by Jenna Black
His lips turned up into a grin, and I knew I was compounding my impression of a drooling moron by standing there staring at him instead of helping him up. Wishing the pavement would swallow me, I reached out a hand. Still grinning, he took it, though he sprang to his feet with almost no help from me.
“No problem,” he said, not letting go of my hand. “Most fun I’ve had in a week.” He winked at me.
I couldn’t seem to force my lips into an answering smile. “Are you all right?” I asked.
Maybe I was still suffering from an adrenaline overdose, but I didn’t like the way he was keeping hold of my hand. I’d had it drummed into me since I was a little girl that strangers—especially strange men—were to be treated with caution and suspicion. This guy might be really nice to look at, but that didn’t mean he was trustworthy. And the fog was still thick enough to make this stretch of pavement as isolated as a dark alley. Cars passed by once in a while, but even if the headlights hit us on the way by, I wasn’t sure anyone inside could even see us.
“I’m fine,” he said. “And you?”
“I’m okay.” I tried to pull my hand away without seeming to pull away, but he didn’t take the hint. The keys I’d been gripping when I ran had flown out of my hand when I’d fallen, and I saw them sitting on the pavement a couple of feet away. My pulse had finally started to calm, but now it was accelerating again.
I was nerving myself up to pull away a little more forcefully, afraid it was going to turn out badly no matter what. If he didn’t let go, then I’d know I was in deep trouble, and if he did let go it would probably mean I’d be offending a perfectly nice guy whom I’d just bowled over and possibly injured.
To my immense relief he followed the direction of my gaze and saw my keys. He let go of my hand to retrieve them, holding them out to me with a flourish.
“I believe these are yours,” he said, his eyes dancing with amusement, though I wasn’t sure what he found so funny.
“Um, thanks,” I said, taking my keys and not putting them away. If he noticed or understood the implications of that act, he didn’t show it.
“Seriously,” he said, the amusement changing into an expression of concern, “are you all right? You looked pretty panicked when you ran into me. Did something happen?”
Yes, I was chased by an imaginary monster made of trash.
“I’m fine, really. And I’m sorry I was so clumsy. I, uh, thought I was going to miss my train.”
He raised an eyebrow, and I knew I was blushing again. It was a lame excuse that didn’t come close to explaining the headlong run—especially when there was no telltale rattle of a train approaching the station—but it was the best I could come up with on short notice.
Thankfully, he didn’t press. “Uh-huh.” He nodded skeptically. “Would you like me to walk you to the station?” He looked all around at the lingering fog and the dark that lurked beyond the halo of each streetlamp. “It feels kind of like the set of a horror movie around here, doesn’t it?”
I hesitated. The idea of walking alone through the fog and dark was not appealing, but the train station was so close, and I had no idea who this guy was. I would feel like the world’s biggest idiot if I encouraged him and he turned out to be some psycho.
He smiled at me in an obvious effort to put me at ease. “I’m Aleric, by the way.” He held out his hand for me to shake. “If you know my name, I’m not a stranger anymore, right?”
Yes, I was being completely transparent in my caution, but it didn’t seem to offend him. And really, if he was some kind of bad guy and wanted to do me harm, he wouldn’t need my permission to walk with me to the train station to do it.
“Becket,” I said, shaking his hand, braced for him to hold on too long once more, but he didn’t.
“Pleased to meet you. Now let’s get you to your train.”
We started walking toward the station, and I couldn’t decide whether I felt better for having him at my side or not. My whole body was still in red alert mode. Aleric seemed perfectly harmless as he walked beside me, and in truth he was being quite the gentleman, after I’d knocked him over like that. But knowing that didn’t lessen my paranoia.
“Do you go to Edith Goldman?” Aleric asked.
“What gave me away?” I responded with a forced smile. Normal, witty banter was just what I needed to get my head back on straight. Not that I’m usually good with witty banter, especially not with people I’ve just met.
Aleric laughed at my dumb joke, which made me feel a little better. “I don’t know. Maybe the backpack, the location, and the uniform? I’m a regular Sherlock Holmes, you know.”
“I can see that. Do you go to school around here?”
It seemed like a logical question, but I knew there weren’t any boys’ or coed schools within walking distance. And come to think about it, what was he doing walking around here by himself in the dark? There were sidewalks here, sure, but it wasn’t exactly a pedestrian thoroughfare. The vast majority of the foot traffic was from students going to or from the train station.
“Nope,” he said. “I’m not in school.”
I couldn’t tell if he meant he’d graduated already or if he was a dropout or what.
We reached the parking lot just outside the train station, and I could see a handful of people on the far side of the tracks, waiting for the train into the city. The train going deeper into the suburbs must have left recently, because the near side of the tracks was deserted.
