Warden Fall

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  Warden Fall

  By Jennifer M. Eaton

  Originally titled “The First Day of the New Tomorrow”

  Original publication date September, 2013 MuseItUp Publishing

  The First Day of the New Tomorrow © 2013 by Jennifer M. Eaton

  Warden Fall © 2017 by Jennifer M. Eaton

  Cover Design by GermanCreative

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or events, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For my kids, who have the power to be anything they can dream.

  Table of Contents

  Please Review

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  A Note From The Author

  Please Review

  Want a Free Book?

  More from this author

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Hey you!

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  Chapter One

  There just wasn’t enough cover-up in the world. Maya blended in the last dab of makeup, concealing the tenth new blemish this week.

  “There should be a law against acne,” she whispered.

  Brushing a few of her dark bangs over the more hideous breakout on her forehead, she slipped on her glasses and took stock. The zits she could cover up, but the ugly specs?

  “I wish I didn’t have to wear these stupid things,” she told her reflection.

  Her likeness smirked. Even her mirror image thought she looked like a geek. A geek that was going to be late for school if she didn’t hurry up.

  Maya turned from the mirror and banged her head on the edge of the bathroom door. The world blurred, and she grabbed the wall for support. On all sides, a fuzzy halo bent and distorted the world into a crazy Picasso painting. Maya squinted, willing her sight to return.

  When did she turn into such a spaz? She’d studied all night for today’s history test. She refused to miss it over something so dumb as hitting her head on a door. Removing her glasses, she rubbed her eyes and stared at the toilet bowl until its blurry shape solidified into a crisp, perfect form. She slipped her glasses back on, but the fuzzy haze returned.

  “What?” She grabbed the counter and pulled the metal frames from her face. Three slow breaths calmed her only slightly as the room once again slipped into perfect focus.

  A ray of sunshine sparkled through the white lace curtain and landed on a towel beside the bathtub. A spider web clung to the ceiling, holding more dust than forgotten prey. Three nails popped through the wall near the door. These were all normal things, except she could see them as clearly as she could see the glasses still clutched in her fist.

  “Okay-y-y.” She lifted the spectacles to her eyes, crinkling her nose as the world blurred again.

  Holy hell, she could see without glasses!

  These frames had been a part of her for years, a blessing as much as a pain when they got lost or broken. And now she stood, staring at them, and her sight seemed even clearer than when the glasses worked!

  Not that this was a bad thing. If something weird had to happen today, she’d definitely take getting her sight back over just about anything else.

  She slipped the glasses into her pocket and plodded down the stairs. Her mother’s obligatory don’t-forget-to-eat note fluttered on the refrigerator door when Maya passed— as if she’d even look at the fridge if she weren’t already in breakfast mode.

  Rifling past the food savers and soda cans, she sighed. Would a few eggs be too much to ask for? She grabbed the milk and closed the door. Cereal would have to do. Setting the milk carton on the center island, she grabbed the plastic cornflakes container and pursed her lips. Hardly a handful of cereal shifted across the crumbs on the bottom.

  Great. Eat breakfast, but I’m not leaving anything for you to eat. Thanks, Mom.

  Maya reopened the refrigerator and startled. Three eggs lay neatly balanced on the wire shelving beside last night’s spaghetti sauce. How could she have missed them before?

  “All right, eggs it is.”

  She scrambled two of the eggs quickly, well aware that the clock ticked faster than she cooked, and missing the bus meant walking, and a late ticket. Detention sucked. She scarfed down breakfast and chucked the dishes in the sink. They’d wait until after school.

  The dull drone of the school bus’s engine echoed through the neighborhood. Maya locked the door behind her and bolted down the street, struggling to keep her backpack on her shoulder. She couldn’t be late again. She’d had detention three times last week, and while finishing all her homework was a bonus, hanging at school with the kids who actually deserved to be in detention was not on her top ten list of things to do on a weekday afternoon.

  Her heart sank as she turned the corner just in time to see the bus pull away from the stop and head in her direction. She’d missed it, and even though the bus was about to pass her by, Old Lady Harris would never stop for her. “It’s against school policy,” the bus driver always said.

  Maya growled and stopped running. Why can’t I get a break? She changed directions and readied herself to walk the rest of the way to school, mentally preparing for the inevitable detention.

  Since today was Thursday, her sentence would probably be carried out on Friday, the day of the big football game. Not that she cared about football, but everyone else serving time would be ticked off about missing the tailgate. It was a recipe for the worst of the worst Friday afternoons.

  The shrill scream of hydraulic brakes shattered the air as the bus pulled to a halt. Maya froze and stared at the dirty yellow metal wall beside her until the glass doors bent apart. She peeked her head in, ready for the onslaught of paper airplanes or whatever joke lay in wait.

  Instead, crystal blue eyes accenting a strong, stubbly chin greeted her. Definitely not Old Lady Harris.

  “Is this your bus?” the driver asked.

