They All Float

[Alice Kincaide]

April 4, 1886

Alice had spent the weekend at home as she needed to attend dress fittings for her debut, which was approaching faster than she'd anticipated. This was a good thing, of course, as she was looking forward to it, but nonetheless, it seemed like time was flying by.

When Alice rose Monday morning and crossed the room to her wardrobe, she was only thinking to find something to wear. She wasn't expecting the swarm of spiders that came rushing out as she opened the door. Alice screamed.

  

[Virginie Favreau]

It had been an all too ordinary day when a a scream had drawn Ginny from the drawing room, where she had been engrossed—practically nose-deep!—in a ghost story her brother had sent her, to Miss Kincaide's room, where she found the redhead standing on her bed, as white as the ghost terrorising the protaganist in her book... To escape a swarm of spiders which were spilling from the wardrobe.

Ginny was not particularly squeamish—she had spent far too much time outdoors to be spooked by the odd spider—but the sheer volume of them turned even her stomach and she fought the urge to join Miss Kincaide on the mattress. "Where did they come from?" she gaped, drawing her wand as an afterthought and attempting a freezing charm to cease the swarm's progress.

  

[Alice Kincaide]

"I don't know!" Alice said, more than a little shrilly. She didn't usually think herself a coward. But the tiny writhing mass of eight legged beasts made her more than a little sick. She was half-convinced that spiders were actually some horrifying experiment by an ancient dark wizard. She didn't care that this made no sense.

"What do we do??"

  

[Virginie Favreau]

The freezing charm worked. Sort of. It stopped the progress of some of the little beasts but others kept coming, spilling around their still compatriots and in all directions heading, to Ginny's horror, for the door. And for her.

The last thing she wanted was to hurt them—her father's profession had instilled a certain responsibility in her to protect all life, even spiders—but there were simply so many of them and Ginny could see little other option but to do something to stop them further invading the school. Although it might be worth it just to see Brynn Malfoy's snivelling face when they ran at her.

"Arania Exumani!" she tried, aiming at the largest concentration of the creatures with her wand.

  

[Alice Kincaide]

Alice thought that Miss Favreau's spell seemed to slow the flow of incoming spiders, though she wasn't sure if that was because they were wary of what had happened to their brethren or if they were simply coming to the end. "Do you think there are more?"

  

[Virginie Favreau]

Merlin, Ginny hoped so. The spell had appeared to work but she didn't think she could face off with an entire army of the creatures! "I'm quite sure that was the entire global populace of arachnids!" she replied, stepping tentatively closer to where they had originated from. "Do you think it was a prank?" She couldn't imagine anyone wanting to prank Miss Kincaide; Ginny had always thought her so sweet.

  

[Alice Kincaide]

Alice shook her head. "I don't know. I hope not!" She could imagine she'd angered anyone that much! Alice doubted she got along swimmingly with everyone, but this was certainly a bit much!

Tentatively, she left her perch, and tried to muster up whatever was left of her dignity. "Thank you for helping, Miss Favreau, I don't think I could have done that myself." Which was something of an understatement. "I think I'll... er... go find someone to clean up the mess the beasts have made." Because she certainly wasn't touching it and hardly expected Miss Favreau to! Nor did she want to look at it until whenever her room was normally cleaned.

Ack. I posted Alice for deactivation and forgot about this thread. I'm sorry! <3