It says in the dictionary that the Lord is someone or something having power, authority, or influence; a master or ruler.
In this academy, it means that being the Lord is a burden. Although, the past Lords have managed to make a strong foundation with spells for the house somewhere in New Orleans, their energy seeps within the walls in which I try to manage deafening myself from hearing the whispers of the goners.
But I always wanted to hear my father's voice.
I tried using any spell to summon my father's spirit to get a piece of advice from him since I got paralyzed waist down, and my source of mobility is an electrical wheelchair.
Most of the time, I hated him when he was alive as he showed love to his students, literally, rather than her own daughter. Well at least her adoptive daughter. Now, I still hated him even he's dead. Maybe he really did deserve to be killed because he tried to crown the wrong slut for the position.
What's worse is that he last crowned his blood son to be the Lord, but is a slacking one when it comes to his duties.
Maybe he realized that being the Lord is not a privilege, but a burden, the reason he left the city to tour around, and waltz anywhere in the world, and now he comes back and tries to take every duty that I was doing before.
But maybe it's really time for Rob to do that.
If you're going to ask me, "Wouldn't you want to be the Lord?"
It passed my mind one time to be someone that I could hope for. Until now, it has passed me since then. It meant a lot to me winning at the time of the testing of the Acts of Principles. But to no avail, and now, how can I prove myself again when I am this fucking wheelchair?
I do not even know what the hell is my purpose in this academy. I cannot even make myself go to the kitchen and always rely on the staff in the house. I felt even more useless.
I sensed that he's coming to my room, and welcomes his presence in the stillness of the quiet place I am in.
-
Rob brought a tray of food for Clementine, and as he goes through the room, he smells of smoke from a cigarette that she's taking in.
"I brought you something to eat even though I feel that you are not hungry," Rob said.
Clementine looks at him blankly while smoke is coming out from her nose, "Then why bother bringing me delicacies?"
"The maid said that you haven't, um, eaten for a few days, and I reckon that you have lost some pounds," Rob said, still standing at the door with the tray on his hand.
Rob expects that Clementine would again swat him away from the room along with the tray he actually prepared for her. Mushroom soup and orange juice wouldn't be a good partner but it's better than nothing, he guesses.
"Well? Are you going to give my meal or are you just going to stand there?" Clementine said.
He quickly brings the tray of food to her bed and puts it beside her. She smells the cream from the soup and took a spoonful of it. She shrugs with the agreement of liking the taste of it, then smokes her cigarette again even though it's almost at the filter of it.
"I just ah-go back to the office and sort the student's files, and make myself useful," Rob said and starts to turn around when "We never had a good chance to have the talk." He then looks back at her after hearing that, having the sliver of confusion.
"I figure that since I am incapacitated, maybe I do need to entrust you with the duties you could do for the academy." Clementine continued.
He then takes a chair to sit beside her bed in front of a bowl of soup still smoking from heat, yet untouched. "Well, I think you made it very clear the last time we talked before you, um..."
"Paralyzed waist down. Yeah. That's some shit to handle by myself." Clementine said. Rob has everything going through his mind lately ever since he got in the academy to take care of things his father left off. Trying to reconcile the impossible with Clem, trying to be something relevant for the academy even after he abandons his unfortunate destiny to become the Lord of the Hewlett Academy. Every time he enters the front door of the school, seeing the portraits of the past Lords who have been in the position are all eyes on him like he's been looked at as a failure, and worry, and anger, and even the strange like criticism. Maybe he could have passed the Acts of Principles but that does not mean that he fits to be one. But all he wants now is the trust, and his head chins up to face whatever's going to happen for the institute and to be relevant, at least, for the first time.
"You don't have to deal with this on your own, and I will do in my power to at least balance everything in this institution. I'll help you all the way, and if needed, will I remove the mosses covering the house."
Stab at the heart.
Clem chuckles, "May I remind you that you are the Lord, not just some staff of the institution."
"Well, that wasn't the last time you implied at me."
Stab another at his chest.
"I may have changed my mind. Things change in just a swift. People change. That includes you, Roberto." Clementine said.
Stab with a sharp knife at the chest of an innocent fellow.
Rob could not say that he's in reverie when Clementine says that to him, but is surprised though to be entrusted with the position.
"We may not have found ourselves mutual in any situation. I mean, Jesus Christ. Our marriage was messy." Clementine went silent for a while, then she continues, "But for the academy, we need to have the strength to educate, and make our students be keen to their surroundings since danger lurks beneath the walls of this institute."
A student was stabbed within the walls of the institute. The blood went pool to that gorgeous body of the student.
"Do you really think I am capable to lead the academy?" Rob then asked the question he is afraid to ask her, even to himself.
Clementine pulls out another stick of cigarette and lights it without a match. "No. You're not capable to lead. But what you're capable of is to make anything force to follow you. Well, except for me and our father, at least."
A student's lifeless body was dragged from the room with the help of the maid, and one of their own. Then an accomplice drove all three of them to the cemetery to bury the body.
Rob is lost in his own mind while thinking was has happened before Clementine went back to the academy a few days later he stabbed John Harding's heart with a sharp point of a knife. And he understands what has the love of his life told him about what he's about to be in.
And he never felt more scared for his life.