Shadow Phantoms

by H. P. Mallory

  I felt a bit useless just standing there, so I dropped down beside him, sliding my papers into a sloppy pile.

  Stone shifted toward me, and a musky scent with a hint of cinnamon wafted in my direction. I started to lean toward him, but caught myself at the last moment. Something in his scent was just... intoxicating, somehow.

  Pull yourself together, Emma! I thought. You don’t even know this guy. And you’re acting like a total idiot!

  Still, I found my eyes following the trail of exposed skin to the collar of his shirt. He picked up a textbook and turned toward me. I averted my gaze just in time, looking to the door that led into the lecture hall.

  I can’t believe he’s in this class! I thought, almost giddy. Wonder what Tarkington will make of him...

  The old coot tended to chew up and spit out new students like old gristle, but Stone didn’t seem easily intimidated; in fact, he seemed more like a Roman gladiator. Tarkington had nothing on him.

  “Here you are.”

  Stone handed me my books as he stood up. I glanced up, smiling gratefully. “Thanks.”

  Stone smiled warmly down at me and that was when I realized he towered over me by at least a head. Maybe more. He scratched the sun-kissed stubble on his chin.

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  His voice had the neat precision of a native English speaker, but there was a worldly undercurrent to his words. It was the voice of someone who had traveled the world and been touched by the dialects of a great many places.

  I tucked a strand of wavy, blond hair behind my ears. I suddenly wished I’d done more than run a brush through it that morning. I checked the clock on the wall outside the class. It was time.

  “We should get going,” I started. “I really don’t want to be late again. I’ve been in the principal’s office enough this week.”

  Stone handed me the last of the papers on the floor and chuckled. “That makes two of us. But I must confess, while I don’t care much for the principal’s office, I’ve quite the high opinion of the hallway just outside it. Wonderful place for a crossword, isn’t it?”

  “The wonderful... est.”

  God, I sound like a moron! I thought.

  Stone smiled brightly, an amused chuckle on his lips. My mortification evaporated into the warmth of the sound. And another of my papers floated down from the pile I was currently holding in my hands. I went for it.

  Stone extended his hand toward me to help me off the ground again. I placed my hand in his and his large fingers enclosed mine in the warmth of his palm. He pulled me up in one swift motion, like I weighed nothing at all.

  “The teachers here tend to hold onto their first impressions for a long time,” I said, looking up into his face. I hadn’t realized how tall he was the other day—six-four at least, six-five if you included the swoop of his hair. “I just don’t want to give my professor any more reasons to make my life as miserable as possible.”

  I thought of Professor Tarkington’s angry, wrinkled face. He’d had it out for me ever since the first day when I’d arrived ten seconds after the bell.

  “I’m sure you don’t have anything to worry about.” Stone glanced down at our joined hands. He uncurled my fingers and carefully examined my exposed palm. “With a luck line like that, I’d say you won’t have to worry about much of anything.”

  Stone traced a line from my wrist to the mount of Saturn where my palm met my finger. A little jolt of electricity shot through me, crackling through my veins from the point where the tip of his finger touched my skin.

  He had worker’s hands, strong and calloused. I stared down at the luck line, not quite ready for him to let go.

  “Luck line?” I whispered. “Is that what it’s called in palmistry?”

  “It has many names,” he said, looking down at the line, his finger still resting at its tip. “Most call it the fate line. Some, more pragmatic folks, call it the career line, but that feels a bit limiting. I prefer to call it luck.”

  “Limiting?” I asked.

  His dreamy blue eyes traced the line again.

  “This line represents a person’s path through life,” he said softly. “It tells you what destiny’s got in store for you. For some people, I guess that might be a job, but for others, it can mean something else entirely.”

  “Something else?” I shook my head, looking up at him in confusion.

  “It can represent whatever it is that defines your life: an adventure, a purpose, a great love.” He closed my open hand and met my eyes. “To call it something as trivial as a career line, seems like a disservice of sorts. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched up. It seemed always on the verge of a ravishing smile.

