Chapter Text
She couldn’t believe her eyes. She blinked several times as she saw the approaching redhead walking toward her in slow motion. Her hips sashaying with each step of high-heeled feet. Her tight pencil skirt followed her moves. In the same way, the leopard print scarf bounced at tempo, following the sway of her breasts. And holy cow! She had desired many things in life, like being some sort of witch to burn people to ashes or be forever young-ish, but never had she desired to be the green pendant that fell right between the swell of those breasts.
“Ms. Wardwell?”
The voice was heavenly, dark, biting, and raspy enough that was not only sexy but right down pornographic, and she couldn’t avoid thinking that having her name whispered in her ear on an even lower key coming from half-parted lips while her hands pushed her to be kept between… She shook her head out of the X-rated thoughts concluding such a thing would be almost a mystical experience only for those adept to this woman.
Oh, hell, she was ready to sell her soul and sign her name away to whatever deity would allow her to be stepped over by this fair-skinned goddess… that was oddly looking at her as if she had just lost all her marbles.
‘Oh, shit! Oh, fuck first impressions!’ She thought.
“Yes?” it came out harsh, making the woman’s already stern stance sterner, and her face contorted in a tough expression that said she hadn’t liked her tone at all.
A total big dick energy flared out of the redhead, loudly pointing that if she wasn’t the one in charge of everything, she should be. And hey, as long as the redhead allowed her to all but drool at her like she was, she wouldn’t complain if the redhead took over it all and stepped all over her, either.
“Sabrina said you needed me in your office today. Your office was empty.”
She gulped. Of fucking course, she needed her in her office. Her desk could use having her laying on her like some sort of renaissance art for her to delight on. Or even having her pressing flat against the surface as she kneeled in front, parting her legs as she…
Wait…
Did she say Sabrina?
Who the fuck was Sabrina? She tried to remember the names and faces she was getting acquainted with, but her mind came blank with that specific one.
“What’s your favorite color?” she blurted out instead, without another thought popping into her mind. Her eyes widened at the question she had asked. Stupid shitty mind! She was so smart, a prodigy some had said, and now she was blurting out stupid questions because the woman looking at her with a look that had her thinking ‘please, whip me,’ existed in this silly little town. And her brain had become a pornographic mush at the worst possible time. Doomed, she was sooo fucking doomed.
“Red.”
It came as an answer, despite whatever she might have thought of her question as she shuffled her weight from one leg to the other, waiting for an explanation that never came out.
“Yours?” the redhead asked then, squinting as if she hadn’t realized by herself she had asked the most stupid question she could have asked her.
Her stupidness had thankfully spared her from blushing after blurting the question, so she couldn’t get why she was flushing like a stupid schoolgirl now. Why was she feeling her cheeks warm up when the redhead just asked the same stupid thing back? Out of pity, most likely.
She laughed. It came out nervous and silly. Outright awkward.
“Reeed?” she answered, stretching the word in such a weird way that she might as well find a shovel and start digging her own grave. ‘Here lies Lilith Wardwell, died of embarrassment for being too damn gay’. The woman crooked her head, her red hair moving to the side, caressing the white column of her neck, and damn it to hell. Why was she now envying her hair?
“Ms. Wardwell. You don’t seem to feel well. Why don’t you freshen up a bit? I’ll wait for you at your office.”
The offer sounded more like an order, but the redhead didn’t give her time to think or complain. Or find a neuron or two that could work on her presence. No, she turned around and walked away.
Lilith could almost feel the blood finally rushing toward her brain once more with every step the redhead took away from her.
“Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you for offering,” she mumbled as she watched the fascinating woman go. She leaned against the lockers because she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her anymore. Then the woman turned at the end of the hallway. Lilith figured then, it wasn’t her who she was searching for.
Two months earlier.
Weeks had passed since anyone had seen or heard anything about Principal Hawthorne. Baxter High was a mess, and parents were questioning his lack. The police had gone to his house and found it utterly devoid of any elements that could even point out that someone had lived there before. And thus, there was no other thing to do than consider him gone.
The school was still in session, and no one knew what to do. No one wanted to come to sleepy old Greendale to take the job, and no teacher wanted to step up. Not when there were things like Wicca and ‘some minor inconvenience’ with students far too outspoken and parents who didn’t doubt to shout at you at the supermarket if you disagreed with them. That students knew where you lived, and pranks were quite the commonality, didn’t help at all.
The council was at a loss for what to do. At the end of their thread, they called up for a meeting. Hoping to sell their case and that some poor soul would be willing enough to step up. They had their minds set on Mary Wardwell. She had the qualifications but not quite the personality for it… But qualifications were more important at this point. It was just a matter to show her she was the only one left that could do this.
