The Shadow of a Dream

by Molly Lavenza

  Was it just chivalry, an explanation as to why he had dared to handle me without asking, when we hardly knew each other?

  No, I knew it was more. He was aware of what happened when I touched someone, but how?

  “Do you read fairy stories, Hope?”

  Instead of answering my question, he produced one of his own, and it took me off guard, as did the question itself.

  “You mean fairy tales? Of course I’ve read them. All kids do when they’re little, or they watch movies about them.”

  Declan leaned closer to me, a small smile on his lips that both annoyed me, as I waited impatiently for any answers he would offer, and beguiled me. I had never kissed anyone, and had never felt the desire to do so until he showed up.

  “Most of those stories aren’t true, but some of them are. Bits and pieces, at any rate. And you, Hope, are the star of your own.”

  The star of my own. Whatever he meant, he was wrong. I wasn’t the star of anything anywhere.

  “Once upon a time . . . don’t all of your stories start like that here?”

  I nodded, allowing him to continue without interrupting, hoping I would get some answers that actually made sense if I did.

  The door to our classroom opened suddenly, and a dark-haired girl I vaguely knew from a few classes we had together before stepped out, holding a yardstick. She turned to close the door and when she looked back, saw us together.

  Declan and I were both staring at her, and while I couldn’t imagine what he thought, I was hoping that she wouldn’t see us in the dim lighting and dust motes that floated around us. She pressed her lips together before covering her mouth and walking off. Was she laughing at us? At me?

  She could have gone back into the classroom and reported us, or she could go straight to the office and do the same thing. Or maybe she had to use the restroom bad enough that tattling wasn’t a priority.

  “I am not worthy to be here with you, and yet here I am. My memories don’t serve me well enough to make sense of it, but I am clear about one thing, and one thing only.”

  I squinted, as if my eyesight had anything to do with being completely lost. I had no idea what he was talking about, even less so than before.

  “I need to get you safely home. Your true home, for all of our sakes.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The girl who had left the classroom with the yardstick returned just then, noticeable only because she giggled as she opened the door. The teacher’s voice boomed, and I realized that she was close to the door.

  I had no idea what time it was, or if the class was ending. All I knew at that moment was that Declan was close to me, and the flash of my vision, of the two of us in the meadow and the sadness that emanated from his beautiful face, threatened to overwhelm me.

  HIs words made no sense, but it was clear that we had a future together, even if in that future he was leading me through somewhere peaceful and lovely to somewhere dangerous, where he claimed was certain death.

  “Hope! I marked you absent, and assumed you were ill. Is there a reason you’re out here with . . .?”

  A woman I remembered from one of the parent-teacher open house nights last year was calling my name, and I realized that she was our math teacher. I looked at her, but no words came when I attempted to gather my thoughts into some recognizable speech pattern.

  There was no excuse for what I was doing, with a boy she didn’t know yet, and as I was just about to admit exactly that, Declan spoke up.

  “Declan Foster, ma’am. I apologize for our failure to appear in class, but I was helping Hope with a difficulty and we didn’t want to interrupt class when it was soon to be over for the day.”

  The teacher, Mrs. Harper if I was reading her name badge correctly as it swayed on the end of a beaded lanyard between her breasts, blinked and frowned. I’m sure she wasn’t used to students speaking to her so politely and with so much self-assurance that wasn’t a front for insecurity.

  “Mr. Foster. You must be the new boy. I appreciate your explanation, but we don’t allow lurking in the halls for any reason. If you have a problem, or in Hope’s case, an illness, you need to go to the office. I suggest you both head in that direction, and I’ll let the office know that you missed today’s class.”

  Declan’s charm hadn’t worked on her as far as getting us out of trouble, but she didn’t seem angry. Instead, she gave him a thorough examination from head to toe as he smiled, fully aware that she was checking him out.

  My fists clenched tightly as I stood beside him, and I held back the nasty comments that came to mind. She was probably twice our age, and while it was true that Declan was incredibly attractive, she had no business looking at him like he was a piece of meat. Plenty of our classmates already had a handle on that.

  “Thank you. We’ll head to the office now, as you suggest.”

  His smile never faltered, even as I bit my lip to keep from saying something that would get me in more trouble than one day of afterschool detention.

  “Homework is online, so be sure to have it completed for class tomorrow. Since you’re new, perhaps you are unfamiliar with our online system. If you need any assistance, I’m happy to help.”

  I’ll bet you are, I thought, wishing I could grab Declan’s arm and pull him away. He offered her a small tilt of his head and turned to me.

  “Shall we?”

  His arm swept up and to the side, gesturing for me to step ahead of him. I couldn’t help but smile at the simple sweetness of it, leaving my annoyance and jealousy behind.

  Jealousy? I didn’t have to admit it to anyone but myself, so it was safe for me to consider that yes, watching Mrs. Harper flirt unashamedly and very inappropriately with Declan had stirred something startlingly similar to jealousy in my heart.

