The House of Grey- Volume 4 (20 page)

Taris continued to cry
,
coming
closer and closer to him.
Though in reality it all happened quickly, as Monson experienced it at the time, and when he looked back, remembering, t
he moment she passed
him seemed to happen in
slow motion.
Monson
felt th
e instant
they were shoulder
to
shoulder and
the
exact sensation
of
her hand as it brushed his. He felt the
dampness
of her tears and weary lamentations
of her shallow breath. He felt
so
many things,
like the helplessness of his own
strange
situation and his inability to do a single thing about it.  Monson reached out for her
,
h
is
hand
softly grabbing hers. It was to no
avail
.
Her fingers
slowly pulled from his grasp
,
a
nd then she was gone and
he
was alone.

“
Argh!
”
He
walked
slowly towards the center of
t
he Atrium. Why
had
he
not
sa
id
anything to her? Why
had
he
not
stop
ped
her? Why
had
he
not
scoop
ed
her up in his arms and
told
her how sorry he was and that he
woul
d never be late again? 
He
let out his own stream of swear words berating himself and his idiotic behavior.

First Cyann, now Taris
.
G
enius
,
Grey, absolute genius
,
he thought.

He
sat down next to the huge fountain of water in the
Atrium
’
s
center. He
dangled
his hand
in
the water
and
watched
as streams of liquid poured from the various spouts on the fountain.  Images of both Taris and Cyann walking away from him played over and over again in his mind
,
melding with
the
knowledge that he
was unable to stop either of them.
Why was this so painful? 

“How can they be so COLD?” Monson shouted as emotion overtook him and strange incoherent
images
flash
ed
in his
mind.
W
ords spilled from his mouth
and
h
e closed his eyes as
he felt
a throbbing beat
in his chest
like the kick of a
revved-up
engine.

Monson punched
his hand in
the
shallow pool
of
the
ornate
fountain.

He felt
tension
and a numbing
flash of
pain. 

Monson opened his eyes and quickly
recoiled
from the water
,
shocked at the sensation. He pulled and pulled as
an unexplainable force gripped him
around his arm.  Monson
looked
at the surface of the water
only
to find a block
of frigid
ice. He
glanced around
the whole fountain.

It was
c
ompletely frozen.

The fountain was now
a large
,
elegant
ice sculpture
. 
He
again turned his eye
s
to the surface of the ice
,
w
here he gazed at a hole in the shape of a fist.
 

***

“Hey
,
did you hear what happened in the Atrium?”

“Yeah
!
H
ow is that even possible?”

“Somebody has a weird sense of humor.”

“I heard it did a ton of damage and that they might have contaminated the water
.
”

Monson sat quietly next to Casey
during dinner the following evening, half-listening to the chatter of students around them;
Artorius
was conspicuously
absent.
Currently, Monson was
trying to eat his bake
d
potato while
doing his best to
control his
gag
reflex.  What
had
happened
in the Atrium w
as the only question that Monson was able to ask himself. After his “manifestation
,
”
which
was the only word he could think of
to
describe
what happened to that fountain, he ran back to his apartment
and literally hid in his room like a
six
-year-old. He was embarrassed
,
but he was also really scared. He was not sure what he was going to do.

“Grey, are you
OK
? I don’t think I
’
ve ever seen you so remorseful
.
”

Monson glanced up from his plate of food
,
a little shocked. It was Grayson.

“I liked that fountain,” said Monson
,
thinking quickly. “It was one of my little pleasures. You know? I passed it every day.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean
.
” Grayson met Monson’s
eyes, which
forced Monson to turn back towards his plate
.
“It’s amazing
,
something like that happening. I wonder how they did it. It’s almost like it was
…
magic
.
”

Monson was proud that he did not flinch. “What do you mean
?
”
he
inquired
,
hoping to keep his voice level
.
“Why would it be like magic?”

Grayson started off
.
“Well first of all
,
it’s an indoor fountain that was totally frozen over
including the piping and internal mechanisms,
and as far as I
could
tell there
weren
’
t
any chemicals in the water. I
’
ve seen something like that before but it’s a process where ice
ac
cumulates over time. If you look
closely
at the fountain
,
you can see
individual
droplets of ice
—
as if someone flipped a switch and froze it. I don’t think there
’
s anything that could have just made that happen
and certainly not without some sort of specialist equipment.
”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” said Monson
without
looking up from his dinner
.

“There is too such thing as magic!” Grayson spouted angrily
.

Monson stopped staring at his plate and
turned,
reestablish
ing
eye contact with Grayson
as Casey looked on
. Grayson glared at him with an expression
he had
never seen before. The expression spoke of total conviction, absolute certainty. What did Grayson know that Monson
did not
?

“There is to
o
such thing as magic
.
” Grayson
shifted
his gaze down towards the ground as he
wrung
his fingers
,
cracking a few of them.
Monson thought this
time he almost sounded embarrassed
,
l
ike he had let something slip
,
that he
had
showed just a bit too much. 

Monson
had no idea what to say now
, a familiar phenomenon
for him
. Grayson spun his chair around before Monson could find the words. 

He started to roll away. “I’d better go
.
”

Monson stood
,
intending to go after him. Casey caught his arm.

“Let him go. Let him believe a little longer
.
”

Monson sat back down
.
“
B
elieve a little longer?  What does that mean?”

“Grayson
Garrett
hasn’t always been in a wheelchair,” said Casey
with sadness in his voice.
“
Not long ago he was quite active. Suffice
it
to say that you were not the only
one here a
ffected by that attack
last
May.”

“I don’t understand. What happen
ed
to him?”

“Grayson was near the bridge that day. I
’
ve never heard it from him, but
someone
once told me
that a chu
n
k of the bridge broadsided his car
.
I
don
’
t know
where
the other part
ies
were
held,
so I’m not sure how far a piece of that bridge would have
had
to fly to bash a car.”

“So he wasn’t involved in the original explosion?”

“No,
o
nly the truly elite were celebrating
on the roundabout.
But the fact that he wasn’t there
doesn’t make a lot of sense considering
that
Grayson’s family owns one of the
largest
private investigation firms in the world. Anyway, he was at one of the satellite celebration
s
along the stretch of high
way
leading to the roundabout.  He doesn’t talk about it
much
,
b
ut he was convinced he saw something supernatural that day.”

“What did you say?”
asked
Monson sharply
.

“I know
,
it’s crazy
,
h
uh
?
” continued Casey “
Apparently,
Grayson said that before his car was hit he saw what he could only assume was
a
wizard.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No
,
seriously,
the
story
is
pretty crazy. It’d make a good movie
—and based on what we saw on Gossip Guy, it doesn’t surprise me he thought it was magic. What kind of a weapon can create a whirlwind like that? Anyway
, we
should ask him at some point; I
’
d like to know the whole story.
”

“Yeah
…
” said Monson reflectively
.
“I may
just
have to get
the
full account sometime
.
”

“On a totally unrelated topic
,
how did everything go with Taris yesterday?”

Monson’s
spirits
sunk even lower.
“Oh that
.
I
t was sufficiently horrible; a total disaster
,
I would say
.
”

“Why
?
W
hat happened?”  Casey looked surprised.