Yet another knot of anxiety began to form in the pit of my stomach. You were supposed to walk through the tunnel under the tracks to get to the other side, but in my frazzled state of mind there was no way I was walking into a no doubt deserted tunnel, whether Aleric was by my side or not. In the bright light of day, I wouldn’t hesitate to run right across the tracks, but the fog and the dark gave me pause. I checked my watch and saw that I still had more than five minutes before my train arrived, and the empty platform on this side said this track should be clear too. But just because no trains were scheduled to stop here in the next couple of minutes, it didn’t mean there wouldn’t be some express train blowing through. I’d probably hear it coming from a mile away, but crossing the tracks with so little visibility was technically not safe.
“Thanks for walking me to the station,” I said to Aleric. “And sorry again for barreling into you like that.”
He reached out to shake hands in parting, forcing me to shift my keys into my left hand if I didn’t want to leave him hanging. But we were in full view of the people on the other side of the tracks, so my paranoia took a momentary breather and I stuck my keys in my pocket so I could shake. His gaze flicked first toward the stairs leading down to the tunnel, then to the empty tracks. One corner of his mouth tipped up in a knowing grin. I guess it was better he found my caution amusing, rather than insulting, but I would have preferred he just pretended not to notice.
“It was a pleasure running into you,” he said, his inflection making clear that the pun was very much intended.
I rolled my eyes and hoped I didn’t look as embarrassed as I felt. I wished I could just erase the last ten minutes or so from my memory. I was kind of looking forward to a tense, strained evening at home with my dad. At least that would have some feeling of normalcy.
“Thanks again,” I said, because I couldn’t think of a clever comeback. Then I looked carefully both ways and, seeing no sign of the lights of an oncoming train, hurried across the tracks. A couple of adults waiting for the train gave me reproving looks, but I wasn’t flattened by a train, so that was good.
When I looked over to the far side of the tracks, Aleric was gone.
* * *
I spent the entire train ride brooding about what might or might not have happened in that fog. Half of me was sure I’d seen exactly what I’d thought I’d seen, but the other half was equally sure it couldn’t be true. The problem with that second half was that if it hadn’t really happened, I was pretty low on plausible explanati
ons. I mean, sure, I have an active imagination, but still … It was hard to accept that I had seen a totally innocuous pile of trash lying there and somehow translated that in my mind into a man-shaped nightmare that chased me.
Unless I was losing my mind, that is. Maybe I was experiencing psychotic episodes, or having hallucinations. Maybe I had a brain tumor. Maybe I should come clean with my dad about the baby incident and tonight’s nightmare and he could make an appointment for me to see a doctor.
The thought made me shudder, and my mind instantly rejected it. I felt perfectly normal almost all the time. If I had a brain tumor or was going crazy, surely I’d have more symptoms than this. And the weirdness would happen more often. Right?
By the time the train reached 30th Street Station and I began the trudge home, I had decided I would wait and see. If I saw something else impossible or just weird, I’d suck it up and tell my dad the truth. I tried not to let myself imagine what kind of tests the doctors would do to find out if I had a brain tumor. I also tried not to let myself think about what would happen if they ruled out a physical cause for my hallucinations. I wasn’t spectacularly successful at that, either.
Usually, I wouldn’t be even mildly worried about walking the streets of Center City alone at night. I’d lived all my life in Philly, and I did it all the time. I kept a city girl’s level of awareness at all times, but I’d never really felt threatened. There were always people around, and plenty of light. But tonight my threat radar was on a hair trigger.
The first stage of my journey home involved crossing over the Schuylkill River on the Market Street Bridge. There was plenty of traffic, both pedestrians and cars, and my rational mind said I was perfectly safe. Nonetheless, I found my gaze darting around suspiciously, taking in every detail of my surroundings in a way I never had before.
I doubt it would have caught my eye if I wasn’t still suffering from the aftermath of my possible attack at school, but when I got near the end of the bridge my footsteps slowed and I stared. The railing on the side of the bridge ended in a stone pedestal, on top of which perched a stone eagle. I had passed this eagle I don’t know how many times and had never really looked at it closely. But my mind was telling me it looked different tonight, even though I couldn’t conjure an image of what it usually looked like.
I had a vague notion that the eagle was usually just sitting there on its pedestal, gazing majestically out at the city. But tonight its head was slightly lowered, its beak open as if in a shriek, its posture suggesting it was about to leap off and attack some unsuspecting prey. I quickly glanced at the matching figure on the other side of the street, and it, too, looked poised to attack.
It had to be my imagination running wild with me again. No one else walking by was giving the eagle even a brief glance. Then again, the changes were pretty subtle. If I hadn’t already been in a vulnerable state of mind I probably wouldn’t have noticed it myself.
I let out a heavy sigh and shook my head. That was the explanation right there—I was in a vulnerable state of mind, and so the stone eagle suddenly looked menacing to me.
“Get a grip, Becket,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head. I fixed my gaze on the pavement in front of me, ordered myself not to go looking for weirdness, and continued on my way home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The following Monday morning, when I walked to the train station, I paused to take a close look at the eagles. They looked perfectly normal. Not at all threatening. Their heads were up, their beaks closed, their posture rigid and upright.
