My Soul To Keep

by Jackie Sonnenberg

  We all watched in frozen silence as the news showed more buildings and the severity of the tornado’s work. Fallen trees and loose branches laid on the ground along with many roof shingles and wall pieces stripped from the top. The reporter came on to explain the details.

  “The tornado at Applewhite Prep has unfortunately taken out more residential buildings on this side. It appears Cattail Hall, Gander Hall, and Birch Hall has some severe damage to the building, but none suffered more than the Egret Hall which practically lost its entire roof.”

  I stopped breathing when the cameras passed over and I saw for myself. It barely was a building anymore. It barely balanced on its foundation. Almost the entire thing was smashed in and the roof had ripped pieces sticking out all over like a bad hair day.

  “Thankfully none of the students were hurt. They were all able to retreat into the basement where they stayed safe until the tornado passed. Residential supervisors were able to ensure the safety of everyone. Unfortunately with the mess of Egret Hall, it looks like the students will need to take up other forms of housing. They will be in the process of temporarily moving to a hotel the school has arranged, providing also transportation vans to and from class. It’s going to take a major constructional turnaround for Applewhite Prep to get its campus back to how it used to be, but everyone turned out okay.”

  I dashed away from the group, fumbling with my phone. I didn’t care how early it was: I called him, pacing with every ring I heard on my side.

  “ ‘Lo,” I heard a tired voice.

  “Shit, Damien, it’s all over the news! You’re okay right?”

  “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just can’t sleep.”

  “Sorry—we all just woke up and put the news on and saw the whole thing. Where are you?”

  “At the Best Western. Gonna be here awhile. It was so fucking scary, Sky. Like, we heard the roof pieces fly off and all those trees and shit go flying and hit things and—are you okay?”

  “Yeah!” I said. “We’re fine. I mean, nothing happened here, we didn’t even hear anything.”

  “Really? Good, I’m so glad.”

  “Okay well you get some sleep. I’m so glad you’re okay. Call me later.”

  “I will. Thanks for calling.”

  “G’night.”

  “Later.”

  I hung up, relieved, and returned to the group where people still watched the details of the incident. It was something Damien said that triggered something else that bothered me.

  “The tornado didn’t even come over here, did it?” I asked.

  “No,” Mitchell said. “The Manor was not harmed. The tornado only reached the other side of campus and came up to the buildings before it left, and then stopped. My children—we are all safe, strong souls in this house. Let us take the time to be grateful for who we are. We are strong. We shall have a breakfast feast today!”

  I only brushed my teeth and threw clothes on before going outside with some others. We were curious and had to see it for ourselves. In the upper lounge Mitchell kept the TV on to campus news for updates. A lot of people were on the phone or on their laptops emailing and communicating with friends and family members. I called my mom once I got outside and sat on the bench, the metal chilling me through my jeans.

  “So wait, this tornado just missed that cabin of yours?!” My mom exclaimed.

  “I gather!” I answered. “But Egret Hall is all torn up. The president got a deal with the hotel that’s down the street and sent people there to live. It sucks.”

  “I’m so happy nothing happened to you!”

  “Me too.”

  As I talked with my mom I saw Becky wandering around the yard, and out a little bit towards the trees. She just stood there and stared out at nothing, no doubt looking to see if anything happened out here. I saw nothing even from where I sat. Becky at one point leaned against a tree and stayed there for a while. She was still there even after I finished talking with Mom. I got up from the porch to see what was on her mind, but then Kimberly opened the door to call everyone in.

  “Hey, breakfast!”

  No one said anything, but I knew we all felt a little weird about our little feast. Why were we celebrating not being blown away when the rest of the campus was? Or, was it just a comforting meal that we were lucky? I didn’t know and couldn’t really think about it too much. I just ate waffles.

  The tornado didn’t hit us, but in a way it still did. The whole campus was torn up. GOL members saw firsthand when we went to our regular class routines. It was strange walking around there, in a place of utter ruin that was hardly recognizable. Remains of trees and pieces of buildings and debris spread past the campus grounds and into the main roads. The flotsam and jetsam that littered the streets and campus grounds ranged from garbage to garbage cans to posts to streets signs, tires, and bikes. Not an inch of the sidewalk or street was untouched, and campus maintenance was already out trying to clean up the mess while the rest of us stepped over obstacles on our way to classes.

  I walked past a car flipped over on its side, the doors flung right open and leaves and dirt all over it. I walked over tree branches—and even a few whole trees. Maintenance workers had a section of the street blocked off because it was apparently too much for anyone to try to climb over. I walked among the buildings, hulk-punched and shaven of their own layers of bricks. The tornado ripped the campus apart, and our home was the only one untouched. For some reason this made me feel guilty, but the feeling turned into mass confusion a moment later: Everywhere I stepped, everywhere I looked, I saw that each and every one of our GOL posters were perfectly intact.

