First Impression (A Shadow Maven Paranormal) (6 page)

“You haven’t eaten yet either?”

He shakes his head and snags a bite of egg salad sandwich. He speaks with his mouth full. “I was just visiting with Steve for a second before coming down to grab something. Then you showed up.”

I nod.

A group of younger girls pass our table and one of them coughs to hide her comment. “Lesbo.”

My gaze draws upward to meet Ben’s, but he’s glaring at the girls behind me. That eases the discomfort caused by the words I choose to ignore when I’m on my own. I open a sandwich and take a bite even though my appetite is long gone.

The first bell rings.

Ben ignores it and continues eating his sandwich. So do I.

“When you say that you see the truth, what does that mean? Does it mean you know when someone’s lying?” I ask.

He finishes the bite he’s taken and takes a gulp of his milk. His gaze never leaves mine. With a nod, he says, “Yes. There’s a shadow on them when they lie.”

“A shadow?”

“Kind of like when you see the waves of heat coming off asphalt in the summer?  That’s what I see, but it’s dark.”

“Is that kind of like an aura?”

His jaw tightens. “People think that they know so much. New age concepts aren’t really new age at all. They are old teachings that have been perverted into something they were never meant to be. I don’t see auras, I see shadows.”

“Sorry.” I take another bite of my sandwich and avert my gaze from his glare.

“It’s fine. But I usually don’t like talking about this stuff because most people think they know more about it than they do.”

Still not looking at him, but studying my sandwich again before taking another bite, I ask, “How did you learn about it?”

“Brother Francisco. He taught me that what I have is a gift, not a curse. Gifts come from God, not the devil. And he showed me how I could use this gift to help people. With talent comes responsibility.”

“Shadow Maven.” I set my sandwich aside and look up.

He nods and puts all of our trash on his tray. “We’ve got to hurry if we’re going to make it to the third floor before the second bell. We have less than two minutes.”

After school, I head straight
for the hospital. Mrs. Brown is there, her hair coming loose from her bun and her usually pressed clothing in disarray. She smiles when she sees me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Chira, it’s good to see you.”

I smile back. “Thanks, Mrs. Brown. Are Kevin and Mr. Brown here?”

“No, sweetie. Mr. Brown is still at work, and Kevin will be staying with his grandmother until this is all worked out. He’ll come for a little visit each day, but he doesn’t need…to deal with…” She trails off.

“I understand.” I eye her over. “How are you doing? Have you gotten anything to eat? Have you slept?”

Her shoulders seem to hunch more, but her smile grows wider. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

That word
. I tsk at her. “No such thing as fine. Didn’t you say that answer is a dodge?”

Mrs. Brown stiffens, and her eyes grow in shock.

I shake my head. “I think you need some sort of rest. A nap, or at least a shower. I’m going to be here with Tasha for at least the next couple of hours. Why don’t you go home?”

Her expression softens, and she stretches her back. Tears well in her eyes. “You’re a good friend to my Tasha, you know that? You always have been. I’ll take you up on that offer. Mr. Brown will be here in about two hours to relieve you, and that will give me enough time to do exactly as you say.”

I nod and adjust the strap on my messenger bag. “Sounds good. I’ve got homework to do, and maybe I’ll do some of the required reading aloud. Don’t they say that people in comas hear what’s going on around them? Maybe it will help Tasha keep up with her schoolwork.”

She laughs and gives me a hug. “Maybe it will.”

When she releases me, she swipes a tear from her eye and heads for the elevator. I watch her go before I turn toward the Intensive Care Unit. The room is brighter than it was last night, and all the units have patients in them. I don’t know how the nurses stand it, but the incessant beeping of the monitors are not in alignment with one another. The sound reminds me of the cacophony of crickets I heard in the mountains the last time my father took me camping off Skyline Drive.

The machine helping Tasha breathe overpowers most of the beeping once I enter her room. I take a seat in the chair next to her bed again and just watch her for a little while.
So tiny.

“Hey, girl. How are you doing today?” I ask.

I watch her face for any change in expression, even though I don’t expect one.

“Well, it was the usual for me today at school. Boring classes, no one really talking to me…well, except for Mrs. Blaylock. Can you believe she wants me to see the school shrink?”