  My envious feelings had only extended to others in their ability to live normal lives, lives full of human contact and interaction. Not for one individual, and not because someone else was giving them attention in a very specific way.

  Not because I wanted that individual to focus solely on me and not on whoever it was who was taking that attention away.

  Convoluted thoughts raced through my head as I led Declan silently down the hall, towards the office, where he stopped me before I could open the door.

  “Hope, wait.”

  When I turned to ask him why, his hand was raised, his fingers inches from the tips of my hair. His eyes were full of something like admiration. How could anyone like my bland, flyaway hair?

  “Do you mind if we just accept the detentions? I need to talk to you privately, but not in school. Somewhere we won’t be overheard or interrupted.”

  I shrugged. There was nowhere else I spent my time except my house, and with my parents both at work when I returned from school each day, there would be time we could have alone there later. After detention, of course.

  Alone with a boy I just met this morning? Not a smart idea, I considered, but he had saved me from certain injury in the cafeteria, and had damaged his reputation by hanging out with me and dissing the popular girls.

  If he was some kind of stalker looking to kidnap me or worse, would he have gone to all this trouble to get me alone in the end? Not when he was doomed to apologize for leading me to someone who he feared would kill us both.

  Sighing, I nodded. What did I have to lose?

  He seemed to deflate a little, as if he had been holding his breath waiting for my response. No one ever waited for what I had to say, as I was so insignificant that my opinions didn’t matter. He reached around me to take the doorknob in hand and twist it, pulling the door open behind me and allowing me to walk in the room first.

  “Mr. Foster, Miss Lampers. I have two afterschool detention slips already written out for you. Mrs. Sheehan?”

  The vice principal stood in the doorway of his office, a little to the left of the general office entryway, and flapped a hand in the secretary’s direction. She narrowed her eyes at him, as if she was used to this gesture but
still didn’t like it, and stood up, picking up two small squares of paper that were on the edge of her desk.

  Both Declan and I held out our hand to accept the slips as she handed them to us, and Mr. C grunted.

  “I don’t want to see either of you two in here again, not for a long time. When I got the email from Mrs. Harper reporting you both as absent, I was disappointed that you had ignored my advice.”

  I kept my gaze forward, watching the secretary sit back down and tug the long bangs from her eyes. How did she put up with him? The pay couldn’t be that great, not to compensate for dealing with his attitude every day.

  “Coach Smith is in charge of detention today, and he’ll let me know if you ditch, so don’t even think about it.”

  Declan shifted his weight on his feet beside me, and I ventured a glance at his expression. Laughing was not an option, but I was close to it when I recognized his sardonic smile.

  “We wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

  His smile shifted with his gaze, and suddenly Declan’s genuine concern flashed in front of my vision. He was worried, that was clear, and I remembered the last words we shared in the hall by the math classroom.

  As soon as we were back in the hall and presumably headed towards our next class, I went ahead and asked what he probably wouldn’t answer, not when he had already explained that what he had to say was private. So private that he didn’t dare speak about it in school or anywhere with the possibility that others might hear or interrupt.

  “You said earlier that you needed to take me to my true home. What did you mean?”

  Declan stepped up so he was right beside me, our hands nearly brushing each other. There was a tension in his arm that made me sure he was holding back from doing just that, like he knew what happened when someone touched me, even if he hadn’t said so specifically. Only that it wouldn’t be good. How could he know this, though?

  “When we get to the home you know here I will explain everything. I know you must have questions, but honestly, we don’t have much time. I can always answer more of them once we search for the path to the realm.”

  Realm? Here was a new revelation to confuse me further.

  “Please, no more questions now. May I walk you to the house in which you live, after our last class today?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, knowing that I would say yes in spite of my better judgement, but Delcan continued speaking.

  “Don’t worry about the detentions. Someone else will be here to fulfill that commitment.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Someone else was going to serve my detention - and his?

  As far as I could see, no one had stepped up to volunteer for either position, so like so much of what Declan had said to me that day, I had no clue what he was talking about, so I decided to deal with the question rather than his statement.

  “Sure, I guess. You don’t have to be somewhere, or maybe call your parents to let them know where you’ll be?”

  He looked away, but I caught a glimpse of his smile and wondered what I had said that was so amusing. As far as my parents were concerned, I had to let them know where I was and what I was doing, but they were a little overprotective because I had always been so delicate, as they called it. Sick and sick of it, was more like it.

  “Before the day is done, you’ll know everything, and we’ll be on our way.”

  I sighed. At least I had a timeframe during which I could expect some answers, whether I understood them or not.

  We walked to my locker, where I was finally able to stash my mashed up shirt and yank a notebook and binder from the shelf. My messenger bag had been unceremoniously tossed on the floor of my locker rather than hung on a hook as I usually would have left it, so I had to bend down to slide my hand through the strap.

  Declan’s hand was close to my face, and when I looked up at him, I saw that his smile had evaporated, and his palm turned out as if to help me stand back up. There was no way I was going to touch him, and he had to know it, but he wanted me to.

