Jack's Shadow

Winter: Twelve

All his reservations toward his former music teacher were gone. Perhaps it was because he now knew that Miss Collins truly had understood him during his time at Webster Day School. He hadn't imagined her feelings of empathy toward him. Or perhaps it was because he'd been stripped of so much of himself over the past months that the part of him holding back was now lost. Whatever the reason, Jack felt no qualms in entering Miss Collins's house and sitting down in her living room with a mug of hot cocoa, marking how entirely beautiful she really was. Her soft blonde hair floated around her heart-shaped face like an ethereal mist, glittering almost as much as her strange, pale eyes. Her slender form seemed more to hover on the chair across from him and Grace rather than actually put weight onto it. Jack glanced at the woman's hands, remembering how they used to always clasp and unclasp during music classes, but now they were still and calm in her lap.

"See!" cried Grace, taking a swig of her hot chocolate and then making a face as the liquid burned her tongue a bit. Recovering, she added, "I told you you'd like her, Jack. Anne told me she knew you when I talked about you one time! I come over lots, here, because Anne is my mother's friend's daughter . . . or something like that. Right Anne? And I just happened to be talking about you one time and she heard me say your name, and when I said your full name, she knew who you were right away and said she'd been super worried about you since you'd left. Said she wanted to see you, so I said I could figure it out. But then for the longest time, you wouldn't even listen to me. Or talk to me, or anything. Because of your meds. Now that that's all over, though, I could finally get you to come."

Jack kept his eyes on Miss Collins while Grace talked. When his friend had finished her waterfall of words, he asked, "You were worried about me?"

To which the woman earnestly replied, "Of course." Miss Collins leaned forward toward the table, looking from Jack to Grace, and then back to Jack. "I knew you were special the moment I saw you, Jack. I've only been at Webster Day for two years, but I can spot someone with gifts similar to mine quite easily. I could tell at once that Grace was special, and I could tell at once with you, too. There's some hidden connection between us, Jack."

The boy felt heat flush through him, and he was fairly certain it wasn't the doing of the hot chocolate. "You and me?"

"Everyone like us. You, me, Grace . . . and I've met others. Others with the sort of gifts that we have."

"What do you mean?" asked Jack. He was beginning to feel as if he were in some sort of movie where the main character finds out he's a superhero without ever having known it before. "Gifts? I don't feel like I have those. Not in the good way that you sound like you mean."

Miss Collins smiled soft and quietly said, "No, I know you don't. Not yet, anyhow. It took me a long time to realize that what I had was a gift. For years, I thought that what I had was a curse."

"But you feel different now?"

"Yes, she said that!" Grace answered for Miss Collins. She was bouncing in her seat out of impatience. "Tell him about your eye, Anne—tell Jack about that!"

Jack looked from Grace to Miss Collins in wonder. Now that it'd been mentioned, he did vaguely recall hearing the girls at Webster Day whisper about their music teacher being partially blind—that she'd been a dancer before but had lost her eyesight and had had to leave her dream of dancing behind. Was it true? Were those strange rumors more than just speculation? He wanted to know, suddenly, more than he even realized.

Instead of explaining with words, Miss Collins bent her head, lifted her hands to her face. Her hair fell softly down across her forehead, so Jack couldn't quite make out what she was doing, but when she lifted her head back up, a gasp escaped him. While the woman's right eye was its normal pale blue, her left one was entirely white; not even a black pupil was against the iris. It was solid white.