Nyx (ON HOLD)

Sea Change, Part I

It was only once I was outside and the door to the high school had clanked shut behind me that I could breathe again. A handful of buses were parked in the asphalt loop in front of the school, silent and waiting as their drivers congregated off to the side, like dragonriders giving their steeds a break. A few kids stood by the buses waiting - though I couldn't understand why until I noticed the buses' doors were closed.

I silently cursed, and scanned around for someplace out of the way where I could collect myself. My heart was still thudding, and in a few minutes the other students were going to come pouring out of the school behind me, and there'd be nowhere to hide.

After this morning's run-in with the strange man on the trail, my loathing of the forest beside the school had already become ingrained - but I hurried around the far side of a tree that was a little too close to the fence for my comfort. The trunk was stout enough to hide me completely from anyone at the school's front door, and I shakily slid to the ground as my knees buckled.

What had happened back there?

I'd never hallucinated before, but I still couldn't believe what I'd seen in Keiko's painting. The water ... I couldn't deny it had been moving, shifting before my eyes ... and the shadow... Part of my mind was already hard at work, trying to explain the moving painting as a trick of the light, or the product of my overburdened subconscious. I was trying so hard to stifle thoughts of what had happened to Mom, the weird, arm's-length horror of realizing I was technically an orphan - it made sense that something inside me had snapped. Yet still I couldn't believe it.

It had to've been real. Had to've. It wasn't as though I was seeing anything now, in the bright light of day; if I really was going insane, wouldn't I still be hallucinating now?

Even the passing thought of Mom made my chest tighten; without meaning to, I realized I'd been scanning the parked cars, looking for her battered black Jeep and her smiling face inside it, waiting to welcome me back from a long day. But the car was a twisted hulk of metal by now - if it hadn't already been compacted or destroyed.

I hoped it had. It was cursed; I had cursed it, after what it had let happen to Mom.

Anxiety spread outward through my limbs like a cold poison, making it harder to breathe - and I was so distracted that I didn't realize I'd been staring at a familiar face until I recognized the sedan and the rust that patterned it like frost. At the beginning of the day I'd been so eager to avoid him, but now the sight of his raven-dark hair and angular face came as a gush of relief.

He was across the loop, ready to turn left and head toward downtown, but then the little car turned in the opposite direction, toward me. It slid past the motionless buses like a bead along a string, the engine rumbling dully as he pulled to a stop at the curb in front of me.

Ethan leaned over and rolled the passenger window down, the tattoo on his forearm bobbing like an old-timey train piston in grey light. The sky was still overcast, but he seemed even more handsome than usual in the glow from the sterling sky, his dark eyes like obsidian fire.

A roguish grin spread over his face as his gaze found mine. "Someone call for a taxi?"

It was so unexpected that the laugh burst out of me like a hiccup.

"Free rides for anyone who's just finished their first day at a new school," he offered, raising one eyebrow as he threw the car into park and flipped on the hazard lights.

We'd been so snappish at each other this morning, practically shouting at each other in Adaline's front yard - but right now I needed to get the heck out of here, and his timing was positively knightly. Even the vague disappointment that he was only interested in me because of our families' shared history evaporated as I scrambled to my feet and trotted toward the rumbling vehicle, eager to leave this place behind.