Chapter Fifty Five
I had no need to visit my locker since we had returned to school from the holiday break. And, I wouldn’t have needed to visit it now either if it weren’t for my Chemistry textbook. I needed to alleviate the fifty pound burden from my backpack. I had read the whole thing, but my teacher would question me if I left it in the classroom one more time.
It shouldn’t matter where my textbook was since I had already handed in two weeks worth of homework, but she gave me a suspiciously familiar look as I prepared to leave class today. So I grabbed the textbook and decided it could just hang out in my locker until the end of the semester.
My locker was on the opposite side of the school. This meant I had a long walk ahead of me. I was thinking about how much progress I had made with learning Ay’sha channels and dances. Two teachers meant twice the progress. It was amazing to consider that I had just started my lessons back in November. I could control my spirit light as long as my mind didn’t wander. I could even direct its flow with or without music playing provided my attention was fully focused on it. I had also learned how to direct a few basic spiritual channels. My favorite one involved surrounding Tray with a celestial energy that tickled him – called interminable laughter.
It was hilarious to watch my huge brother surrender to me in a tickle-submission for a change…
Tray still refuses to allow me to channel through a dance without him being directly behind me. I cautiously felt like I could control my essences and my spirit light. I hadn’t floated away since my first dancing experience, but it would take some time before my brother would trust that I wouldn’t exit the world via wingless flight.
The silver mist was definitely a part of me although I couldn’t blend it into my spirit light or channels. The silver mist remained locked deep inside my soul near my internal fire. I tried to stream it, but I simply couldn’t control it. I could still shred my spirit light, turn it into a ribbon dress, spin it and even make it dance. The silver mist refused to join it again.
We had researched through the Ay’sha lore and legends searching for some type of information about the silver mist, but there was no information on it. Rave permitted me to search through any Vaydem texts that were translated into English for a possible clue. I still couldn’t find any reference to it. I was obsessed with discovering something though and that made me riddle everyone with questions. They didn’t have any answers to give me, but I couldn’t seem to stop asking. Maybe I figured that eventually I would ask the ‘right’ question and it would jog their memory.
Although they were all very patient with my unending quest for answers they couldn’t provide, Celeste finally offered me something. I think she provided it more out of desperation than anything, but at that point I would take what I could get. She stated that it might be a combination of some type of elemental powers and spiritual essences. That seemed unlikely because Ay’sha skills are not element based. I had pestered Celeste relentlessly and I really needed to give her a break. After all, she had never seen it.
I decided to keep attempting to call the silver mist forward as I learned new skills and channels. Maybe, if I could get it to display in front of her, she might be able to tell me what it is.
I highly doubted that Tray would ever allow me to solo the dance again until we figured out what the silver mist is. That particular thought made me happy. Since Willow is my dance instructor – they were getting daily exposure to each other outside of the classroom. So my dance education had that added benefit. They both remained infuriatingly perplexing to me because they never provided the slightest hint if they liked each other as more than friends.
So Krista and I spent countless hours formulating plan after plan. It was obvious that I still desperately needed my best friend’s take on my brother and Willow’s relationship because I couldn’t figure it out. The biggest challenge we faced – we couldn’t seem to get my brother and Willow together outside of school. We were surrounded by a swarm of teenagers on campus and my best friend needed to observe them without interference. It was annoying, but we couldn’t seem to get them together.
I couldn’t just invite Krista over to the Jansens’ house because that would be rude. I didn’t live at Sunridge although sometimes it felt like I did. Willow had never stepped foot inside our house. But, that wasn’t from lack of invitations. I’d pestered, pleaded and practically did everything except outright beg to get her to come over, but she wouldn’t cooperate with my plans.
It was almost like she and Tray were in sinister cahoots. They would give me just a sliver of something that I thought I could run with, and then they would both cool off – usually by walking away in opposite directions. This was ‘double up’ bad for someone as unskilled as I am while trying to give Cupid some much needed assistance.
Stupid Cupid – never around when a girl needs him…
Well, it’s unfair to totally blame Cupid’s failure in this instance because he had some competition to contend with. Eli Weston had become a rather permanent fixture at our lunch table. His evident interest in Willow prompted him to hang around and be obnoxiously present in my reality. Poor me, poor Krista, we couldn’t explain our desire to boot him back to ‘perfect world’ unless we admitted to our other friends that we were trying to play matchmakers for Tray and Willow. I’m not even sure that particular revelation would have made them banish Eli anyway.
The guys at our table had been ripped to shreds by my ‘crazy-rude-‘tude-lecture’ incident. Jeff had even confided to me that he still wanted to date Krista, though his days as her love fool were fading fast. I adored his term love fool – it made me smile and he said it three times in that whispered conversation. Jeff promised to give everyone a chance before our posse socially annihilated them. He also swore to confer with me before they attacked. That would turn out to be a nasty double edged sword because I seriously doubted that the guys would go for my ‘banish-Eli-back-to-perfect-world’ plan just so I could get my brother the hook up. I think they actually liked being around him too – kind of popularity by association or something.
This meant I was forced to accept my new ‘Eli infested’ reality because I couldn’t change it. That didn’t mean I had to like it though. I obsessively thought about how I could make ‘perfect Eli’ banish himself or at least shut up for a few minutes and give me a break. Then, the Creator seemed bent on teaching me that I should only have nice, pure thoughts, because suddenly Eli would pop up everywhere I went.
I knew this was happening because Tray was my eternal shadow and Willow tended to follow him around. Still, it felt like some kind of cosmic punishment for my evil thoughts. No matter how hard I worked to please the Creator, I continued to think about giving Eli the boot from my existence. Needless to say I spent most days repeatedly apologizing to the Maker.
I figured that Willow would stop shadowing Tray after a few days. Although she always rode to school with us, she was extremely beautiful and already popular. So when she continued to shadow my brother around at school, I had a glimmer of hope that maybe sparks were going to fly between them. They remained totally (and irritatingly) unreadable to me.
I had to spin the combination three times before my locker finally gave in to my demands and unlocked. My attention had been entirely focused on my thoughts. I was still consumed inside my own world as I mindlessly yanked my Chemistry book out of my backpack. When I finally looked inside my locker I promptly dropped my textbook on the ground in disbelief.
My stolen C.D.’s were stacked neatly behind my portable C.D. player. I continued to stare at this impossible sight. The player had a sticky note attached to the front cover with a big smiley face on it. Some sweet thief had returned my stuff to me with a great big smile – huh????
I questioned all my friends about this loony turn of events because I couldn’t figure out how it happened, but everyone denied knowing anything about it. So I had no idea who re
turned my player and discs to my locker. At least that became my “obsession for the day” instead of Eli Weston.
The administrative staff was the only answer I could come up with although it seemed impossible. Why would some administrator pull out only my C.D. player and discs from my backpack? It didn’t make any sense at all. Plus, they were supposed to confiscate it and punish me. I eventually had to settle for that answer no matter how improbable. The office personnel were the only ones besides Krista and Tray that had the combination to my locker.
Ember Rising Light (Book One) Page 59
