Authors: Michelle Knudsen
“Oh, yeah?
Amazing,
you say?” He’s looking at me very intently, eyes unblinking.
My face flushes with heat. “Shut up,” I mutter, looking down, then back up, unable to resist soaking up more of the way he’s looking at me. I can’t help twisty-smiling back. My lips have gone rogue and will no longer obey my commands. “You know you’re amazing. Jesus, even the evil librarian was impressed.”
That kills the moment a little, which is probably for the best.
Must. Focus.
“He really said the whole cast and crew was safe?”
I shrug. “Yeah. But . . .” I leave the rest unsaid. It’s obvious we can’t actually trust anything he tells us.
Mr. Henry calls time, and Ryan rises lithely from the floor and jogs back to the stage. Rehearsal resumes, and Ryan continues to be awesome, and I head backstage to supervise what remains of set construction (other than the chair, of course, which no one is working on because I have yet to come up with a new plan, and I absolutely must figure out said new plan
very seriously soon,
because tech week starts in a
week and a half, dammit
) in between sneaking little glances sidewise to make sure that Mr. Gabriel has not appeared again beside me.
After, Ryan walks out with me into the nearly empty parking lot. We are still trying to think of teachers we might be able to talk to. Suddenly Ryan nudges me and points.
A few rows over, a solitary navy-blue Nissan Sentra sits beneath one of the parking lot’s dim streetlights. Signor De Luca is sitting in the driver’s seat. He hasn’t started the ignition or turned on the interior lights. He’s just sitting there, hands on the steering wheel, talking. To himself. At least, his mouth is moving, and no one else is in the car.
“What’s he doing?” Ryan asks me.
“Preparing tomorrow’s lesson?” I have no idea.
As we watch, he nods, then shakes his head, then takes one fist and pounds it against the dashboard.
“Is he having an argument with himself?” I ask.
“I think he is.”
“That’s — weird.”
“Yeah. I wonder who’s winning.”
We continue to watch him. He continues to argue with himself. I can’t tell for sure, but I think he is arguing with himself in Italian. I remember how he was in class today, surprisingly decent and temporarily not an asshole. I remember how he avoided looking at Annie.
“I think he knows that something is going on in the school,” I say.
“Really?”
I start to tell him how De Luca had been acting, then realize that I never told him what I’d seen Annie do to him. And to Leticia. Quickly, I fill him in.
“Wait.” Ryan holds his hands up in front of him as if to ward off the new crazy of this additional information. “Annie was doing — doing whatever Mr. Gabriel can do? He’s, like, turned her? Into . . .?”
He doesn’t quite say it. I hurry on. “No. At least, not all the way. He’s done
something
to her, obviously, but De Luca and Leticia seemed to recover faster than the students Mr. Gabriel got to. Annie’s not like him. She’s still human.” I say this very firmly, to make sure I believe it. It can’t be too late already. It can’t.
“What is it that she — that he is taking, anyway? Souls? I mean, for real?”
“I don’t know. He mentioned souls, but — can you take part of a soul? Isn’t it kind of all or nothing? He seems to be siphoning off little amounts of whatever he’s taking at a time. Life force? Psychic energy? Internal battery power?” I suddenly remember that I never did ask Ryan about his friends. “Is Jorge okay? Does he seem back to normal?”
Ryan shrugs. “Seems to be. Normal as he ever is, anyway.”
“Do you think — would he believe us if we tried to tell him what’s going on?”
Ryan looks startled for a moment, then shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I’m trying to imagine how that conversation might go, and I just — can’t. And . . . I’m not sure I want to drag him into this. I mean, if Mr. Gabriel found out that Jorge knew about him, that would probably be very bad. And Jorge wouldn’t have the
Sweeney Todd
thing to protect him. Assuming that’s even true.”
“I could give him a job painting or something,” I offer halfheartedly. But really, I know he’s right. It’s the same reason I haven’t thought seriously about trying to tell Diane or Leticia. Either they’d think I was crazy, which at best would make them avoid me and at worst would lead them to try to get me committed for psychological evaluation, or they
would
believe me, which at best would force them to face the horrible things going on at school and, at worst, would get them killed.
