I found a funny cartoon playing on the cartoon network channel, so I let that play while we chatted. Well, while they chatted, I suppose. I just sat there and listened to the sounds of their voices.
It was the perfect fusion of bass and soprano. I closed my eyes in the bliss of the silence that was filled with the voices of my guardian angels, letting my mind drift away to a place of verdure, a place of repose, where all sickness, sorrow, and sighing had fled away. I was with my angels . . . in a heaven that could not possibly exist.
I opened my eyes and groaned. It was Monday . . .
I found myself in my bed, though I was absolutely certain I had caved on the recliner. Ricky must have moved me. I sat up and looked at the clock. It was quite early, but I got up anyway. I found Ricky downstairs on the recliner, the remote in his open hand.
“Ricky,” I said quietly, gently shaking him awake. “Hey.”
He twitched and opened his eyes. “What?” he asked groggily.
I chuckled. “Just wanted you to know that I’m heading off to school in about a half hour. I’m gonna go a little early today.”
“Any particular reason?” he asked curiously.
“Nope,” I said, “Just figured I’d actually get Calculus help for once.”
He laughed. “Yeah, you do that.” He got out of the chair and headed to the kitchen with me. “What do you want? I’ll make you something,” he offered.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’ll just have a bowl of cereal or something.”
He shrugged and pulled out the eggs from the refrigerator. It was Omelet Day. Every Monday Ricky felt the necessity to eat an omelet, so we called Mondays “Omelet Days.”
I grabbed a bowl and the Lucky Charms from the cupboard and ate while Ricky cooked his meat-lover slash veggie-lover slash cheese-lover omelet. Heck, it was an everything-lover omelet.
He basically shoved the thing down, in an obvious hurry to go somewhere.
“Well, I’m gonna go,” I said resolutely, putting my bowl in the sink. “I’ll see you after school.”
He nodded, pulling me in for a big hug. “Thanks for letting Pa stay last night.”
“Awe it was nothing,” I scoffed. “Speaking of Pa, did she make it home okay?”
“Yeah,” he answered with a sigh of relief. “I drove her back at around 2 this morning. Then I just crashed on the recliner.”
“Yeah, I saw that,” I retorted with a wry smile. “But, seriously, don’t thank me. She’s welcome here any time, Ricky.”
He smiled. “Thanks bud. I’ll see you tonight, then?” he asked as I opened the front door.
“Yep,” I said. “I have nothing going on tonight, surprisingly,” I added with a smile. He waved as I closed the door behind me, blowing a kiss toward him.
The morning air was cold and clear, freeing my mind of any troublesome thoughts. I walked at a reasonable pace, my ears tuning in to the songs of the birds waking.
The trees were losing more of their leaves, turning the grass into a gorgeous collage of warm colors. The trees looked like skeletons standing amidst the sea of warmth, waiting for the cold to be over and done with.
The sunrise was absolutely beautiful, dying the sky a magnificent reddish blue. The sun itself was an orb of gold suspended low in the east, and its rays seemed to reach deep inside my own eyes, causing them to glow from deep within.
The walk was peaceful; the only sounds resonated from the heels of my shoes on the concrete of the sidewalk. I was at the school in less than a half hour. It was seven o’clock and some of my teachers were just unlocking the classroom doors for the morning periods when I walked into the building. I went to my locker first, ignoring the other five people in the sparsely-populated school.
It took me little more than ten minutes to clean out my locker of all that extra crap you usually find in it. I pulled out my finished calculus homework, courtesy of Chris, and smiled to myself.
I wondered vaguely where he was right then.
I headed up the stairs toward my homeroom, dumping all my books carelessly beside my desk.
“Good morning, Miss Ambrose.”
I jumped at the sound of my name being spoken in a deep, masculine voice. It was my teacher, Mr. Gardner. He was a skyscraper at 6'7", towering over anyone who stood beside him, with beady blue eyes and a head of receding black hair.
