Shadow's Dangers (2 page)

I raised my hand to stop her.

“You can’t be cautious with words around me. I’m okay, I swear. I can handle it.”

It was true, at least in part. Although during the first weeks and then some unfortunate times, I burst out in tears at the mention of Tess’ death, but now I could manage the pain. Tess was no longer here and talking about her out loud would not change anything. I breathed deeply, feeling my walls crack a little despite my efforts. I tried to shield myself again, knowing that the condolences and questions would come again as soon as we were in class. I didn’t want to cry my heart out in public because the situation would be troublesome and discussions about me would resume all over again.

“Come here,” Hayden said, before taking me in her arms.

This time, I set aside my embarrassment and let her comfort me. Her support and friendship were vital to me. It was all I had left in this world. And because I mattered to her as much as she mattered to me, I was desperate to try to get better. Because even if Tess were no longer alive and my sister was a real selfish harpy, Hayden was always there. She hugged me harder. She certainly wasn’t gifted when it came to expressing her feelings with words, but she knew how to behave at the right times.

“Lila?”

Confused, I frowned when I heard a female voice nearby. Lila? Few people ever used this nickname. Usually it was always Del, if not my full name. I removed myself from Hayden’s embrace to see who had called me. A girl with dyed blonde hair, brown eyes, and a slender physique.
Ever Hodgins,
I noticed with dismay.

I hadn’t spoken with her for five, maybe six years. When we were children, we were great friends. We even formed a sort of trio, Hayden, Ever, and myself. Then Annabelle had begun to build a reputation around town. Ever’s parents had taken her far from me, and Hayden became a collateral victim since Ever wouldn’t talk to her because she was hanging out with me. The Morgans had always been seen in town as apart from the rest. Some went as far as to call them strange. There were a lot of rumors about us between my parents’ mysterious car accident on a straight road with no other vehicle involved, and my sister and her disappearances from home for days, her dubious relationships, the drugs, alcohol...the list went on. The stories about my sister had ruined any chance for me to have a normal life here. It became the second reason why I hated Annabelle--the first being the legal problems and all the anxiety she caused my grandmother due to her bad behavior. Because of her, people avoided us like the plague, as if we carried a fluorescent sign that read, “Do not come near; we are lepers. Highly contagious.” Ridiculous and wrong, but an understandable reaction. Everyone was trying to maintain their reputation.

“Uh... yes?” I asked, still surprised by her appearance.

Ever didn’t seem to take offense at my temporary “absence.”

“I wanted to offer you my condolences on behalf of myself and my entire family.”

Ever had taken my hands during the delivery of her message. A powerful sense of bitterness came over me at her false compassion.

“I am sincerely sorry for Tess,” she said. “She was a wonderful woman. We would have liked to be at the funeral, but my family and I...we were traveling abroad.”

Traveling abroad...
Had they been here they wouldn’t have come anyway, just like most of the residents of this town. What did they all believe? That because they have finally realized they unfairly excluded my grandmother, an honest and good woman, that I would now accept their condolences so they could be relieved of their guilt? Keep dreaming! If Tess had not been so isolated, maybe someone would have been with her that fateful day and maybe she would have been saved.

With difficulty, I forced myself to put my resentment into the back of my mind and remain silent. No matter what I had to say, she would still be dead. All I had left was to honor her memory by following the education she had given me and leave no opportunity for these people to find something to complain about me.

“If you need to talk, I’m here. And my mother invites you to come over for dinner with us this weekend, if you want.”

The last thing in the world I wanted was to find myself cloistered in a room with the Hodgins family for two hours.

“I... I’ll think about it,” I said, pretending to be overcome with emotion. “With what happened, there’s still plenty of administrative papers to take care of and my sister and I have many things to deal with.”

I realized too late what I had done. Using the death of Tess as an excuse was pathetic on my part.

“I understand,” Ever assured me, falsely compassionate.

She finally released my hands from her hold. Despite my remorse, I was glad that it had worked. I saw the fleeting expression of relief pass over Ever’s face, and she wasn’t the only one. It was at least one thing that we both still had in common.

