The Pantheon

by Amy Leigh Strickland

  Zach knew that the thoughts running through his mind now made no sense. He was certifiable for even thinking it. It sounded crazy, but he had to say it. “I think I was the lightning.”

  “To love is nothing.”

  -Greek Proverb

  ii.

  It was a terrifying, pressing silence.

  All the birds, all the wind, every mayfly

  had ceased its throbbing chorus to abandon

  the innocent girl.

  She bundled saffron crocus for a bouquet

  as the sounds of earth were devoured by the void.

  The pulsing in her eardrums was thunderous,

  painful with quiet.

  He was around her before she saw his face.

  His breath was cold and stagnant against her neck.

  The fair girl shoved him away and tried to run.

  His chariot rose.

  The growing shadow of four coal-black horses

  engulfed her as she fell and rolled on the grass.

  His obsidian eyes burned into her heart,

  from his soft, fair face.

  Tired and scared, he looked on her with a mixture

  of confusion, of fear and adoration.

  The ground tore open and they were devoured.

  Consumed in the dark.

  “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

  -Aesop

  II.

  Dr. Celene Davis looked ill when she graced the office of Dr. Jason Livingstone that Monday morning. Her fair face was angular, with high cheekbones, cat-like dark eyes, and a thin, pointed nose. Her dark reddish-brown hair was always pinned tight on the top of her head. Despite her thick, brown glasses, Jason could see dark circles. She looked paler than usual.

  “What can I get for you, Dr. Davis?” Jason asked the biology teacher, the only other person in the school with a PhD besides himself and Dr. Philips, the school principal. Celene had previously worked for a pharmaceutical company, but left to spend more time with her daughter when her husband had died of lymph node cancer. She’d been here for six years, longer than Jason.

  “Aspirin,” she said, taking off her glasses and tucking one of the temples into the point of her v-neck collar so she could press her fingertips under her brow. “Woke up with a whopping headache.”

  “Are you staying hydrated?” he asked. From Jason’s experience with kids, headaches were either caused by sleep deprivation, dehydration, or general dislike of American History.

  “Always,” she said, pouring a glass of water while Jason went into his locked cabinet for medication.

  This was the extent of their contact. Once in a great while Celene would bump into him in the faculty lounge and they would exchange small talk. Generally she carried her own aspirin in her purse, but lately she’d been suffering a string of headaches and had run out. Jason didn’t get to know many of his coworkers. Mainly he got to know the kids with inhalers or other daily meds. He had a few hypochondriacs and a couple more frequent fighters who needed bandages and a detention slip.

  Celene took a pair of chalky white pills and chased them with a gulp of water. She turned and surveyed the room, needing a moment of quiet before going back to noisy halls. It was her planning period anyway. She had a moment to breathe. A moment to forget the dream that had kept her up all night.

  The curtained vinyl couches were full-up today. Celene scanned the faces. She didn’t recognize one girl with choppy Kool-Aid-colored hair. Zach Jacobs, on doctors orders, was sitting out of gym class for the week. He had his cell phone out and was playing a game, which nobody bothered to confiscate as he was their hometown hero.

  Laying in the dark, silent but alert, was another boy Celene recognized. Peter Hadley. He was in her B-block sophomore biology class. He was quiet and sometimes snippy with the other students. Peter’s class participation grade suffered because he always found ways to slither out of group work and do the assignment alone. Still, he was careful and articulate. He gave great attention to his lab work and great insights in his essays. His patience was noted. He observed everything, where as other students chatted and filled in numbers they accidentally missed with guesses.

  Celene was sure that he wasn’t ill, though it was hard to tell with his chalk-white skin and dark, sunken eyes. He had a pinched face marked with sharp cheekbones and lashes as black as his hair. The skinny boy could easily grow up to be dangerously handsome, but for now he looked underfed and under the weather. But this was his normal look, right? She assumed, and Jason knew, that Peter was just here to conveniently miss gym class.

  The door opened on the other end of the darkened resting room. A sliver of light came through the open door and backlit blonde hair, creating a halo effect as she stepped into the room. Celene immediately recognized the freshman girl as her daughter, Penny. She looked like her father, round-faced, blue-eyed. Celene would hardly have known Penny was hers if she hadn’t spent nine hours in labor with her.

  “Can I help you with something?” Jason asked from his reclaimed seat at his desk.

  “Actually, I’m here looking for my mom,” Penny said.

  “Something wrong?” Celene made sure to leave off the tempting “sweetie.”

  “I forgot my lunch.”

  Of course. “My purse is back at my classroom.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Livingstone,” Celene said, pointing to the capped bottle of aspirin on the counter. He nodded his reply and went back to looking at his reading.

  Penny turned and walked back out the door and Celene went to follow. In the dark, Celene saw Peter Hadley’s head turn and trail the girl. There was a glint of something behind that look, something she thought was longing, before he turned his head sharply back to the dark corner of the room and turned on his side.

