Lost in Thought (15 page)

“Uh, sorry,” I said sheepishly and resumed walking. Once more he fell in step with me wordlessly. “I guess I got a little overwhelmed there. This is a lot to take in. I’m…having trouble believing this is all real, and it just gets stranger as we go along.” He didn’t say anything, but reached out and put his hand into mine. I grasped it gratefully.

Whatever else I felt about him, every touch from Carter was warm and reassuring. Or electrifying, but I wasn’t thinking about that right now. When he made to let go, I kept hold. Today, I needed not only a guide through this craziness but also an anchor. Carter would have to be both.

“It is overwhelming,” he said. “I keep having to remind myself that before two days ago you knew nothing about
any
of this…you thought you were a normal girl, albeit one who was going crazy. You still must a little bit. But you’re
not
. I swear to you, you’re not. You’re— incredible, actually. I think most people would have run screaming

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long before now. In fact, I’ve seen them do it, and they were grown men.”

I giggled, lightening my mood and some of the tension I’d let build up inside me. “Silly Carter. You should know by now that women are tougher than men.”

He laughed, and swiftly, so I had no time to protest or resist, brought our linked hands up to his mouth and kissed mine, saying, “You’re definite proof of that.”

He dropped our hands back down just as quickly but did not let go.

I blushed, but I didn’t let go either. His lips had been warm and the tip of his nose cold, but the whole sensation made me tingle just a little bit. Our side trail came to a fork and Carter led us to the left. I had the sense that we were coming around toward the back edge of campus, working our way in a big circle.

I also realized I was stalling. I had a million more questions about Sententia abilities that I wanted to ask, but partly that was to avoid talking about the Perceptum. Whenever I thought about it, I got a bad feeling. I hoped that was because of a lack of understanding. The unfamiliar was sometimes scary, right? I needed to get familiar.

“Okay,” I said resolutely. “I’m ready to hear about the Perceptum now. Make me not scared of it, please.”

“You have no reason to be frightened, believe me. Very few people do.” I noted he said
very few
and not
no one
. I was suddenly sure that whatever he said, or however much good the Perceptum did, I would never be entirely comfortable with them.

“The Perceptum…” Carter continued. “It’s difficult and simple to explain, all at the same time. Like I said yesterday, the Perceptum is, most basically, the Sententia network.”

“What’s it mean?” I interrupted him. “The word, I mean. Perceptum. How does it…translate?”

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“Oh. It means
perception
or
one who perceives
. Latin rarely translates directly,” he added smartly, sounding exactly like one of my teachers.

I resisted the urge to giggle and nodded instead, saying, “Okay, Perceptives Network, got it. But that’s not all. Yesterday you said something about ‘governing body’ too. Explain.”

So he did. We walked and I listened. Carter seemed to enjoy the history lesson on the Perceptum and, to be honest, I didn’t mind hearing it. In fact, it was more than a little interesting. My brain was working too furiously for my body to be cold, and though I was hopelessly lost in the woods, I was beginning to feel a little bit better about the whole thing until he got to the part about what the Perceptum did today.

It started, apparently, with idealism, and a handful of men including Abraham Lincoln. Everyone knew what he did, but I guessed only a small portion of people knew how he had Sententia help. After Lincoln’s assassination, the rest of the men continued their mission to use their gifts to positively influence the world, but the more people they enlisted, the more dissent they had between them.

“Not everyone,” Carter said, “has the same ideas about what would be positive for the world, right? But they realized there was a problem they could address, something no other group could: they could recognize when other Sententia were using their gifts harmfully, or recklessly, or without even knowing what they were. From there, they established what they called the Perceptum Council, which still operates today.”

Carter remained quiet while I pondered. Helping end slavery was a pretty great contribution to the world, but that’s not what they did anymore. Now they what? Regulated the Sententia population, it sounded like. That wasn’t so bad, in theory, but I thought back to what Carter had said about how
not everyone has the same ideas about what
would be positive for the world.
I didn’t think everyone would have the

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same ideas about what was harmful or reckless either. So I said as much.

“They don’t,” Carter replied. “It’s why there’s a council. When Historians recognize and report…new or potentially dangerous Sententia activity, they vote.”

“Okay, so that’s your job? Investigating Sententia sightings in the wild?”

He laughed. “That’s pretty much it, yeah,” he said. “My aunt too. I also research historical records, trying to trace Sententia genealogy.

And, lucky guy that I am, occasionally I get to do things like this,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Not too long after they formed the Council, one of its members established Northbrook, in case you were wondering. I’ve already told you why. There are a few other schools, here and on other continents.”

I already knew Penrose Books had been established the same year as the Academy, obviously not a coincidence. Between selling books and scouting Sententia, Carter’s plate seemed pretty full. “What happens when you and your aunt find something?”

“Uncle Jeff investigates and the Council votes on how to proceed, based on the situation.”

That was ominous. “What are the options?” I asked carefully.

“The question is usually about how best to contact them,” Carter replied. “And then sometimes the Council votes to contact local authorities instead. Discreetly, of course.”

Of course. “What these people are doing isn’t always nice, huh? I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.”

“No, it’s not,” he said softly. “Sometimes it’s very much not.”

Carter came to a stop and, since I was holding his hand, so did I. I looked around, confused. We didn’t seem to be anywhere specific, just at another fork in the trails, but it was not as quiet where we stopped. I could hear sounds and voices that were probably coming from cam-114 | C A R A B E R T R A N D

pus. I figured if I wanted to look at my watch, I’d see that classes were over and that meant I should get back to say goodbye to Amy. But I had so many more questions and, honestly, I felt…calm out here in the forest.