The daughter of the village’s biggest gossip went away, leaving me at peace. Hayden moved to the other side of the table, where Ever sat just a few seconds before.

“And you know, if you wanna talk, I’m here for you,” said Hayden, taking my hands in hers, giving a perfect imitation of our old friend. “What a hypocrite! The worthy daughter of her mother!”

I said nothing. I understood her anger and even found it legitimate. In addition to Ever who also considered Hayden as persona non grata when her parents had taken her away from me, the mother of Ever had peddled rumors about Hayden’s father. It had destroyed their family. Her father had left Mensen for Florida and had even found a new wife, while four years later, Hayden’s mother still cried over his departure. It was the one thing I hated about small towns. In all these places, people had so little to do that they couldn’t help but to mind other people’s business just to escape the mundane routine of their own lives.

The bell rang notifying us of the start of classes. My first day as a Junior had just begun and it was already shaping up to be particularly difficult.

Classes passed in a blur for me. I would have been unable to say anything about it. Now we were in fourth period and I was still in the same mindset. I couldn’t help but think back to my dreams. Although some aspects differed, others always remained the same...Tess, the wolf, and the raven kept coming, in one way or another. And driven by a need that was beyond me, I kept drawing these animals and their dark eyes, bottomless, as I had done in the courtyard. I didn’t understand this sudden obsession. Nor did Hayden it seemed, judging by the frequent worried glances she gave me. She had to ask what was happening to me, and she wasn’t the only one asking questions. Why the hell did I have these strange nightmares? Why was I acting so weird lately? I wished I could blame the grief and sorrow, but I was convinced it wasn’t that.

A nudge in the ribs distracted me from my mental dysfunctions. The chocolate eyes of my friend stared at me suspiciously.

“What are you doing?” Hayden whispered.

“Nothing,” I replied softly, not wanting to attract more attention to myself than I already had.

“Look at what you’re drawing. It scares me!”

What I drew was ridiculous, but it wasn’t scary. At least not from the point of view of someone who knew anything of my night terrors.

“It’s just a way to pass the time,” I said in a calm voice.

She shook her head, refuting my argument.

“Trying to pass time on the first day of school? Coming from you, the exemplary student, this isn’t normal. And who spends time drawing a grave with her own name engraved on it, huh?”

Her last sentence killed any bud of objection from me. A grave? I stared at her, questioning, before I took a look at my sheet. In the right hand corner was a sketch of a grave with the words “Deliah Morgan” written over it. I swallowed hard as tremors shook me. I made a ball with the paper. To avoid further unhealthy temptations, I moved away the block of sheets and pencil.

I felt Hayden take my hand in hers. This time, it didn’t help. I continued to shake lightly. Something was really wrong with me...

“Miss Morgan? Are you okay?” Mr. Miller asked, suddenly concerned about my attitude.

You could count on me to draw attention when I wanted to avoid it at all costs. The eyes of my classmates were all glued to my poor little person. And me, who couldn’t stop shivering like an idiot!

Suddenly there was a knock at the door of the classroom. Almost all eyes turned away from me to look at the entrance. I let out a breath, relieved.

“Come in!” exclaimed Mr. Miller, his eyes still on me.

He hated that anyone disturbed his class so I already pitied the one who would enter. I settled down in my seat, wanting to make myself invisible for the time being.

“Hello,” pronounced a sweet voice from the doorway. “We apologize for being late, but it was hard to find this room.”

I couldn’t see the girl from my seat, but her voice was the sweetest I had ever heard. The annoyance of the professor melted like snow in the sun and his face relaxed. Apparently, he was also subdued and I wondered if it were because the girl was beautiful or because of her singing tones. I had my answer very quickly.

She came in and my eyes widened at the sight. She was superb! She seemed to come straight out of a Hollywood movie set. Her angelic face rivaled Hayden’s. She had small eyes, finely drawn eyebrows, endless eyelashes, and slightly rosy cheeks. She looked fragile and benevolent and yet she showed a foolproof confidence. Her auburn hair flowed like a waterfall around her frail body and stretched almost to her waist. This girl seemed to be the perfect combination of beauty and purity, the epitome of femininity. And I wasn’t alone in my thoughts, as revealed by the appreciative murmurs from the classroom.

She moved out of the line and let in two other people, which proved to be her brothers, two boys almost as big as Kyle Finnigan, who was almost six feet tall.

I looked at the first and began to search for similarities between the sister and brother that I could see, the other still being hidden from my sight. He had brown hair, which he wore in a crude cut. He was all muscle without it being too extravagant. His face was angular and displayed a haughty pout that spoiled his beauty from my point of view. He wore a light beard making him look mature, while his eyes were that of a child in a playful mood. But looking more closely, one could see the weariness he tried to hide. I deduced that he didn’t want to be here, even if he tried to make the others believe otherwise by exposing himself proudly in front of this class. Like me, he tried to play with appearances. Except that, unlike me, he managed it well. I chased away this thought, not wanting to mope and let my eyes wander again to his sister. Her clear, blue eyes were almost translucent. They were the same as her brother’s, except that his were a very light brown. I finally found a resemblance between the two. And I had to say their eyes were the strangest I’ve ever seen. Strange, but beautiful nonetheless.

The second boy stepped forward, finally leaving the shadow of his handsome brother. I didn’t have time to see what he looked like. He could have been wearing flashy pink clothes or even been naked. All I noticed were his eyes when they fell on mine. For a moment, I had the amazing feeling he had sought me.
Me in particular.
But this absurd intuition disappeared as quickly as it came, as his eyes snapped over me completely. His emerald green eyes were the only thing that I recorded about him before all hell broke loose in my head. Snippets of dozens and dozens of images flashed through my mind. I wasn’t in this class anymore. I was no longer immersed in the eyes of the newcomer. I was elsewhere. Immersed in scenes more unusual from one another, which woke a sense of familiarity in me, even though I had no recollection of ever having seen it before. And suddenly, as quickly as it had started, everything stopped.

I averted my eyes from his, my head hurting like hell. An urge to get away from this place and him, as far away as possible, overwhelmed me. I hurried to gather my things. While doing so, a flurry of questions invaded my mind. Had anyone else noticed our troubling exchange? Had I started screaming when the pain had arisen? Did I say something? I forgot my questions. I was already considered weird by the whole town, after all. All that mattered was that I was away from the boy and the unexplained pain he had triggered in me. I finally got up, my bag in hand and pretended a sudden urge to vomit. I rushed past Mr. Miller to get outside the classroom, pushing the newcomers out of my way and avoiding meeting those damn green eyes again.

After running in the corridors, I found myself in the infirmary where Mary, the school nurse that I knew from my childhood, as she was a longtime friend of Tess’s, cared about my condition with such attention that it put me ill-at-ease.

“You sure you don’t want any medicine for the pain?” she asked me for the umpteenth time since my arrival.

“No thank you, ma’am.”

“Mary,” she corrected me.

“No thank you, Mary.”

Just like Tess, she insisted that I call her by her first name. This made me recall all those times when I came home from school and found her and Tess on the porch chatting and drinking their tea. Feeling the ghost of sadness come back with a vengeance, I forced myself to just bury it deep. I jumped to my feet, more ready to go than ever. Mary stared at me anxiously. I smiled, as convincing as possible. Being a poor actress, I didn’t manage to calm her anxiety. She went to her desk and sat down in her chair to grab a pen and a sheet. I took my bag, ready to go back to class, despite the fear that gripped my stomach at the thought of seeing
him
again. It was ridiculous, especially since he had done nothing. It was probably my mind playing new tricks on me. Besides, it wasn’t like I could run away from him in such a tiny town.

“Wait a minute, please,” Mary ordered me while I was about to leave the room.

I stopped and threw her an inquisitive look.

“Take this to the secretary,” she told me, handing me a piece of paper.

“What is it?”

I glanced and understood even before she answered me.