“Your own family?”
Mick nodded without looking at me. “My father and my three brothers.”
“They couldn’t make you kill someone, could they?”
Mick shook his head. “They gave me two choices. They had Solrún and Jón. Either I killed them when we got back to the village or they killed me right there.”
“Your brothers?”
“My father.” Mick’s eyes flickered and he had an empty look in them.
“Your dad killed you?”
Mick nodded.
“With my own knife. The one I failed to use on Solrún.”
I took his hand in mine and he looked at me. I noticed a change in his eyes. The sparkling looked more like a small fire now. The fire of anger.
“I can’t believe they would do that?”
He sighed. “It was the only thing they could do. They couldn’t see that what they did was wrong. That was just the way it was.”
“So did Solrún and Jón at least get to live?” I asked.
“No. They were killed as well. I see them from time to time. They are very happy now.”
We both sat still for a long time and stared at the snow hanging heavily on the tree branches in the garden.
“There is one thing I don’t get,” I interrupted the silence a little later.
Mick threw a pine cone he had found in the snow. It hit a few branches on a tree and made the snow fall from it to the ground.
“What is that?”
“You knew all this might happen when she came to you. Why didn’t you just make her marry you and avoid all these troubles?”
“First of all, she was in love with someone else and she wasn’t going to go through with marrying me. I didn’t want a forced marriage. Second, I knew she wasn’t the right woman for me. I knew deep inside my heart that I was going to meet the love of my life one day and marry her,” he said and looked at me intensely.
Then he picked up my hand and kissed it. I enjoyed seeing him smile again as he lifted his head and touched me gently on the cheek. I felt a chill spread all over my body.
Then he added, “I just didn’t know that I had to die and then wait a hundred years before she would show up.”
I had to laugh, but I felt really flattered. “How smooth,” I said and pulled my hand away.
Then there was this awkward silence. “We’d better get back before someone notices we are gone,” I said.
Mick agreed.
We got up and started moving back toward the school. We had reached the entrance hall when suddenly someone flew toward us in a great hurry. It was the Cornwell twins. They looked agitated.
“Have you heard?” they asked, both speaking at the same time.
Mick and I looked at each other not understanding what was going on.
“I do not believe we have,” Mick said.
I shook my head.
“They have found another one,” they shouted at the same time. “They found another screamer.”
Chapter 8
The buzz was all over school. Everybody was talking about the two women who woke up screaming and never stopped again. Wherever Mick and I went, someone was whispering in the corner or talking about it in Hornam Hall. This time it was an older woman who had taken a nap in the afternoon and woke up screaming. Raphael had arrived at her dormitory but had not been able to help her. So like last time, she had been sent to the hospital tower, where they tried to sedate her and make the screaming stop.
“What causes them to scream?” I asked Mick when we sat down for dinner and he came out of the kitchen to join us at the table.
“I don’t know,” he said.
I stared into his eyes and could tell that he was telling the truth. I knew him well enough to see that he really had no clue what this was.
“Has it ever happened before?”
He shook his head while eating a potato. “I have never heard of it before.”
Abhik was sitting next to me and had not yet uttered a single word. Now he spoke. “I heard that it is like they are trapped in an ongoing nightmare. That is why they are screaming. They can’t wake up again,” he said and looked at Mick.
Mick nodded. “I heard that too.”
“What if it is some kind of evil that has been let into the school?” Abhik asked and stared around him. “What if it is right here in the hall with us?”
“You mean an evil spirit like a Se’irim or a demon?” I asked.
Abhik nodded while stuffing his mouth with cheese pizza. Abhik had been a cancer patient all of his life on earth so in the beginning at the school he had a hard time getting used to eating again, something that had been difficult for him on earth. But that seemed to have changed now.
“But can they do that?” I asked Mick. “Can they really get in here?”
Mick tried to smile comfortingly. But what came out of his mouth didn’t exactly serve to make anyone feel safer.
“There is evil everywhere,” he said. “Satan will always try to destroy us, steal our happiness or, even worse, make us believe his lies. You saw what happened to Portia. She let evil into her heart. That is the only way it can enter the castle.”
“So you do think it is something evil that causes them to scream?” Abhik said. His voice sounded a little shaken. His normally gentle and steady brown eyes were flickering nervously.
Mick nodded. “It sure doesn’t come from anything good.”
He had a point, I thought. It had to come from evil. So now we had two women caught in some sort of nightmare and a Pegasus with a burned message for me in his coat. Was there a connection between those things or were they merely coincidences? If there was, then the question remained in my head: did all these incidents have something to do with me? Was someone really after me?
