White Washed

Chapter Seven | Embracing The Dark

My jaw dropped. “A witch?” I repeated. He nodded, looking too calm and serious for my liking. How could he actually say all this with a straight face?

“And how do you know anything about this?” I demanded. He was studying to be a Defense Attorney. They’re not usually study so well in the...arts of witchcraft or whatever he thought it was.

“I’m not really going to be a lawyer. Well, I’m going to get my degree so I could be if I wanted to settle down some time, hold a stable job. Until then, I just work cases.” He explained, making no sense at all.

“What cases?” I demanded, growing tired of games.

“I find, study and kill Demonic creatures.” He stated. “Well, just Demons, actually. There are other people out there who are better equipped for the other creatures.”

I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. He actually believed this! He was completely and totally nuts. Suddenly the folklore book he’d had the other day, when I knocked into him, took on a new meaning.

I sprung up from the bed. “I can’t deal with this anymore. You’re nuts.” I all but ran out of his dorm room and then across the lot to my own. The hallway was empty and quite and it gave me the creeps.

It felt like I was being watched.

I entered my room and slammed the door shut behind me, wrenching some decent clothes out of my dresser. I pulled them on, not at all paying attention to what I was wearing. I ended up in jeans and a gray, cotton tank top with a Defeater sweatshirt over it. I pulled my brush quickly through my hair and then gave up halfway through and pulled it into a messy bun.

I looked around for my books but I couldn’t find them. Sighing, I grabbed my notebook and tore out a piece of paper and wrote a note on it.

I’m taking a mental health day.

- Amelie

I folded it and put Laurie on the front of it.

I grabbed my phone and iPod, the two things I couldn’t live without, and then sat at my desk and opened my laptop. I wrote short emails to all my professors about how I wasn’t feeling up to par today and couldn’t get out of bed to go to class. I then wrote Laurie an email with a list of my professor’s names and signed it with “please?” at the end. Once all the emails were sent, I walked out of my room and taped the note to my door. I knew Laurie would come running to wake me up as soon as this class was over.

Once I was outside the school campus, walking down the busy street, I felt better. There cars of every color, model and year rushing by. People hurrying to work, people rushing to make the most of their break. There were some teenagers, who probably should have been in school, that were standing around on the sidewalk or looking into shop windows. As I walked, a group of boys ducked into a store just as a police car drove down the street. When it was gone one of them poked their head out of the door and then announced that it was clear.

It reminded me of what Sammy and I used to do. He was out of high school before me, so he could never get into any trouble for wandering around the streets during the day. The local dispatchers in Manhattan were always trying to make sure all the teens stayed off the streets. They did a poor job but it was still rough when you got caught. Sammy and I ditched countless times. We’d go shopping or just walk around the streets and talk. Sometimes we’d go up to the skatepark or sneak into the nearest pool, (which was always closed during the day to encourage kids to go to school).

After I’d walked for a few minutes, I hit Broadway and took out my phone. I wasn’t tired or out of breath but I wanted to go to the mall and that was all the way over to Stillwater Avenue.