Eternity (12 page)

I could tell
that it was torturing him. “You can learn,” I assured him. “The
older wolves don’t seem to have any problems. Maybe all it takes is
a little practice.”

“I don’t want
to practice! I just want to be normal.” He got up and paced back
and forth. I stood as well.

“Do it now,” I
said.

“Do what
now?”

“Change into a
wolf. There are only the two of us out here right now. You can try
to get used to it, and practice controlling yourself.”

Adrian shook
his head. “No way. You’re the last person I want to hurt.”

“Exactly. You
don’t want to hurt me, so I don’t think you will. You only tried to
last time because I surprised you and you didn’t know it was me.
After you realized who I was you didn’t try anything else. You
gained control.”

“Mr. Ramirez
isn’t here to protect you Juliet. It’s just too risky, and it’s
against the rules.”

“I trust
you.”

Adrian sighed
and studied me for a moment. Then he stopped pacing and walked off
the dock. I started after him, but he told me to stay.

“Where are you
going?” I called out to him.

“Just a little
ways. I’m going to turn, but I don’t want to be near you when I
do,” he called back.

He walked
halfway down the length of the lake before he stopped. He then
proceeded to take off his clothes right there in the open, which
made me blush, but I continued to watch anyway. I was worried that
he would be cold, but a moment later he turned into a large gray
wolf. I figured his thick fur would keep him warm enough.

He sniffed
around for a minute before trotting back in my direction. When he
got to me I bent down so that I would be level with him. He sniffed
me for a second, and then he nudged me with his nose. I was
balancing on the balls of my feet, so when he pushed me I promptly
fell over into the snow. He made a sound that was a mixture between
a bark and a laugh.

“Hey, no fair,”
I grumbled, getting up and trying to brush the snow off my pants.
He continued to laugh at me until I threw a snowball at him. In
response he turned around and kicked snow up at me with his back
legs, which I managed to dodge by running and hiding behind a tree.
When I peered back around, he was nowhere to be seen. I gathered a
snowball just in case.

I crept along a
rock wall, trying not to make any sound. I still couldn’t see
Adrian, but I found some paw prints in the snow. I was about to
investigate when a bunch of snow fell on me from above, and it felt
like half of it went down the back of my neck, which made me dance
around, trying to shake it out. I could hear Adrian’s barking
laugh. I had dropped my snowball in my surprise, but I quickly made
another and hurled it up over the rock wall. It hit him squarely in
the face.

“Ha!” I cried
triumphantly. He shook off the snow and tried to dump more snow on
me, but I moved out of the way. Seeing that he wasn’t successful,
he went over the hill so that he could come around to where I was.
I gathered a few more snowballs so that I would be ready when he
got to me.

Unfortunately
for me, I didn’t see him coming. I heard his steps too late, so by
the time I turned around he was already there. He knocked me off my
feet so I ended up lying flat on my back in the snow, with him on
top of me. Thankfully, he was smiling. He licked my face.

“Ew,” I said,
trying to push him off, but he just laughed. I tried to grab some
snow, but suddenly his hand was holding mine down. I looked up in
surprise, and he was looking down at me through human eyes, and
still smiling.

“Got ya,” he
said. His hand moved from mine to my face, and he lightly brushed
my cheek with his fingertips. I was aware that he was naked and
lying on top of me, and I shivered.

“Aren’t you
cold?” I asked, concerned.

Adrian just
laughed. “Not at all,” he said, before kissing me.

It ended all
too soon. Adrian got up and pulled me up with him. I thought he was
cold, but he showed no signs of being so. Instead he brushed the
snow off of me, and then dragged me along to go find his
clothes.

“You’re not too
cold, are you?” he asked me when we reached them.

“No,” I
answered. “I’m not the one who’s naked.”

“True, but you
were lying in the snow. Your pants are wet.”

I looked down
and saw that they were, indeed, wet. I also had some snow in my
boots and some that had fallen into my jacket that was melting, but
I still didn’t feel very cold. Adrian was dressed by then, so we
started walking back in the direction of the school.

