Fine Print

Chapter Three

It had been a week and Sang hadn't seen a hint of the hallucination known as Gabriel.

Now she stood in the middle of the hallway. Around her, Ashley Waters High School was the same as always. The students merged together in cliques, the teachers wandered the halls without a second glance, rowdy boys pushed and pulled at each other, and the bathrooms smelled thoroughly of smoke. Sang held her books close to her chest as she moved throughout the crowd. No one paid attention to her, the cycle remaining the same.

As she menandered through her peers, Sang's thoughts floated back to Gabriel. Despite his absence, the strange... spirit had never left her thoughts.

It was safe to say that the previous encounter in her bathroom had left her frazzled. Actually, a better word would be petrified. The best-case scenario was that there was an actual man or spirit in her mirror. The worst-case scenario involved mental institutions and needles. She shivered at the thought. Neither of those options sounded preferable.

Ducking behind a large boy, Sang finally made it to her locker. She twisted the rusty knob three times before it creaked open. A tired hand removed her books one by one and placed them into the locker. Her face scrunched up when she eyed the dead cockroach in the corner, but he'd been there for a while. At least he no longer scurried around. Removing a notebook, Sang turned on her heel and walked toward her English class.

When she got to the class, Mrs. Bailey was already writing out the schedule on the whiteboard. The teachers wrinkled eyes glared at the interruption, but Sang continued to move past two gossiping girls toward her seat in the furthest corner. It was located by the window and it gifted her with a nice view of the lunch courtyard. Placing her notebook on the table, Sang removed a pencil out of her bag as Mrs. Bailey continued her lecture. Meanwhile, Sang's thoughts strayed to Gabriel and she was tempted to draw him, electric blue eyes and all. It was too bad her skills didn't lie in the artistic department.

English passed quickly. Sang zoned out for most of the lecture, her thoughts fixated on the possible spirit. Her mind had worked the situation over in every angle possible and now she was left with a jumbled web of thoughts. Each time she came up with a different answer. Was the boy a hallucination? Was he real? How was this possible? What did he mean by spirit?

That last question was the one she decided to focus on. At least it had a real answer. When the bell rung at the end of class, Sang shoved her belongings into her bag before following her classmates out the door. Normally, her next period was AP History, but today was going to be different.

Instead of turning down the left hallway, Sang continued her trek up the staircase.

The library was completely empty when Sang pushed the metal doors open. No one sat at the round tables, no one scrolled through the computer, and even the library aide was missing. Taking the opportunity for what it was, she made her way to old desktop monitors and tucked herself into the polyester chair. A quick shake of the mouse later and the desktop blinked to life.

The internet took a moment to pull up, thanks to the dial-up connection, but when it did, Sang typed her inquiry into the search bar. What is a spirit?

The answers that popped up were vastly different. They ranged from biblical texts, neo-pagan websites, wikipedia articles, and a couple blogs. Her fingers clicked on the links one by one, but nothing substantial came from her search. Each site contradicted the other, cancelling information all around. The only thing in common with each source was sage.

Pulling up another search, Sang typed in the herb. The results were much more plentiful. Cooking advice, medical uses, incense, everything that she could want to know, right there at her finger tips. This time Sang clicked on a wikipedia article first and scrolled through the information.