Body in the Woods

chapter Four

I stood and dusted off my butt. “I should probably go home. Where am I anyway?” I said. I wanted to go home; to embrace the illusion of normalcy. Even if it was only an illusion. Well, and it was because Mom and Dad had probably called the police. Key word: probably. It all depended on the time of day. “What time is it?” I asked nervously. I did not want the police looking for me.

                “Eight thirty.” Johnethin said, standing up himself.

                “Crap.” That left me no time to get home. I started to walk away. Going in the general direction we came. I had one major problem. Where the heck was the door out of this place? “I have to go.” I mumbled, slightly panicked. I wasn’t in the mood to scare my parents half to death. No matter how much sleep I had, or how little food I ate. I just couldn’t do it.

                I felt a cool hand catch my arm. “Where are you going?” asked Aedrean, stopping me. I looked at the hand that clasped my arm gently. Was it my imagination, or did it tingle wherever he touched. Nope. It tingled. And it made my heart race. I looked at him.

                “Home. I have to go home.” I said. I pushed the tingling to the furthest corner of my mind. I didn’t have time to evaluate it yet. I stared deeply into Aedrean’s eyes and got lost in them. I could tell it was happening to him too, for his eyes glazed over. We stayed like that for who knows how long before Johnethin interrupted us.

                “Hello. You’re standing in a public hallway.” He tried with no results. “Hey, if you’re going to stare into each other’s eyes like a crazy in love couple, then at least do it in privacy.” He tried again, but this time he was successful.

                “We aren’t a couple. We just met.” I informed him. Aedrean dropped his hand, and I had a feeling it wasn’t just because his arms were tired. “I have to go home.” I said and walked away. I needed to escape this craziness. I needed my books. I needed to pretend to be normal for one day, then I could come back and accept my not-normalness. Maybe.

                “Wait! Don’t you want to know where the door is?” Johnethin said, jogging to keep up with me.

                I didn’t stop. I did, however, gesture for him to lead the way. He quickly moved in front of me. “Question time.” I said, unable to stand the fact that my brain was so full of questions it hurt. “Number one: who are you, Johnethin?” I asked. I had no one question that buzzed in my head the most, so I just picked one at random.

                “A healer. Just like you, except not as strong. There’s a lot of human blood in my family tree. And please, call me Naithyn.” He answers immediately, like he’d been going over the response for that particular question for quite some time. Or it could’ve been that he’d gone through the process once before. Maybe many times.

                “Okay, Naithyn, number two: why did you randomly talk to me at McDonalds today?” I was doing my best to make the questions at least seem like they were related, but in reality, they most likely sounded similar at best. Then again, I was only on the second question.

                “Because I could sense you were a healer too. We’re, in theory, all supposed to be able to do it, but some of us don’t have enough healer blood running through their veins. Okay, scratch that. Not some of us, most of us. I’m one of the rare few whom is at least two thirds healer.” Naithyn said, not as sure about this answer as the last one. I seriously doubted he got asked that question a lot, so it was understandable.

                I nodded. “Numbers three and four: where am I, and how did I get here?” I would’ve asked what fraction of me was healer, but I honestly didn’t care at the moment. And besides, how would Naithyn know anyway? He wouldn’t, that’s how. Unless he took a blood test while I was passed out earlier, but I doubted it. If he did I would’ve had a Band-Aid somewhere, and I didn’t.