Love lines (4 page)

Shock, bewilderment, confusion, fear... All this and
much more flow into my mind like an endless stream of water. I'm trying to
catch snatches of the words still coming from Amanda, but the fog absorbs the
tiny remnants of my mind, and I plunge into the darkness...

The last thing I remember is a frozen face of my friend,
leaning over me.

...Someone's warm hand gently helped me up onto the
couch, from which I apparently fell unconscious. I'm trying to open my eyes,
but the fog is still keeping my mind under control and I can’t understand what
has happened to me.

“Eileen, dear, can you hear me?” asks an unfamiliar
female voice. “Eileen, please, look at me. I am Alexis Wilde,” the voice
adds.

Alexis? Somewhere deep in my mind I find a thread of
familiar name and begin to remember - the letter, Dever, me, Amanda, then
darkness, then the letter again... How many times being unconscious, I tried to
connect in my head all of the senseless words of Amanda? Apparently, they
seemed senseless only to me.

My friend’s familiar voice makes me go back to reality.

“Eileen, are you okay?” she asks in alarm. She touches
my forehead with her palm and it feels like fire, burning on my cold skin. I
flinch away from her hand.

“Yeah, seems like okay,” I say, coming round. “Just a slight
headache,” I add, the room is still blurring in front of my eyes. 

“It's not surprising!” Amanda exclaimed in exasperation.
“Next time you decide to pass out, don’t try to rise from the couch! You would
simplify my life a lot,” she said in her usual manner, but still with an
uncertain smile on her face.

“The news about Dever was a real shock for you,” added
the same strange voice.

“You must be
Alexis
,” I guessed.

“That's right, Eileen. I'm heading Dever. Amanda called
her brother, as soon as you lost consciousness, and Christian told me about
your condition. So I immediately came here.”

“Excuse me, what does it mean
immediately
? As far
as I could understand, the University of Dever is hundreds of miles away from
Norfield. Is it some kind of a
teleportation
?” not believing my own
words, I asked.

“Not at all,” laughing, said Alexis. “I was already in
Norfield, when Christian called, so the road to your house took a little time.
Since the letters with invitations were sent to you and Amanda a few days ago,
I managed to arrive here almost simultaneously with their delivery. The fact is
that we have to accompany all of our students on their way to Dever, that's why
I'm here.”

Okay, her explanation doesn’t make me feel any better. I
 wonder  if  I’m  the  only  person  totally  out  of  my  senses in  this  room.

“Wait a minute... Amanda, and how do
you
know
about all of this?” I asked, looking at my friend suspiciously.

She hesitates with the answer.

“Eileen, do you remember I told you about the
university, where Christian studies?”

Yeah, there was something about Christian.

“Are you saying that he is a student of Dever too?” I
ask her again.

“Well, yes. Actually, it was him and Alexis, who told me
about this place.”

Great, I’m the only insane loser here, after all. Looks
like I fell unconscious
too
early. If I’d listened to the end of the
rambling speech of Amanda, perhaps then, I wouldn’t have so many idiotic
questions now.

“I think it would be better if I answer all of your
questions on the way to the airport,” interrupting my thoughts, said Alexis.
“We’re about to miss our plane, which, by the way, takes off in forty five
minutes.”

Wait,
what?
Am I supposed to go with this strange
woman? You must be kidding me, guys! I don’t even know where the hell she’s taking
me! I look at Amanda who seems to be still nervous, but is definitely fully
aware of the situation. Unlike her, I have no clue to what is going on around
me. I start to think of some good excuse to stay away from all this crazy mess,
when Alexis says:

“Hurry up, girls! You don’t really want
to
walk
to Dever, do you?”

Amanda shoots me a warning look.

“Don’t freak out, Eileen. It’s okay, we should go with
her. It’s safe.”

Really? I smile ironically to myself. Is this one of
those times I shall just nod wordlessly and follow Amanda wherever she’s
heading for? Apparently, yes. She knew I would never throw myself into
something risky or unknown. And even better she knew how hard it was to make me
do something I didn’t really want to do. But now she was there with me and I
trusted her even more than I trusted myself.

 “Okay,” I said, rising from my couch.

“You have two minutes, Eileen,” Alexis pointed to her
watch.

I ran into my room like a madman. The headache still
tortured me. However, there was no time to pay attention to it. As it turned
out, Amanda came to my place with her things already packed, so just from my
house, we went straight to the airport.

Alexis had managed to speak with my grandmother and tell
her about my new place of studying. That surprised me a lot. Just a dozen of
questions such as «
what?»
and «
why?»
remained unanswered. Not a
big deal, huh?

During our flight, Miss Wilde told us a little about the
training in Dever, its faculties, and the annual examinations and tests.

I was still in complete confusion by the events of
today, therefore, it was quite difficult to follow Alexis’s words, and I still
couldn’t believe that all that was happening to me. Amanda, to my surprise,
took it all much easier and even asked her some more questions about Dever.
Listening to their conversation, I didn’t notice how I fell asleep. I had a
dream. Again.

Here I am again, standing on the shore of the familiar
lake. The water still attracts with its purity and transparency. Again, I kneel
down to touch it, when suddenly someone’s hand stops me. Looking at it, I
understand that it obviously belongs to a woman, and her touch seems very
familiar. I raise my head to look at the stranger, but I don’t see anything
except for a vague silhouette. I scrutinize the features, trying to recognize
their owner. But suddenly I get distracted by a touch of another hand, the
familiar one - I saw it in my previous dreams. As always this touch makes my
heart beat faster and I feel all the same tingling sensation on my shoulder.
And then... A sharp pain pierces my body. I can’t move, I can’t scream. My body
and voice refuse to obey me. I can see how the two hands that were just
touching me, are now firmly holding each other, fighting in a silent battle. A
shining golden line goes out in the shade of heavy fog. The pain leaves my
body, and with it - the familiar warmth and touch. I understand that I can feel
again. But now I feel only emptiness and deep despair.

