Chapter 4 #2
“Ah, Fey, lovely.” The woman’s gold-flecked eyes sparkled. “I take it Roxie here is helping you navigate your way about the grounds then?”
I finally took her hand, and my anxiety melted away on contact. Gone. Like magic.
“Yeah, she’s been great,” I said, Roxie’s face beaming in the light of the compliment.
“Good.” Miss Celine nodded and adjusted her necklace. Clear quartz. Beautiful, polished, and—“I’ve got to get to class and set up for the day, but it’s nice meeting you. I’ll see you soon, ladies.”
With a warm smile, she stood and exited the room with practically inhuman grace.
My lungs faltered at her disappearance; every anxious tic that’d disappeared after our handshake returned. The mess in my mind was reinstated.
The hallways leading to the classroom wings were exceptional.
Walls meeting at a perfect, mahogany point overhead, carved leaves trickled down the boards before disappearing behind dark wainscoting.
Something about the little leaves was mystifying.
Like if I squinted just right, I’d catch a glimpse of magic swirling around them.
My inner child who still believed in ridiculous things like fairy tales and happy endings couldn’t help but smile.
I followed the leaves down and around the corner as if they were my own personal yellow-brick road and found my seat a minute before the classroom doors shut.
Though Miss Celine’s teaching was exceptional—her descriptions visceral and passionate—I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering back to that strange ball of mist in my dreams. Something about it felt almost ominous, like something was coming.
The idea alone unsettled me, and no matter how much I tried to focus on Miss Celine’s words or remind myself how much was riding on me succeeding at Saint Peter’s, I couldn’t.
My previous therapist’s recommendation hit me over the head.
Get it out and on the page, she’d said. It’ll free your mind.
Of course, it hadn’t yet, but the habit remained.
Binder flap pulled up to keep out prying eyes, I ticked away at the sketch smattered across the page, depicting my most recent nightmare.
The one on repeat: black water, rickety buildings, teeth.
So many teeth. The broad stroke of the charcoal soothed me, however much it could with an unsound mind such as my own.
The class rotated out but I remained in my seat as a new wave of unfamiliar faces filed in for the day’s last class, filling every seat but the one at my side. Fine by me. More privacy to pick away at the final details in my horrific new creation.
A body plopped into the vacant seat at my side. “Cool concept. I like the depths you managed to blend into the black water. Creates a sense of impending dread.”
Cillian. I met his gaze, shoulders rigid. “Thanks?”
He rolled up his sleeves to reveal a solid mass of tattoos coiling up his forearms and down to his fingertips.
A quill and ink pot on his forearm caught my eye, and I squinted to make out the words written beneath them.
Something about blood and typewriter keys and—“Look any harder and you’ll make a man blush. ”
“Uh-huh …”
The corner of his lips quirked up in a half smile. “Figures.”
God, that stupidly handsome face. I focused back on my sketch. “What?”
“Nothing, I just knew you’d be taking this class. Been looking forward to it all day, little shadow.”
I scoffed. “Little shadow? What’s that supposed to mean?”
His grin widened, a dimple at his cheek popping out.
“You think nobody will see you if you stick to the shadows; you hide away so no one can break through that carefully curated wall you’ve built around yourself.
But I have news for you,” he whispered, leaning in close.
Too close. Spearmint and the subtle hint of gin washed over my senses. “I see you.”
A fire ignited in my center, my attention falling to his lips. Trouble, I reminded myself. Don’t engage. It’s what he wants. I buried my face back in my binder. “Right. I bet you use that line on all the ladies. Cheap one-liners that get the girls all hot and bothered.”
“Are you hot and bothered?” His eyes pulsed in my periphery.
“Hardly.”
“You mock me,” he said, “but it’s true. I have the ability to feel people. Really get an idea what they’re all about.”
“Sure you do.” And what did you feel with me then? I wanted to ask but didn’t. His feelings regarding me shouldn’t mean shit. I was just another potential notch on his bedpost, nothing more. But … I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit curious.
“Like with you,” he continued. “I got that sense you were into dark, twisted shit like me.”
He shuffled through his sketchbook for a minute, tourmaline pendant clinking on the tabletop.
A secondary stone I hadn’t seen before clacked against it.
Small, brown. Petrified wood: a strong grounding and balancing stone.
When he came to a particularly crinkled page, he tore it free and smoothed it out in front of me. “Believe me now?”
My blood ran cold, heartbeat in my ears. I studied the page. Slotted eyes, wide and hungry. Foul blue skin. The beast. My nightmare beast.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a class to teach.” With a wink, he rose and sauntered to the front of the room, and Miss Celine handed the floor to her TA.
Of fucking course. Now, I had zero hopes of avoiding that cocky, handsome, entirely unsettling man.
Awesome.