The House of Grey- Volume 1 (17 page)

"Yeah," said Monson in surprise. He considered the girl for a moment, studying her slightly protuberant eyes. "You’re familiar to me; have we met before?"

      "I don't think so,” said the girl with a coy little smile. "But I wouldn't mind getting to know you." She pushed her glasses father up the rim of her nose and gave him a slight wink.

Monson turned to Casey and Artorius, searching for some kind of guidance. They said nothing and just stared. When no help came, Monson returned his attention to the girl. "I’m flattered, but I don’t even know your name. Why don’t we start there?"

“Miranda,” said the girl with an approving smile.

“Monson,”
he placed a hand on his chest
.
“
This is Casey.” He slapped Casey on the back. “And the oaf on the end is Arthur.”

“Don’t call me Arthur!” snapped Artorius.

“Pleased to meet you all.” She stared at each of them in turn, giving them the chills. It was like she was sizing them up for some sort of show. Something about this girl didn’t feel normal.  She continued to scrutinize them before eventually settling on Monson.

“So how do you like Coren so far?”

“I can’t complain." And really, he couldn’t. “I have really nice living quarters. A really cool...” What was the word he used? "Man servant. And it seems like our teachers are going to be pretty cool.”

“Oh really?” Miranda looked doubtful.

“Well, I guess. I can’t really say for sure,” conceded Monson. “I've only met one.”

“And it doesn’t seem that we're going to be meeting anymore, not this hour at least,” interrupted Casey. “What a fruit cake. I could be working on my screenplay right now.” He said this to no one in particular. 

“Come on now, Casey,” said Monson. “Let's not jump the gun. There could be any number of explanations for her being late.”

“Yeah, like she’s a nutbar dipped in crazy coating.”

“You’re hopeless.”

“That’s right, Casey,” declared Miranda. “You really shouldn’t judge without all the facts. Often your first impression isn’t the correct one.” She paused and looked off in the distance. Her eyes whipped back to Casey, "Then again, sometimes it is.”

“What do you mean?” asked Casey, looking at the girl with an increasingly cynical eye. “What kind of a teacher lets their students sit alone for twenty minutes on the first day of classes?”

The girl gave him a sly little grin but did not answer. It was in that moment that Monson had to wonder if…no, it couldn’t be.

“I don’t know,” Miranda said, turning her attention back to her book, “One trying to prove a point.”

“What could that point,” he gestured to the waiting students “possibly be?”

“I think you should probably figure that out for yourself
.
Cassius.”

Wait a minute thought Monson. Cassius.

Casey made to answer but was interrupted by Monson. “I don’t think you want to say anything else,
Cassius.
”

“Why are you calling me—” 

        "Very good, Mr. Grey." Miranda’s tone was again different. It sounded cool and rich, but with traces of the young girlish undertone from moments ago.  “You have been very helpful in proving my point. I was told you were a sharp one. When did you figure it out?”

Monson looked at her keenly. “I think I knew from the beginning.” He hadn’t really, but he thought he might as well own it. One good thing was, he did know where he recognized her from: orientation.

Artorius and Casey gaped in absolute
bewilder
ment. Monson just laughed.

        "Oh, boys. You are indeed missing something. But I’m sure it will be made clear momentarily.” Miranda pulled off her glasses, which she apparently did not need. She peered at them with deep smoldering eyes that were at odds with her lank hair. How had he not noticed such eyes?

"So, now what happens?" asked Monson.

        "I'll show you."  The girl stood up. She remained next to her seat as she righted herself, smoothing out her top and straightening her skirt. She walked towards the front of the classroom. Other people in the classroom started to notice. The idle chatter died down as people watched, curious as to what this girl would do.

Miranda stood in front of the class, a calm, grounded expression on her face. It was vastly different than her previous flighty demeanor.  Evidently, her acting was better than Casey originally thought.  She smiled at the different students who seemed to finally
comprehend
what was happening. She turned and wrote on the blackboard.

“My name is Miranda Blake.” She wrote her name on the blackboard at the same time she spoke. “You may call me Miranda. Any questions so far?”

No one in the room spoke.

“Excellent,” Miranda said, dipping back into her flighty voice. “I have a question that I want you to all ponder before we call roll and review the syllabus.”

Monson chanced a glance at the rest of his classmates, who looked mildly i
nterested. He noticed Artorius’
eyes suddenly grow very large. Slowly, Monson turned back to their professor.

Professor Blake had removed her hair
which just happened to be a wig. Long, blonde curly hair, not unlike Kylie’s, was bound in a net-like piece of cloth. She let the confined curls fall, and with this simple action, Miranda Blake captured her the attention of her class.

***

The rest of that first day — the classes, people and interactions — were disjointed and distinctly new. Given his memory loss, this fact was probably a safe assumption. However, there was nothing familiar about this traditional school setting. It was definitely something new for him, even if he couldn’t remember for sure.

His lack of memories notwithstanding, Monson felt his next two classes were relatively...well, normal, at least compared with his first class. His Applied Mathematics class, taught by a sickly looking but very nice woman named Sally Masters, felt like a necessary evil.  The class was hard, very hard in fact. Sally herself looked like she was falling apart at the seams. Monson was almost positive that she was at least partially blind.   Despite her appearance, however, Professor Masters was vigorous. Vigorous to the point where she made students do push-ups if they answered a question incorrectly. (Monson end up doing a lot of push-ups that day.) She also gave them a boatload of homework.

