Rebirth: The Sacred Isle Series

by K. E. Miller

  Again, he didn’t acknowledge me. I thought about trying to start up a conversation, but decided it was better to let him be. I didn’t want to risk making things even more uncomfortable than they already were.

  ***

  The rest of the week flew by. Surprisingly everyone pretty much left me alone. Before I knew it, Jaden and I were locking up our room for break. We walked together to the parking lot, Jaden carrying three designer bags and pulling a large suitcase and me with only my small suitcase. We hugged goodbye and Jaden headed off toward her car. I carefully made my way across the parking lot towards staff parking. The lot was icy and the last thing I wanted was to slip and fall in front of the other students. It was bad enough that all the seniors I passed glared at me glacially. Students were speeding across the lot in their efforts to leave as quickly as possible, adding to the danger of the crossing.

  As I approached Andrew’s car, I saw him struggling to make his suitcase fit in his already full trunk.

  “Hey Drew!” I said in greeting, feeling no need to maintain the student/teacher wall we kept up while in the classroom.

  He waved as he continued to struggle with his suitcase.

  I threw my bag in the backseat before getting into the car.

  Andrew finally managed to shut the lid to the trunk and got into the car. We pulled out of the parking lot and drove through to the highway. The drive back to Salem wasn’t very long, but the scenery of the highway was boring.

  We drove in companionable silence. I knew it was only a matter of time before Andrew started questioning me about my social life, or lack of a social life.

  Less than an hour later, we pulled into the driveway of our house. It was a two story blue Victorian. It had probably been a very beautiful house in its prime, but now it was run down and Andrew didn’t have the time or money to fix it up. Most people wouldn’t want to set food inside, but I loved it. It was the only home I’d ever known and I never wanted it to change.

  ***

  My room was layered with a dusty film, but otherwise had remained just as I’d left it. It wasn’t a large room, but to me it was perfect. It was cozy with its built-in shelves and large window over-looking our quiet street. I unpacked my little suitcase and stomped down the stairs. I entered the kitchen to find Andrew heating up some canned soup.

  He poured some into a bowl for me and we sat down at the small kitchen table.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll have to go to the store and pick up some food tomorrow.”

  “That’s okay,” I replied. “This is pretty much how it goes every time we come home for break.”

  As we ate, Andrew fulfilled his parental responsibilities and made me more uncomfortable by the minute with his questioning. I was so grateful to have him in my life that I never really complained.

  After dinner, I cleaned up. I liked cleaning up after a meal. It gave me time to think without Andrew interrupting my thoughts. I also took the time to wipe down all the surfaces in the kitchen, since they hadn’t been cleaned since we’d last been home in August.

  I walked upstairs and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. As I walked to my room, I heard talking from inside Andrew’s room. I wasn’t one for eavesdropping but the tone of his voice caught my interest.

  “I know you have doubts, but I don’t,” I heard him say. “With all due respect, I’ve had sixteen years of first-hand experience to consider things and I think my opinion on the matter is the one that counts.”

  There was a long pause and I realized that he was talking to someone on the phone.

  “Well maybe if you put some effort into actually being involved you would be able to see it.”

  The irritation in Andrew’s voice was unusual for him. I wondered who he could be talking to.

  “If you’re unwilling to involve yourself then don’t blame me if things go badly.”

  After that I didn’t hear anything for a while so I quietly moved away from Andrew’s room and into my own. I closed my door and got into bed. I tried to fall asleep, but all I could think about was what I’d heard. It was hours before I was exhausted enough to finally drift off.

  ***

  The first few days of break passed quickly as Andrew and I prepared for Christmas. Christmas was by far my favorite holiday and the house was cheerful. Our joy grew when it began snowing just before sunset on Christmas Eve. We always hoped for a white Christmas.

  Christmas morning dawned clear and snow covered. My sock covered feet padded down the stairs and I turned the corner to the living room to see a fire glowing in the fireplace. I pulled the blanket I had wrapped around me tighter and settled in on the sofa.

  “Good morning!” Andrew boomed as he entered the living room with a plate of cinnamon rolls, hot from the oven.

  He sat down next to me and offered me a roll, which I eagerly took.

  “Good morning,” I replied, before taking a huge bite.

  “And the traditional Drew and Shay Christmas is underway,” he said with a smile. “Cinnamon roll breakfast in front of the fire while wearing pajamas, check.”

  I giggled.

  We didn’t celebrate the holiday the way most people did. We didn’t even exchange gifts. Our holiday consisted of weird traditions that had developed throughout my childhood. The next thing on the list was a marathon of the original Star Wars movies, which was followed by a dinner of homemade eggrolls, chicken fried rice, orange chicken, and Peking duck. How we’d developed the Chinese food tradition I couldn’t remember, but it was my favorite part of Christmas.

