4th of September, 1997
"Did you SEE them, Mireille!? Fog! And ghosts! And, and EYES!" Mathieu could barely contain his blathering. In fear, Monsieur Mathieu Marrouf of Nice tended to talk himself into oblivion.
"I was there, Mathieu, I saw," said his wife with a sigh. Madame Mireille Ritzi hung up another dress in the closet. "I think you are making a much bigger deal of this than you need to. After all, Headmistress Bulstrode has a bit of orc blood in her."
"Y-Yes," Mathieu stuttered. The headmistress's green-tinged skin and slightly overwhelming canines rendered her smile more intimidating than welcoming. Hardly the first thing the young couple wanted to see on their first day at the Academy. "But, but Mireille, they were dead."
"They are dead, cheri," Mireille reminded him. "I was there, I saw them too."
Mathieu sunk onto a cardboard box of books that he had yet to unpack. He and his wife had just accepted positions at the Academy Royale as literature and etiquette teachers. What a privilege, to work in the service of royals!... and, also, under the supervision of a ghost and a dullahan.
"The other staff are all human!" Mathieu pointed out.
"Are you implying that they are the better?" Mireille asked huffily, turning around to face him with her hands on her hips, a lacy scarf in hand.
Mathieu paled. Mireille was a selkie, and though she made a lovely little humanesque woman, her home would always be beneath the waters of the Atlantic.
"That's not what I said," Mathieu protested. "Don't put words in my mouth."
"Mathieu, they are staff members and our coworkers, and it will be better for us all if we are all on good terms," Mireille said, returning to her hanging up of clothes and tutting at the wrinkles the moving process had put into them. "Perhaps I'll invite them to chat for a while. Imagine the stories they must have."
"Not interested," Mathieu said immediately. The ghost, who appeared to be a young girl, had made no attempt to disguise her glee at Mathieu's fear of her. The dullahan had remained silent in the face of his terror. "I want as little to do with them as possible."
"Mathieu, Herr Connolly teaches law! You can't get away from him that easily, he'll probably be in to borrow books at some point," Mireille shot back. "And you from him, I should imagine."
"Books? From him? I'd sooner relocate my entire salary to the bookshop in Wolverhampton."
"Mathieu," snapped Mireille. "We are having them over and you will get used to them. This is not optional. We are here to stay. You cannot fear your colleagues and roommates, it's bad for you."
Mathieu facepalmed. "Please don't make me do this, Mireille."
"I won't force you."
—————————————
"MIREILLE."
"What?" Mireille looked docilely up from her chair, a cup of tea in hand. Sitting across from her was their headless colleague, Herr Dubhan Connolly. Floating in the background was the ghost of Ariella. Mathieu, upon entering the room, had dropped his bag in a fit of shock.
"MIREILLE, WHAT DID I SAY."
"They are just here for tea," said Mireille, nodding to the pot of tea on the fire. Dubhan held a small blue saucer and cup full of some cinnamon-smelling tea, while another cup sat in front of Ariella's spot on the little coffee table.
Mathieu facepalmed again. "Mireille, are you...?"
"Please sit, Monsieur," said Dubhan in his slow Irish drawl. "I assure you, we mean you no harm."
Mathieu reluctantly took a seat, accepting a cup of tea from Mireille. "So, er. Herr. How long have you been here?" Mathieu asked awkwardly, adding a splash of lemon to his cup.
"One thousand two hundred and seventy-nine years," the dullahan answered, concise and clear.
Mireille and Mathieu both stared. Mathieu downed his scalding tea in one gulp to give himself an excuse not to talk.
"Er. Ariella, how... how long have you known Herr Connolly?" Mireille asked kindly.
"Nearly a thousand years," Ariella answered. "Since the year I was killed."
"OK WELL, that sounds fascinating," Mathieu coughed, unwilling to hear more on that topic.
"Oh, it was. He murdered the man that killed me, and—"
"Fraülein, not now," Dubhan said sharply.
"But—"
"No."
Ariella fell silent, looking exceptionally sulky. Dubhan idly stirred his tea while Mathieu and Mireille cast about for another topic of conversation.
"Do you like it here?" Mireille settled on.
"It is a wonderful place to teach young minds," Dubhan said. "We have the odd scandal on the grounds, but it has been several decades since the last legitimately bad piece of publicity."
"That was funny," Ariella snickered.
"No it was not. That's quite enough, fraülein."
"Don't tell me what to do," Ariella snapped.
Dubhan sighed. Mireille took a piece of lemon for her tea. "So, er... how... what's it like working with Miss Bulstrode?" Mathieu asked.
"She's a b***h," piped up Ariella. Dubhan's shoulders visibly drooped a bit.
"Ariella." He waved his hand back and forth. "Frau Rantipole is a strong leader, and with the rash of student misbehavior lately, she is precisely what we need."
"Have the students been rowdy lately?" Mireille asked worriedly. "I wonder if I can talk some sense into them."
"Good luck," scoffed Ariella. Dubhan did not bother to scold her.
"The students have been growing increasingly independent, which can be both a blessing and a curse. A strong mind will want to go its own way, but it is our job to ensure it does not take a wrong turn down the road," he explained. "As educators, particularly of such influential individuals, we have a duty to the world to ensure these young lads and lasses grow and mature into respectable men and women that are well-equipped to take on the world."
