Once Upon A Midnight

by Stephanie Rowe

  We eat a quiet meal in the dining hall, neither saying a word until we are tucked safely inside the library at a table in a back corner. “I’m gonna go grab some books I need,” she announces and spins around on her heel to walk away.

  My, “I’ll come with you,” captures her, planting her feet.

  She cocks her head to her shoulder, but doesn’t look over it. “That’s not necessary.”

  I have to turn this around. “It may not be necessary, but what happened to wanting to be in my company?”

  Her neck turns her subdued, yet beaming, face to me. “Alright. I have a paper due on the legacy of the Roman senate. Help me find the books I need.”

  You don’t need books. I’m all the reference material you could possibly need. This is what I want to say to her, since I manipulated my way into an appointment from Lucius Tarqunius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome. “What’s the subject of your paper?” I ask instead, as I step up beside her.

  She rolls her eyes. “Oh, something super original, the effect the structure of the Roman Senate had on all governments that followed, including ours. Exciting stuff, right?”

  I swallow all the facts that leap to the tip of my tongue. After all, I watched many empires rise and fall, using Rome as a guide, over the thousands of years I’ve walked this earth. I have to watch what I say. I can’t appear to know too much, no more than a typical college student. “Lead the way,” I couple with a gesture in front of me.

  Chapter 10

  Keeping you distracted wasn’t enough…

  “A study date!”

  I roll my eyes, which remain glued to my tray of food, as Alyssa collapses in the seat across from me. “It was a date, wasn’t it?”

  She snatches a carrot stick off my plate. The sound of it crunching in her teeth is loud in my ears. “Why didn’t you kiss her?”

  My fork clatters against the plate. “She told you?”

  “Girls talk, especially roommates.” A humorless chuckle erupts from Alyssa’s mouth. “What’s wrong, Henry? Losing your touch?”

  I glare at her and move my clenched fists into my lap to keep from attacking her. “Why do you think that?” I push out through gritted teeth.

  She crosses her arms on the tabletop and leans into them. “You’ve always only needed one date in the past to end up in a woman’s bed.” The façade of jovial comradery slides off her features and is replaced by a hostile mien. “Why not this time?” she flings the words at my enraged face in a whisper.

  “I told you,” I hiss back at her, “she wants a gentleman. If I push too hard–”

  “She wants to be kissed!” she barrels over me under her breath. “Just like all the other college girls here! This isn’t the fifteenth, sixteenth, or even seventeenth century, Henry! This is the twentieth, and in this day and age, the girls want to experiment in college. They want to date a lot of guys, sleep around, maybe even mess with a girl or two–”

  “Not this girl!” I roar, leaping to my feet and drawing every eye in the dining hall. I squeeze my own shut and drop my head. This is too much attention. Wiping every mind in this place will cover our tracks, but take too much time! “What does it matter to you?” I moderate my tone and volume this time, only because witnesses surround us. “I have her attention.”

  Alyssa is slow to rise to her feet with a deadly grace. “You haven’t deterred his.” Each word comes out with a cutting sharpness.

  I refuse to let her transfer her failure onto me. “He is your mission, not mine!”

  Her eyes flash with the flames of the ignes iudicii. They dance around her pupils, and my heart seizes from the heat. My chest glows green beneath my white t-shirt.

  “What are you doing?” I hiss in fear and shock.

  “Do not question my mission,” she seethes with a false calm. “You are becoming a liability, Henry. I can’t direct him to his future if he’s pining his days and nights away for her. These are the formative years for his development into the tool we need in the years to come. You are supposed to crush his hopes and dreams with her, otherwise, it might be worth the risk of punishment if it means he is easier to mold. Get her out of my way, or I will!” She grabs another carrot off my plate, spins on her heel, and stalks out of the dining hall.

  The shock of her threat holds me captive until she is out of the building. Damn it! I grab my bag and race out after her, not even bothering to toss it over my shoulder. I hit the door running, head swiveling on my neck, searching for Alyssa. She threatened Charlotte! What is her next class? The location won’t come, even though Charlotte gave me her entire schedule yesterday. Think!

