by Serena Rose
The nightmarish question and answer segment had ended hours ago, but it disturbed Kelsey. Had she been that detached to that kind of idea? That kind of emotion? It was just her brain, telling her to focus on better things… she didn’t need anyone in her life. Kelsey sighed, walking for the building where her minors were going to be in. She saw schoolmates milling about, and while she made friends with them, she remained distant. Self-preservation, of course.
There was nothing worse than friends who only pretended they cared or liked you. She had been bullied all throughout grade school and partially in high school. Smart shaming was the in thing, apparently. She never had that problem when she spent a year of learning in Beijing, back when she had been eight years old.
Kelsey found herself walking down a tree-lined road, where no cars were allowed. In the distance, she heard thunder rumble. She sighed, picking up pace. She was going to be too early for class, she knew, but at least she wouldn’t be soaking wet this time, and in need of a dryer.
As soon as she got into the small amphitheater style classroom, she saw someone else staring out the window, seated at the far right. She paid no attention to him, setting about to find herself a good seat.
“Hello,” a voice interrupted her as she took out her books. She looked up and saw the man by the window. Wasn’t he just there a few seconds ago? How fast did he even walk?
“Uh, hi,” she said, not sure if she should give a friendly tone or not.
“This is Eastern Antiquity Studies, right?” he asked her.
The first thing she noticed were his eyes; they were dark, but it had a tinge of something orangey-red on the outer edges of his pupils. The next thing she noticed was the way he dressed. It was no ordinary collegiate student outfit, with the jersey or the plain t-shirts and sneakers. He dressed well, in an all-black outfit, with matching brown casual looking oxfords to match. He had a leather satchel on one shoulder.
“Yes,” she finally said, knowing she stared enough.
“Thank you,” he said.
The way he talked carried an air of regal dignity, and she almost forgot to say she was welcome. She observed people and made no judgements, but she had a feeling he was going to be the first exception to her self-imposed rule. There was something about him…
“When did you transfer?” she found herself asking him.
“A few days ago,” came his tight-lipped reply. “Excuse me.”
And that was the end of the conversation. She had tried to be friendly; apparently, he didn’t want to be that friendly. She watched as he walked back to his chosen seat, as calmly and leisurely as he could. So, he walked slowly, and maybe it just took her a while to rummage through her things. Soon enough, the classroom began to fill, and the professor arrived.
The discussion went on for an hour, and not once did the professor acknowledge the new student. The class of twenty-five took notes, and Kelsey saw that the newcomer did not. Maybe he wasn’t that interested in education. Maybe he was just here to waste his parents’ money.
She heard some of the females near her giggle, as they looked at the newcomer.
“Is there something you’d like to share, Miss Watson and Miss James?”
“No professor,” the female named Watson giggled.
“Keep it down,” the professor said in a stern tone. “Now, where were we? Yes, Jade has been something that’s been ingrained in Asian culture, particularly China- get this, as early as 5,000 BC.”
Kelsey listened, but her thoughts drifted to the guy who had spoken a few words to her. She quickly glanced at him, and she saw that he was looking out the window.
“- to preserve the body of Prince Liu Sheng, the ruler of the Zhongshan State around 113 BCE, if you’ll check your textbook, or the email I sent, he was buried, get this, buried in a jade burial suit. That’s 2,498 pieces of jade sewn together with gold thread…”
She looked down at her textbook and saw a translated quote from Confucius.
Its color represents loyalty; its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, call to mind sincerity; its iridescent brightness represents heaven; its admirable substance, born of mountain and of water, represents the earth. Used alone without ornamentation it represents chastity. The price that the entire world attaches to it represents the truth.
The translation seemed almost poetic, no- it was poetic, and she felt her heart swell with pride. Her father would have enjoyed conversing to her about this. She hadn’t seen the actual suit, despite the fact that she had been to China twice in her entire life. Why did she miss out on that again?
“I wonder how he proposed to his wife,” the Watson student piped up, sending the class into a fit of laughter.
“I doubt you’d say no to 2,498 pieces of jade if that’s how your boyfriend is going to propose,” the professor said, raising his brows.
“That’s gonna be some heavy piece of dowry,” another student said, this time a guy.
The entire class laughed out loud again.
“Settle down, settle down, we’ve lot’s more to discuss,” Professor Tate said.
The man at the back of the class didn’t laugh at all, nor did he smile.
CHAPTER THREE
She was early to class, he noticed. He didn’t know who she was, but he felt compelled to check up on her. Was she going to be the same as the other people he had met over the years? Interested in shallow things, or she could be a person with a crap load of issues, or she could be both.
He had the list on his head, memorized his relaxed scheduled. At least these few classes would get him thinking again, thinking about other things at least. He hadn’t had the chance to attend Eastern Antiquities in all his years of pretend college.
He had graduated from Oxford back in the year 1923, with a degree International Trade and Economics. That was the only full course he took in his long life. The rest of the years he went to college, he attended mostly minors. He did enjoy learning languages and reading different texts, from fiction to philosophy, and even biology. He didn’t attempt to find a cure for his affliction.
