Tales of the Otherworld (13 page)

I rubbed my temples. Did everyone else have these mental battles? The two sides of my brain were at war, one telling me to stand up for myself, not to be afraid to get angry, the other side telling me to be nice and to be polite and everything else I’d been taught. The good-girl side usually won, much to my relief. It was easier that way.

This time, though, the fight wasn’t so easily won. I didn’t want to take the moral high road—I wanted a decent job that would give me enough money to free me from a full year of hell trapped with an inconsiderate party-girl roommate.

By the time I reached the classroom, I was seething, and more than prepared to let a little of that ire seep onto the next person who pushed the wrong button. I didn’t need to wait long. I arrived at the lecture hall less than a minute late, and the TA was already closing the door.

The prof wasn’t even there yet, just his teaching assistant, a blond grad student who had the audacity to glare at me as if I’d waltzed in midclass and did a cheerleading routine in front of the lectern. That did it. I might have to put up with a condescending new boss and a brain-dead new roomie, but I didn’t need this shit from a damned assistant.

So when he glowered at me, mouth opening to make some sarcastic comment like “Glad you could join us,” I cut him off with a glower of
my own. Our eyes met. He blinked. And closed his mouth. I swept past him and stalked up the steps into the lecture hall.

“Elena!” someone hissed.

I turned to see a girl from my anthropology class last year. Tina…no, Trina. I vaguely recalled her saying she’d signed up for this class, too. She tugged her knapsack off the seat beside her and waved me into it.

“Thanks,” I whispered as I sat down.

“Seemed like it was filling up fast, and I knew you were coming. Did you get off the waiting list?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Did you check out the TA? Oh my God. I heard the prof was cute, but that TA is gorgeous. I’m already planning to have some trouble with this course.” She grinned. “I’ll need serious assistance.”

I smiled and shook my head as dread settled in my gut. A TA might not wield as much power as a professor, but he had some clout. I’d just pissed off one of the people who would be grading me in this course. How could I be so stupid? I took a deep breath and told myself it wasn’t that bad. After all, it
was
only a TA.

When I looked up from my fretting, the guy had closed the door and returned to the lectern. Where was the prof? Please don’t tell me he was skipping the first class, after I busted my ass to get here on time.

The TA began. “If you’re here for Anthropology 258, Ritual and Religion in the Americas, you’re in the right place. If not, you have fifteen seconds to get out the door without disturbing those who know how to read a room number.”

“Oh my God,” Trina whispered as two kids snuck, shamefaced, out the door.

“Unbelievable, huh?” I said. “Nothing like a TA with an attitude.”

“No, I mean his accent. That is the sexiest drawl I’ve ever heard. Where do you think he’s from? Tennessee? Texas?”

I shrugged. The southern drawl definitely pegged him as American, if the rudeness didn’t. Okay, that wasn’t fair. I knew plenty of Americans, and most of them were great, but occasionally, you met an asshole like this who explained the stereotype. I took out my notepad as he continued talking.

“So, now that the rest of you know where you are…or think you do,
let’s get started. My name, in case you didn’t read the syllabus, is Clayton Danvers. I’m your professor for this class.”

My head whipped up so fast I nearly dropped my notebook. I looked down at the podium, and I swear he was looking straight at me.

Oh, shit.

W
HEN I ENDED THE LECTURE FIVE MINUTES
late, half the class had already packed away their notes, not even waiting to write down the reading assignment. As the last words left my mouth, students vaulted from their chairs and flew for the door. And for what? There were few, if any, five o’clock classes. They just wanted to leave. I’ve never understood that mentality, that school was a chore to get through. If you’re not there to learn, what the hell are your parents paying thousands of dollars a year for? Babysitting?

As the students thundered from the lecture hall, a gaggle of girls enveloped me, questions flying.

“Is this the right textbook?”

“What are your office hours?”

“Is the final exam going to be multiple choice?”

Life-and-death questions, and every one right on the goddamned sheet that I’d handed out at the beginning of class. I slammed an extra sheaf of those sheets onto the lectern, pointed at it, and strode toward the door.

