“Do you really think Miss Lynx is a witch?” I frown, genuinely surprised by Ms. Perez’s response to my probing about the cult rumors. We sit with Mr. Wright and Ms. Hart in the teacher’s lounge, munching on our lunch. I wasn’t quite sure Mr. Wright would like the mapo tofu I brought today, but he’s as eager as ever, lapping up the excess spicy red sauce with my soup dumplings. He grins innocently when he notices me watching him stuff an entire dumpling in his mouth without drinking the broth inside first. I try to demonstrate with an exaggerated bite to the top of my dumpling, but he must be doing it wrong just to tease me as another one disappears into his mouth.

“Not a witch, gorda, a bruja,” Ms. Perez corrects.

“What’s the difference?”

“One speaks to the spirits and connections with nature to heal and protect, the other is a halloween costume,” she scoffs as if it is obvious.

“Wiccan witches can be like that too,” Ms. Hart chimes in, setting aside her book to participate. “As I understand it, it’s more like a religion than anything, rooted in Paganism and worship of the Mother Goddess. It’s actually sort of amazing how these old religions are still being practiced today and even become more popular with the internet, but as far as I know tattooing is not a usual tradition among Wiccans.” She shrugs, carefully implying that she could be wrong. Not that I would know either way, but it hardly surprises me that most cultures have some variation of the wu-shaman.

“I didn’t believe the rumors either, but mi primo is dating one of them. Of course she’s a bruja blanca, but she even admitted to mi primo she couldn’t marry him, because she didn’t want to leave her coven.”

My gut clenches reflexively at the implication that any religion would dictate matters of the heart, but Ms. Perez must be misinformed or at least misrepresenting something, because over the years I’ve seen several of my tattooed students dating indiscriminately and even received wedding announcements from a few who moved out of state. Of course, my data may be skewed by a shockingly low sample size. So small in fact, that I’m not surprised I and my coworkers’ have received only a very limited number of easy-to-manage complaints from parents. I’m surprised that they’ve garnished any attention. In a student body of over two thousands, from my survey of the halls in the last week, only four have visible tattoos. Although I’m suspicious of one more girl in my second period class who always wears long sleeves and has the same last name as one of my previous students. After living in Grandville for seven years, I’m only now realizing that there might be a familial connection between any of them. The much simpler explanation that a couple of friends every year talked their parents into letting them get tattoos as soon as state law permitted always satisfied me. That is until Mr. Rivera referred to Miss Lynx’s family specifically being targeted. With parent-teacher conference just a month away, I’m curious to meet both her and her cousin’s parents. Depending on what Mr. Wright and I dig up on this bullying incident, I might need to address the issue head on with her parents anyways sooner or later.

“What do you think, Mr. Wright?”

The tofu square between his lips disappears with a surprised ‘slurp’ as he looks up at me with blank confusion. “Sorry, what was the question? I wasn’t listening.”

Shameless, I swear. “The kids with the tattoos,” I sigh, pointing at my neck. “Do you think it’s a religious thing?”

“Oh no,” he quickly shakes his head violently. “I’ve learned my lesson.” He’s about to place a hand over his heart for emphasis, but thinks the better of it when he remembers he’s holding red sauce-soaked chopsticks. “No judgments from me about this.”

Well, that’s frustratingly obedient of him. “Where did you even hear that rumor about a cult?” Mr. Wright has even less history in Grandville than I, so maybe we can track down the recent source of the gossip if he remembers. He has a good memory for faces and names so there is a possibility.

He shrugs noncommittally.

“Was it a parent?” I prompt, not sure if he’s purposefully holding back.

“Yeah, that’s probably it. Early last year, I don’t remember.”

Evasive as ever. Problem is my lie detector is always skewed when it comes to Mr. Wright, because although I suspect him of lying to me often enough, I’ve never actually proven any of his lies wrong or had much reason to push the truth out of him. Most of the time he just comes across as teasing or guarded, leaving me to assume he just likes his privacy. Maybe I shouldn’t have scolded him about calling them Satanists. Now he’s liable to be even more cagey. I sigh, “I guess I’ll just ask Miss Lynx about it directly.”