The meeting was loud and filled with teachers throwing excuses. Until a hand was raised in the back of the room. Silence followed as the person behind the hand blushed profusely, having all eyes set on her while the crowd almost prayed she would say the words they were hoping she would say.
“I know someone.”
Mary Wardwell’s voice trembled as she dared to speak up. If they weren’t in desperate need of help, she would have avoided speaking at all, because she knew those weren’t the words they wanted to hear from her, but at least they were the most hopeful they had heard in the entire day.
“You know someone?” A teacher asked, frowning in confusion.
“That’s what I’ve said, haven’t I?” she answered, feeling braver because she simply knew the one she was thinking of would be a great fit. Then pushed her glasses farther up her nose, a clear tell of how nervous she was.
“Go on, then.”
“You might remember her. My twin sister, Lilith? We all know she left town all those years ago because she knew she would never be a principal here. I bet it will thrill her to return to Greendale if we offer it to her.”
Lilith was the smarter of the two, Mary knew, and the bolder one, too. They had finished school at sixteen and headed out to get their teaching degree. It had been Lilith, the one pushing her to get a Master’s in school administration, but when the opening for Baxter High’s principal position opened seventeen years earlier, they had rejected her because she wasn’t old enough (nor male enough).
“With such short notice?” Another one asked.
“I can call her and let you know. Certainly, it’s easier to replace a principal in the city than to find one here. Unless anyone else has a better idea.”
“Okay. Ms. Wardwell, let us know what she says, and if she’s up to this task, we’ll need her resume to have it approved.”
The meeting was adjourned and, for the first time in a while, Mary had rushed home, excited to call her sister. It took a short amount of convincing words before Lilith Wardwell had dramatically accepted to send her resume and see what she could do to find her own replacement at the school she was working in, *if* the job at Greendale panned out.
And so, it was that Lilith Wardwell returned to the lazy town of Greendale as the Principal of Baxter High.
Present time
(Earlier that day)
Zelda was reading as she sipped her coffee, enjoying the last moments of peace and quietness. Appointments filled her schedule right past her usual last hour, and she knew she would return home with a headache.
Once she had become a sexologist, she had thought returning home to Greendale would not fit her life any longer, and for years, returning hadn’t been even close to her plans. So, when she had to return to fulfill her brother’s last wish and take care of her niece; she accepted it would be the nail in her career coffin.
However, it seemed the idea of her living in such a quaint little town had added spice to the idea of who she was and what she knew. Somehow, she was now not only a sexologist but some sort of Guru of Sex in the mind of her clients.
Of course, having a baby to raise, and a mortuary at home had made her reluctant to move her practice home. Instead, she added some more land to the extensive Spellman property and built an equally quaint office just on the outskirts of their land. Her brother’s last request hadn’t cost Zelda her career, but it came with a price: her marriage, not that she minded it much. It was already in shambles back then.
You gain some; you lose some; she had thought when she filed for a divorce when her husband refused to move out of the city to care for a child he didn’t want nor was related to.
So, the money for her new office came from her now ex-husband, thanks to her team of lawyers. While her own money remained untouched, set on investments that would keep her and her family comfortable for years once she was ready to quit her job.
Life was… kind of good, she thought. She was sure, though; it was not entirely accurate. Since her failed marriage, Zelda had been in and out of relationships, but nothing seemed to last.
Sometimes she wondered if they only worked as long as her partner could learn a thing or two from her expertise and then add her to the resume of exes. She knew it had worked well for Faustus. Their publicized divorce had him surrounded by young women who had read her books and knew he would’ve had the experience they sought. He didn’t quite, but… well, there’s something to be said about adding some fantasy to real-life stories.
She hadn’t studied the human psyche without learning a thing or two before deciding all those years annoying her younger sister with sex and even giving her advice from time to time, -not that Hilda ever took them, her loss,- was the route she wanted to go. Her career had taken off quickly, and she became even more popular when she married Faustus Blackwood. A very well-known entrepreneur, -and sex addict- He was a nice study case, and she was stupid enough to marry him.
“Auntie Zee…”
The redhead sighed. She had been enjoying her peace. Why did her niece decide to ruin her day so early in the morning with her high-pitched voice? She knew it only meant she needed something.
Hilda had stopped making noise too, and that let her conclude whatever Sabrina wanted was worse than she first thought.
“Yes, Sabrina?”
“Hm, Ms. Wardwell said she needed to talk to you about something?”
“What did you do now, Sabrina?” Zelda huffed, wondering what new shenanigans she had concocted, already bracing herself for whatever would come next, while setting down her reading on the table to show her annoyance.
