catch up to the boy and jog next to him. He must be
sixteen but looks much younger. His skin is almost as white as the snow, his
hair dark brown like bark. Before I can ask him his name, he dashes away. He
travels with a quickness and darts in amongst us like a gazelle. Always
ushering us forward. Always ushering us faster.
    As we near the building, I notice a bridge of glass and
steel crosses over the wall of mist. I watch the kids pause on the bridge and
look over its rail and down to its floor. Their shrill tone reaches my ears
through the thin air. I trudge along, carrying my totecase in my arms, in
anticipation of what lies beneath. Trolls? Dragons?
    I soon reach the entrance to the bridge and understand the shrieks.
The bridge spans a huge gorge filled with the rising mist. I step onto the
bridge, which feels sturdy under my feet, and move forward. The bridge’s floor
is clear glass, enabling me to see all the way down to the bottom of the gorge.
Far below me, at the bottom of the gorge, a frozen river lets out the steamy
mist. The gorge travels in a straight line across the land to the horizon in
each direction. There is no end or beginning to the gorge. We are entering a
fortress with only one way out.
    I quicken my pace and step on a patch of ice. My feet fly
out from under me. Before I fall to the ground, a large and soft man catches me.
He smells of smoke, the kind you would find around a campfire.
    “You’re not very light on your feet,” the man says. He is
shorter than I am, and older than my father.
    “Thanks,” I say. The man waits around as if I am supposed
to do or say something else, so I extend my hand. “I’m Aria Nova.”
    “Vladimir Korchev.” The man shakes my hand. “Grace. I’ll be
teaching you poise and grace.”
    I laugh and then feel stupid for laughing. He is serious. He
looks more like a giant snowball than a man that can teach me grace.
    “You laugh now, but you will find my class most useful.
Perhaps we will teach you some manners as well. Now, on with you and the
others. Get.” He slaps my backside.
    I run the rest of the way across the bridge, hoping I don’t
trip again. I pass under an arch between the two imposing drum towers and enter
an expansive rectangular courtyard surrounded by buildings. Dozens of walkways
lead from the buildings to a grassy expanse the middle.
    The air feels warmer here, the season more like spring than
winter. Instead of snow covering the ground as it was across the gorge, flowers
bloom and insects buzz in the air. For the first time since leaving