A blink and you’ll miss it microexpression flashes across Mr. Wright’s face. It’s so subtle, I’d probably have missed it if I wasn’t deliberately looking for his reaction. A slight tuck of his lips inward and tightening of his jaw, with his eyes carefully avoiding mine as he picks at his food. He disapproves of the suggestion, but why, I haven’t the foggiest. The only possibility that seems reasonable is if he knows something I don’t, but how could he? As far as I’m aware, none of the students in question are in orchestra. I want to push him for more details, but with Ms. Perez and Ms. Hart here, I’ll likely only make him uncomfortable.

It’s probably a good thing that I miss my opportunity when he changes topics, asking Ms. Perez, “Did you decide where you’re going to take Billy on your date this weekend?”

Ms. Perez glows with warm excitement, her eyes bright as she tells us her plans to visit the night market in Clearview. I greedily drink up details of him nervously texting her what he should wear and offering to drive even though she was the one who asked him out. My toes curl when Ms. Perez says he suggested picking the place next time. I chuckle when she tells how he promised to never again eat the butterscotch crumbles from his secret admirer. Although weirdly enough, the treats stopped coming after she asked him out. Maybe there really is another matchmaker in the school. I smile fondly at the idea, content with a bit of mystery. I may be nosey, but if I couldn’t handle some unsolvable riddles I’d never put up with Mr. Wright. Although I’m still convinced he just needs the right woman to crack him open. Hopefully our lovable Ms. Hart is equal to the task.

“Maybe we should check out the night market too,” I innocently suggest to Mr. Wright on the way back to my classroom after lunch.

He falls out of step with me as he pauses, a confused frown on his face.

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on stalking them!” That much. One week past Homecoming, and I’m already feeling starved for affection. Watching, not receiving, obviously.

“Ms. Hart has a poetry slam that weekend,” he says slowly.

My heart sinks a little in disappointment, but I swallow it down with a bright smile. Of course going to her slam should be his priority, not indulging my light voyeurism. “It’s at that new coffee house you mentioned?”

Mr. Wright nods as he opens the door to my classroom for me. “I hear it’s supposed to be pretty good, you know, for coffee,” he smiles. Both Mr. Wright and I prefer tea, but Ms. Hart is an avid coffee drinker, so we’re trying to keep an open mind.

“Do you know Ms. Hart’s coffee order? Maybe she could give some recommendations?”

“Maybe we should just check if they serve lychee tea.”

Is he inviting me to go with him, worried I might get lonely? How sweet. “I think we’d have better luck finding your Earl Grey in Grandville. Even oolong would be unusual to serve in an American coffee house,” I say, half distracted as I pull papers for grading out from my desk. Mr. Wright plops down in his usual seat across from me, holding out a hand expectantly. My heart warms a little as I pass him a quarter of the stack. Maybe I should go to the slam, and not just to spy on their budding relationship. I just like spending time with Mr. Wright. And Ms. Hart, of course.

The perfect opportunity to ask Miss Lynx about her tattoos comes several days later when she asks me to reexplain dividing rational expressions during independent work. “Here, you can also reduce the quotient to lowest terms,” I explain in a low tone that barely carries over my desk. She nods, writing down the simplified quotient. 

“Thanks, I think this is starting to make more sense,” she smiles quickly at me, before moving onto the next problem. After I push her in the right direction for that one too, she says, “You know, you’re a good teacher.”

“Well, that’s kind of you to say.”

“Seriously, you’re a lot better than some of the teachers at this school…” she mumbles. “Do you teach the on-level classes too?”

“Not this year, but if you know someone who’s struggling…” I may have slightly abused my teacher powers to look up Mr. Delvaux’s class schedule after I found out his last name. “...I could talk to Mrs. Neilson.”