  During the movies, we laughed at who could remember the most lines and who made the most mistakes. I’d missed spending time like this with Andrew. Before he’d gotten his job at Ardara and had me transfer there, it had been like this every weekend. It didn’t upset me that Andrew wanted me to go to Ardara, it would look far better on my college applications, but I still missed how things used to be.

  When the time came to say goodnight, I was glad that we still had two weeks before the next semester. As I closed the door to my room and climbed into bed, I wondered what the next Christmas would be like with me in college.

  I fell asleep watching the falling snow outside my window. When I opened my eyes, my room was still dark. I rolled over to try and get comfortable again and froze.

  My door was cracked open. I distinctly remembered closing it before I’d gotten into bed. Slowly, I pushed the covers off and got out of bed. As I reached the door, I heard the floor creak down the hallway.

  I eased the door open and leaned out, looking towards the stairs. I stared out into the empty hallway, unable to go back to bed. I walked silently down the hallway, able to carefully avoid the creaks in the floorboards after years of practice.

  I tip-toed down the stairs, avoiding the third step since I knew it had the loudest creak anywhere in the house. I moved through the first floor of the house, unable to shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone. When I got to the kitchen, I sighed out loud.

  The house was empty apart from Andrew and myself. I was both relieved and shaken. There was no way Andrew would have left my door open and the creak I had heard had to have been made my something.

  I checked the back and front doors to make sure they were locked. I climbed the staircase and went back to my room, making sure my door was securely latched. Maybe I had imagined things and never really closed my door. Or maybe it had been a draft. After all it was an old house. Regardless, it took me a long time to fall back to sleep and when I finally did it wasn’t restful.

  Chapter 5

  Aaron

  I leaned against the wall next to the stairwell in the Student Dormitory. The three-week break between Fall and Spring semesters had left me with more questions than answers. I was even more uncertain than ever and I wondered if I would ever feel confident one way or the other.

  Over the break, I’d made frequent phone calls to Andrew in an attempt to convince him to take Shaylee and run. Instead of persu
ading him, he’d managed to convince me that they would be safer if I sat outside their house keeping watch. In the end I’d ended up being more concerned for his and Shaylee’s safety than with maintaining my distance.

  On Christmas, I’d even gone into the house in the middle of the night to speak with Andrew in person. Afterwards, I’d been gripped by the inescapable desire to check on Shaylee. She’d been sound asleep and perfectly safe.

  I was well aware that the situation was growing more complicated. It was already beyond anything I’d originally intended. The problem was that every time I tried to remove myself or get some distance from the situation, I ended up getting pulled further in.

  Jaden came through the door at the end of the hall and walked toward me. She stopped abruptly when she saw me.

  “Oh no,” she said, exasperatedly “What do you want?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “Just checking in.”

  “Really? You, Aaron Tremain, aren’t standing there waiting for me for a very specific reason?” She closed her eyes and added, “One that’s probably going to make me wish I hadn’t asked.”

  “How well you know me,” I said with a smile.

  I picked up her suitcase and began taking it up the stairs.

  “That’s the problem,” she replied, following me closely. “I don’t know you at all and to be honest the way you pretend to be one person to the rest of the school and someone else in private is creepy. I don’t know which one is the real you or whether or not it’s a huge mistake to trust you.”

  “That’s one of the things I like about you, Jaden. You always speak your mind.”

  “Yeah, well that gets me into more trouble than you know,” she replied, quietly.

  When we reached the third floor, I put her bag down and began climbing up to the fourth floor, where my room was.

  “Wait,” she said. “You haven’t told me why you were waiting.”

  I turned to see that she was staring at me as though I were a puzzle that needed solving.

  “I wanted to make sure you continued your exercises over break,” I said.

  Jaden rolled her eyes.

  “Of course, I did. That was the agreement, wasn’t it?” she replied.

  “Then I will expect significant improvement tomorrow morning,” I told her.

  “That’s really all you wanted? Why do you care so much?”

  “I really don’t think it’s safe to tell you anymore than you already know,” I said.

  “I don’t know anything,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “I think it’s only a matter of time before we have a full-scale Council investigation of this school and when that happens things are going to get ugly.”

  “I thought you worked for the Council.”

  “I do,” I replied. “Or I did. I don’t know anymore.”

  Her eyebrows rose and her eyes widened.

  “Look,” I began. “The Council is dangerous. They won’t hesitate to kill everyone in this school if it suits their purposes. We need to keep training.”

  She blinked once as she processed my words.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She turned and walked away. I stood there kicking myself for revealing more than I’d intended, but I was strangely impressed by how well she had taken it.

  ***

  The first morning back from break, Jaden and I ran through the woods and for the first time, she managed to keep up with me.

  “Well done,” I said, coming to a stop in front of the gym doors.

  “Thanks,” Jaden said, breathlessly.

  “Don’t be too proud,” I instructed. “It’s not enough that you match me. You must surpass me.”

  “Wow. Thanks for the confidence boost. You know I only Transitioned a few weeks ago. Why do you have to be such a jerk?” she replied.

