The Mortal Fringe (11 page)

I have to stop and breathe. My heart
is beating too fast and I think I will fall down. I put my back
against a wall and bring my hands up to my head. I slowly sit down
and put my head between my legs. I usually come back to reality
when I do this. Everything is blurry, this had not happened since
mid-summer. I need to relax. I can't hear a thing, not even the
loud music that I know I'm listening to.

Someone puts a hand on my shoulder, I
look up.

"You keep getting yourself in
trouble."

"Jay" I say with a trembling
voice.

"Yeah, am I welcome now?" he seems
offended. I don't blame him.

I nod, I don't think I could manage to
talk right now, I don't feel my mouth and my tongue feels
numb.

Jay helps me stand up. He puts his arm
around me and slowly walks me back home.

"You obviously can't go out on your
own" the harsh voice is gone. He is joking, my friend is back for
me.

I try to smile but I can't, the best I
can do is fixing my eyes on my feet and make sure that I keep on
walking.

There's people looking at me, and I
can almost hear the stupid talking. Most of them think I'm drunk.
It's 5 p.m. Anyway, I'd prefer to be drunk rather than being like
this.

When we finally get to our room, Jay
makes me sit on my desk chair and gives me some water. I feel
better, but I'm still dizzy and my eyes can't properly make out the
images in front of me.

"Will you tell me what
happened?"

"Nothing, I had an anxiety attack"
It's not a lie, but I don't want to go back to it, not to that
feeling, not to that memory. So, I manipulate the truth, "all this
is too hard to handle. I don't know if I can manage it for much
more."

That isn't a lie either.

Fortunately, I can feel my tongue
again and I can talk, but I know that my voice doesn't sound as
clear as it usually does. Jay looks at me, he is
serious.

"Whenever you want to tell me about
it, I'll be right here."

"I just told you."

"Unfortunately for you, I'm 982 years
older than you and I know when someone is lying."

There it is; another thing to add to
the description of the Keepers in the book.

The book.

Jay looks at it, it is on my bed,
opened right where I left it. I can see the look on his face, and I
don't know if he is glad because I wanted to know more about him,
or just disappointed.

"Next time, you should just ask me
right away.”

"You were not here."

"If I'm not mistaken, someone sent me
away."

Thanks, I thought we might have been
over that.

"Is all that true?" I'm trying to give
more importance to his history than to what happened earlier
today.

He gives the book a quick
read.

"Yeah, mostly, but whoever wrote this
forgot to mention how well we look" he closes the book and puts it
back on my night table. "Who wrote this anyway?"

"Someone named Barbra
Harris."

A strange look crosses his face. I
mutter something, but Jay isn't listening, he looks at me and I
know that the book isn't important anymore.

"So, are you going to tell me what
happened?"

"I can't, sorry" And that's the most
honest answer I have ever given to him.

"Anything interesting
today?"

"Well, someone came by, they are
opening this pub and they were handing in some invitations. There's
a Christmas party or something going on."

"I meant with Constance,
Alex."

Of course he did.

"No, nothing interesting."

"That's not what I heard. Are you ever
going to talk to Elizabeth again, she is really sorry."

"Sorry, I'm tired."

I take off my clothes and get into my
bed, there's still daylight but I don't want to keep on talking
about this, and I know he won't leave it. I close my eyes and try
to sleep.

I remember that I wanted to ask him
something from the book, but I won't do it now. I need him to
understand that talking to me about Elizabeth and Constance as if
they were helping me is neither fair, nor adequate.

I close my eyes, and I'm not in my
room anymore.

There's hundreds of voices in my
head, I hear none of them clearly. The only word I can understand
is «her», and the only thing I can see is the vast black void in
front of me. Suddenly there's light, and I'm again back on the wet
ground. The voices disappear, and the green eyes are back. They are
coming towards me. They are getting closer and closer and I can't
move. I try to push myself with my hands and stand up, this is the
first time I feel conscious in the dream. I am almost up but I
can't run, the eyes are too close. I can make out a shadow. I try
to scream to the top of my lungs but I'm voiceless.

Someone is right in front of me, I
always thought it was her, Elizabeth, but the shadow is too tall to
be her. Something throws me back to the ground and the voices come
back. My back is wet and I am terrified. The green eyes are right
over me and when they fix on my eyes I feel my life abandoning me.
I am dying again, my dream has killed me again.

Dead again.

I wake up and it's the middle of the
night. Jay is sleeping. I'm breathing too fast and my dizziness has
returned. I check my back, it's not wet and there's no mud over
it.

I need the bathroom, I'm going to
throw up. I think I have a fever. There is no mud on my body but I
can feel the pain all over me.

When I'm done I wash my hands and wet
my face. I look in the mirror, and what I see takes my breath away.
If anything could kill me now, it would be this.

My eyes are green.

CHAPTER 16

The horror growing inside me is
something I've never felt before. I am terrified, my whole body is
shaking and I know I am about to black out. I have to put both my
hands on the wall to keep me on my feet. Sweat is coming down my
neck again. I can't breathe. I keep my eyes closed, this can't be
happening.

For a moment, I think it might be from
the dream, as was the mud and the wetness from past dreams. But
when I force myself to open my eyes and look in the mirror again,
they are still green, and no matter how hard I look or how much I
want to think it's not real, it is.

