The Forsaken

Chapter Three - Endless Nightmares

Sunlight streams through the stained glass window above, causing rainbow-colored lights to dance upon Gwen’s notebook as she sits quietly at her desk. All around her, her classmates sit hunched over, heads down, busy scribbling notes or reading passages from their textbook. Beside her sits Adam who bruises himself over a simple math problem. He senses her eyes upon him and looks up.

            The answer is forty-nine. Gwen tells him mentally, trying to explain the process by which she solved the equation, but really, she hadn’t done the work herself. Anything can be easily learned if you can read minds she discovered over the last few months. The real trick is discerning all of the random things that interrupt a train of thought and making sense of more than one mind at once. Shutting the rest of the world out so that she can hear herself think is even more challenging still.

“Thanks.” Adam smiles appreciatively before going on to the next problem.

Gwen looks down at her own notebook, the assignment complete, every problem solved perfectly. She has shown great progress in her short time at St. Paul’s, so much so that her teacher, Miss Shaw, is considering having her transferred to the next grade level. This means she will have to get used to another teacher. Not that there’s anything wrong with most of the Nuns, they all seem very nice. However none are half as warm and kind as Sister Shaw, not to mention Gwen cannot imagine having Sister Whitmore for a teacher. She shudders involuntarily at the thought. Besides Adam, none of the other children has warmed up to Gwen yet. Should she advance to the next class, Adam will be left behind to struggle without her.

            With a sigh, Gwen picks up her pencil and erases a few answers from her worksheet, rubbing out the correct answers to replace them with incomplete ones. Satisfied, she begins drawing flowers in the margin of the paper. Running out of space, she opens her notebook to a blank page and begins sketching Adam. He looks almost comical with his brow furrowed and his chin resting in his hand glaring at his notebook as if staring down a fierce opponent. Gwen laughs a little to herself then looks around the room for another subject to draw.

Sitting at her desk at the head of the class Sister Shaw’s black and white habit gives an interesting contrast against the green surface of the chalkboard behind her. One errant strand of blonde hair escapes her headdress, draping across her face as she writes neatly in her journal.

Gwen marvels at her. Her every feeling and thought is open before Gwen’s mind like a picture book that talks directly to her soul. She soon finds herself caught up in Mary Shaw’s childhood memories. Before she knows it, Gwen is approaching her teacher’s desk. The Nun looks up at the young pupil.

“Do you… dream of her?” Gwen asks hesitantly, awkwardly speaking the unfamiliar words. For a moment, Mary Shaw stares at Gwen, flabbergasted. “Why, Marianne, you can speak after all.” She smiles at her brightly. “Now, what did you want to ask me?” the Nun asks in a hushed voice so as not to disturb the rest of the class.

“Your mother, she died and you were still a little girl. You dreamed of her a lot then. You woke up at night crying. I dream of my mother, too. And I cry, too. Do you still dream of her? Does it still make you cry?” Gwen asks tentatively, forcing the words out for fear she’ll lose her nerve. Sister Shaw’s face has gone ashen her mouth agape her mind almost blank with utter shock.

“Marianne, how did you… who told you about my mother?”

“No one, you were just thinking about it and writing it down in your book,” Gwen replies, a bit puzzled expression.

“Marianne, did you read it in my book? Did you look over my shoulder and read what I was writing?” Sister Shaw asks in a patient tone, obvious discomfort in her soft voice.