Rebirth: The Sacred Isle Series

by K. E. Miller

  “I was just wondering if you came up with a plan,” I said. “Shaylee was already in bed when I got back last night, which I don’t know if I have to tell you or not, is pretty bad. She had another dream, but it wasn’t bad enough that I needed to wake her, so I haven’t spoken to her at all.”

  Aaron sat down on his bed, looking defeated. I sat down next to him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. The gesture made me feel awkward and uncomfortable so I removed my hand after only a few seconds. He looked at me with such sadness, I wondered if he’d slept at all or just spent the whole night worrying.

  “You know her best. If you don’t have any ideas, I don’t know what I should do,” he said.

  The hopelessness in his voice concerned me.

  “I don’t know her best,” I replied. “I just have a better handle on how to deal with this sort of thing. I’ve been living with her for three years now.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “It would be easy for me to tell you how to fix this if you had the exact same relationship with her that I do, but you don’t. The way she looks at you puts you into an entirely different category. I don’t know how to fix this.”

  “Every idea I have just seems dumb and…not enough,” he said.

  “That’s because it won’t be the full truth no matter what you say to her,” I said. “How would you have won Sophia over after a fight?”

  I was genuinely curious. We hadn’t talked about Sophia much and until very recently I’d always blamed her for the Exodus.

  “Usually I would apologize and beg her forgiveness until I melted her down enough to tell her that she was right and I was an idiot,” he said.

  “Maybe you should try apologizing to Shaylee in the same way. It’s not as thought it could hurt your situation,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps,” was his only reply and it was easy to see that he was lost in thought.

  By the time we left his room, we only had a few minutes before classes started. Aaron and I went our separate ways. He still looked sad and hopeless, but I had a feeling there was just enough determination left in him to see him through the day.

  The morning passed slowly. It was as though time slowed down whenever I wasn’t with Aaron or Shaylee. When we were together, I felt as though I could feel the clock ticking; counting down until Shaylee’s birthday, when our whole world would change.

  I skipped lunch, wanting to get a short nap. Sleep was becoming harder and harder to come by. As Friday approached it was increasingly more important that I be alert to watch over Shaylee, but I also didn’t want to get caught off guard if I was too sleep deprived to notice a threat. I was also hoping to avoid any drama that might be happening between Aaron and Shaylee. I wasn’t sure I could sit there and not give away any lie that he might be telling her as he tried to apologize.

  ***

  As I made my way to dinner, I realized that I had almost no memory of anything my teachers had said all day. I got into line and got food without paying attention to what was on my tray. It wasn’t until I was five feet from the table that I noticed Aaron and Shaylee chatting.

  “Hey!” Shaylee said, sounding cheerful.

  I noticed how close she was sitting to Aaron. Somehow, he’d managed to convince her to forgive him. I didn’t know how he’d managed it, but I was pleased to see that she was happy once again.

  I sat down with a smile and began poking at the food on my tray as Shaylee and Aaron returned to their conversation. I stared at the window while I pushed food around, not really paying any attention.

  “Jade, were you asleep when you were in line?” Shaylee asked, pulling me out of my reverie. “You hate meatloaf.”

  I looked down at the food I was poking at, noticing for the first time that it was meatloaf, green beans, applesauce, and a brownie. I frowned. I should have paid more attention when I got my food. Shaylee was right; I hated meatloaf. I had a distinct dislike for green beans as well. I picked up the brownie to discover that it was rock hard.

  “Perfect. Just perfect,” I sighed, holding my head in my hands.

  “Here, eat this.”

  I glanced up to see Aaron taking my tray and a nice salad sitting in front of me.

  “I can’t take your food. You can’t really want to eat that meatloaf,” I said.

  “Not particularly,” he agreed. “But I think you having a nutritious meal is more important than me suffering through this school’s version of meatloaf. After all, I had two other meals today.”

  He smiled but I saw the double meaning in his words. As a Warrior, it was important for me to eat regularly to keep up my strength and speed. My body naturally burned a lot of calories and it would affect my abilities if I starved myself.

  I began shoveling the salad into my mouth. I finished the salad in record time. I was so wrapped up in it that it wasn’t until I’d finished that I noticed that Shaylee had been silent for a long time. I looked at her and saw that she was staring off into space, a look of intense focus on her face. I followed her gaze and saw nothing there to explain her concentration.

  “Shaylee?” I asked.

  She continued staring at something that was invisible to my eyes. I looked to Aaron for help. He was still fully absorbed with the careful examination of his meatloaf. I kicked him under the table and nodded to Shaylee when he looked up.

  “Shaylee, are you okay?” he asked, his immediate concern evident.

  Again, Shaylee didn’t respond. Her eyes began to widen as beads of sweat formed on her brow.

  “Shaylee?” he asked again. He reached out and touched her shoulder in an attempt to get her attention.

  “No!” she screamed.

  She jerked away from Aaron, causing her chair to fall backwards to the floor. The Dining Hall erupted into laughter as Shaylee got up and ran from the room. My gaze followed her until she was through the doors.

