The Mortal Fringe (5 page)

That looks more like a comic book or a
fantasy novel than an academic volume, but I enjoy the
reading.

There's no one in the class the moment
I walk in. But a second later, Ms. Adkins is behind me, smiling as
a cartoon would smile at his best friend. The situation makes me
sort of uncomfortable. I thought about showing her the book, but
now that she is in front of me, I decide not to, it does not look
like such a good idea.

"Had a pleasant night, I trust" she
says as she walks to her desk.

I blush, I don't know what did that
comment came from.

"Sorry?" I can't pretend I have not
heard her, it's just me and her in the room.

"You look like you had no
sleep."

I breathe again, then I nod. I finally
sit on my usual bench and wait for the rest of the class to join
me. Jay is the last to come in, he sits right next to me, but
barely talks. He looks at Ms. Adkins and then takes out his things,
ready to begin the class. The inquiring smile on her face is still
on me, and remains that way for almost the whole class.

"I shall see you at my office" I hear
Ms. Adkins before leaving the room.

"Yes, of course" Nodding again as one
of those plastic puppets people have in their cars.

My next lesson is unexpectedly
canceled, there is no information to tell us why or what we should
do. Everyone leaves to the bar or back home, but I have to stay
here so I sit on one of the stone benches in the middle of the
cloisters and take out the book.

I continue the reading from where I
left off. The ambiguous descriptions of these beings is depicted so
detailed and precisely that the writing gives a certain feeling of
veracity to what is being explored.

Suddenly, I start to have a bad
feeling.

Every Immortal is not completely
fulfilled until accepted into eternity, that means for them to be
acknowledge as God. It is utterly important to obtain the most
precious element in the world, and the most powerful. A human
soul.

I stop the reading. The joyful time I
was having while going through this pages is gone. I look up, I
need some air. My body freezes when at the other end of the
cloisters someone I know is watching me with a masterful smile on
her face.

I remember how she appeared out of
nowhere the previous day; I remember when I hit her, and the bruise
on her arm did nothing but bleed a strange, thick and slippery
liquid. The thoughts come back as killing knifes slaying my body.
The shattering look on her face makes me feel small,
unprotected.

I have had clues from the beginning,
everything within these pages translates into reality, in an almost
unnoticed way. The showing up with the strange hair looks, and the
strange clothes, the mind interpretation when she knew about the
topic I had unluckily picked. She wanted me to learn about all
this. She did, for some reason.

I look again, and she is gone. The
book is still on my lap, and after a long pause I use for breathing
smoothly, I talk to myself with the clearest voice I can find in
me.

You are just imagining things. Stand
up, go to the office, and think about nothing for the next couple
of hours.

But it doesn't work as much as I would
like. I need put my head between my legs once more, I've not needed
that for a long time, but now it seems the only thing to be helping
me to lower the pressure I feel in my head and chest.

"Are you ok?"

I look up and I see Ingrid with two
other boys who I don't know, although I've seen one of them in my
mythology class. They are all looking at me with a weird look. I
nod, trying to get away with it, but Ingrid does not give up. She
asks the boys to go on, and she stays with me.

"What's wrong?" she asks again, after
some long silence.

After telling her everything I've
read, and all the strange connections that I've discovered between
what's written in the book and our teacher's behavior, she looks at
me and starts laughing.

"You need a couple of days off. Go
home, and sleep tight for a couple of days. I always knew reading
was not that good as they say" she jokes, caressing my head
friendlily.

When she is gone I take a deep breath.
She is right, I need to rest.

I stand up and go to the upper floors,
where the teachers’ offices are. Hearing Ingrid's words in my head
over and over again. I walk slowly, still recovering from my stupid
and too imaginative ideas. In front of me, Ms. Adkins walks to her
office all by herself. She hears my footsteps and turns around to
meet my worried and scared face.

"Are you quite alright, young
boy?"

"It's just a headache" I lie, looking
at her eyes of spreading green light.

"Perhaps you need to go
home?"

"No, I’m fine. I will be
alright."

She smiles at me and turns again, she
starts walking and I do the same.

"You have a strong soul, I know you
will be."

CHAPTER 8

A strong soul…the words repeat
themselves in my head like a hammering roar.

I do my best to hide my fearful
trembling. When I enter her office I am instantly relieved,
Elizabeth is there, nothing will happen now. Not that she is my
protector, but whatever Ms. Adkins intentions might be, she won't
go for it now.

Sweat going down my neck once more. I
am terrified again, a kind of fear I have not felt in a very long
time. I just pretend to be ok, hiding my fear behind the shadow of
a headache that covers my true feelings right now. This is too much
to cope with.

I try to organize every paper, essay,
or uncorrected exam that I can, but half an hour into it I have a
terrible need to vomit that would ruin everything if I stay here. I
excuse myself, my teacher gives me permission to leave and
Elizabeth hardly looks up. I really don't care now, I just need to
get out.

The constant shaking remains with me,
but in a more controlled manner, the moment I step out of the
office. I go to the bathroom and water my face a couple of times, I
want to make sure I am not in a dream. Unfortunately for me, I
don't wake up, I was not sleeping. The buzzing sound of danger
sounds behind my ears.

I go back to the residence, doing my
best to keep my thoughts together as I walk through the crowd in
the streets. Jay is not here yet. I lie on my bed and try to
breathe slowly, so slowly I almost don't hear myself taking in the
air.

The day goes by, Jay is still not here
but I can't deny that the tranquility of these past hours was
necessary to deal with my, perhaps, too vivid imagination. I can't
stop telling myself I am making things up, no such beings can
exist. It's obvious that I was reading too enthusiastically about
it, and I simply let the written page slip through my mind. Surely
this has happened to many others before me.

