The Purity of Blood: Volume I (20 page)

SARA

Monday
morning woke me the same as any other day.
 
My alarm sounded, rousing me out of a deep
sleep I didn’t want to abandon quite so easily.
 
After reluctantly opening my eyes, I began to go through the motions of
my normal routine.
 
Clothes, hair, make-up,
fruit loops, O.J., teeth, and then off to class.
 
As I grabbed my backpack and opened the door
to leave, Tabitha almost hit me.
 
She’d
been about to knock on my door.

“What are you
doing here?” I asked with a smile. I’d missed my friend over the weekend.

“Mike told me
about your accident so I brought you a present from home.”
 
She handed me a crutch.

“Did you just
happen to have one lying around?” I laughed.

“I broke my leg
a few years ago.
 
It was still in the
back of my closet at my parent’s house, so I brought it back for you.
 
You probably won’t need it for long, but it’s
a long walk around campus when you’re hopping on one foot.”

I laughed.
 
“I suppose so.”
 

I put my
backpack on and tried it out.
 
It worked
pretty well and was probably a good idea.
 
My ankle actually felt much better today, but I’d forgotten how much
walking I had to do while getting from one class to another.
 
All things considered, fast healer or not, I probably
shouldn’t push it too much.
 

“Thanks,” I said
with a grateful smile.
 
“We’d better get
going or we’re going to be late.”

“Yeah” she
said.
 
“I don’t want to be late and have
Daniel call on
me
today.
 
I was a bad girl and didn’t study much over
the weekend.”
 

When she turned,
I tried out my crutch and followed her down the hallway.

I was startled at the casual way in which she had said his
name.
 
What would she see on my face when
I actually saw him in person?
 
Would I
smile like some ridiculous school girl like the rest of them, or would I have
fear in my eyes while visions of the back of his closet flooded my mind?
 
Either way, I knew I had to hide any feelings
from her.
 
I’d always had a hard time
with that, and now was not the time to have Tabitha’s imagination kicking into
overdrive.

On our way over to the lecture
hall Tabitha asked about my weekend and told me about what she’d done at her
parent’s house.
 
I regurgitated the same
horrible lies about my solo day of hiking and fall down the stairs.
 
In all honesty, I’d actually considered
telling her the truth, I really had, but something held me back.
 
Maybe it was because I didn’t want the bubble
to burst.
 
Like speaking his name would
break the strange spell between us.
 

Maybe that would
have been the best thing for me.
 
She
could have talked me out of the dark ideas that were forming in my head.
 
But something told me involving her might not
be the best thing for her.
 
I was
beginning to think whatever hidden subtext I’d stumbled upon could be dangerous
in the wrong hands.
 

I’d decided one
thing in my evening of not thinking about Daniel, and that was that there was
no denying he was
not
normal.
  
My rational side wasn’t sure what he was,
but there were facts at hand that said clearly how very different he was.
 
My emotional side saw this too.
 
It also told me that he knew all this and
tried to make these differences less noticeable.
 
He didn’t want people to see what I’d been
able to.
 
Of course all this felt foolish
to me, because after all, what did I really know?
 

After we took
our seats, Rodney entered through the side door and went about his usual
routine of setting things up.
 
A moment
later Daniel strode in just as he’d done all the days before, and quickly
jumped into his lecture without looking up at the class.
 

I noticed
nothing discernibly different about him.
 
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting.
 
Maybe it was because I felt I knew him a little better now.
 
Perhaps I’d anticipated that the scraps of
what little knowledge I now had about him would give me some insight into the
mystery that was Daniel.
 
I think I’d
hoped to be able to read him differently.
 
But he looked like the same man who’d stood there and lectured us last
week.
 
I had no idea why, but I think I
was a little disappointed.
 
I guess I
wanted to think that I knew him well enough now to be able to interpret the
hidden meanings in the smallest of his gestures.
 
Could I be any bigger of an idiot?

He’d been using
his laser pointer most of the class, looking up at the slide projections on the
screen above his head.
 
After about
twenty minutes, he finally turned around to ask a question.
 
His eyes scanned the room from left to right
and eventually fell on mine in the process.
 
He lingered on my face for a fraction of a second longer than anyone
else.
 
I noticed, but no one else seemed
to.
 
If Tabitha had, I’m sure she’d have
kicked me under the table.
 

When he finally
asked his question of a student in the back rows, I could hear Tabitha exhale
beside me.
 
I wasn’t sure what she was
worried about.
 
She’d never been called
on in class.
 
I think with Professor
Walker no one had need to worry about being put on the hot seat while I was
around.
 
Even with Daniel, I think her
proximity to me placed her in a zone of exclusion, perhaps too close to be
touched.
 

Yep, my paranoia
reared its ugly head once more.

Class ended too
soon.
 
I felt like I had missed something
in my notes, but I had no idea what it could be.
 
It was probably because I’d spent too much
time contemplating the lecturer and not the lecture.
 
With an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach,
I gathered my books and got to my feet.
 
Tabitha kindly reached down, picked up my crutch and handed it to me, as
she slung my backpack over her shoulder.
 
With a maternal eye, she carefully watched as I made my way up the
stairs and when we reached the top she signed us both out.
 