  Celene hesitated in the doorway, glancing at his back and sharp shoulders, draped with a faded, baggy Black Sabbath t-shirt and barely moving with his slow, shallow breath. She didn’t like that look. It made her feel sick. But she supposed Penny was a teenager now and boys were going to look at her in lots of ways she wouldn’t like.

  Her eardrums thundered as the headache struck her anew. The aspirin hadn’t kicked in yet. Celene closed the door to the nurse’s office behind her and followed her daughter down the hall, her heart hammering.

  “I think I left it on the kitchen counter,” Penny said, unaware that anything was wrong.

  “Then you’ll be throwing away spoiled ham when you get home.”

  Penny wrinkled her nose. “Uck.”

  Celene unlocked her classroom and crossed to her desk. The classroom was at the east-facing side of the school and along the windows were potted plants of various genus and species to study under a microscope. Her own desk was covered in framed photos, a drinky bird, folders, papers, and wilting plants that had been neglected by their student caretakers.

  Celene took out her keys and unlocked the bottom desk drawer. As she did this, Penny leaned against her desk and played with the crinkled, dried leaves on a dead passion sprout. Celene dug into her purse and found two dollars.

  “Here you go. Forget your lunch again and I’ll let you go hungry until you get home.” It was an empty threat.

  “Thanks Mom.” Penny said. She shoved the money in the tiny fifth pocket on her jeans. “Gotta go. Study hall is almost over.”

  “You’re lucky I work here,” Celene said.

  Penny thought otherwise. The fourteen-year-old let the door swing shut loudly behind her as she rushed out into the hall, a blur of pink and black.

  Celene slid into her desk chair and pinched her brow. She retrieved her glasses from the collar of her shirt and slid them up her nose. Everything fell into sharper focus.

  She looked suddenly at the plant on her desk. The student in charge had let it become brown and shriveled and then furthered the injury by dropping it and cracking its pot. Now, this same plant was alive. It was five times the size that it had been when Celene had tried to re
scue it this morning and the once brown leaves were now velvety purple blending into the lush green stems. She would have noticed if it had been restored when she had entered the room, wouldn’t she?

  Celene glanced back at the door before sitting up and touching the crack in the pot to make sure it was really there. She remembered hearing Penny crumple the leaves. It had been dead before she touched it. This fact would have seemed impossible if Celene hadn’t seen it happen before.

  Penelope Davis took the same route home from school every day. She was a walker. She and her mother lived in the first floor apartment of a small house two miles from the school. The second floor was owned by an elderly widower who didn’t like noise but appreciated Celene Davis’ garden.

  Every day, without noticing, Penny passed by a cement abutment at the edge of a convenience store parking lot. Every day, more than noticing her, Peter Hadley sat on that abutment and waited.

  What Penny knew of Peter was this: the other kids thought he was weird. He had a tendency to look just to the left of someone rather than make eye contact and sometimes he laughed for no reason at all. He would stare off into space and when he was connected to the world of his peers he seemed to resent their foolishness. Despite his slight frame and easy to criticize appearance, he remained free from the abuse of bullies. Back in seventh grade he had been a target for a few weeks, but his tormentors had decided to move on to easier prey. Peter Hadley had become too dangerous to bother with when he started fighting back, ignoring the rules of macho man engagement. He bit. He went for the eyes. Once in a fist fight he had stabbed a soccer player with a ball point pen. He was too much trouble.

  Today, like every other day, he sat on that concrete ledge, listening to his beat-up, thrift store, portable CD player, staring at seemingly nothing and waiting.

  He saw the girl walk past him, dressed in a mix of styles. On one hand, her clothing seemed plucked from the inventory of a Goth wannabe store. The parts that made it unique, made it a style of her own, were the odd feminine touches. She was a Goth in pretty, soft colors. It was like seeing Darth Vader dressed in pink. And it worked for her.

  Every day she walked past him on her way home from school. Every day he wondered what her name was, who she was. Today he had new information. Today he’d seen her in Livingstone’s office. She was Dr. Davis’ daughter.

  He jumped to his feet, full of new life at the sight of her. He ran and slowed to a walk beside her. Peter suddenly remembered that he was terrible at talking to people-- girls especially.

  “Um... hi.” He slid his hands into his black denim pockets. Penelope stopped and looked at him. His heart beat faster.

  “Hi,” she responded in kind.

  “I’m Peter. I saw you in the nurse’s office today.”

  “Hi. I’m Penelope.”

  He just stood there, at a loss for what came next. He’d introduced himself. Peter wasn’t sure what followed in normal polite conversation. South of the Mason Dixon line it was a lot easier. Usually people talked about anything with absolute strangers. In the north, if a stranger was talking to you, he was pushing a political cause or planning to mug you. Florida didn’t exactly fit snuggly into either of these categories, despite its geography. For Peter, neither of these were comfortable choices anyway. North or South, he couldn’t say what came next. This was probably the time to tell her why he was even talking to her but if he said what he wanted to say next, she’d think he was crazy.

  He wanted to tell her about a man. There had been a mustached man following her around the school for days now. Peter knew no one else could see him. For some reason, he knew he wasn’t crazy. He had seen other people like this man before. They were usually lost or protective. This one looked like he had something very important to say.