  The sight of Alyssa’s bouncing strawberry-blonde ponytail catches my eye. You may not remember where Charlotte is, but if you stick with Alyssa, you can keep her from harming Charlotte! My feet move without me having to tell them to. I jog across the parade grounds, then the quad. She turns and heads up to the amphitheater. Shakespeare! She said the teacher does class outside when the weather is nice! I cut around the other side of the library so Alyssa won’t see me and pick up my pace. As I run through the campus, dodging students, I scan for Alyssa’s damn ponytail.

  A dozen or so students sit in the first few rows of the amphitheater. It isn’t long before I spot Charlotte at the back of the group. I hover at the top of the hill, waiting for the professor to turn his back so I can slide in beside her unnoticed. He never does. Instead, he looks me in the eyes after a few moments.

  “Can I help you, son?”

  Every head turns in my direction, but only Charlotte’s eyes are wide. “Um.” Think! You have to say something! “I was hoping to add your class. The counselor said to talk to you since the semester has already started.”

  Her head whips in the direction of the professor. “There’s always room for one more!” he calls and waves me down to the rest of his students. “Come down and take a seat!”

  I adjust my grip on my backpack and glance around as I rush down the steps. I catch a glimpse of Alyssa leaning against one of the many magnolia trees decorating the campus, a knowing smirk on her face. By the time I slump into the space beside Charlotte, Alyssa is gone.

  “Hey,” I whisper as I drop my bag in front of me, pull out a notepad and pencil, and then put my left arm around her shoulders over the back of the concrete stadium seats.

  She cuts her eyes to me and offers a small smile. “Hey,” she whispers back. “Um, what are you doing here?”

  Given my lie about wanting to add the class, I’d prefer not to get kicked out of it. I write my response on my notepad. Sounded like a good class and there’s this girl…

  She shifts in her seat and blushes before reaching over and writing, Who’s my competition?

  She has to be the most insecure person I’ve ever met! I shift my gaze to her, only to be entrapped by her mischievous, crooked smirk. She’s toying with me! Well, two can play at this game. At least, I planned to play her game. Problem is, I get lost in her eyes. More and more each day, when I gaze into Charlotte’s eyes, it’s my own soul that is weighed, and I find it lacking.

  You are not good enough for her. She deserves better than you.

  A fiery prickle erupts on the back of my neck, and I break the lock of our gaze to look behind me. Alyssa’s mouth puckers into a kissy face. Her fingers curl in turn in a taunting wave, small flames of the green fire that spells my death spark off the tip of each fingernail. Confident that I’ve seen her little display of power and control, she twirls around and leaves.

  I let out a heavy sigh.

  “Henry?” Charlotte whispers in my ear.

  I glance back at her and find her scratching at the back of her neck. “Everything alright, my dear?”

  She shrugs and tugs her hair out of its rubber band. “Just a burn on my neck. I need to be better about sunblock.”

  A burn on her neck! The urge to push her hair aside and take a look is overwhelming, but I manage to maintain self-control. I may not be good enough for her, but I’m the only ma
n who can keep her safe from harm. My eyes sweep over her one last time, purposely avoiding the traps that are her own, before I face the professor and pretend to take in the lecture. Are you prepared to lose your heart to this woman? I ask myself, already knowing the answer. Not only am I prepared to lose my heart, but I’m prepared to lay down my life.

  Chapter 11

  It became impossible to be the man that I was…

  The weeks fly by while Charlotte and I grow closer together. We are inseparable when not in our different classes. Study dates at the library. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the dining halls. Football games. Greek functions. Sometimes her friends join us, Paige and the boy, Wesley. Most times, they don’t.

  Alyssa is thrilled. The boy slips deeper into a depression that Charlotte doesn’t see because I am the sole focus of her attention. A depressed boy is one who is more open to Alyssa’s schemes. He’s already talking about dropping his humanities courses and pursuing his passion, political science. That is the first step on his journey to world manipulation. It’s always the first step.

