*Lena*
The dean’s office was located on the edge of campus, situated on the shore of the massive lake that separated the small city of Morhan from the sprawling tropolis of Breles. I could see the water from where I sat. The deep blue water was glistening beyond the ceiling-height windows in the dean’s office, blocked by the figure of Assistant Dean Redmon, who was seated behind the dean’s desk.
“Dean Weatherford couldn’t be here today,” Assistant Dean Redmon murmured, flipping a page of the file he was holding–my file. I could see my na printed at the top.
“Why am I here?” I asked, stifling the tremble in my voice. I’d never been in trouble at school before, not once in my entire life.
The assistant dean glanced up at , his eyes fixated on mine for a mont. He was an older man, slight of build with short, wispy Slate hair. But his eyes, a strange sea-green color, were kind, which I was thankful for. He looked sowhat sorry for as he glanced down at his watch and then turned his focus toward the door.
“There was a report of misconduct between you and an adjunct professor.”
I knew it. I’d had a glimr of hope that whoever had made the report had made it against Slate, and I was only here to corroborate it and give my side of the story.
But to my horror, Slate walked through the door, looking as smug as could be. He leaned against the wall, facing with a smirk on his face. Assistant Dean Redmon looked him up and down before sighing heavily and turning his attention to my file once more.
“Morhan College’s code of ethics firmly states that students and professors are strictly forbidden from entering into any kind of intimate relationship. You signed the code of ethics, Lena, so I’m not going to ask you if you’re familiar–”
“I know,” I said firmly, feeling a blush rise to my cheeks.
“Slate Tamlin reported to Dean Weatherford that you have made several advances toward him over the last quarter, including waiting outside the first-year building for his classes to dismiss, if this is correct?”
I almost choked. I looked from Assistant Dean Redmon to Slate.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Professor Tamlin,” Slate corrected, looking down at his manicured fingernails. “It’s professor–”
“Is it true, Lena, that you have been pursuing a romantic relationship with–”
“No!” I exclaid, gripping the armrests of my chair hard enough to turn my knuckles white. “Whatever Professor Tamlin told you is not even close to the truth. I’d like to talk to you privately, Dean Redmon, please?” My voice was shaking, but at the mont I didn’t care. Slate looked entirely pleased with himself. He chuckled lightly as he rolled his eyes, looking at Redmon.
“It’s an expellable offense,” Slate said smugly, turning his eyes back on . “Isn’t it, Lena?”
“Dean Redmon, please,” I said as I rose from my chair. “I haven’t been trying to pursue a relationship with Professor Tamlin, not in the slightest. In fact, I’ve been trying to avoid him at all costs. He shows up at my apartnt–”
Assistant Dean Redmon raised his hand, demanding quiet. I snapped my mouth shut, breathing heavily through my nose as I glanced over at Slate. He looked sowhat nervous as he waited for Assistant Dean Redmon to speak.
“My uncle said–” Slate began, but Assistant Dean Redmon waved his hand in dismissal.
“Your uncle can counsel you at a different ti about the accusations brought forth against you, Professor Tamlin. For now, I’d like to speak to her alone.” It wasn’t a question, and I could see the look of surprise, and anxiety, flash across his face.
Slate hadn’t expected Assistant Dean Redmon to want to speak to alone. He’d probably asked to be here, and because he was Dean Weatherford’s nephew and didn’t let anyone forget it, his request was quickly granted.
But I had thrown his accusation back in his face by telling the truth, and Assistant Dead Redmon couldn’t ignore that.
Slate left the room, giving one last parting look of marked disapproval before slamming the door on his way out.
I swallowed hard, looking up at Assistant Dean Redmon expectantly.
“What exactly happened between you and Professor Tamlin?” he asked, sighing as he closed my file. He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest.
“A friend, and her boyfriend, invited to go to dinner with them in Breles and Professor Tamlin was there. Her boyfriend didn’t know he was a professor at our school... and I didn’t know he was going to be there. It was a double date. I can admit that. But it was a blind date, I wasn’t interested in taking things further. I denied any advances he made toward during that weekend, which was over the sumr break, and... when I ca back to campus, he continued to bother . He has recently started showing up at the apartnt I share with my roommates, throwing pebbles at my window at all hours of the night. I have to walk by the first-year building on my way to the greenhouses, and he waits until I walk by, trying to talk to . I try to plan it so... so he’s still in class when I walk by, but it doesn’t always work.”
I ran my tongue along my lower lip, looking down at my lap.
“Earlier today,” I continued, “he stopped outside of the first-year building. He is under the impression we’re mates. We aren’t. I’m not twenty-one yet, but I know he is not my mate, and won’t be when I co of age, but he is insistent–”
“This isn’t the first ti he’s done sothing like this,” assistant Dean Redmon said as he ran his hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as he gathered his thoughts.
“How is he still allowed to work on campus, then?” I stamred, shocked by the assistant dean’s admission.
Redmon shrugged, shaking his head. “His uncle–Weatherford–doesn’t want bad press, and it’s easier to dismiss the student than it is to put the bla on his own flesh and blood. Slate Tamlin has been a problem for years, but this is the first ti he’s co forward with accusations against a student, rather than it being the other way around.”