  She could swear a Daytona Beach Kevin doll had spoken to her, right down to his seasoned tan and perfectly placed hair.

  “Are you okay, kid?”

  Maya shook her head to clear it. “Huh? Me? Oh, yeah. What?”

  His laughed warmed her. “I asked if this was your bus. When I pulled away, you looked like the world was about to end.”

  Well, not quite end, but Friday detention rated a close second.

  She nodded. “Yeah, this is my bus.”

  He stared at her, his brow lifted. “Well, are you going to get in or what?”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks.” She stepped aboard, self-conscious over Daytona Beach’s friendly smile, and took a seat near the front. Substitute bus driver. What were the odds?

  When they pulled up to the school, Maya thanked Mr. Daytona Beach. He nodded, granting her a dazzling grin, nothing like the grunt she normally got from Old Lady Harris. Too bad he couldn’t drive the bus every day.

  Slipping in the side entrance, she zigzagged among the mass of bobbing heads to her locker. Half an hour of boredom awaited her until she could get to Tri
gonometry.

  “Eric. Dude!” Tommy Moore slapped a high-five across Eric Brighton’s hand behind her.

  Eric’s smile brightened up the otherwise dreary hallway. “Hey, dude, ’sup?” Sunlight drifting through the windows above seemed to reach for him, sparkling in his light brown hair.

  Tommy grunted and continued on his way.

  Man grunts. She’d never understand their secret language.

  Eric reached for his locker. “Hey, Maya.”

  A shiver ran up her spine. All she could muster was a smile as his dark blue track jacket brushed against her bare arm.

  He plucked a few books off the shelf and turned to her. “Something’s different.”

  Her brain sent signals to her lips, but all that spewed out was, “Huh? Na? Wha?”

  “You got contacts. That’s it, right? No more glasses?”

  Maya brushed a strand of hair from her face and reached for her spectacles. Her fingers, not finding the familiar frames, fumbled. “Oh, yeah. No more glasses.”

  Eric’s head tilted slightly to the right. A smile quivered on the edge of his lips. “You know you have really pretty…”

  A baffle of blonde curls swept between them as Kelli Jorganson shoved Eric against his locker. Her ruby lipstick-laden lips smiled at Eric’s wide eyes before his mouth vanished beneath the head cheerleader’s kiss.

  Maya’s heart, or what was left of it, split in two. For just a few seconds she’d had his attention. For those precious moments she could dream, like every other morning, that he wasn’t just being nice because their lockers were right next to each other, and that he might want Maya to kiss him like that.

  Her nose crinkled and she looked away. As always, Eric was a pipe dream. She couldn’t compete with the likes of Kelli.

  The bell rang, and Miss Popularity released him. Eric’s quick gasp for air resonated through the boisterous hall. His eyes seemed to darken slightly before he slipped his arm around Kelli’s waist and led her down the hallway, his conversation with Maya apparently forgotten.

  The throng parted to make way for the King and Queen of Timber Creek High School, then closed around them like a swarm of over-approving leeches.

  Maya kicked her locker door shut, her stomach in knots. She needed to get over Eric. Glasses or no glasses they, as in she-and-Eric, were never going to be a thing. The sooner she owned up to that the better.

  She trudged to class, head down, marveling at the lines in the tiles on the floor that she hadn’t been able to see even with her glasses. Her hand moved compulsively to her pocket, ensuring the blocky frames were still there, just in case.

  Homeroom bustled with teenage frivolity as usual. She took her seat in the back and pulled out her copy of Dante’s Inferno. Getting ahead of her assignments was way more important than gossip and talk about television. Well, maybe gossiping would be more fun if her friends were in homeroom with her, but she’d been ostracized to the sticky depths of room 207, sandwiched between the chess club and half the marching band. Not that there was anything wrong with chess or band, but…

  “Maya.” Mrs. Gracey appeared behind the pages of Dante’s Inferno. “You’ve been called to the office.”

  “Ooooooo,” the classroom cooed.

  Immature imbeciles. Get a life.

  Maya adjusted the strap of her book bag and lumbered through the empty hallways up to the front office.

  As she entered, the secretary shoved the wad of gum, or cud or whatever the heck she’d been chewing, in the side of her cheek and pointed. “In Mr. Seston’s office.”

  The Vice Principal? A seed of angst planted itself in Maya’s chest and sprouted roots. “What’d I do?”

  The woman shrugged as the phone rang. “Mr. Seston isn’t here today. There’s a college recruiter here to see you.”

  Maya’s forehead crinkled, but the secretary just waved her on as she answered the phone.

  Seston’s door loomed before Maya: the gates of doom. No teenager had passed that precipice and not returned a broken, defeated, and utterly different person.

  She stepped back as the door opened and a tall, thin man in a brown business suit leaned his head out.

  His smile reassured her. “You must be Maya. Come on in.”

