Shuffle [YA Paranormal Romance]

by Avery Bell

  I turned onto Main Street, passed the Supreme Bean coffee shop and stared up at the library. The building is so much older and fancier than the rest of the street; it really stands out. I took a moment to gaze at the swirling ironwork and the patterns in the brick. It seems like in the past, everyone wanted every single building to be beautiful. Even if it was just for getting on and off trains. I mean, look at airports nowadays. They're super ugly and gross, and no one cares that much, because they're so focused on getting from point A to point B. Look at the tenements in Oldtown.

  I guess there were a lot of ugly buildings in the past too. But they got torn down instead of being renovated into libraries.

  “Scared, Evangeline?”

  I jumped. That voice! I whipped around and there he was, standing right behind me with that mouldering look in his eyes.

  “Scared of the library? Or of you?”

  This elicited the first smile I'd seen from him. It wasn't exactly attractive. Almost predatory, actually. A shiver ran down my spine. His eyes are so dark, I can't see the pupils in them. They're just two black pools of oblivion.

  “You looked nervous. Chin up, soldier.”

  He pushed open the front doors and I could do nothing but follow him inside like Mary's little lamb.

  I brushed up next to him and kept my voice low. “Why do you have to be such a snob?”

  “I've always thought of myself as rather intelligent and charming. It's not often I find a girl I fail to charm.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked him up to the reference desk. At least we could solve one mystery.

  “Hi, Mrs. Beasley.”

  She closed the book she was reading and took off her glasses. “Twice in two days! How wonderful.” But I could see in her eyes that she was afraid of more police. I put her fears to rest immediately.

  “We're working on a project for Latin. Could you help us find some information about Cicero? He was a Roman lawyer and politician.”

  “Indeed he was.” She smiled brightly and pulled up some call numbers on the computer. I copied down half of them on a note card and gave them to Arbor, telling him to meet me at one of the work desks on the second floor when he had all the books.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, I leaned in and whispered, “Is that him?”

  “Who, dear?”

  “The guy who came and emptied locker 112.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Beasley squinted in the direction of his retreating figure. “No, I don't think so.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I searched her face for any sign of doubt or ambivalence. But there was nothing. She seemed calm and collected. “Definitely not the the guy,” she said.

  So much for that. I thanked her and went off to search for the other Cicero books. They weren't hard to find, but I flipped through them on the way up the stairs and got totally bogged down in some heavy duty academic writing. This was going to be more difficult that it seemed.

  When I sat down, Arbor was already deep in his studies, frowning over a page full of headache-inducingly small type and stopping every few seconds to take notes.

  “So here's what I think,” I said, rifling through my backpack to produce my Latin notebook, “We should go through his life in chronological order, highlighting the important cases of his law career and some of his other well-known writing, like his correspondence.”

  “I've just been reading some of that,” Arbor said. His voice was softer now. Farther away. “Did you know that he had a daughter who died young?”

  “No.”

  “Her name was Tullia. He built a shrine to her.” He pointed with his finger to a passage from one of the letters and read, “'I am trying to escape memories which make me eat out my heart.'”

  I glanced sideways at him and was surprised at the expression on his face. It was sad, and almost tender. He flipped to a page he'd marked in another book.

  “'Like apples, when they are unripe, are ripped with difficulty from the trees, but when ripe and mature fall down, so does violence take the lives of young people, and maturity, the old. Maturity which is indeed so delightful to me that as I come nearer to death, I feel as though I have sighted land, sailing into port at last after a long sea voyage.'” He read from the Latin easily, as if he were already fluent.

  “That's beautiful.”

  “It's from an essay called de Senectute, which means 'On Old Age.'”

  Arbor looked pensive. I couldn't quite read his expression. Grave and thoughtful, and almost wistful. He turned his eyes full on me, with all their fierce intensity. “She had hair like yours. Blazing with mortal fire.”

  “Who?”