“What can you do about it?” I tried to hide the desperation in my voice, but failed.
Redmon bit the inside of his cheek as he looked down at my file, shaking his head in defeat. “The dean has already put in for your credits to transfer to the University of Mirage. You’d start fresh in January–”
“Transfer!” I exclaid, feeling the tears begin to well in my eyes. “I can’t transfer! I’m supposed to graduate in December. I have my last final next week. The botany program in Mirage is not–not even close to Morhan’s!”
A transfer would set back two entire years. I’d have to complete the University of Mirage’s required undergraduate courses before I could even begin whatever courses they require in their botany program that were different from Morhan’s curriculum. The school I was attending now was specialized and so different from the one in Mirage.
I was panicking now. I rose from my chair again, ready to get on my knees and beg.
“I have one final, that’s it. Then my field study. I put in for Red Lakes; I’d be gone for six weeks. I wouldn’t need to co back to campus again after that, Assistant Dean Redmon. Please, there has to be sothing you can do besides transferring !”
“I empathize with you, Lena. Truly, I do. But Dean Weatherford doesn’t do bad press, regardless of whose fault it is. Once the rumor mill starts–and trust , it will, and it will likely be Slate Tamlin who starts it–we’ll have no choice but to place the bla on soone, and that soone is you. But,” he said, pausing as he exhaled, “there may be one way we can rectify this situation without a transfer, or expulsion.”
I winced at the word expulsion, and Assistant Dean Redmon noticed. He let out his breath and rose from his chair, moving toward the window.
“You have one more final, next week. I’ll speak to your professor and have the final set up for tomorrow, or Friday, whichever is more convenient. Your GPA alone grants you a place at the Red Lakes Research Camp—”
“You can send early?” I exclaid, absolutely beside myself with excitent. But my excitent was quickly turned to dread as he turned from the window, shaking his head.
“The university’s relationship with the research camp is honor based, I’m afraid. They only take the most prestigious students, those who’ve earned it, with clean records. This matter with Slate Tamlin eliminates you from the program, I’m afraid.”
“But it’s not my fault,” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat as tears began to well in my eyes. Everything I had worked for during my years at Morhan evaporated before my eyes as my life seed to splinter, then shatter around my feet.
“If I were the dean, Slate would be held accountable,” he said with conviction, looking straight in the eye so I knew he was serious. “But I am not. Dean Weatherford ideally waves expulsion around like a cure-all, but in your case, he knows it’ll do more harm than good–”
“Because I could share my side of the story, too, and make his nephew look bad,” I noted.
“You hail from one of the most prominent areas in the west, and Dean Weatherford can’t ignore that, that is certain. He won’t want anyone from that area speaking poorly of the school. However, he can punish you in another way, Lena. And that was where the idea of transferring you to Mirage ca from. But, we just received a request from a small farm in western Finaldi, outside of town called Crimson Creek. They grow valerian and wolfsbane, as well as a few other dicinal plants so vital to our hospitals. The farm is looking for help with the harvest, as it wasn’t very successful this year–a mass die-off of several fields of herbs, from what we’ve been told. But they were late with their request, and all of our senior students have already put in for other research camps–”
“So if I don’t want to transfer... I have to go to Crimson Creek?”
“Yes, Lena. If you want to graduate this December, you’ll do your field study in Crimson Creek. You’ll have your report to do at the end of the six weeks, but other than your final, you’ll be done at Morhan.”
I leaned back in my chair, looking up at the assistant dean with tears in my eyes. I had heard of Crimson Creek, and I knew it was a creepy little village no one wanted to go to. This program seed awful....
“I don’t think this is fair, Lena. But this is the best I can do.”
“Thank you,” I said, aning it. Had Dean Weatherford been there, I would’ve been on a boat to Mirage the next day. It might not be ideal, but at least it wasn’t expulsion or Mirage.
Assistant Dean Redmon patted my hand before he rounded his desk and sat down, pulling a thin file out of a drawer and placing it on the edge of his desk. “For you to take with you. It’s everything we know about the farm in Crimson Creek.”
I grabbed the file and opened it, finding a single sheet of paper with the crops they fard listed, and nothing else. Flipping it over, I saw a photograph of a farmhouse. It looked old and dilapidated. I could see now why everyone said this place was creepy.
“This is it?” I said, unimpressed.
“That is it. But with your skills, I’m sure the students who go to Crimson Creek next year will have a lot more to work with, don’t you think?”
I slid the file into my backpack, sniffling as I rose from the chair. I gave him a weak smile, letting a few tears roll down my cheeks before I wiped them away.
“You never have to see Slate Tamlin again, alright? I will see to it personally that he leaves you alone,” he said, rising to escort out of the room.
I nodded, knowing that would be a lost cause. Chances were high that Slate was waiting for outside of the administrative offices right then, waiting to rub it all in my face.
He was probably hoping for an expulsion so he could pursue without repercussions.
But as I walked out of the building and down the neat pathway leading to the student commons, the first person I saw wasn’t Slate.
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