I wasn’t leaving. But someone else was…the blond girl who’d glared at me coming in—and then hadn’t responded to any of the names on my class list.

She’d ducked out the door without so much as a glance my way. I swung into the hall to see her disappear into a mob of students, her white-blond ponytail swinging. In a sea of brunettes and bottle-blondes, that ponytail was as easy to follow as deer prints through a maze of mouse tracks.

“You!” I called as I strode after her.

A few students turned. One girl pointed at herself, mouthing a hopeful “Me?” But my quarry kept moving, neither slowing nor speeding up.

I jogged right up behind her and called again, but she just continued weaving past the other students, giving them wide berth, careful not to jostle or even brush against anyone else. I found myself watching that, the subtle but clear buffer she kept around herself. Paid so much attention to it that I let her get a dozen steps ahead of me before I realized it.

She zipped around a corner and was gone. Damn it. I had to find out who she was, and why the hell she’d been in my class.

When I rounded the corner, I saw her ponytail bobbing through a small crowd. I called again, but it was clear that unless I used a name, she wouldn’t respond. So I grabbed her arm. A last resort—as physical contact with strangers always was—and I would have let her go as soon as I had her attention, but she whirled, wrenching her arm away.

A flash of something crossed her face—pique mingled with wariness. I recognized that look as well as if I’d been standing in front of a mirror, the same reaction I’d have to a stranger grabbing me from behind.

The look vanished as she recognized me. Her shoulders slumped.

“Professor Danvers,” she said, sliding backward out of the main thoroughfare.

“You know who I am? Good. Now maybe you’ll extend me the same courtesy.”

She tilted her head, nose scrunching. A smattering of freckles dotted that nose, invisible to anyone more than a few feet away. I don’t know why I noticed that, just as I don’t know why I noticed that she was tall, only a couple of inches shorter than me, with a lean, athletic build; that she wore little or no makeup and smelled only of soap, a clean tang that I found myself committing to memory.

“Your name,” I said finally. “You didn’t answer roll call.”

“Oh. Right. Elena. Elena Michaels.”

In human society, an introduction is typically a jumping-off point for further conversation, at least followed by a handshake and an inane question or two. But she said it as a closing, her gaze sliding past me, hefting her bag to her shoulder, clearly hoping that answering my question would secure her release.

When I made no move to step back, she gave the softest sigh, inaudible to anyone with normal hearing, then backed against the wall, hugging her bag to her chest.

“I’m not in your class. I’m on the waiting list. Third.”

“Classes are for registered students only.”

One thin shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Sure, but I tried to register—”

“Not hard enough. The class didn’t fill until near the end of the registration period, meaning you obviously couldn’t be bothered—”

“Couldn’t be bothered?” Her eyes flashed and she opened her mouth to say more, then snapped it shut, and looked away. “Fine.”

“Fine? Fine what?”

Another blaze, doused just as quickly as the first, but lingering in a brittle clip to her words. “Fine, meaning I’ll stay out of your class until I get a spot.
If
I get a spot.”

This wasn’t the answer I’d been aiming for, though I realized it only as the words left her mouth. I suppose I’d been digging for a reaction. Well, I got one. Just not the one I wanted.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, jaw tight as she slipped around me.

She got two feet away before I swung into her path.

“Why?” I said.

“Why what?”

She snapped the reply, then tensed and winced, just barely, and I knew she was telling herself she shouldn’t snap at me, shouldn’t let me goad her. I’ve never been good at empathy, so to see someone—a human no less—react, and to understand, was a shock that knocked aside the last traces of my foul mood.

“The class,” I said, softening my tone. “Why did you want to take the class? Is this your area in anthropology?”

She hesitated, eyes studying mine, wary. After a moment, she relaxed and leaned against the wall again. “No, I’m not in anthro. Sorry. Journalism.”

“Journalism?”

The softest laugh. “Yes, people do choose to become reporters. Shocking, isn’t it?” She shifted her bag to her shoulder. “I take anthropology as my annual extra. Last year I did my term paper on religion. I came across your thesis, read it, thought it was interesting, and used it. Then I saw you were teaching the first half of this course. I wanted to take
it, but—” Another half-shrug, gaze disconnecting from mine. “Things came up. I registered late.”