“Good morning, Mr. Gardner. How was your weekend?” I asked.
He sighed. “Ah, it was one of my worse ones,” he said with a sad face.
“Well,” I said, trying to get away before I heard his entire life story, “Things happen for a reason. We may not understand the reasons until they’re way behind us, but we need to make it our mission to understand the reasons and move on from that.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Yes,” he said, putting down a folder on his desktop. “You know something, Ambrose? You have wisdom beyond your years.”
I smiled, knowing exactly where the wisdom was coming from. “Thank you, sir. I live the way my parents taught me. I strive to follow their example.”
“I commend you,” he said, touching my shoulder. Mr. Gardner was a particularly aloof teacher, strictly against contact with students. But now, as I reached my hand out to him to console him, he grabbed it eagerly, almost as if that’s all he was waiting for.
“Again, sir,” I repeated, “Thank you. It means the world to me.”
“Your parents must be very proud of the responsible young woman you’ve become,” he mused.
“I assume they are,” I replied. “Their lives are busied with work, and mine with school, but the time I do get to spend with them has shaped me permanently. If you’d excuse me, sir,” I said gently, “I need to see another teacher before homeroom starts.”
“Of course,” he said, putting out his hand toward the door. “Thank you for the advice, Ambrose.”
“Anytime,” I said, waving as I walked away. I walked down the hallway, with my cell phone in my pocket. I set it to vibrate in one swift click and slid it back into my pocket. More and more students were starting to arrive now, and the halls were becoming more populated with timid freshmen and senioritis-ridden seniors.
I went into the main office. The secretary at the main desk looked up when I approached and inclined her head.
“Yes? Is there something you need, dear?” she asked in a high-pitched voice.
“Um, yeah,” I said awkwardly, thinking off the top of my head. “There’s a new student here—Christopher Calder—and I thought I’d help him find his way around. As Drum Major, I feel responsible for that sort of thing . . .” I trailed off as the secretary began typing Chris’ name into the computer. A piece of paper shot out of the printer just a moment later and the secretary handed it to me.
“Here’s his schedule. His homeroom is Mrs. Movado, Room 215. Not too difficult to find,” she said.
I smiled. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
She smiled as I turned away, the schedule in my hand. I stopped midstride as I examined the schedule. Every class—besides homeroom—was exactly the same. First period was Calculus, second P.E., third AP Physics . . . it was completely identical to mine.
How was that possible?
But then I remembered the magical completion of my homework, and seemed to understand. He had created this schedule himself . . . so we wouldn’t be separated.
I felt myself smile.
I heard a dull ring—the homeroom bell—and sighed, heading back to Mr. Gardner and where he sat waiting for the miserable week to finally start already.
My homeroom was full of the biggest group of misfits I had ever seen. We had every clique—from Goths to Preps—and I was affiliated with all of them.
The entire class stood up for the National Anthem, but then the morning announcements bored the heck out of me, so I doodled on my notebook until the annoying intercom shut off. I looked at my notebook for the first time since I had started doodling, and saw that every picture I had drawn was a
different expression from a set of gorgeous gunmetal blue eyes. I turned the notebook over in embarrassment and buried it in my bag.
Mr. Gardner was busy copying down some practice problems onto the board for my first period Calc class, so I just sat there and copied them down ahead of time. The bell rang when I got to the sixth problem, but I ignored it, continuing to keep myself busy.
I had four minutes until Calc started, and as the seconds ticked by, it was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on the math. My stomach was flipping all over the place from the nervousness.
I knew Chris would be here; he was scheduled for this class. But the thing that worried me was my reaction when I saw him again.
Would everyone know the moment he looked at me? Would they think we were . . . dating?
The term had never scared me before, but Chris wasn’t my boyfriend. He was just trying to help me recover my soul so I could fulfill my “destiny” and all that. He wooed me unintentionally whenever he gazed into my eyes, but my feelings made no difference. I was on a mission to find out who I was, and my personal feelings would not get in my way.
