Weaver

by John Abramowitz

  Chapter 1

  Monday, 7:25 a.m.

  Alex Cronlord trudged down the stairs of her family’s two-story house, yawning sleepily and rubbing at her eyes. Leave it to her body to sleep poorly and fitfully the night before her first day of school. Tenth grade. The first thing she saw was her father – or rather, his posterior, as he stood hunched over his briefcase near the front door to their house.

  “Honey!” he called loudly, in his chipper voice. “Have you seen my office key? I’m closing the Barov deal today and all the paperwork’s still in my office, being late would not look go – whoa!”

  He stopped in his tracks as he turned around, nearly colliding with Alex as he started walking toward their kitchen. “Hi, honey,” he beamed, gray eyes twinkling behind the rectangular glasses as he folded her in a tight hug. “Tenth grade, huh? Can you believe it? You’re practically a woman,” he chirped. “Do well at this, and you’ll have a corner office and a Mustang convertible in no time.”

  Alex outwardly laughed and inwardly sighed. This was typical of her father, to get this worked up about this development. He had gotten this excited about every development in her life since she was very young – from learning to ride a bike to starting kindergarten to surviving her first filling at the dentist’s office. As a young girl, Alex had found this endearing, but as she grew, she increasingly began to find it annoying.

  But of course she said none of this to him. “Office right next to yours?” she asked, her typical reply to his academic-related kudos.

  Her father smiled, the expression lending a bit of curvature to his square face. That was honestly how she thought of her father – very square. “I don’t think you’d want to be an insurance salesman, baby. It’s pretty frustrating work –” Here, he tilted his head to one side, “Especially when you can’t find your office keys! HONEY!” he called to Alex’s mother, who was presumably in the kitchen making breakfast.

  “I do your laundry and cook your meals,” came a rich, thrumming voice from the adjacent kitchen, as Ainsling Cronlord swept into the room. With a frame that was curvy while staying just shy of overweight, Alex’s mother was a much more commanding physical presence than her father, who was slightly taller, but lanky. Whereas her father had a chipper, exuberant personality, her mother simply radiated unspoken authority wherever she went. Her green eyes narrowed beneath the aquiline brow as she completed her thought, “Why on Earth should I keep track of your keys, too?”

  Alex’s father shrunk back a bit from the unspoken power in her mother’s voice. “…Err,” he replied, somewhat meekly. “I’m just stressed, that’s all.”

  Ainsling nodded curtly, then turned a serious expression on her daughter. “Alex, dear, go eat your breakfast.”

  Alex nodded and walked past her mother into the kitchen. She could hear their two voices continue to talk as she sat down to a plate of French toast, though she could not discern any words. Thus went the perpetual tug of war between her parents -- her mother sometimes found her father’s perpetual optimism and energy irritating, and felt that he needed to be more down-to-earth with a greater sense of personal responsibility; her father, meanwhile, sometimes felt that Ainsling was overly joyless and did not give him sufficient credit for his accomplishments.

  And yet, despite their frequent minor (and occasional major) disagreements, the two invariably found their way back to what appeared, to Alex, to be a loving relationship that benefitted them both. Alex chuckled slightly to herself around a bite of French toast drenched in maple syrup, and wondered if her own married life would be such a rollercoaster.

  “Alex?” came her mother’s voice from the kitchen counter behind her, interrupting her thoughts. Alex turned with a start – she had not heard Ainsling re-enter the room.

  “Hmm?” Alex asked, eyes still wide from her surprise.

  “Are you feeling all right, dear? Ainsling asked, in her rich tones. “You don’t look well.”

  “Huh? Oh,” she answered, realizing that her mother was referring to the bags under Alex’s eyes and the slightly pale tint to her skin. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”

  “Oh really?” Ainsling asked, raising the eyebrow over one of her piercing green eyes as she regarded Alex curiously.

  Alex did not answer for a moment, sure that her mother was going to suggest that it was mere anxiety about starting tenth grade, and then tell Alex that it was nothing to worry about, and she’d do fine.

  But Ainsling did not.

  “Alex?” she snapped, after a few seconds silence. “You know it’s rude not to answer someone when they speak to you. I asked you a question!”

  Alex shrugged it off, cringing inwardly at the rebuke. “Just… bad dreams, that’s all.”

  She started to turn back to her French toast. While she’d always admired her mother’s ability to exude authority, it had always made Ainsling a source of greater fear for Alex than her more easy-going father.

  But Ainsling still was not finished. “Oh really?” she asked, leaning over the counter, putting her elbow on it and propping her chin in her hand. “Dreams about what?”

  Alex truly did not feel like discussing her sleeping problems with her mother. “I – I don’t remember, okay?” she asked, irritated by her mother’s persistence.

  The eyebrow went up again, and an incredulous expression came over her mother’s features. “You had frightening dreams and you don’t remember what they were about?”

  “I didn’t say frightening, I said ‘bad,’” Alex answered, surprised that her mother had not upbraided her for her tone. “I just… I dreamed I showed up to my first class without clothes on,” she told her mother, and then, for extra flair, added, “And spent the whole period sitting at my desk waiting for someone to notice.”

