by Zara Zenia
I was discouraged, but not all the way out. Just when I thought that we might not have a chance to come out ahead, I saw something, or someone, moving out of the corner of my eye. It was a flighty, speedy shadowy figure that came into view a few seconds later.
“Professor Chiu?” Marina yelled from behind her tree, several feet away from us, sounding both stunned and relieved.
The short, but stocky Mathematics professor was a Chinese style magician with the power over the five elements. He had a substantial amount of experience fighting against and standing up against Hunters.
To say that he was protective over the students of Sleepy Hollow would be an understatement, and as I stared into the flicker of fire behind the reflection of his eyes through his glasses, I knew that he was going to fight to the death if it meant us coming out of this unfortunate encounter alive.
Dan and Benton seemed just as surprised to see Professor Chiu enter the cluster that they stopped shooting at us to stare at him.
That was all the hesitation Professor Chiu needed to gain the upper hand over the Hunters. The professor looked like he was ready to bring wrath and fury swirling down around Benton, and I couldn’t wait for the show.
I didn’t know how he had swooped in to save the day so quickly, but a rush of relief encompassed my entire being when Professor Chiu raised his arms over his head and began rolling methodic and calculated circles around and around in the air.
“What are you doing, old man?” Dan screamed. “You really think you can disarm us? I’ll shoot you right through the head before you know what’s coming—”
Little by little, the trunks of the trees and the branches began to sway and unravel. Bark cracked from the surface and the wooden trunks became limber and stretchy like vines, crawling up Dan and Benton’s bodies from the legs first.
I watched in awe as the vine-like wood began to entangle around them, wrapping them up like mummies made of pine and cedar.
Dan and Benton began to shout and squirm in resistance, but the wood vines were stronger. Dan and Benton put up a good fight, but in the end, the wood was winning, hugging and squeezing a tighter grip on the Hunters that they wouldn’t be able to release on their own. They struggled, turned red in the face and grunted, but they were stuck.
After a few seconds, they had no choice but to loosen their grips on the guns. They fell to the ground and as soon as they did, Daniel and I were there to swoop in and grab them before the Hunters could break free, not that they would, the trees had practically swallowed them up.
Professor Chiu’s features were set in concentration, but he broke his gaze from the Hunters to briefly address us.
“Go,” he ordered. “Get out of the woods and back to the courtyard. I will catch up with you. I will take care of these idiots, first.”
I nodded and exchanged a glance with Daniel who nodded approvingly. Professor Chiu didn’t have to tell us twice. We grabbed up Marina and took off running like hungry wildebeests charging through the forest. If anything, we knew that Professor Chiu could hold his own against the now unarmed Hunters better than we could. He was as tough as nails and knew exactly what he was doing.
I held Marina’s hand as we raced through the forest, ducking and dodging low lying, snappy tree branches. We didn’t stop running until we hit the manicured lawns on the main campus. For now, we were in the clear.
10
Marina
I stood in the courtyard with Colin and Daniel as we waited for Professor Chiu to reemerge from the woods. I felt like my heart was in my throat. Night had settled in and a blanket of purplish darkness had cloaked itself over the campus. Dew hadn’t yet formed a wet perspiration over the grass, but it would soon come.
All three of us kept our eyes watchfully on the edge of the clearing, waiting in suspense to see the short and stout professor running back in the direction of the school.
“It’s been too long.” I shook my head and continued to pace back and forth under the awning. I crossed my arms over my chest and wrapped my cardigan tightly around myself. I shot one more nervous glance toward the woods. “He should have been back by now.”
“He’ll be back, babe,” Daniel reassured.
“He will.” Colin nodded. “Professor Chiu is one bad ass dude.”
I looked at him and smiled. “Why don’t you tell him that when he returns?”
Colin shifted his weight awkwardly and flickered his gaze uncomfortably to the ground.
“I’m just kidding.” I extended my hand and reached out to grab his. I gave him a gentle smile.
“I’ll tell him that he’s a bad ass,” Daniel said with an air of confidence. “He’ll probably just laugh.”
“After what we just encountered in the woods, he might.”
“Do you think he might bring back Carlotta’s body?” I asked, glancing between the guys.
They exchanged a wary look with each other.
“I don’t know.” Colin shrugged and trailed off in a whisper.
He shook his head and shot a bewildered look at the forest as if it harbored too many secrets that he didn’t want to know about.
After several more agonizing minutes of hoping to see Professor Chiu’s anticipated return, the excruciating wait was over.
“There he is!” Daniel, who had been sitting on a bench under the awning shot up like a rocket and pointed off in the ominous distance of the woods.
I squinted and narrowed my eyes, concentrating on the area as my eyes followed where Daniel’s finger pointed. His expression was acute and excited.
“I see him too,” Colin said.
After a few more seconds, I began to see the short figure of Professor Chiu’s galloping body begin to emerge from the shadows. He walked with a slight limp and he had some patches of dirt smeared on his arm and above his chin before where his graying beard began. His spectacle rimmed glasses were slightly askew and crooked on the bridge of his nose. As he approached us, he straightened them out again.