She flicks the clip of her mechanical pencil with her nail repeatedly, lost in thought, but whether she’s considering my offer or puzzling over the next question in her homework, I’m not sure. “Do I have to include ‘x cannot equal negative three’?” She points at the problem in question, so perhaps she really wasn’t thinking about her friend.

“And three, but yes, you need to always write out any conditions that would make the denominator zero.” 

She dutifully writes out the restrictions before moving onto the next section: plotting functions. She groans at the first exceedingly overly complicated equation. 

“Just remember, wherever possible, try to simplify the problem.” I bite my lip, waiting to see if my sharp student will understand, but she appears lost in her work. “Not just in math,” I probe further.

She peeks up at me, furrowing her brow.

“Are there any other sort of problems you need help simplifying?”

An amused, but reluctant smile tugs at her lips. “Even the simplified explanation is complicated,” she sighs, no doubt thinking about Mr. Rivera’s bullies. “It’s fine though. My friend helped me, uh, talk to the guys bothering Adan.”

I don’t much like the way she says ‘talk’, but I doubt she would allow her ‘friend’ to actually hurt anyone. “You mean Mr. Delvaux?”

She nods, beginning to doodle in the corner of her homework without looking up at me.

“You two made up then? Seems like you used to be pretty close.”

“Yeah, well, he’s like family, so even if we don’t get along all the time…” She shrugs as if that explains everything, but ‘like family’ doesn’t mean ‘family’. What exactly is their relationship? Just family friends?

“Did you get your tattoos together?” I ask. Careful not to show nervousness in my body language, I’m looking right at her when her head whips up in surprise. I cock my head innocently, trying to be disarming. “They’re both colored and finely detailed, so I was wondering if they were done by the same person.”

“You could say that,” Miss Lynx laughs.

“You look particularly nice in that white blouse. It really highlights the lace pattern.”

“Thanks,” she mumbles, already refocused on drawing an ellipse matching the simplified function on her graph paper. Most teenagers would enjoy bragging about their clothing or new piercings if given even an inch of opening, but Miss Lynx’s disinterest in offering any information I don’t explicitly ask for strikes me as distinctly unnatural. She easily tells me that the design is significant to her when I ask if it has any particular meaning, but she doesn’t elaborate at all.

“Is it religious?” I wonder how far I can push her without seeming suspicious, even as the bell rings, ending the class period.

“Um, I guess. Kind of,” she shrugs noncommittally as she gathers up her work and stuffs it in her shoulder bag, but I’m thrown for a loop. Despite Ms. Perez's conviction, I didn’t expect Miss Lynx to admit to worshiping nature. She pauses midway to standing, bites her lip, and then leans back down to ask me, “Hey, Ms. H, are you and the orchestra teacher, like, a thing?”

“Wha–what?” I blubber, jarred by not only the abrupt change of topics, but the question itself. She said something similar the night of Homecoming, so I really should have been better prepared to sort out the misunderstanding. How did I fail to consider this might come up again?

“I just see you two together a lot, so I thought you might be close.”

Close? Mr. Wright and I? Are we? Not romantically, of course, but emotionally there still feels like there is a barrier we can’t cross. “He’s a friend,” I settle the matter. “Just like Mr. Rivera and you, so I’m sure you can understand how it feels to have false rumors spreading around about your relationship.”

Miss Lynx flushes, shame burning in her cheeks until they are as red as her hair. “I wouldn’t— Sorry,” she winces. “Guess Adan told you about those?” She glances over her shoulder at her geeky friend, busily cleaning up his work space.

I nod once in confirmation. “Is that why you were reluctant to spend too much time with him? Did you know something like this would happen?”

“Uh,” she rubs the back of her neck, tugging on her braid. “I guess I knew I had a certain reputation, but I’m dealing with it,” she quickly adds. “So don’t worry about us anymore.”

“Well that’s a big ask,” I smile warmly. “It’s my job to worry about my students.”