  I turned to Aaron and asked, “What just happened?”

  “I have no idea,” he replied. “A vision maybe. Sophia used to look similar when having one, but Shaylee shouldn’t be able to have one. I should go check on her.”

  “Oh no you will not!” I exclaimed, grabbing his arm as he stood up. I pulled him back down into his seat. “She’s going to be really embarrassed by this. I need to be the one to check on her.”

  He surprised me by nodding in agreement.

  “You’re right. I don’t think she’ll want to see me right now,” he said. “You go.”

  I swiftly left the Dining Hall, glaring at the rest of the room as I went. My message was clear. Shaylee was off limits. I just hoped she would tell me what had happened. Otherwise I wasn’t sure how I could protect her.

  Chapter 13

  Shaylee

  I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head. My face was still burning with embarrassment. Once second I’d been sitting there watching Aaron chivalrously switch trays with Jaden and the next thing I knew a deep voice had been telling me to run. It got louder and louder until it felt like my head was going to explode.

  No, it was crazy. There hadn’t really been a voice telling me to run. It had to have been some kind of dream or hallucination. Or maybe I had a severe case of food poisoning that didn’t make me vomit, just imagine strange voices.

  As I lay in bed, I hoped Aaron didn’t come to see if I was okay. The last thing I wanted was to see him. It would only add to my embarrassment. I knew I’d have to face him at some point, but I wanted a good night’s sleep before I had to deal with it.

  The door quietly opened and closed. I remained still and silently prayed its wasn’t Aaron. I kept my breathing steady, hoping he would think I was asleep and leave me alone.

  “Shay, are you alright?” Jaden’s voice asked.

  I mumbled something unintelligible. As grateful as I was that it wasn’t Aaron, I was still too embarrassed to even talk to Jaden about it. I felt her pull the covers off of me. They fell to the floor, eliminating my ability to hide. The bed dipped as J
aden sat down next to me.

  “You must be somewhat okay if you took the effort to answer me at all, even if it didn’t make sense,” she observed.

  I covered my head with my pillow and groaned.

  “It really wasn’t that bad, Shay. Aaron was more concerned by the fact that he didn’t notice something was wrong until right before you screamed.”

  I peaked out from under the pillow and looked up at my roommate and best friend.

  “He didn’t laugh at me, like everyone else?” I asked.

  “Why would he laugh at you?” she replied. “He was about to follow you, but I stopped him.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling immense gratitude towards her. “I was hoping he wouldn’t follow me. I really can’t deal with that right now.”

  “Of course,” she replied, hopping off my bed.

  She sat down on her own bed and pulled a book out from under her pillow. She opened it to where her bookmark was and started reading.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?” I asked, wondering why she wasn’t bombarding me with hundreds of questions.

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully and said, “No. If you want to tell me, you’ll tell me. There’s no use asking you about it if you don’t feel like sharing.”

  “Really?” I asked, disbelievingly. I sat up and stared at her. “You expect me to believe that you aren’t the least bit curious about why I screamed and fell over like a crazy person?”

  Jaden lowers her book and looked at me seriously.

  “Of course, I’m curious about what happened,” she said. “I’d just rather not pester you about it and let you decide when to tell me.”

  “Thanks,” I said, both stunned and appreciative of my best friend. “I promise at some point I’ll tell you. I’m just really embarrassed and freaked out right now. I kind of want to pretend it didn’t happen.”

  “I had a feeling you’d feel that way,” she said with a smile. “Don’t worry about it, Shay. When you want to talk about it, I’ll be ready to listen. Until then I’m going to read my book and I think you should get some homework done.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said with a laugh.

  I pulled out my textbooks and notes and began studying as Jaden went back to reading. Part of me was strangely suspicious that Jaden wasn’t more insistant about finding out what had happened. It wasn’t like her not to ask me any questions, but I pushed my suspicions aside and focused on my schoolwork, knowing if I brought it up she would likely force me to talk about the mysterious voice.

  The rest of the evening passed uneventfully. I thought I noticed Jaden checking her phone several times, but I was too wrapped up in my math homework to ask her about it. I went to bed worried that for some reason we were drifting apart.

  ***

  The vague dreams of vast foreign landscapes I’d been having for the last few nights continued. Faces flashed through my mind and then disappeared before I could even understand who they were. I’d go from having an argument with a tall dark-skinned man to twirling around on a dance floor. It felt like there was something really important that was supposed to happen, if only I could stay asleep long enough.

  I woke up and rolled over to look at the clock. Four thirty. Too early to get up, too late to have much hope of really falling back to sleep. I looked around the room, curious as to what had awoken me.

  Suddenly, I heard a faint shuffling noise in the hallway. I got up and looked to see that Jaden was still deeply asleep. I walked over to the door and quietly opened it. Looking out into the hallway, I found no one.

