I nodded and followed him back into the hallway where we had come from. The number of students had reduced significantly as they entered their different classrooms. Instead of trying to avoid eye contact with the students this time, I purposefully looked into their eyes. Blue eyes. All of them.
“Does everyone in this town have blue eyes?” I mumbled, passing another group of creatures that looked like demi-gods, all with the same, uniform icy-blue eyes.
“Something in the water maybe,” he shrugged. “It must be a bit strange to start a new school so close to graduation,” Bastian said.
“Um, yeah,” I replied as we walked passed a girl with long brown locks, a perfectly diamond shaped face, full lips and once again, blue eyes.
“Well, you can sit with us at lunch, and if you have any questions, just ask,” he said, grinning.
“Thank you,” I breathed. It would have been impossible to navigate the hallways on my own.
We reached a classroom door at the end of the hallway that turned at a right angle to another one, and Bastian poked his head into the classroom, motioning to someone. He backed away and stood next to me. “Gwenn will be able to help you around until your Latin class. No one else takes that.”
I nodded but hardly paid attention to him. I was looking instead at a tall, attractive girl walking out of the classroom. She had long curly hair, and her honey-brown skin was near-perfect and glowing, her round brown eyes warm and friendly.
“Oh my God, you actually have brown eyes,” I blurted. Gwenn cocked her head, narrowed her eyes at me and grinned.
“The new girl?” she said, glancing at Bastian.
“Sorry, I just—there are a lot of blue eyes in this school,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes at myself.
“Yeah, it’s almost as if they somehow got rid of any diversity isn’t it?” There was a twinkle in her eye. “They’ve been trying to get rid of me for years, but I just love it so much,” she gushed.
“Really?” Was Greyhaven not so bad after all?
“No, it’s horrible.” She laughed. “My parents ditched me here with my grandmother three years ago, and I’ve been trying to escape since.”
“You too, huh?” I grimaced. Gwenn had a distinct Southern accent; my best guess would be New Orleans.
“They’re not bad people,” she added hurriedly. “My dad’s a diplomat. He’s out in Egypt, and Mom didn’t want me to have to go to school there.” Just then the bell chimed. It was an actual bell.
“Will you take care of her until art class?” Bastian said hurriedly, looking at Gwenn.
I caught a quick glance at the students inside the classroom, chatting and oblivious to my presence.
“Yeah, of course. I’m a much better tour guide than Bastian is anyway.” Gwenn turned to me now.
Please let everyone be as nice as these two.
“Oh, yeah, before I forget, she has Latin after first period,” Bastian explained. “It’s in classroom 201.” He gave us both a quick wave and turned on his heel to go to whatever class he had.
“Latin?” Gwenn asked, surprised as she ushered me into the classroom filled with the babble of excited students. I was too distracted and nervous to explain my Latin class to Gwenn, so I just nodded. My eyes were fixed on all the people in the class. Some of the blue eyes stopped to stare at me while others didn’t bother to look up.
“Those desks over there,” Gwenn said, pointing to two free desks at the back of the classroom, which looked like it hadn’t been redecorated since 1703. I nodded and had started making my way there when I heard a loud laugh coming from my right. I turned and met a blond girl’s gaze. The blonde’s eyes glared into mine, and then she turned back to her friends and laughed. For a moment, I felt my cheeks flush, and I clenched my jaw.
You’ll never see any of these people again after you leave here. Which will hopefully be next week.
Gwenn must have seen my sudden discomfort because she stepped closer to where I had stopped in my tracks. “Just ignore Victoria. She’s doing it on purpose,” Gwenn whispered.
I frowned and nodded, continuing to the end of the classroom, which suddenly seemed like it was a mile away.
Besides the fact that our teacher looked like he had just graduated from high school himself, the class was uneventful. No one took any notice of me, not even Victoria, whom I threw a glance at halfway through the class. But she seemed engrossed in the lecture that I was very much unaware of. I knew I was in geography class, but that was as much as I had gleaned from the forty minutes.
As soon as the bell rang, Gwenn jumped up. “If you’re going to make it all the way to Latin, you have to leave now.” She threw me a quick smile.
I nodded, but before I could follow her out, Victoria stepped into the doorway, blocking my way.
“Emily, right?” she sneered.
I frowned and was about to reply when she reached for my shoulder. “You seem to be wearing something cheap and broken,” she said, smirking.
I glanced at my shoulder and noticed that one of the stitches on my sweater had unraveled, leaving a bare thread that Victoria pinched between two of her perfectly manicured fingers.
“Let me help you with this,” she said, pulling on it. The whole shoulder stitch started unraveling before I could yank away from her, making it even worse.
I was speechless as I examined my torn sleeve, which was literally hanging on a thread.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Emily. I thought I was helping. Not that anything in the world could improve that look.” She looked me up and down, smirking.
“Victoria, what the hell is wrong with you?” Gwenn said from behind Victoria.
Victoria didn’t reply. She turned out of the doorway, pushed past Gwenn, and started walking down the hall but not before turning and giving me a little wave.
