A young lady - who's definitely not any sort of girl - steps out from the car, dressed in a cool seafoam-green blouse, and wearing navy-blue pants beneath the obligatory Nevermore blue-and-black girls' uniform.  She has accessorized with a silver bracelet - rectangular panels etched with geometric whorls, the center panel fitted with a single sapphire - around her right wrist, and ever-so-slightly swaying pearl earrings, also set in silver.  In her hand is a plain leather attaché case that she carries with no difficulty, despite the fact that it must contain all her schoolbooks, and perhaps some electronics as well - though she has tucked several thin notebooks into various pockets, all a simple utilitarian steel grey.  Only some are labeled, with a label-maker's crisply printed letters.  She wears a pencil case strapped to a black-and-silver belt, on her left side; it goes over her skirt, but underneath her jacket.  Her coppery hair is clasped neatly into two riotously-colourful plastic barrettes; her bottleglass-green eyes scan the scene, sharply attentive.

The hand not carrying her briefcase carries a violin-case, instead.

A girl with bright pink hair, who has dealt with the restrictions of the uniform seemingly by cramming as many colors onto her hands and into her hair as possible, bounds over to the new girl. 

"Hi!!" she says, and sticks out a hand to shake. "My name is Enid welcome that's the headmistress she's going to ask me to give you a tour so we might as well start HELLO--" 

She stops to breathe. Clearly, she speaks in exclamation points. 

Her companion, in a black on black version of the uniform, moves only so she's standing next to Enid again, but does not otherwise react. 

"This is Wednesday," Enid continues. "She's allergic to color." 

...

The headmistress seems more delighted by Enid's antics than Wednesday, who seems mostly fondly exasperated. 

"Hello, Enid," handshake, "Wednesday," respectful nod.  "Headmistress.  Is there anything that needs attending to, before..."  Enid continues happening?, she doesn't say.

"We can take your bags," the headmistress says. "Enid is right, I was going to ask her to give you the tour." 

Her smile is just slightly tired. 

"I'm just happy that I get to do this twice in a month or so," Enid says. "I'll show you where your room is last, so you don't have to follow me around after."

She is full of energy, clearly. She's going to lead Ophelia through to a central courtyard if the other girl follows. Wednesday will also follow, for all the world appearing like Enid's shadow. 

Enid is a good source of answers about student level aspects to Nevermore, but also the nearby town of Jericho, rumors surrounding both, and the shenanigans both she and Wednesday have been pulling since the dark-haired girl's arrival. 

"You don't have a roommate," Wednesday says. "But I think I have an idea of what clique you'll be into."

Her voice is flat enough that it's hard to tell if this is or is not an insult. 

Wednesday is more tight lipped, but if pressed will give information about goings on in the woods, local history, and what she's found out about the school. 

She has two suitcases; one is markedly more heavy, and more secured, than the other, judging by the effort put in to lift it out of the trunk.  She does not, however, take the headmistress up on her offer of transportation, preferring to roll her suitcases along herself.  "I prefer to avoid trusting the security of my possessions to hands that are not mine, madam Headmistress."

"I wouldn't expect my appearance to be a wholly accurate barometer of my interests, Ms. Wednesday.  And truthfully...cliques have always struck me as a pointless waste of time and energy spent upon dominance games and competition within one's field of expertise, when one could instead make friends who do things you cannot.  There are certainly benefits to keeping your enemies close, however.  They're easier to backstab from that range."

She grins.  Her teeth are inhumanly sharp.

"I would be most gratified to learn about the social environment of Nevermore Academy and its environs, Enid, Wednesday; please, do feel free to speak your minds.  I will not take umbrage, though I may challenge your conclusions.  I would additionally like to confirm that this institution holds to my standards of academic rigor.  And I would be remiss to fail to learn of the environs I shall be within for the next several semesters, I imagine; do please speak of Jericho."

She can carry her stuff around; the headmistress isn't going to stop her, but it's going to be a long walk. 

"Nice teeth!" Enid says. It's a sincere compliment, coming from her. She makes a playful scratching gesture with her left hand, multi-colored nails briefly transforming into multi-colored claws. "Jericho's full of conservative Christian normies, go there if you want to get food or clothes, but try not to get into any fights."

She looks significantly at Wednesday when she says this, who shrugs. 

"The joke is that there's the vampires, the werewolves, the gorgons, and the sirens, but most of the people here don't fall into one of those categories strictly. Mostly it determines where you eat lunch, because people tend to eat with people who eat the same stuff." 

Enid is happy to chatter and keep answering questions. 

Wednesday, for her part, looks at the huge bag.

"What's alive in there?" she asks. "Pugsly and I play a game where I stuff him in a sack and throw him in the river and then he almost drowns, but doesn't, and your box has that kind of heaviness."

