Shadow Phantoms - H.P. Mallory Page 0,36
or cheese, you have no business being older than a hundred.”
“Don’t let Mathilda hear you say that.”
None of us knew how old she actually was, but Mathilda had an ethereal timelessness about her that made guessing at an actual number feel futile.
“Oh, you know what I mean.” she said. “Things lose their relevance after a while. I don’t see anyone walking around in low-rise jeans anymore.”
“And thank the lord for that,” I said. I remembered the year or so ago when all you could see for miles were ass cracks.
“What’s new with you?” Rowan asked. “Any cute guys?”
“Well, there is this new professor…” I didn’t want to talk about him. I really didn’t, but it was like the words shot out of my mouth anyway.
“Ooohhhh. Tell me more.”
“I actually thought he was a student when I first met him. He must’ve just graduated from the collegiate program or something ‘cause he looks… young.”
“Does Emma have a crush on the sexy new teacher?”
“Emma has an assignment from the sexy new teacher, so I should probably get go—”
“You just admitted he was sexy!” she yelled gleefully.
I smiled despite myself, shaking my head. “I have to go now.”
“Oh, come on, Emma!” Rowan laughed, a happy bubbling sound.
“I’m hanging up now!
“Wait! Professor! Don’t hang up! I love you, Professor Dreamy…” And she made a kissing sound.
“Goodbye, Rowan…”
“Goodbye, professor-lover!”
She laughed again, and I shut off the sound with a swift click. It was Rowan’s nature to tease me about boys. If she were the one at school, I was sure I’d be doing the same to her. The jokes were nothing unusual, but this feeling was…
For some reason, her jokes about Stone bothered me. I wanted to defend myself, to deny the fact that I thought he was super hot, or to shut down the notion of my having feelings altogether. But there was something in me that responded to the mere thought of him. And, as much as I might’ve wanted to, I couldn’t just laugh in the face of it. There was no denying I felt something for the magnetizing man with all the sun’s warmth in his smile, but feeling something and doing something about those feelings were two very different things.
“Thought is action in rehearsal.” I cursed the quote for popping into my head. Sigmund Freud can really ruin anything he puts his unconsciously repressed mind to, I thought. I raked my fingers through my wavy blond hair and sighed deeply, closing my eyes to focus fully on the clean, crisp January air.
Steeled by a fresh sense of clarity, I put my tangled headphones in my ears, turned up my music on my phone, and tried to keep my mind completely blank.
Panic! At the Disco blared from my headphones at an ungodly volume. I managed to walk the rest of the way to the dorm without thinking any thoughts at all.
NINE
PAGAN
The walls of the tent flapped noisily, the wind buffeting them as it blew in from across the sea. I sat, cross-legged, staring at the sheet of paper in my hands, shaking my head.
“No.”
Matherson shrugged his massive shoulders. “I’m sorry, Pagan. I’ve checked twice. That’s all of them.”
My eyes went back to the list of names, illuminated by the LED lamp that sat on the ground between myself and Matherson, my closest friend and most loyal lieutenant.
They were the names of the people who were camped here with us on the narrow spit of land called Worm’s Head or Pen Pyrod, jutting out from the Gower Peninsula on the south Welsh coast. They were the names of the Order of the Templars as it now stood. They were the names of those who not been killed or captured by the King’s Alliance and that bastard Duine.
“What about Dockery?” I asked, scanning the list.
“No.”
“Or Brie? Surely she…”
“Pagan,” Matherson placed a hand, the size of a dinner plate, on the paper, hiding it from my eyes. “Those whose names are there are the extent of those we have left. Anyone whose name isn’t listed is either dead or a prisoner. I’m sorry, my friend.”
The hideous mixed mash of emotions bubbled inside me as I tried to deal with this information. Anger was there, and sadness too, but above all was hot, red guilt. I wanted to say sorry. To Dockery and Brie and all the others. I needed to apologize for letting this happen to them, but I could not. Obviously.
“It wasn’t your fault.” Sometimes it seemed as if Matherson could read my