Tasha remains unchanged, but I continue. “And then there was Ben…”

I tell Tasha everything that Ben said about being a Shadow Maven and what that meant. It seems much more unreal as I say it aloud to Tasha, and I can only imagine what her responses would be. But I’m talking just so that she hears my voice, knows I’m there, and also to catalog all that I’ve learned today.

“Seems pretty out there, doesn’t it? But I wonder how true it all is. I guess there must be some truth to it since Matt had said something about the monks before Ben told me all he did today. But you know, I don’t want to be a gullible idiot and just accept things at face value.”

“…
especially with a cute boy,”
the Tasha in my head says.

I smile and sit back in my chair, just listening to the heart rate monitor. The steady but annoying beep at least reassures me that my friend is still alive. Still breathing. And for that, I am thankful.

After an hour and half of reading every bit of our homework out loud, I’m parched. Luckily, the decongestant I’m on has kept me from dealing with my head cold on top of everything else. I wonder if the nurses would even let me in here if they knew I was fighting one.

Just as I’m packing my books back into my messenger bag, Mr. Brown walks up. “Hey, Chira. Good to see you. Mrs. Brown is actually still asleep back home. I didn’t wake her. But I don’t want you to be walking home after dark, so I’ll drive you.”

I blink hard. “It’s dark already?”

“Well, not quite, but it’s going to be soon.”

“Thank you for the offer, Mr. Brown, but I’m going over to the diner first and grab something to eat. It’s only two blocks, and it would be kind of silly for you to drive me such a short way.”

Mr. Brown nods. “Then I’ll walk you.”

I frown. “That’s not really necessary, I’m fine. Really. Besides, I don’t think Mrs. Brown wants us to leave Tasha alone for a minute. I could tell.”

He nods and scratches his chin. His eyes are almost as tired looking as his wife’s were. “That’s true. She really doesn’t.”

I sling the strap of my messenger bag over my head and smile my reassurance. “There ya go. No one wants to see Mrs. Brown upset. Stay here with Tasha and keep her company.”

He nods, but his eyes convey concern.

“I’ll be fine, really. I do walk everywhere in this city already. And don’t forget that both Tasha and I did make it to green belts in Tae kwon Do.”

He frowns. “You both quit almost two years ago, so that really doesn’t make me feel better.”

I shrug and reach into the pocket of my bag, pulling out a small pink spray can of pepper spray. “There’s always this.”

He smiles. “That makes me feel a little better. It is only two blocks. But I want you to have your cell phone in one hand and that can of mace in the other.”

I pull out my phone with my other hand and hold the two objects out for him with a wide grin. “Like this?”

He laughs. “Yes, just like that.”

I wrap my arms around him in a quick hug. If any man reminds me of my own father, it is Mr. Brown.

“Take care,” he says, and I feel his eyes on me when I enter the elevator.

Outside, grapefruit pink stretches across the midnight blue sky, the last remnants of the setting sun. I have already stuck my phone back in my bag, as it really isn’t that feasible to have both my hands full the way Mr. Brown wants. I decide to just palm the pepper spray.

The street lights have already popped on and cars pass me in frequent intervals. But my mind drifts to the stark contrast between the pools of light and deepening shadows.

Possession.

The word rings through my brain and makes me shiver. From what Ben said, we didn’t have to worry about that kind of haunting, right? Didn’t he say this was an impression? But what if he is wrong?

A change in the shadow to my left catches my eye. I turn my head but nothing looks strange or unusual. My heartbeat quickens, and I increase my pace. From the corner of my eye, I swear that I still see shadows moving in a manner that they shouldn’t. My fingers grip around the canister in my hand, but what good would pepper spray do against a ghost…demon…whatever?

My mouth is drier than a desert. Somehow I don’t think that a scream could even make it past my parched throat if I needed it. The shadows to my left change again in the corner of my eye, but when I look head on, they’re normal again.
Run,
my mind screams, but the logical part of me looks over at the cars and says that there’s nothing wrong. Someone else would notice if there was something wrong, right?

The scuff of a shoe on the concrete behind me causes me to whip around, a finger ready to depress the pepper spray’s contents.

“Whoa, Sniffles. It’s just me.” Ben stands ten feet away with his hands up in a defensive position.

