by C. S Luis
Brushing a finger across his brows, the stranger grabbed a paper towel, wiped his hands, then straightened his tie. His reflection flickered slightly, distorting his image for only a moment. Beyond hollow eyes and a skull of porcelain, a row of teeth formed in a hooded head in the mirror—his reflection staring back at him.
I nearly fell against the stall door and choked back a scream. My heart pounded in my chest. Had I really just seen that?
The lights above me flickered again, then stopped. A single ceiling lamp went out completely. I glanced up at it, terrified.
Oh, you've got to be kidding me, I thought, glaring up at the lamp. If it didn't fear the darkness, the light had been my only protection.
The whistling continued. I froze, trying to take control of myself, and when the tune abruptly stopped, I pressed my face again to the crack in the stall. Our eyes met in the mirror, and I jerked back against the toilet. There was no question he'd seen me. Of course he had.
Feeling both brave and stupid, I peeked through the stall again only to find the bathroom empty—at least, what little I could see of it.
“Boo.” A pair of dark blue eyes appeared on the other side of the slit in the stall door. I screamed and stumbled back again. A pipe burst above my head, and for a moment, I stood there, staring at the stall door and unable to move while the water sprinkled down on my head. But nothing happened, and when I finally shoved open the door and stepped out, there was no one there. I was completely alone again.
The light above the mirror flickered when I took a step forward. I stood now in the very spot where he had been. I didn't think I would ever forget his eyes and that clever, all-knowing grin.
The only reflection now staring back at me was my own. The light flickered again, and in the mirror, I saw him standing behind me in an open stall, fixing me with the same ill gaze. The lights went out completely, and I spun around to face him. My hands clutched the sink behind me as I pushed up against it. But he'd vanished again.
A small puddle had already formed inside the stall where I'd hidden, and the door swung open just a little more. The sound of the water spraying from the broken pipe kept me from going insane. I felt something staring at me from the darkness, quietly waiting.
Then the next bell rang. Startled, I snatched my backpack and rushed out into the hall.
I hurried toward a small, open balcony overlooking the first floor. Below me was the auditorium entrance, beside which was painted Go Buffaloes and a cartoon drawing of a buffalo puffing clouds of smoke from his nostrils.
There he was—the man in the black suit and red tie, standing against the railing. For some strange reason, I felt he was waiting for me. When his gaze met mine, it seemed to beckon me forward. A cold chill raced up the side of my arm as his vacant, dark blue eyes stared almost through me. Like a ghostly apparition, his lips parted slightly to whisper something I couldn't hear. Could no one else see this? He pointed a bony finger at me, and his eyes smiled and danced from that hollow, cold gaze.
'You… I've been looking for you.'
I backed away, falling into the paths of two other men coming down the hall. Terrified, I spun around, and for a moment, neither one of them said a word. The taller man, wearing a green sportscoat, managed a wave. He was a little hard to ignore as he towered in front of me.
His blond companion, the dead ringer for Ed Harris, smiled. “Finding your classes all right, Claudia? I'm sorry we didn't get the chance to introduce ourselves. I'm Mr. Claypool, and this is Mr. Vasquez. Are you all right?” Mr. Vasquez smiled warmly down at me.
I nodded, still trembling. I looked toward the railing, but the man in the black suit and red tie was gone. I tried to stop shaking, hoping they wouldn't ask any more questions; I didn't think I'd be able to say anything coherent.
I couldn't find any answer for him, though, and I wished I'd never had this vision. It was impossible now to shake the feeling that I wasn't supposed to have seen it at all. 'You… I've been looking for you…' he'd said. What did that mean?
“Don't hesitate to ask us for help, okay?” Mr. Claypool said. Mr. Vasquez gave a goofy nod, his head bobbing. His lips seemed to disappear beneath his thick mustache.
They didn't even seem to notice my wet hair and clothes until a few students rushed up to tell them the girl's bathroom was flooding. Then they returned their gazes to me, looking me up and down, and I saw them putting the pieces together.
