Ever This Day (To Light and Guard Prequel)

by Piper Hannah

CHAPTER 3

  As expected, I was late to my first period class. I was shaking, anxious, and I was armed only with a book bag with no books. As if my grades weren’t bad enough.

  As quietly as I can, I sat in the back row as my English teacher, Mrs. Bailey, paced back and forth in front of the classroom. She glanced at me briefly and continued her lecture. It was about Hamlet, I think. It was a continuation of her last lecture from yesterday. She was talking about the characters as if they were all good friends, and maybe they were. Yes. She’s about that old.

  “Horatio, Fortinbras, and Claudius… Can anyone tell me what these three characters have in common?”

  No one raised their hand, and Mrs. Bailey answered her own question. That happened a lot in this class.

  I looked right at Mrs. Bailey. I heard her high pitched voice and the soft clicking of her shoes. Even as I stared at her and pretended to be intrigued by her lecture, I tuned her out. It wasn’t very hard since I had no idea what she was talking about. Coming in late to class kind of had that effect on me, and maybe I've had a bit of practice with the tuning out part.

  Yadda, yadda, yadda, and then, more yadda. Seriously. That's what I heard as my mind processed more important stuff.

  I thought about my purple-eyed delusion, and I was lost. What the heck was I going to do? Maybe he would just go away. Did I want him to go away? Really? He was my delusion, after all. He must be here for a reason. Right. That would be to make me insane. Okay. I mean a reason other than that.

  It was a month ago when I started to hear his voice. It didn’t happen often, but it was definitely there. I should have told someone - Mom and Dad, maybe. They would have known what to do because the strange voice in my head was definitely not normal. It was interesting, but not normal… but what was the harm, really? It wasn’t like the voice was telling me to kill myself, and somehow, I instinctively knew that he didn’t want me to tell anyone. It was our little secret.

  Did my mind make him up? I tried to be positive. Maybe he was a ghost, or a time-traveler from the future, or maybe he was a real super hero with real super powers like the invisible man. He was so unbelievably handsome that he would make an awesome leading man in a SciFi original TV show. I didn’t see his teeth, but I was sure that he would have made a perfect vampire. I shook my head. I can’t believe I’m casting him in an imaginary TV show. Shake it off, Paige. Shake it off.

  While sitting in class, with Mrs. Bailey’s monotone voice drifting in the background, it was at that moment that I realized that I could possibly be… well... crazy. Oh, sure, the thought crossed my mind now and then, but actually believing it was something else entirely. It was something very scary.

  Then, I thought of my grandmother and her strange talks. We didn't see her much since she moved to New Mexico a few years back. She said that the energy was much stronger over there. It had to do with the earth’s vibrations or something, but that's not the strange part. When I do see her, she would sometimes imply that she was a witch, and she was very proud of it, too. “You come from a long line of very powerful witches," she would say or, "Witch power is passed down to future generations."

  My parents always humored her, and we never really talked about Grandma’s crazy talks, but now, I wondered. If by being a ‘witch’, she really meant being schizophrenic, and by saying that I come from a ‘long line of very powerful witches’, she really meant that being schizophrenic was in my DNA somehow. Not a good thought, and I was freaking the hell out.

  “Paige, what do you think?” Mrs. Bailey asked, and the sound of my name snapped me back to reality. I was here. It was now. In class. And Mrs. Bailey just asked me a question. She was picking on me because I was late. She was looking at me. Actually, I think the entire class was looking at me, and they were all waiting for an answer. This is my worst nightmare.

  “That is a very interesting question, Mrs. Bailey,” I said, stalling, but since I didn’t know what the question was, I really didn’t know how to answer her. So, I said nothing and looked down. I bit my lower lip and silently prayed for her to move on to her next victim. I mean, student. Move on to the next student. Please. I slouched in my seat. Unfortunately, I didn’t even have books to cower under.

  Someone seated in the front row snickered. After a very long silence, Mrs. Bailey started her lecture again, and I started breathing again. No doubt about it. I’m ending up in summer school for sure. Crap!