  He did not answer. Just stared at me for a long moment and then turned back to his book. “If you take care of Cicero up through his law career, I'll be responsible for presenting everything after.”

  “Deal.” He was actually making me nervous now. I wanted to get us firmly off the topic of death, so I asked, “Where were you in gym, by the way? You missed a serious volleyball battle.”

  “I had some business to attend to.”

  That was all he would say. We worked silently from then on; the only sounds were the soft flap of pages being turned and the quiet rhythms of our breathing. Before I knew it, a couple of hours had passed and I was hungry. I closed my books and got up to stretch.

  “Dinnertime,” I said. “I'm gonna head home.”

  Arbor didn't seem to notice. He was totally wrapped up in his own thoughts. I waited for him to acknowledge that I was packing up my books, but he never lifted his head.

  “Okay, bye.” I threw my backpack over one shoulder and flew down the steps, glad to be moving my limbs again after sitting for such a long time.

  Arbor's behavior was so confusing, and the study session so grueling, my brain felt like cottage cheese. I was glad of the fresh air. I heard the bells in the steeple of Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church striking the hour. 6 o'clock. It was still summer enough to be light out, though the September days were getting noticeably shorter. The western sun was settling onto the mountain like a golden crown, craggy rock face like the cracked cheeks of an old man with a shaggy, pine tree beard. I laughed at myself for that weird thought, feeling almost giddy after concentrating so hard on our research.

  Home was only a few blocks away, but I took my time, enjoying my freedom and the chill of the coming night. I breathed in deeply, closed my eyes and lifted my head to the wide sky. And then, out of the blue, one of Arbor's statements wormed its way back into my brain.

  It's not often I find a girl I fail to charm...

  I remembered that look on Mrs. Beasley's face as she watched him walk away from the desk. She was sure of something. Sure that it was not him who had emptied the locker?

  Or sure that lying to me was the right thing to do?

  I opened my eyes. The street was pitch black. All the lamps were out. The sun had been extinguished. I was lost in the darkness.

  I drew in a sharp breath and stumbled, suddenly unsure of my feet. I was falling slowly, like a shriveled helium balloon. Then time sped up again and I crashed, knee twisted, jerking on the gravel. Both my palms were skinned, my left knee a rash of grit and pooling blood.

  I tore at my face with my aching hands, raked hair off my brow until I could press the pads of my fingers to my eyelids, searching for signs of damage. They seemed normal, but I felt no relief. My vision was totally undone. Instead of churchbells, I heard howling. Far-off wails, like perversions of everyday sounds. It was 6 o'clock and the sun was supposed to be over the mountain. Where had it gone?

  Car horn honking, tires squealing. A force shoved me. It felt like a rush of air. I flew out of the road and landed in someone's front yard, as though I'd been picked up bodily and carried by the wind. I heard the sound of breaking glass. I blinked.

  It was light again. Sunset and dim shadows, streetlamps blazing as if they'd never gone out.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed.

  “Evangeline! Are yo
u hurt?” Something brushed my cheek and caressed my hair.

  I opened my eyes and saw Arbor's face. He was kneeling over me, staring at me as though I were a ghost. With a shock, I realized that the warm thing I'd felt on my cheek was his hand. Slowly, he helped to gather me into a sitting position.

  “I'm...” I looked down at my knee and my palms. They were pretty scraped up, but nothing major. “I guess I need some Band-Aids. I think I'm all right. What happened?”

  The expression on his face was terrified and raw. He pointed to the road and said, “You were walking in the street. Didn't you see the car coming?”

  “I closed my eyes for a second. I didn't hear anything... I...”

  A car had run into a streetlamp, and steam was rising from its engine. A man stood nearby on his cellphone, assessing the damage. When I caught his eye, he snapped his phone shut and came charging up the sidewalk at me.

  “Do you know how much this is going to cost me to repair, young lady?”

  Arbor stood and faced him. “It wasn't her fault.”

  “She was walking in the middle of the road, not paying attention! You teenagers are getting more stupid and irresponsible every year.”