I start crying, not intentionally, but
all the emotions that I'm bearing all these days are now taking
over me. I have been lying to myself all this time, I am not ready
for this. I have not accepted it, how could I? There's rage in me,
I feel it. It feels as if my blood was burning, and the only way to
make it stop is hiding behind a terrifying grudge. I get into the
shower and I start the water. That way if I sob the sound will
remain here trapped within these four walls.

I feel the cold water on my body, but
I don't care how cold it is, I wish I could freeze right here and
never go on with this. My eyes are closed again and the sound of
the running water silences my thoughts. I can't move, and even if I
could, I wouldn't. What they have done to me it's beyond
imaginable, I don't know what's happening, but it isn't good, and I
know it's unstoppable.

"Alex? Are you ok?"
Elizabeth's voice
suddenly fills my mind.

I look around, but she isn't here, am
I imagining her voice now too?

She repeats the question, but there is
a worried tone to it.

"Where are you?" my voice is almost a
silent whisper, but that's the best I can do.

"I'm home, Alex. But I heard
you"
her
voice is so warm that I feel all my fears going away, but I bring
myself back to reality. "
You need to tell me what happened."

"Nothing, I just slipped in the
shower" I know she will instantly know I'm lying.

Her voice is gone, and even though I
don't feel its warmth, I'm glad I am alone again. I try to open my
eyes, but before I do it, there's a figure right in front of me.
She is here now.

"You didn't expect me to believe that,
did you?" she is wearing a silk nightgown, she must be very
worried.

I close my eyes as fast as I can so
she can't see them, but apparently my face tells her that something
is really wrong. I can hear how she walks in the shower and sits by
my side. She stays there, right next to me, while the water keeps
falling all over us.

My arms are around my knees, and I'm
hiding my face because I don't want her to see me crying. I'm not
weeping, it's just tears. I know it's nothing to be ashamed of, but
I just can't take it any longer. I know that she understands what
I'm going through because she could have tried to say something to
make it look easier, but she doesn't, she is just there, with me.
She moves, after some minutes, only to get the warm water running.
I can't see her, but I know that she is looking at me, and I also
know she is smiling.

"I'll be right here, Alex, right next
to you."

All my life I have been waiting to
share something with someone, and now that I feel like I have
someone to fight for, I can't talk, nor move. But I am grateful,
and even though I am in this situation because of her, I am happy
that she is here with me.

I don't know how long it has been. The
water has stopped running and my clothes are almost dry. Elizabeth
is still here, I feel her body near mine and I hear her almost
silent breathing. I keep my eyes shut, as I don't think I'm ready
to know why this happened. I try to get on my feet, but spending
the night sitting on the shower has its disadvantages. I can hardly
move, and there isn't an inch in my body that doesn't
hurt.

"Good morning" she
whispers.

"Thank you" I get up, not looking at
her. I open my eyes just to get a glimpse of where I'm going, and I
leave the bathroom. When I get to my bed, she is sitting on
it.

"Do you want me to walk with
you?"

"No, it's ok, I'll just…" I point to
the door and try to gesture the words "I'll go alone", I'm too
uncomfortable. "Um…I need to change up, would you mind?" I've never
sounded so shy in my life.

She stands up smiling and suddenly she
is gone.

Jay is still sleeping, it's funny when
you realize how much can go unnoticed over a sleeping night. I
don't want to wake him, I put on some clothes, and I put on my
sunglasses to avoid seeing my eyes again, I leave my room, and
today I don't feel like listening to any music. No music could make
my thoughts disappear right now.

"Mr. Stills I am sure you are familiar
with the prohibition of sunglasses inside my classroom." Constance
has waited until the class was packed so she could humiliate me in
front of as much people as possible. "Take them of this
instant."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Adkins, I'm afraid I
can't."

"Maybe I haven't made myself clear,
Mr. Stills. You will do as I say, or else we shall have a word
after class."

She is looking at me, and I have a
feeling that everyone in the class is doing the same. It feels like
if I had killed someone and everyone was pointing a «murderer» sign
to my face. I hesitate for a moment.

"Alex don't make things worse, just do
what she says" the whisper comes as unexpected as the news of my
premature death came. I hear Ingrid's voice and I forget, for a
moment, that she joined the laughter of the class the previous
day.

I know that Constance will have
answers to the green eyes, for sure. What I don't know is if I want
to know them. I fill myself with valor and slowly rise both my
hands and take the sunglasses off.

I will forever remember her going pale
after seeing me.

"This class is over. Everyone out.
Right now" She is almost screaming, and I know that «everyone» does
not include me.

I see all my classmates leaving while
Constance studies my face to the millimeter. Ingrid waves at me
from the door and mouths something I can't understand.

"So, after all, you bonded" she says,
being very proud of herself. "It seems that our final conversation
did work after all."

"What are you talking
about?"

She starts laughing, in a rather
hysterical way.

"Green eyes are distinctive for our
kind, boy" she grabs my face and opens my eyes with her fingers.
"There's no stopping it now."

"But I don't understand.”

"Cheer up, you are finally worth
something. You are Elizabeth's catalyst now, officially. I bet you
can already communicate mentally" she looks at my expression as I
blush, she then scrams of joy "Yes! I won't fail again, we will
have to toast for that."

A toast for my own and sure death
scene? I am getting used to her way of treating people, mere
mortals, as she calls us. But I will never know how she can bear to
look at me and say such things to my face.