Love lines

by Nixon, Diana

  Okay, her explanation doesn’t make me feel any better. I wonder if I’m the only person totally out of my senses in this room.

  “Wait a minute... Amanda, and how do you know about all of this?” I asked, looking at my friend suspiciously.

  She hesitates with the answer.

  “Eileen, do you remember I told you about the university, where Christian studies?”

  Yeah, there was something about Christian.

  “Are you saying that he is a student of Dever too?” I ask her again.

  “Well, yes. Actually, it was him and Alexis, who told me about this place.”

  Great, I’m the only insane loser here, after all. Looks like I fell unconscious too early. If I’d listened to the end of the rambling speech of Amanda, perhaps then, I wouldn’t have so many idiotic questions now.

  “I think it would be better if I answer all of your questions on the way to the airport,” interrupting my thoughts, said Alexis. “We’re about to miss our plane, which, by the way, takes off in forty five minutes.”

  Wait, what? Am I supposed to go with this strange woman? You must be kidding me, guys! I don’t even know where the hell she’s taking me! I look at Amanda who seems to be still nervous, but is definitely fully aware of the situation. Unlike her, I have no clue to what is going on around me. I start to think of some good excuse to stay away from all this crazy mess, when Alexis says:

  “Hurry up, girls! You don’t really want to walk to Dever, do you?”

  Amanda shoots me a warning look.

  “Don’t freak out, Eileen. It’s okay, we should go with her. It’s safe.”

  Really? I smile ironically to myself. Is this one of those times I shall just nod wordlessly and follow Amanda wherever she’s heading for? Apparently, yes. She knew I would never throw myself into something risky or unknown. And even better she knew how hard it was to make me do something I didn’t really want to do. But now she was there with me and I trusted her even more than I trusted myself.

  “Okay,” I said, rising from my couch.

  “You have two minutes, Eileen,” Alexis pointed to her watch.

  I ran into my room like a madman. The headache still tortured me. However, there was no time to pay attention to it. As it turned out, Amanda came to my place with her things already packed, so just from my house, we went straight to the airport.

  Alexis had managed to speak with my grandmother and tell her about my new place of studying. That surprised me a lot. Just a dozen of questions such as «what?» and «why?» remained unanswered. Not a big deal, huh?

  During our flight, Miss Wilde told us a little about the training in Dever, its faculties, and the annual examinations and tests.

  I was still in complete confusion by the events of today, therefore, it was quite difficult to follow Alexis’s words, and I still couldn’t believe that all that was happening to me. Amanda, to my surprise, took it all much easier and even asked her some more questions about Dever. Listening to their conversation, I didn’t notice how I fell asleep. I had a dream. Again.

  Here I am again, standing on the shore of the familiar lake. The water still attracts with its purity and transparency. Again, I kneel down to touch it, when suddenly someone’s hand stops me. Looking at it, I understand that it obviously belongs to a woman, and her touch seems very familiar. I raise my head to look at the stranger, but I don’t see anything except for a vague silhouette. I scrutinize the features, trying to recognize their owner. But suddenly I get distracted by a touch of another hand, the familiar one - I saw it in my previous dreams. As always this touch makes my heart beat faster and I feel all the same tingling sensation on my shoulder. And then... A sharp pain pierces my body. I can’t move, I can’t scream. My body and voice refuse to obey me. I can see how the two hands that were just touching me, are now firmly holding each other, fighting in a silent battle. A shining golden line goes out in the shade of heavy fog. The pain leaves my body, and with it - the familiar warmth and touch. I understand that I can feel again. But now I feel only emptiness and deep despair.

  I wake up crying, feeling burning tears on my cheeks and my hands trembling, as if from freezing cold. Nightmare, nightmare again...

  “Eileen, Eileen! It’s all right, you had a dream,” trying to reassure me, says Amanda.

  “Yes, just a dream,” I say in a barely audible voice. “Just a dream,” I repeat silently to myself, trying to calm down my furiously beating heart and restore my breathing.

