Eighteen Years Later
The Headmaster of Blackwood Academy walked between one world and the next. It had become rather easy for her—traveling from one plane of existence into another. It was just like crossing through a door, after all.
The living never noticed much. Too preoccupied with their mortal concerns.
Too caught up with the fleeting complexity of their lives.
So, even though they should have seen the strange girl with eyes the color of molten amber and the odd batlike puppy trotting beside her, they didn’t.
Or, if they did, they simply thought they saw her, though when they turned back to check, there was never anything there.
Just a trick of light.
Just a passing shadow.
The Headmaster enjoyed visiting this town.
The rhythmic clatter of tourists walking among the cobbled streets.
Students bustling nearby, scrambling to get to class on time.
It reminded her of another version of herself.
Not the one who had belonged to the world of the living, but another.
The one who had found her strength in the halls of an academy.
The one who had clawed her way to the surface, despite the prickly threads of grief that had attempted to pull her back.
Tonight’s visit, however, would be different.
There was business to attend to.
She entered the town in the dead of night.
Shadows shrouded the empty streets. A calm, inviting silence drifting in the chill air.
It was a Friday night, and a few students scurried in the dark, bundled together, giggling into their hands as they drunkenly waded through mounds of fallen leaves.
Pale light shone upon the black asphalt.
There was a full moon; the white-laced moon hung high in the night sky, unburdened by the thin gray cloud swimming around it.
The Headmaster glanced down at her watch.
“It’s almost time,” she whispered out loud. The fluffy creature at her side peered up at her with his beady red eyes. “Shall we?”
The creature sneezed and the Headmaster smiled.
Together, they crossed the street, heading for the small square that sat near the town’s university. Full, lush oak trees adorned the perimeter of the courtyard, though the leaves had begun to change as autumn’s breath blew upon them, tinged in hues of deep auburn and delicate orange.
At the center of the courtyard stood a fountain surrounded by a stone ledge.
And there, seated upon the stone ledge, beer bottle in hand, was a girl.
Her hair was as auburn as the molting leaves of the trees. Her eyes a pale blue.
The Headmaster looked up at the sky.
“Any second now,” she whispered.
Three…two…one…
The boy came into view, entering the courtyard with his hands tucked into his pockets and his gaze fixed forward.
His hair was the color of raven’s feathers.
His eyes a silvery gray. He hummed along to the song blasting from his corded headphones, completely unaware of the girl seated only a few yards away from him.
The Headmaster rolled her eyes.
Must I do everything?
She snapped her fingers and a sudden gust of wind blew through the trees, knocking the boy’s headphones out of his ears.
He staggered, reaching for them, but the cord slipped right through his fingers, drifting across the ground.
He scrambled, chasing after them, though he skidded to a halt when he realized his earbuds had come to a stop right beside the girl’s shoes.
He glanced up.
Their eyes met.
The girl reached down, picking up the earbuds. She stood up and faced the boy, dangling them in front of him.
“I’m guessing these are yours.”
The boy let out a nervous chuckle. He grabbed them and tucked them into his pocket.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
The girl laughed and a cloud of frost billowed from her lips. When she smiled, the boy swore he had seen it a million times before. Swore he could shut his eyes and draw it from memory.
“Do I know you?” the girl asked. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stepped closer.
The boy shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe.”
The girl took a long sip from her beer. Her blue eyes bored into his, that same inkling of familiarity radiating inside them. She stared at him like she knew him—like they’d known each other from the very start.
“Well…which is it?” she asked, chuckling.
As the question tumbled out of the girl’s lips, a thought crashed into the boy, so wild, so absurd, that he couldn’t help but laugh.
It was impossible. A silly, ridiculous thought.
Because even though he had never seen this girl before, even though they were only now meeting for the first time, he couldn’t help but feel as though his entire life—every seemingly inconsequential event—had been leading him to this very moment.
“I’m not sure,” he whispered back.
The girl stared and stared. Her brows creased together, mouth parting. The boy could see the same thought crashing through her. The same confusion riddling her features. She laughed, setting the beer bottle down against the stone ledge beside her.
“Maybe it’s one of those past life things,” she said.
The boy furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she said, stepping closer. “I’ve heard that sometimes when you recognize someone but you’ve never met before, that it’s actually your soul recognizing them. That you knew each other in another life.”
Something in the boy’s chest sang. Calling to him. Beckoning him.
The Headmaster could feel it—the connecting thread. The unbreakable link.
The boy had never given much thought to his soul before. Never paid it any mind. But in that moment, he was certain that if he did have a soul, if such a thing existed, that somehow, a part of his belonged to this girl.
“You think we knew each other in another life?” he asked, voice barely audible.
The girl stepped closer. She examined his face, lifting her hand, tracing the edge of the scar etched into the skin beneath his right eye. The boy didn’t back away. He didn’t move. He simply let her.
“Maybe,” she whispered, the warmth of her breath falling upon him.
“Yeah,” the boy whispered back, smiling. “Maybe.”
The Headmaster sighed, satisfied. She took a step back, retreating into the shadows, watching as the pair continued to speak, drawing closer to one another like two halves of a whole finally reunited.
“Well, Benji. I believe we’ve done our part.”
The little creature barked.
“How about we head back home?”
With a single breath, the Headmaster opened the door to another world, though she paused when she took the first step forward, as if faced with an internal hitch.
Just one more look. She glanced over her shoulder.
The boy and girl were standing side by side, looking at one another, whispering words that the Headmaster would never hear.
A tiny voice in the back of her mind ached to stay, and despite knowing she could never listen to it, she let it linger. She let it hope. But deep down, the Headmaster of Blackwood Academy knew this wasn’t her world. Not anymore.
There were other souls who needed her attention. Other stories waiting to be told.
And either way…this one was just beginning.