For Evermore

CHAPTER 14

I wake up to blinding light piercing me in the back of my eyes. It's morning. I lay there, disoriented for a while. This place looks familiar, but where is it? Where am I? 

Oh right!

The events of last night hit me hard. I am in Oliver's bed. I get up. Oliver's still sleeping on the couch. I go to the restroom. When I come out, I am jolted out of my mind at the sight of Jeremy. He's pouring himself cereal. He seems to be doing his business as if nothing unusual had happened. I am asking myself if this is Jeremy's ghost or if what I saw last night was really just my tired mind playing tricks on me. I walk over to him.

"Jeremy"

"Katherine. You're up. I was wondering why you slept here last night. Is everything alright?"

"Um, I don't know. You tell me."

"Me? What do you mean?"

"Don't pretend like nothing happened. I saw you, last night, by the window."

"By the window? What are you getting at? Can't I stand near my own window?"

"You were not just standing. Admit it. You got me panicked. You-" I break off.

"Katherine, I honestly don't understand what you mean," he raises his hands in mock surrender. But I glimpse something in his eyes I can't place my finger on.

"I saw you jump out of the window. I saw you with a vulture. You were talking to it. And then you just jumped. Then I came running here to ensure you hadn't killed yourself."

"Why would I jump out of the window? I'm not crazy. And what vulture? Look, I think you must have been tired last night, maybe you imagined it. I'm clearly not dead or hurt. There's no way I could've been unscathed if I had really jumped from there."

I start to doubt myself. Maybe I really did imagine it. But, a vulture of all birds? I don't know. I don't remember ever seeing a vulture in the night sky before. Maybe I need therapy. Maybe I'm going crazy.

"Right. Sorry. Maybe I just imagined it. Sorry."

"That's alright, I guess."

He offers me some cereal and I say no. I'm not hungry. Then he leaves after finishing his breakfast. Oliver wakes up after some time. I tell him I have to go to my room and then head back to my dorm. I take a shower and get dressed in a white turtle neck with black pants and a black double-breasted coat. I fix my hair up in a ponytail and tie it with a ribbon.

I make my way to class and Bacchus spends an entire hour talking about the history of Obelisks and their importance in the world and the theories people come up with to satisfy their thirst for conspiracy.

Just as the class gets over and I pick up my bag to leave, Bacchus stops me. He asks me to stay back.

"Katherine, could you meet me in my office?"

"Sure. But what's the matter?"

"Just meet me there. I need to talk to you about your studies is all."

"Okay. When do you want me to come?"

"You can go there now. I just have to pick something up. I'll be there with you in a minute."

"Alright."

I'm still confused but I go to his office anyways. The door's ajar so I step inside. It's a really grand office. he has wooden bookshelves and paintings on the walls, and a mahogany desk. It reminds me of the locus a little bit. Oliver and I haven't been there in days. Not since we discovered the secret society.

There's a large painting on the wall behind his desk. It's so beautiful that I lose myself for a minute. I move closer and examine it closely. It's a painting of the woods. Deep dark woods. I can see all the brush strokes from up close. Every precise movement of the expert hand that painted it. I can see how every tiny detail adds up to the beauty of the painting as a whole. Something's different about this one. I've never seen it before but it's still unsettlingly familiar. There's something out of place but that something is what's putting everything in its place. Then I place my finger on it. It's the colours. An ethereal blue. Blue in the woods. All shades of blue. It feels so wrong to think about it, but so right when you actually look at it. The midnight sky is blue. Maybe that's why the painting is blue, but there's no other way it could have been painted. This way it looks hauntingly beautiful yet somehow serene. I know who painted this even before I read the name signed in an elegant script at the bottom right corner of the painting- Marcus Ginsberg. It's not even surprising. Nobody else could have painted this. No other hand could've been so sure, so confident in its strokes.