The Search for Artemis - By P. D. Griffith Page 0,41
can help you. Meet me back here at two a.m. tonight. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stare.”
Landon looked away, embarrassed at the chance that he’d inadvertently offended her, but when he looked back, she was gone. He spun around. She was nowhere in sight.
• • • • •
“I think you should go,” Katie Leigh suggested at dinner after hearing the story of Landon’s odd encounter.
“Are you crazy?” Riley added. “Peregrine is the worst lifter in the Gymnasium! What on Earth would she help Landon with?”
“It has been four weeks since he came here, and he still can’t make anything happen on purpose, right?” Katie Leigh turned to Landon. “Haven’t you said that every time you’ve used your powers, that you didn’t actually mean to?”
Landon embarrassingly replied, “Yeah.”
“He doesn’t need her help,” Riley scoffed. “He’ll be lifting buses again in no time. He just has to find his footing.”
Katie Leigh looked back at Riley, disgusted. “Riley, you’ve been saying that since ‘The Marble Incident.’ Landon has tried everything: my sage advice, your useless tips. Even the professors can’t seem to get him going. If she says she can help, I think he should try it. Granted, it’s a bit strange she wants to meet you in the middle of the night, but what can it hurt?”
“What can it hurt?” Riley exclaimed, seeming shocked by Katie Leigh’s stance on the matter. “If anyone finds them together, it can destroy what little bit of status he still has.”
Katie Leigh huffed loudly as she rolled her eyes. “When will you face it that you’re never going to be sitting with the likes of Brock Holbrooke and his gang.”
“You saw the photo. If Landon can figure himself out, he could own this place.”
“But right now, nothing is working, which is exactly why he needs to go and meet with Peregrine tonight.”
Riley and Katie Leigh continued as if Landon wasn’t even at the table. They bickered and fought over a decision that wasn’t even theirs to make. Landon eventually realized he would need to make up his own mind alone, so as they continued to bicker, he got up to leave the cafeteria.
“Well,” Riley interjected. “What’re you gonna do about tonight?”
“I have no idea,” Landon said as he turned and walked away.
The hours after dinner went by slowly. Landon heard the other students socializing in the hallway as they went into their respective rooms for the night while he lay on his bed looking up at the ceiling. Around midnight, Brock entered the room and went to bed without exchanging a single word. Landon paid him no mind and remained laying atop his sheets deep in thought.
It wasn’t until five minutes before two that he decided to at least head toward the Atrium and listen to what Peregrine wanted to say. Her offer to help him was kind. It was the proposed time of their meeting that he found strange, but Landon’s brief encounter with her that afternoon had piqued his interest.
From the dormitories, Landon proceeded down the foreboding hallway that led to the Atrium. Its massive stone pillars disappeared into the darkness above with only their bases scarcely lit by a pale midnight glow. The silence was palpable, and the sound of his steps echoed ominously through the abandoned halls.
He turned down the hallway that lead straight into the Atrium, but once he saw the massive oak tree in the distance, he stopped. With every step, Riley’s voice crept into his mind, making him wonder if this late night rendezvous would warrant another tirade of attention he didn’t want. He stood there for a few minutes having the same argument with himself he’d been having since he left dinner. Could she really help? What did she know that no one else did? He didn’t want to cause another situation like before, but he also was running out of options.
“Landon, what are you waiting for?” Peregrine’s voice echoed through the hallway, surrounding Landon and startling him. There was no turning back now. She knew he’d come. He would just have to see if she could help.
Peregrine stood stoically under the tree. The clouds of the afternoon storm had dispersed and given rise to a clear night sky with only the stars and a large luminous moon hanging overhead. Beams of moonlight streamed through the glass dome, sheathing the marble of the Atrium in a porcelain sheen and making Peregrine’s figure gleam like it was covered in