“We do need help,” Ryan says. “But I still think finding a teacher or something is the best option.”
The sound of a car engine starting up cuts through the quiet parking lot, making us both jump. Signor De Luca has concluded his private debate, it appears.
“Quick! Get in the car!” I say.
“You really want to —”
I give him a little push. “We can discuss on the way. But unless you happen to know where he lives, we need to follow him. Now.”
“Now?” But he obediently breaks into a run beside me. We reach his car and he digs out the keys and drops into the driver’s seat, leaning over to unlock the passenger door just as I reach it.
“Go, go, go!” I shout as I pull the door shut.
He goes, peeling out of the spot like a maniac. And then slams on the brakes to avoid hitting the Sentra, which has paused at the parking lot exit. We wait, breath caught, for the Italian teacher to come storming out of the car to scream at us for nearly denting his shiny back bumper.
But nothing happens. After a moment, he turns right out of the lot and drives off down the street. Ryan waits what seems like a reasonable amount of time, then follows cautiously after.
The caution, it turns out, is not really necessary. Following Signor De Luca proves to be ridiculously easy. He drives slowly, and we can see that he has not, in fact, concluded his argument after all. It rages on, clearly distracting, as evidenced by the way he sits at every stop sign and forgets to start driving again for several minutes.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until the morning?” Ryan asks for at least the third time as we wait behind the Sentra at another intersection.
I don’t bother answering him again. I’m sure. Maybe De Luca is struggling with whether or not to leave his wife or quit his job or give someone an A- or something else that has nothing at all to do with Annie and Mr. Gabriel. But I don’t think so. I watch his movements in the car up ahead. It’s getting harder to see him; the sky is dark, but it’s that incomplete evening-dark of midautumn, and the world has that in-between feeling like it’s holding its breath, almost but not quite ready to give up the last remnants of day to the darkness. This seems like a much better time to try to convince someone of something hard to believe. It’s easy to pretend that things are okay in the morning, with the bright, shiny sun winking happily down at everything and birds chirping and people heading off to work and dropping off kids at school and radiating normalcy in every direction. At night, impossible things are a lot easier to swallow.
Signor De Luca turns onto a side street and then another, and we stop at the corner, headlights off, and watch him pull into the driveway of a very regular-looking yellow house with a neat little rectangle of lawn out front and a wooden slat fence marking off the edge of a small backyard.
He turns off the ignition but doesn’t get out of the car.
Ryan looks at me. “Should we go over there now, catch him in the driveway? Or do you want to wait until he goes inside?”
Both options have their drawbacks. And I haven’t really figured out what we’re going to say, exactly. This strikes me as one of those situations where making a plan is just going to bite you in the ass, anyway. Everything depends on everything else. There’s no way to predict what his reactions are going to be.
He gets out of his car while we sit there debating. We watch him walk slowly up his front steps, unlock the door, go inside.
“Well, that’s decided, then,” I say. “Ready?”
“Sure.” Ryan draws the word out as though trying to put off for as many extra seconds as possible the moment when we actually have to get out of the car.
I open the passenger door. Ryan meets me on the sidewalk.
I am ridiculously nervous as we approach the house. You were directly threatened by a demon today at rehearsal, I remind myself. This is nothing. This is your
Italian teacher.
The worst he can do is fail you. Which won’t matter if Mr. Gabriel kills us all, anyway. It’s win-win! Or lose-lose. Or something.
I feel Ryan’s eyes on me and glance over. He gives me a half-amused, half-terrified grin. “The crazy just keeps on comin’, huh?”
I flash him a grateful smile as we climb the steps. Then I ring the doorbell.
After a moment there’s a sound on the other side of the door, and then it swings open, back into the house. Signor De Luca looks out at us, little lines of confusion and displeasure crinkling across his forehead.
“Signorina. Signore. Why, exactly, are you on my doorstep?”
“We have to talk to you.” I’m shocked by how calm and serious I sound. Like I show up at teachers’ houses all the time, delivering important information.
“You may talk to me tomorrow,” he says, starting to close the door.
“Buona sera.”