  “I'm sorry,” I squeaked. Tears sprang into my eyes. “I'm really sorry, but while I was walking... It was like everything just went black. Like I lost my eyesight for a minute.”

  He nodded, unconvinced. “Right. Tell that to the insurance people.”

  Arbor looked really mad now. He raised himself to his full height and got up in the man's face, voice soft but aggressive. “You were the one who almost hit her. You should be thankful she wasn't killed.”

  “Get off me.” The man pushed Arbor away, wiping off his suit as though it were contaminated. Just then I heard a familiar boo-wop and turned to see my sister stepping out of her squad car. Lieutenant Collier was riding shotgun. By the time he'd wrangled his bum knee out of the car, Callie was already at my side.

  “What happened here?” she demanded.

  The man was happy to have a new person to complain to, but Callie stopped him in his tracks, ignoring him until she'd checked me out, made sure I was okay.

  “I turned the corner and this... this juvenile was right in the middle of the street, stumbling around like a drunken idiot.”

  “My sister is not drunk, sir.”

  “Well, she certainly could have fooled me! So I tried to swerve out of the way and just look at my car...” He clutched his bald head and grimaced. Meanwhile Callie was threatening to book him for reckless driving and endangering the public.

  “Do you know who I am?” the man demanded. “Circuit Court Judge Halley K. Shumacher. I'm a prominent citizen! A pillar of the community!”

  Lieutenant Collier calmly stood by the squad car and called for back up, winking at me reassuringly – now Judge Shumacher was demanding to be taken to a hospital to be checked for internal injuries, vowing to have my family pay for his medical bills.

  “And I'm good friends with Dr. Lawrence, you mark my words! We play golf!” He actually shook his fist at us as he climbed into the back of a different cop car.

  “Oh my God. I'm so sorry, Callie. I don't know what happened. Everything just went black!”

  I told her about my brief loss of vision, but left out the part about being saved by a miraculous gust of wind. I don't know about you, but if someone told me that, I'd think they were either crazy or brain-damaged.

  Callie gave me a hug, making sure not to touch any of my wounds. I breathed in sharply through my teeth. My knee was really smarting.

  “We'll get you home and get you cleaned up.”

  “Oh hey, Arbor – ” I just remembered that I hadn't introduced him to my sister. I glanced around the scene; people had gathered to look at the wreck and listen to the shouting. But he was nowhere to be found. Disappeared again.

  “What?”

  “Never mind...”

  I eased myself into Callie's squad car and frowned as the crowd dispersed. Fat droplets of rain began to plop onto the windshield. The setting sun was now covered over by clouds that had seemingly conjured themselves out of nothing. My abridged night of sleep suddenly came back to me, and I was exhausted.

  Chapter 4

  I fell asleep on the ride home and woke up in my own bed, hands and knee bandaged, tucked under the covers. My alarm clock glowed 9:30. It was my stomach that had woken me this time. No food since lunch.

  I crept downstairs, limping a little on my knee, and found Callie sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a stack of reports and in the middle of a cup of tea.

  “Any dinner left?” I asked.

  “Hey, sleepyhead.” Callie put away her work and swept by me to the refrigerator. She pulled it open and started brusquely removing Pyrex containers full of odds and ends.

  “You don't have to do that. I can use the microwave.” I held up my hand. “Still have a functioning pointer finger.”

  “Oh, it's no trouble. You sit down.”

  I lowered myself gingerly into a chair and waited while my sister assessed the leftovers.

  “I guess it's either a macaroni-and-cheese-and-meatloaf sandwich or tunafish-strawberry-jello delight.”

  “Sandwich, please.” I love weird leftover meals.

  “I'll scramble you some eggs, too.”

  “'Kay.” Callie started up the range and cracked some eggs while I tapped my fingers on the table top. “Anything interesting today, you know, besides saving ye olde damsel in distress?”