My heartbeat relaxes, but just a little. I don’t lower the spray can, but I’m glad I didn’t spray before looking. “What are you doing? Are you following me?”

He runs a hand through his thick waves and puts the other in his trouser pocket. “I was walking this way and saw you so I decided to catch up. You shouldn’t be out here alone, you know?”

The shadow in my peripheral moves again, and I jerk my head in time to see the silhouette of an owl. Steve flutters over and lands on the streetlight nearest Ben. Relief floods me, and I lower my arm. I chide myself for being ridiculous. “Well, I do have the pepper spray.”

He smirks. “Yes, and very dangerous you are with that. I was afraid you’d blind me for sure.”

I shrug and put the spray in my pocket. “I’ve walked everywhere I wanted to go in this area for years, so why do I suddenly need a chaperone?”

Ben’s expression turns serious. “You were being followed.”

I blink. The shadows?  My hand flutters to my throat, and my heart rate increases again. “Is it possession after all? Is the ghost following me?”

He steps closer and lowers his voice. “No, a person is following you.”

I swallow hard, and my eyes dart around him. And then I study him more closely. Was he the one following me? But why? Should I trust him?

He takes my shoulder and turns me around. “Don’t look, just walk.”

I follow his lead and walk stiffly beside him. My fingers wrap around the cell in the front pocket of my bag. I whisper, “Should we call the police or something?”

“No,” he says. “If the person knows that you know he’s following you, then he may do something desperate. He may stop what he’s doing, but he may also get bold and hurt you. I think it’s just best if we go on with life and pretend he’s not there. But don’t go anywhere alone, okay? Stay with me.”

My stomach somersaults. “You’ll protect me?”

He shrugs. “Where are we going?”

Maybe he's the one I need protecting from. But when I glance at him, I can't believe that. He's just an ordinary boy...yeah, right. I should be running in the other direction, but my whole being wants to be with him, wants to believe he will take care of me. “Um…my mom works over at the diner on Washington Street. I go there for dinner every day after school.”

“Every day? What do you do on weekends?” he asks.

Is he asking because he’s actually interested? Or because he's stalking me? I shake it off. “If my mom is working, I go to the diner. If she’s home, she cooks. You actually live nearby me, don’t you? On Rauchambeau?”

He watches me for a second with his eyebrows knit. “Yes. How did you know that?”

The silhouette on the street a couple nights ago comes to my mind. I want to ask about that, but I shrug. “I have my ways.”

He laughs, and we turn on Washington Street. When we reach the diner, I hop up the steps, but his arm cuts in front of me, and he grabs the door.

I’m surprised again. You can tell this boy wasn’t raised in America. He actually has some manners. When we walk in the diner, my mom immediately spots us. Her serious expression turns into a smile and she gestures with a wave toward my usual booth.

Coffee and greasy food smells assault us and actually overpower the pine and mint I’ve gotten used to around Ben. I lead him toward the back corner by the window. We slide into the teal vinyl bench seats across from each other. The rims of all the tables are lined with corrugated aluminum accents to give the diner a space age, nostalgic feel. I rest my elbows on the table top and grab the menu from behind the sugar shaker. Without looking, I push it across the table toward Ben.

He eyes me warily.

“I know the thing by heart. And if you’re my new bodyguard, I guess I’ll have to pay you with food, right?”

He shakes his head. “You don’t have to pay me with anything.”

“Are we friends?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know you well enough yet to call you that.”

“Are we dating?”

He blushes. Like, his face turns so red, it’s cute. “Of course not.”

“Then wouldn’t it be kind of weird that you’re following me around all the time and watching me? Either you’re my ‘paid’ body guard or my stalker. You choose.”

He shakes his head and snatches the menu from my fingertips. “Fine.”

I laugh and lean back, watching my mom approach with her head cocked in question and pointing toward the boy sitting across from me with a big grin. When she reaches the table, she seems ready to burst. “Chira, sweetie. Who’s your friend?”

“Mom, this is Ben Oscuro. And actually, we’ve just established that we are not yet friends, and we’re not dating.” I laugh, and Ben looks at me with wide-eyed shock. “I guess we’re acquaintances with benefits. And one of his benefits is dinner. On me, okay, Mom?”