The Unexplained (Ch. 1)

The Unexplained (Ch. 1)

CHAPTER 1

“Nope,” I replied simply. “My dad used to travel the ocean as his work; his boat was lost at sea one stormy season. And my mom caught some fatal disease about a year ago and was quarantined. She didn’t make it.”

“Where have you been living on the other side of the river, then? Surely you couldn’t have supported yourself on your own…you’re but fourteen!” Delba inquired, flustered.

I placed my chin in my hand and twiddled my fingers over the table. “My mom was friends with the Headmaster of a local University. When she died, he agreed to board me there as long as I got good grades in all the classes.”

“A University! Well, certainly the Headmaster will be missing you. We’ll try to get you across that bridge tomorrow if—

“I can’t go back there,” I interrupted her. She couldn’t send me back over that bridge when Lance was waiting at the other side. I would kill myself before that happened.

“Why not?” the two of them asked in unison. I glared down at the table instead of meeting their gaze, contemplating what I would say. Surely I couldn’t tell them some blonde maniac prefect from the University was after me and the Headmaster was in on his evil ploy; they’d count me crazy and believe nothing else I said afterward. After all, I was a student. Every student thought the Headmaster and the prefects were out to ruin their day. But no one would ever suspect that they were actually out to kill.

“I’m sure you’ll understand if I just say that I…can’t,” I said lowly. They said nothing for a few minutes, and I thought for sure they would insist on taking me over the bridge anyway.

“We understand,” Taffy comforted. So I was wrong. “There’s nothing you have to tell us. And if you’re sure you won’t cross that bridge again, we’re not going to force you. But you’ll need somewhere to live…”

“Oh, I won’t be a bother,” I assured them. “I’ll head out of here tomorrow morning and travel around until I—

“Absolutely not!” Delba protested. “You’re a little girl, and if you’re not going back to the University, you’re going to stay here. That’s final.”

“But I’m afraid I’ll just take up space,” I moaned. Staying here under both their arms would make me feel like a burden they never wanted.

“Nonsense,” she said kindly. She smiled a warm, loving smile. “We’ve no visitors. The attic is free, and you can have it.”

Taffy nodded. “Be our guest; we don’t mind at all. It’ll be an experience for us, kind of like having a child of our own. But Del can’t have ‘em, you see. If she could, we’d have lots by now, since we’ve always wanted some. In a way, you’re like a God-given gift.”

I felt extremely out of place being called someone else’s like-a-child. I grew used to Claire calling me that, but it took her an awful long time to adapt the habit. These people took it on right away, when I barely knew either of them. “At least let me do something to pay you both back,” I pled, hoping that would take away the useless feeling.

“You can help me around the house if you’d like,” Delba suggested. “There’s not much to do around here day to day, but I imagine what work there is will go a whole lot faster when we do it together. Then we’ll have the rest of the day to be lazy.”

“Alright,” I agreed. Chores were my specialty, and that was all Lance’s fault. At the Headmaster’s orders, he worked me to the bone outside of class hours, in the kitchen doing dishes, in the hallways scrubbing the floors, in the dining hall serving food. Anything he could think of that would make my life harder because I was a ‘freeloading’ student that he made no money off of.

I got in with smarts and stayed in that way, without having to pay him, on my mother’s will. And he hated me for it. Thousands upon thousands of students in that school, and he hated me because I was the only one not paid for. Like it made that much of a difference.

We finished our tea in silence. I stared into the russet water most of the time until it was gone, and then I spent time staring into the teacup, at the tealeaves left behind. I wished I could read them and have them predict my future for me, so at least I would know what was to come. The fact that I didn’t put my mind at unrest. Would Lance follow me?

Would I die?

Delba showed me to the attic after taking the teacups to the sink, gave me a nightgown of hers and advised me to go right to bed. There were sheets already on the twin bed in the corner, next to a small, circle window facing the building next door. I did as she said, slipped into the nightgown, and crawled into the squeaky bed, uneasy. What little sleep I predicted I would get wasn’t going to be enough to keep me going very long the next day, so I wondered if volunteering for chores was a good idea.

Sure it was. I would feel like a lump on a log otherwise. So I closed my eyes and tried to sleep as best I could, though my best wasn’t good enough. Lance’s voice echoed in my head.

“Saph?”

“Saph! You’re in for it now! Bugger, Headmaster, what do we do?!”

And then came the Headmaster’s scruffy reply. “Don’t let her escape, Lance! Go after her, now!”

I ran. My heart never beat so fast my whole life, not even when my father’s news came from overseas, not even when my mother lay dying. What I saw I wished I hadn’t seen, and so, as Lance sprinted after me down the halls, I wailed: “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

He only caught me inside the University once, when I fell down the last two stairs to the first floor, considering I knew the layout like the back of my hand. I kicked him in the shin, and he let go despairingly. From there on, it was out to the streets, where it was easier for him to gain.

“Do you know what you’ve done? Do you even know what you’ve just seen? Saph, get back here!”