  Our teachers updated us with campus cleanup and the like, and the school even issued a special notice in the Applewhite Press paper. I found out what I needed to, but part of me was numb to everything else. I couldn’t get those posters out of my head. Everywhere I turned one was there to stare me in the face and remind me that we were in fact untouched and unharmed. I didn’t know what it meant at all but it made me feel so uncomfortable I almost couldn’t look at them. This feeling was a seed that was planted when I first surveyed the campus, and it only started to grow more as the day progressed. It took me until the end of the day to talk to and see the most important person of all. We bumped into each other between buildings on the lightly dusted sidewalk.

  “Damien!”

  “Hi!”

  We sidestepped rubble on the ground, our shoes already scrapped with dirt.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Um, it sucks,” he said not even sugar coating it. “I mean the hotel is cool, it’s a hotel, we have someone to make our beds and stuff but we still have to go through the shit rubble at the dorm to look for our stuff. Most of my clothes have brick dust all over there and I had to get them washed.”

  “That is so horrible, man,” I said, the guilt seed well on its way to a watermelon. “You’re so lucky you weren’t hurt and you all got out okay. It freaked me out.”

  “Freaked me out, too! You should have been there. We heard all the high winds and then our dorm leaders came out and knocked on the doors and told us to stay calm but to get down to the basement as soon as possible. Everyone did and we were able to hear the tornado through the walls.”

  As Damien talked we walked away from the main sidewalk. It became a habit to walk to The Manor after the school day was done, even for him.

  “It was horrifying. We thought the walls were going to crash in on us. It passed through pretty fast, though. Fast and violent.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “I can’t believe it missed you at The Manor!”

  Cue the guilt growth.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, we were the only place it didn’t hit.”

  “Well, it sort of makes sense. It’s the only place that’s by itself and sort of away from the rest of campus.”

  “Okay, well, guess what doesn’t make sense? Did you notice what else wasn’t touched by the tornado?”

 
; “No?”

  “All our posters.”

  “Our posters?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How is that possible? That’s some serious duct tape.”

  Soon Damien saw The Manor for himself once we crossed the parking lot and to the wooded area, the only part pf campus where all the trees still stood. We opened the door and went about a normal routine of hanging our coats in the hall closet and helping ourselves to hot tea. Of course, everyone flooded Damien once he was there.

  “Dude, that is terrible,” Holly said first.

  “We saw it on the news!”

  “Yeah Damien, you got the worst of it. We’re so glad you’re okay!”

  Damien smiled at the attention. “Thanks guys. I’m glad you are too.”

  Seth felt his way in the kitchen with his new walking stick, clanging on the table and chair legs and sitting down at it.

  “Hi Damien,” he said from a couple of feet away. “We’re so happy to have your strong spirit with us. Nothing can knock you down.”

  Damien smiled even though Seth couldn’t see him.

  “Thanks man.”

  I watched Seth for a minute as he took some devices out of his backpack. As Damien and the others went back to chatting I realized Seth probably didn’t think he was being watched, but I still did so privately. He fingered the buttons on the device and actually pressed down on it several times like it was a keyboard. He opened up another device and I saw that it was enlarged letters along with enlarged dots. My heart sank. Everyone thought a tornado destroying the campus was a tragedy, but the real tragedy was right here at our kitchen table. Seth’s fingers studied the letters and the braille components carefully before moving on to—what I figured out—class textbooks that were converted to braille. Studying was nothing when you already knew how to read. Seth’s clouded stare stayed unfocused while the rest of him concentrated. I stared at his eyes, how milky and gray they were now. I thought back to when I first met him, not too long ago at all, when he greeted me on my way out from Orientation. His eyes matched his hair: Honey-colored and full of life. What were they full of now?

  Iris came into the kitchen area, but then stepped out. She reappeared a moment later with Mitchell in tow. They both looked very happy to see Damien among everyone drinking tea and snacking on pretzels.

  “Damien!” Mitchell exclaimed brightly.

  Damien turned his attention away for a minute as Mitchell came around the kitchen corner.

  “We are so happy you are all right.”

  “Thanks Mitchell.”

  “Come with me a minute, won’t you? I want to talk to you.”

  Iris grinned as Damien put his tea down and started to follow him.

  Chatter continued as normal. At one point I noticed Becky put her head in a book pretending to study, but she hadn’t turned a page since she sat down. I took my cup and joined her.

  “Hey, Becky.”

  I saw she looked at me only by slightly moving her eyes, and actually just looking at my elbows.

  “Hi.”

  “Studying hard?”

  “No, not really. Big test this week. But can you…I mean, meet me later? I want to like…talk to you about something.”

  “Oh,” I replied, not sure where this was going. “Sure.”

  I didn’t know what to do after that, and then Damien came back with Mitchell and his face was beaming.

  “I’m moving in The Manor!” he cried.

  Happiness fluttered all the way down to my legs. He got a mixture of congratulations to jealous looks. It only took me a half a second to get up and give him a hug.

  “That’s great!”

  “I know!” he said. “Mitchell said that GOL members belong at The Manor and my dorm being destroyed only means that I belong here, and it came at a good time. I have to go to Housing, and he is going to call them now to help with the arrangements. Then I get to get my stuff!”