This is the first time she's taken genuine interest in the proceedings. It's also clear she and Enid have different reasons to fail at being intimidated by the teeth. 

It is a good thing her bags have wheels and she's an endurance swimmer, then!

"Thank you, Enid."  She smiles at the girl, mugging shamelessly.

"Eyachk, Christians.  The absolute hypocrites.  I read their Bible once; it's entirely out of synch with their behavior.  I am ever-so-tempted to go and sing at them.

"Sadly, I have standards for my minions.  They hardly meet the quality I'd prefer, if they're so easily whipped into reactionary mobs.  Really, the modern evangelical has such a lack of class consciousness that if I flaunted a bit of my ill-gotten gains in front of them, I imagine they'd lick my boots without a lick of magic, and that's just sad.  They should be trying to cast me down, not worship me like that golden calf.  It's shameful.  An absolute disgrace to their position and profession.

"As for what's in my bag, dear Wednesday, I am ashamed to admit that all it is is a portion of my books.  Though some of them most certainly have a mind of their own, sometimes."

"Bianca is going to love you," Wednesday says. It's hard to tell how sincere she's being. "What kind of books, I like books and they're less likely to get me expelled."

While this is happening Ophelia is shown the classrooms, the stairs to the dorms, the greenhouse wing, though they're still making a bee-line for the courtyard.

"Magic, and fiction, and fictional magic - writers are so inspirational - as well as a few computer operating manuals.  ...It occurs to me that I have not introduced myself; please do pardon the lapse.  Ophelia Verdigris; it is a pleasure to have met both of you.  ...There is a greenhouse wing?  I'm not certain I processed that, nor its implications; I do so love to garden."

"It's mostly poisonous," Wednesday says. She sounds delighted about this. "There's a teacher there all the time, though, so I guess if you want to detour we can, but then you'd have to talk to her."

"Stop being so mean!" Enid says. "She's perfectly nice, she just isn't magical, so she has trouble relating to the students sometimes." 

This is going to devolve into Wednesday and Enid very maturely pulling faces at one another.

"Ladies, ladies, do consider: We all have trouble relating to eachother.  There are a thousand things I take for granted that you've never heard of, and I'm sure that's true from your perspective, as well.  There is just an obvious reason you can pin failures to relate upon, here, regardless of those failures'...I believe the term of art is 'proximate causes'.  That's hardly rigorous.

"This is not to say that I think you ought to like her, sight unseen, but that you might consider a purpose of her presence here.

"This is a school, after all; what better place than a school to learn how to communicate across seemingly insurmountable boundaries?"

And what sort of desperately tired woman would approve teaching that this way?

"I don't mind her. She's just weird in a normal way." Wednesday gets an odd expression on her face. "Let's go to the greenhouse next. Follow me."

Does she?

"I don't see why not."

She'll keep pace with Wednesday.

The green house is huge, like half the size of the gymnasium. There's an odd thrum to the air, like the space isn't quite like it might seem from the outside. 

There is in fact a youngish woman tending the plants. She seems nervous, but looks up when they come in. 

"Oh!" she says. "You're the new student."

The flicker of revulsion would be invisible to anyone else. 

"I am she, yes.  Ophelia Verdigris; a pleasure to meet you, Ms...?"

...Well, that's interesting.  And somewhat worrisome.  Perhaps enough to merit a closer investigation, even; thus, the handshake she presses, and the lingering gaze upon her face.

Truthfully, neither of those preparatory actions are necessary, but she is about to open herself up to the thrumming desires of the world around her; it helps to have hers fixed in mind beforehand.  She wants to know what this woman wants, in the deepest recesses of her heart and mind.  What brought her here, despite her terror and disgust, putting up that pleasant façade, day after day after day...

It is a fine, ancestral tradition she carries on, asking that; it dates back to Odysseus and other mythic figures.  The sirens know, you see; they know what you desperately crave, and you believe they will give it to you, if you listen to their song, if you obey, if you come closer to those jagged rocks bearing a thousand bones...

"Ms. Thornhill," the teacher says. The smile on her face is almost sincere. "I teach Botany here, and I'll be your dorm mother."

What she wants, more than anything, is for Nevermore to burn. The purity of that desire makes it hard to see the details of it. 

What the fuck?

...Her poker face is very good, but she almost drowns the woman right there.

"I see; I will, as some say, be in your care.  I'm curious, what's your favorite part of teaching Botany, here?  This is a very interesting school, after all."

And this conversation will give her time to fish for more details of her plot to commit arson(?)!

"Nowhere else have I seen such an appreciation for poisonous plants," she says. "As the only normie teacher, it's good to have a role despite that." 

Near the desire for arson is the desire to please... someone. Some authority figure. It's hard to tell.