Darkness Calls [SHELVED]

Darkness Calls [Chapter 4]

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs. Uncle Mason believed that cereal was all anybody really needed to start the day so it couldn’t have been him.

“Rise and shine, princess!”

Piper stuck the tupperware of breakfast Amma must have made closer to my nose. “Oh, God, Pipes, if I didn’t like bacon so much...”

Uncle had already gone out for the morning, probably to hole up in the library like he always did in the summers. He was a history teacher at the local school and one of the few who loved his profession so much that it carried over during vacations. Whenever he wasn’t drawing out lesson plans, he was always at the library, adding more and more to the syllabus much to any high schooler’s chagrin. Knowing him, he’d only be coming out for lunch and when the library closed at 9. Sure enough, when Piper and I went down the only trace of him left was a half-eaten bowl of cold cereal.

“You think your uncle has a thing for the librarian?” Piper asked as she watched me scarf down the entire tupperware of bacon, eggs, and hashed brown. “Damn, girl, how are you keeping that figure?”

My appetite surprised me too. Maybe I’d been so deprived when I went missing that I couldn’t help making up for lost carbs. “He’s always there before she opens it. Maybe he doesn’t realize that there is a librarian.” I drowned everything with a tall glass of orange juice and worked on finishing the cereal. Nobody likes wasted food. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he already had a key.”

“Pity,” she said, trying to keep a straight face as I drained the bowl. “He’s one of the few eligible bachelors here.”

I nodded, remembering what a huge crush she’d had on uncle when we were kids. I used to say, “Ewww,” with an equivalently childish look of disgust at the thought, but now I could see what the appeal would be. Didn’t make it any less ewww-able though. I wondered if the feelings were still there. “So, what are we doing today?”

Piper propped her elbows on the table, her eyes glinting. “Well, Amma basically dropped me off here with no other means of transportation. That means you’re going to have to drive me everywhere today.”

“I don’t remember agreeing-”

“So, I was thinking we could drop by and help with the Founder’s Day ball production in the morning and pick out dresses in the afternoon. What do you think?”

“If your bouncing in your seat is any clue, it sounds like I can’t argue with-”

“Great! That’s that!”

I couldn’t help smiling. Some things never changed. And some things did, I thought, staring at the now empty bowl. The silver spoon made a clinking chime as it tapped the green ceramic. “Hey, I had a dream last night.”

“About what?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, shutting my eyes as I tried to remember the details. It was blurry now, darkening with every attempt I made to reach it. “I was on some cliff face...looking over the town. Is there anywhere like that here?”

“Hmm, well, there’s make-out point. My parents used to go there when they were young. I think my older brother was conceived there.”

“Piper.”

“Don’t worry, you know I love him. Anyway, that place has a great view of the town. Though nobody goes there anymore because patrol officers scout the area every so often now. It was their generation that named it after all.”

I thought about the view. I’d been too preoccupied being panicked to notice if it was great. “There was also a guy.”

She gasped. “Sweetie, I love you but some things are not meant to be shared. Oh! Was it the guy you were talking about last night?”