Wander Dust

by Michelle Warren

  Chapter 35: A Painful Silence

  Bishop is going to die.

  My world stops to a painful silence.

  I do what my entire being tells me not to. I take one last look at my mom, carving her perfect face into my memory. Then I roll myself over the edge of the balcony, letting go of everything that I ever wanted. My mom, the beautiful, serene woman in the chair, falls away from my view in an instant.

  Cece screams in disgust as though she knew this was coming. Her anger recedes as I drop through the pit in an uncontrolled free fall. Repositioning myself with my head falling first, I collapse my arms at my side. The position carries me swiftly through the air like a torpedo until I collide with Bishop and latch on to him.

  With the force of a meteor colliding with earth, we slam into a wormhole. This time we slide through, slowing our speed, and finally crash into water. We rebound off the bottom of the Academy’s pool.

  Just coherent enough, I pull Bishop up into the fresh air. With all the energy I have, I lift and float his face above the bloody surface.

  When I reach the shallow end of the pool, I place his head on the perimeter ledge. His lifeless body sags below the water. My face crumples, the bridge of my nose burns. Tears prick my eyes. I can’t fathom losing two people I care so much for in one day, even though I never truly had either. I rest my head against his chest, praying to hear a heartbeat. When my ear touches his body, he unexpectedly wraps his good arm around my back and tenses slightly.

  I exhale in relief, but I can’t hold it any longer. Tears drip down my bloodied face.

  “How?” He barely moves his lips to form the word.

  “How, what?”

  “Relic?”

  It’s enough for me to understand. We had no relics to wander with, only the useless gray robes and the sundial bracelet, which I opted not to use, just in case. I roll over and untie my robe, opening it just enough to show a small area of my stomach. His eyes roam my bare skin. He lifts his finger and lightly touches my belly ring.

  “I got it right before I moved here. The women who took my clothes missed it.” I look down at it. The skin, ripped and torn, is bleeding. “I forgot about it until I slid across the floor on my stomach, trying to grab the bracelet.” I close my drenched robe. Drained of energy, I collapse next to him on the floor.

  The front doors of the Academy clang open. A group of students rush in. The sound surges through the atrium. Voices trail off in all directions, but some rush toward us.

  “Oh, my God!” Sam’s voice shakes as she approaches.

  “Stand back.” Terease stalks in behind her; I recognize the sound of her boots. She drags Bishop from the pool.

  “Gabe, stop the paramedics from leaving!” Terease yells.

  Gabe flitters away in a panic, whimpering. Now in true time, fire trucks and ambulances stand by from when I pulled the fire alarm. Terease stands above, blocking the red and white lights that reflect in a kaleidoscope of colors on the glass ceiling.

  “Sera, tell me you still have the bracelet,” Terease asks as though it’s her only concern.

  I nod.

  She visibly relaxes. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “No,” I lie. I’m not sure if she knows what it even is, but I suspect she doesn’t. That’s fine because I’m not ready to tell anyone. I need time to wrap my own head around it. My mom is still alive; on true time, I think. There are so many questions that need to be answered. Why had I been lied to? Or perhaps, no one knew. Why is she in a wheelchair? She looks just like me. Why had she never looked for me?

  How can I even begin to explain to Mona or Ray? He doesn’t know anything about my new life. Maybe—for right now—it’s enough to know the secret…she lives.

  Paramedics rush in. One asks a question, but I can’t comprehend his words. Nearby, students swirl, turning into blurs. Their chatter mutates into a high-pitched buzz. Bishop is safe. I’m safe. My mom is alive. I hold on to her ageless image in my head. My eyes slide shut, gravitating into a haze of nothingness.

  •

  Someone strokes my forehead.

  “Finally,” Mona says. I’m only slightly more alert when her blurry face materializes.

  “You’ve been out for a while. Just a concussion and a few staples,” she says.

  “Thaz it?” I want to laugh, but I’m too doped up. “Where—staples?” The words drag out in a slur.

  “Your head. You took quite a spill.”