  “How long have we been flying?” I ask Alexis.

  “We are almost there. You’ve slept for almost the entire flight. Amanda and I were just about to wake you up when you started to cry. Is everything all right, Eileen?” she asked anxiously.

  “Yes,” I said, thinking how good it was to be awake again. I didn’t want to fall asleep and see more nightmares. The echoes of emptiness and despair were still inside of me.

  Chapter 4. In expectation of the meeting (Christian)

  I was back in my room again. I wanted to talk to Alexis but she was gone. When I came to her office, Beatrice - her secretary, said that Alexis went to Norfield to accompany my sister and Eileen Clark on their way.

  The news that Eileen could be one of the Fairey family members was, to say the least, shocking. As far as I knew, the Fairey clan always extended only through the male line, and a woman could get the name of Fairey, only by marrying one of them. So it was with my mother. The only known exception to this rule was the birth of my sister Amanda.

  While Alexis was away, I decided to go to the library to read Neroma - a book of the history and family trees of all the founders of Dever. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything that could explain my assumptions concerning Eileen’s origin, so I returned to my room.

  I didn’t know Eileen well. Despite the fact that she was my sister’s best friend, we meet rarely. Before coming to Dever I spent most of the school year in France, in a private school, and on holidays I usually traveled together with my friends. Amanda and my parents often visited me in Paris, so I spent, maybe, two weeks per year in Norfield.

  Many times I had heard from Amanda about what a wonderful friend Eileen was. I also knew that she liked music and, again, according to Amanda, played the piano very beautiful. Since I liked playing myself, it was always interesting for me to meet people who shared my passion for music.

  And yet... Something about that girl, Eileen, a familiar stranger, fascinated me. Her bright, turquoise eyes, her radiant smile and the ringlets of her blond hair that seemed to be silk even in the photo. Looking at her picture, I felt some weird warmth and calm that in itself was quite strange, considering the fact that I saw Eileen just a few times in my life.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock. Hiding a photo in a book lying on the table, I opened the door. On the threshold was my... Don’t even know how better to say - a girlfriend? At least, Vanessa would call herself so.

  “Christian, darling, Beatrice asked me to tell you that your sister and Alexis may arrive at any moment. She is waiting for you in her office, so hurry up,” smiling sweetly, said Vanessa. “Sorry, I can’t meet Amanda with you, I need to be at the prefects meeting in ten minutes,” she added, chasing a light kiss on my lips before leaving.

  “Wonderful news!” I thought to myself, closing the door. I can’t say that I didn’t like Vanessa, no, rather she irritated me a little by her obsession.

  In my twenties I couldn’t remember a single case of serious, long-term relations. I was too focused on other things - my education, my desire to become one of the best Keepers, my determination to become Wizardy. In short, there wasn’t enough time for all this romantic nonsense. Of course, I visited some of the hundreds of Dever’s parties. Sometimes. All the students here had the right to live as they wanted, considering their being of age. We didn’t have a curfew; we could freely leave Dever, however, only when accompanied by one of the teachers. They never interfered in our private affairs. At least until such things didn’t th
reaten the security of Dever and other students. In general, the life of the locals wasn’t different from the life of ordinary people, except for the most important thing - the fact that nobody here was an ordinary person.

  Having changed the clothes, I left my room and went to the building of the University administration.

  Oh, as for Vanessa...

  We first met a few weeks ago, at one of those very parties. At that time, everybody gathered to celebrate the arrival of new students, one of whom was Vanessa herself. In fact, there was no particular time of students’ arrival to Dever, because we all couldn’t become eighteen at a certain day. But this fact was considered rather as a positive than a negative sign - greeting parties could be arranged for the whole year round. Officially the first day of the new academic year was the third of September.