  “You don’t understand,” I told her. “You have to be ready.”

  “Ready for the Council?” she asked. “If they come here there’s not going to be anything, I can do to stop them and you know it!”

  “No,” I agreed. “You won’t be able to stop them, but if you’re good enough you can get yourself and your human roommate out before they kill you both.”

  “Shaylee?” she gasped. “Why would they hurt her?”

  “Why would they spare her? They don’t have a good track record with humans and you know it,” I replied, not wanting to give anything away or suggest Andrew’s crazy prophecy.

  “If you wanted me to learn faster you should have said!” she shouted. “I don’t know why you’re so concerned about the Council coming here or what other secrets you’re keeping, but I’ve done everything you’ve asked so far so don’t blame me for not learning fast enough. I don’t even know why you care about helping me, because you won’t give me a straight answer.”

  “I’m sorry,” I replied. “You’re right. You’re making good progress. I promise that when the time is right, I’ll tell you what I know. I’m just not used to trusting people.”

  “Okay then,” she said. “Until you’re ready I’ll just keeping trusting you that this is really important and not something that I shouldn’t be involved in. Even though you put on this cold uncaring exterior, I can tell that underneath you’re a good person.”

  I could see from her expression that she meant what she said.

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about me in a very long time,” I told her.

  “That’s because it seems like you don’t care about anything or anyone but yourself. But I can tell, for whatever reason you care about my ability to protect myself and protecting this school from the Council.”

  “You’re right,” I said, realization dawning on me. “I do care.”

  “Why do you seem so surprised?” she asked.

  “Because I had very determinedly decided not to care and up until this very moment, I’d thought I was succeeding. The realization that I’ve cared this whole time, it’s actually a relief.”

  “And you caring about this, it’s a good thing. Right?”

  “I think it could be a very good thing,” I said with a smile.

  “Whoa!” She said with a laugh. “Enough with the happy smiling thing you’ve got going on. You’re scaring me.”

  ***

  I walked into Anatomy just before the bell rang. The very first thing I noticed was Shaylee reading over her notes the way she did nearly every morning. The second thing I noticed was a boy named Kevin Vincent sitting in my seat.

  I walked over to him and put as dark an expression as I could on my face when he saw me.

  “You’re in my seat,” I said, my voice a menacing growl. “Move.”

  “Mr. Tremain,” Mr. Downey said from behind me.

  I slowly turned and glared at Mr. Downey. He seemed to not notice my ire as the small sweaty man continued smiling at me.

  “I took the liberty of assigning you a new lab partner for this semester. If you’ll just take a seat over there, I’m sure Miss Parker won’t disappoint,” he said.

  “No,” I replied.

  “N…no?” he stuttered.

  “No, I will not sit over there. I’ve grown accustomed to my lab partner and do not want a different one.”

  My tone closed the conversation and Mr. Downey stared up at me, clearly unsure what to say. By the time I turned back to Keven, he had vacated my seat. I sat down and opened the notebook I’d borrowed from Jaden.

  I glanced at Shaylee who was overly focused on her notes. I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed by the whole situation, or as afraid of me as the others seemed to be. I took a deep breath, not giving myself any more time to doubt my decision.

  “Sorry about that,” I said to her. “I couldn’t let Downey stick you with someone who’ll be mean to you all semester.”

  “As opposed to someone who doesn’t speak to me at all or help me with the labs?” She replied.

  “You’re right,” I admitted. “I was a terribl
e lab partner last semester. I’ll be better. See? I even have a notebook.”

  I showed her my notebook and smiled proudly.

  “There’s still one problem,” she noted. “What are you going to write with?”

  Embarrassment washed over me as I realized that I had no pencil. I felt like an idiot. It was the first time in centuries that I actually cared about interacting with another person and I’d made a fool of myself.

  “Here,” she said, holding out a pencil. “You can keep it, since I’m pretty sure you don’t have any.”

  “It seems you have a pretty low opinion of me,” I said, taking the pencil.

  “Not too low,” she shrugged. “You did save me once.”

  She turned her attention to Mr. Downey, who had finally recovered enough to begin the lecture. I smiled to myself, please that I hadn’t completely ruined any chance of forming a good relationship with her.

  The moment Jaden had pointed out that I cared, it seemed as though the wall I had built around myself since the Exodus suddenly shattered and I could feel hope again for the first time. Even if this girl wasn’t who Andrew said she was, she was giving me hope, something I never expected to feel again.

  Andrew was right about one thing; I was never going to discover if the prophecy was true or not unless I got close to Shaylee. Even if she wasn’t the one everyone had been searching for all these years, she was special solely for the light she had introduced into my darkness and was in need of protection.

  I did my best to pay attention, wanting to redeem myself from my behavior the previous semester. No matter how hard I tried to focus on Mr. Downey, my thoughts kept returning to Shaylee. As the class dragged on, it became obvious to me that it didn’t matter if she was the one or not. I didn’t want to stay away from her any longer.