“I-what-what the hell is wrong with her?” I gasped as I examined the damage. “What a bitch,” I whispered, my mouth unable to close.
“It’s like the word was made for her,” Gwenn muttered.
“I have to go home and change; there is no way I can walk around with a tattered sweater for the rest of the day.”
Gwenn immediately took off her black cardigan and handed it to me. “We seem to be the same size, take it,” she said simply.
“I—thank you,” I mumbled, numbly taking the black knit.
“You’ll have to run to catch your class,” she said as I dropped my bag and put the cardigan over the tattered sweater.
“How do I get there?” I asked, the panic bubbling in my stomach about being late on my first day.
“Well, you need to turn down this hallway until you reach the very last door on your left, that’s 201. I have to go, I have accounting, and my teacher is about as nice as Victoria. Don’t worry about her, she’s like that to everyone,” she explained, briefly walking backward, away from where I was standing.
“I—”
“I have to go, sorry,” she said, not turning back around to glance at me.
A few seconds later, the bell rang, and I realized that if someone found me standing here, I would most likely get into some sort of trouble, new student or not.
I ran to Latin and cursed myself for choosing it. I’d had to receive special permission in my last school to take it as a second language, and somehow it had become such a part of my life that when Kate told me over the phone that there was an actual Latin class in Greyhaven, it seemed like a natural decision to take it.
I finally reached the door at the end of the hallway and burst into the room.
Oh God, I’ve just bolted into someone’s private office.
A solid and polished mahogany desk stood in front of a large bay window looking out over the garden with two leather armchairs facing the desk. One of the chairs was occupied by someone with his back turned to me and holding up an antique book.
/> Just back out quietly, he hasn’t noticed you.
“You’re not lost,” he said in a level, almost bored tone. He still had his back to me, but a rush of familiarity hit my veins. Where have I heard that voice before?
“Um—,” Desperate to see his face, I was about to take a step forward, but before I could, the girl with long brown curls, who Bastian and I had passed earlier, appeared in the doorway.
“Evelyn Austen?” she asked, smiling. I nodded quickly glancing at the boy who still had his back turned to me. “You can call me Isabella. I usually never have two senior students that take Latin. Have you met Blake?” I gaped. Isabella looked my age, maybe even younger. How was she the Latin teacher?
“Um, no, I just got here,” I admitted when I realized I had just been staring at her with an open mouth. What was going on in this school? I thought about Kate and how even she could pass as a twenty-five-year-old, although she should have been well into her forties by now. I threw a quick glance at Blake’s back. He seemed transfixed on his book. A rush of familiarity struck me again.
“All right, let’s get started then, shall we? Please take a seat.” She pointed at the empty leather chair next to the other student.
Isabella walked past me toward her chair.
From the corner of my eye, I glanced at the other student. His thick black hair had a slight wave to it, and with his square jaw and deep-set crystal blue eyes he looked something like Marlon Brando from a Streetcar Named Desire, which Grace had made me watch at least once a year. His massive shoulders stood out under his black sweater. Look at me so I can see you. I know you, but from where? Had I met him? Had Mom ever brought me here? No, Blake would have been the same age as I was then; there was no way I would remember him.
Finally, after a few moments, Blake lowered his book and turned to look directly at me. I stopped breathing. I’d always heard stories about how a perfect stranger could take your breath away, how with just one single gaze, you would immediately want to be close to them, desperate to know them. I never believed that. I was the least romantic person I knew, but yet, when Blake’s icy blue eyes and dark gaze met mine, every inch of my skin seemed to tingle with a mixture of anxiety and elation. Suddenly, it felt like nothing outside the space that we were occupying existed anymore.
“Oh no,” Isabella’s cry broke our silent gaze. “I’ve forgotten the course work in the teachers’ lounge. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”
I glanced over at Blake again as Isabella left the room, but he had turned his gaze back to his book. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to see his eyes again.
I didn’t have the nerve to look in his direction in case he was looking at me, but I read the title of the book he was holding up instead. His hands were about twice the size of my childlike ones, and they gripped The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. I had read it, or at least tried. I had always been in love with the idea of reading all of the classics, but Anna Karenina and the book Blake was reading had both defeated me.
“Robert,” I mumbled under my breath, trying to remember the characters’ names.
“Cut sinners off with the sword,” he said, lifting his eyebrows and turning to meet my eyes. This time as I inhaled, and the smell of pine and cherry blossoms hit me.
I know you, and I know that smell. But from where? It was like one of those moments where you try desperately to remember the name of a film or a song that you’ve seen or hear a hundred times but simply cannot recall.
Stop staring at him, Evelyn, or at least blink or something. But Blake seemed as transfixed on me as I was on him. His eyes narrowed darkly, and suddenly, his placid expression turned into something less familiar.
“I’m Eve—”
“We don’t need to talk,” he replied dismissively, turning away from me.
I froze and clenched my jaw at his icy reaction and turned my head slowly to stare at the bookshelf behind Isabella’s desk.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” he added a second later and got up from the armchair. I frowned as he avoided my gaze and walked away from the armchairs and left the room just as Isabella walked in. I turned my head to face the bookshelf again as they spoke.