  So that evening I was especially not in the mood because of the failed test in the eduction of supernatural abilities. Being one of the next Keepers I should be able to reveal the presence of people’s unusual talents. And this time I failed, what in a real life is simply unacceptable. Don’t think that I'm such a wonk, like most of Embry students. No. I’m just a very persevering person and for me to reach the intended goal is the same as to become an Olympic champion for a good sportsman. That's who I am.

  Fortunately I have a best friend named Evan.

  He and I are poles apart, even though in our desire to achieve anything we are definitely the same. To make my words more clear, I can only say one thing - Evan is a student of Wizardy. Besides his many talents, he is a cheerful person and a hopeless optimist. Nothing in his life can ever be bad. He is certainly different from me in this case. His favorite phrase is “I’m gonna rock the world!” Personally I use it rarely.

  So this very Evan became the one who made me go to the party that day. The attempt to take my absolutely disgusting mood out on the front door ended with the fact that the contents of Vanessa’s plastic cup, vaguely resembling red wine, spilled on her snow-white blouse. In order to fix somehow this time her bad mood, I gave her my best smile, and promised to wash away my guilt by the purchase of a new blouse.

  And so it began…

  First, there was a joint ride for the promised gift, then - lunch in a cafe, then - dinner at a restaurant, a couple of meaningless (at least to me) smiles and kisses and here we are - I pass for her boyfriend!

  Of course, I thought (like most guys) that Vanessa was beautiful. However, only outer beauty (which, by the way, was far from being natural, well, except for the eye color), was not enough to develop some deep feelings to her. Vanessa, thereby, didn’t hide her being in love with me and even more strongly, believed that I shared her feelings too. I didn’t want to disappoint and hurt her as it was quite silly. At this moment, therefore, I had to suffer from the consequences of what is usually called “relationship”. Though, recently it troubled me a lot.

  The building of the University administration was in the center of the campus. A large round clock hung over the entrance door, glancing at which, I realized that I had already been late for the meeting with my sister. Getting to the second floor, I knocked at the Alexis chamber’s door.

  As usual Beatrice was very charming. Like all the students of Dever, I always wondered how can a woman of her age (and there were disputes all over campus, about the number of decades she has lived, because it was a mystery for everyone) always managed to look so good.

  “Christian! Good to see you again.”

  “Good evening, Beatrice.”

  “Come to Alexis’s office. You'll have to wait a bit, because she decided to show the girls their room in a dormitory block first.”

  “Thank God! And I thought I had already been late. Amanda would be telling me off for a month for that!” I sighed with relief.

  As always, smiling warmly, Beatrice led me into the office.

  Alexis had been the head of Dever for a few years already. She was Wizardy, thus, she deserved the status of the most important person in the University. She was about thirty. But such a young age didn’t prevent her from managing Dever so brilliantly.

  Before my arrival, my distant relative Joseph Fairey was the principal of the University. Becoming the head of one of the Keepers League division in the U.S., he left the local post.

  As a rule, the members of the Keepers League were only the most honorable Faireys. And Joseph was one of them. There were dozens of discoveries in the field of magic and other supernatural powers on his account.

  Coming back to reality, I felt some unknown attraction, which made me look towards the door. Even without having seen who was behind it, I could feel her.

  Chapter 5. First impressions (Eileen)

  All the remained time before coming to Dever, I tried not to think about my latest nightmare. Amanda and Alexis did all their best to distract me from my sad thoughts, the shadows of which, judging by their hard efforts, were still on my face. I tried to participate in their conversation, make plans for the Friday party scheduled in honor of our arrival, and not to pay attention to the growing excitement inside of me. I was afraid whether I could fit in this new place, if I could join the new group of people and make new friends. Being aware of the extraordinary abilities of each of them, it was hard to imagine how all these people would accept my appearance. For some reason, Amanda’s arrival seemed to me more appropriate, considering her name and many relatives repeatedly crossing the threshold of Dever. I wasn’t very happy with the prospect of becoming “the black sheep”. I wasn’t happy at all. Something inside of me was screaming to get as far away from this place as possible. And, frankly, I was totally agree with that smart idea in my head. Maybe that's because of all these experiences, I was a little nauseated at that moment and my stomach was writhing with incredible pain.

