Love lines (5 page)

And so it began…

 First, there was a joint ride for the promised gift,
then - lunch in a cafe, then - dinner at a restaurant, a couple of meaningless
(at least
to me
) smiles and kisses and here we are - I pass for her
boyfriend
!

Of course, I thought (like most guys) that Vanessa was
beautiful. However, only outer beauty (which, by the way, was far from being
natural, well, except for the eye color), was
not
enough to develop some
deep feelings to her. Vanessa, thereby, didn’t hide her being in love with me
and even more strongly, believed that I shared her feelings too. I didn’t want
to disappoint and hurt her as it was quite silly. At this moment, therefore, I
had to suffer from the consequences of what is usually called “
relationship”
.
Though, recently it troubled me a lot.

The building of the University administration was in the
center of the campus. A large round clock hung over the entrance door, glancing
at which, I realized that I had already been late for the meeting with my
sister. Getting to the second floor, I knocked at the Alexis chamber’s door.

As usual Beatrice was very charming. Like all the
students of Dever, I always wondered how can a woman of her age (and there were
disputes all over campus, about the number of decades she has lived, because it
was a mystery for everyone) always managed to look so good.

“Christian! Good to see you again.”

“Good evening, Beatrice.”

“Come to Alexis’s office. You'll have to wait a bit,
because she decided to show the girls their room in a dormitory block first.”

“Thank God! And I thought I had already been late.
Amanda would be telling me off for a month for that!” I sighed with relief.

As always, smiling warmly, Beatrice led me into the
office.

Alexis had been the head of Dever for a few years
already. She was Wizardy, thus, she deserved the status of the most important
person in the University. She was about thirty. But such a young age didn’t
prevent her from managing Dever so brilliantly.

Before my arrival, my distant relative Joseph Fairey was
the principal of the University. Becoming the head of one of  the  Keepers  League
 division  in  the  U.S.,  he  left  the local post.

As a rule, the members of the Keepers League were only
the most honorable Faireys. And Joseph was one of them. There were dozens of
discoveries in the field of magic and other supernatural powers on his account.

Coming back to reality, I felt some unknown attraction,
which made me look towards the door. Even without having seen who was behind
it, I could feel
her.

Chapter 5. First
impressions (
Eileen)

All the remained time before coming to Dever, I tried
not to think about my latest nightmare. Amanda and Alexis did all their best to
distract me from my sad thoughts, the shadows of which, judging by their hard
efforts, were still on my face. I tried to participate in their conversation,
make plans for the Friday party scheduled in honor of our arrival, and not to
pay attention to the growing excitement inside of me. I was afraid whether I
could fit in this new place, if I could join the new group of people and make
new friends. Being aware of the extraordinary abilities of each of them, it was
hard to imagine how all these people would accept my appearance. For some
reason, Amanda’s arrival seemed to me more appropriate, considering her name
and many relatives repeatedly crossing the threshold of Dever. I wasn’t very
happy with the prospect of becoming
“the black sheep”.
I wasn’t happy
at all.
Something inside of me was screaming to get as far away from this
place as possible. And, frankly, I was totally agree with that smart idea in my
head. Maybe that's because of all these experiences, I was a little nauseated
at that moment and my stomach was writhing with incredible pain.

The familiar tingling on my shoulder added to all the
above feelings.

“I have to visit some local doctor,” I muttered
irritably to myself, rubbing my shoulder.

“Eileen, Amanda, take your documents from Beatrice and
come to my office,” Alexis said, opening the door behind me, that I hadn’t
noticed
before.

As soon as the door opened wider, the tingling on my
shoulder became stronger. No, it couldn’t be called
“pain”
. Rather,
something very pleasant, like being tickled. Without seeing the cahier of
papers, which Beatrice had given me a minute earlier, I entered the room
following Alexis and Amanda.

“Ah, Christian, I missed you so much!” screamed my
friend, happily throwing herself into the embrace of her beloved brother.

“I'm glad to see you too, little sister,” smiling
broadly, he said.

“Christian, I hope you'll help the girls look around
here?” asked Alexis. “I would be happy to help them myself, but a lot of work
that had been left because of travel to Norfield is waiting.”

“Of course. I’d be glad to show them everything here.”

Only after these words, Christian turned to me and
offered his hand.

“Hi, Eileen. Good to see you again,” he said in a
delightful velvet voice, which I seemed to have never heard before.

“Hello, Christian,” I replied, offering my hand
awkwardly in response.

What happened next just couldn’t be explained in simple
words. As our hands touched, I was shocked by an invisible electric discharge.
The lacy lines of my dreams began to bind our added hands; because of this my
heart skipped several beats, and the tingling on my shoulder turned into a
feeling of warm and very gentle touch of someone's hand.

Having decided that I must have lost my mind, I pulled
down my hand quickly and hid it deep into my trousers’ pocket. Knowing that my
face was glowing with crimson fire, I finally found some courage to raise my
eyes to Christian. He seemed not to notice any of my movements, and still
continued to hold his own hand raised, looking carefully at the place where only
a moment before our palms touched.

“Hmm... Christian, are you all right?” smiling at me
mysteriously, asked Amanda.

“What?” he asked in response, as if hadn’t heard the
question.

“I'm trying to say that your behavior scares me. And
Eileen, too,” said Amanda jokingly. “You look like having seen a ghost!”