“It’s really important,” Ryan says. The door stops moving, and Signor De Luca and I both look down to see Ryan’s foot stopping it from completing its journey to closed-ness. Signor De Luca’s face darkens. More. He looks back up.
“I don’t care what —”
“I saw what Annie did to you,” I say quickly, before I can think too much about it. De Luca’s eyes widen, and for a moment his expression shifts to something else — almost a look of relief — before he gets it back under control and resumes his unpleasant frown.
“Signorina Rothschild, if you do not remove yourself from my property this instant —”
“Please,” I say. Ryan has not moved his foot. “Please, just let us talk to you. Five minutes.”
De Luca looks back and forth between us. Then back at Ryan’s foot. Finally he rolls his eyes and mutters something angry and insulting sounding under his breath. But he steps back and pulls the door the rest of the way open, gesturing us inside.
It feels very strange to be entering Signor De Luca’s house. You kind of forget that teachers actually even exist anywhere outside of the school and occasional field trips, unless you have one of those awkward and terrible run-ins at the supermarket or something.
The front hall opens into a softly lit living room: tan couch, coordinating easy chair with matching ottoman, well-used coffee table, moderately sized TV. The chair is currently occupied by a curled-up dark gray cat who opens one eye to regard us sleepily as we walk in. Signor De Luca points to the couch and takes the ottoman for himself. He fixes us both with steely glares, then settles his unsettling eyes on mine.
“So? Start talking. Why are you here?”
Okay, go.
“This is going to sound crazy,” I say.
De Luca’s expression clearly indicates his opinion that the crazy is already well underway with our presence in his living room. I glance at Ryan, who gives me an encouraging nod.
“So, okay. There’s something bad happening at our school. Really bad. Like, seriously very terrible and dangerous and kind of not really possible except that it’s really happening, so it must be. Possible, I mean.” I take a breath, then go on. “And I think . . . I think you already know.”
De Luca says nothing. His face is not exactly radiating invitation, but he’s still listening. I know I got his attention with my mention of Annie. He does know, even if he’s not really aware of it, or admitting it, or whatever, that something is going on. He wouldn’t have let us in, otherwise. Right?
Ryan nods at me again. Right. I take another breath.
I say, “It’s the new librarian.”
De Luca barks a laugh at this, but his expression seems more disappointed than amused. “The librarian,” he repeats. “That’s what you came to talk to me about?”
“He’s not a real librarian —”
“Not a real librarian!” De Luca’s voice is scathingly sarcastic. “My God, that
is
bad! Did he forge his MLS documentation? How could we have let this happen?” He starts to get up. “Thank you so much for letting me know. You’re right — this could certainly not have waited until a more appropriate time.”
“Sit down!” I shout at him.
He stops midmotion, shocked at my tone. Then his eyes narrow, and he finishes standing up so he can glare down at me. “How
dare
you come into my house and speak to me that way? I don’t know what you’re playing at, but my tolerance is at an end.” He points to the door. “Get out.”
“I saw what she did to you! But, listen, Annie isn’t the real problem, it’s —”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to, but I advise you to stop this nonsense right now if you wish to have any hope of getting out of this with nothing worse than detention.”
Ryan and I stand up, looking at each other helplessly.
“Signore,” Ryan begins, but De Luca’s face is closed and barred, and he only points again to the door.
“Please,” I say, taking a step toward him. I reach out to touch his arm in supplication.
He jerks away from my outstretched hand with a cry of abject horror, as though I were trying to set him on fire. He stumbles backward about half a step before the ottoman trips him and he falls, grazing the edge of it and continuing down onto the floor.
There is a moment of very uncomfortable silence. De Luca’s face is white.
I bite my lip, careful to keep my hands down at my sides. “I’m not — like Annie is,” I say softly. “He’s done something to her, something that lets her — lets her do what she did,
take
what she did. I’m trying to save her. Save all of us. I swear, I’m not on his team.”
Signor De Luca seems as shocked at his reaction as we are. He’s breathing heavily now, but as I finish speaking, his terrified expression slowly transforms into something more like resigned acknowledgment. Ryan reaches down to help him up, and after a tiny hesitation, he lets Ryan do so.