I Loaded the Mysticism Panel
Chapter 7: Mrs. MacNeil

Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Mrs. MacNeil

Richard spent the weekend at home, buried in his books, and didn’t go anywhere.

Soon, it was the week after the Divination Disc incident.

On Monday, there was a small but significant shift in the seating arrangement of the Greenwood cafeteria.

To be precise, two chairs had been added to one of the tables.

Naturally, this change didn’t happen for no reason.

On the night of the Divination Disc incident, Warren had gone home and recounted the event to his family as a joke.

While he was telling the story, his younger brother even asked to borrow the object to play with for a couple of days.

His mother, sitting across the dining table, had already put down her knife and fork.

"What did you say?!"

Before Warren could figure out what was wrong, his mother had waved her hand, dismissing the servants from the dining room.

"You bought some object of unknown origin, brought it to school, lit a Candle, and performed a séance in a classroom?"

"It wasn’t really a séance... we were just playing around..."

"The Candle went out?"

"Yes, on its own."

Dinner went unfinished that night.

His mother got up and went to the study to call his father, who hadn’t yet left work.

Old Crawley was the vice-chairman of the North District Coal Mine Union, and he was rarely seen at home.

But that night, he canceled all his appointments and rushed back.

"Where did you put that thing!"

Warren had never seen his father, who always maintained a gentlemanly demeanor, speak so loudly.

"It’s still in my school bag..."

"Take it out. Don’t touch it with your bare hands, use a cloth."

He quickly did as he was told.

The round wooden disc, engraved with ancient characters, was wrapped in a handkerchief and placed on the living room coffee table.

Old Crawley stared at the disc for a moment without reaching out to touch it.

"You said the Candle went out on its own. Was there anyone there who acted differently from the others?"

Warren thought for a moment. "The one with the last name Williams."

"Which Williams? If I went out on the street and shouted ’Williams,’ nearly half the people would turn around."

"Richard Williams. He’s my classmate, sits in the third row behind me.

He never went near the Divination Disc. He stood off to the side the whole time, holding that cloth bag, and he never took the disc out of it."

"And then?"

"Then he put the bag on the table. The moment I took the disc out, the Candle went out. We couldn’t get it to light again, no matter what."

"What did he do after the Candle went out?"

"He... gave us a whole scientific explanation, something about the ideomotor effect and oxygen levels in an enclosed space. He made everyone think the whole thing was a hoax."

As Warren said this, he noticed his father and mother exchange a look.

The next evening, Warren was summoned to his father’s study. Someone was waiting for him.

The woman wore a long, grey wool skirt. Her hair was coiled tightly, and there was a red mole on her cheekbone that looked as if it had been painted on.

"This is Mrs. MacNeil," his father said.

Warren knew that name.

Every year, around the time of the exorcism rites, his mother would invite this woman to their house. They would shut themselves in the living room for half the day.

Whenever she came, Warren and his brother were ordered to stay in their rooms and not come out, and all the servants were sent away.

Mrs. MacNeil had Warren sit in a chair. She circled him twice, pausing briefly over his head and each of his shoulders.

She pulled her hands back and said to Old Crawley, "He’s clean. Nothing latched on."

Old Crawley’s shoulders relaxed. "Thank you, Madam. For your fee, we’ll increase it to..."

"That won’t be necessary. I didn’t do anything."

Mrs. MacNeil picked up her gloves from the table and leisurely pulled them onto her fingers.

"However, that boy you mentioned..."

"Which one?"

"The Williams boy your son mentioned."

She finished putting on her gloves and adjusted the cuffs.

"He never touched the Divination Disc itself, keeping it separated by the cloth bag, and only put it down right before the séance began. The Candle went out immediately after."

"If what your son said is accurate, then the Divination Disc was already cleansed before the séance even started."

The study was silent for a few seconds.

"What method did he use?" Old Crawley asked.

"I don’t know." Mrs. MacNeil wrapped her scarf around her neck.

"But anyone who can do that is either trained, or they’re born with... Spirituality.

Whichever it is, it wouldn’t be a bad thing for your son to get on his good side at school."

She walked to the door, then paused and turned sideways.

"Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility that it was just a coincidence.

But if it wasn’t... Mr. Crawley, your family has a large business in this city. I don’t need to remind you of the sense in maintaining good relations with people like me."

The door closed.

The result of this incident, as seen at the school lunch table, was Warren’s extreme enthusiasm.