I don't know if I have dreamed today.
I wake up exhausted, as if my mind had gone on thinking about the
same thing over and over during the night, without my permission. I
feel too tired and not well enough to go to class today. Not at
all.

"Do you need anything?" Jay asks from
his bed, he is apparently skipping class too.

"No, I will be alright, I just need to
rest."

He nods and goes back to sleep within
the following minute.

Barbara Harris has awakened something
in me that terrifies me. The book is still on my bag, I don't plan
on touching it today, not ever again possibly. I am not in the mood
for anything, not at all. The feelings come back, and Ms. Adkins
keeps staring at me even in my memory. I need to stop this. I will
have to talk to her and change the subject of my essay. I won't
tell her the reason, of course, she would think me mad. That will
have to wait, though. Tomorrow will be another day. For now, I will
remain in bed, trying to accomplish something really hard for me,
think about nothing.

When Jay wakes up, the quietness of
the room disappears.

"Sorry", he says when he realizes that
all that noise is bothering me "I will go grab a coffee and hang
out, keep resting, call me if you need anything.”

He does what he says, and I am
grateful for it, although I can't help but laugh about what he last
said, I don't have a phone number to call to if I should need
anything.

When night arrives, the tiredness in
me wins over my anxiety and I fall asleep.

The blurry image of the wet ground
of the university cloisters is dangerously beautiful. I walk alone,
not knowing where to go. The walls are cracked and the windows
wrecked. I see the aisle I walked the last time I saw this dead
image and I head towards it. My walking is easy and
self-controlled, I don't want to fall down and lie on the mud
again, as always. Not tonight.

This time I see something I did not
see in my other dreams. At the end of the corridor, two figures are
waiting for me. As I get closer they shape from darkness and
shadows. One of them, the old woman that I have been running away
in my mind ever since yesterday, and to her side, the other, the
one making me shiver every time I see her, Elizabeth. I stand
still, keeping my distance. The old shadow takes out a carved
wooden box with ancient symbols and paintings. In the other hand
she holds a knife silver as moonlight, she points it to Elizabeth's
chest. I can't bear to watch the rest, the only thing I know is
that I lie on the mud again, not being able to move, not being able
to live.

I open my eyes trying me best to keep
myself from jumping off the bed. I feel sweat coming down my neck
and through my body. I am not her only target. For what I have
seen, Elizabeth is on her list of souls too. I don't know how much
of this is real, I am so confused that I don't know what to do. But
the only thing I can come up with is to stand up, get my clothes
and leave for the university, to safe the girl with the green
eyes.

CHAPTER 9

My fears are back the moment I leave
the comfort of my room. What if everything the book says about
these beings is really true? What if all I fear about my teacher is
also true? I need to hurry, Elizabeth might be threatened by the
same danger I am exposed to. We are not friends, I know that, I
only get an occasional smile when I am around her, but I can't let
that happen to her. Warning her is the least I can do.

When I leave the residence I realize
that I have slept longer than I thought. Daylight blinds me, it
must be about midday. My Latin class is about to end, which means
that I can talk to Elizabeth before she gets into Ms. Adkins
office.

I run as fast as I can, doing my best
to fool traffic even though I almost get hit a couple of times
along the way. I am familiar with the streets already, so I know
when I have to turn and which direction I need to take. That little
advantage leaves me time to think. I can't just bring it up, I need
to tell her everything I know, see if she believes me or not. I am
sure she has noticed some weird behavior from Ms. Adkins, she must
have. Particularly if Ms. Adkins talks to her the same way as she
does to me.

I arrive in the university just in
time. I cross aisles and crowds of people leaving class and others
waiting for the next lesson. I can't stop, or else I might be too
late. I try to hide myself as I run through the building, I don't
want Ms. Adkins to see me.

I get a glimpse of Elizabeth as she
turns the corner that leads to the office. I shout her name out
loud but she does not hear it, she is close to the door and I am
still too far away to catch her. I fall on my knees when I see the
door closing behind her back.

The feeling of guilt, along with the
fear I feel inside, makes me remain there for a long time, knocked
over by reality. But I realize that for once in my life I should be
braver than what is expected from me. I stand up, shaking and
fearful, I can't help it. I walk until I am in front of the wooden
door, and then I open it and cross it.

"Hello" Elizabeth says from her chair.
Ms. Adkins is not here.

"Thank God you are alone."

She looks at me with a strange look on
her face, she is obviously surprised.

"We need to get out. Constance, Ms.
Adkins, is not what she seems to be."

Elizabeth frowns her
forehead.

"What are you talking about? Just sit
down and do your job."

"But you don't understand" I
murmur.

"Now" it's her final word.

If it was up to me, I would leave
again, but I can't leave her alone, not here, knowing what's after
her, after both of us.

I sit down as she tells me to and
start working, nervously looking at the door, waiting for the old
woman to turn up and do God knows what to us.

All the books around me can't hide the
strange look on my face, Elizabeth is looking at me from the other
side of the table and I feel my nerves crash whenever she is about
to mouth a word.

I keep thinking about her, of course,
asking myself if I should open up and free my feelings, that way
perhaps she would trust me about what I have just told her. But I
don't want to risk it, what if I tell her that I like her? It's not
like I have lots of friends here, besides Jay and Ingrid, of
course. I'm a settler, if I can be his friend and be with her like
this, although not enough, it's fine for me. But for that I need
her to trust me.