Mourning Sun (2 page)

Knowing that delaying the inevitable would only mean more spectators for the insults I could see Stephanie working on, I heaved the Nova's door open and slammed it shut. The ensuing boom couldn't drown out the laughter coming from the crowd gathered around Stephanie and Braden. I kept my head down and headed toward the school.

"And I thought dinosaurs were extinct, Braden," I heard Stephanie shout.

 

"Apparently they only come out for dykes."

I kept walking. "It isn't worth it," I repeated silently until the door to the school closed behind me, blocking out the Golden Ones' laughter. I knew it wasn't worth getting upset over. I'd learned that lesson the hard way. The more upset I got, the worse the insults got. The more I stood up for myself, the harsher the taunts became.

"She's a worthless bitch, you know," my best friend, Cecelia said, slipping up behind me.

 

"Yeah, I know. Besides, I like my car. It has character."

 

"Your car could eat hers for breakfast and crap out a Mini Cooper."

 

I laughed and hugged Cecelia. "You always know just the right thing to say."

 

"So how was your last weekend of freedom?" she asked.

 

"Not bad. Mom and Tawnya took us to the beach. Kerry got burnt, I finished the summer reading list."

 

"Only you could turn a beach trip into an excuse to do homework."

Cecelia and I stopped at the open door to our homeroom, reluctant to start the school day. She was right. I could turn almost anything into an excuse to do homework. It was the only way I could see for getting out of this town before it sucked me in the way it had my mom. I guess there was nothing wrong with falling in love and having kids, but I was determined to get out of Highland Home and see the world before I let that happen to me. I wanted more out of life and college was the one way I knew I could get it.

"How many applications did you fill out last week?" Cecelia asked. She knew of and approved of my obsession to get out of Highland Home. We planned to go to college together, find our paths to success together and end up married and living next to each other so we could be friends for our entire lives. Sure, it was a hokey dream, but so what?

"A few," I said. Fourteen, I thought.

 

"Uh huh."

 

"What about you? How many?"

 

"Excuse me, ladies," a silky smooth, yet somehow incredibly rough voice broke into our conversation. "Can you tell me where Mr. Stevens' classroom is?"

I looked up and found myself drowning in two pitch black pools of molten heat. My heart stopped. Recognition slammed into me, stealing my breath and my good sense. The vision in designer clothes waiting patiently for me to stop acting like a guppy on land and answer him was the boy from my dream. Fear and desire twisted in my belly and I finally raised my hand to point across the hall.

"Thank you," he said before turning away.

 

"You're welcome," Cecelia quipped. She waited until my dream had disappeared from view before smacking me in the forehead. "What's wrong with you?"

 

"Who was that?" I asked, still reeling from literally meeting the man of my dreams.

 

"How should I know, nitwit? You just blew your chance to ask him, though."

I groaned. "What the heck is wrong with me?" Cecelia shrugged. "I'm sure he'll be around. Next time, promise me you'll use that enormous brain of yours for something other than a paper weight."

I nodded and followed Cecelia into our homeroom when the bell rang. Cecelia knew about my dreams, but we didn't talk about that stuff often. I knew she was my friend no matter what, but the premonitions made her nervous. I think she worried that one day I would have a dream about her future, or lack of it. What would she say if I told her I'd dreamed of that gorgeous boy last night. Not only did I dream of him, but I dreamed he was a vampire who killed the woman he loved. Cecelia would be supportive, but freaked out. I wasn't willing to do that to her on the first day of school. We were under enough pressure without the metaphysical baggage. We took our usual seats at the back of the room and I tried to sort out what had happened in the hall.

He was gorgeous, sure, but there were other good-looking guys in our school. I let my homeroom teacher drone on while I reconstructed his face in my mind. Deep, dark eyes. Hair like a raven's wing, but with just a touch of curl. Tall, he'd towered over me. I shook my head. What did it matter? He'd find the popular gang soon enough and never think of me again. At least that's what I thought.

***

 

"We're going to start this year with The Crucible," Mr. Stevens said. The class groaned in unison.

 

I was settling back, feeling pretty smug because I'd read the play over the summer when the boy from my dreams arrived a few minutes late.

