Sunder

by Tara Brown

  Liz looked at me and nodded. She had a story, but she wasn’t going to share it at a table of strangers like I just did. I felt like a moron.

  Josh cleared his throat and spoke, “So do either of you do any sports or anything?”

  Liz laughed. “No, no thank you. I was in an art school.”

  Josh laughed and nodded, looking confused. In fact, they all did. I didn’t know why they were smiling like that.

  The boy next to Josh, with blond hair and freckles laughed and asked, “Like all you did all day was art? That’s sweet. Man, we should see if we can convince them to let us do art all day.”

  “Oh my God, you have never heard of an arts and science school? The focus is arts, whether it’s performing or painting or sculpting, but she learned regular stuff too.” I looked at Liz and nodded. “You must be good at what you did—those schools are super hard to get into.”

  Liz blushed so bright red I actually felt bad for her. “I paint. I got a scholarship.” She seemed to shake when she spoke about it, as if she was emotional and nervous. I felt bad for her. She must have been pissed to get brought here in the last year of school.

  I knew that pain all too well. “Wow, that’s impressive. I would love to see your stuff. I know my dad is looking for some art for the house.” I could see she didn’t want to talk about herself so I looked at Josh. “I played soccer and volleyball back home but that’s it.”

  He nodded. “The girls cheer and play soccer. You should try out for the team. We play football.” He looked at the boys at the table and smirked. “A lot of football.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Are you any good?”

  A blond, freckled, slightly-attractive boy frowned. “We would be—we would beat everyone, but our school doesn’t allow us to enter the state championships, even if we qualify.” He looked bitterly at Josh who shrugged and said, “We play ‘cause we like it.”

  “That sounds dumb.”

  Josh looked at the blond kid making an odd face. I was starting to feel a little off about the whole lunch. They were acting weird and Liz and I were acting like idiots. Josh’s words were heavy, like they were final, “We have enough to keep busy, we don’t need to go to championships.”

  I looked at Liz and she shrugged. “Cool.”

  What else could we say? Small towns suck butt? Yeah, we could have said that but we felt sorry for them. At least I did.

  Chapter Nine

  Briton

  She was laughing with her new friends and the boy she had danced with. The one who had walked her home. The one whose name she had said aloud to her mother. He couldn’t tear his gaze from their table.

  The vice principal showed him around the grounds, nattering on, “Your family actually built the original school. You must know that though?”

  He nodded, absentmindedly. “I do.”

  She sighed. He could hear the vice principal swooning over him. “You must know, we are so grateful someone like you would be interested in working here. Maybe next year something will open up for you!”

  He looked at her, leaning in a bit and whispering, “You will fire the literature teacher.”

  She paused and blurted out, “I am the literature teacher.”

  “Then you will step down and let me do the job. Just be the vice principal.”

  “You will teach the class?”

  His eyes found their way back to his Liv. He spoke softly, “Yes. Ensure Liv Daniels is in my class.” He walked away from her, standing on the edge of the football field, and watched Liv. Her blonde hair was tossed about in the wind. Suddenly, his eyes caught something else. A silver stare from the girl next to his Liv.

  The cold shiver he received from her look was all too telltale. He nodded at her and walked away.

  She would know him soon enough.

  He walked back to the school and entered the office. “Which room should I set up in and which subject am I discussing?”

  The vice principal looked like she misunderstood him. “The Canterbury Tales in Room 214. The texts are there.”

  “Excellent. Thank you.”

  She scowled, looking lost in the words leaving her lips. “The secretary said she can’t seem to find any financial information for your pay, or your police and credit checks.”

  He leaned in, looking into her eyes. “You do not need to pay me, but you won’t remember that. You will just think I am already on salary. My credit and police checks were fine. I am a very nice man and completely trustworthy. If anyone asks, I am twenty-four and this is my second year of teaching. I only want the job for a week or so, a substitute for you while you are so busy with vice principal tasks.”

  “You are so young looking for twenty-four.”

  “I use my anti-aging cream every night.”

  She giggled and he strolled down the hall to the stairs. The school was so altered from when he had gone there. Back then it was a house where forty-five kids from ages six to fifteen attended. Now it was a school where hundreds of kids went, but only the older ones.

  He almost smiled, remembering the way he and his brothers had been; the teacher had cried nearly once a week for the year they attended, lying about their ages. The image of her trembling lip and shimmering eyes still warmed his heart. He had been forced to attend school, constantly learning about the new world they lived in. Wherever they went, he and his brothers did a year of education. They would stay a few years and then move on to the next spot.

  But not there. Wolfville had become their brilliant creation, a place no one had to move from. No creature had to fear living there. The people didn’t ask questions and they forgot what they saw. The spell on the town kept everyone safe, for a time.

  But that was then.