“You read my thesis?”

Her gaze met mine, and her smile dissolved. “You think I’m lying? It’s published. There’s a copy right here at—”

“Do you still have your paper?”

“You
do
think I’m lying.”

“If you still have last term’s paper, I want to see it. Then you can sit in while you wait for an opening.”

Her eyes blazed again, and this time she had to struggle to put the fire out. I knew she wanted to tell me where to stuff my course, but she didn’t want to cave either and walk away having me think she’d lied.

The battle raged in her eyes for longer than I’d expected. Had I made a misstep? I didn’t doubt for a second that she’d read my thesis or that this was the reason she was in my class. No more than I doubted that I’d let her into that class. I’d just wanted to— I don’t know. Maybe see whether I could rile her up. Maybe find an excuse to continue this conversation.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll drop it by your office tomorrow—”

“What’s wrong with now?”

Her jaw tightened, and I knew then that I had gone too far. When she told me, through clenched teeth, that she had a seven o’clock class and hoped to eat dinner, I agreed to let her drop it off tomorrow at ten, after my morning class.

I
STRODE DOWN THE QUIET HALL, LAST YEAR’S
anthro paper in hand. Danvers’s office was at the far end, probably a spare used for storage, then cleared out when the department had to find space for visiting lecturers.

For almost an hour last night, I’d sat in the computer lab, my paper on the screen, my fingers ready to strike the print sequence, but holding back. Finally I’d grabbed my floppy disk from the drive and left, getting all the way to the coffee kiosk in the next building.

Did I still want to take this course? My gut reaction was “no,” that it was too much bother, that the prof was an arrogant jerk and I didn’t need this.

And yet…well, the truth was that the more hurdles he made me jump to get into this class, the more I wanted in.

As for “proving” that I’d read his thesis, that just got my blood boiling all the more. Who did this guy think he was? There might be some girls who’d sneak into his class for the eye candy, but did that give him the right to assume that all female students were interested in
him
rather than his lectures?

I’d continued struggling until the lab was about to close, and I printed out the paper just in case. I’d only made up my mind that morning, after the campus bookstore called me back, and set up an interview for ten-thirty. Since I was passing Sidney Smith Hall anyway, I might as well make that ten o’clock drop-off for Professor Danvers. Whether I still wanted to take the class didn’t matter. At this point, it would be enough to prove I hadn’t lied.

I brushed past two students trying to decipher a professor’s handwritten office-hours chart. The next door was Danvers’s. I didn’t even get a chance to knock before he yanked it open. He must have been leaving. Five minutes later and I’d have had an excuse for leaving my paper with the department secretary instead. Damn.

“Just dropping this off,” I said, stepping out of his way.

“Come in.”

“That’s okay. You were heading out, so I’ll—”

He frowned. “I wasn’t heading out. I was opening the door for you.”

“How did you—?” I shook my head and held out my paper. “Here it is.”

“Come in.”

He turned and walked back in without waiting for an answer. The door shut behind him. Seemed like a good chance to escape. If only I wasn’t still holding the damned term paper.

I opened the door. Danvers was taking his seat behind the desk. That desk, and two chairs, were the only furnishings in the cubbyhole office. On the bookcase sat two opened boxes of books. The desk was littered with papers, books, and professional journals.

“If you’re busy unpacking …” I said.

“Unpacking?” He frowned.

“Never mind. Here’s that paper.” I started to lay it on the desk, then thought better of it and put it on an empty bookshelf instead. “My phone number is inside the cover. If I don’t hear from you by Friday, I’ll assume it’s okay to show up in class.”

“Sit.”

“What?”

He waved at the chair across the desk. “Sit.”

I resisted the urge to bark, and answered by not answering…and not sitting.

“Suit yourself,” he said. “Pass me that paper.”

I did. He opened it. I waited, expecting him to flip through. Instead he leaned back in his chair, put his feet on the desk, paper crumpling beneath his loafers, and began to read. I checked my watch.