  However, I don’t think much about that. There’s never been a time in my existence when I’ve been happier, and that’s saying something. I just can’t get enough of the way my arm fits around Charlotte’s shoulders during Shakespeare class. Of how she chews on her bottom lip when I place my hand on her knee while studying. Then there’s her smile when we talk about damn near anything; it melts the ice around my heart every time. Yet, I still haven’t given into the temptation of kissing her. I love her too much to knowingly break her heart, and not only would I break it, it’s getting to the point where I have the power to shatter it. I shouldn’t lead her on the way I am; she knows I’m falling hard for her, how could she not? It’s as though I’m on a runaway train that can only end in a disastrous crash and I’m powerless to derail, detour, or stop it.

  Why don’t I kiss her? Why be afraid of a simple kiss? Except, I know it won’t be a simple kiss. I know there will be no going back after that first kiss. It will irrevocably alter the course of my insignificant exiled life.

  Those questions plague me, day and night. Not only because I struggle with the dilemma, but also because Alyssa won’t let it go.

  “How much longer, Henry?” she hisses from the shadows after yet another prolonged prelude to parting in front of her dorm between Charlotte and I. A parting full of anguished embraces and fondling, frolicking fingers, yet no goodnight kiss. I only hope that I’ve sent her to bed with sweet dreams of me.

  I hang my head in shame and frustration. Who the hell am I now? “Go away, Alyssa,” I snap. I’m in no mood to deal with her bullshit.

  “We’ve been summoned,” her tight voice responds, catching me off-guard.

  “By who?” I can’t help but ask.

  The oppressive darkness of the cloudy, fall night still isn’t able to hide the rolling of Alyssa’s fire lit eyes. Her pupils glow as they circle around the flames lingering beneath her skin. She doesn’t answer me, but spins on her heel and heads off toward the middle of campus. I contemplate not following, but it is a fleeting consideration, and I quickly fall into step beside her.

  “By who?” I press.

  She speed walks with a rigidity that leaves me uneasy. Alyssa has always carried the deadly grace and stealth of a predatory feline. For her tension to break through her well-developed exterior, whomever “summoned” us isn’t anyone to take lightly.

  An eerie quiet holds the campus captive, almost as if every living creature is holding its breath. The usual songs of crickets, katydids, and frogs are absent tonight.

  “What took you so long?” sounds more like a scream in my ears instead of the annoyed whisper that it is. The voice belongs to a woman and carries an authority Alyssa and I could only wish to possess.

  “Loverboy couldn’t break himself away from her,” Alyssa answers, stopping in her tracks, ten feet away from the disembodied voice. At least, I perceive it to be disembodied. We are deep in the shadows of the oak trees behind the student union. While it is far past midnight, I can make out the figure of Alyssa standing beside me, but I have nothing on the third member of our party.

  Then she steps out of the shadows and my heart stops beating in my chest, frozen in fear. Whoever this woman, scratch that, exile, is, she is more powerful than almost any other being I’ve ever come across. It oozes from every pore in her skin. She seems able to manipulate the appearance of her features, which are non-existent at the moment, with skin pulled over the eye sockets, nose, and mouth. There is no hair on her head. Outside of the higher register of her voice, I would be hard pressed to distinguish her sex. But, she also seems able to manipulate the elements around her. The night’s shadows fall over her figure and face at impossible angles.

  “I don’t recall requesting his presence,” slides with no emotion off her tongue.

  A chill races down my spine, and my blood sits stagnant in my veins. Just as I have the thought, We need to leave. She’s going to kill us, the green flames of the ignes iudicii ignite under Alyssa’s feet.

  She opens her mouth to scream, but all that happens is that her sealed lips stretch to accommodate the lengthening of her jaw, snuffing out the sound. Panic and terror fill her eyes as her flesh turns green and begins to pulse. The flames surround her now, feeding off her body. It pulsates in time with the pounding behind my eyes. Her form diminishes in size with each throb.