So enthusiastic, in fact, that Richard wondered if the guy was gay. ’After all, this is Britain,’ he thought.

Warren and Mason both went out of their way to move a chair for him.

"Richard, come sit over here... Uh, Hugh, you come too."

Grey sat nearby, eating quietly.

As Richard walked over with his tray, Hugh followed behind.

Mason turned his head. "Hugh, did you see that goal from Stanfield yesterday?"

"Yeah, I saw it!" Hugh quickly replied.

"The curve on that ball was insane. The keeper didn’t even dive for it."

The two of them quickly got into a conversation, but Richard noticed that as Mason spoke, he would occasionally glance over at him cautiously.

He sipped his hot tea and scanned the cafeteria.

In a corner by the window, Barrett was still sitting in his usual spot.

The peanut butter on his bread was pitifully thin as usual. He chewed slowly, never once looking toward the center of the room.

Next to him, Warren was poking at a piece of steak on his plate.

Lunch at Greenwood came in two tiers. The basic meal, which was usually very cheap, consisted of only bread, a vegetable salad, thin soup, and hot tea.

The deluxe meal offered various grilled and roasted meats, dairy products, soups, and desserts, priced à la carte at rates similar to outside restaurants.

On the plate in front of Warren was a steak, creamy soup, a baked potato, a pat of butter, and a glass of milk.

Richard didn’t have much of an appetite today. His tray held only a little salad and bread. He hadn’t even gotten soup, just a cup of free hot tea.

Warren seemed to notice this and pushed his plate toward Richard.

"Want some? This steak is too big, I can’t finish it by myself."

Richard glanced at it.

The steak was indeed large, but he’d seen Warren’s appetite before. That piece of meat would leave him about eighty percent full at most.

"No, thanks."

"Don’t be shy."

"Really, I’m fine."

"You’re so skinny..." Warren stopped mid-sentence, realizing it wasn’t the right thing to say, and quickly shut his mouth.

The atmosphere grew awkward for a moment. Richard put down his teacup.

"Warren, you got stuck in two places in the third paragraph of the Latin text."

"...What?"

"The third paragraph from Mr. Holland’s class yesterday. You paused when you were reciting ’quam diu,’ and your stress on ’eludet’ afterwards was also off."

Warren’s attention was successfully diverted from the steak. "You even remember where I got stuck?"

"Of course. Your problem is with the perfect tense endings for second-conjugation verbs.

When you recite, you’re just guessing based on feel. If you guess right, you get through it; if you guess wrong, you get stuck."

"...You’re starting to sound just like Mr. Holland."

"I’ve actually been getting tutoring from him recently." Richard took a sip of his tea.

"If you don’t mind, I could help you sort out the logic of Latin conjugations."

Warren blinked.

He wasn’t actually all that concerned about his grades.

But his father’s instruction was to "get on his good side as much as possible." Now that Richard was offering to help tutor him, it was exactly what he wanted.

"How can I thank you, then?"

"Just buy me some extra food every time we eat."

Warren was stunned for a moment. ’That’s it?’

For him, the cost of extra food wasn’t even a fraction of his pocket money.

"Deal. I can make good on that starting today. Order whatever you want."

"Since you’re offering, I won’t hold back."

At the other end of the cafeteria, Lillian Hayward sat alone.

Her tray was the same as always—thin soup, bread, no meat.

Her spoon stirred in her bowl, the movement slow, but her gaze was fixed on the center of the hall.

She saw Richard Williams sitting at Warren’s table, with a steak and fresh milk actually laid out before him.

He was talking to Warren about something while he ate, and Warren was listening quite intently.

She took her spoon out of the bowl and set it on the side of her plate.

’Richard Williams.

’Just last week, he was sitting in the corner by the window like me, his tray just as meager as mine.

’When he was called on in class, he’d stand up and stammer.

’And now?

’His answer in Mr. Hutton’s class left the room silent for several seconds.

’In Mr. Holland’s Latin class, Richard recited the entire speech without stumbling on a single word.

’I’ve never placed outside the top three on written exams, yet no one ever calls out to me at lunch, "Come sit over here."

’Good grades, perhaps, aren’t the only real currency at Greenwood.

’Socializing requires other things—a relaxed attitude, a desire to express oneself, or perhaps perfect timing and a bit of nerve.

’I lack all of them.’

That was what Lillian believed. She resentfully pulled her gaze back, lowered her head, and went back to eating her thin soup and bread.

The soup was already getting cold.