His gaze swept the room as though searching for something, only pausing when he found me at the back of the classroom. The blood rushed to my cheeks and I tried to find anywhere else to look other than those deep black eyes that never left mine as Mr. Stevens explained we were short on books and there would surely be someone willing to share with him. The teacher gestured around the room to the empty seats and I noticed Stephanie Bartlet pat the desk next to her, inviting the new boy to sit with her. I knew if that happened, I was lost. Stephanie would suck this beautiful boy into the Golden Ones and I would never get the chance to know more about him than what the rumor mill would release. To my immense surprise, however, the boy from my dreams ignored Stephanie's invitation and walked surely to the empty seat behind me. He slipped into the desk and I heard Cecelia whisper, "That's going to cost him."

She was right, of course. As queen bee, Stephanie Bartlet was the arbiter of all things cool and popular at Highland Home. If the new guy knew what was good for him, he'd beg her forgiveness and let her accept him into the Golden Ones.

"Class, please welcome Mathias Auer. He'll be joining us this year" Mr. Stevens said.

His name shot a bolt of disbelief through my whole body. It simply wasn't possible for me to have dreamed about the past and have that past walk into my present. My premonitions didn't work that way, or at least they hadn't up to this point. I must have had some odd look on my face because when I looked up, Cecelia was frowning at me.

"What's wrong?" she mouthed.

"Later," I waved her off. I couldn't form coherent thoughts, let alone attempt to share anything with her without getting caught by Mr. Stevens, or worse, Stephanie and her cronies.

What kind of name was Mathias, I wondered idly. I'd never met anyone with that name before and didn't remember even reading it in one of the scores of romance novels I'd read in my life. Mathias...It sounded classy and classical and it certainly fit the reserved and beautiful boy who sat comfortable and silent behind me while the whispers of my classmates erupted around us the moment Mr. Stevens turned his back to continue his lecture.

I jumped when a hand settled on my shoulder. "May I share your book?"

When I turned, Mathias had leaned forward to whisper his request to me and I found myself staring into his dark eyes with little distance between us. I pulled in a deep breath to attempt to calm my thundering heart and caught a whiff of something dark, earthy and tantalizing. The scent caressed my senses, bringing up visions of deep forests and dark nights and it took a moment for me to realize Mathias was still waiting for me to answer him.

"Um, sure," I said. I put my book on his desk.

Mathias lowered his head and began to read along with Mr. Stevens. I stared at the tumble of his loose black curls and was struck by an almost insane desire to run my fingers through his hair. I wondered if his hair was soft or coarse. If it would feel like silk against my fingers. If he would kiss me.

Jeez, where did that thought come from? I blinked and forced myself to return to the present only to realize Mr. Stevens had been trying to get my attention.

"Mairin, would you please pick up with Abigail's lines?" Mr. Stevens said. Stephanie snickered and wound her index finger in a tight circle next to her temple. Great, I thought. One more reason for Stephanie to think I was losing my marbles.

"Yes, Mr. Stevens," I said and then realized I had no idea where we were in the play.

 

"Here."

I followed the long finger Mathias laid on the page and began to read. I kept my head down, but kept sneaking glances at the boy beside me. He watched me silently, barely glancing at the page to read John Proctor's lines as the characters fought over whether or not John loved Abigail. His voice jolted me each time he spoke, sending little electric thrills down my spine. Mr. Stevens finally started in on his lecture again and I was able to lean away from Mathias. The distance gave me some clarity and let me breathe. What was it with this guy?

I wasn't normally a boy-crazed teenaged girl. Between my desire to go to a good college to escape Highland Home and my efforts to be invisible in order to avoid the Golden Ones, I had rendered myself almost entirely unseen by most of the male population of Highland Home. When you factored in my refusal to act like a stupid twit in order to stroke the egos of the boys who did see me, it left very little interaction with the opposite sex.
There was something about the way Mathias had looked at me in the hall and as he'd walked down the aisle to his seat that made me feel as though he saw more than others. It was as though he could see past the walls I'd built and into the transparent parts of me to find the deepest and most secret places in my soul that I didn't share with anyone. Being seen like that, after years of transparency, left me breathless. I wanted to be near him, to hear his voice, to be lost in the deep chasm of his eyes.