  “Bishop?” I mumble.

  “He’ll be fine. He’s in surgery for his arm right now.”

  I moan, remembering.

  I drift again to the buzzing of the hospital’s fluorescent lights.

  •

  A moment before I knock on the door, I fiddle with my outfit.

  “Come in,” Bishop’s velvety voice sings out.

  The door creaks, swinging open. We’ve been roommates for weeks, but this is the very first time I’ve seen Bishop’s room. A shade of peanut butter covers the walls. Books sit in tall stacks around the edges of the room creating mini-skyscrapers. When he called himself a bookworm, he wasn’t kidding. The item that surprises me most: a large professional camera. It sits on his desk next to a stack of photographs. I drift to them, ignoring him.

  “Why don’t you make yourself at home and have a look around,” he jokes.

  “Thanks,” I say, sifting through the prints comprised mostly of architecture. “They’re really good,” I offer. Then I walk to the wall, examining the framed photos. Stalling, I browse the books, the ones standing upright and on the bookshelves. His eyes follow my every step. I take my time, working up the nerve to look at him. After our encounter with the Underground, I became self-conscious around him. Finally, when there’s nothing else to look at, I meander to the chair next to his bed and sit. He’s laid up, still recovering.

  “How are you feeling?” My eyes search the floor.

  “I’d be better if you’d look at me."

  I want to. In fact, my eyes ache to see his. But now that he’s free of Perpetua, I don’t quite know how to act. My face warms with embarrassment. I realize it’s much easier to avoid him, rather than try to figure out how to be normal around him, which, as it turns out, is nearly impossible.

  Finally I give in, looking up at him from under my lashes.

  “Better,” he says, focusing on me.

  One side of my mouth curls. His eyes smile back as they always do. Bishop is much too handsome for his own good.

  “Sam said you wanted to talk.” My toes tense, and I lift my heels off the floor.

  “Yes, well, you’ve been so busy, we haven’t had time to chat.”

  “It’s Terease, she’s been interrogating me like a secret agent.”

  “Yes, I figured she would,” he says. “What I want to tell you is—thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t been the greatest Protector, have I? We go out wandering and nearly die, and you’re the one that has to save me!”

  “It was nothing.” I play with the cuff of my shirt.

  He places his good hand on my knee. I look up at him wistfully. “Sera—it was everything,” he says. “So, thank you. I hope I can make it up to you someday.”

  He squeezes my knee. “I’m sorry, Sera,” he says earnestly.

  “About?”

  “That you didn’t find your mum. I know how very disappointed you must feel.”

  I wasn’t positive until this moment that he hadn’t seen her for himself. With only part of her face revealed behind the hood and all of his fighting, how could he have noticed? After deliberating, I decide to keep the secret to myself. Not because I don’t want to tell him, but because I need more time to process the information.

  “It’s okay. Just wasn’t meant to be,” I say. His hand falls away, and I rub my palms down my jeans, wiping away the tingles that he unintentionally left there. “Not yet, anyway.” I look up, rolling my lips in onto themselve
s.

  “What’s become of the sundial bracelet?”

  “Terease took it for ‘safekeeping.’” My fingers form air quotes. “But it seemed more like a trade for my three weeks of expulsion.”

  “Only three weeks?” His eyebrows rise in surprise.

  “Yeah, I think she’s going soft.”

  His laugh fills the room. The warm sound delights me.

  “She sat me down, and we had a wonderful chat,” I joke.

  “And?”

  “And I received a fine lesson on the Underground.”

  He gives me a curious look. “What did she tell you?” He wants to compare notes, I guess.

  “They’re the bad guys, of course,” I joke, but then I become serious. “She said they’re the outcasts of our Society. They regard Cece as their queen, of sorts. She leads them to manipulate history in their favor, among other things. We have an entire group of Society agents dedicated to stopping them.”

  “That’s more than she told me. Knowing Cece’s their leader would have been helpful,” he amends. He’s probably thinking about how Francis tricked me into believing Cece and my mom were one in the same.

