by Tammy Turner
He kept listening.
“And then you started with your ghost stories and that
nonsense to Benjamin about my necklace.” Furious with herself for letting her emotions overwhelm her sanity, Alexandra now looked directly at him.
He did not look away.
“Why?” she asked, pondering the sympathy on his face.
“I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if you told me you’re not even really a teacher, and that you’re here on some kind of secret mission.” She gave a nervous laugh.
“Actually I am,” he answered calmly.
Alexandra heard faint whistles and shouts in the distance as the football team took to the field for afternoon practice.
“I have to go,” she declared suddenly, leaning away from Callahan. “I have a lot of homework.” She stood up from the bench.
“Alexandra, I only want to help you,” he insisted.
“Trust me. Please sit back down.”
Alexandra weighed her options. Stay or run? She had everything to gain by giving him a chance to explain. Why not? Nothing lately has made sense anyway.
Callahan took her trembling hand carefully and cupped it between his palms. His eyes squinted shut in concentration as his grasp held firm. Alexandra’s breathing calmed, and she studied the intensity of his face.
Opening his eyes, he said to her, “The cemetery behind campus—you were there?”
“Yesterday,” she fibbed, trying to hide her familiarity with the spot.
“There is a path behind the grand old church that you call Drake Hall. You and your friend Taylor know it well,” Callahan continued with his eyes closed, her palm clutched between his fingers. “But today you did not go with Taylor. You had to return to your car, and there was some sort of large dog lurking between the cars.”
“How did you know that?” she asked, alarmed. “Did you see me? Have you been following me?”
“So that’s how you got those scratches . . . and the bruises as well,” Callahan said, releasing Alexandra’s hand.
“Yes,” she answered meekly, an awareness growing within her that Callahan already knew.
“Don’t be afraid, Alexandra,” he said, trying to calm her. “You are a very special young woman.”
“I’m scared. Something feels wrong,” she confided.
“I don’t understand. How could you know all of that?”
She mournfully dabbed at a tear that had escaped her eye.
Staring into Callahan’s dark eyes, she asked, “Where’s Mr.
Frost? He’s not really out on a family emergency leave, either, is he?”
“He’s fine. Wonderful, in fact,” Callahan tried to assure her.
“You would say that even if you had him tied up in a basement somewhere,” Alexandra said emphatically.
“Is that where you really think he is?” Callahan asked playfully.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Probably not,” she reasoned.
A wry laugh escaped his lips.
“What’s so funny, Callahan? What am I supposed to think? For all I know, you’re planning to put me in there with him.”
Throwing back his head, he laughed louder.
She had stopped crying. Gritting her teeth, she glared at him. “Then what is the truth? Tell me the truth, or just go ahead and blindfold me. Trot me off to the basement with Mr. Frost.”
“The truth is that the home I am renting does not have a basement—not even a garage. Mr. Frost is entirely safe and quite content. He is enjoying an extended vacation.”
“Who told you that?” Alexandra insisted. “I don’t believe you.”
“He told me himself,” Callahan answered bluntly.
“Does he know about your colossal waste of his students’s time, telling ghost stories?” she asked in disbelief.
“It was his idea,” Callahan insisted.
Alexandra gasped. “That doesn’t sound like the Mr.
Frost I know.”
“Then perhaps you don’t know him,” he offered. “Not truly know him, I mean. Of course, you know what he allows you to know from his tales and lectures. How can you be sure anything he has ever told you about himself is true?”
Alexandra shook her head side to side. Her words fought past the growing lump in her throat. “Why have you come here, Callahan? Why Collinsworth? Why me?
Why now?”
Raising his eyes, he squinted at the lawn. Someone was coming their way.
“Hello there!” It was the short, round academy headmaster. He briskly approached with a sunken expression spread across his red face.
“Dr. Callahan, I hope your enthusiasm has not been dampened by this turn of events,” Headmaster Sullivan said, waving his arms toward Sumter Hall.
“It’s been an explosive introduction to your institution,”
Callahan joked. “But not to worry, my good man,” he said, patting Dr. Sullivan encouragingly on his shoulder. “Your students have at least proven how brazenly curious they are. There is no doubt about that.”
With his mood lifting, Dr. Sullivan smiled weakly and noticed Alexandra standing behind Callahan’s shoulder.
“Young lady,” he addressed her. She could see him taking notice of her disheveled appearance.
“This is Miss Alexandra Peyton,” Callahan said.
“I apologize, Miss Peyton,” the headmaster continued.
“Is there anything Nurse Connie can do for you?” Staring at her face, recognition crept into his eyes.
Shaking her head no, Alexandra lifted her book bag to her shoulder.
“You’re friends with Taylor Woodward, aren’t you?”
Dr. Sullivan asked her in an accusing tone.
“Yes,” she admitted and shied her eyes from his gaze.
She noticed that Callahan’s impatience matched her own.
“Does she have chemistry class during seventh period?”
the headmaster asked Alexandra.
“No, sir,” Alexandra answered. “She has history with Dr. Callahan. And me. She wasn’t anywhere near the chemistry lab. Not this time.”