I groaned and rolled over beneath the covers. I clasped my hand to my heart and hoped to God that Claire and Finnegan were okay. I didn’t know what it was Lance had thrown at them, and I didn’t think I wanted to. They were shadows…that came from the ground, out of nowhere, just as he waved his hand. Like everything else I had seen, this was also a mystery.

“…I won’t hurt you!”

I couldn’t believe Lance had the nerve to say something so vile. Liar. Liar Lance. Of course they would hurt me; how else would the Headmaster shut me up? It wasn’t like I would tell anyone anyways…unless I wanted to be seen as the town loony. But they’d never take that sitting down.

I sighed. “I almost kind of liked you, Lance,” I said to myself. “Mostly because you gave me a run for my money. Every other girl liked you because you were so handsome.” I snorted. “A pretty-boy. It only figures that you’re a monster inside.”

Wasn’t that how it always went? When someone looked so perfect…there always had to be a flaw. I never imagined his being like it was, but it was a flaw nonetheless, and earned him the reputation of a grisly gargoyle.

I rolled over again, back onto my other side, and shook away his memories with the concluding statement that Lance was a blonde devil and he would always be that way. I then turned my thoughts over to my mother; an easier concept that helped me to sleep. It didn’t last, because I soon became bothered by an unwanted tapping from the glass of the window. Most likely it was a bird; they came to pester at windows a lot when they felt warmth coming from the inside of a home.

I slung my feet over the side of the bed and walked groggily to the window, rubbing my eyes awake. Quietly, I heaved the little circle window open. The little bird that had been pecking at the panes flew backward a ways in a start, and came to sit at it’s edge again once it realized things were safe.

I placed my elbows in the rounded edge and held my chin in my hands, smiling at the cautious little fellow. “Don’t you know people are sleeping this time of night?” I teased. “You’re being very rude.”

It cocked its head to each side, seemingly asking to be let in from the night-chill. Or maybe he just wanted food.

“I don’t have anything for you, Mr. Sparrow, sorry,” I apologized. “I would have to go downstairs to get you bread, and it won’t do to wake everyone else up. If I let you in, I’m afraid you’ll never let me rest. Not like I was getting anywhere with that, but I would very much like to try again.” He stayed on the sill awhile more, and then flew off once he discovered I wasn’t going to help him in any way. I stuck my head further out the window and watched him disappear.

It was then I noticed somebody wandering below, in the middle of the street. The figure halted just a short time before striding in a different way, where I couldn’t follow any longer with my eyes. What kind of fool is out at this time, I thought, promptly afterwards shutting the window and crawling back into bed. It would be in their common sense not to roam when night-owl street rats did, or at least I thought so. That person didn’t look like a street rat, so I assumed he was simply daft, and put the matter aside so I could sleep.

I shot upright in bed to the sound of movement and sizzling sounds coming from downstairs. The smell of bacon wafted in around me, alerting me that I slept in a little too long. That’s how my internal clock ran at the University if Lance didn’t wake me up for early kitchen duty, and it still stuck here. I hoped Delba wouldn’t be mad that I’d overslept and couldn’t help her with breakfast.

I hurried down from the attic and into what I guessed was Delba and Taffy’s room to take my clothes from the clothesline that ran from the window across the alley, and then made my way back up to the attic to change. From there, it was a short sprint all the way downstairs with not so much as even a second thought toward my hair. It usually situated itself to my liking on its own; my expectations weren’t very high. If Lance didn’t like it back at the University, he would sit me down and fix it himself while I kicked and squirmed. I sneered at him internally because he couldn’t do so today.

“Sit on down,” Taffy bellowed joyfully when I came into the kitchen area. “Del’s almost done fixing breakfast.”

“Sorry I didn’t wake up in time to help,” I lamented, already getting a wave of the ‘I’m useless’ feeling. I sat at the dining table as instructed, directly across from Taffy, and twiddled my thumbs.

“Nah, it’s all right. We figured it’d only be fair to let you sleep as long as you wanted, since you had such a day yesterday,” he laughed. “Nearly drowning isn’t an easy deal.”

Neither was running the town’s distance to the river on top of that, I added secretively. My joints still popped and ached from the over-exertion. Delba came to the table in minutes with plates of eggs and bacon for each of us and sat down herself, as bright and energetic as ever.

“Enjoy!” she said jollily.

And I certainly did. Nothing that was made in the kitchen at the University came even close to it. The most they could do was oatmeal every morning for the hundreds of students that boarded there as I did, and soup for dinner. Though the type of soup varied from night to night, I detested eating it to stay alive. I had no money myself, so going out in town to scrounge up some better food wasn’t an option, either.

After plates were stacked in the sink, Taffy bid us both goodbye and headed for the river, where he loaded cargo onto the boats that stopped for it. No wonder he had so much muscle; those crates were stacked to the brim with fruits and veggies, and sometimes just simple products like sawdust and nails.

Delba and I saw him off, and then went back indoors. I consulted her at once.

