The Fake Heart (Time Alchemist Series) (21 page)

I walked through the doors of Moore Hall and shrugged off my jacket. It was warm and toasty. The TV blared from the common room and the smell of popcorn and hot chocolate clouded through the air. I saw the girls huddling on the couch, not at all paying attention to their food or the television. Instead, their eyes were glued to the ceiling.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

The middle one, a small girl with pretty black hair that was held back with a purple headband
, pointed upward.
“We keep
hearing footsteps!” she whispered.

“Maybe its
Nurse
Alexandra,” I said, but I had a good idea who it was.

They all shook their heads, and I had to fight
to keep
from grinning, “It isn’t!” the blonde with a pale face splattered with cute freckles next to her piped up, “Miss A is in her room napping.”

“You girls didn’t snoop through anyone’s room, did you?” I teased. I knew they wouldn’t. They looked like nice girls, unlike Mallory’s gang. Besides,
Nurse
Alexandra had forbid them from going up stairs and snooping through stuff. They didn’t seem like the type who would do that, but you’d never know.

“No!” they all said at the same time, but the girl in the middle finally confessed, fidgeting with her red rimmed glasses, “We were just exploring the hallways, and then when we got to the third floor we heard footsteps coming from the fourth floor—and somebody mumbling in a weird language!”

I nodded. They must really believe those nasty rumors about a ghost haunting the building. “You don’t have to worry about whatever’s up there. It can’t hurt you.” I said as I started towards the elevator.

They called back, “How do you know?”

I just smiled.
“
Well, i
t’s
probably
just a har
mless dove. That’s all.”

◊◊◊◊◊

Thanksgiving fell on a dark an
d gloomy Thursday. The remaining students
and teacher gathered in the cafeteria to have Thanksgiving dinner. St. Mary’s truly was a place for the rich: the turkey smelled heavenly and was roas
ted to a perfect golden brown, h
eaps of mashed potatoes with thick gravy, sweet potato casserole and small glass bowls filled with cranberry sauce. I found out pretty quickly that the South took great pride in their festivities. There was enough food to feed ten of me here!

I nibbled on a buttered biscuit (made from scratch!) and watched the room. Everyone was behaving normally as we all stuffed ourselves with turkey. Except (I couldn’t help but notice) the Headmistress was conspicuously absent. Wasn’t she the one who prided herself on sticking by school rules? Didn’t traditions like Thanksgiving dinner fall into that category? I wanted to ask
Nurse
Alexandra about it but decided not to. Possibly, the Headmistress had family close by and
was spending
the holiday
wi
th them.
Or she could have simply come down with a cold and chose to stay in her apartment instead.

Or maybe she just hated us (by us I mean me), but the air in the cafeteria was cheery and bright, and
I had a feeling if she were here
it wouldn’t be as pleasant of a feast as it
was now.

The main course came and went, and for desert we had pecan and pumpkin pies topped with globs of whipped cream. After an hour of stuffing myself with delicious foods (and asking the cooks if I could take
some leftovers back to the dorm
) I walked out into the chilly November air.

The sun
was nearly obliterated by light gray clouds
, and a slight cold breeze blew that ruffl
ed the plastic bag in my hand. I
bid a goodbye to a few other students, who all sep
arated to go back to their dorm
or brave the cold and play hacky sack
,
and
I
decided to talk a long walk through the path before going back to my room.

Soon there was only the occasional cawing of black ravens and a bit of laughter that soon faded into the distance. My boots clicked along the cobblestone pathway as I walked slowly through the small bit of woods. The trees were black gnarled limbs like claws reac
hing into the orange winter sky;
the f
ew leaves that still clung on w
ere bright orange
s
and red
s
amongst the
backdrop
.

I stopped and sat on a nearby stone bench. My heavy tan
coat and jeans protected my legs
against the cold seeping through. I placed the bag underneath the bench and closed my eyes.

I was utterly alone. Perfect.

My eyes were closed, and I waited for a
wind to pick up. I counted
the seconds in my head;
1…2…3…..46…47….48……72…73…74….
before a cold breeze kissed my cheeks. I squeezed the fabric of my jacket and opened my eyes, staring at the closest branch. A dried up brown colored leaf swayed in the breeze. Just like
I had weeks before,
I stared at that one leaf.

I glued my eyes on the crisp brown foliage as it rocked gently in the frosty air. I willed my power to start, feeling a heavy, warm spot in my chest. It vibrated through my bones and flowed through my veins. Even my skull was buzzing from my alchemy. My heart thumped hard, pounding against my ribcage with a fiery rage, but I held.

If I want to control this power,
I thought,
I need to figure out a way to stay calm at the same time.
Different than before, I closed my eyes, letting the faint scents of my own grapefruit shampoo and earthy pine scents of the woods fill my n
ose,
the crisp coldness sting my cheeks, and the wind ruffle my hair.

I want the leaf to slow down
.

Over and over I chanted inside my head. As incredibly lame as it sounded, it was pretty helpful and to the point. Dove had said that many alchemists train to create their alchemy with only their thoughts. So, if I wanted the leaf to sway in slow motion, I had to envision it.

I want the leaf to slow down.