He cleared his throat and stopped abruptly in front of us. He shifted his weight and clamped his hands behind his back with a grave sigh.
“Are they dead?” Daniel broke the silence and asked the question on all of our minds.
“Who?” Professor Chiu’s beard twitched on his upper lip. “Those sleazy Hunters? No.” He shook his head and puckered his lips as if tasting something sour. “I left them right where they were.”
“What about Carlotta?” I asked.
Professor Chiu shrugged. “I left her there too. She can’t escape.” His lips curled into a mischievous grin.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “I guess they can figure out what to do with her.”
“It shouldn’t be our problem,” he said.
“But don’t we want to know who killed her?” Colin frowned.
“I took pictures, and I intend to tell the dean as soon as I finish talking to you three.” He inched closer to us.
I exchanged a glance with the guys and then focused my attention back to Professor Chiu. “Talk to us about what?”
“First, why were you in the woods?”
“We were looking for Carlotta. We thought maybe she was behind this sickness that is infecting supernatural students,” Marina answered.
“Ah, yes, the sickness…” he trailed off in a whisper and looked over his shoulder with a paranoid expression as if he was worried about someone eavesdropping on our conversation. “I overheard you three talking about it at the dorms and I wondered where you had gone off to. I know something about this kind of illness.”
He had all of our attentions now. We stared at him expectantly.
“You do, Professor? Can you tell us about it?” I coaxed.
“I’ve seen magical plagues before,” Professor Chiu admitted. “They follow certain rules of operation just like normal diseases.”
“Normal diseases?” Daniel frowned.
“Yes, like the kinds that human’s get.”
“Oh.” Daniel flickered his
crimson eyes to me for a few brief seconds. He knew I had a human mother. “I see.”
“I have studied the illness at hand in this particular situation,” Professor Chiu continued. “I have determined it to be foodborne.”
“Then it couldn’t be Boris who started it,” I immediately said, almost as a confirmation. “There’s no way he would contaminate himself.”
Daniel and Colin nodded in agreement with me. they knew by now that Boris had died from the symptoms of his illness.
“At least not deliberately,” Colin said.
“No.” Professor Chiu appeared to agree with us. “I am referring to Boris as Patient Zero, the first unfortunate soul to be claimed by the disease.”
“First victim?” I asked. My heart pounded like a drumline in my chest. “Are you saying you believe that there will be more than one victim to die from this?”
“I can’t say for certain…” Professor Chiu’s features twisted slightly. “But the virus, whatever it is, seems to be spreading quicker than it can be contained, contaminating more and more people every day. It seems to be a mixture of students and teachers, not more so than the other.”
“So, there’s no specific target?” Colin asked.
“It seems as if anyone and everyone who attends or works at Sleepy Hollow is an intended target,” Professor Chiu stated somberly. He gazed at his shoes with chagrin.
I let out a long sigh, but I didn’t feel any better after releasing it. “Well, this is very disconcerting.”
“Scary stuff,” Daniel agreed with a nod.
“It can’t be Carlotta behind it then either,” I said. “Not if she’s in there.” I pointed to the woods.
“Yeah,” Daniel chuckled at the irony. “There’s not much disease spreading she can do with a knife stuck in the back of her head.”
“Maybe she started it? Or knew something about it that got her killed?” Colin suggested.
“Well, she certainly didn’t do it to herself,” I said. “It’s impossible to stab yourself in the back of the head.”
I sat down on the same bench that Daniel had been utilizing before Professor Chiu showed back up. I needed to sit down a minute because my head was spinning.
I was reeling from this new information. We had a lead, which was more than we had when we first went into the woods in the first place.
I tried to stay positive, but I was growing increasingly worried. Who was next? How much of the food was contaminated? What would we eat? Who could we trust and what was safe out there? I had more questions gnawing in my head than answers to justify them.
“Boris couldn’t have created the disease either,” Colin said. “In case any of you were thinking that he did, and it inadvertently got out of control or something.”
“No.” I shook my head. “He couldn’t have. He’s a bear shifter.”
“Only a witch could have done this,” Professor Chiu stated with affirmative finality that made my blood run cold.
Suddenly I felt self-conscious, like I was directed into the limelight unwillingly. But when I looked around at everyone, I wasn’t met with gazes of incrimination, which made me feel instant relief.
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “I just wanted to clear the air and get that out in the open.” I ended on a nervous chuckle.
“I would never think you were capable of doing something like this, babe.” Daniel approached me and wrapped his arm around my waist.
“Me either, sweetness.” Colin shook his head as if the mere concept unsettled him to even think about. He took my hand and squeezed it.
I looked at my boyfriends and returned their warm smiles. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“It’s probably a rogue witch,” Professor Chiu mentioned. “He or she is probably the one who started this trouble and infected Boris first.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “I just can’t think of any witch who would want to do that…”
“We don’t know everyone as well as we thought, baby,” Daniel said. “Remember that from last year.” He gave me a gentle smile.