Obviously I’d let the power of suggestion get the best of me on Friday night. That was the only logical explanation for what I’d thought I saw.
I can’t say I convinced myself, and I felt all cold and shivery for the rest of the trip into school. There comes a point when “logical” explanations stop being logical, and I was perilously close to that point.
I decided I really needed to talk to someone about what was happening to me. Someone who wouldn’t force me to go see a doctor but who might have a little more perspective. The only logical candidate for such a conversation was Piper, but the trick was to get her to hold still for it. Her crammed social calendar made it so I had to plan any get-togethers well in advance, and that was hard to do when Dad still had my phone under lock and key. My best chance was to lurk near her locker and catch her before school started. I wasn’t about to talk about the craziness in school, where just about anyone might hear, but maybe she’d have time to go for a cup of coffee or something after school. It would get me home late once again, but I’d just have to take responsibility for keeping an eye on the time and making sure I wasn’t so late I couldn’t blame the train for it.
Piper was already at her locker when I got there, still dressed in her coat, so she couldn’t have beaten me in by more than a few seconds. I noticed she was wearing a pair of skinny jeans under the coat, and assumed she also had a kilt or tunic on and was just wearing the jeans to keep her legs warm. Or maybe she was planning to change before heading off to homeroom.
“Hey there, Becket,” she said cheerfully as she opened her locker and then slipped her coat off.
I was momentarily at a loss for words, because when she took her coat off I could see that not only was she not wearing a tunic or kilt, she also wasn’t wearing a white button-down shirt. Instead, she had on a faded black T-shirt with a huge marijuana leaf splashed across the chest. Even on the occasional days when we were allowed to come to school out of uniform, that T-shirt wouldn’t have passed muster.
Piper grinned at my shocked expression. “What do you think? Will they send me home or just give me a couple of detentions?”
You get detention for wearing stuff that doesn’t quite meet the uniform code. You don’t get it for completely ignoring the code. Not only was she going to be sent home, she was probably going to be suspended.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, shaking my head.
“I’m sick of school,” she said. “My grades wouldn’t get me into Harvard or Yale or anything, even if I wanted to go there, and just going to Edith Goldman is enough to get me into someplace like Temple or Drexel. So why should I be wasting my time in boring classes?”
“Have you been drinking?” It was the only explanation I could come up with for what I was hearing. No, Piper had never been an exceptional student and had never done more than the bare minimum she needed to get acceptable grades, but she’d never treated her education this dismissively before. She and I had talked about our college plans less than a month ago, and though she wouldn’t be applying to all the power schools I would, she definitely had some selective schools on her list and had shown every sign of caring where she went.
Piper laughed. “It’s a little early, even for me, so no.” She shrugged. “I just had an epiphany over the weekend. It really doesn’t matter where I go to school, or even if I go to school. Shit like that only matters if you have career ambitions.”
“And you don’t?” She’d never told me specifically what she wanted to do with her life, had always said she’d figure it out when she was through with college, but I’d always had the sense she wanted a career of some sort, even if she didn’t know what career it was.
“Don’t look so surprised. You don’t either, do you?”
She gave me a challenging look, and I found myself looking away. It frustrated my parents to no end that I couldn’t blurt out, “I want to be a ___.” Both of them had known from the moment they started high school what they wanted to do with their lives, and they’d aimed themselves at their goals like guided missiles. My older sister was like that, too—a chip off the old block. She was in her first year of med school and had never seemed to consider any possibility except becoming a doctor. No waffling, no doubts, no indecision.
Not me. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a living. My college counselor at school told me that was fine, that I had plenty of time to make a decision and that things would be clearer when I was away from h
ome and had dabbled a bit at college. She said that very few people went into college knowing what they wanted to be, and that most of those who thought they did found out they were wrong before they graduated. My parents did not agree.
Piper touched my shoulder. “Sorry, Becks. Didn’t mean to throw salt in the wound.”
“Just because I don’t know what I want to do, that doesn’t mean I don’t have ambitions,” I said. My ambitions were vague ones—get a good job that paid decently in a field I enjoyed—but that wasn’t the same as not having any.
“I know. You might not know what you want to do, but you know you want to do something. I guess I realized this weekend that I … don’t.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means my parents will support me no matter what I do, so I might as well do what makes me happy. Hell, I might not even go to college at all, although maybe if I find a good party school I should go for a couple of years just to have that experience.”
“So you’re saying your big goal is to mooch off your parents for the rest of your life?” I asked incredulously. I’d thought I knew Piper pretty well, but it was beginning to look like I didn’t. Or like something had happened over the weekend that had fundamentally changed her outlook.
“Basically, yeah.” She shook her head. “How many times have I told you that you should live your own life and not the life your parents want for you? I can’t believe you never pointed out what a hypocrite I was being.”
I had no idea what to say to that. As far as I could tell, Piper had never cared what her parents wanted her to do, had always gone her own way with barely a second thought.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’d better hurry if you want to get to homeroom on time. I’m cruising to get myself in trouble, not you.” She winked at me.