“Ah, Claudia. Would you happen to know anything about this?”
I managed a half-guilty smile, and all three of us glanced down at the trail of wet footprints coming from the restroom.
* * *
Mr. Claypool and Mr. Vasquez ushered me into my grandfather's office. I looked around, losing myself in the awards and pictures on his wall. My grandfather stood by his desk, talking to Michael, and they both turned toward us when we entered.
“Hello again,” Michael said. I only smiled at him before he seemed to dismiss himself and headed toward the door. “I'll talk to you later, Neil.”
“Don't forget dinner at my house tonight. Mr. Claypool and Mr. Vasquez, you're both invited as well…” My grandfather frowned and squinted at me when he noticed my damp hair. Mr. Vasquez and Mr. Claypool both nodded a greeting to Michael as he passed us.
My grandfather's eyes flicked up to the men beside me, then back down to my head. “Why is your hair wet?”
“Sir, a pipe busted in the second-floor girl's restroom,” Mr. Vasquez spat out, sounding as if he'd been waiting a long time to say it. I looked down at my shoes.
“Are you all right?” my grandfather asked me, ignoring Mr. Vasquez's sudden outburst.
His concern surprised me, and I wondered if he knew something—if I'd given something away. I looked up at him and nodded.
“What happen?” he asked, and his frown deepened. This uncannily accurate empathy was always odd to anyone who didn't know the gift as we did. But we knew. We always knew. He knew I had seen something.
“I don't know…” I said. “I saw something… I really don't know.” I silently begged him not to ask again, still terrified of what would happen if I said it out loud.
“Sir, if I may,” Mr. Claypool said. “Those pipes are pretty old. Best they burst now so we can ask for money in the budget to repair the rest.”
My grandfather nodded; they didn't understand our inner pain. He knew the pipes were not an accident.
“I can take Claudia to the nurse's office,” Mr. Claypool added. “Mrs. Jenkins always keeps a spare pair of clothes in her office for such an emergency.”
“That's a good idea.” My grandfather stepped toward me and put a hand on my shoulder. I gazed into his sad, understanding eyes. “Are you sure you're okay?” he asked again. I nodded. He took a deep breath, then seemed to make a decision. “There's something I need to give you. Something we should talk about. Is that all right with you?”
I stared into his eyes, and his images flooded my mind. He held the crystal in his hand, which glowed red and sometimes blue—red for danger, blue for peace. The crystal cast emotion and warned of impending danger, like a strange, powerfully accurate mood ring. Any shadow, any presence, was quick to retreat from the crystal's light.
“Do you understand?” my grandfather said. He showed me that brief image again. I knew he wanted to give the crystal to me, but I also sensed that far more came with such a gesture than simply handing it to me.
“I think so,” I said. And now I was far more curious. “It keeps you safe?” I asked.
He nodded. “And it does far more than that. I will teach you how to use it. After school, we'll talk more.” He glanced again at Mr. Claypool standing behind me. “Please have Mrs. Wallace call the plumber,” he said. “Tell her to use my credit card.”
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Claypool replied, turning to leave. Mr. Vasquez waited for him by the door.
My grandfather turned to me once more before I left. “If you need anything, I'm right here. No matter how small. You
come see me, okay?”
I smiled, feeling the warmth of his heart spreading through my own. It seemed we both shared the connection for that brief moment. He was glowing. And I felt this was the happiness he'd ever been in his life.
Chapter 9:
High School Acquaintance
Mrs. Jenkins certainly kept quite a bit of spare clothes—old garments from students who had left them behind in the gym. She'd kept them in a donation box set up in the nurse's office.
After towel-drying my hair, I went through the items, but there was no way I was going to wear any of them. Some items seemed older than the seventies.
The bell rang again when I left the nurse's office. Mr. Vasquez and Mr. Claypool stood in the hall, and I tried to ignore them. They'd really failed at not looking so obvious.
The second bell sounded just as I entered my history class with Mr. Peterson, and I found a seat in the back. I hoped the teacher didn't call on me to introduce myself, seeing as I was the principal's granddaughter on her first day.