“That wasn’t so
bad, was it?” I asked.

“No,” he said,
sounding surprised. “It was actually kind of fun.” He took my hand
and held it for the rest of the walk back. When we went inside I
started heading to the south wing to change, but Adrian pulled me
up the stairs.

“Where are we
going?” I asked.

“Back outside,”
Adrian informed me, pulling me across the floor of the ballroom
toward the glass doors that he had come in from earlier.

The courtyard
didn’t look quite the same as it had back when it was filled with
blooms. Now all the plants were lying dormant in the cold, covered
in snow. The sun was getting low in the sky, so it was just peeking
over the surrounding building. It cast a yellow glow on the
snow-covered bushes, making them seem just as magical as when they
were teeming with life. I couldn’t help but smile.

“You know, this
is where we first met,” Adrian commented as we walked along the
path.

“I’m not sure
that really counts as a meeting,” I said. “We didn’t speak until we
were dancing. You didn’t give me a chance to.”

Adrian grinned.
“How rude of me,” he said, before he turned me around to face him,
bringing his lips to mine.

We parted ways
when we got back into the school so we could change out of our wet
clothes. I waited until I was alone before I did a happy dance, and
I couldn’t stop grinning as I changed before heading down to
dinner.

Chapter
16

I slept in on
Christmas morning. I wasn’t expecting anything special to happen,
so I hadn’t bothered to set my alarm. I was quite surprised when I
woke up to see that there was a package for me on top of the chest
at the foot of my bed. It wasn’t big, but it was still unexpected.
Jack and I had never exchanged gifts, and I didn’t expect anything
from any of my new friends since none of them really celebrated the
holiday. In fact, I hadn’t received a gift since before my parents
died.

I got showered
and dressed before I went anywhere near the package. It was too
late to go to breakfast, so I grabbed some food from the fridge in
the kitchen off of the common room. Finally, when I had run out of
other things to do, I went back to my room and picked up the
package. It was square and flat, and wasn’t wrapped, though the box
itself was covered in a silver snowflake pattern, and it wasn’t
very heavy. My name was written in very neat letters on a tag in
one corner. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, and it didn’t say
who it was from.

My curiosity
got the best of me. I took the lid off of the box and set it down
beside me. Inside was a card and a smaller box that was surrounded
in tissue paper. I picked up the card and opened it. It featured
the same neat writing as on the tag.

Juliet,

Forgive me for
not getting you something better, and for not having gotten you
anything else in the past sixteen years. I do not expect gifts to
be welcome to you, since you are unfamiliar with them. I am only
giving you back something that already belongs to you. You will not
need it, but I hope that it will give you something to think about,
and maybe some of the answers you seek. I would say more, but you
would not want me to. I will merely wish you a happy holiday
instead.

Yours,

A Friend

It still didn’t
sound like anyone I knew, but I couldn’t help but be intrigued. If
there was ever anything that I wanted, it was answers. I opened the
inside box, not knowing what to expect, but eager to see what it
was.

Inside the box
were three beautiful keys. One was black, and looked like it was
made of obsidian. It had a skull with wings carved into one end. It
was sleek and shining, like glass. Another one of the keys also had
an interesting design, and appeared to be made of brass. It was
heavier than the first, and one end looked like the branches of a
tree, so the handle appeared to be a trunk. Still, it was the third
key that interested me the most. It was the most delicate and
intricate, but I couldn’t tell what it was made of. It didn’t look
like any type of metal, rock, or wood that I had ever seen, but I
thought that it may have been made from ivory. It was bright white
aside from three small sapphires that were embedded in its
interwoven design. I had never seen any of the keys before, so I
wondered why the person who gave them to me said they were already
mine. I also didn’t understand their significance. Still, they were
beautiful, and I wanted to keep them, so I strung them on the chain
I found in the box and put it around my neck. I slipped the keys
under my shirt, and kept them close to my heart.