While waiting
for her, I turned to look down into the hall.
 
Daniel was surrounded by his female coed admirers once again.
 
Like a chorus of chirping birds, they were
all asking him questions at the same time.
 
Oblivious to the cacophony they created, he looked up from the center of
the circle and found me.
 
I was trying
not to laugh at the absurdity of the moment, but a smile crept on to my lips
before I could reign it back in.
 
Perhaps
unintentionally himself, he returned my smile with a slight one of his own then
went back to his legion of followers.
 
One of them, having caught his glance, followed it up to me only to
shoot me a dirty look before returning to ask him her very important question
that just couldn’t wait.
 

As Tabitha
joined me, she looked down as well.
 

“I just don’t
get it,” she said, shaking her head from side to side.
 
“Yes, he’s … insanely gorgeous, but there’s
just something about him … I don’t know … I just don’t get it.”
 

With a shrug of
her shoulders, she turned and started for the exit while I, ever so
ungracefully, followed her out of the hall.

I got it.

As we parted at the exit doors, we made plans to meet up for
our usual dinner over in Hasbrouck.
  
The
comfort of routine, I hoped would be my friend today.
 
I needed to get back to normal.
 
I sure wish Professor Walker would get back
from wherever he’d run off too.
 
I
assumed his return would mean Daniel’s departure from my daily life and a
return to the normalcy I so desperately craved.

After my last class for the day,
I went back to Capen Hall.
 
I was
exchanging my text books for my genealogy things when there was a knock on the
door.
 
I looked up to see the knob turn as
the door cracked open.

“Sara?”
 
Ben’s head popped in the door.

I breathed a
sigh of relief.
 

“Hi, Ben.
 
What are you doing here?”

“I heard about
your accident.
 
I just wanted to stop by
and see how you were.
 
See if you needed
anything.”

He walked in and
flashed me that amazing smile of his.
  
My poor heart went pitter pat against its will.
 

“Thanks, that’s
nice.
 
I’m fine though.
 
I was just on my way over to the library for
the rest of the afternoon.”
 
I reached
down and picked up my full backpack.
 

Taking it out of
my hands, he said “I’ve got a few minutes.
 
I’ll walk you over there.”
 
Then
he swung it over his shoulder and handed me my crutch.

“I’d tell you
not to bother, but quite frankly that thing weighs a ton.” I laughed.
 
“Besides, apparently I’m supposed to let a
man treat me like a lady.”

Ben
laughed.
 
“Who told you that, your
father?”

“I’m sure he
said it at some point in my life.” I muttered as I reached for my jacket.
 

Taking it from
me, Ben held it open for me to slip into.
  

“I guess I can
be a gentleman.
  
That is, if I
want
to be one.”

I didn’t turn around automatically, but slowly reached down
for my keys.
 
I didn’t want him to see
the blush that had spread across my cheeks.

Ben accompanied me over to the
library and made sure I got settled at my usual table.
 
He had class and didn’t linger long, although
I had a feeling he might have liked to.
 
For some reason I couldn’t fathom, he looked hesitant to leave.
 

Unable to let my puzzle drop, I spent the rest of the
afternoon pouring over local history books trying to find more information on
the series of deaths in 1905 that had claimed the life of Daniel Bennett.
 
Unfortunately, most of the books I could find
were on the early history of the first settlers of the county and not on the
late nineteenth / early twentieth centuries.
 
My last resort would be to contact the Ulster County historical
society.
 
I’d give it some more time
though.
 
Contacting them felt like
admitting I couldn’t find it on my own and I hated to admit defeat before I’d
exhausted every avenue.

Even though my ankle had stopped
throbbing, I was dog tired.
 
As the
afternoon progressed, it kept getting harder and harder for me to keep my eyes
open.
 
Leaning back in my chair, I ran my
fingers over the sore spot on my scalp.
 
The bump on my head was only noticeable to me, but I could distinctly
feel it just above my hairline.
 
Careful
not to hit the sore spot, I put my head down on my crossed arms and allowed my
eyes to close for just a second.
 

“We’re closing
up, dear,” was the next thing I heard as a librarian tapped me on the shoulder.

“What time is
it?” I muttered.

“Five to ten,”
she said, as she walked away.

I’d been asleep for almost four hours?
 

How did that happen?
 

I sat up and
stretched.
 
My neck ached from the
awkward position I’d been in.
 
Still hazy
from my long nap I gathered up my things.
 

The room felt
wrong somehow.
 
The floor to ceiling
windows at my back were now filled with the empty blackness of night.
 
As I stood, I could see the lights of the
parking lot below and a faint glow on the horizon coming from the direction of
town.
 
I’d only been here a couple of
times after dark.
 
I preferred to study
in my room after dinner.

Passing no one
on the way, I headed out of the deserted section of the library, down a few
flights of stairs and out a side exit.
 
The night air was getting colder now and I took a moment to zip up my
jacket and pull the collar up around my neck.
 

I should have
taken the front exit I thought to myself.
 
It was all grassy hills over here and the front was cement steps that
would have been much easier to navigate using a crutch.
 
But it was too late now.
 
The back exit had locked behind me.