  “Your line, career, fate, adventure, it’s just about as long as they come, Emma,” he said. “And it’s nearly unbroken. I’d say that makes you a very lucky woman.”

  “When is that luck supposed to kick in,” I asked with a smile, keeping my eyes on our hands.

  “It already has. From the moment you were born,” he answered. Then he looked up at the door in front of us. “We should probably find our seats; I’d hate to make a bad first impression.”

  He folded my hand closed and lowered it gently to my side.

  I nodded. “Course.”

  That sounded casual, right?

  He smiled down at me and opened the door leading into the lecture hall. I thanked him with a quick nod and walked in. Kevin and Jupiter were sitting in the back, as usual. Kevin was in the middle of operating a paper fortune teller, and Jupiter leaned toward him for a better view.

  “You can sit back here with us if you want,” I told Stone, successfully hiding any trace of hope from my voice.

  “Ordinarily, I’d love to,” he said, flashing a smile that warmed me to my toes. “But I tend to be more comfortable in front of a class.”

  “Oh,” I said and nodded.

  “It was a pleasure seeing you again, Emma.”

  He nodded in farewell and strode to the front of the classroom while I started for the back. I plopped my books and papers down next to Jupiter and then sat down, a bit confused.

  “Who is that?” Jupiter asked as she turned her wide-eyed gaze from Stone to me.

  “Yeah, who is that… dreamboat?” Kevin added. Both of their eyes were wide and Kevin’s mouth was hanging open like he was imitating a fish.

  Before I could answer, Stone dropped his shoulder bag onto the chair by the center platform’s blackboard and turned to face our side of the room.

  “Welcome to Charms and Divinations,” Stone said. “My name is Stone Draper, and I will be your instructor for the remainder of the semester.”

  “Oh my fucking god,” I said in a whisper.

  “What?” Jupiter asked. “Emma?”

  I focused on Stone, unable to look at anything else. I felt absurdly stupid at thinking he was my classmate. And a little miffed he’d played along with the whole thing. Why had he played along?

  “I am happy to be here with all of you today,” he continued. “And you are all truly lucky to be here, at this academy, as well.”

  “Oh my god,” Ellenora whispered to Trixie. “He is the hottest professor I’ve ever seen in my life!”

  “Right?” Allegra chimed in.

  Kevin tittered to himself. He leaned over Jupiter so he could whisper to us both out of the corner of his mouth. “I am going to have so much fun watching these bitches believe they actually have a shot with him.” Jupiter laughed as Kevin sat back in his chair.

  Stone scanned the classroom thoughtfully. His eyes locked on mine for half a second. A knowing smile lit his face. “Salem is a great well of magic as you’re probably already aware, owing to all the witchcraft that’s taken place here across the years. Possibly one of the most potent wells in the world.”

  “What happened to Professor Tarkington?” I asked, as I turned to face Jupiter.

  But before she could answer, Stone sta
rted talking again. “Now, I know this transition is going to have a slight learning curve as you get used to me and I get used to all of you. So just bear with me, please. First things first, I want to make sure we’re staying on track with your curriculum. Thus, if you’d all please turn to page four-hundred and twenty in your textbooks…”

  His low voice was rich and warm, even from a distance.

  He turned around to face the double-sided chalk board in the room’s circular center platform. The chalkboard’s other side was enchanted to mirror everything that appeared on Stone’s side. There were only a few students over there, scattered sparsely with nothing on their desks. Those students could read what he wrote and hear what he said, but they couldn’t see his lips move as he talked, or watch the strong, lean lines of his body move as he paced in front of the board… I suddenly felt sorry for them.

  “Are you okay?” Jupiter’s brow furrowed in concern and her brow piercings clinked together. “You look like you’re about to barf or something.”

  “What happened to Tarkington?” I mumbled quickly.

