Being a Barrow - A Sequel to Barrow's Boy

Prologue

     The illness of humanity. It pulsed through the veins of anyone who could claim to be a part of that group. It traced scars and followed veins to hearts. It shattered bones and contaminated brains. There was no protection. All one could hope for was to find and use the cure. The biggest problem with the illness? Few people even realized they had it. Even fewer decided to heal themselves.

     Intolerance and hatred ran through the world. It was not to be found only in England, yet Theodore swore he ran into it no matter where he went. 

     It wasn't that Theodore didn't know hate. He most certainly did. He hated some parts of the way he looked, his short stature or the round scar by his hip. He hated the students who thought partying on the night before the first day of classes was a good idea, and he hated the way that nobody stopped them. He hated distance and the pain it left in his chest. He hated not seeing certain people every day like he once did.

     Hate was something that he had had for a long time. It had pulsed through him in adolescence, filling his mind into his teen years. But now, Theodore was well aware of the cure.

     Theodore knew love. He wanted to love. He loved his girlfriend, his dad, and his friends. He loved where he had come from, even if it had made his life more difficult. He loved his school already and the box that sat in the bottom of the drawer. 

    Theodore loved because he chose to. Because far too many people hated far too many things. And, at the end of the day, he had found that the thing that had cured most people he knew was that feeling. The feeling of being seen, wanted, and, yes, loved.

     The campus felt irrationally large when you were lost on it. 

     At least they'd had the brains to leave early. Finding the meal hall wasn't much of an issue; Theodore and Ashton had run into Fletcher, who had pointed them in the right direction. But after eating their breakfast, the boys had no idea how to get to their class. 

     "There is no way we're going in the right direction," Ashton said as the boys rushed down yet another path. Theodore stopped in his tracks, huffing as he looked down at his schedule again. 

     "I thought this was a small campus!"

     "It is."

     "God, I would have been screwed if I went somewhere else," Theodore said, staring at the location of their class. Lane Hall. It didn't seem like something that should be so hard to find.

     "May I inquire as to what, exactly, you two boys are doing here?"

      Both Ashton and Theodore turned, looking behind them to face a stern, middle-aged woman, looking at them as if they were mice who had escaped a trap. She wore a nurse's uniform- Theodore would know one anywhere after the convalescent home- complete with her nurse's cap covering her hair. Behind her stood a group of twelve girls, also in uniforms, though their caps were shorter, and their hair was visibly pinned back. It was Ashton who answered her.

     "I'm sorry, ma'am. We're a little lost."

     "A little?" The woman repeated. "I'll say. I assume you two are students at St. Raphael's?" 

     Both boys nodded.

     "And did they not tell you that the presence of St. Raphael students on St. Agatha's grounds is strictly prohibited?"

     Oh, of course. They had somehow wandered onto St. Agatha's School of Nursing. It had been mentioned to them in their original house meeting that the nursing school at on the edge of St. Raph's property and that they were to avoid it.