  Ainsling gave her daughter a long, skeptical look. Then, finally, she shrugged, waving a hand in the air dismissively. “So you’re nervous about starting school. Stop being silly. Go in, work hard, and you’ll be fine.”

  Alex nodded, turning back to her food at last. This was closer to the response she expected from her tough-love mother. When she finished eating moments later, she grabbed her backpack, and headed off to school.

  --

  Ainsling Cronlord went at once to her phone, as soon as Alex and her husband were out of the house. She picked it up, poised a finger like a claw over the touchpad to dial. There was a strange feeling in her throat, in the pit of her stomach – excitement, certainly. The moment she’d long expected had arrived! But also a sort of sadness, or at least regret. What this would do to Alex….

  And yet this did not stop her, nor did it delay her for even a fraction of a second as she began to dial the number, put the receiver to her ear. Too much was at stake, she reminded herself, and too many people had given up too much, to let some silly sentimentality get in the way. She was amazed that she even had such feelings – there was no reason to, she reminded herself. She swallowed, quashing those feelings down as she did so. By the time the phone stopped ringing, they were gone.

  “Switchboard,” came a clipped voice from the other end of the phone.

  “Yes, this is Ainsling Cronlord to speak to Dr. Rickston, please.”

  “May I tell him what this is regarding?” asked the monotone voice.

  Aisnling hesitated ever so slightly, before delivering the long-anticipated news. “Tell him I believe we’ve just had First Instance.”

  That ended the talk. “Please hold….”

  --

  7:50 a.m.

  Alex arrived at school just shy of eight o’clock. Like all the other students, she stood outside in the yard, since the school did not open its doors until eight a.m. sharp. Several of her friends passed her and waved as they headed toward the larger clumps of kids engaged in animated conversation. Alex waved back, smiling, as the light early morning breeze played with her long, blonde locks.

  She stopped well shy of the large groups of congregating students. A
lex had never been the most extroverted person, and her current tiredness made her even more reticent than usual. She tended to get lost in big groups, and she hated that feeling. So instead she leaned back against the fence and stood there, pulling her jean jacket tighter around herself as the breeze picked up.

  It’s August, she thought. What gives?

  “What up, girl?” came a familiar voice from behind her. Alex beamed as she turned and saw Tyler Emmonds coming up the yard behind her. He held up his dark-skinned fist in their usual greeting, and she bumped her own against it.

  “Hey, Tyler,” she grinned at him, her mood instantly lifting. Ever the jokester, Tyler was far more extroverted than she, and the two had struck up a fast friendship in early junior high which had endured since then. Classmates had often suggested (some teasingly, others not) that the two should date, but there had never been any chemistry between them.

  “You don’t sound so hot,” Tyler said. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Alex answered, less-than-convincingly, “Just….”

  “Your mom causin’ you problems again?” Tyler asked her, raising an eyebrow knowingly.

  “Little bit,” Alex replied, laughing at how easily he’d guessed that part of it. There was more, of course, but she felt sure that even good-natured Tyler would think she was crazy if she told him what was really on her mind. “I had a bad dream last night, and she gave me the Spanish Inquisition over it.”

  “Man, who put the honey in her shampoo bottle?” Tyler asked.

  This brought a smile to Alex’s lips and a laugh from her throat. She was reminded instantly of why she liked her friend – his demeanor was almost imperturbable, and he had a talent for bringing humor to the most frustrating of situations. “I don’t know,” she answered finally, “But she was on the warpath this morning. Gave me and Dad the business.”

  Tyler shook his head, and the two stood in a comfortable silence for a long moment.

  “Tyler?” Alex finally broke the silence, speaking up hesitantly.

  “Mmm?”

  “Have you ever –“ Alex started, hesitating. She was sure he would think she was crazy, and Tyler was one of the few people in her life that she would be truly sad to lose, but she felt that she had to get this out, to tell someone, or she would go crazy. “Have you ever felt… like you’re gonna die soon?”

  “What?” Tyler asked, and, sure enough, his expression told her that she’d managed to startle the usually-imperturbable young man.

  But she’d locked herself in. She had to go on. “I had this dream last night, and….”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Tyler stopped her, holding up a hand. “You think you’re gonna die because of a dream? Alex, I’m your friend an’ all, but that’s whack.”

  “I know,” Alex protested, her anxiety about this whole conversation rising. Tyler did not seem to think she was crazy yet, but she had no way of knowing how much damage she had done. “I know how it sounds, but there was this guy chasing me through a woods or a forest or something, and –”

  She stopped as he appeared at the gate to the yard. Short, close-cropped brown hair over a sculpted face with soft brown eyes. Black t-shirt revealing hints of muscular arms, black denim pants, somewhat worn tennis shoes. Exactly as he’d been in the dream.

  “Alex, what’s wrong?” Tyler asked, seeing his friend’s wide eyes and rapidly paling face as she stared straight ahead at the new entrant. As always, he tried to bring a humorous note to the situation. “That doesn’t look like your usual ‘crush-on-a-boy’ look.”