When the bell rang, Mathias rose and stalked from the room, moving with a catlike grace. He was gone before I was out of my seat.

 

"Well that was weird," Cecelia said as we headed down the hall to the cafeteria. "What's up with you and the new guy?"

"I wish I knew, Cece," I said. I knew I needed Cecelia's clarity and ability to keep me grounded so I decided to share my dream with her. "I know you don't like the metaphysical stuff, but I've got to tell someone or I'm going to explode."

Cecelia eyed me. "Maire, what's going on?"

 

"I dreamed of him. Mathias I mean. I dreamed about him last night."

 

"Well your dreams are premonitions sometimes, right?"

"Yeah, but the dream last night took place in the past, not the future. Mathias..." I stopped. Did I dare tell Cecelia the outcome of the dream? I had to, I decided. Someone else had to know what I was dealing with, no matter how selfish it was of me to dump this stuff on her.

"Mathias what, Maire?"

 

"He was a vampire in my dream. And he killed a woman I think was his wife."

Cecelia shook her head and laughed. "You're kidding, right? You took that seriously? Come on, Maire, you know you've been reading too many novels when you start dreaming about vampires."
I relaxed and laughed with her. Trust Cecelia to be the one to smack me with a reality check. She was always great for keeping me firmly planted in reality, something I really needed in order to balance out the metaphysical mess that was my daily life.

"You're right, Cece. I gotta stop reading that junk before bed."

Cecelia's reality check might not explain why Mathias had starred in my dream, but it did make me feel better about the vampire part. I mean who didn't think of vampires as dark, mysterious and sexy. Maybe the dream had been somewhat of a premonition that this new boy was coming to our school and my over-charged imagination had superimposed the vampire stuff to amuse my subconscious. I began to feel a bit more normal about the dream and Mathias' appearance as I followed my classmates through the rest of the morning.

Mathias wasn't in any of my other morning classes. I waited impatiently for him to appear, even giving him fifteen minutes of leeway before admitting defeat. The rumor mill was in full production by the time Cecelia and I headed to the cafeteria for lunch. I heard his name whispered by nearly every group I passed and I caught myself watching for him as we traveled with our classmates through the halls.

Cecelia and I left our books with Thomas, Nate and Janet and joined the throng lined up at the lunch counters.

 

"Did you meet the new guy yet?" I heard a girl in front of us ask her friend.

 

"No, but he's in my English class. Mr. Stevens said his name was something that starts with an M, but I wasn't really paying attention."

 

"Mathias," I said without thinking. Cecelia kicked my ankle. As the girl turned toward us, I realized why.

 

"Oh hell," I thought. It was Stephanie.

 

"Did you say something to me?" she asked.

"His name is Mathias." Stephanie looked at me as though I'd grown horns. "And what makes you think I care?"

That was a very good question. I knew every word I said from here on was one more shovelful of dirt from my social grave. Stephanie would not take well to being embarrassed by me about something like the new guy who had snubbed her in English in order to sit near me. The problem was, I couldn't stop myself. It mattered to me that she knew Mathias' name, though I had no idea why. I was about to snap off another ill-conceived retort when I caught sight of someone tall and dark standing beside me.

"I care," his smooth voice was a caress that made me shiver. "It is, after all, my name."

I looked up to find Mathias leaning in close to me. He flashed a cold, brittle smile to Stephanie before turning his back on her. What had been an icy rebuff for Stephanie turned to a warm, inviting smile when Mathias looked at me.

"Would you care to join me for lunch, Mairin?" he asked.

"You know you don't have to eat with the losers, Mathias," Stephanie said, desperation making her voice high and whispery. "You'd be welcome to join us at our table."

Mathias ignored Stephanie and waited for my answer without turning his attention away from me.. Behind his shoulder I could see Stephanie positively seething. She wasn't used to being ignored.

Cecelia pushed me from behind, breaking the spell of disbelief is was under. I coughed in an attempt to cover my apparent break with sanity and reality. "Sure," I said. "Why don't you come sit with us?"