Someone else was on top of Michael, someone else who just wouldn't give up. Until that someone was ordered to.
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David admired loyalty, but this action was premature, he did not want death to mar his homecoming. And it was not well planned. Death, like life, should have purpose. Just as David gave the command to release Michael, he heard the roar. He had to admit that it was a touching sight, Ronan coming to the aid of his young companion, but he felt a greater sense of relief watching his devoted subject scamper away, on all fours close to the ground, like a wild animal. “Good, you were unseen, which means you cannot be prevented from trying again,” David said. “When, of course, the time becomes right.”
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“Did you see who it was?” Michael asked, his breathing beginning to return to normal.
Ronan shook his head. “What are you doing out here?”
What
was
he doing outside? He tried to remember, but he felt as if he was in a trance. “Music.” Yes, that was it. “I heard music and I thought it was . . . so I came out here to find out . . . I . . . I couldn't find you. . . . Where were you?”
Ronan felt the tears sting his eyes.
If I'd returned just a few seconds later, you might not be alive; if I hadn't gone out at all, you would never have been in danger.
“I wasn't where I was supposed to be,” Ronan cried.
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David turned away, not interested in watching the two boys embrace, one comforting the other, and started to walk back to his office when something else just as irritating caught his eye. “Those damned roses,” he hissed. “Will they never die?”
Along the outside of St. Joshua's Library, as always, was a row of white roses in full bloom, their petals soft and shimmering despite being sprinkled with snowdrops. David yanked one out of the hardened ground, its roots dangling between his fingers, and slowly crushed it in his hand, smiling cruelly like an angry child clutching a fly in its tiny fist.
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Michael looked into Ronan's eyes and knew that he should be angry with him for leaving him alone, but he couldn't. He saw in his expression such tenderness, such gratefulness that Michael was safe and unharmed, that all he could feel was the love that had been in his heart from the moment he laid eyes on Ronan. Kissing his boyfriend under the moonlight, the snow tumbling around them, Michael felt like both a man and a child, aware of the passion burning inside of him and relieved to be held by someone stronger, someone he could always trust.
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Opening his fist, David stared in disbelief as he watched the crumbled rose spring back to life, reclaiming its robust form.
Some things just cannot be trusted to stay dead!
It was then that he felt her presence. Startled, he looked around and, for the first time in decades, no, more like centuries, his confidence waned. He couldn't see her, but that didn't matter, he knew she was there.
He wasn't the only one who had returned home.
chapter 4
Phaedra stared at Michael. Michael stared at his food. Neither of them spoke a word.
It just won't work,
Michael silently complained. He was attempting yet again to make his shepherd's pie disappear from his plate, master a vampire trick that would fool others into thinking he was eating when all he was doing was making his food evaporate by using his preternatural vision as a sort of laser beam. It was a handy trick that Ronan had been trying to teach him, that Ronan could execute with the skill of a bored magician, but Michael just couldn't do it. He knew it was a necessary alternative for times like now, when he was sitting at a crowded cafeteria table in St. Martha's and it wasn't possible to use his incredible speed to toss his food to the side, but no matter how hard he tried, his uneaten meal remained on his plate for all to see. Aggravated, he glanced at Phaedra sitting across from him and thought he should ask her for help. She was, after all, the expert at transforming solid matter into thin air, but then he realized she was the real problem. How could he focus on dematerializing his lunch when all he could think of was how much he wanted to confront her?
“Why didn't you answer me last night?” Michael blurted.
Phaedra didn't understand the question. Maybe she didn't hear him properly; the lunch room noise was quite loud. “What?”
“I called for you. I really needed your protection, Phaedra, but you never showed up,” Michael explained. He then pushed his plate aside, abandoning all pretense of trying to make it look as if he were eating and leaned in closer to his friend to whisper, “This is the second time you abandoned me.”
Looking into Michael's eyes, Phaedra could tell he wasn't being dramatic or exaggerating. Looking into her heart, she knew he was telling the truth. As much as she didn't want to admit it, something was happening to her, something unforeseen, and it was preventing her from helping him. “What do you mean, the second time?”
Michael recounted his fight with Nakano in the swimming pool the first day of the winter semester and then last night's encounter. He emphasized that both times Ronan came to his rescue so there was no real harm done, but he couldn't stop himself from reminding her of what she told him. “You said you were still here for me.”
“I am!” Phaedra cried, sounding as if she were trying to convince herself even more than Michael. “I'm sure if there was any real danger, I would have heard you.”
“Well, I didn't realize I was in any real danger until, you know, my head was being bashed into the ground,” Michael said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “And by then I figured it would just be better to take my chances and fight back instead of waiting for the cavalry.”