  He looked at the man. The man looked back, frustrated. Penelope looked over her shoulder. All she could see were cars. There was nothing else there for him to be staring at.

  “So did you want something?” she finally asked.

  “Can I walk you home?” He returned his gaze to her sky blue eyes. The intensity in his own eyes scared her. They were so dark and his gaze was sharp. He was worried about something.

  “Uh... okay. I guess.” What harm was there in letting him walk with her?

  They started moving. Peter kept his hands in his pockets. Neither of them spoke for a while. Peter finally found something to say. “So your mom’s a science teacher?”

  “She is now. She used to do drug research.” Penelope picked a flower off a branch near the sidewalk. The magnolia tree clearly belonged to someone else. She took a moment to smell the blossom before she held it out to Peter. He smelled it and then he sneezed.

  “Bless you,” she chirped and tucked the flower in her headband.

  “So what does your dad do?”

  “He died when I was nine.”

  “Oh.” His eyes flickered to her right again. The man looked at her with sadness in his eyes. Those same sky blue eyes that Penny had. Peter was sure of whom he was now.

  Penny started up the steps to her apartment. When the door was open she turned around to say goodbye. It was one thing to let him walk her home, it was another to let him in her house.

  “So your dad... glasses? Mustache? Blonde?” Peter wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at that spot again. Penny stood frozen. She wasn’t sure if this was a joke. Peter nodded and looked back to Penny. “Is Sparky your mom?”

  Penny grabbed the door, pushed it shut, and ran up the landing stairs. Peter put his foot in the way and his shoulder into it to stop it from clicking shut. He ran into the strange apartment and grabbed her arm. “Wait, please. Just let me talk to him. I think it’s important.”

  “Get out of my house!” She pushed him off her. Penny hoped that if she screamed, the old man in the apartment upstairs would hear her.

  “He wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something wrong.” He grabbed her hand again. “He’s been following you for a week.”

  “You’ve been following me for a week?”

  “No, just watching when you walk by my spot. It’s not as creepy as you think.”

  “You just forced your way into my home and now you want to talk to my dead father! I’m sorry, it’s a little creepy!” She twisted her wrist, trying to get free.

  “Please,” Peter let go of her. He knew holding her there, making her feel trapped, was the worst way to gain her trust. “Ten minutes.”

  Penny’s light blue eyes traveled over Peter’s form, trying to assess him as a threat. He looked desperate. “Fine, then you get out or I’ll scream. The guy upstairs is home, he’ll call the police.” Penny watched him intently. What was he going to do?

  Peter looked to the right of her again. Her father stood next to her. He had thin black glasses and a fluffy mustache. To Peter he looked very real but he knew Mr. Davis was dead.

  “I’m Peter. I think I’m the only one who can see you.”

  “I’ve made that deduction myself,” he replied. “I’m Richard. You scared my little girl.”

  “I didn’t mean to... sir.” Peter could tell Penelope was starting to get anxious so he tried to speed things along. “Why are you here? Why are you following her?”

  “She needs to know she’s in danger. You are too.” He put his hand on Penelope’s shoulder. Peter wished, for her sake, that she could feel it.

  “How are we in trouble?” Now that Peter was part of this equation and not just an interpreter, the stakes were higher. He stepped closer. Penny stepped away.

  “You’re all in danger. They’re already here and when they realize that they need you, they’ll change their plan. You need to stop them before they use your own tricks against you.”

  “That’s not very specific!” Peter snapped.

  “It’s fire this time,” he said calmly. There was never much urgency for the dead. “But the others will follow. Forethought and afterthought are already here.”

  “Fire?”

  “T
ell Pooh Bear I miss her.” Mr. Davis was gone.

  “Shit.” Peter wished he’d gotten more.

  “Okay, so what? Is he still here?”

  Peter shook his head, “He had to warn us. Me. You. He said ‘all of you’.”

  Penny didn’t want to believe him but she couldn’t help it. She was so little when her father had died and part of her had always wished he’d just walk through the door one day, coming home from a long trip, and everything would be normal again.

  “About what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Fire. He wants you to know he misses you.”

  There was a long silence, a pause that stretched for eternity. She wasn’t kicking him out and he wasn’t leaving.

  “You believe me?” he asked after the quiet had gone on too long.

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “No, you shouldn’t.” Why did he suddenly resent her? He had never told anyone and he’d been seeing them for a year. Why did she tear down his guard without even trying?

  “But I do,” she said.

  He was shocked. “Why?”

  The doorknob turned before she had to answer that. Peter’s head snapped to look down the hall. Dr. Davis was home.

  “Penny,” she looked from her daughter to the boy. The sight of them alone together made her uncomfortable and Penny looked distressed. “Hello, Peter.”

  “Peter was just walking me home. There was... well I tripped and hurt my wrist so he carried my books.” She should have told Peter to get out. She shouldn’t have covered for him.

  “Are you okay?” Celene set her purse on the floor and examined Penelope’s wrist. It looked red, but from the struggle, not from falling. “We should get some ice on that and get it checked out.”