No one in our dormitory slept that night. We just lay in our beds and listened to the sounds of the castle being searched for intruders. Everyone was afraid to go to sleep, afraid that they might wake up screaming in a never-ending nightmare. Mrs. Higgins came to our dormitory the next morning to tell us they hadn’t found anything yet, but neither had there been any new incidents to report, so they assumed the school was safe for now.
She looked at me. “You’d all better stay close to someone all the time. Never wander the corridors alone.” She said it like it was meant for everybody but I really felt like it was meant only for me. Her eyes were only on me.
Throughout the day we got to feel just how serious this was. Security had been tightened everywhere we went. The entrance to Hornam Hall was now guarded by two Angels whom I hadn’t seen before. Rahmiel and Salathiel had called for assistance and the whole school was now filled with these beautiful giant creatures who lit up everywhere they went. I didn’t mind too much being near them since they always made me feel happy and peaceful, but I did mind the circumstances. They were here because we needed their protection. And they were armed. Big swords were hanging in their belts and I even saw one with a bow and arrow.
Later on our way to The Art of Healing class we were all discussing how we wanted to get some of our many questions answered. Everybody in my class was scared. Even the Cornwell twins had almost lost their appetite, they declared. While Mai and Jackline seemed to take it coolly, Acacia and Nigel both had been pale and shaken all day.
“We need to demand some answers,” Acacia said as we floated into the classroom and sat down at our desks. “They must know more than they are telling us. They have to.”
“Raphael knows everything about this,” Nigel said. “He has been close to all the victims. He has got to tell us what is causing this.”
Everyone agreed that we would start asking him our many questions as soon as he entered the classroom, but much to our big disappointment, it wasn’t Raphael who entered through the door when the bell rang. It was Mrs. Higgins, our history teacher.
“Mrs. Higgins?” Nigel said with a shriek. ”What are you doing here in this classroom?”
“Well, children,??
? she said with that high-pitched voice of hers while she forced a smile. “It seems that your Art of Healing teacher, Raphael, had other engagements to attend to today. He received an important message this morning and had to leave the castle for a couple of days.”
“What?” yelled Nigel.
A murmur burst out among us.
Mrs. Higgins cleared her throat. “Yes, you heard me perfectly well, Nigel. Raphael will not be teaching this class today, I will. If you would be so kind and find your textbook, go to page 344.”
The murmuring was back and Mrs. Higgins had a hard time getting through to any of us.
“Children, children,” she said and clapped her hands.
The murmuring stopped. All eyes were on her.
“There is nothing to be alarmed about. Raphael is a very important Angel and he has to take care of other things than teaching this class from time to time. That is all there is to it. Now if you would just go to page 344 in your textbook.”
Reluctantly we did as we were told, but I couldn’t escape that feeling in my stomach that something was very wrong. I don’t know if it was the way Mrs. Higgins looked at me or the squad of Angels that I felt was following me constantly wherever I went—the same squad that now guarded the classroom entrance and every now and then peeked in through the wall to check on us. Or maybe they were just checking on me? I didn’t know. Maybe I was just imagining things. Maybe all the students felt that way.
But it scared me and at lunch I talked to Mick about it. “I feel like I am being watched wherever I go,” I whispered to him, when he sat next to me.
He lifted his head and looked around. The three Angels that had been following me were standing by the wall. They were all looking in my direction.
“You are just being paranoid,” Mick said and smiled at me. “I think we all feel like we are being watched these days.”
“I think they are watching me more than others. It’s like everybody knows something that I don’t. It’s really creepy.”
Mick raised one eyebrow at me. “So what if they are watching you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does it matter?”
“What?” I had a hard time understanding where he was going with this. What was he saying?
“You could choose to just be happy that someone is looking out for you, making sure you are safe. How is that a bad thing? It makes me really happy that you are safe. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you. Nothing is going to separate me from you again.”
I looked at him. “But,” I whispered as he stared into my eyes causing me to smile as well. “It makes it kind of impossible for me to be close to you. Like really close.”
Mick smiled. “That is right. I had not thought about it that way.”
I felt his hand touch mine under the table.
“We will just have to find other ways,” he whispered really close to my ear.
I smiled and ate. I still loved the way the food just appeared on my plate, and it was always what I was craving right then. Just as I spoke to Mick, a bowl of chocolate ice cream appeared in front of me. I looked at Mick, knowing he was the one making it appear. How he always knew what I needed, I still didn’t understand, but it was really nice. Mick smiled and I felt a warmth spread inside of me, going through my whole body. I had to find a way to be alone with him later on.
During my Transitions class I realized that maybe I wasn’t so paranoid after all. I wasn’t the only one assuming that I might be the main target of these attacks.