Only later I realized that Christians’ response to our
handshake wasn’t better than mine. And that fact really seemed more than
strange. Still being in some unexplained shock, Christian finally looked into my
eyes.

“I’m fine,” he said, still keeping his unreadable eyes
on me.

“Once you are all right, can you arrange a campus tour
for Eileen and me?” Amanda asked, taking his arm.

“Of course, let’s go,” being himself again, answered
Christian. I could swear I saw a glimpse of something secret in his eyes, but
he managed to hide it successfully.

I turned to the door first, so I couldn’t see what his
face was like after his last words. But... I could
feel -
confusion,
perplexity, surprise... And I was definitely sure that all those feelings were
not
mine
, because my
own
confusion was gone a long time ago. And
at that moment I was a reflection of the whole range of Christian’s feelings.
No, it wasn’t just my assumption, I was sure about that. Just exactly like the fact
that it was already late evening outside. I don’t know about you, but lack of
sunlight and the street lights on indicate the arrival of late evening. That
was more proof of the fact that I wasn’t losing my mind, that in itself could
be considered as
good news
.

While Christian took us round the campus, I lost myself
in my own thoughts, and eventually also
got
lost
in the literal
sense of the word. I tripped over a rather large rock on the road and lost my
balance. I was about to meet the stone
face to face
, when someone's
hands stopped me just in time.

“Hey, you should be more careful! We've got lots of
mountains here and such trips
may find you at every step,” said a
strange young man, nodding emphatically toward the blow stone.

“Thanks. Next time, I’ll be more careful,” I replied
embarrassed, still feeling his hands on my waist. I stepped back and held out
my hand to introduce myself:

“Eileen Clark.”

Grinning at my attempt to avoid the already created
intimacy, the guy replied:

“Evan Murray. Always at your service,” he added winking,
small sparkles of bright light dancing in his crystal-blue eyes. “So, you are a
freshman here? Otherwise I would never have missed such a beautiful young lady,”
he said with a cat-like smile on his face.

I felt my cheeks blushing for the second time in
the
last half an hour.

“I know
that I wouldn’t have missed such a
gentleman,” trying to laugh it off, I said. “Yes, you are right, it’s my first
day here.” 

Suddenly I was stabbed by some strange feelings. Not
my
feelings - anxiety and confusion as to “
Where she... No, I could go
?”

Christian!

I didn’t need any magic, to know exactly the source of
that anxiety. Christian and Amanda had noticed my absence and were now looking
for me.

“Sorry, I need to go. It was nice meeting you, Evan,” I
said on the run.

“I'll see you soon, Eileen!” he shouted after me. I
didn’t see face but I was sure he was still smiling brightly, following my
sudden escape with his mesmerizing gaze.

The Sixth Sense, as I called it, told me that Christian
and Amanda were standing in front of our dormitory - the place was already
familiar to me. The very same Sixth Sense told me the way
I could find
them. Guessing correctly all the twists and trails, I was in the right place
soon enough.

“Eileen! Where the hell have you been? We thought we’d
have to go back, and look for you!” Amanda said indignantly.

“Sorry, I was deep in thoughts... and lost you,” I
mumbled, catching Christian’s curious eyes on me. “But now I’m here, so there’s
nothing to panic about,” I added, turning to Amanda.

“Well, I think you should get a good rest before the
studies, so good night then,” said Christian, trying really hard not to stare
at me again. Yet, I knew he was still as confused and shocked as I was.

“Good night, dear brother. I hope, I will like the
studies as much as your stories about the parties,” having fun, said Amanda and
pulled me into the building.

The room where Alexis put
us was quite spacious.
It was divided into two parts with a transparent screen, so that each of us had
our own personal space. The bathroom was the same - two dressing tables, two
baths. It looked like someone had worked
very hard on the interior
design.

The design of Dever in general was very modern. From the
outside it looked like a huge perfectly shaped crystal stone. If anyone had
ever told me that such an architectural concept was even possible, I would
never believe. But I saw it with my own eyes and it looked so incredible, as if
someone had lost a very beautiful diamond among the mountains. All the
buildings of the campus had king-size windows and glass roofs, reflecting all
the surroundings. It felt so weird and so magical at the same time. I liked it
all at once.

“What subjects do you think we will have on our first
day?” Amanda asked, coming out of the bathroom and wiping her wet after shower
hair on the run.

“I don’t know. The list of my subjects has not even been
approved yet. Alexis said that no one else has ever received an invitation
before their eighteenth birthday, so most likely I'll have to wait a whole
month before starting
my own studies.”

“Count yourself fortunate! You can still have fun and
not worry about the tests and the stuff.”

“Yes, but it's quite strange that I was invited ahead of
time. I wish I'd spent this month in Sheffield, and then moved here.”

“I don’t know, Eileen, I think it's great that you will
have so much free time. You will have a month to get used to this new reality
of our life. I know it’s hard to believe that we are here, but I also know that
everything’s gonna be okay. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. Besides,
my father is here too, he will never let anything happen to us. So try to relax
and don’t think about bad things. Anyway, one of us still has her first day
tomorrow, so I’m going to bed,” suppressing a yawn, sleepy said Amanda,
settling herself comfortably in her bed. “Good night, Eileen.”