Love lines (29 page)

I've always liked the down in Dever. The sun's rays
illuminated the peaks of mountains with the soft warm light. The view was
simply stunning, even magical. It seemed like in the ordinary world such a
beauty just couldn’t exist. The morning air was always a bit chilly, but
refreshing enough that it would make the remnants of sleep go away. I loved
waking up at dawn. The energy of the morning light gave me more strength. At
least it did until this duty passed on Eileen…

Despite my own reassurances that there wasn’t anything
to worry about concerning my show, it was just the only thing all my thoughts
were on at the moment. No, I didn’t worry about a possible lack of energy. I
was worried more about Eileen, feeling my weakness, and her desire to help me.
Although we tried as much as possible to convince her that she
couldn’t
help
me, I felt sure that if anything, she would
definitely help. That’s why
in order to prevent this, I needed Evan to be here now. Previously we had
agreed that as my show would go, he would look after Eileen so that she didn’t
do anything reckless. First, we didn’t want her to hurt herself, and secondly,
we still were not sure if someone could be aware of her powers.

Balcony door opened quietly behind me.

“Good morning,” said drowsily Amanda. “You woke up
early.”

“Couldn’t sleep, actually. Besides, I got enough rest.”

She sat down on a nearby chair, pulling the blanket over
her body.

“I could hardly sleep all night. I kept waiting for
someone to call. So I feel exhausted and awful. Will you share your coffee,
please?” she asked.

I handed her my cup, and she took a few sips.

“Perhaps, I will make one more cup for myself,” I said,
seeing she wasn’t about to give up my coffee.

“Sorry, it’s too cold today,” Amanda replied
apologetically.

I made myself another cup of coffee and returned to the
balcony. Eileen was still asleep.

“I'm afraid you'll have to keep an eye on her, since
Evan is not back here yet,” I said in a whisper. “I'll be busy, but she can’t
be alone.”

“Of course. I already figured that out. Do you think
they will get back before the beginning of the shows?”

“I hope so. I don’t think Alexis was aware of our secret
operation, but their absence may cause suspicion. And
that
is not good,
considering the circumstances.”

“Yeah, you are right.”

Balcony door opened again.

“Hey,” Eileen smiled. “It looks like I slept longer than
either one of you.”

“We woke up just a few minutes ago,” Amanda said, giving
Eileen seat next to her.

“I'm afraid I won’t be able to drink coffee today,” I
said, holding out my second cup of the untouched coffee to Eileen.

“Thanks,” she said, “just what I need.”

“You're welcome.”

“It’s so beautiful here. I’ve never woken up this early
since I arrived at Dever,” Eileen said.

“That is because your regular activities haven’t started
yet. If Evan was a stricter teacher, he would make you get used to the early
morning schedule,” Amanda pointed.

“So I should be grateful to him for being such a
good-natured professor,” Eileen chuckled.

“If you ever oversleep and are late for one of my
father’s classes, he will in detail lecture you on how he feels about students
that are late,” again, Amanda said. “He won’t allow it ever again! It is a
million times worse when it concerns his own children,” taking another sip of
coffee, she added.

“He only does what is best for you,” I said. “It will
get much easier. Trust me. Besides him, there are many teachers who have the
same view when it comes to being late. Each of them believes that his subject
is the most important. So you need to get used to it.”

“Thanks Christian, I got your point!” said Amanda with
dissatisfaction.

My sister is a real workaholic. At school she was always
a good pupil, even excellent. Before going to the university she carefully
studied the brochures and websites of the most interesting ones. So to get up
at dawn wasn’t a problem, but she also couldn’t hide her temper, therefore was
constantly mimicking the rigorous training methods of our father.

“What time do we have to be on stage?” Eileen asked.

“At ten, but I think we should go there earlier. There
will be a lot of people, so you will take your seats, and wait for me... Or
Evan, depending on which one of us is doing his performance. His show comes
before mine, so if I have an opportunity to be with you before the beginning of
my show, I'll be there.”

“First, we all need to take a shower,” said Amanda,
touching her messy hair. “A lot of visitors come to Dever today and some will
be staying in our dormitory, so there should be no danger of going  back to our
room, right?”

“I have something to take in my own room too. Let’s go
first to mine, and then I'll go with you, and wait until you are ready. Later
I’ll take you to your seat, and will go to prepare for the show. Okay?”

“Okay. Just don’t hurry us until we are ready! We had a
horrible night with no sleep, so we need time to get beautiful,” Amanda smiled
pointing to her face.

Eileen shook her head and went after her. Going first to
my room, we went to their own dorm. At the door, to our great surprise, Lucas
and Anna were waiting for them.

“Finally!” she cried, seeing us. “We have been trying to
reach you! Did you forget we are sitting together? There are so many people
here already! We must hurry so that we don’t lose our seats!” she babbled,
waving her hands with abandon.

“Have you already been on stage?” I asked, looking at my
watch.

“Yes, there was so much noise this morning that it was
just impossible to sleep. So I decided to go and see if everything is ready. I
just didn’t expect the crowd to practically trample me. Lucas helped me get out
and offered to go and find you.”

“So your seats are next to ours, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Lucas smiling charmingly to my sister.

“Come in then,” Eileen said, opening the door of the
room. “You are going to have to wait for us though. As you can see we are not
nearly ready.”

Amanda frowned, hearing those words. She seemed so
excited to see Lucas that she had completely forgotten about her appearance,
that left much to be desired. Her clothes were wrinkled and her usually smooth
hair looked as if had been dragged through a hedge backwards. The traces of a
sleepless night were evident by the dark brown bags under our eyes.

“Where did you go so early?” Anna asked.