The warmth spread all the way to the tips of my toes, and the power swelled just a little inside me. My heart started to return to a normal pace.
Ba
-dump,
ba
-dump,
ba
-dump
, and slowly, I cracked my eyes open.

At that moment, the leaf had finally snapped off, but it was still in mid-snap, half of its stem broken off as it began its descent onto the brown grass, or to be carried off by the wind.  It really was like a slow motion picture—the edges crinkled against the wind at a snail’s pace.

I counted all the way to seven seconds before I was jolted back to reality. The leaf had finally flown away and disappeared in the shadow of the trees.

I breathed in and out, the cold air piercing my lungs, but it felt refreshing. It was suddenly hot in these stuffy clothe
s, like I had run a
marathon. I placed a hand over my heart. It pulsated at a slow and steady pace.

A big grin broke out on my flushed face. Seven seconds wasn’t much, but it was better than before! And, I mused, I had managed to concentrate all on my own without going overboard. I just need a little more practice and I could control my alchemy without worrying over my fake heart. I leaned back on the stone bench, sighing with content. In no time the wind chilled me down as I watched the sky turn f
rom rusty orange to
purple.

Soon the air became colder. Not gradually, but just…suddenly, like somebody had turned an outdoor thermostat all the way to zero. My breath made large puffs in the air and I shivered. The c
old felt like it was stabbing me
right through my thick clothes.
I should get going
, I thought, and bent over to pick up the plastic bag.

Except when I tugged on the handles
, they
snapped in half.
I blinked once, twice, in confusion,
then
looked down at the ground.

The entire bag
of leftovers
was coated in ice.
             

A sick feeling of dread washed over me. It wasn’t cold enough to do that. It wasn’t even
snowing.
It
never
snowed in Georgia. There was loud crackling sounds all ar
ound me, like when you pour pop
into a glass full of ice and watch the cubes snap and crack in half.

The wind picked up around me and what I saw ma
de my blood ru
n cold. All of the black trees were coated in frost and ice, but it was like the ice was
alive
as it crawled up to the tips of the branches. The weight of the snow and ice was too much
,
and a lot of the thinner branches cracked like a whip and fell to the hardened ground, shattering into pieces.

Every tree and every bush, even the grass, was encrusted in a veil of ice like white, sparkling moss, and it started spreading. Fast. The pathways that lead to the school buildings were covered, sliding up the lampposts and over the benches.

No way
, I wanted to scream,
there’s just no way! Dove said—
well, Dove was wrong! This wasn’t the work of Mother Nature on a PMS trip.

This had to be the work of an
alchemist
!

CHAPTER 19

Abandoning the ice-covered leftovers, I shot up
from my seat and ran as if
dachshunds were nipping at my feet. Don’t underestimate yipping dachshunds. Those annoying little hotdog shaped pups are
fierce.
I still had a freaking scar from when a neighbor’s one got loose and bit me on the calf
when I was eleven
. The crackling was loud in my ears as my feet pounded aga
inst the cobblestone pavement, b
ut I hadn’t even reached the end before something cold grabbed my ankle, sending me sprawling onto the ground.

A scream was caught in my throat as my chin collided painfully onto the sidewalk. My hands were scratched and bloodied all over when I tried to brace my fall. I
suspected that
someone had grabbed my ankle or tripped me, but my entire left foot was complet
ely frozen over in a large chunk
of ice. No matter how much I tugged, or tried to kick it, it wouldn’t budge.

I heard a whisper, but couldn’t make out who it belonged to. Was it a man?
A woman?
The whispering turned into shrieking, psychotic laughter and I almost cried. But I had to be strong!
Pull it together,
Em
!

“Who’s there?!”
I shouted out into the woods. Nothing except the ice shifting, but I strained my ears to make out muffled footsteps. I caught a glimpse of someone moving in the shadows, but all I could make out was a fluttering black cloak. Whoever they were, they weren’t taking any chances of being seen. “Show yourself!”

There was a loud snapping sound above me, and I twisted my head to try looking over my shoulder. My eyes widened, and the sensation of cold dread—probably colder than the ice encasing my foot—seeped even farther in my heart. On a large bare tree branch, a series of thick, heavy looking icicles hung down right above me. The cracking was the pressure of such a large weight breaking. Any second now it would come plunging right on top of me, and I couldn’t move!

The sputtering and crackling
become louder as I frantically kicked at the ice lump that covered my foot. It wouldn’t even matter if I could stop time—there was no way to escape this situation! Heavy sobs started wrenching from my throat when the snapping become louder and faster.

I don’t want to die like this
, I wanted to scream,
and there was so much to do. I wanted to save Dove and Leon from their fight and find the Elixir to save my life! Daddy…

With a final crack the large icicle broke free, and I screamed so loudly it felt like my throat was on fire.

I braced for the impact that should have come.

My eyes had been shut tight; I didn’t want to witness it. The blood was pounding in my ears so loudly I couldn’t make out the muffled voice. Slowly, I cracked my eyes open, and saw a shadowed form over me, and with a whoosh of warm air something came down on the fallen icicle, shattering it
into millions of pieces. Glass-
like shards fell on top of my shivering form.