  My instincts scream, Run, run, run! But, where to go? The old me would run away. The man Charlotte is creating contemplates ways to rescue Alyssa from the nothingness she is about to fall victim to. Not that it will do any good. She is already half the size she was before the fire started.

  “I wouldn’t recommend that,” the nondescript creature before me says. “Unless you want her fate to be yours as well.”

  A gust of wind kicks up, and a few of the flames stretch towards me. I make to step back, but find that I cannot move. The fire licks the air in front of me, singeing the material of my shirt. The heat caresses my flesh like a sadistic lover, teasing me with the promise of pain if I make one false move.

  “It’s a pity that this lesson will be lost on you once she disappears, but I think it important that we get a couple things straight. After all, fear always tends to linger in the hearts of the weak.”

  The wind dies and the fire centers back on Alyssa, who is now about the size of my arm. The creature steps between us, purposely placing herself so that the fire of Alyssa’s death halos her inhuman form. Three slits appears in the skin over her eyes and mouth. Her eyes open, revealing the uncontrollable flames of the ignes iudicii consuming her pupils. No matter what I try, my eyes are locked on hers.

  “You won’t remember that,” and her head jerks to the space Alyssa used to occupy, “pathetic excuse for an exile. I am taking over and you will only remember that I have forever been your commander. I care not for how you keep the girl from the boy. Alyssa focused on you bedding her, I don’t know why. Kiss her or not. Screw her or not. It doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that I won’t be so forgiving if she gets in my way of steering the boy in his studies. I need his heart shattered, and she holds the power to do that. I require him to be angry and tormented by the loss of her. A suckling pup won’t usher in our rule. I require a cunning warrior, one no one will suspect of ill intention. You will create this for me. You will tear her away from him. You will come between them. And, you only have a month to do it.”

  Fear and confusion roil beneath my skin. “W–Wh–Why on–on–only a m–m–m–”

  “M–m–m,” she mocks me, her joy at my distress sparkles in her eyes. “Because that is the deadline to sign up for spring classes. Stupid reason or not, that is what it is. I need him out of basic humanities, where he’s wasting time in classes to be with her, and hardcore into political science. We have plans for him. I’m putting you back on your original mission, the boy. Your girl only matters to us because she matters to him, too much. You will change t
hat, by any means necessary. Or, I will.”

  Those last three words drip with a threat she is eager to carry out. “Meaning?” I squeak.

  “Meaning she won’t matter to him if she’s dead.”

  I gasp at how far she is willing to go. Alyssa never threatened to end Charlotte’s life because she knew Breaux would be useless as a result. “But, you’d be throwing him away!”

  “He’s not my only card, Henry,” she slurs, and pain explodes behind my eyes while my chest seizes and constricts around my heart and lungs, sending me to my knees. “He’s just the one with the most potential.”

  Chapter 12

  I didn’t know how to be the man you needed…

  I wake up the next morning with a throbbing headache and a tightness in my chest. There is a ringing in my ears, or at least I think there is, until my roommate speaks up.

  “Answer the damn phone, Henry,” he groans before rolling over and pulling the covers over his head.

  I roll my neck as I reach for the phone. “Hello,” my scratchy voice greets whoever it is on the other end.

  “Henry?” The injured inflection she puts on my name clears the haze from my head in an instant, and I sit up, flinging the covers from my body.

  “Charlotte? Is everything okay?”

  A sob rips through the line and sinks its sharp claws of sorrow deep into my heart. “No!”

  I cradle the phone between my head and shoulder while shuffling into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. “Where are you, my dear? I’m headed over, right now.”

  She sniffles and manages to get out, “My room.”

  I snatch my Jeep keys from the bedside table, planning to drive the few miles from the frat house to her dormitory. I change my mind when I get outside and see the line of traffic creeping down Greek row for homecoming. My feet will get me there faster than the vehicle.