“We uh... were helping Christian,” Eileen came with an
excuse, pulling out of the closet some things.

“Make yourself at home guys, we will soon be ready,”
Amanda said. She and Eileen went to the bathroom.

“So, you are performing in the Festival today?” asked
Lucas.

“Yes. Although this is not my first time, I’m still
nervous,” I said. My heart was racing from all the anxiety and I had a horrible
headache torturing me since the moment I opened my eyes.

“Personally I would be worried too. I heard that every
year you have been chosen as one of the best students of your faculty.”

I nodded silently.

“You are lucky man! I hope that next year the fortune
will smile to me too,” Lukas said optimistically.

Anna was admiring one of the bouquets on Eileen’s table.

“These will look perfect in my exposition of exotic
plants,” she wondered aloud. “How could I forget about them?”

“Anna, do you recognize every flower in the world, or
are there some that you still don’t know?” Lucas asked, smiling.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know all of them,” Anna replied
disappointedly.

Amanda and Eileen had to have broken their own record
getting ready in less than ten minutes. Today Eileen was wearing the same
flowing blue dress that we choose together before the welcoming party. She
often wore her hair up, but today she left her hair down. I didn’t hide how
much I really liked it. My eyes were saying everything, which was good since at
that moment I couldn’t find the right words to describe my admiration.

“You look amazing,” said Lucas. Turning around, I
realized that his words were addressed to my sister. She looked really good.
Amanda was a beautiful girl, so she didn’t need tons of makeup to accentuate
her natural beauty. She was wearing black pants and dark green zephyr matching
the color of her eyes.

“Everyone’s ready. So let’s go then,” Anna said. She
went ahead with Amanda and Lucas. And I purposely stayed with Eileen a few
steps behind.

“They are sitting next to you, so I will be less
worried,” I said. “Still, the extra eyes and powers won’t hurt us.”

“I hope that we won’t need any extra power,” Eileen
replied.

“Amen.”

We came to the area where the audience was sitting, and
I left them in a friendly company. We didn’t even notice how much time had
already passed. There was only half an hour left before the first performance.

Behind the scenes there was a complete chaos. Alexis was
running from student to student, giving final instructions.

“Christian, have you seen Darcy? I really need her help
at the moment!” she cried desperately.

“Sorry, I haven’t seen her. I’ve just got here,” I said.

I turned as Alexis was already heading in the opposite
direction. I didn’t know what she was excited more about - the Festival or
Nora.

I went into the training area. All the participants,
teacher and students gathered there. Embry were working out the final traits of
their show, over and over again touching the edge of the tent, with their
creations. Judging by the wet floor, the students of Feta had also been
recently training there. The only ones, who didn’t participate in the
preparatory bustle, were Wizardy. They, unlike all of us, didn’t have to worry
about their skills. In addition to Evan, two more students of that faculty were
about to take part in the festival’s shows. Elena Rosembry and Stefan Kane. It
wasn’t Elena’s first time here, so it was interesting to see what she has come
up with this year. Stefan was a first-year student of Wizardy, so his talents
were still unknown.

A loud applause started at the tribunes, meaning that
Alexis was ready to announce the beginning of the Festival. Each year, it was
the head of Dever, who opened the Festival. First participants, as a rule, were
graduates, whose shows were estimated by the Commission, followed by a
discussion of the successes and shortcomings of each of them. After every five students'
performances, was a single exponential show, during which the Commission rated
the already made ones.

The second part of the Festival took the shows prepared
by the groups of the best students, and in the final part one of the faculties
granted in the sum the greatest number of points during last academic year, was
demonstrating its own show.

From the first sounds of music heard through the thin
fabric walls behind the scenes, it became clear that the first graduate was one
of Embry. Once they have always chosen so melodious music. Students of the
remaining departments preferred for some reason something more rhythmic or no
musical accompaniment at all. I personally liked it a lot more to work in
silence without being distracted by extraneous sounds. This helped to focus
better.

The first performance was followed by a second, and
third, and fourth, and fifth. When the first exponential show began, Evan still
wasn’t there. His performance was supposed to be the next…

Shows of each graduate student took about ten minutes,
meaning that my friend had at least another fifty minutes to get here. Before
my own show there were still a couple of hours, so I left everything on the
site allotted to me and decided to join Eileen and others. It wasn’t so hard to
find them - all the spectators were focused on the shows, so I easily
recognized a few pairs of anxious eyes on the tribune, exchanging worried
glances at each other.

“He hasn’t arrived yet, has he?” Eileen asked when I sat
down next to her.

“He hasn’t. Neither have my parents nor Darcy. Have you
seen anyone of them?”

She shook her head in response.

“But Alexis wanted to see Darcy.”

“She asked me about her too.”

“Christian, pipe down!” Amanda hissed. “There are people
who are still watching the show. And I have noticed some disgruntled faces of
those who are sitting around you.”

The next five performances of graduates flowed faster
than I expected, or had it only seemed that way to me? Then Alexis went out
there to announce the next participant, calling Evan’s name, but he was nowhere
around.

“Mr. Murray? Has anyone seen him?” she asked irritably,
poorly covering up the microphone with her hand. Everyone started to look
around to find Evan. Eileen, Amanda and I got nervous even more.

Suddenly the lights went out, and it became so dark, as
if it was late night outside. All gasped in surprise. Then, a small ray of
light appeared in the sky. The lower the light was coming down, the more
distinguished was his shape. As close as fifty meters above the arena,
everybody was finally able to make out a star - a bright, white star. It was
followed by others, and then more and more of them appeared there. The sky
above us was lit by millions of tiny star-shaped lights. Then it became as
light as during the day. Above the stars, a silver moon was shining,
complementing the already magical spectacle of its mystery.