Jack came and
found me shortly after, and we spent the rest of the morning
swimming in the pool. I told him that I had spent time with Adrian
the day before, and he wasn’t surprised. He said that Adrian had
been more cheerful than he had ever seen him before. I was happy to
hear that. I didn’t tell him about my keys. It seemed too
personal.

After we went
swimming we went for a walk outside. The sun was shining brightly
and it was warmer than it had been, so we weren’t the only ones out
enjoying the weather. The snow was melting away, which made me sad.
I liked the way it made everything look so pure.

“Remember
Christmas at Pembrook?” Jack asked as we were walking. “It was my
least favourite day of the year. Ms. Holland always made us
decorate the house, and Mrs. Jameson would make those horrible
cookies that we had to eat because she made them as a treat. I
don’t think anyone had the heart to tell her how bad they were,
even the younger ones.”

I smiled
briefly at the memory. “They really were horrible, but they weren’t
really the worst part. I remember how only a couple of kids would
get gifts, and some of the younger kids who hadn’t been there for
very long would cry because they didn’t get anything. It always
made me sad, even though I never wanted anything myself.”

“Dan was one of
the people who got gifts. He would say they were from his
grandparents or something, but they were always from his mom. He
told everyone she was dead, but he had gotten taken away from her
because of her drug use. I heard Ms. Holland talking about it
once.”

“Do you ever
miss them?” I asked.

“Not really,”
Jack admitted, shrugging. “I never liked anyone enough there to
miss them except for you, and I still have you here with me.” He
smiled.

“Thank goodness
for that,” I said. “Who else would I be able to drag with me to the
library?”

Jack groaned.
“You better not want to go there right now,” he complained.

I laughed and
shoved him playfully. “Why would I want to do that when it’s so
nice out here?”

“Thank goodness
for that,” Jack said, and we kept walking, breathing in the fresh
air.

***

The rest of the
holidays were over before I knew it. I was quite happy to have my
roommates back, since I had missed them. I wasn’t used to having a
room by myself. Melissa hugged me as soon as she saw me and started
rambling about her family, and Rhea just gave me a smile and
started to put her things away. Heather hugged me and drew me away
from the others as soon as she could.

“Did you find
out anything new while I was away?” she asked.

“Yes. I found a
book in the library about auras that confirmed what you had heard.
It said that the only known people to have white auras are Amun and
Isadora. I still don’t think that says anything about me though.” I
left out the part about the keys, especially because I had no idea
what they meant anyway, and I didn’t even know who they were
from.

“Well, that’s
good then,” she said. “It’s more evidence. I’ll keep listening in
on the teachers when I can to see if I can learn anything new for
you. I haven’t heard anything from Mrs. Bainbridge about her
meeting with Amun, but it could happen at any time, or I could have
missed it already.”

“You don’t need
to trouble yourself for me, Heather. I’m still perfectly convinced
that I’m just a normal hero with a rare aura color.”

“But how can
you ignore all of the evidence?”

“There has been
nothing concrete. I really believe I would know it if I was a
goddess. The whole idea seems completely ridiculous.”

“But you heard
Ms. Coleman’s story. Isadora would take away her own memories and
powers so that she could live a normal life. You could be doing
that right now, and I doubt you’d know it. You probably wouldn’t
want yourself to.”

“She also said
the only way she could get her powers and memories back was by
dying, and I’m definitely not taking that big of a risk based on a
theory.”

Heather looked
shocked. “Of course not! I wouldn’t expect you to kill yourself!
Surely there are other ways of knowing the truth. We need to find
out what Amun says, if he answers the headmaster’s call.”

“What do you
mean by ‘call’ anyway? Do you mean with a phone, or is it some kind
of mental thing?” I asked, curious.

“It’s a mental
thing, I’m pretty sure. My mother always told me you can call to
the gods with your thoughts, and sometimes they answer. It’s kind
of like praying, only not really. I don’t think they usually
answer, but it happens occasionally.”