“I’m leaving. I won’t be taking Latin anymore after all,” I heard Blake say, his voice growing quieter. He had clearly not stopped walking away as he spoke. What just happened? I felt my mouth fall open.
“So, the curse of one Latin student a year continues it seems,” Isabella said, shrugging as she came into view. “Shall we get on with it?”
I didn’t have time to think about Victoria or Blake’s strange behavior during the class; Isabella was determined to figure out how far I was in my Latin course and to help me graduate. For the first time in a while, I was forced to concentrate on something that wasn’t my dead family or the fact that I was inexplicably attracted to a boy I didn’t even know and clearly didn’t want to know me.
About an hour later, Isabella smiled and said that I could go but to do as much reading as I could for our next class. As I walked out, I noticed someone leaning against the doorway to the right.
“Evelyn,” a voice rang out.
I turned to face Gwenn, who was smiling. She had come all the way here to wait for me. A slow smile curved my lips.
“We have to get to English literature,” Gwenn explained, pointing down the hallway.
“You didn’t have to come and get me,” I said as we walked away from room 201.
“I didn’t want you to get lost.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, finally free to think about Blake. Mom must have brought you here when you were little, too little to really remember, you probably met Blake then.
“Are you okay?” she asked as we walked down the hallway among the other students.
“Um, I just met someone—he was—it was weird,” I replied, feeling the anxiety of the situation crawl through my veins.
“You mean there was actually another person in Latin?” She grinned.
“For a whole minute before he ran out.” I lifted my brow. “Blake.” It was the first time I had said his name out loud.
“Blake Greyson?” she asked, gaping as she pointed at the classroom to our left.
“Um, yeah, I think so. Do you know him?”
“I’ll tell you later,” she whispered as we walked into the class where I spotted Victoria’s blond hair. I gritted my teeth and looked for a desk as far away from her as possible. Gwenn followed me. We sat down near the back, and I bent down to my bag to retrieve my book as everyone settled into their seats and waited for the teacher to arrive. But before she could, Victoria was on her feet and heading toward the front of the class.
“Hi, everyone. I just wanted to welcome our new girl, Emily,” she said, pointing at me now.
I froze in my seat and glared at Victoria. My breathing stopped as the entire classroom was bathed in silence; every student was now looking from Victoria to me.
“Also, I just wanted to let everyone know that she is taking clothing donations. Gwenn already gave her that awful cardigan, but it would be cruel to leave her with just that rag, so if any of you have something a little nicer—” But before Victoria could finish, our red-headed teacher walked in. She was a fierce looking woman in her early twenties complete with a severe bun and black horn-rimmed glasses. Victoria turned to smile at her.
“I was just welcoming the new student,” she said, pointing at me.
“Oh, right, well done, Victoria,” the teacher replied. “But let’s get on with the lesson, shall we?”
Victoria smiled and walked back to her desk. Before sitting down, she smirked at me. I felt as if someone had thrown icy water over me; no one had ever done this to me before. I suddenly thought of all the kids in my old school who were bullied, and I regretted not stepping in to help them. What was wrong with these people?
Throughout the entire class, I kept my eyes on the book that lay unopened on my desk. My thoughts bounced from frustration and anger at Victoria to the sorrow of being separated from my family and then finally to Blake. Trying to figure out where I knew him from and why I felt so attracted to someone I had never spoken to in my life was providing me with a delicious distraction, and I couldn’t help myself.
I glanced out the window, and my eyes met a dark sky. Mom must have brought me here, she must have. But why didn’t Kate say anything? She would have told me if I had been here and that I had met Blake. Maybe you’re just imagining things. Maybe he reminds you of someone. But who?
I spent the rest of the class daydreaming about him. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me or why I was so attracted to a complete and utter stranger, but the feeling of thinking about him was suddenly so addictive, I couldn’t stop. He wasn’t even nice to you. Okay, but maybe he’s shy. He ran out of class rather than talk to you. Yes, but maybe he had something else on his mind. Why would that have anything to do with you? Oh my God, what if it was you? That’s ridiculous, he doesn’t even know you. I was so consumed with my thoughts of trying to figure out who Blake was that I missed the bell ringing and only noticed the class was over as the other students got up and shuffled out of the classroom.
“Evelyn,” I heard Gwenn’s voice say. “Are you okay?”
I looked up at her and cocked my head to the side. “Have you ever met someone you think you know but can’t remember from where?”
“Um, I mean, I guess—maybe?” she replied as I gathered my books and placed them back in my bag.
“Who do you think you know?” We walked out of the empty classroom.
“That guy I met earlier in Latin, Blake. I just feel like I know him from somewhere,” I admitted.
“He is not someone you want to know, Evelyn,” she replied as we joined the students in the hallway. They all seemed to be going in the same direction. Everyone was so quiet and dignified. No one was shouting or laughing or even talking loudly. It was all so odd.
The Eternal Page 7