Stunned, Phaedra could barely respond. “I'm sorry, Michael,” she stammered. “I had no idea.”
Now that Michael had said what he wanted to say, albeit with a lot more aggression than he had expected, he felt bad seeing Phaedra so upset, truth was she had helped him survive many other perilous situations. “Clearly our communication skills suck,” Michael said, trying to lighten the tone of the conversation. “Why don't we come up with a code word? Something super specific that's just between the two of us so there's no way you won't know it's me.” Michael thought for a moment and then exclaimed, “Something like Mykonos, where you said you were born!”
Phaedra was only half listening to what Michael was saying, she was too busy hearing her own voice berate her, call her things like selfish, embarrassing, dishonorable. The only reason she existed was to protect, and if she couldn't do that properly, well, then maybe she should leave, return. But no, she didn't want to think about that; she was definitely enjoying her time here on earth. She had forgotten how many exciting adventures this planet had to offer and she had never inhabited the body of a teenage girl before. It was a good fit. No, she wanted this to work. “That sounds like an excellent plan,” she said finally. “Our own private code word. I'm sure that will solve everything.”
“Perfect,” Michael said, glad that Phaedra was so agreeable and that his harsh words didn't put a permanent kink into their friendship. And then again, not so perfect. Doubt breached his confidence. If Phaedra couldn't hear his panicked pleas, what made him think she would hear some lame code word? He knew that made sense, but maybe all she needed was a reminder, make her remember that the main reason she was here was to keep him safe. Even if it was very clear that she had other things on her mind. “So, um, how are things between you and Fritz?” Michael asked.
From one controversial topic to another. Despite that, Phaedra couldn't hide her smile. “Things between us are okay.”
Not exactly the exciting bit of gossip Michael was hoping to hear. “Just okay?”
“Well, you know
boys,
” Phaedra joked, stretching the word into three syllables. “It's sometimes hard to know what they're thinking.”
Michael knew all about that. He had spent the first sixteen years of his life keeping his thoughts to himself. Yes, boys could be a mystery, even boys who seemed pretty easy to read, like Fritz. “You know, I haven't known Fritz very long, but I have noticed a change in him lately,” he said. “I think it's all because of you.”
Phaedra hoped so, but hoped for what exactly? What could she possibly expect to hope would happen, that she and Fritz would become a couple and live happily ever after? There were no guarantees in her world. No matter how badly she wanted to stay, the decision wasn't up to her. At any time she could be called to return to the Holding Place to await someone else's prayers.
But no, until then I'm here.
Pushing away all disagreeable thoughts, she ran her hand through a clump of curls and confessed, “I was hoping to get to see him today, though. It's not every day that I get to have lunch here, you know, on the boys side of town.”
During the winter months, the restrictions about commingling were loosened. If a St. Anne's student had a class near St. Martha's before or after her lunch period, she could eat here instead of walking all the way over to St. Leo's, the girls cafeteria on the far end of campus. Sister Mary Elizabeth made the change a few years ago when she realized, despite the long-standing rule separating the sexes, most of her students were sneaking into St. Martha's anyway. “I hear the food over at St. Leo's isn't nearly as good as over here,” Michael commented, then caught a glimpse of his abandoned, yet full, plate. “Not that I would really know the difference anymore.”
Giggling, Phaedra nodded. “I don't think Leo would either; he was a big proponent of fasting.”
“Was that before or after he sampled the cuisine?” Michael asked.
While laughing at his own joke, Michael tried to inconspicuously look around the room and then at his watch. He thought for sure that Fritz would be somewhere in the cafeteria; this was his lunch period too. But then again, maybe he got another detention. “Maybe he's avoiding me,” Phaedra suggested.
“Avoiding you? That's ridiculous,” Michael countered. “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”
“Well, yes,” Phaedra admitted, but she was still unsure. “I know I don't have a lot of experience, but things seem to be moving a bit slowly.”
Slowly? Michael couldn't imagine Fritz moving slowly, taking his time getting to know Phaedra. He thought for sure he'd be trying to get as close to her as quickly as possible. Then again, his mother did once tell him that things and people aren't always what they seem. Maybe Fritz was really shy when it came to girls. That would be ironic. “Maybe that's for the best,” Michael declared. “It'll give you time to get used to the whole boy-meets-girl thing, especially since in your case it's really boy-meets-girl-who's-really-an-efemera sort of thing.”
No wonder Ronan fell in love with him so completely,
she thought;
he finds joy in the most unexpected places.
And most unexpectedly, Phaedra saw something that brought her joy as well. “Let's keep that efemera thing under wraps for now,” she whispered. “Fritz and company at two o'clock.”