  “That’s him,” Alex gasped, pointing at him before she even thought about it. “That’s the guy who’s gonna kill me. The guy from my dream.”

  Now there was no mistake – Tyler was incredulous. His eyebrows shot up as his eyes bulged. “You saw that guy in a dream last night? Alex, are you sure you’re feelin’ okay?”

  “No, and that’s just the point,” she answered, a touch of desperation creeping into her voice. As she spoke, the young man saw her point at him, and gave her a broad, picture-perfect smile. This sent a chill up Alex’s spine. “Either I’m going crazy, or I’m gonna be dead in a few days. I don’t like either choice.”

  Before either of them could say more, the door to the school opened and Mr. Abernathy, the crotchety old vice principal, stood in the doorway, beckoning the students inside.

  “You’ll be fine,” Tyler told her, starting to head in. “I’ll see you in second period, okay?” He flashed her a big smile, which cheered Alex slightly.

  “Sure,” Alex answered. But I’m not talking to Goth Boy.

  --

  1:50 p.m.

  As it turned out, Goth Boy decided to make the first move. When Alex turned from her locker to head to her sixth period class, she found him standing there, just inches away. She shrank back instinctively in surprise, her eyes rising from his black clothing to the sculpted face and finally meeting the brown eyes. What do you want?, she intended to say. What actually came out, though, was, “Oh, hi,” as she self-consciously ran a hand through her blonde curls.

  The young man’s lips turned upward in a warm smile, and he spoke in a soft voice: “I’m Lucian Hunt.”

  The smile and comforting tones sent a visceral excitement through Alex’s gut, where it warred with a powerful feeling of revulsion. What the hell are you doing? she asked herself inwardly. The Goth look has never been your thing, plus, there’s a decent chance he’s gonna try to kill you. Blow him off and walk away. Or better yet, run away. “Alex,” she replied shyly, hesitantly. “Alex Cronlord.”

  “That short for Alexis or Alexandra?” he asked in the same soft, comfortable tones, leaning against the locker next to hers.

  “Alexis,” she answered. “According to my mom, it was either that or Wilhelmina, and my dad talked her out of that one.”

  “Probably a good call,” Lucian laughed gently. “So, any advice for the new kid? I just transferred here from San Antonio, and ….”

  Going Goth is a good way to get beat up around here, she thought. And being late to class is a bad idea, too. She planned to say all of that, before turning on her heel and leaving him behind. She planned to say that, she wanted to say it, she fully intended to say it. And yet, somewhere between her brain and her lips, the message was lost. Instead, she felt her face warm, and she twiddled with her hands as she said, “Umm … not really. Just … keep your head down, I guess. Nothing really comes to mind.”

  “Well, I’d really like to do well here,” he told her, his voice silken. “So, I tell you what – how about you think about it, and we can go have coffee on Wednesday and talk about it?”

  No no no no NO, went the little voice in the back of her head, the one that had been advising her all along to blow Lucian off. And yet she found it increasingly difficult to listen as she felt herself drawn in by the brown eyes and the soft voice, the chiseled features and his relaxed demeanor.

  “Sure,” she answered, sounding as if she’d wanted him to ask since she’d first laid eyes on him that morning. “I’ll see you then.”

  --

  2:04 p.m.

  “So, lemme get this straight,” Tyler whispered to her as he and Alex sat next to each other in history class. “He just walked right up to you and asked you out?”

  Alex started to reply, but saw the teacher turn her head toward the class, and did not want to get called out for talking on the first day of classes. So, instead, she simply gave a quick nod, trying to look as focused on the lesson as possible, which was difficult when the teacher was discussing pre-Revolution colonial America. Alex found the subject unbelievably dull.

  As soon as the teacher was facing the board again, Tyler continued. “An’ you said yes?” he whispered incredulously, eyes roughly double their normal size.

  “Yeah,” Alex replied, shame rising to her cheeks. Now that she was out of Lucian’s immediate presence, it was much easier to wonder why she hadn’t simply blown him off as she’d originally planned to do.


  Tyler was silent for a moment. And then: “High school girl has flirtation with tall, dark, and handsome boy who may or may not want her blood. Didn’t I read about this somewhere?”

  Alex made a face, but Tyler did not relent. “I don’t know what’s crazier, girl,” Tyler whispered skeptically. “That you think this guy’s gonna try to kill you, or that you agreed to go on a date with him anyway.”

  “You’re right,” Alex answered, feeling sick to her gut now at having acquiesced so meekly. “You’re right, I don’t know why I did. I’ll catch him after class. Tell him it’s cancelled.”

  Tyler smiled and patted her arm understandingly. “Don’t worry about it, Alex. Everybody does stupid stuff sometimes. Especially when it comes to dating. I mean, this one time, I ….”

  Alex laughed gently. “Thanks, but if it’s you and your dating life, maybe I’m better not knowing,” she teased.

  Tyler looked for the barest moment as if he might be ready to take offense, but as usual, the young man was absolutely imperturbable. A moment later, he gave an easy-going smile and whispered. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”