“My money is on one of the elderly women again. They are so easy to scare,” I overheard someone say.
I peeked to see Acacia, Nigel and the Cornwell twins with their heads together in a deep conversation. The subject was apparently on who would be the next victim.
“Yeah. Or maybe it would be a guy this time,” Alexandra Cornwell said and looked at her brother maliciously. Frederic Cornwell replied by sticking his tongue out.
“I think you might be right,” Acacia said. “The first two victims were women, so now it is probably a guy’s turn.”
“Wouldn’t that be too obvious?” asked Nigel. “That is what you would expect, that now it would be a guy since the others were women, right?”
They all nodded.
“I think I know who is next,” Alexandra said and the four of them gulped while they shot a glance in my direction.
From their expressions I could tell they didn’t know I could hear what they were saying until their eyes met mine and they all looked away quickly.
The silence was almost painful.
Chapter 9
I watched the sun set over the forest from my window in the dormitory. As the stars became brighter in the sky, I realized I had been thinking about Jason again. I stared at the blank black window and the reflection of myself that wasn’t there. In a cruel way it reminded me why I couldn’t be with Jason. It was very simple really. I sighed and touched the window. It felt cold. It had been snowing again today, and the trees and landscape outside had been beautifully wrapped in the white cover.
I had finished my homework and the books were still on my bed. I was alone, not in the mood for any reading or even listening to music. Everyone else had gone to the theater where the Angels were performing their beautiful singing, except of course the squad of Angels who were guarding me outside my door.
I considered going to bed early, but I wasn’t tired. And frankly I was a little scared that my classmates were right and I would wake up as the next screamer. I don’t know how long I stared out the window while weighing the pros against the cons: doing what my heart desired and sneaking past the guards to go and see Jason, but making Mick furious—not to mention the Angels as well. It was long enough to decide that it would cause me way too much trouble if I went.
I sighed and went back to staring into the black darkness, picturing Jason’s face. I needed to see him: see him look at me again, hear him talk, see him smile and laugh the way he used to when I visited him in his house. I needed to replace that awful last memory of his empty eyes staring into nowhere, dozing off into oblivion.
But I knew it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Someone came to my door. I heard voices outside in the corridor followed by laughter. I couldn’t help smiling. It was Mick. He always knew when I needed him. He stuck his head through the door and oozed into my room. My heart started beating faster when he came close. He put his arm around my waist and pulled me near. Then he whispered.
“We are all alone.”
“What about the guards?”
“They won’t bother us. I talked to them before I went in.”
He breathed heavily in my ear as he spoke.
Then he held me tight for a second before his lips were all over mine. I enjoyed his kisses and his hands caressing me. His hands were on my face, my neck, and my body. While he was still kissing me he pushed all of my books off the bed and then he put me gently on top of it. He leaned over me and I felt his warm kiss on my neck again. I grabbed his head and held it between my hands, and then I pulled him back to my face and drank from his lips again.
I stopped and he looked at me confused. I had messed up his hair. It made him look even more boyish.
“What is wrong?” he asked still breathing heavily.
“How does this even work?” I asked.
Mick sighed and threw himself on his back next to me.
“I mean our bodies are all different from humans. How do spirits … you know?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said with a smile.
“You mean to tell me you haven’t tried it before? You never had sex as a spirit before?”
“Not as a spirit and not as a human.”
Neither had I. So there we were thinking about doing “it” for the first time in our lives. I kind of had a picture of what it was like when you were in a human body. But these new bodies were very different. They looked like the human body, but they were almost w
eightless (only twenty-one grams) and seemed to be made of a fluid-like material. But then again, if the kissing worked, the rest probably worked as well.
I looked at my clothes. I had been wearing the same ones ever since I came to the castle, ever since I died. I had only taken them off when I took a shower or went to the bathroom. They didn’t seem to get dirty or even smell. In the first year we were told that we would look exactly the way we did when we died until the day we were let into Heaven. Then we would get to choose what we wanted to look like. I was okay with that, but being a girl I would have liked to dress differently every now and then. We had to get rid of all vanity, they said, before we were ready to go through the gates of Heaven. I had this weird dream that my house in Heaven would be filled with all kinds of nice clothes.
I took off my jacket and was now just wearing my top.
Mick smiled a little shyly while staring at my breasts. That was when I realized that with his background he probably had never seen a woman naked before.
“Do you want me to take off my clothes?” I whispered.
Mick’s face froze. Then he got up from the bed in a hurry.
“What is wrong?” I asked.
His breathing was uneven again. He stared at me and then covered his eyes with his hand.
“Please, Meghan. Don’t make me do this. I am a gentleman,” he said.