by Amy Laine
*A spatha is a Roman cavalry sword, mostly used when fighting with horses. Highly looked down on with Rome.
I leaned forward across the table as she sat down. (I almost knocked over my glass of OJ in the process.) “Okay, what’s up?” I ask, deadly serious. Or, at least I hoped I sounded serious. She should know better then to hide stuff from me. I’m the son of Jupiter- no one hides things from the Lord of the Sky.
She looks up. “What? Oh…um…nothing Jason. I’m good.” Hazel looks around and signals an aurae to say she’s decided what she wants to eat. I raise my eyebrow but say nothing. You don’t get information if you push too hard.
Finally, Hazel sighs. She beckons me to sit closer to her, so I make Dakota scoot down and I lean beside Hazel.
“Jason…you know how…I’m not from around here right?” She says this like she’s scared I’ll run away screaming if I hear the truth.
I nod. “Yeah, you’re from New Orleans right?”
Hazel swallows uncomfortably. “Yeah…that’s...Er part of the truth anyways.”
I tilt my head. Before I have a chance to ask what that means, a girl from the third cohort get’s beaned with somebody’s Egg McMuffin. It’s not uncommon, lot’s of people do, but not normally so hard.
“Jeez, she took quite a header.” Dakota grins at us, with a permanently stained red mouth. The girl is rushed out of the room and to the infirmary. It should only be a minor headache, I tell myself. It happens all the time…
I look back at Hazel. She’s avoiding my eyes. “You were saying?” I prompted.
“Today’s my birthday.” She stated simply. Oh gods, is it really?
“It is?” I ask oblivious. “When were you born? What day is today anyways?”
“December 17, 1928.” Hazel is poking at her sausage. I grin, “Hey that’s cool. I should run down and see if we can get a proper…ceremony going on- wait. Hang on a minute.”
Something is wrong.
“What year did you say, you were born again?” I really hoped I hadn’t heard that right.
Hazel shoved a huge bite of pancake into her mouth. “Thiwelteen thegty aeite.” I have no idea, what she was trying to communicate with that, but I knew what she said earlier- I just hoped that wasn’t what she said.
1928?
I repeat this slowly to my golden eyed friend. She nods miserably.
The first thing I say to her is, “Shouldn’t you be dead then?” And that just causes a whole lot of sobbing. Way to play that smooth. I curse myself.
It takes almost five minutes to calm her down. “That-that’s what I was afraid you would say…” She sniffs. Well, I’m sorry.
“I told one other person.”
“You told other people?” I ask incredulously. This I don’t think people would say, “Aww…you poor thing,” Like her cat died. More of, “AH! Get out of my sight! Don’t kill me!” Hazel shakes her head. “Well…actually only one other person. And he kind of found out by himself. My brother.”