When he reached the table, Phaedra saw that Fritz's expression was not really what could be described as joyful. In contrast, Ciaran, sliding onto the bench next to Michael, wore a smile that was a marked improvement over his typical serious countenance. “Behold a gift from beyond the grave,” Ciaran announced theatrically, his hands unfurling to gesture the small box Fritz was holding.
“I told you that isn't funny, you twit!” Fritz barked.
It also didn't sound like Ciaran, Michael thought. He guessed that making first string on the swim team had turned Ciaran the Serious into Ciaran the Cheerful.
Whatever reason for the change, he held his ground. “You, Mr. Ulrich, need to lighten up and accept the fact that inside that box is something quite wonderful.”
Dropping the box on the table, Fritz looked quite the opposite, as if it contained hideous secrets that could harm mankind if they were unleashed on the world. Grunting something unintelligible, he plopped down next to Phaedra, forcing her to scoot over quickly or risk being used as a seat cushion.
This is what I was hoping for,
Phaedra thought,
to share some time with a grouchy boy?
“Fritz,” Phaedra started, “is there, um, anything wrong?”
Fritz heard her, but his eyes didn't move from the box. “No.”
Phaedra and Michael looked at Ciaran, who obviously knew what was in the box and therefore the cause of Fritz's funk and tried to get him to tell them what was going on without actually asking him. After a moment, it was clear that Ciaran's communication skills also sucked. “Ciaran!” Michael said. “Are you going to tell us?”
“Tell you what?” he innocently responded.
“Why this one's face is scraping the floor,” Phaedra declared, pointing her thumb in Fritz's direction.
“Do you mind, mate?” Ciaran asked. In response, Fritz barely shrugged his shoulders, which Ciaran took as a yes. When he spoke, it was once again as if he were standing center stage. “This ordinary box that you see before you contains none other than a gift from the other side, from Penry.” Finally, communication was no longer a problem. They both understood why Fritz was looking so dour. He was upset thinking about his friend. Reaching into the box, Ciaran took out what looked like a stack of magazines and handed one to each of them. “Gather round, folks, and take a look. I give you comic books, from the creative team of Poltke and Ulrich.”
Fascinated, Michael examined the cover of the handmade comic book he was holding, a colorful and fairly accurate depiction of Archangel Academy. The twisted metal of the front gate seemed almost lifelike, the dimensions of the headmaster's office slightly more askew, and the selection of colors, orangey reds and purple-blues, definitely personal choices and not meant to be natural depictions. And right there in the bottom right corner of the page was Penry's name. Dear Penry. Even though he was no longer with them, he still made Michael smile. Just seeing his familiar curvy handwriting delighted him because this was something about Penry he never knew before. He wrote a comic book, and according to Ciaran, he wrote it with Fritz, though he had to take his friend's word for it because the signature that appeared about an inch lower than Penry's was barely legible.
“I see your penmanship hasn't improved,” Phaedra commented.
For the first time since he sat down, Fritz looked away from the box and into Phaedra's eyes. “Penry was the artist. I just came up with the jokes,” Fritz informed them. “And the title.”
Tales of the Double A,
Phaedra said, reading from the issue she was holding. “What a cute title!
” Oh, come on, Phaedra, what teenage boy wants to be cute?
“It's, you know, really great,” she corrected. “And, um, very mysterious.”
“Intrigued me enough to read every issue,” Ciaran announced. “And you all know how much I hate to read anything other than a science textbook.”
“So when did you two do all this?” Michael asked.
Fritz explained that it was something they created for an assignment in art class as freshmen. They enjoyed working together and of course making fun of their fellow students and teachers in the name of art, so they had continued, spending most of last summer whipping out one issue after the other. “Penry's twin sister, Ruby, sent them to me,” Fritz said, his voice suddenly much more subdued. “She thought I should have them.”
“That was very thoughtful of her,” Phaedra said. “It's a wonderful gift.”
“You know what would be even more wonderful?” Michael asked rhetorically. “If you write more issues, you know, to maintain Penry's legacy.” Silence was the first reaction to Michael's suggestion and then one by one they all agreed. Ciaran thought it would be a proper memorial, Phaedra thought it would be a lovely way to keep Penry's spirit alive, Fritz was just impressed. “Once again, Nebraska, I owe ya one.”
The next few minutes were spent discussing some possible story lines for the new issues. Fritz's suggestions of a zombie infestation, werewolf attacks, and an alien invasion made Michael and Phaedra feel quite normal. Ciaran's idea to make Penry a superhero to swoop in to save Double A from certain destruction was met with enthusiastic cheers, and Fritz immediately came up with his superhero name. “I'll call him The Double P!” It was a silly name, but Penry Poltke knew the importance of being silly, so they all thought it was an ideal moniker.