  He wasn’t sure what to expect there now. He hadn’t seen one of his kind and the wolves lived in secret.

  He glanced at the door 214 when he got to it. His brain was screaming that he was making a mistake. A huge mistake.

  His eyes roamed the seats of the class. If he’d had a heartbeat it would have been racing then and there. Scared of the choice he was making. It felt like a choice, but he wasn’t sure he had one.

  He wanted to avoid her. He wanted to pretend he didn’t feel something for no damned reason. He wanted the teaching position to be a mistake he could walk away from.

  But none of it was his heart’s want.

  She had created a pull and a drive and a hunger that couldn’t be sated by any other person. She was quickly becoming an obsession.

  He’d seen it before.

  It was what brought down the town of Wolfville.

  It was what brought the hunters.

  It was what destroyed his entire family.

  He fought everything inside of himself and turned away from the classroom, finally seeing the truth of the damage she would cause if he let her.

  But she was there in the hall, staring at him. She was like the frost queen, everything about her was sharp and bright. Icy-blue eyes, silky blonde hair, pale skin that looked to be frozen in perfection. But it was her lips that caught his eyes. They were glossed, drawing his stare to the shine. Making his mind paint pretty pictures of them pressed against his, or even smiling for him.

  Instead she scowled, making him smile. Even her scowl was something perfect. Her nose wrinkled at the bridge and her lips puffed out in a sneer. “Why are you here? Don’t tell me you go here. Please. For the love of God and all things holy, don’t tell me you go here!”

  His feet may have wanted to walk away and his body may have been sending out mayday signals to his heart, begging it to walk away. But the shitty look on her face forced his hand. He wanted nothing like he did for her to suffer through the next hour with him. He turned back into the classroom, grinning as if he were laughing at a joke no one else got.

  “Seriously, why are you here?”

  He smiled, still with his back to her. He closed his eyes, taking in the sweet scent she gave off. When he felt strong enough, he turned around,
seeing other kids filing in after her. They ruined his chance at saying something witty. “Take your seat.”

  Her words turned to a whisper, “You’re the teacher?” Her jaw dropped and the most delectable pink filled her cheeks. It added color where there had only been stark, icy beauty. She looked like she might say something else, but he stood at the teacher’s desk and opened The Canterbury Tales.

  The faces of the young women filling the desks were all the same, apart from one. To say they were smitten with him would not have covered the truth of it. Each face donned a desperately pained look as they tried to make eye contact with him, fixed their hair or puckered their lips. He cocked an eyebrow at one girl as she quickly pulled her shirt down, adjusting her breasts so a maximum amount of cleavage was showing.

  Another girl licked her glossy lips, slowly and purposefully. She winked as she finished.

  He sighed as the bell rang. “My name is Mr. Thorlackson. You can call me Briton if you want to. I’m not a formal teacher, just a fill in. Just here for a few days.”

  A guy in the back row smiled like the girls did. He had stars in his eyes as he leaned forward, lost in Briton’s words.

  A smile crept across Briton’s face. He could feel his own cheeks blushing as he glanced down at the floor. The room filled with sighs and soft moans. He pointed behind himself, “Who has read The Canterbury Tales?”

  When he glanced up through his thick lashes, he could see one girl’s hand. The girl with the silver stare. She mustn’t have known what she was. The look on her face proved it. No witch could love what he was, and yet there she was, making a face at him like she was really trying to restrain herself, like the other girls.

  “What’s your name?”

  She shook her head like she was twitching. “Uhm, Liz.” She looked like she was panicking at answering.

  He grinned, making the sighs fill the room again. “Well Liz, what is your impression of the stories inside of The Canterbury Tales?”

  She swallowed hard, running her hands down her throat. “Ohhh, uhm. Well. They are sarcastic and mocking. They speak a great deal about the way people would have lived. They are fiction, I think, but they seemed like everyday people’s stories, only more harsh and mocking.” Her cheeks reddened and she looked down, blurting the last sentences. “I have to admit, I only read them because of the Heath Ledger movie, A Knight’s Tale. My mom told me it was based on the tales and I read it. The old English was hard to understand.”

  “I see. Does anyone in this class have a desire to read the tales?”

  No one moved.

  His lips turned up, slightly amused at the lack of interest in anything from their generation. He spoke with a bit of a sigh, “It is one of my favorite stories in all of the world. It shows of the life they would have lived back then. It’s exactly how life was, actually, it was fragile back then. You had a respect for life that you do not see nowadays. It’s almost romantic in the sense you see how deep their love was, and their hate. Everything was about survival, so you fought harder for the things you loved—the people rather.” The memories flooded him, forcing him to stop mid-thought. It had been a better time, there was no doubt.

  Every girl and the one guy in the back of the room, raised their arms in the air. They filled the room with the sound of desperate begging to read it. Apart from the one girl he wanted so badly—he actually ached from the want he had for her.