I jumped as I felt someone touch my shoulder.
“Number 7 already?” the voice asked as I furiously continued copying the problem. “You’re getting better than my magic,” he whispered, and I looked up.
He stood slightly behind me, his arm propping up his muscular body on the side of my desk. His black hair was spiked again and smelled wonderful. I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes.
“How was your Sunday?” I asked, ignoring his previous comment and keeping my eyes on my notebook.
“Long,” he commented blandly. “I actually couldn’t wait to get here this morning.”
I chuckled just as the bell rang. “You’d better sit down.” I paused, looking around me. “Where is your seat anyway?” I added curiously.
“Right here,” he said, pointing to the desk beside me where a creepy, emo kid was staring at his hands. Chris smirked and walked up to Mr. Gardner.
I inclined my ear to try to listen in and it sounded like Chris had said, “I’m new here and Dessa is a friend of mine. I’d appreciate it if you would consider allowing us to sit together so I can catch up on the work as quickly as possible.”
I saw Gardner nod his head and smile slightly, pointing to the desk with the emo kid in it. The emo kid saw what was going on and got up slowly, looking straight at me as he trudged to the back of the room, completely unnoticed.
Chris walked back and tapped my desk as he turned around to sit beside me, his black hair shining slightly in the fluorescents. His eyes glowed as he looked back at me.
“I’m going to show you a little trick,” he said with a devilish smile.
“What kind?” I whispered back anxiously. “Are you going to poof out of here or something?”
He laughed. “Something like that,” he replied. “I don’t ‘poof’ places. I just freeze everything around me.”
“Cool . . .” I breathed slowly.
He chuckled again. “It’s pretty neat. It helps when I need to get away in a hurry. I could freeze everything and still keep running until I knew I was safe.”
“That’s amazing,” I said in awe. “I wonder what I’ll be able to do.”
“I’m sure we’ll all find out,” he whispered. “You ready?”
I nodded. “Show me what you got,” I said with a smirk.
He touched my hand absently with his left, leaving his right palm up on the desk. His hair, completely stagnant from all the hair spray—at least I thought that’s what it was—in it, suddenly began to straighten even more, the locks crystallizing over with icicles. His eyes began to glow brighter than I had ever seen them before the moment his left hand clutched mine.
Suddenly he was chanting in some ancient language, kind of like Native American or some sort of Indian language, and everything around us looked ice blue. I looked around and watched as the people around us began to slowly stop moving, their muscles freezing over unknowingly as Chris continued to chant. He chanted faster and louder, and the entire school was frozen in time, the ice blue haze hanging over them.
“Amazing . . .” I murmured in awe.
He smiled. “The only ones not affected by my magic are those that have contact with my skin. That’s why I held you—to keep you from freezing like the rest of them.” I opened my mouth slightly and looked around. Mr. Gardner stood just like a movie was paused in the middle of a scene, his hand frozen just before writing the solution to a problem. The other students were frozen in the past, their eyes glued on anything other than the Smart Board.
I looked at Chris again, completely amazed.
“This is crazy . . .” I muttered. “What happens if I let go of you?” I asked suddenly, clutching his hand tighter.
He answered after a moment of thought. “You would freeze over, too. Unless you’re in contact with my skin, you’re a victim of my gift.”
“What if you need to make a group of people stay unfrozen?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve never had to do that before, but I’m sure there’s a way. Even I’m not that experienced,” he admitted with a sheepish grin.
“Oh,” I said matter-of-factly, shrugging. “I was just curious.”
“Come on,” he said, pulling me to my feet.
I grabbed Chris’ hand tighter and we walked around the frozen classroom, gliding through the icy blue haze that hung over my classmates. He never loosened his hold, and the cold grip suddenly began to grow warmer, just like the caress he had given me the day we met. The intimacy of the feelings running through me was amazing.