Mr. Peterson's glaring gaze never left me, even once I took my seat. He was filled with resentment, not toward me but my grandfather. 'Is she odd like her grandfather?' I heard him think. 'It's the lack of religion that's the problem. If I were in charge here, I'd make some changes… We need prayer, we need religion in school…'
His eyes drifted in the other direction, hushing the voices beginning to disrupt the classroom. Then he took to the chalkboard and added an assignment.
A few students glanced over at me, whispering. A mutter of voices chattered inside my ears.
'I bet she gets special treatment…'
'Since when did Dr. Edwards have a granddaughter?'
“Hey, you're Claudia Belle, aren't you?” A girl sitting in front of me spun around to face me. Her bouncy, curly brown hair fell over her square, dark-framed glasses. Caught by surprise, I didn't answer right away. Her words had interrupted and strangely silenced the voices almost immediately, and I couldn't focus on anything else but her.
“I'm Tina Watkins.” She offered a hand. I hesitated. Did people still shake hands? “I think that's so cool, you being related to the principal. I bet you can get away with a lot,” Tina exclaimed with a grin. A sigh of relief escaped my mouth. This was a fact I hadn't considered. “So, how do you like Milton so far?”
I found Tina curiously odd—a little overzealous. She seemed far more interested in me than what the teacher was writing on the chalkboard. Mr. Peterson cleared his throat then to to get her to turn around, but she only faced him briefly, wrinkling her nose at him in reply.
He glanced away when their eyes met, which I thought was more than a little strange. Then he turned again and continued writing his instructions.
“It's interesting…” I said, finally answering her question. “Different…”
“You don't know the half of it.” She giggled.
I tried to concentrate on the lesson, but it was hard when Tina wasn't the only other person not paying attention. A few girls on the other side of the class giggled, and I knew they were talking about me even before I glanced at them and they wrinkled their noses in my direction. Rachel Westcott—I caught her name in my thoughts. Ginger and Becky were the other two. They reminded me of a scene from Mean Girls.
Tina whirled back again to talk to me. “Don't let them bother you,” she said.
“They're not,” I replied, meeting her gaze. She smiled, her eyes flashed at me, and I dropped back in my seat, catching looks from the mean girls on the left and hearing their giggles. The lights above flickered. Not here, I pleaded, more giggles echoing from the side of the room. Please don't. Something popped above us, and Mr. Peterson stopped his lesson to turn and glance at the ceiling.
I exhaled. Breathe… Another pop sounded, then two more, and the light fixtures above Rachel and her friends sparked and completely went out, glass shattering down over their heads. I gasped, Rachel and her friends screamed and scattered away, and the other students scrambled to the edges of the classroom.
Tina laughed. When I turned forward again, she was the only other student still at her desk, flashing me a huge grin. Rachel glared at me, and I wondered if she really thought this was my fault.
The incident was accredited to faulty light fixtures. Most of the class period was spent watching the janitor remove both the light fixture and the mess of scattered glass. After a few more minutes of this, the bell rang above us.
I stepped out of the classroom with the rest of the students, Mr. Peterson now standing behind his desk and watching us leave. I only turned back when I noticed Tina slowly pass his desk and eyeball the man, slowly sweeping a finger along the edge of his desk. But it was the manner in which she did so that caught my attention; she used the sharp end of her fingernail to scratch the surface of the wood.
I hurried away. I had seen my share of students go rogue enough to know that she might be one of those. I thought the hall was too crowded with students for Tina to see me, but then she appeared at my side.
“Hey, what's your hurry?” she said, putting a hand on my arm to stop me, almost as if she knew quite fully I was trying desperately to escape her.
“I'm just getting to class,” I muttered, feeling pressed to justify myself.
“Oh, don't feel bad,” she said. “It's not like it was your fault.” She didn't leave my side.