  I had always been sorry that coming into physical contact caused me so much trauma, not to mention how my reactions had frightened those who touched me, but the lack of touch had also hurt me by forcing me to distance myself from everyone.

  Now, I saw how much it upset someone else, as Declan’s little boy pout showed itself when his gesture, intentional and yet clearly offered without a thought towards my difficulty, was silently refused.

  Leaning over to push myself back up with my forearms on my knees, I stood up and made myself face him, even though there was only a few inches between us. Why did it bother him so much, when we had only just met?

  I wondered if I should start taking notes, listing all of the questions I had for later, when we were finally alone. Would I honestly forget something?

  Suddenly, I became fully aware of how the events of the day had taken their toll on my already weary body. No matter what treatments, medications, or therapies doctors had put me through, the older I grew, the more tired I had become. The more the environment affected me, whether it was hives from breathing around fresh mown grass, or violent digestive reactions to dairy, red food dyes, and new foods every few months.

  Sometimes it was the laundry soap my mother used, and she would have to change it, although the one that gave me an eczema-like scratchy rash had been fine only weeks earlier.

  Overall, it was difficult to get through a full day without taking a nap, or at least resting horizontally for a couple of hours. Between headaches, itchy eyes, dry patches of skin, and recently, hair that fell out in clumps when I brushed it, I hardly felt like pushing myself for any reason.

  “Who is going to be sitting in our places for detention?” I managed to whisper, dispelling my overly self-absorbed thoughts as well as the tension between us. Declan rewarded my question with another smile, as his pout, which had been quite adorable, vanished.

  “Soon. I promise, you’ll know everything soon.”

  He turned and stepped to the side, allowing me to walk ahead half a step. We had fallen into a sort of groove, one that I could get used to, if I could just make it through the day. If my parents had their way, I’d be at home sitting in front of a computer with an online school, cutting me off from face to face interaction with anyone my age.

  With Corrie and Declan here now, I had at least two allies with whom I could face each day, if Declan was truly what he seemed. It was silly to think that, I knew then as I know now. Declan didn’t seem like anything but a mystery, one that he was soon to unravel, literally, before my eyes.

  THE REST OF THE SCHOOL day went as expected, with stares and giggles, fingers that pointed at us, and one teacher who attempted to split us up. Declan wasn’t having that, though. Two of the teachers had let us sit side by side without question, both apparently frazzled with first day stress, and by the time we ended up in their rooms they were done with classroom management efforts.

  Robbie and Delilah were holding hands across the aisle between their desks with no reprimand from the teacher who told Declan he had to sit two rows away and several seats in front of me.

  “Is this seating arrangement per your organizational process?” Declan spoke with his hand outstretched towards the couple, who weren’t just clinging to each other but twisting their fingers together and rubbing their thumbs along each other’s hands.

  “What did you just say?”

  The teacher was one I hadn’t had before, and while I’m sure he had heard of me and my difficulties, mostly through the warnings of other faculty members, he might have been newer to the school than the teachers we had been dealing with all day. Regardless, he had an air of superiority rather than overwhelm or despair, but Declan didn’t budge.

  “I don’t understand why this is allowed, but Hope and I aren’t able to sit beside each other, or in the same row together. There will be no touching between us, which I understand is actually part of school policy.”

  With a frown and a look that t
ook Declan in from his fashionably faded shoes up to his very serious and smirk-free expression, the teacher, whose name I still didn’t know, waved us both away with an incoherent word. Or two.

  Declan flashed a tiny grin my way and moved behind me to sit down, and I slid between two desks to take the one right in front of his. He still didn’t have paper, pencil, or notebook . . . zero school supplies, and sat straight, his hands folded together neatly on the desk.

  I sat sideways in mine so I could talk to him while everyone else settled down around us.

  “Have you always been this good at getting your way, or is it something new?”

  His smile faded and he looked down at his hands quickly before returning his gaze to mine. I wondered if I had said something wrong, in one of my few attempts at witticism.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered loudly, enough for a few girls sitting near us to lean towards him in an effort to find out what we were talking about. If they were waiting to hear something romantic or suggestive, they’d be in for the long haul. We couldn’t touch, and he knew it, as did everyone else, so what would be the point of that sort of talk?

  Besides, his answer was as evasive as most of the explanations I had managed to wrestle from him so far that day, and with so little time left before the end of classes, I figured I wouldn’t get more from him than I had so far. If he did walk me home as he seemed determined to do, we would have time alone together for me to ask for clarity.

  So much of what he had said made no sense, though, and I couldn’t see how he would explain most of it.

  “We will have quizzes every Friday, and possibly on Wednesday, if I feel like surprising you in the middle of the week. Just to keep you on your toes.”

  I twisted back around to face the front of the room and the teacher, who was enjoying the sound of his own voice so much that he really didn’t need any of us to pay him attention. He stood with his hands on his hips, rocking back and forth on the heels of his shiny black shoes. They reminded me of the shimmery patent leather shoes my mother had me wear back in elementary school that ended up scratched and scraped when I fell during visions.