The Academy (65 page)

“It snowed.
When did it snow?”

Eerie frowned and brushed a strand of hair out of his face that had somehow freed itself from the confines of his new knit cap. He’d been a bit surprised that it fit him perfectly, until it occurred to him that Eerie had knitted it while he lay unconscious, and that she probably had ample opportunity to get the size right.

“It started snowing almost two weeks ago,” Eerie said with a concerned smile.

“Wow,” Alex said, wincing. “It’s still hard to believe its December. Last I remember it was a week before Halloween.”

Alex looked around the quad, stunned at how much had changed while he slept. The whole campus was buried under nearly a foot of virtually undisturbed snow, with more falling in fat white flakes, turning over in lazy revolutions as they descended. Everything was covered in a layer of powder, even the sides of the buildings and the ornate stonework.

“I was worried,” Eerie admitted, “especially during the first week. But, Rebecca came down to see you every day, and she told me that you would definitely wake up.”

The only snow Alex had ever seen had been closer to hail, one particularly cold winter in Bakersfield. It had melted as it hit the ground, hard round balls of ice that turned brown and disintegrated into the mud. This was nothing like that, and he was reduced to a state something like awe. Without even thinking about it, he found himself sticking his tongue out to catch the snow on, something that he had only read about in books.

“I’m a little surprised that everyone worried about me so much,” Alex said, looking up at the dense grey sky. “I didn’t really expect that…”

“Not everyone was worried,” Eerie said mischievously. “Anastasia never even asked about you.”

Eerie laughed and twirled around next to him, her sneakers making only a slight indention on the snow as she walked along the top of it, as if it had simply never occurred to her that she was supposed to sink.

“You missed the Winter Dance,” Eerie added shyly, looking away. “I wore a dress.”

“Oh,” Alex stammered. “Um. I’m sorry I missed it. I wish I could have seen that.”

Eerie’s cheeks burned.

“Maybe some other time…”

They walked along the cleared path in the quad, Alex staring at the clumps of brown grass that peaked through at the edges where the snow was thinnest. He wondered if the grass was still alive, despite the brown, despite all the snow, just waiting for the right time to let everyone know it, and felt strangely envious.

“Alex is happy to be back,” Eerie observed warmly, her eyes sparkling. “The Academy starts to feel a bit like home, doesn’t it?”

Alex crouched down and grabbed a handful of the snow, attempting to mold it into a snowball, disappointed to find that it was too dry and wouldn’t stick together. He looked up at Eerie and smiled, tossing the snow aside.

“I guess,” he said, standing up to walk beside her. “I’m not sure that I know what home feels like, to be honest. But, I feel, I don’t know… like I want to be here,” Alex said, struggling for words, “or something like that. I think I have friends here. I guess I’m closer to happy here than I’ve been anywhere else.”

Alex was quiet for a moment, lost in thought, walking beside Eerie, his own sneakers crunching through the snow and slowly soaking through, Eerie padding along beside him almost silently. She was cute, he thought, with bits of snow caught in her tussled blue hair, almost an inch of blond showing at her part, wrapped in her oversized sweatshirt. She caught him looking at her and smiled at him, causing him to blush and look away.

“What about you, Eerie?”

Eerie appeared to consider it for a moment, hopping up onto the edge of a concrete planter that bordered the quad, walking along the edge, one foot in front of the other, her arms spread for balance.

“I have two homes already,” she said finally. “But I’ve never been happy there. So I like it better here, too. “

Alex looked over at her, as she hopped down at the edge of the planter, her cheeks flushed, her hands hidden inside her voluminous sleeves, her grey skirt flaring up around her as she landed lightly on the snow. He fought off the urge to turn away, to make a joke, to run off on some kind of contrived excuse. He swallowed hard, and then took a step toward her, so they were walking slightly closer.

He waited for a moment for some kind of reaction, but Eerie continued to walk on next to him, seemingly lost in the scenery of the snow-covered campus. After a moment, he took another cautious step closer, bringing them almost side by side. He felt his cheeks burning, and found it suddenly a bit hard to breathe, his heart pounding in his chest and ringing in his ears. It was awkward, walking this close, and he started to worry that he would walk into her.

Eerie didn’t move away. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look over at him.

Alex took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his hand against his jeans, and then reached for the strange girl’s hand.

Her hand felt fragile and warm, despite the cold. Their fingers tangled awkwardly for a moment, but then she intertwined them, wrapping his hand around her own, as casually as if she’d been expecting it. Alex realized he was holding his breath, and exhaled in relief.

Alex walked beside Eerie in silence, her hand seemingly the only warm thing in the perfect, frozen world.

--

Anastasia sighed and let the window curtain fall back into place, obscuring the view of the pair walking across the quad, hand in hand, much to Renton’s evident disappointment.

“My, my. That boy is terribly predictable. He c the exact opposite of what I tell him to,” she said tiredly, reaching absently down to scratch underneath the jaw of the fawning Weir nearest to her. “Merry Christmas, Alex. I hope you like my present.”

Renton looked up from the desk where he sat, puzzling over the disassembled parts of a Austrian automatic pistol, his hands spattered with a light coating of gun oil, his face composed in a parody of sincere concern.

“Do you want me to…” he began, wiping his hands clean with a nearby towel.

Anastasia waved him off, yawning.

“No,” she said, standing up and walking towards the door, “let it go for now. Our agreement with her has been satisfied. Everything worked out the way I expected. We have plenty of time, and I’m tired. I’m going to bed, Renton. Good night. And… Merry Christmas.”

Anastasia turned rapidly, and walked out with two wolves trailing behind her. Renton smiled and returned to the broken-down Glock, waiting until he heard the door click closed behind him before he returned to the window.

He looked out at the snow, the tall, awkward boy and the blue-haired girl, walking across the deserted white campus, holding hands. The window reflected his smile back at him, and the smile that he saw was ugly. For a moment, he watched them, and their clumsy, self-conscious progress across the snow. Then he returned to the table, to the machined metal and oil and rags laid out on it.

“Merry Christmas, Ana,” he said softly, sighting down the gun barrel at the fire that roared in the fire place, smiling ghoulishly, “and a merry Christmas to you, too, Alex.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Zachary Rawlins
lives with his lovely and amazing wife, Chloe, and their genius Corgi, Ein, in an 80-year old Tudor in Oakland, California. During the day, he works in the environmental industry. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, photography, building computers, and writing books like this one.

Thank you for reading
The Academy
!
I hope that you will consider checking out the first volume of my light novel series, Unknown Kadath Estates,
Paranoid Magic Thinking
, coming in November, 2011. Also, keep your eyes out for Book Two of the Central Series,
The Anathema
, available January, 2012.