Next was Science, which took the freshman students to the far side of the campus.  A massive building that doubled as the county’s hospital housed one of the most advanced health care facilities in the nation. In this facility, students received the rare privilege of learning from a range of leading experts in both the social and physical sciences. Monson learned that for their first few weeks, Professor Scott Lucas, a Bioengineer from the University of Washington, would handle their Biology class, while Dr. Henry Cast, a Ph.D. and professor at Bowling Green University, would lecture them on sociology.  The two professors were very knowledgeable without a hint of personality.   It was all very impressive. Yet, it was so—

“Boring!” yelled Casey, as they walked out of the building an hour and a half later. Monson scanned their surroundings, hoping they were far enough away that they would not be overheard. 

“Ugh,” continued Casey. “If we have to sit through another one of those lectures I might have to take myself to the top of Mt. Rainier and jump off!”

“Well, that’s just silly,” said Monson amusedly.

“Don’t try and stop me, Grey,” said Casey dramatically. “I have no intention—”

“Casey.”

“Of allowing their artistic repression—”

“Casey!”

“To dampen my poetic spirit—”

“CASEY!”

Casey abruptly stopped talking. “What?”

"I don’t plan on stopping you.”

“What?”

“I said, I don’t plan on stopping you.”

Casey looked baffled at this.

“What do you mean, you don’t plan on stopping me?”

Monson sighed. “If you want to throw yourself from the top of Mt. Rainer, I don’t plan on stopping you. I was just going to say that any of the buildings here would suffice for a venture of that type. You only need a couple of stories to fall from, especially if you go headfirst.  Going all the way to Mt. Rainer would be a waste of gas; you should be more worried about global warming.”

They looked at each other, then without warning started to laugh. Others joined in, which surprised Monson. It seemed that already Casey was very popular. Actually, people who probably did not even hear their exchange started to laugh, including a girl with short, sassy brown hair and light brown eyes.  She smiled at them as she passed, and made eye contact with Monson. Her smile was a bit on the wicked side.

“Who is that?” Artorius turned to Monson “Grey, do you know her?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“She’s really pretty.”

Monson started to reply, but stopped when he notic
ed a strange glint in Artorius’
eye.

Artorius advanced very quickly, leaving Monson and Casey in the midst of Casey’s adoring crowd. Monson leaned toward Casey.

"What on earth was that about?”

Casey looked a little uncomfortable. He sighed.

“Artorius...he wants a girlfriend.”

Monson waited, thinking that surely that could not be all there was to it, but Casey did not say anything else.

“He wants a girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” answered Casey. “He wants a girlfriend.”

“Umm…I feel like I missed something there.”

"It’s a long story.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“That would be best.”

The two of them did not see Artorius again until well into lunch. Monson and Casey found a spot in the back corner of the cafeteria where they tried to remain unnoticed by their fellow classmates. Monson felt this said something about Casey. He was not the type of person to bask in the admiration of the others, For the most part, people sat apart from them with the exception of the boy in the wheelchair that Monson attempted to help earlier that day.  Wheelchair boy ignored them and they him even though they were sitting next to one another.  About forty minutes after they sat down, Artorius finally showed up.

“Where were you?” exclaimed Monson and Casey in unison, the latter actually spitting out food.

Artorius did not say anything. He just sat and arranged his food, but instead of eating he just stared at his plate looking happy. 

Monson spoke to him.
“Artorius …are you OK?”

Artorius turned to look at him. “OK? I’m freaking great!”

“You didn’t answer our question,” said Casey. “Where were you this whole time?” 

Artorius gave him a devilish grin. “It's a surprise, you’ll see.”

Monson hated when people said things like that.

They finished their food, Artorius eating with gusto, as he did not have much time. Twenty minutes later, the boys found themselves at The GM’s main entrance. Casey stopped there and gestured.

“We’re down this way.”  He pointed towards the direction of The Barracks. “You gonna be all right on your own? You sure you don’t want us to walk with you?”

Monson eyes narrowed, but he smiled. “Of course not. I wouldn’t want you to ruin my rep.”

Both Artorius and Casey laughed.  “All right, we’ll meet up with you later. Don’t get lost.”

They left, Casey still attempting to force out of Artorius where he went.

Monson watched them leave, feeling slightly apprehensive. Going to Mr. Gatt’s history class by himself had seemed like a good idea when he signed up, but now they were actually leaving — no, he should not think that way. He would be fine.

It took some time to find, but eventually Monson neared a small brick building surrounded by a grove of trees and a hedge. Detached from the main portion of Coren’s campus the classroom seemed out of place on Coren’s campus, but nice at the same time.  The scenery was very peaceful, and the combination of pine, weeping willow, and a variety of flowers created an unusually lovely and fresh aroma. It lightened Monson's heart a great deal, making him forget his worries ever so briefly.

His mind drifted for a time until a voice rang out from under a patch of trees, interrupting his solitude. Tentatively, he spoke.

“Hello?”

No answer came. He echoed his greeting.

“Hello?”  Again, no answer.

He moved closer to where he thought the sound came from, when he heard it again. A beautiful voice rang out, clear, clean and harmonious, as if it was creating its own accompanying notes. Monson wandered, searching, as the music rose and fell. He stopped and peered through the drapes of a willow tree and saw a girl with long dark hair standing maybe fifty feet in the distance. Monson wished he could make out the words as he found the melody very appealing; though he was standing close enough to hear her voice, he was too far away to hear the actual verse. Monson continued to listen and allowed his mind to wander. Suddenly, the girl turned.