  She sighed, sprinkling some cheddar cheese on the eggs. “Actually, I got called out to Oldtown. This poor man was up on his roof replacing shingles all by himself, and he ended up slipping off and breaking his neck. His neighbor found him. We had to make sure there was no foul play involved.”

  “Oh no, that's awful. When did that happen?”

  “Early afternoon.”

  When Arbor was absent from gym. I had some business to attend to. Oh God, Evi's brain, shut up. He seemed genuinely concerned about the car accident earlier. He stood up to that guy for you.

  Also, he might have been following you.

  “And was there?” I asked, nonchalantly. “Any foul play?”

  “No, just a terrible accident.”

  “Wow.”

  I gulped down my dinner, sighing with satisfaction as the hunger pangs quieted and I began to feel warm and full of food. Callie and I watched two episodes of CSI together after dinner, bundled up comfortably on the couch. We pegged the murderer before the reveal both times.

  “Yup,” said Callie, stretching and yawning. “Still got it. Haven't let real-world police experience cloud my sense of TV logic.”

  I dragged myself to bed at midnight, still tired despite my nap. I couldn't believe it was only Wednesday. This week seemed to be stretching on and on, every minute packed with either excruciatingly dull crap (like homework) or terrifying episodes (like weird emails and near-fatal car wrecks). But nothing disturbed my sleep that night, and when I woke to my alarm, my injuries felt much better.

  “Time to have a normal day,” I told myself.

  And for once, I did.

  Not only was Arbor nowhere to be found, but Ellen was having some issues and in supporting her, I totally forgot about my own troubles. It seems there was a boy.

  “I didn't want to tell you,” she said, as we waited in the lunch line. “Not until I was sure we were actually dating and not just hooking up. But then this happened.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Hooking up?” I lowered my voice. “How far did you go?”

  “Not that far.”

  We steered clear of Britta and company when we got our food, and instead snuck it out of the cafeteria so we could sit on the floor and eat by our lockers. I had so many questions I could barely choke down my bagel.

  “So are you going to tell me who it is?”

  She sighed dramatically, daintily unwrapping her ham sandwich and taking a bite, chewing and swallowing before she would answer. Wh
en she finally did tell me, it came out all at once in a long string of unbroken words.

  “Okay, it's Jim Holness. Don't hate me.”

  “What?” I sprayed milk all over and Ellen scrunched up her face, pretending to wipe herself off with a napkin.

  “Ew, Evi.”

  “You're hooking up with the captain of the football team? Jim 'I'm in the newspaper every other week' Holness? Jim 'I'm not a whole person without a bare-midriffed cheerleader hanging off me' Holness?”

  “Yup.”

  I crossed my arms in thought and regarded my friend. “Well, you don't look very happy about it.”

  “Thank you for that evaluation, Counselor Troi. It's because I'm not.”

  “What's wrong? Does he not want to be seen with you or something? Are you his secret hook-up girl that he can't take out in public?”

  “No, I don't think so. Anyway, it's not like I want to be seen in public with him, either.”

  “What, then?”

  She hemmed and hawed for a bit. Ellen's a super private person, even with me. It tends to take her a while to feel comfortable letting me in on certain aspects of her life. Of course, she always spills the beans eventually.

  “Last night we were making out in his car...”

  “Wait, rewind. How did this love train even start a-chuggin'?”

  She smiled and laughed. “We both volunteer at the Pear Creek nursing home. He's so sweet with the residents; all the ladies adore him.” There was a light in her eyes for a minute, but then her face sobered and she continued. “Anyway, we started talking to each other on breaks. About school and whatnot. Then his car broke down this summer and I started giving him rides home. One day we just... kissed. You know how it is.”

  I did not. But I nodded, not wanting to break her train of thought.

  “So it's been pretty casual since then. We see each other every now and again, go out for ice cream. Very quiet; no one knows. And then, like I said, last night we were making out in his car. All we've ever done is kiss. He hasn't even tried to touch me or anything, not even over clothes. Well, last night I wanted to go further.”

  “Ellen Wilson, you dirty whore.”