Eternal: Chapter Five, Part 3

Mikael was at the end of his sophomore year by regular standards, but at his year-round school, he still had another month or so of class before he entered into the summer session. I had been surprised when Mitchell first gave me the information on where to find Mikael. I had expected him to be attending a public school, maybe a private academy. Instead, I was traveling to meet him at an all-boys boarding school.

En route, I tried to reason out why he would be at a boarding school away from his family after having been separated from them as long as he had already. It didn’t make sense to me. And even after trying to rationalize it for several hours, I still had nothing.

Once there, I didn’t go to request meeting with him immediately—as was customary—because I caught the sound of his voice out in the field where a group of students were playing baseball. He had never struck me as the baseball sort, but he always had loved games.

The day was beautiful out, warm and sunny, exactly as May should be. It wasn’t easy resisting the urge to feel the sun on my skin as I watched them play from afar. Not only would Drei scold me and very possibly never trust me to be out of his sight again, but it would postpone any interactions I had with Mikael and the others. There was the also the possibility Mikael wouldn’t speak to me if I gave in to my temptation.

Mikael scored a homerun and silently I cheered for him. Observing long enough to see Mikael play shortstop and shout encouragements to his team as they quickly tallied three strikes against their opponents, I headed toward the school, a cold and distant looking place. My best guess was that it had been a mansion converted to a school with additions made to accommodate students. Even the red brick, usually a welcoming, warm sight, couldn’t liven the drab and dark building. Whether it was hyperbolic or not, the sunlight around the school felt like it was being vacuumed away into oblivion.

The inside wasn’t much of an improvement, though it was surprisingly warm, not at all drafty as I had imagined. The walls were a dark mahogany and covered with portraits of graduated classes of boys and past presidents of the institution. They were all stoic and distant, but all of the boys in the pictures appeared as true gentlemen: polished, polite, intelligent, and possibly even ready to be a husband or future-CEO.

A kindly, plump woman scuttled towards me, smiling jovially, making her look twenty years younger than I guessed her to be. She wore a rich blue dress and white flats; her graying blonde hair was pulled into a French twist.

“How may I help you, ma’am?” she inquired in a light voice. It sounded almost as though the words just skipped off her tongue her voice was so light.

“I was interested in speaking with Mikael Summers, if I could,” I said, returning her bright smile.

“May I inquire as to what about?” Her eyebrows arched high over her widened eyes, her smile dampening slightly but still perfectly intact. She didn’t view me as a threat—thankfully—but she was on guard all the same.

“I’m an old friend of Mikael’s, used to babysit him a few years ago,” I said, figuring she was bound to ask that question anyway; “Something has come up recently and I wanted to talk with him about it.”

“What has come up? Something with his family?” she snooped, her face not changing from its inquisitive state.

“It’s a bit of a private matter,” I said, continuing to smile kindly at her. I had this urge to hit her with my umbrella if she continued being nosy. She didn’t need to know as much as she thought she did, and if I didn’t need her approval to speak with Mikael without finding myself in more trouble than I could stand at this moment, I might have given in to my violent desire. Her now plastic smile was especially irritating me.

“Very well, then, Miss…”

“Jones,” I supplied, keeping my voice light, controlling my growing agitation.

“Miss Jones. Follow me.”