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When she arrives at the cobblestone pavement that led to the doors of Weston Preparatory Academy, her heart is racing and her breath is ragged. Vera leans over and rests her hands on her knees for a minute, desperately trying to regain her breathing. A small breeze lifts a strand of her hair across her shoulder, slightly tickling the side of her neck. It's nearly dark, the sky a mixture of a spring's shy blush and of fall's plum bruised cheeks. Around her, the air is a strange mélange of gentle fervor and venomous crisp wisps of wind.
Vera had rushed to the elementary school the second the familiar voice disconnected from the call. With a quick apology for not being able to walk with Kaela back to her home and for leaving so abruptly, she hurried to the school with worry etched onto her expression. Although the magic show was several miles away from there, Vera decided against calling a taxi- thoughtlessly rushing without a single ounce of hesitation.
Now that Vera finally arrived, she looks back on her tactless actions and realizes that she has only managed to waste time and energy. With a final heave, she brings herself off her knees and straightens herself up. Her heartbeat is frantic, a wild jumble of drumming and pounding, but she wears a calm, collected face. She makes sure that has collected herself before entering through the large, worn wooden doors of the academy; even going to the extent of fixing an unperturbed smile on her face. There is no use looking like the worried child that she really is, afraid and naive of consequences and responsibility- just as there was no use to still remain shaken up from the magical circus act that should have not had any effect on her.
Refraining from tearing through the doors and frantically running down the dull stone halls, Vera quietly steps into Weston, her small footsteps ringing down the walls of the academy. It appears empty, although the faint sound of one, possibly two, children crying emits from her left, the utterly pained cries of muffled by stone and wood.
Unsure of where else to go, Vera follows the sound of their cries. Her ears strain against the overbearing silence. Wondering down familiar yet at the same time distinct hallways, she places a hand on the stone, pebble wall as her feet guide her to where he might be. The rough, coarse texture of cement scratches at her fingertips, just before her fingers run across the relieving smooth and cool surfaces of pebbles buried amidst the grey mortar.
The tap-tap of her sneakers against wood grows louder and louder as Vera reaches the end of the hall way, only to slowly falter when she realizes that there is another hallway in front of her. It is hard to make out of what lays at the end of the passage; the dull, poorly kept white lamps hanging above her on the bridge of dying out.
Vera continues to ponder the hallway, her soft erratic breathing bouncing off the stones on the walls. As she fumbles for the way to him, hands scrambling at pebbles, feet gently tapping against wood, she finds herself also searching for a little scrap of memory, hidden beneath all of her other thoughts.
When she was ten years old, young and naive and oh so very lonely, she had convinced herself that she was the only living person on earth. In the midst of isolation and desperation, Vera had burdened herself with the longing for a friend. Everyday she wandered past the walls of her home, a dark and empty mansion with not a single breath of life, all except for her own. Old grey walls generously decorated in chipping paint, creaky wooden floors, and torn down wallpapers of faded blossoms and aging daisies- the large mansion was a hollowed out version of itself.