“What do you mean?” I glared at her. Tina grinned wide, and I doubted she realized how much that creepy smile implied she knew otherwise. “Right…” I said. “It's not.” I didn't have time to explain why I was upset, if she'd even noticed it. But it seemed she didn't want an explanation at all. She was polite—strange, but polite nonetheless. And it wasn't like I had any friends anyways. Could I honestly afford to be picky?
“So, who do you have next?” Tina asked. I noticed Mr. Peterson staring back at us from the doorway of his classroom.
“What's his problem?” I asked. “He hasn't stop staring at me since I walked through the door.” Or, I wondered, was he troubled by Tina and now the fact that I'd made an unnatural alliance with her?
Tina laughed. “Oh, don't let him bother you. He's a religious fanatic. Probably thinks you're a demon or something and wants to exorcise you.”
“What?” I uttered, staring back at Mr. Peterson. He'd now taken a step through his classroom door and grabbed at the golden crucifix around his neck.
“I'm just kidding. That man is way bitter,” she said. “He thinks Dr. Edwards is the devil.”
“What? Why?” I exclaimed.
Tina rolled her eyes. “He thinks everyone's the devil. Ever since Dr. Edwards made him take the crucifix off the wall, he's been like that.”
“A crucifix? So I guess he still believes in prayer in school?” I asked.
“Something like that.” Tina grinned. “I think he thinks he's like Jesus Christ reborn.” She laughed again.
“Great,” I whispered. “Like I need any more problems.”
“Some teachers get so attached to their classrooms, you'd think they live there or something. And they think they can hang up all sorts of crap.” Tina shook her head, then glared back at Mr. Peterson. This sent the teacher fleeing back into the safety of his classroom. Maybe he really was crazy.
“So…” Tina turned back toward me. “Who do you have next?” She smiled, revealing a set of straight white teeth.
I tried not to let her disturbingly zealous smile overwhelm me. I looked down at my schedule card and found math with Mr. Thompson and PE on the list next. I had already missed my first two classes—English and Science.
“We should memorize each other's schedules,” she suggested with a full smile. It sounded a bit odd, but I figured there was no harm in it. I shrugged and showed her my card. “You have English with Mr. McClellan.” Tina frowned. “Oh, bummer.”
“Do you have him?” I asked, wondering why she seemed so disappointed. I had only met the man twice, and he seemed nice enough. He was a close friend of my gr
andfather's, that much I felt from the two of them, especially Mr. McClellan; he was far easier to read.
“Nah. I had him last year,” Tina said. “Now I have the old hag Mrs. Whitman. God, I hate her class.”
A few students passed us by, and she waved in a rather robotic way, as if she'd been programmed to do so. She seemed almost unreal in that moment—just as unreal as her smile, I realized. I wondered why she was so excited to talk to me. Could it be my status in this place as the principal's granddaughter? Or was it something else? I wasn't much for conversation with others, always having worked better on my own. Sometimes, I thought the distance I kept was what attracted others to me in the first place.
“Hey! What lunch period do you have?” Tina asked. I didn't answer right away, so she looked down at my card. “You have B lunch like me. We can sit together.” She said it without a hint of a question, like she either didn't think I'd say no or didn't care if I did. I smiled, nodding, unable to offer anything else. “Well, I got to get to class. I'll see you around. Don't be a stranger.” Then she was swept away by the crowd of students moving in the other direction.
I moved through the crowd alone.
After math class with Mr. Thompson, I walked down the hall towards the cafeteria and spotted my grandfather talking to one of the teachers. He was so happy; I felt his heart soaring. Then I saw an image of myself appear in his mind. I wanted to go to him—he wanted to have lunch with me—but an uneasy feeling pushed me the other direction. Afraid to bring any other strange feelings or ghostly figures into his day, too, I decided I'd stay away until we could talk later that night. He had news to tell me, I knew. He would teach me who I was and what my father had failed to tell me about our power. And about the danger.
Mr. Thomas, the security guard, and another Hispanic man in the same uniform came my way down the hall. The second man seemed to be shadowing Mr. Thomas for training, and they both waved back at me as I passed them.