“What am I to do today?” I asked, eager for a job around the house. She grinned.

“Well aren’t you off to a fast start?” she chuckled. “Well, I don’t need to wash any windows today…but there’s laundry to do, and I need to scrub the floors. How about I take care of the laundry outside, and you can scrub? While the floors are drying, if you wouldn’t mind, you can go into Market Square up ahead and fetch me a few things I’m out of grocery-wise. How does that sound?”

“Sounds great,” I said, excited to be earning my keep. So she got me a bucket, filled it with water, and handed me a rag. I took it from there, opened all the windows in the house for the floors to dry faster, and ran the rag up and down every inch of them thoroughly. Meanwhile, Delba worked hard at the laundry in a bucket outside, which included the nightgown she’d given me and the dress, as well. I grabbed my old boots when I finished, pulled them on outside, and then made sure to help Delba hang wet clothes on the line before she sent me into town.

“You’re quite the little worker bee,” she joked while she reached into her apron pocket for some money I could take to the Market Square for the things she needed. “Now, do you have a good memory?”

She placed more than enough six-pence coins in my hand, and I put them in my apron pocket afterwards, nodding ‘yes’ to her question.

“Listen close, now,” she said. “I need a bushel of carrots, five potatoes, ten thin slices of bacon and three eggs. Did you get all that?”

“Bushel of carrots, five potatoes, ten slices of bacon, three eggs. Got it,” I replied.

“Good,” she beamed. “There’s a basket right over there, take it with you.”

I went to fetch it, and made my way up the road promptly afterwards, boots clopping on the cobblestone like horse’s hooves. Market Square wasn’t far up the hill, and it wasn’t hard to spot, either. People bustled about it, gossiped with neighbors, and bartered with salesclerks at the stands around the side. I hoped my basket was deep enough for the groceries I ran over in my head, but I wasn’t far from home. There was always the possibility of a second trip.

I quickly found the stand that sold good-looking carrots and potatoes, loaded the amount instructed into my basket, and handed two six-pence to the clerk. He thanked me and put the money away, clearly wondering about the new face in town.

“You from overseas?” he inquired curiously. “I’ve ne’er seen a face like yours ‘round here.”

I shook my head politely. “I’m from the other side of the river; I just got here yesterday.”

He rubbed his chin. “You don’t look like an other-sider, really. They’re ne’er happy folk o’er there, it seems.”

“Most of them aren’t,” I agreed. “But you can’t blame me for being different; I’m still young.”

“So they only get crotchety as adults, huh?” he mused. I laughed, said goodbye, and made my way to a meat-seller. The clerk at that stand asked the same to my unfamiliar face, and I told him the same after receiving the wrapped bacon I needed, setting it in my basket, and paying for it. I then set off to an egg-seller, picked out three eggs, paid him, answered his questions, and made for home with a full basket.

“I’m back!” I called cheerily, coming through the open door. Delba was busy at the stove, so I set the basket by the window and went to help her. It was around lunch time, so she had begun to make a meal consisting of fried rice, fried slices of ham, and chopped stalks of celery. I helped her monitor the different dishes as they cooked, and when they finished, she set up a box, and put a little of each inside it.

“What’s that for?” I questioned as she covered it, and wrapped it in a checkered cloth, tying all ends at the top.

“This is for Taffy; I make him lunch every day and take it to him before I sit down and eat,” she explained.

“I’ll take it to him,” I offered. “He’s just down at the riverside, right?”

“Right. That’d be just fine.” She gave it to me, and I carried it securely by the knot on my way down to the riverside. I spotted Taffy in an instant, standing aboard a trader’s boat, waiting for cargo to be handed off to him for loading. I came down to the marble edge and caught his attention. He took the box graciously.

“It’s still warm,” I told him. “I hope you like it!”

“Like it always is,” he chortled. “Thank you much for taking it here, Saph.”

I smiled in return, waved goodbye, and ran back up the hill. As I came into the doorway, I worked on taking off my boots. “He says thanks,” I said for Delba to hear, but it seemed she wasn’t the only one that did. When the second boot was off, I looked up and saw someone with her at the table, talking in calm conversation.

My heart stopped in its tracks, and I felt my breath stop in my throat.

“It’s a miracle you happened to stop here; I’m sure your Headmaster’s been worried sick about her. We offered to take her back over the river and explain the whole thing, but she refused for whatever reason,” Delba murmured to the person I least wanted to see at anytime in my life.

“He has. We were afraid she might’ve been hurt or kidnapped. It’s only natural she refused; crossing the river is dangerous, and, should anything go wrong, she can’t swim,” the monster lied. I felt my knees shaking.

Delba noticed me at the door now when she hadn’t at first. “Sapphire, you’re back. And look! Look who stumbled across my house in desperate search of you! He was so worried!” Lance turned in the end chair to face me with cold, grey eyes. I took a step backwards.

“Indeed I was,” Lance said roughly. “So, so worried.”