He smiled down at me and in a flash of intuition, I knew he meant the one special place where no harm would come to us. Our place. The chapel in the woods.
“There’s only one problem, we’re stuck here.”
Just then my hand went numb. It was the strangest thing. I lifted it to inspect the poison I had forgotten to treat earlier and began to wonder if I should spend my free period with the nurse.
As if reading my mind, Garreth took my hand and gently rubbed his thumb over my palm. “This will have to wait.”
“What?”
“There’s nothing the nurse can do about this.”
“You know something about my hand?”
I turned it over again. It was just raised and red, like a big, gross welt, but Garreth knowing about it freaked me out a little.
“Just trust me. I’ll explain the best I can later.”
Just like that, the feeling in my hand came back, filling my palm with a electric tingling sensation. I opened and closed my fist and wiggled my fingers to rush the feeling back into them. I closed my fist again, knowing that one surefire cure would be to punch Ryan Jameson point-blank in the mouth.
No matter how hard I willed them to, the hands on the clock wouldn’t move any faster, and so I was stuck in history class, dying of boredom. Ms. Carlson was discussing the progression of war, which led into the topic of when World War Three may or may not occur, which led into the predictions of Nostradamus. Could he have predicted the fate of humanity? Did he have any inkling back in the seventeenth century that something dark was lurking on the horizon, something no one would believe was coming? I stared at the clock and gave up wishing.
It was at that precise moment that I felt the draft.
I turned my head to my left, my hot breath billowing out in front of me, as if the room had suddenly dropped twenty degrees. The boy at the neighboring desk, Seth Robards, stared at me with a blank look on his face, his brown eyes glassy and vacant. His mouth was hanging open slightly, but there was no breath. Each puff of air I released only exaggerated the absence of his. I forced myself to look away.
The classroom filled with a sudden, numbing silence.
The shuffling of papers, book pages turning, all came to screeching halt. Although everyone was still moving, their breath streaming out of their mouths, no one else noticed the chill. Ms. Carlson kept on talking but I couldn’t hear the words coming out of her mouth. All I could do was focus on her breath filling the air in front of her face. It was as if the room had become a vacuum. My intuition sparked to life and zeroed in on the only audible sound. It echoed in each corner and swiftly the room became hauntingly claustrophobic.
Everyone was oblivious to the horror only I seemed to know was coming. I felt the blood drain from my face as the noise grew louder. I looked from face to face.
Nothing. No one seemed to hear it but me.
There was a rustling of feathers, growing to a deafening roar for my ears alone. The room grew dark, as though a large slow-moving cloud was passing overhead, but no one noticed that either. I couldn’t explain what I was feeling. Fear definitely stirred inside me, and strangely, a small feeling of relief. Relief that if it was going to happen, then let it come.
Bring it on, Hadrian. Let’s get this over with!
I clenched my jawtightly as I began to absorb the tension building in the room. The cloud moved downward, positioning itself directly in front of my desk, looming larger, touching the ceiling.
It began to take shape. I could see its outline, rough leathery tips that were tattered and frayed, darker than any shade of black I was ever taught in art class. My mouth went dry. I couldn’t swallow. My head tilted upward, straining to see the formidable shape before me. The shadow made a graceful sweeping motion and landed squarely on my desk. I couldn’t suppress the bloodcurdling scream that ripped loose from my throat.
“Teagan?” Ms. Carlson’s voice broke the silence.
Her voice was different, softer, perhaps even a little scared, and something told me she was no longer lecturing on the aspects of war. It was safe to assume Nostradamus had exited the building quite some time ago.
I sat up, startled, focusing on each confused face staring at me.
Great, I am a freak.
The room felt overwhelmingly warm just then and I looked down at my desk and quickly wiped away a glistening smear of saliva with my sleeve.
“May I go to the nurse?”
“Of course you can. Let me get you a pass.” She was trying to remain calm and in charge of things but the edginess to her voice was giving her away.
As far as I knew, I had fallen asleep in class, but by the looks on the faces around me, a little more must have happened. I stole a glance at Seth who still appeared dazed.
I gathered my things, avoiding the snickers growing around me that were abruptly halted by the exaggerated clearing of Ms. Carlson’s throat. Garreth was right, I had to get out of here. My legs trudged heavily up the aisle, as if sliding through pudding, but thankfully, they led me to the large wooden desk at the front of the room. I took the piece of paper, flashed an apologetic smile, then stepped out into the hallway.
Garreth was already there, waiting for me, his blue eyes distraught and clouded with unspeakable fear.
“We have to go NOW.”
He handed me a yellow office slip marked “excused.” I had never seen him panic-stricken and immediately I was terrified. Had I done something to bring this on? I clearly remembered stating some sort of challenge in my dream, now that I knew it was a dream. Wasn’t it?
“How did you know I would be coming out of class?”
“There’s no time, we have to go.”
“But I had this dream, and…”
Garreth took a second to slow us down, placing his steady hands on my trembling shoulders.
“I’ll tell you when we get to the car. Trust me, it’ll be okay.” He protectively wrapped his arm around me, hurrying us to the main office. “Let me do the talking.”
He opened the heavy door, and I reluctantly followed.
I stood by his side, as quiet as I could will myself to be, while he impatiently tapped his finger on the long wooden counter until an irritated secretary came over.
She took the two passes Garreth handed her and looked at us both, long and suspiciously, then signed them and handed them back. I didn’t make eye contact with her, hoping she would take it as intense sorrow and take pity on me, therefore giving our early dismissal a sense of legitimacy.
We walked to the student parking lot as quickly as school rules would allow. Once inside the Jeep, I sat silently, praying the next words Garreth spoke would resemble something that made sense, but he was more silent than I. His hands gripped the wheel hard as he steered the car out of the school lot and onto the main road.
“Will you please tell me what that was all about?” I asked finally.
His eyes focused on the road, as though on a serious mission to get us far, far away from something. It was only when we were close to a line of trees I recognized that he took a deep breath and seemed more like the Garreth I knew.
“I knew Hadrian would be getting close, very soon too, but I wasn’t expecting this.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The closer he gets, the more he drains me and I have no way of sensing him anymore. But you can. Your dream wasn’t a dream. He was in that classroom with you.”
Okay, that didn’t just frighten me a little, it frightened me a lot.
“But, if you can’t tell where Hadrian is, then how come you were waiting outside my class, like you knew?”