Mathieu blankly took another cup of tea from Mireille. Well, when it was said like that, it sounded like a lot of responsibility. As with any teaching job, he supposed, but... perhaps taking a spot at a school for royalty was not the wisest decision.
"Have you given any thought as to your curriculum yet, Monsieur?" Dubhan asked.
"Er, a bit. I'm not entirely sure what requirements I have to work with," he said, trailing off uncertainly.
"That's assuming the school is on top of that," Ariella pointed out, going on quickly to finish her thought before Dubhan cut her off. "No one's had a look at the school's lesson plan in years! Some of these kids graduate still writing their R's backwards!"
"Ariella, that is ENOUGH," Dubhan said firmly. "That is not true, and I'll thank you to stop spreading that around."
"Does the school have a basic curriculum?" Mireille asked.
"Very basic. We are to ensure they receive proper training in such disciplines as dancing, table behavior, speech and diction, a general knowledge of the world they are going into," Dubhan said. "I do my best to lay out a basic foundation of law across the world, and nitpick from there as to what the students know and are lacking in."
"What's expected of us?" Mathieu asked, now genuinely curious.
"Last longer than the other guy," Ariella mumbled. Dubhan shot her a look.
"The other guy?" Mathieu felt his eyes widen to match the size of the dish of sugar Mireille was compulsively fiddling with. "What, what happened, what other guy?"
"The previous literature professor handed in his resignation after only a year and a half," Dubhan said. "I understand Frau Rantipole had to offer him a rather sizable severance package to ensure he kept to his contract."
"The nondisclosure?" Mathieu asked. To be honest, that had been his hangup about signing on to the Academy staff as well. As long as they were employed, and even after they had retired, died, or moved on (whichever came first), the staff members were forbidden to discuss the goings-on at the Academy with anyone not on the staff, particularly members of foreign governments that were not the children's parents. And, considering the neutral status of the Academy, every government was a foreign government.
"Something like that." Dubhan stirred his tea some more. Mathieu shook his head, wondering why on earth his wife had invited a man whose head did not attach to his body and a long-dead ghost over for tea. "And you, Madame?"
"Hm?" Mireille had been tweaking the spoon in the sugar dish for several minutes. "Oh, I... I rather expected a more concrete curriculum than that."
"Perhaps you will be the one to change that," Dubhan said kindly. "We have need of a strict etiquette instructor to help keep the students in line."
Mireille frowned. "Forgive me, Herr, but I'm hardly the type of woman to put my foot down in any sense."
Dubhan laughed. "I beg to differ."
"You're tiny," Ariella pointed out. "So was I. You always gotta watch out for the tiny ones. We bite what we can reach, and that can get fun."
"Ariella!"
Scandalized, Mireille gasped and covered her mouth as Dubhan shot to his feet and herded Ariella towards the wall.
"What!?"
"Do not speak to staff members with such impunity, what have I told you..."
Mathieu leaned towards Mireille as Dubhan and Ariella bickered in the corner.
"Mireille what did I tell you this was a bad idea why on earth would you—"
"I only wanted to get to know them better it's not as though we can spend the rest of our tenure here avoiding them what would you have me do—"
"Well now we know them just fine can we please just drop the idea of having a headless man and his pet ghost over tea honestly Mireille—"
"I suppose you had a better idea then perhaps we could have had them over for bridge or a sewing circle—"
"Don't patronize me Mireille I'm not the one who tried to serve tea to an incorporeal shade of a girl and a man who likely doesn't even have an gag reflex—"
"Mathieu PLEASE I'm just being sociable it's what I was hired for it's what I do are you telling me I should—"
"Please forgive Princess Ariella," Dubhan's voice said, interrupting the little squabble. "She has been growing more and more restless as of late. I promise you, no harm will reach you from her."
Mathieu frowned. Was it reassuring to have this promise, or unsettling that Dubhan felt the need to make it at all?
"We will have plenty of time to get acquainted over the year," Dubhan said. "For now, I beg you to excuse me. I must follow her."
Mathieu and Mireille nodded silently, watching Dubhan set down his untouched tea and leave the room in search of the ghost.
"We're here for good, aren't we?" Mathieu asked sullenly.
"Indeed we are."
—————————————
That night, and nearly every night thereafter, they were treated to the sounds of Ariella's screeches and screams.
"Mathieu, I am going to brutally murder you for suggesting I take this job with you," Mireille grumbled, tossing another pillow over her head after three sleepless nights.
"Mireille, I am going to mercilessly slaughter you for encouraging me to take Bulstrode's offer at all," Mathieu replied.
A knock at the door. Mathieu got up, and nearly suffered a heart attack. Dubhan was at the door.
"I apologize, but there is nothing I can do to soften the blow of my appearance," Dubhan said. The line sounded rehearsed. He probably said this often.
"I-I'm, no, I should—"
"It's finally occurred to me that you've never lived here before," Dubhan added. Mathieu nodded.
"Does she, er, always...?" Mathieu trailed off as a rattling scream ripped through the night.
"Sadly." Dubhan extended his hands. He held two pairs of earmuffs. "Regrettably, I have little else to dampen the noise. They may not be much, but they help."
He bowed, leaving for his own room and, presumably, his own pair of earmuffs. Mathieu passed one pair to Mireille, snapping the other over his ears. The difference was not as insignificant as Dubhan seemed to imply.
"God bless that man."
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