  Jupiter glanced at me again, somewhat perplexed. “Didn’t you get the message?” she asked. “It was in everyone’s post box this morning.”

  “No.”

  “Tarkington went into early retirement, so they sent in a new guy,” Kevin answered. Then he turned to face Stone again. “Only I had no idea the new guy would be straight from the pages of sexiest man alive.”

  “Right,” Jupiter said then she shrugged and looked back to the front of the class. The light glinted off Stone’s brown hair, giving the appearance of a majestic, gold-tinted waterfall.

  Stop thinking about your professor like he’s some sort of sex god! I commanded myself. Instead of staring at him, I focused on the empty spot of chalkboard to his left.

  That’s better, I thought. Just keep staring at the chalkboard.

  I turned to page four hundred and twenty, wayyy later than everyone else had, and read the chapter title: Cartography and Weather Manipulation.

  “Seeing as we’ve only just met, it seems fitting we should start off by discussing the weather,” Stone said, trying to make a joke that earned him a few snickers. “In your textbooks, you’ll find the instructions for a spell that will allow you to remotely control the weather of any place in the world—provided, you have a map.”

  Stone snapped his fingers. Old, parchment maps appeared on our desks. We noisily unfurled them. Stone spoke over the cacophony.

  “Today’s assignment: summon a tornado over a plot of uninhabited land,” he projected. “You all learned how to manipulate wind in the last unit, so today will be something like a review. Only the wind you’re manipulating will be the mirror image of an actual tornado that appears in real life wherever you place it on the map. I’ll be walking around the room in case anyone needs help.”

  “You good, Em?” Jupiter asked as she looked at me with concern. “You’re white as a sheet.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I said and swallowed hard as I glanced down at the map in front of me.

  “You have until the end of the class period to get this spell right,” Stone said.

  Everyone set to work immediately. There was a sense of motivated industry to our efforts that we’d never showed professor Tarkington.

  “How are we doing over here?” Stone approached from the aisle, his hands clasped behind his back as he walked steadily closer. The fabric of his blue sweater clung to his biceps. The long, muscular shape of his torso was pronounced, even through the layers of clothes.

  “Great!” Jupiter answered. “I think I’ve displaced almost all the dust in this general area of New Mexico.” She waved her hand over her map. A rapidly rotating cyclone swept across the parchment. The desert below shifted in response. The cone of constricted air bent to Jupiter’s will. She moved her fingers, and the mini tornado spun along with the motion.

  “Good work, Miss?” Stone started.

  “Jupiter Klien,” she answered with a smile.

  “Miss Klien, nice to meet you,” Stone said and nodded his approval.

  Jupiter’s doe brown eyes shined at the praise.

  As for me, I was still reeling from the realization that I was one of his students. The thought was oddly deflating. Even the memory of his finger’s warm touch on my mount of Saturn prickled my skin.

  “How about you, Miss Balfour?” He turned his striking blue gaze on me. The blue sweater under his tweed jacket made his eyes pop even more vividly. “Any luck?”

  “No luck so far,” I answered, immediately thinking of my luck line. What a load of shit that was…

  Well, I haven’t summoned any tornadoes, I thought. I guess you could say that’s “lucky” for these twelve square miles on my map, anyway.

  Stone looked between me and the unaltered map. I braced myself for his disappointment, but he turned back to me with an encouraging smile that curled the end of his full lips.

  “Patience is power all in itself, Miss Balfour,” he said. “Keep at it. The greatest powers reveal themselves with time, and you’ve got plenty to spare.”

  I stared after him as he made his way to another student’s desk. His words rang in my head. My skull felt like an active pinball machine: empty space with a few annoying obstructions.

  “Remember, class,” he announced. He tilted his strong jaw upward to project across the room. “If you don’t have any success summoning a tornado, you can always turn the map into a paper airplane for partial credit.”

  Laughter echoed across the classroom. Stone turned toward the front of the classroom. His deep blue eyes locked on me for a moment. It was the last time we looked at each other before the bell rang.