  I took a few steps out into the hallway and looked around. I didn’t see anyone in either direction or hear any footsteps. As I turned to go back inside, I heard the sound again, this time coming from the stairwell. I followed it, but when I reached the stairwell it seemed like the sound was coming from downstairs.

  Unable to shake the feeling that I had to find the source of the sound if I ever wanted to go back to sleep, I followed it down the stairs and outside. I paused outside the door. The sound was gone. All I could hear were the crickets.

  I froze, knowing something was wrong. It was February. There shouldn’t be any crickets. Instead of snow, I was standing on grass, soft beneath my bare feet. A warm breeze blew through the surrounding forest and swirled around me.

  I began walking again, unable to stop myself. It was as though an invisible force was guiding me. I looked around and thought I saw someone walking across the campus, away from the dorms. From a distance, it looked like Aaron.

  I kept walking, my body ignoring my desire to stop. When I got closer, I saw that he was standing just next to the old oak tree that marked the edge of campus before the western edge of the forest. He didn’t see my approach; he was looking away from me into the forest as though he were waiting for something.

  The feeling of wrongness grew as I approached him. Wanting to warn him, I reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned slowly. His face remained in shadow, the light of the moon only illuminating him from the shoulders down.

  I wasn’t afraid. Even though my feet had carried me across campus against my will, I knew I would be safe with Aaron. I smiled up at him, even as my gut screamed at me that something was very wrong.

  He lifted his hand as though he meant to take mine, as it still rested on his shoulder. He grabbed my arm and twisted. I gasped at the pain, which had erupted on my skin, not from his firm hold, but from the touch of his skin. He leaned toward me, into the moonlight, and I saw his face for the first time. Realizing that it wasn’t Aaron, I tried to pull away, but his grip was too tight.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he said, his voice dark with rage. “You’re mine now.”

  Unable to look away from his piercing eyes, I screamed.

  ***

  “Shaylee! Shaylee, wake up!”

  I opened my eyes. It took me half a second to realize that I was screaming and stop. Jaden was rubbing my arms and looked like she was close to tears.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, realizing that I was crying myself.

  “No. It’s not your fault. It was just a dream.”

  We sat together, Jaden holding on to me for several minutes like she thought I would break down again.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asked.

  “Not really,” I said. “but when I was little Drew used to tell me that if I had a bad dream, I should tell someone about it so it doesn’t come back. I really don’t want to have this one again.”

  I took a deep breath and told her the whole dream, forcing myself to relive all the details.

  “I’m so sorry, Shay,” she said when I was finished. There was both guilt and sorrow in her tone.

  “What are you sorry for?” I asked.

  “That you had that dream” she replied, then shook her head. “It just sounds awful.”

  Jaden glanced at the clock. She seemed like she was holding something back.

  “We’d better get ready,” she said.

  I looked at the clock too. The alarm was set to go off in another ten minutes. I shook my head at how close I’d been to making it through the whole night. I couldn’t figure out how my mind had concocted such a terrible nightmare.

  I got ready as quickly as possible, wanting to see Aaron. I ignored the burning feeling on my arm, dismissing it as just the memory of the dream. So much had happened in my dream that the fiasco at dinner seemed like a faraway memory.

  ***

  When we sat down at our table, I asked Jaden if my eyes were still red from all the crying and realized just how hoarse my voice was from screaming.

  “A little,” Jaden answered. “You look fine.”

  “I don’t sound fine.” I glanced over to see Aaron coming towards us with his breakfast. “What do you think the chances are that he won’t notice?”

  “Non-existent,” Jaden whispered, just before Aaron sat down.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Mornin
g,” Jaden said, when I didn’t reply.

  “Is everything alright?” he asked, looking back and forth between Jaden and I.

  Jaden said nothing as she put a lot of effort into pouring her milk and peeling a banana. I popped a grape into my mouth for an excuse not to answer him.

  “Shaylee?” he pressed; his tone serious.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said, trying my best to sound normal. It came out rough and weak. I cursed under my breath as his eyes widened.

  “What’s wrong? Are you ill?” he asked. He looked frantically at Jaden, as though he didn’t trust my own evaluation of my health.

  “Shay’s not sick,” Jaden told him.

  When Jaden didn’t elaborate further, I watched the worry on his face turn to anger. As I watched him, trying to determine the best course of action, it seemed like he had stopped breathing.

  “It was just a dream,” I said, hoping to calm him down.

  He looked at me and the anger left his face as he looked into my eyes, leaving panic in its place. Without thinking about what I was doing, I reached up and brushed my hand across the side of his face, ignoring the discomfort from my arm.

  “I’m alright,” I said. “I promise.”

  His obvious panic disturbed me and I wanted nothing more than to soothe his worries. I studied his face and watched the worry lines smooth away, pleased that I was able to calm him. He gradually relaxed and I realized how natural my attempt to comfort him felt. Again, I was filled with a sense of familiarity.

  I turned away and began eating my breakfast, aware that he continued to watch me as he began eating his.

  Chapter 14

  Aaron