“Not this time,” he repeated, nodding his head.
Turning back toward Callahan, he extended his arm to shake hands.
“I’m going to walk Alexandra to her car. She has had a long day,” Callahan explained.
“As have we all, sir!” Dr. Sullivan exclaimed, loosening his grip on Callahan’s hand. “Good day to you both, then.
Perhaps the firefighters will allow me to assess the damage inside,” he sighed wearily.
The headmaster departed uneasily, and the firefighters met him at the entrance. With a last brief glance back at the quad, Dr. Sullivan walked inside, shaking his head in disgust.
“Your friend Miss Woodward seems to have quite the reputation around here,” Callahan said.
“She likes attention, good or bad,” Alexandra
explained, while her fingers played nervously again with the pendant.
The familiar afternoon rumbling of distant thunderstorms reverberated faintly in the air. A stray cloud floated in front of the blazing sun.
“Do you ever get cold standing in her shadow?” he asked, gazing toward the cloud hanging above them.
But she did not answer, because she never thought of Taylor that way. Turning his eyes toward her, Callahan noticed her fingers entwined in the leather straps of her necklace. “Where did you get that?” he asked, reaching out to touch the medallion.
“What are you doing?” Alexandra said, recoiling at the unexpected gesture.
“I’m sorry,” Callahan said, dropping his hand.
“From my father,” she said and then hesitated. “It was a gift,” she told him.
“It suits you, Alexandra,” Callahan told her.
“Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.”
“No worries,” Callahan insisted, staring at the medallion. “Did your father tell you where he bought it?”
“He found
it, actually,” she confided, her back slumping against the bench. “And I’ve never gotten the chance to thank him.”
“What do you mean, Alexandra?” asked Callahan, a puzzled glint in his eyes.
“My father disappeared two years ago,” she said. She closed her eyes, remembering his face. “And then all of a sudden, a package shows up in the mail last week, with this medallion in it. It found its way to me after all that time.”
“My goodness,” he mused. “This case gets more bizarre by the moment.”
“Case?” she repeated the word and let go of the medallion. “You’re full of questions,” she accused Callahan, her eyes blazing. “Now how about some answers?” She pointed to his ring. “For instance, where did you get that?”
“I earned it,” he said, twisting the ring around his finger, and he leaned closer. “It’s more of a trophy, actually,” he admitted.
“What a coincidence,” Alexandra said, staring at the ring. “The two figures look so much alike.” Callahan slid his palm over her hand as it trembled against her knee.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Though mine is a copy of the original,” Callahan said, gazing at the medallion. “Have you ever heard the legend of the dragon king?”
“And of Princess Iselin?” she asked whispering the words.
“Ah ha,” Callahan said, nodding his head. “You have been a student assistant for Mr. Frost for a couple of years now?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“So you knew him better than most students?” Callahan asked.
“Well, I mean, he never told me anything personal. I don’t even know if he’s married or has kids or anything like that. But he did talk a lot about all the places he had been, all over the world. Who wouldn’t think that’s exciting?” she asked.
“He’s not married,” Callahan assured her. “Members are not allowed.”
“Pardon me?” she asked.
“He belongs to a . . . Well, how shall I put this?”
Callahan explained. “We are brothers.” Alexandra raised her eyebrows. “Brothers,” he continued, “in the sense that we are members of the Order of the Dragon King.”
Suddenly she pictured the magnolia tree on the hill
in the cemetery. Within the tree’s sturdy limbs, she saw a dark figure watching her. Gliding to the ground, he took a step toward her. Her cheeks began to sting with a blazing heat. Her eyes popped open to see Callahan’s deep-blue eyes staring back at her, and he cupped her hand tenderly.
“Alexandra?” he asked, gazing into her eyes and releasing her hand. “What did you see just now?”
“Him,” she sputtered.
“In the cemetery?” asked Callahan.
“Yes,” she said shaking. “How did you know?”
“I saw it, too,” Callahan explained.
“How? What do you mean?”
“Place your palm on top of mine and concentrate,”
he instructed, pulling her hands on top of his own.
“Concentrate,” he repeated, as she gripped his hand.
Blazing warmth tingled in her fingertips and spread quickly up her forearm, chasing furiously toward her heart.
An electric heat sparked through her nerves and spread over her body. The reality of Callahan and Collinsworth faded into nothing more than flickering images shrouded by a dense fog inside her head.
In her mind’s eye, Mr. Frost nodded at her from across a pub table. A soccer match played on a television screen behind his head, and a young waitress placed two tall, foaming pint glasses on the tabletop between them. From a pocket in his jacket, he pulled out photos of Collinsworth and the cemetery behind campus. Mr. Frost spread them across the table.
A hand extended from her body—or rather the body that she imagined. The hand had a dragon ring. The hand pulled the pictures closer and buried them in a briefcase resting on top of the table. The hand extended toward Mr.
Frost and shook his hand. Then Mr. Frost’s face evaporated into a thick fog.
Callahan slid his hand from Alexandra’s grip.
