the candle road
A school of magic, full of overpowered items and forbidden scrolls, keeps order by taking things. The cupboard of confiscated things becomes its own place, and collects its own denizens. The dark at the back has become a black desert, seen only by candlelight. The lit way is a road, and the road belongs to a gang of school kids who never came back and never grew up. They ride confiscated brooms, they wear highlighter for warpaint, and they queue for fights.
DOG-EAR. The leader. Fourteen for sixty years. Rides the big broom, the one that killed a boy in '61, and wears a blazer with forty school ties up the sleeves, one per kid who challenged her. A week of safe camp costs your tie. Fight one of hers and you fight all of them, one at a time, in order of height.
MOLARS. Lost his front teeth and never grew them back, turned them into a set of yellowed dice. Will eat anything for a dare: a dead bug for free, a cursed thing if you dare him properly in front of the others. Anything he's nibbled, he can track the owner by taste. The last kid who welched on a dare, he found in four hours through a wall. Blows gum bubbles through the gap while rattling his dice.
STITCHES. Fell off the bell tower the year the school still had one, and sewed herself back together with thread that glows in candlelight. Seams on every joint. She mends the gang after fights — bones, brooms, coats — and yours for buttons, any buttons; she is not fussy. She keeps a pinch of whatever she fixes; the work holds a year and a day, and she'll be waiting.
BLOTS. Ink to both elbows, glasses mended with wire. Sells homework by the pound, in any handwriting you bring her a sample of — and out here homework is what candles burn, so everybody pays. Ten pages for a boiled sweet. A term's worth for your pen. Her essays litter every camp on the road; she considers this publication.
PIGEON. The messenger. Rides a broom with nine bristles and lands in a crash. Carries any parcel anywhere for sweets, up front. He reads everything he carries, and he is a kid: ask him straight what a letter said and he goes red and tells you. Everyone knows this but they still use him for passing secrets.
NED. Somebody's imaginary friend, made real by a spell and confiscated in 1974 from the first-year who drew him: arms too long, ten fingers to a hand, crayon-yellow. He stands guard over sleeping camps, facing out, and secretly yearns to be treated like a real boy. He can only be seen and touch things once you believe he's there, so he helps carry, constantly. Stacks and sorts the things from each semester into piles by size and color.
Going for a vibe with these lost guys and gals, let me know if you have notes.
-Feowulf