  Maya shook his hand and entered. The click of the door shutting scratched the back of her neck, triggering her flight instinct, but she closed her eyes and breathed through it. This guy wanted to talk about college. It was no big deal.

  The man’s gaze roved over her as if taking stock. Stock of what, she wasn’t sure.

  “Are you sure you have the right person?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course I am. Please, sit.” The man motioned to the green-padded seat lovingly referred to as the electric chair by prior inhabitants.

  Maya eased herself down, sweat dampening the back of her T-shirt. “But I haven’t applied to any colleges yet.”

  He folded his hands on the desk and leaned toward her. “That’s not terribly smart, is it? I’ve heard it’s quite hard for kids these days to get into a good school.” His gaze traveled across her face. “Are you having a good day?”

  The air in the room seemed to thicken, and Maya’s uneasiness solidified along with it. “I guess. No different than any other.”

  A smile crossed his lips. “I highly doubt that.” He pointed to the bulge in her jacket pocket. “Are those eyeglasses?”

  “Umm, yeah.”

  “Do you normally wear glasses?”

  “Yes, but what does this have to do with college?”

  The man stood. “Nothing, and everything. If you need glasses, then why aren’t you wearing them now?”

  Her gaze trailed to the door as sweat touched her brow. Maya held the edge of the chair, readying herself to spring from it. “I-I don’t really know. My eyes were better this morning.”

  He nodded. “I bet they were. Anything else odd happen today?”

  The magically appearing eggs came to mind, but she brushed them aside. “Who are you?”

  The man smiled and tipped an imaginary hat. “My name is Darius. I’m pleased to meet you, Maya.”

  She stared him down, waiting for an explanation, but after a count of twenty, she gave up. “I have a bad feeling you don’t want to talk about college.”

  His lips straightened to a thin line. “No. I’ve never even been to college myself.”

  Maya jumped from the chair, her heart racing. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Darius splayed his palms. “Now, now, there’s no reason to get excited.” He gestured to her empty seat. “Please, sit.”

  Like Hell.

  She retreated a step.

  The edge of his lip twisted into a smirk. “We need to chat, Maya. I’m your guide, your mentor, so to speak.”

  “Mentor for what?”

  “We have a lot to talk about. Would you please sit?”

  She backed up until her rear slammed against the door. She fumbled for the handle and pulled it open. A rush of hot air hit her as she turned to the sting of hundreds of tiny pebbles thrashing her face. Maya raised her hands to protect her eyes and peered through her fingertips into the blinding rays of a low-hanging sun. The cascading sunbeams scorched her cheeks and illuminated the outline of a figure that looked a lot like the Sphinx. She gasped and choked on air riddled with blowing sand.

  Darius laughed behind her. “Let me guess. You were thinking that you’d rather be anywhere but here, and somewhere deep in the back of your mind, you always wanted to see Egypt.”

  He appeared beside her, and she allowed him to close the door. Sweat poured from Maya’s brow as the room instantly cooled.

  “Do you want to be back at school?”

  She nodded, terror constricting her from any other movement.

  Darius turned the door handle and pulled. The secretary looked up from her computer with narrowed eyes.

  No heat, no sand, no four-thousand year old monumen
ts. Had she imagined it all?

  She brushed the sand off her sleeves. Apparently not.

  Darius smiled, waved to the secretary, and closed the door again.

  Maya was dreaming. That was the answer! Why else would her sight have cleared up out of nowhere? And Egypt obviously wasn’t on the other side of that door. She needed to wake up, because this was getting way too weird.

  The air conditioning clicked on, shifting some papers left on the top of a gray filing cabinet. Maya dug her thumbnail into her palm and stared at the pink indent left behind until the mark faded. That hurt, but she didn’t wake up.

  Numbness crept up her legs. Stumbling, she allowed Darius to guide her back to her chair.

  He eased her down. “Are you ready to talk to me now?”

  She shook away her fright. “How’d you do that thing with the door?”

  “I didn’t do anything. You did.”

  “Me? That’s crazy.”

  “Not really. Any of our kind can move from place to place. Anywhere we can imagine.”

  “Our kind?”

  He reached across the desk and grabbed a pitcher of ice water that Maya didn’t remember seeing a moment ago. Goosebumps riddled her skin as he poured a glass and handed it to her. She reached for the cup, wishing it was something more soothing like cocoa with marshmallows.

  When her fingers curled around the cup, heat burned her skin. She jumped, spilling a mug of hot chocolate across the papers on the Vice Principal’s desk.

  B-but, he’d handed her water!

  Her heart pounded. Her breath came out in ragged gasps until Darius grabbed her hands.

  “Calm down, Maya.”

  A rushing wave of serenity rolled over her. Her fear lifted, leaving her relaxed and completely at ease despite enchanted doors and magically appearing cocoa.

  He raised his left brow. “Better?”

  She nodded, and her gaze dropped to the neat stacks of clean, dry papers on the desk, and a full mug of steaming hot chocolate resting directly in front of her seat.