  He noticed the icy-blue stare of that one girl who didn’t have her hand in the air. Liv shook her head. He looked once more at her face and sighed again.

  The whole thing was a grave mistake and he knew it, but he couldn’t look away and he couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t even try.

  Chapter Ten

  Liv

  “The way he enunciates and uses the old language makes me respect him even more. He really is the best English teacher I have ever met. Something about the way his lips move makes me happy inside.” Liz gushed, making me slightly sick. “Did you see the way he smiled at me, up through his lashes, while he was blushing? Dude. I almost peed my pants. He is beautiful and he makes me want to learn. The school needs to find more hottie teachers. I think it would make people learn easier. My old school had this one art teacher—good God. Everyone did better because you wanted him to look at you.”

  I groaned, “Can we talk about anything other than that?”

  Liz nodded, “Sure.” She slapped my arm, “Oh my God, did you check out his ass? You could crack walnuts on it. So firm in his cords. Who even wears cords anymore? No one. And yet, Briton rocked them. I love the way he lets us call him Briton. Don’t you love that name?”

  I grabbed her by the shoulders, “Dude, you’re killing me here. The guy is a dick. I met him at the ball, he was a complete jerk. Head-game psycho pants. And no one wears cords ‘cause they’re not cool anymore. I’m switching classes. Screw this.”

  Her jaw dropped, “You can’t. You’re the only person I know. Stop being so moody.” We walked into her mom’s store through the back door. It smelled like herbs and old ladies. It was creepy, and yet, I could swear I’d been there before.

  “You want a sandwich?”

  I nodded, “Sure.”

  A beautiful lady with brown curls tied up in a rag bun came around the corner. She smiled and I sighed. She was so pretty, and yet plain. Her face was stunning, but it didn’t match her messy hair, makeup-less face, and dusty clothes. She plopped some bottles of herbs down on the dusty counter in the store. “How was first day and who is this?”

  “First day sucked hard.” Liz pointed, “This is Liv Daniels. Her dad is the new doctor in town. We were both new today, so that was fun. I had someone to suffer with, instead of being completely alone and alienated.”

  Her mom gave me a wide smile. She looked like Julia Roberts kinda. I liked her just for that. “Liv Daniels?” She said my name like she was in a dream. She nodded. “I am so pleased to meet you. And you two are friends? That’s excellent. You girls hungry?”

  Liz gave her mom a look. “You okay?”

  She blushed. “I am. Just tired from the books and the inventory.” She turned and pointed. “I made sandwiches. They’re in the fridge on a plate. It’s really nice to meet you, Liv.” She put a hand out for me to shake, but Liz dragged me down the hallway to the stairs that led to the house above the store. “Come on, I’m hungry.” Liz seemed pissed at her mom. The move away from the art school must have been brutal. I was a regular school kid and it was brutal.

  “Sorry, she gets weird sometimes. I don’t even have an excuse.”

  I looked back as Liz got the sandwiches out. “Yeah, she seemed like she knew my name.”

  “She’s fried. This whole thing has been bullshit. My grandma randomly dies and we have to move here, even though other family members could have run this dump of a store. It’s bullshit.”

  I folded my arms. “I hear that.” The upstairs of the store was not much different from the downstairs. “Your grandma sure liked stuff, huh?”

  She passed me an egg salad sandwich and laughed. “She was a hoarder. It’s going to take us years to clean this crap up. Old books that aren’t even in English.” She walked to a dusty old bookshelf and pulled one of the books off. She opened it and pointed.

  It was in some kind of language I had never seen before. “That’s weird. I wonder what that is?” I took a bite of the sandwich and felt instantly better. There was something homey about it. It was like a hug from my mom in a sandwich. Liz seemed to cool off too. She turned on some music, a song I didn’t know that was a little more wrist cutter than I was used to, while it was still daylight.

  We sat down on the chairs and stared. It wasn’t an awkward silence. It was something else. Like being stoned. I looked at the half-eaten sandwich and cocked an eyebrow. “Does your mom drug your food?”

  Her head snapped towards me. “Huh?”

  “I feel crazy relaxed like I smoked pot or something.”

  She started to laugh. It ma
de me laugh too. It was involuntary. We both lost ourselves in the laughing.

  She stammered. “I-I-I think sh-sh-she might h-h-h-have d-d-d-drugged us!”

  I laughed harder. It got to the point I made no sound, just a wheeze. It matched Liz’s. Tears were streaming my face, and I couldn’t help but curl up, trying to get a grip on myself.

  The laughing stopped for us both instantly. Liz looked at me, stunned and unsure of what that was. We both looked at the sandwiches, not speaking or sure of what had just happened.

  “Want to go to your house?”