  The familiar tingling on my shoulder added to all the above feelings.

  “I have to visit some local doctor,” I muttered irritably to myself, rubbing my shoulder.

  “Eileen, Amanda, take your documents from Beatrice and come to my office,” Alexis said, opening the door behind me, that I hadn’t noticed before.

  As soon as the door opened wider, the tingling on my shoulder became stronger. No, it couldn’t be called “pain”. Rather, something very pleasant, like being tickled. Without seeing the cahier of papers, which Beatrice had given me a minute earlier, I entered the room following Alexis and Amanda.

  “Ah, Christian, I missed you so much!” screamed my friend, happily throwing herself into the embrace of her beloved brother.

  “I'm glad to see you too, little sister,” smiling broadly, he said.

  “Christian, I hope you'll help the girls look around here?” asked Alexis. “I would be happy to help them myself, but a lot of work that had been left because of travel to Norfield is waiting.”

  “Of course. I’d be glad to show them everything here.”

  Only after these words, Christian turned to me and offered his hand.

  “Hi, Eileen. Good to see you again,” he said in a delightful velvet voice, which I seemed to have never heard before.

  “Hello, Christian,” I replied, offering my hand awkwardly in response.

  What happened next just couldn’t be explained in simple words. As our hands touched, I was shocked by an invisible electric discharge. The lacy lines of my dreams began to bind our added hands; because of this my heart skipped several beats, and the tingling on my shoulder turned into a feeling of warm and very gentle touch of someone's hand.

  Having decided that I must have lost my mind, I pulled down my hand quickly and hid it deep into my trousers’ pocket. Knowing that my face was glowing with crimson fire, I finally found some courage to raise my eyes to Christian. He seemed not to notice any of my movements, and still continued to hold his own hand raised, looking carefully at the place where only a moment before our palms touched.

  “Hmm... Christian, are you all right?” smiling at me mysteriously, asked Amanda.

  “What?” he asked in r
esponse, as if hadn’t heard the question.

  “I'm trying to say that your behavior scares me. And Eileen, too,” said Amanda jokingly. “You look like having seen a ghost!”

  Only later I realized that Christians’ response to our handshake wasn’t better than mine. And that fact really seemed more than strange. Still being in some unexplained shock, Christian finally looked into my eyes.

  “I’m fine,” he said, still keeping his unreadable eyes on me.

  “Once you are all right, can you arrange a campus tour for Eileen and me?” Amanda asked, taking his arm.

  “Of course, let’s go,” being himself again, answered Christian. I could swear I saw a glimpse of something secret in his eyes, but he managed to hide it successfully.

  I turned to the door first, so I couldn’t see what his face was like after his last words. But... I could feel - confusion, perplexity, surprise... And I was definitely sure that all those feelings were not mine, because my own confusion was gone a long time ago. And at that moment I was a reflection of the whole range of Christian’s feelings. No, it wasn’t just my assumption, I was sure about that. Just exactly like the fact that it was already late evening outside. I don’t know about you, but lack of sunlight and the street lights on indicate the arrival of late evening. That was more proof of the fact that I wasn’t losing my mind, that in itself could be considered as good news.

  While Christian took us round the campus, I lost myself in my own thoughts, and eventually also got lost in the literal sense of the word. I tripped over a rather large rock on the road and lost my balance. I was about to meet the stone face to face, when someone's hands stopped me just in time.

  “Hey, you should be more careful! We've got lots of mountains here and such trips may find you at every step,” said a strange young man, nodding emphatically toward the blow stone.

  “Thanks. Next time, I’ll be more careful,” I replied embarrassed, still feeling his hands on my waist. I stepped back and held out my hand to introduce myself: