Chapter 31 Neglect
Chapter thirty-one
Neglect
“Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there.” - Otomo No Yakamochi
Hailey made it back to her room just as Giselle came down from the ceiling. She changed Hailey’s dressings before leaving for class that morning, and she even pulled a stray staple out of her neck. Tomas found another two lodged in her scalp, and Asher was still a no-show.
“Where do you think he is?” she asked Tomas as he twisted her hair into a fancy ponytail. Thank goodness too. Hailey couldn’t lift her arms high enough to touch her belly, let alone brush her hair.
Tomas shrugged, uninterested, and as he finished, Fin let himself into her room.
“How’s the back?”
Hailey perked up.
“It’s just a little raw,” she told him optimistically, “and Giselle put some Indispensable Mend-a-Wound on it this morning.” Looking down at her backpack, she stretched her fingers apart in an attempt to reach it without bending.
“Stop,” Fin said. “I’ll carry your books.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, trying not to look as sore as she felt. Every breath hurt that day, and she sat on the edge of her seat through class, at first because she couldn’t rest her back against the chair, but later because Dr. Woodfork lectured on Earth-bound Envoys—she was riveted.
The hour flew, and when Woodfork discovered he’d gone late, he hurriedly gathered his papers and headed for the door, yelling over his shoulder amidst the racket of swinging auditorium seats, “A reminder—instead of Weights and Measures, you’ll all go now and meet with your section leads… Oh!”
He spun around with his armful of papers.
“Next time, the White Forest,” he told them quickly. “Your assignment: Go into the White Forest with a partner, please—we don’t need any missing students this year—and listen to the trees.”
He pushed the door open with his back.
“Write fifteen hundred words on what you hear there and how it relates, scientifically, to paranormal research. Due in class next week. Have a good weekend everybody,” he added, and the door closed behind him.
As Hailey exited, she had a flashback of her hellish night in Lab 1, and wondered if Asher would bother to show up.
He didn’t.
And she knew that meant one of two things: either she was expelled again, or he wanted her dead. She went to the observatory to find out which it was and discovered Asher there staring through his telescope.
“How can you see anything in the daylight?” she asked as the door closed behind her. “What are you looking for anyway?” When he didn’t answer, she huffed loudly and turned to leave.
“Forgiveness,” he called, and then he turned his gaze to her. “You’re injured again.”
“It’s nothing,” she lied. Actually, her back was on fire, but she was too angry to admit it. Not that Asher cared—he went back to his telescope. Fin was right…Asher was bored with her.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she said softly as she started for the door again.
Asher jumped from his platform, landing loudly in front of Hailey.
“Don’t go,” he said gently, and Hailey’s lip trembled.
Why? Why did she always cry when she was angry?
Asher touched her softly, tilting her chin up, but he didn’t heal her. “Why are you sad?” he said.
Hailey looked away. “I’m not,” she argued.
“I mean, I am. Or angry or scared, I don’t know—I tried to find you last night,” she told him, her voice going to a croak.
She swallowed hard and looked away. “I called for you, and when you didn’t answer me, I thought maybe you were waiting to see if I’d die…
again. You seem…” She risked a look in his eyes. “Do you want me dead again?”
He brushed her tears away. “Yes,” he said. “But only temporarily.”
Hailey’s blood ran cold. “What?” she managed, stepping away from him.
“Let me heal you,” he pleaded, “and we’ll talk.” He held his hand out to her.
Not sure she wanted his help, Hailey stared at the ground stubbornly, and Asher waited.
“Sometimes you scare me,” she said without looking up.
“I don’t mean to,” he coaxed.
Hesitantly, she placed her hand in his. Drawing her into his powerful embrace, he slid his hands around her waist and under her shirt, gently gliding his fingertips across her skin as she silently cried.
A torrent of tiny tickles rose up her back, and she cringed slightly under the cold sting of regenerating skin.
When he finished his repairs, Asher hugged her tight.
“It upsets me to see you in Pádraig’s bed,” he told her quietly, and Hailey pushed him away.
“I wasn’t in his bed, I was on it,” she informed him.
“And I only ended up there because after you ignored me, I went home, and Fin was there, and he ran out to help me remove a gazillion staples from my back and neck and arms and head, and then I passed out, but you still stayed away, and all I could think was that you were out with Cobon plotting to kill me.”
Hailey bit her lips together, squeezed her eyes shut, and slapped her hands over them. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She had no right to accuse him of disloyalty when she’d slept in Fin’s bed the night before.