“I know.” I rolled my eyes and huffed, although my frustration wasn’t directed at him. “I just wish that we had more information.”
“Well I can tell you that the chances of this witch being a student at Sleepy Hollow are slim to none,” Professor Chiu said with a look of clarification in his features.
“How can you be so sure about that?” I asked, more in a curious way rather than a disrespectful one.
He was, after all, still a teacher and there were boundaries that we couldn’t cross.
“For starters,” Professor Chiu began to explain, looking directly at me. “The witch in question would have to be massively experienced to pull off a stunt like this that would spread throughout the campus so quickly. It means that whoever it is, must be exceptionally powerful. These are all characteristic traits that don’t correspond with any student here who wouldn’t have learned the skill yet.”
“Hmm…” I said and pondered Professor Chiu’s assumption. It was an interesting theory that held up. “I certainly wouldn’t know what kinds of spells or potions to use to do it.”
“Exactly.” There was a sparkle of uniformity shimmering in the professor’s eyes when he responded. “Of course, that’s not to say that you aren’t an intelligent witch who isn’t going to flourish brightly in the future either.”
I grinned when he gave me a wink of enthusiasm.
“Thank you. I appreciate your compliment,” I said.
“But this type of witchcraft…” Professor Chiu trailed off with a tsk and clicked his tongue. “It takes intricate skill that has to be learned over a substantial amount of years.”
“Well that gets me off the hook then,” I said and chuckled, aiming to lighten the dense mood.
Everyone looked at me and gave me halfway smiles as if they wanted to support me and believe with all their hearts that I had nothing to do with this, just because I was a witch. Sometimes, stereotypes weren’t true.
I looked at Professor Chiu. “Will you keep us updated if you hear anything else?”
“Absolutely.” Professor Chiu gave us a promising nod.
“We appreciate you taking the time to inform us at all,” Colin said respectfully.
“Everyone should be aware of what is happening around the campus,” Professor Chiu stated. “Besides,” he began again with a heavy sigh. “None of us professors want to hear from angry parents that their students aren’t safe here.”
“Are we safe here?” Colin asked and raised his eyebrows.
“As long as you exercise caution,” Professor Chiu said and wagged a finger at us with intensity. “I’m sure there will be an announcement made soon, after we can get our ducks in a row about what to do regarding the illness.”
I was frightened. There was an uneasy feeling that had crawled into my mind and set up camp there. “I think I want to go back to my room, guys,” I said softly.
“Okay, thanks again, Professor.” Daniel nodded to him, his arm wrapped around my waist along with Colin’s.
Together they escorted me to my room. “I’ll see you guys later, okay?” I said, moving out of their arms.
Daniel pulled me to him, leaned down and kissed me. “Be safe,” he whispered.
I nodded and turned to Colin who swept me into his arms.
Colin brushed my bangs out of my eyes and stroked my cheek before leaning down and kissing me. “Call if you need anything.”
“I will.” I smiled and pushed open my door. “Bye,” I said as they headed back down the hall. Looking around the room, I realized there was something I could do. Well, not just me. I needed to call Tom. He was a brilliant wizard, and I knew that he could give us some insight. We needed all the help and advice we could get. There was always strength in numbers, and brainpower when we put our heads together.
11
Thomas
Within thirty seconds of answering the phone call from Marina, I knew that something was terribly w
rong. She sounded worried, almost desperate.
“Slow down, baby,” I said and attempted to calm her. “You’re talking too fast. I can barely understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
Marina went silent for a moment or two.
“Marina?” I asked into the receiver.
“I’m here.”
I heard a deep sigh on the other end.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a sheepish chuckle. “There is just…so much weird stuff going on here that I don’t even know where to begin.”
“How about the beginning?” I joked in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“Very funny,” she said with playful dryness. “You already know about people getting sick here at Sleepy Hollow, right?”
“Right…” I trailed off apprehensively. “Baby, you aren’t trying to tell me that you’re sick, are you?”
“No, no I’m fine, Tom, promise,” she assured me. “So,” she began again. “There have been some incidents since I last talked to you.”
“What do you mean incidents?” My heart pounded in anticipation.
“First of all, Boris died.”
“Boris?” I asked, confused.
“Boris Dennisoff?”
“Refresh my memory, baby,” I said gently. Sometimes I thought she forgot that I wasn’t an attending student at Sleepy Hollow and didn’t know everyone there.
“Boris is…” she trailed off and corrected herself, “was our head chef, and the director of the cafeteria. He’s…gone.” Her voice broke, telling me that she was fond of the head chef and mourned his loss.
“Marina? Baby, are you okay?”
I heard her sniffle. She was such a kindhearted soul. “I’m fine. It’s just…everybody really liked Boris.”
“How did he die?” I asked.
“He died of that mystery illness that is plaguing our campus,” Marina said in an ominous voice that was impossible to read.
“He did?” I was shocked. I honestly couldn’t believe it. “He was a supernatural?”