I wasn’t ready to go back to campus, even if I knew I should. I poked Carter and said, “What, are you tired? Why’d we stop here?”

He was good, I’d give him that much. He smiled and said, “I’ll never tire of your company. But it’s late, so it’s probably not…discreet for us to go out the way we came. This trail”—he gestured to the fork to the left—“comes out at the top of campus, not very far from here.”

I got what he was saying. “And you want me to go out that way, right? Gotcha. Where are
you
going?”

He shrugged. “I’ll go back some other way, closer to the road.

Doesn’t matter where. I—Do you want to come to dinner tonight?”

He asked abruptly, instead of whatever he’d been about to say, and almost…shyly, as if he wanted me to say yes but was genuinely afraid I might say no. It was the only shy thing I’d ever seen him do.

I wondered if Carter had ever had a girl resist his romantic advances before. Though, seriously, it wasn’t like I was resisting too heavily.

A few days before I’d thought
I
was pursuing
him
. I was just a little hesitant in light of recent revelations. And then everything he did seemed to come so easily to him; maybe he’d never really had to work at anything. I made a silent vow that, no matter what happened with us, I would be his biggest challenge. I thought he might need it.

“Just to the apartment, nothing special,” he continued quickly.

“And not for this, for work. To have dinner, though we can talk about all this, if you want. My aunt will be there too, and my uncle is home.

Anyway, I thought, well, Amy is leaving tonight and I thought you might like to join us.”

Carter’s babbling was…cute. It was so out of character for him, I couldn’t help but laugh. I poked him again, playfully, in the ribs.

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“Thank you. And I’d love to come to dinner at the apartment. I’m sure it will be way better than the dining hall…and the company’s not so bad either,” I added at the end. I was rewarded with one of Carter’s better smiles, broad and pleased, but, remembering my vow of moments ago, I couldn’t let him get away with too much self-satisfaction.

“Your aunt, she’s great, you know?” I said, and smiled at him even wider.

He laughed. “She definitely is. Okay, come over at seven? We close the store early on nights before break.”

“See you then,” I replied. More seriously, I added, “And Carter?

Thanks. For today, I mean. For…understanding.” And then, much to my surprise, since I hadn’t planned to do it, I reached my arms around his waist and hugged him.

He looked down in surprise but quickly followed suit, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me closer. “Believe me,” he said, rustling my hair a little with his warm breath, “it was my pleasure.”

We stood like that for a moment and it was…nice. Comfortable. In fact, I wanted nothing less than to let go of him and head back to a busy campus full of students and parents and noise and secrets. But it was time to, so I stood on my tiptoes, kissed him quickly on the cheek for the second time, and then headed out the trail. After a moment, I heard him leave at a light jog, as if six miles this morning and however far we’d walked this afternoon weren’t enough for him.

I glanced back over my shoulder but I knew he was already gone. I couldn’t keep from smiling a little though, because I had been right: even with, or maybe because of, our unusual topic of conversation, that really had been the best non-date I’d ever had.

said a quick goodbye to Amy and then passed the time tidying up my half of the room in honor of my aunt’s visit. Amy’s half was already pristine, as usual. I tried to emulate her orderliness, but I eventually I’d look around and realize I had sweatshirts on chairs, books scattered about, and my bag thrown wherever I first stopped when I came in the door. Aunt Tessa flew in from Baltimore the next day and would be staying in campus guest housing, at Headmaster Stewart’s invitation.

I wasn’t entirely sure what we were going to do with ourselves for an entire week but I knew the time would pass quickly. I was, however, a little stressed about the giant secret I had to keep from her. It seemed like, as it had before I’d come here, my whole life had changed in the course of only a few days. I was so much in the thick of trying to understand it that I was worried about slipping up, about being able to be the same Lainey my aunt had known. I
wasn’t
that same Lainey, not anymore. However this newfound ability affected my future, it had already irrevocably changed who I thought I was.

Learning that I
wasn’t
going crazy should have made me feel better, and I guess it had, in a way, but now, I felt…lost. I’d never felt that

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way before. Aside from the crazy, I’d always been happy with who I was and the woman I thought I’d become. Now I feared myself, just a little bit, and what I could do. I was pretty sure that what I needed was time. To adjust, to process, to learn more. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of it before I had to be at least an approximation of the old Lainey. I was afraid that if I was distant, or distracted, or seemed as if I was unhappy, my aunt would think it had been a mistake for me to come here, which absolutely wasn’t true. More than that, it had been a
necessity
.

And I
was
happy here. In fact, I loved it. I loved being in classes with other students, instead of alone with my tutor. I loved Amy and having a dedicated group of friends. I liked, well, gossiping, which meant that you knew a place and its people and how its daily life un-folded. I’d never had much chance to do it before, unless gossiping with my aunt about the art world counted. Not many people related to that. I missed my martial arts classes, but I enjoyed swimming, and had even helped the team win a few relays at our meets.

I liked
going
to sporting events and cheering for
my
teams and
my
friends. I liked…Carter. I had loved my old life too, but never knew what I was missing: what it meant to
belong
somewhere. Even in such a short time, I felt like I was
part
of Northbrook and I thought it was because I’d allowed myself to become part of it. I knew that, for better or for worse, this would be my home for two years, so I’d better make it for better.

All these things swirled through my head as I cleaned and straightened, but I kept coming back to that phrase:
for better or for worse
. Just like Northbrook was now my home, for better or worse, being Sententia was now my reality. It’s who or what I’d be for the rest of my days, part of me. But it didn’t need to define me, I decided. As far as I knew, once I left Northbrook, there was no reason I needed to be part of the Perceptum or any other section of Sententia society.