How could I trust him so fully and feel so comfortable around him . . . when I had known him for a mere three days?
He led me out into the hallway, where the haze was a little less heavy, and we walked together. I saw teachers frozen in their own minds, their eyes gazing suspiciously at the group of guys heading toward the girls’ bathroom.
Chris felt me shudder and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. The second his skin touched mine, my skin erupted with heat, filling me with a calmness that I had never experienced before. It felt like sitting in a Jacuzzi, like levitating in a heavenly ocean of warmth and peace.
I felt my eyes close a bit, and Chris’ laughter rumbled through his chest.
“I’m not that good,” he mumbled. “You act like you’re in heaven right now.” He chuckled a bit.
“I am,” I admitted, feeling my lips pull up at the corners. I put my other hand on top of his where is rested on my shoulder. “For some reason, being with you fills me with peace.”
He turned to look at me, slowing his step to a comfortable strolling walk.
“It’s probably because of what I am . . .” he trailed off, his eyes full of confusion. He smiled slightly. “The reason why you feel so calm around me is because I’m the manifestation of Water. I’m the spirit of the element of peace and calm made manifest in the body of a human being. So yeah, it’s very natural for you to feel the calmness I project from myself.”
I smiled again. “So . . . does that mean that Ricky and Pa are . . .?”
“They are Earth and Wind manifest?” he asked for me. I nodded, and so did he. “Yeah. Their bodies are the vessels of very beautiful spirits, who will guide them toward their future of keeping the elements in balance. That’s our job, basically. When a certain element goes out of balance, it’s the job of the other five to restore balance again.”
“Wait . . .” I stopped, counting with my fingers. He waited with a smirk on his lips. “Hold on . . . five . . . six?!”
“Yes, six,” he answered, almost smug as he looked at me.
“But how is that?” I asked. “There’s Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Light . . . So what’s the other one?”
He let go of my hand, but didn’t lose contact with my skin. His fingers caressed the skin of my arms as they traveled up toward my shoulder, causing my skin to prickle in delight.
“You know
the answer. Remember the hexagram? Imagine the four main elements on the four sideways points, light on the top . . .” I visualized the beautiful symbol as I had seen it on the foreheads of the statues, with the top pointing toward the sky, toward the Light. I remembered the four middle tips, each pointing to a separate direction, and then there was the sixth point . . . tilted toward the ground . . .
I gasped and met his surprisingly calm gaze.
“The other element is Darkness,” I whispered, feeling a chill run through me.
“Yeah. The sixth element is the Darkness.” His eyes noticeably darkened as he spoke that sentence, his mouth curling into a sneer that frightened me. But as quickly as the expression came, I blinked and it was gone, replaced by his calm, loving blue eyes.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, his eyes gazing intently into mine as I stared back at him, utterly horrified.
I could only find the strength to shake my head from side to side; I couldn’t trust my voice.
“Are you sure?” he countered, his eyebrows rising slightly in disbelief. The distress was clear in his eyes, but all I could seem to see was the hatred that had been there mere seconds before. I nodded almost reflexively, taking his other hand. “Do you want to go back to class?”
I shook my head again, and this time he chuckled.
“I think you’ve had enough for now. Maybe I’ll show you something more a little later.”
I smiled. “Okay,” I whispered. We walked back through the haze to the classroom. I shivered as the haze came in contact with my skin, but the cold was replaced with heat just seconds after, causing my mind to reel in on itself and wonder why I had been so afraid. We took our seats, hands still joined together, and Chris began to chant again.
His voice deepened and began a soft, calm lullaby, and as his voice carried the melody, the blue haze began to lift itself. It blended into the air and went slowly away, allowing the people trapped by its presence to move again.
Mr. Gardner wrote the solution to the problem and called on some random nerd with huge glasses to answer the next one. I didn’t really pay attention for the remainder of class. I was too preoccupied with what had just happened and what I had just discovered.
Poison Page 8