Left Behind (Snowbaz fic)

Chapter: 6

AMARA
I held the glowing orb in my hand. I could feel it's power surging through my fingertips. It was mine, all mine. The most dangerous and powerful thing in the world is in the palm of my hand. And I had no idea how to use it.

SIMON
I stopped keeping track of time after about an hour. The more I payed attention to the passage of time the more anxious I got. Penelope and I sat on the floor in front of the classroom in silence. My mind raced with possibilities of what could be going on behind those closed doors. The only sound I could hear was Baz's voice but now even that faded into nothing. I tried imagining what could possibly be gong on back there but I ultimately decided to stop. Too many things rushed into my mind all at once and none of them were good.
Penny had the right idea of nodding off. Her back was against the door and her head hung to the side. She could sleep anywhere if she was tired enough. I should thank her later for spending so much of her time trying to help.
Just as my eyes were beginning to close the door opened and Penny fell back onto Baz's feet. He looked down at her with a confused expression.
"What are you doing, Bunce?" He sounded like he was dead tired of asking that question. Penny got to her feet and brushed dirt off of her pants.
"Sleeping," she responded, "And what were you doing that took so long?"
He motioned for us to follow him down the hall. I got up and followed him quickly down the hall. Our shoes clicked against the marble floor as we walked towards the library. Not a single word was exchanged between the three of us until Baz found the section of the library he was looking for.
There was a row of about five or six doors hidden away at the farthest side of the library. He stopped in front one of them and fiddled with the handle. I didn't even think anyone knew they were here let alone know what was behind them. Baz examined each door, carefully jiggling their handles, none of the doors budged. Baz finally settled on a door like it spoke to him. Whispering to him to, "open me, open me!"
Baz pulled a heavy brass key out of his jacket pocket and stuck it in the rusty keyhole. The door groaned in protest as Baz pushed it open revealing the darkness inside. Even Penelope's most powerful lighting spells could barely cut through the darkness of the room.
"What's in here?" asked Penny.
"Professor Tawny told me that these books would help."
I wouldn't have known there were books here in the first place. Maybe it wasn't even dark at all. Maybe it was like outer space, where it's only dark because there was nothing to see. I extended one of my arms just to know where the wall even was. I felt the spines of many books piled up in the floor. One of the stacks reached above my head and I couldn't tell where exactly it stopped.
"Is that all you did in there?" I asked. "Talked about old creepy books,"
"No," he replied curtly, "I'll tell you later."
"How are we supposed to find anything in here?" Asked Penny.
"I can see," Baz replied, "I'll hand you what I think will be useful."
About a minute later I felt the impact of a pile of books being shoved into my arms. I fumbled around in the dark until I finally found the door in which we came in.
Once back in the light I looked at the stack of about twenty or so dusty books. I couldn't even read the cover due to all the dust and when I blew it off of the first book it made me sneeze. The dust revealed a Watford yearbook from a hundred years ago. Penny came back out with another huge pile of yearbooks. What, or who, were we looking for?
Once we pulled out every yearbook from the last one hundred years or so we sat on the floor and scattered them all around us.
"This is a long shot," said Baz, "but it's the only thing we have right now."
"Who are we looking for?" Asked Penelope.
"A girl. Long dark brown hair and brown eyes. Simon, you saw her too, in the bedroom during the fire."
The image of the girl shrouded in flames flashed it's way back into my mind. It was like she forced her way out of my brain making me forget her altogether. But now that I could picture her face I refused to forget it.
"What girl?" Penny sounded confused.
"During the fire there was a girl in the bedroom. Only for a second but I saw her. She disappeared and took the fire with her and Baz stood in her place." I explained.
Penny's eyebrows were knitted together in confusion as she thumbed through one of the yearbooks. There were hundreds of pictures for one year alone.
"The professor showed me everything that happened that night. So if she went here we would be able to find out who she is."
"If she went here? You don't know if she went here or not?" Penelope sounded annoyed.
"Like I said it's a long shot but it's all we've got. So if you have a better idea, Bunce, I'd love to hear it."
Penny rolled her eyes and continued half heartedly flipping through the pages of a book.
"If we find her," I added, "we'll have her name. And that's something."

BAZ
It felt like hours had passed before I finally found her. The same big brown eyes stared at me from a page of a dusty yearbook. It was her. Even though the yearbook had the year 1925 on it I knew it was undoubtably her. The only difference was that her hair was cut to her chin in that 20's style. The name under the black and white photo read, 'AMARA NOEL,' finally a name to the face.
A sense of relief washed over me as I placed the book in Simon's lap and pointed to the picture. His eyes went wide and he pulled out the book he had previously been looking at. He pointed to a picture of the same girl, Amara Noel, but her hair reached to her shoulders and the face was the same. It looked like it was taken only months after the last one.
"1940," Simon said.
"How is that possible?" Asked Bunce leaning over to look at the pictures.
"Isn't it obvious?" I said, "Vampire,"
"So she's immortal then. Does that mean you're immortal too?" Asked Simon
   "I don't know, I haven't quite figured it out yet."
   I didn't have the heart to tell him that I figured it out long ago. It was on my birthday of last year when something in me shifted. And I just knew what had happened. I felt like I was submerged under water.
   Each day Simon grows older and yet I stay the same. Forever frozen in time. At night I dreamt of Simon growing old and being taken away from me. Every time I would wake up terrified that he was already gone. But I would hear his soft breathing and I knew he was still with me. I would rather die than not be able to grow old with him.
   "So how do we find her?" Asked Simon
   "I don't know," I responded. "I honestly didn't think we would get this far."
   I stared at her picture again. Even though she looks exactly the same in both pictures her expressions are different. In the oldest picture she looks bright and happy. She's smiling, revealing dimples on both cheeks, and her eyes are sparking. While in the other picture her cheeks are hollow and her eyes look sunken. Still youthful but colder and worn down. I wondered what happened over those fifteen years between the two photos.
     "I think I'm going to step out for a bit," I said.
I got to my feet. My back was sore from the many hours sprawled out on the floor flipping through countless yearbooks. And I was hungry. The library was painfully silent. Everyone who was in here previously went to bed long ago. I walked down the many shelves of books skimming their spines with my fingers.
   'You know if you wanted to know my name you could've just asked.'