  “What’s the deal with the new professor?” Jupiter asked.

  We walked down the steps outside the lecture hall.

  “Yeah,” Kevin said. “Didn’t you two walk in together?”

  My phone rang.

  I saw Rowan’s pretty, pale face flash on my screen. “I gotta take this,” I said, pleased to get out of the conversation with Jupiter and Kevin. I just… I wasn’t ready to talk about Stone yet.

  Keven lifted his eyebrows and pursed his lips. “Saved by the bell!” He called after me.

  I walked out onto the quad, getting some distance from the bustle of students.

  I pressed the green “talk” button next to Rowan’s hand; in the picture, she held a rose in one hand and a fist full of baby’s breath in the other. I always thought she looked her most at home in Kinloch’s greenhouse.

  “Hey, Ro,” I said into the phone. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” she answered. Her voice sounded a bit higher over the phone. “Just bored in the house. Mathilda’s teaching me to make a lucky elixir, but the eye of newt has to germinate another six hours.” She sighed in frustration. “So I figured I’d give you a call to say hi.”

  “I’m sorry, Ro,” I said sympathetically. I tried to think of everything there was to do at Kinloch. I couldn’t think of any good suggestions “Have you read the Odyssey all the way through?” I tried, hopefully. “I think my dad left a copy of it in the reading room…”

  “Already read it,” she said. “Wasn’t impressed.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Maybe it takes a few reads to appreciate it.”

  “Could be,” Rowan agreed. “Some things don’t get better with time, you know. Unless you’re wine or cheese, you have no business being older than a hundred.”

  “Don’t let Mathilda hear you say that.”

  None of us knew how old she actually was, but Mathilda had an ethereal timelessness about her that made guessing at an actual number feel futile.

  “Oh, you know what I mean.” she said. “Things lose their relevance after a while. I don’t see anyone walking around in low-rise jeans anymore.”

  “And thank the lord for that,” I said. I remembered the year or so ago when all you could see for miles were ass cracks.

  “What
’s new with you?” Rowan asked. “Any cute guys?”

  “Well, there is this new professor…” I didn’t want to talk about him. I really didn’t, but it was like the words shot out of my mouth anyway.

  “Ooohhhh. Tell me more.”

  “I actually thought he was a student when I first met him. He must’ve just graduated from the collegiate program or something ‘cause he looks… young.”

  “Does Emma have a crush on the sexy new teacher?”

  “Emma has an assignment from the sexy new teacher, so I should probably get go—”

  “You just admitted he was sexy!” she yelled gleefully.

  I smiled despite myself, shaking my head. “I have to go now.”

  “Oh, come on, Emma!” Rowan laughed, a happy bubbling sound.

  “I’m hanging up now!

  “Wait! Professor! Don’t hang up! I love you, Professor Dreamy…” And she made a kissing sound.

  “Goodbye, Rowan…”

  “Goodbye, professor-lover!”

  She laughed again, and I shut off the sound with a swift click. It was Rowan’s nature to tease me about boys. If she were the one at school, I was sure I’d be doing the same to her. The jokes were nothing unusual, but this feeling was…

  For some reason, her jokes about Stone bothered me. I wanted to defend myself, to deny the fact that I thought he was super hot, or to shut down the notion of my having feelings altogether. But there was something in me that responded to the mere thought of him. And, as much as I might’ve wanted to, I couldn’t just laugh in the face of it. There was no denying I felt something for the magnetizing man with all the sun’s warmth in his smile, but feeling something and doing something about those feelings were two very different things.

  “Thought is action in rehearsal.” I cursed the quote for popping into my head. Sigmund Freud can really ruin anything he puts his unconsciously repressed mind to, I thought. I raked my fingers through my wavy blond hair and sighed deeply, closing my eyes to focus fully on the clean, crisp January air.

  Steeled by a fresh sense of clarity, I put my tangled headphones in my ears, turned up my music on my phone, and tried to keep my mind completely blank.