“Me?” A nervous chuckle followed. “Nothing? She wanted to see you... hm… after school today?”
Zelda pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Tell me once more, Hilda, why did I stop smoking for the sake of this child’s lungs when she has no care for my mental health?”
“Because you love me,” Sabrina grinned brightly, pecking her aunt’s cheek briefly, and rushing out, grabbing an apple on her way out of the kitchen.
“Seriously, Hilda… What does she have in that mind of hers?” She rolled her eyes and got back to her reading. “If I cannot clear my schedule, Hilda. Would you be able to go instead of me?”
“If Ms. Wardwell wanted to talk with me, Zee. She would’ve said so yesterday when she hopped by the shop.”
“I’ll guess I see what to do, and we’ll take it from there.” Zelda checked her watch and with another sigh, she stood up and drove the short distance that kept her away from the office.
In the end, she had shuffled her schedule enough to have a free hour at the cost of her lunch. She munched an apple on her way to Sabrina’s school, but she wasn’t feeling all that happy to be dragged there for only God knew what.
To make things worse, she had reached Ms. Wardwell’s office to find it free of the mousey teacher that always seemed to fear her. She walked out, ready to tackle her way to the teacher’s room when she spotted the woman she was searching for.
Holy fuck! Why was she looking like that? The usually trapped hair now fell freely, cascading down her shoulders, and her clothes were less conservative too. A tight-fitting dress hugged her waist and ended a little below her knee. Who could’ve thought there were curves underneath the awful clothes she usually wore?! The thick glasses were missing, and a bright red shade tinted her lips.
The most challenging thing in the entire makeover was that she looked at her as if she was a walking dessert. Interesting, Zelda thought. Not only because it was the first time she felt appreciated in such a way by this woman, but because she was sure the woman was living as further inside Narnia as she could or was utterly asexual.
(She left aside her not disliking the idea of getting to know this side of her because she also found this fresh development highly unsettling.)
“Ms. Wardwell?”
It seemed the cat had eaten the teacher’s tongue when she got this new look. Zelda couldn’t help the angered expression that took over her face when she dared to answer with a brusque, “Yes!?”
She had rearranged her schedule, skipped lunch, and not only drove all her way to town but was standing in the middle of the corridors of Baxter High, a school she only set foot on for Sabrina had resisted the idea of being sent to a boarding school as the rest of the Spellman had before! She was seething.
“Sabrina said you needed me in your office today. Your office was empty.” She stated, and here it was back. The need for a smoke had made itself present once more.
“What’s your favorite color?” The question blurted out made no sense to her. She thought it would prompt her to have a conversation about something different or some questions about psychology. Perhaps even bring her to the motive she was stuck in this weird-smelling corridor or the reason behind Ms. Wardwell’s new attire.
“Red.”
Nothing. Nothing came out of the teacher, who was looking at her as if she was about to collapse. Perhaps she was waiting for her to make some small talk following this odd question of hers? People loved small talk for a reason Zelda still couldn’t quite rationalize for herself.
“Yours?”
The teacher blushed, almost as bright as her red lipstick. And she had seen Mary Wardwell blush hundreds of times before. Well, Mary and Hilda often ended up in the same shade of red whenever she opened her mouth and something remarkably sexual came out of her. What could she do? She counseled people about their love lives or lack thereof for a -very well paid- living.
A peal of nervous laughter left the brunette, and her eyes shimmered utterly blue. Had her eyes always had that sparkling shade? Zelda wondered.
“Reeed?”
The redhead crooked her head, her hair falling to the side, and she couldn’t help the shiver that followed as it touched her so tenderly. She saw the woman gulp, and she frowned, utterly confused by these new behaviors she was observing.
“Ms. Wardwell. You don’t seem to feel well. Why don’t you freshen up a bit? I’ll wait for you at your office.”
But the teacher never moved, so Zelda, rolling her eyes, turned around and walked the way back to the office she had just left.
“As if I have all the time in the world to be here.” She mumbled, entering the office and closing the door behind her.
She paced around the small space, her eyes falling on the odd collection of porcelain dolls that never failed to gain her attention. The door opened moments later, and for sure, the teacher seemed to be her collected self once more, right to the awful-looking clothes and the tightly kept hair.
Zelda raised an eyebrow, hoping for an explanation for the change of appearance or whatever she had experienced moments ago, but she only got the blue eyes covered by the thick glasses looking blankly at her.
“Oh, Ms. Spellman… I see Sabrina passed my message.”
Since the teacher never brought up the previous incident, Zelda wrote it off as part of this weird woman’s oddities, and let them be… for now.