The family had been cursed for so many years, that they had become sources of legend in various parts of Europe. No matter what they did, they were bound to the curse for eternity. Majority of the shifters ended their lives at some point, ending it in human form, as much as their self-control could muster. The shifting came out at some point during the suicide attempt, if one wasn’t strong enough for it, ending whatever attempts there were in the first place. Sometimes, those who had lived long enough committed suicide by murder, asking another fellow shifter to kill them.
William didn’t want to be that person, he didn’t want to be that kind of shifter. He didn’t want to be desperate enough to kill himself, like William Anthony Drake IV had, his grandfather had been strong enough to not shift, and he ended his life by stabbing himself on the heart. The ripe old age of 189 had been enough for him. How long would it take for his father to decide to kill himself now?
Would I end up killing myself? he wondered. His father was now 145 years old, and insanity had begun to creep into his system. It was either insanity or dementia. His father looked to be in his early 50s in human form, but his mind was not. It was the mind of a damaged man, scarred by years of shifting, scarred by deaths, most especially the death of his first wife, William’s mother.
William’s mother, Etienne, was a lovely young French-British woman, a minor royal of sorts back in the day. They had married (in a church!) in 1902 and had William in 1903. She died during childbirth, a memory that William could not have cherished. He had grown up like any normal child, with all the milestones, the schooling with a governess, attending prep school, and he hadn’t shifted until he had turned fourteen, after being provoked by a few school bullies. He had accidentally burned half the hall, without the knowledge of his schoolmates and teachers. His father then paid a handsome sum for the school to remain quiet, but they had labelled the unfortunate event as an act
of arson by an unidentified man.
He transferred schools, and the stories of the Drake arsonist slowly faded into memory, replaced with more elaborate tales of boys just being boys on a dare gone wrong, or some spiteful aristocratic child being- well, spiteful.
He had to learn how to control his temper later on and quickly at that, just like his father had back in his younger years, and just like all those ancestors before them. Nine hundred years, and their lot had become lazy with children.
“We’re a dwindling kind,” his father had once told him many years ago.
William didn’t know what to make of it. Shouldn’t they all be happy? Less accursed people, meant good news, right? Uphold the family honor, uphold the family riches, and uphold the Drake name. That was enough to keep anyone going, right? He didn’t have many relations, a lot of them had died long ago. They had surpassed normal human lifespans.
He once laughed at the news that someone had just been crowned the oldest, verified man in existence. The man was still younger than him. He couldn’t very well announce that. There were so many things to keep hidden…
And yet, here he was. Learning. Again. Learning for the sake of alleviating boredom, a boredom that had seemed to grow more dangerous. That was his human side talking. He was risking more than just his background here, he was risking the entire population of shifters- not like they numbered in millions.
He was risking it by just talking to the lone female student in the class earlier. At least she was easy on the eyes. Too easy for him, in fact. He didn’t get her name, but he didn’t want to appear too aggressive. Incognito was key here, especially since the college wasn’t as large as Oxford was…
The class had begun laughing by now, some joke from a certain Miss Watson, who had eyed him with interest. He, however, wasn’t interested in her. He could smell her cloying perfume despite her being at least thirty feet away from him. He did like how the lady he had met earlier smelled. It was some fragrant tea she drank. She enjoyed her lime body wash. She didn’t use perfume.
The moment he saw her up close, he knew his interest in her had peaked. Her eyes were light brown with flecks of green on them, and she had light freckles on her cheeks and on her small and thin nose. Her lips were thin, her smile easy. Her hair was a lustrous black, and she was a slender and petite human overall.
He had his urges under control, he didn’t want to sleep with her or anything, not yet. He did want to see what she was like, and he had hoped she wouldn’t be dumb. She seemed shy, surprised to see him. Should’ve walked slower, he thought. He couldn’t help it sometimes, he did walk too fast, in fact, and he almost seemed to glide off of the ground if he wasn’t conscious of his strides.
He stopped talking to her after she asked him a question. That was enough interaction for now. It would give him something to think about, if only for a while. At least the discussion was interesting enough. He had seen the jade armors in person in 1970, a beautiful work of art, a piece of history that should be revered and protected. Too bad humans still rot despite all the pomp and grandeur of the burial.
Shifting didn’t need armor. They were covered in scales once they did, scales that were strategically placed, almost like armor, a strange combination of human and supposedly mythical beast. It was a far cry from jade, a far cry from the armors of medieval Europe.
This was an armor that looked like it came straight from hell or some angry volcano, with its black, near obsidian like quality, rough to touch, painful and burning to the human skin. Skin that was not covered in scales leaked out heat, lava-like fissures snaking all throughout one’s body. It was for this reason alone that Ashborne Manor had a large, labyrinth-like dungeon that only the Drake men knew of completely.