  “I’m so happy we get to be here together now!”

  “Hell yeah, we are.”

  “Looks like everything happens for a reason, huh?”

  I saw Becky jerk her head up and give me a look. I didn’t see it too well, but I knew it was not a good one. She closed her book and left the room without a word.

  Chapter 18

  I didn’t see Becky for the rest of the day. Damien left awhile back to take care of his housing stuff, so I spend it finishing homework and watching TV with some others. There had been no new updates about the weather of course, but the campus was going to take a while to clean up. We watched a few movies, and then just made some sandwiches for dinner, not wanting to go through the obstacles on the way to the caf. It was a quiet evening, as those of us there felt drained of energy and really did not want to do anything. I almost expected to have another meditation session, but we did not. Everyone spent time by themselves that evening.

  Around a quarter to midnight, or maybe even after midnight, I had the desire to spend the rest of the night alone in my room. I had a book upstairs I barely started reading and thought putting a dent in it was a good idea. I went up the stairs to my room and was shocked to see who was waiting for me, although I was a little bit not surprised. She sat on my bed with a nervous smile.

  “Hi Sky.”

  “Hi Becky.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to invade. I actually just got there and was hoping I’d catch you eventually since I wanted to make sure I got to talk to you privately.”

  “Yeah, I remember that,” I said not feeling invaded as much since I saw the look on her face. She fidgeted a bit, anxious in her seat, like whatever words were in her brain crawled all over and tickled her. I felt more like nervous.

  “Could you..?” she motioned toward the door.

  “Of course,” I said shutting it. My stomach started to harden.

  “I don’t want anyone overhearing, but I checked out other people’s rooms and I think they’re all asleep anyway.”

  I sat down next to her and nodded, giving her the cue.

  “Sky, did you feel…funny the other night when we had our last meditation session? The one right before the tornado?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “But I got a headache.”

  Becky nodded, watching me carefully. “Your head hurt. And you felt dizzy? Like you were spinning?”

  “Yeah,” I said again. “A little bit. Why?”

  “I did too, and I think we all did…Did you see anything? In your vision?”

  “No, actually, I didn’t see anything at all. I couldn’t get into it.”

  “Was everything blurry?” Becky asked, her voice almost increasing each time she answered me. “Blurry like it was moving really, really fast? Right? Right?”

  I just stared at her.

  “Like...a tornado?”

  My lips dried up. “Huh? Are you talking about how we meditated during the tornado?”

  “Sky!” Becky exclaimed. “We were the tornado!”

  ***

  “What are you talking about?” I stammered.

  “It was us, Sky. All of us. Our spirits merged together and we made a natural disaster. Didn’t you see it? Didn’t you see nothing but spinning clouds? Didn’t you feel dizzy? I felt so dizzy I wanted to puke.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Instead of our spirits just, you know, leaving our bodies and going to a different plane they all made a tornado?”

  “Yes!”

  “How?!”

  “I don’t know how. But it did. I saw it. I didn’t mean to do it. I felt like I was out of control.”

  “I didn’t see or feel anything!”

  “I thought you did, actually, because of what you said to Damien.”

  “Oh—no. No no, I didn’t….I couldn’t have. You think I did that to make him come here?” I’ve heard everything now.

  “I thought so at first. But this is a relief.”

  “Who else did you talk to? This is unreal. Someone needs to tell Mitchell.”

  �
��No! You know as well as I that these walls especially have ears. You can’t say anything to anyone. Especially Mitchell!”

  “Why not?”

  She practically rolled her eyes. “Don’t you get it?! They started it. They knew what they were doing. Mitchell and the upperclassmen. They just pulled us along with it.”

  “You’re saying they did that on purpose.”

  “They did. I heard Mitchell saying something about wanting to test our power…test the strength of our souls, or something like that.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know what to say or do. I have no idea we were capable of something like that. What else are we capable of?”

  We sat in silence for a moment, almost grateful to have that silence.

  “I have to tell Damien.”

  Becky cringed. “Well, okay, just him. But this can’t get out to anyone else. This place is different, Sky. And it’s made us different. It’s like it’s the gateway to a supernatural realm or something. It’s definitely more than we thought it was.”

  We let another moment pass while I processed everything. I did believe Becky, but part of me did not want to. Still, an uneasy annoyance stuck around. I was a part of a tornado. A tornado that attacked the campus. How the hell did I do that?

  “I better get going. It’s late.”

  “Yeah, you have to go all the way back to the dorms.”

  “I can call security for a ride. I just need to lay down for a while. I mean, even with everything that happened…it’s all very supernatural. Isn’t it?”

  “Yeah…I just...I just want to make sense of it all.”

  “Me too.”

  We left it at that, and Becky got off my bed.

  “At least I have you, Sky. Someone to help make sense of it all.”

  She left, giving the campus security a buzz on her phone. I stretched out on my back, my fingers scrunching sheets and pillowcase above my head. Closing my eyes, I asked over and over: What happened? Almost expecting an answer I drifted off into a much needed, headache-free sleep.

  Chapter 19