  “I guess learning about a gang of time manipulators isn’t something you learn about in the first few weeks of school, is it?” he asks.

  “No, in fact, she said they don’t normally discuss it until university. Time traveling is so much to deal with for new students, they’d rather not make the situation more complicated than it needs to be.”

  “Makes sense,” he offers, nodding his head in agreement and pursing his lips.

  “So, how are you feeling?” he asks.

  Instinctively, I touch my head. “The staples came out this morning. They were really starting to itch.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean.” He looks down at his cast in a sling. He grabs a pencil from his nightstand and shoves the eraser end inside his cast to scratch his arm.

  I laugh and relax a little.

  “And Bishop,” I squirm in my seat, “I want to say—that I’m sorry.”

  “About?” He looks up.

  “Perpetua.” I exhale. It’s the first time I’ve said her name to him. My face blushes with guilt. If I’m being honest with myself, I’m more than a little happy to have her out of the picture.

  “Don’t be.” He seems serious. “Actually, it’s come to my attention by a rather loud little birdie that you were under the impression that Perpetua and I were dating.”

  My mouth drops open, and I stare at him. “You—weren’t—dating?” Hadn’t one, rather tall, very loud, little birdie told me they were?

  “We had a date as friends, the night of Gabe’s party.”

  “A date…as friends,” I repeat. I’m going to kill Macey.

  “Yes, and I have to tell you, it was only because she begged me to go with her. I told her I would, only as friends, of course. But from then on, something seemed very off. Every single time she came around you, it nearly put me on edge, as though you were in danger. I guess you saw me arguing with her about it on a few occasions. I’m embarrassed about that. And I also felt leery of Stu.”

  “You knew all along?”

  “No. Not really. I mean, how could I ever have imagined that they posed a true threat? They’re just students, after all. I discussed it with Sam, but I think she was so enamored with Stu, she couldn’t see clearly either.”

  “I think Perpetua used me to get information about you.” He laughs at the thought. “Now that I see that she and Stu were connected with the Underground, I imagine she kept them well-informed of your whereabouts.”

  “Makes sense,” I consider. The gang showed up everywhere. When I think back, things always seemed a little off between Bishop and Perpetua. Now I understand, it’s because they were never really together. That’s why they didn’t act like a couple—they weren’t.

  “Anyway, I felt I needed to explain—about Perpetua.” He looks up apologetically.

  “No, you don’t have to explain. I mean—you should date whomever you want.” The conversation is taking an awkward turn. I squirm in my seat, staring at my hands.

  “Yes, I do.” He leans in close, and his eyes lock on mine. “I wanted to explain my actions in Venice.”

  Heat rushes through my body. We still haven’t discussed our almost-kiss.

  “I didn’t want you to think that I would have tried to kiss you if there were anyone else. I guess I understand why you took off. And it makes me like you even more.” He pauses in thought. “Unless—unless you took off for reasons other than Perpetua.”

  Lost, looking at his dark lashes, I realize he’s staring at me, waiting for some kind of hint. Is he actually asking me if I like him? I close my mouth. “Um—”

  “I guess I’m being absurd but, I’d like very much to take you on a proper date.”

  “A proper date?” I repeat.

  “Is that something you’d consider?”

  He’s being so formal; it’s confusing. All this time I swooned over him, believing his heart belonged to someone else. And all along, he really wanted me.

  My smile broadens, and I can’t control it. Quickly, I gather my emotions, attempting to play it cool. “Sure,” I say, not wanting to sound too excited. “But what about your arm, your bruises?”

  “They’re telling me I can move about in the next few days. How about a date this weekend coming up—like Friday?”

  “I think I have a meeting with Cece that night, I’ll have to check my schedule.”

  We laugh together.

  “So, it’s a yes, then?”

  “Yes.” I smile, and he takes my hand, wrapping his fingers around mine. A surge of energy washes through me as his thumb lightly brushes my skin. We both look at our hands, finally together.