Classes ended, and he saw everyone leave the room in a hurry. The young woman was the last to go. She was stuffing a notebook and her book carefully into her satchel. She didn’t look at him, and it was clear she felt insulted by his actions. He couldn’t blame her, of course. It was rule of thumb, their rule of thumb. Rudeness had consequences that included alienation. It was for the greater good of everyone, even for strangers.
“Did you get that?” her voice asked him from across the room.
“What?” he said, his thoughts abruptly stopped.
“What Professor Tate discussed? You didn’t write anything down.”
“You’re saying I’m slow?” he said, raising a brow.
“I didn’t say that. Maybe you’d want notes or something. I wrote down a lot.”
“I remembered things okay,” he told her.
He saw a micro-frown, but she said nothing. He was adept at human expressions by now, honed by experiences of betrayal and whatever relationships were formed with them over the last hundred years. “Thanks for the concern,” he added quickly.
“You’re welcome,” she said, almost tight-lipped. She gave a curt nod and spun around, leaving him alone in the classroom. He watched as she went down the steps, one hand clutched tightly on the strap of her bag. Her knuckles had turned a bit white, he saw. Was that how she controlled her annoyance? She wasn’t angry, but she looked embarrassed and rejected, something she didn’t expect to happen twice in a span of an hour and a half.
Perhaps, he would be in better terms with her soon. She was a pretty face, after all.
*
Kelsey fought with her inner voice. She didn’t want to approach him again, seeing how low-key hostile he was earlier. She squeezed her eyes shut, relenting to her urge.
Did you get that?” she asked him, standing up from her seat, slowly walking closer to him.
“What?” he said, said, his brows slightly furrowed.
“What Professor Tate discussed? You didn’t write anything down-” she paused, seeing the change in his facial expression.
“You’re saying I’m slow?” he said, raising a brow.
Did she see a smirk? Was he mocking her? Testing her?
“I didn’t say that. Maybe you’d want notes or something. I wrote down a lot.” If you want to read my notes.
“I remembered things okay,” he said to her. She felt her ears redden, embarrassed and annoyed. Here she was, offering notes. Here she was, being nice to him. She took a deep breath.
“Thanks for the concern,” he said.
Did he just add that out of wanting to seem respectful? He had already been rude to her earlier, so what made it any different this time?
“You’re welcome,” she said, not wanting to say it. Why did I even say it? Out of habit? She had been taught to always be respectful, anyway. She found herself nodding once, if that was even a nod. And she mustered what self-control she had left, turning her back on him and walking out with her head held high. She didn’t even notice she was clutching her bag tightly that her knuckles felt sore later on.
It was the last of her minor classes, and she found herself walking back home, hoping she wouldn’t get caught in the rain again. She’d have wanted a good stroll in one of the many parks that surrounded the college but feared a thunderstorm. She thought too soon, and she found herself running as fast as she could for a waiting shed. A minute later, she was drenched once more. She shivered, wondering how long she would have to wait until the rain stopped. The 15-minute walk was going to become a 5-minute run, if she wanted to push through with it.
She looked around, seeing the trees swaying in the wind, with visibility levels dropping. This was bad to walk in, run in, even. She blew into her hands, hating how the cold still seeped into her insides. Strong winds whipped against her petite frame, and she huddled closer to the walls of the waiting shed.
From the midst of the rain, a car stopped in front of her. The window opened. It was the newcomer in class.
“Get in,” he said to her, over the din of the downpour.
She stared at him, not knowing what else to do or say. Get in? She didn’t even know him. He was rude to her earlier. He seemed like he didn’t care-
“Get in,” he repeated. “I�
�m not going to say it again.”
Flustered, she ran for the passenger side and opened the door. Sliding into the leather seat, she turned to face her savior. He didn’t seem to look at her at first. The wipers slid on the windshield, and she was momentarily distracted by it.
“I don’t have a jacket with me,” he told her. “And you look like you need to stay warm.”
She was tempted to reach for the heater button, but she was just lucky to have been given a ride. “Thanks,” she said, looking down at her lap. Her leather bag was drenched, but its contents were dry. Second time this week, she thought.
“Where were you headed?” he asked her, driving slowly back onto the road.
He still didn’t offer to turn the heater on.
“Heading home. Which was that way,” she said, as they passed by a road. He didn’t bother to look at the intersection they had passed by.
“Oops,” he said. “Well, let me just go home for a few, then I’ll bring you back.”
“How far away is this home?”
“Why? Scared I might do something to you?”
“I just met you,” she replied timidly. “I should let you know I have pepper spray.”
He smirked. He liked to smirk. As if he knew everything and saw everyone else was of lower stature. “Great. I might need that for steak,” he commented.
Was that a joke? Was she supposed to laugh? She suddenly wanted to. It was witty in its own right, if not delivered in such a dry manner. She managed to let out a smile. Kelsey didn’t want to seem like the easy girl, now did she? Easy for what? He just needed to go home. There was nothing else to it. He might be hungry, might have been called by his mother. He might just-
“I’m not going to murder you. If I wanted to, I wouldn’t have been that visible,” he told her, sensing her unease, most probably.