“Don’t go,” Alexandra whispered, her eyelids twitching.
As swiftly as the images had begun, the pictures flickering behind her eyes evaporated. The electric warmth running through her body retreated backward through her legs, chest, and arms, to the tips of her fingers. Rubbing her eyes, Alexandra recognized Callahan’s voice.
“Do you understand now?” Callahan asked, grinning.
“No,” she said, struggling to focus on his face. The bright afternoon light burned her eyes as if she had emerged from a deep, dark hole. Rubbing her pulsing temples, Alexandra felt tears pool in her burning eyes. She wiped away the drops running down her cheek with her sleeve.
“Alexandra, look at me,” she heard Callahan say gently.
“Callahan,” she stammered and obeyed.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said calmly.
Her wide eyes read the relief on his face. As she stared at the rugged face smiling back at her, Alexandra’s fear melted like the fog in her vision.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she croaked. “That was you, wasn’t it, with Mr. Frost?” She tried to stand up from the bench. But the sudden, seismic shift in her perception of reality rocked her body. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” she admitted to Callahan, so he reached to steady her shoulders as she swayed woozily.
“My dear, it is not a matter of whether you are ready for your destiny, but rather that your destiny is ready for you,” he advised.
“How did you do that?” she asked him, faint pieces of the puzzling images shooting through her head.
“I did not,” he said. “You did. I merely helped you see through the fog that has been shrouding your vision— your ability, I mean.”
Staring at him in disbelief, words of protest caught in her throat. She shook her head back and forth. Everything had changed. Her mind struggled to recover a semblance of faith in her understanding of the world swirling around her.
Alexandra stretched her arms out in front of her chest, palms facing the sky. Her palms looked they same as they had that morning and every other day of her life before then. But inside the tissue and bone, her palms still tingled.
She clenched her fists open and shut several times before the tingling finally faded away.
“Do you use it often?” she asked Callahan eagerly.
“Whenever you touch someone?”
“No, I can control it,” he assured her. “And even then, I often see more than I would like.”
“Does it have a name?” Alexandra asked, intrigued with the mystery.
“As a young man traveling through Romania, an old monk in a decaying monastery took confession from me and called it soul reading.”
Her eyes danced quizzically over her his rugged face.
She repeated his words: “Soul reader. Can I put that on my college applications?”
Callahan laughed.
“I’m serious, Callahan; the Ivy League is competitive!
Or have you already seen a vision of my future?” she asked, gasping. “I’m going to wind up at the International School of Skin, aren’t I?”
He shook his head no. “I cannot see the future—only the past as others have seen it and experienced it.”
“So it should work the same with me?”
“I can only assume so, Alexandra. I’ve met only a
handful of others like us—including your beloved Mr.
Frost, by the way.”
“No way!” she exclaimed. She raised her palms to her face, staring at them in disbelief. “This isn’t happening.”
“I said that my first time, too,” he consoled.
“Could Mr. Frost see my . . . my aura?” she stuttered.
“Oh yes,” Callahan assured her. “All members of the Order have certain keen abilities that help us with our hunting.”
“What are you hunting here?” Alexandra pressed.
“Has Mr. Frost been living a double l
ife the whole time?”
Her mind swooned with questions.
“Yes,” Callahan said looking into her eyes. “But he became afraid. He has rather sensitive psychic abilities and he saw . . .” Callahan faltered.
“What did he see?” Alexandra insisted.
“He couldn’t say for sure, but he knew that the Order needed to send a warrior for whatever was coming,”
Callahan explained.
“And that’s you?” she asked him.
“Yep,” he said, puffing out his chest.
“What does all of this have to do with me?” Alexandra insisted.
Callahan brushed his dark hair behind his ears and held Alexandra’s gaze. “The Order of the Dragon King works in secret. We hold ourselves responsible for a big task. That task involves locating, studying—and if need be, eradicating—supernatural activity that the modern world refuses to acknowledge.”
“That was a mouthful,” Alexandra agreed. “And you think there’s some sort of activity going on here at Collinsworth that you need to eradicate?”
“Yes,” he answered calmly. “I think you are being stalked.”
The growl of the mongrel in the parking lot echoed in Alexandra’s dazed mind. “The dog—” she started to say.
“Yes, maybe by him,” Callahan assented.
“I’m leaving,” Alexandra said, fearful, standing up from the bench.
“No,” he insisted and tugged at her hand. “Please.
Hear me out.”
Alexandra gripped the medallion tightly.
He began talking faster. “We call ourselves the Order of the Dragon King because a thousand years ago, a mortal man became immortal by drinking the blood of a dragon.
His people called him King Kraven, the dragon king. The Order is named for this legend.”
“Who’s stalking me?” Alexandra demanded.
“That man, King Kraven, has been walking the earth for a thousand years, looking for his lost love,” Callahan whispered. “You may be her, reincarnated.”
Alexandra felt the earth shift beneath her feet. She stared at Callahan in stunned silence. “My dear,” he said, grasping her sweaty palm. “You look like you have seen a ghost.”