Asher fixed his eyes on her. “Cobon will one day succeed in killing you, and he is clever. He has found a way to breach my university perimeter. I can no longer feel when a creature crosses.” He blinked. “But Cobon has agreed to stay away for a short while.”
“Is that why the university isn’t safe for me? Wait. You were with him last night?”
Asher dropped his gaze.
“Asher, did you make a deal with him?”
“We discussed a way to save you—an energy swap,” he continued, closing the gap between them and reaching for her cheek. “I would have to separate your soul from your body,” he said as he stroked her gently. “I would have to kill you temporarily.”
Hailey inhaled sharply, but she didn’t jump away from him.
“I love you, Hailey, and I don’t want to lose you.”
“Are you even capable of love, Asher?” Her heart pounding in her throat, she watched him close his eyes, ducking his head slightly.
“Can you not feel my love for you?” he asked, his voice half hurt, half angry.
“Sometimes,” Hailey told him cautiously. “Just so you know, it’s not romantic at all to talk about killing someone you love—even temporarily. I’m not okay with that. The whole separate-the-soul-from-the-body thing… I think we should talk about this.”
She didn’t know if he would even entertain her thoughts on the matter. If he decided to kill her, she was dead, and that was that. She couldn’t stop him.
“We will.” He brushed a strand of hair over her shoulder. “I brought you something from Pittsburgh,” he said with an eagerness Hailey had never seen in him before.
“You were in Pittsburgh?” she asked, smiling a little. Jeez, if she’d known he could flit back and forth so easily, she’d have asked him to bring her some of her things.
Asher nodded and took her hand, leading her into his home and through the doors of his atrium to a wooden bench, built for two, which sat near the two-story stone fountain.
“Sit here,” he told her, “and close your eyes.”
Hailey obliged, enjoying the feel of her new skin against the back of the bench as the thunder of falling water filled her ears.
“Your uncle sent these for you,” came Asher’s voice, and Hailey opened her eyes to find her tattered dance shoes sitting on the floor in front of her. She stared at them blankly for several seconds.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” said Asher. “Was I mistaken?”
“No,” said Hailey softly as she got up. “I just haven’t danced since…” Her voice died on her, and she picked up her shoes. “I’m not allowed to use these here anyway,” she said holding them wistfully, and Asher touched her hands.
“Dancing makes you happy, and seeing you happy pleases me. You may dance here, in my home, whenever you wish.”
“Don’t you hate percussion?”
“I do. I find it intolerably annoying, but I enjoy seeing you happy.”
As Hailey hugged her shoes to her chest, Asher produced a letter. “From your uncle,” he told her. “He kept me waiting while he wrote it, and I confess I listened to his thoughts as I lingered.”
“You can hear his thoughts? How?” she asked absently. She already knew. But she needed to hear it from Asher.
“It was Cobon,” he said, answering her real question. “Your uncles agreed to watch over your line centuries ago.”
Centuries. No wonder Uncle Pix was so grumpy.
“How is he?”
“He insisted I tell you he’s well.”
“How is he really?”
Asher hesitated. “He worries, and he misses you.”
“Maybe he’s worried you’ll kill me temporarily,” she muttered, stealing a glance at him. His face fell momentarily, but she gave him a half-hearted grin, and his mouth twitched in relief.
She opened the note, smiling at the familiar scrawl.
Hailey pulled her chin back. Uncle Pix must've been in the whiskey before writing such a cryptic note.
“Do you know what this means?” She held the note out, but Asher shook his head.
“Perhaps he’s referring to how you dispatched Adalwolf. But,” he added, “he had been drinking with his brothers, and it was difficult to follow his thoughts.”
Asher waited patiently as Hailey read the note twice again, and then he stroked her arm. “Hailey, would you join me in the observatory tonight?”
“Sure,” she said still staring at her uncle’s letter. “What time?”
“After the sun sets. Before it rises again.”
“Alright,” she chuckled. “I’ll see you then.”
Hugging her shoes, she left his home smiling. As she exited the ParaScience leaf, Fin caught up to her.
“I’ll take that,” he said, pulling her backpack off her shoulder.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome…and you know you’re not allowed to use those here.” He pointed to her hard shoes. Then he slapped her on the back. “Guess you’ve been to see Asher,” he said spitefully, and Hailey gave him a wry smile.
They walked half a block in silence before Fin blurted out, “I’m four hundred and sixty years old.”
Hailey stopped slacked-jawed.
“Been meaning to tell you,” he added over his shoulder, never breaking stride.