♍

Virgo was behind academically. Her case worker had gently told her to expect that after her placement test results had come through. She was decent at math but her reading wasn't up to scratch. Her basic historical knowledge was nonexistent and what she knew about science started and ended at photosynthesis, and di not include how it was spelled.

No surprise, considering what passed for education at Wyoming Juvenile Corrections was shit. If you thought public schools were in crisis, wait till you see what they teach in Wyoming Corrections. If the state School Board hadn't stepped in they might still be pretending Evolution was a whack-job idea the 'damn librals' had come up with to hamstring their kids in the job market. As it was, the books they got were third-hand donated from around the country, mostly California and Texas, which meant they were working with shit sets of standards anyway. Texas made up its own facts and the rest of the country could lump it. California tried to counter with prevailing logic and all anybody got was confused about the world outside. Based on the news Virgo used to watch in the rec room, that was a pretty accurate picture of how everybody lived. Nothing made sense, why should school?

But she wanted it to make sense. Virgo liked the order school provided. The counselors said she could get her GED and get emancipated right now if she studied hard. They'd said it in a tone that told her they thought that was wiser than her trying to cohabitate with other children and families, like Virgo was waiting to pour arsenic in somebody's iced tea because they took too long in the bathroom.

Which, fine, the idea had crossed her mind now and then. Who hadn't thought poison solved everything once upon a time? All the fairy tales talked about it. Poison-tipped needles and poison-laced apples. Curses, which were just another poison of the magical variety. Fairy tales were nothing but a mixed signal when they were meant to be a cautionary tale. But what if you were the heroine up against a villain so much stronger? What if you got to the poison first? Nobody ever talked about that. All of a sudden, the villain was you and you had to live with the consequences.

Virgo was living with the consequences of skipping years of formal education. She had downloaded an encyclopedia worth of No Fear Shakespeare to understand half of what was going on in her English class (not taught by Mr. Steuben, luckily). Her English teacher was a person who liked to be called Instructor Madsen. Their pronouns were they/them and if you referred to them as anything else, including Mister or Miss, they'd ignore you outright. They were pretty intimidating so far, but Virgo liked them. They seemed fair. That didn't mean they weren't giving her the run-around. They wanted her caught up on a semester (and then a few years) worth of material to come even with everyone else in Virgo's junior-level class. Instructor Madsen had told her they thought she could do it. Virgo had been too stunned to disagree.

People didn't believe in her. They tapped their toes waiting for Virgo to let them down and then they scoffed like they'd known all along. Virgo had stayed up till 5 am studying the latest module on Twelfth Night just so she could take part in class discussion two days later. I guess they're my favorite teacher now. Virgo hadn't done the favorite thing much before, save when she was little and it was a matter of favorite Elder or favorite star sign. Like most other children, she'd favored Father over her distant mother and her own birth sign over the remaining eleven.

'The stars will tell me who I am,' they used to say in times of strife. 'My stars will know.' The alignment of the planets determined one's ultimate destiny. They learned that lesson, not once, but ceaselessly from birth till they were initiated as mature Disciples in their own right, out of the shadows of the members who had raised them and taught them, but always in the shade cast by the Elder. The Elders who may as well have hung the stars themselves for all that they determined the course of events.

Virgo had feared those Elders all her life. Her mother had been one.

Virgo didn't have much use for memories of her mother anymore, or the Elders, or any of her memories of DZD. Her life was different and so were her circumstances. That was as good as being an orphan, better even. She had nobody left to fear, if she played her cards right, and Virgo knew how to play. WyJuCo had taught her all she needed to know about how to bluff. Her second start depending on her ability to do both. Keep her head down and on straight. Easy.

All her life, Virgo had made it her business to mind her own business, wherever she was. Nevada Lights wasn't going to rob a loner of her lonesome status. So when she heard a scream coming out of the girl's bathroom during the switch-over period between classes, she was supposed to mosey the fuck along and mind her business, right? That was Virgo's SOP. Let idiots be idiots. Idiots gonna idiot! As long as they didn't hurt her, they weren't her problem. She didn't cape for strangers.

She pursed her lips and stomped past the commotion behind the bathroom door with her face buried in No Fear Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. This was her second read-through. She was going to get through it without falling asleep this time. Instructor Madsen was counting on her and there was probably gonna be a quiz, because Murphy's Law. The minute I don't prepare, two pop quizzes and a surprise oral presentation.

That was what she saw online, anyway. Yahoo Answers was pretty helpful when she asked what to expect from public school in Vegas. Not so much the ones about showgirls at Career Day, though. Maybe? Virgo could go for showgirls in costume at the school assembly. It might make listening to the principal talk more exciting. Principal Root had taken one deep look at Virgo and made herself scarce. Virgo still didn't know if she felt insulted or grudgingly impressed.

Somebody screamed to her right. Okay, there was definitely a girl in distress in there.

Virgo looked up and down the hallway to see if anybody else noticed what she had. If they did they were pretending hard not to hear a thing. Some of them with headphones on tapped at their phones hard to turn up the volume. A combination of over-produced podcasts, musical cast recordings, and Taylor Swift and Halsey tracks raised the collective volume in the school whole decibel points. Nobody was hearing what Virgo was hearing because nobody wanted to.

Just like home. People sang louder when somebody cried, like joyful noise could drown out suffering, like God would hear that first and ignore the rest as reward. But hadn't he? Or she or whoever makes the rules up there? Didn't they watch us cry and sit on their hands till I couldn't sit on mine?

Virgo shoved No Fear Shakespeare: Twelfth Night into the pocket of her hoodie and marched right back to that bathroom. She had taken on the word of god when she was little; a person, she could smite.