I wake up crying, feeling burning tears on my cheeks and
my hands trembling, as if from freezing cold. Nightmare, nightmare again...

“Eileen, Eileen! It’s all right, you had a dream,”
trying to reassure me, says Amanda.

“Yes, just a dream,” I say in a barely audible voice.
“Just a dream,” I repeat silently to myself, trying to calm down my furiously
beating heart and restore my breathing.

“How long have we been flying?” I ask Alexis.

“We are almost there. You’ve slept for almost the entire
flight. Amanda and I were just about to wake you up when you started to cry. Is
everything all right, Eileen?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes,” I said, thinking how good it was to be awake
again. I didn’t want to fall asleep and see more nightmares. The echoes of
emptiness and despair were still inside of me.

Chapter 4. In
expectation of the meeting (
Christian)

I was back in my room again. I wanted to talk to Alexis
but she was gone. When I came to her office, Beatrice - her secretary, said
that Alexis went to Norfield to accompany my sister and Eileen Clark on their
way.

The news that Eileen could be one of the Fairey family
members was, to say the least,
shocking
. As far as I knew, the Fairey
clan always extended only through the male line, and a woman could get the name
of Fairey, only by marrying one of them. So it was with my mother. The only
known exception to this rule was the birth of my sister Amanda.

While Alexis was away, I decided to go to the library to
read Neroma - a book of the history and family trees of all the founders of
Dever. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything that could explain my assumptions
concerning Eileen’s origin, so I returned to my room.

I didn’t know Eileen well. Despite the fact that she was
my sister’s best friend, we meet rarely. Before coming to Dever I spent most of
the school year in France, in a private school, and on holidays I usually
traveled together with my friends. Amanda and my parents often visited me in
Paris, so I spent, maybe, two weeks per year in Norfield.

Many times I had heard from Amanda about what a
wonderful friend Eileen was. I also knew that she liked music and, again,
according to Amanda, played the piano very beautiful. Since I liked playing
myself, it was always interesting for me to meet people who shared my passion
for music.

And yet... Something about that girl,
Eileen
, a
familiar stranger, fascinated me. Her bright, turquoise eyes, her radiant smile
and the ringlets of her blond hair that seemed to be silk even in the photo.
Looking at her picture, I felt some weird warmth and calm that in itself was
quite strange, considering the fact that I saw Eileen just a few times in my
life.

My thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock. Hiding a
photo in a book lying on the table, I opened the door. On the threshold was
my... Don’t even know how better to say - a
girlfriend
? At least, Vanessa
would call herself so.

“Christian, darling, Beatrice asked me to tell you that
your sister and Alexis may arrive at any moment. She is waiting for you in her
office, so hurry up,” smiling sweetly, said Vanessa. “Sorry, I can’t meet
Amanda with you, I need to be at the prefects meeting in ten minutes,” she
added, chasing a light kiss on my lips before leaving.

“Wonderful news!” I thought to myself, closing the door.
I can’t say that I didn’t like Vanessa, no, rather she irritated me a little by
her obsession.

In my twenties I couldn’t remember a single case of
serious, long-term relations. I was too focused on other things - my education,
my desire to become one of the best Keepers, my determination to become
Wizardy. In short, there wasn’t enough time for all this romantic nonsense.  Of
course, I visited some of the hundreds of Dever’s parties. Sometimes. All the
students here had the right to live as they wanted, considering their being of
age. We didn’t have a curfew; we could freely leave Dever, however, only when
accompanied by one of the teachers. They never interfered in our private
affairs. At least until such things didn’t threaten the security of Dever and
other students. In general, the life of the locals wasn’t different from the
life of ordinary people, except for the most important thing - the fact that
nobody
here was
an ordinary person
.

Having changed the clothes, I left my room and went to
the building of the University administration.

Oh, as for Vanessa...

We first met a few weeks ago, at one of those very
parties. At that time, everybody gathered to celebrate the arrival of new
students, one of whom was Vanessa herself. In fact, there was no particular
time of students’ arrival to Dever, because we all couldn’t become eighteen at
a certain day. But this fact was considered rather as a positive than a
negative sign - greeting parties could be arranged for the whole year round.
Officially the first day of the new academic year was the third of September.

So that evening I was especially not in the mood because
of the failed test in the eduction of supernatural abilities. Being one of the
next Keepers I should be able to reveal the presence of people’s unusual
talents. And this time I failed, what in a real life is simply unacceptable.
Don’t think that I'm such a wonk, like most of Embry students. No. I’m just a
very persevering person and for me to reach the intended goal is the same as to
become an Olympic champion for a good sportsman. That's who I am.

Fortunately I have a best friend named Evan.

 He and I are poles apart, even though in our desire to
achieve anything we are definitely the same. To make my words more clear, I can
only say one thing - Evan is a student of Wizardy. Besides his many talents, he
is a cheerful person and a hopeless optimist. Nothing in his life can
ever
be
bad
.  He is certainly different from me in this case. His favorite
phrase is
“I’m gonna rock the world!”
Personally I use it rarely.

So this very Evan became the one who made me go to the
party that day. The attempt to take my absolutely disgusting mood out on the
front door ended with the fact that the contents of Vanessa’s plastic cup,
vaguely resembling red wine, spilled on her snow-white blouse. In order to fix
somehow this time
her
bad mood, I gave her my best smile, and promised
to wash away my guilt by the purchase of a new blouse.