Chatoyant College Book 5: Parents' Weekend

Chapter 35: Gareth and Wendy

After skimming through four different yearbooks, Corrie stretched back in the beanbag chair, her back cracking slightly. Her eyes were tired, and so were her hands, from flipping the dry pages. "I need a break." She jumped up. "I'll be right back."

"Don't get lost," Naomi said, barely looking up from her book. Dawn just nodded. Corrie closed the door carefully behind her and wandered down the hall.

She went to the bathroom, which had been her plan, but when she left, she found herself disinclined to return. She knew it might be faerie magic at work, trying to make her lose track of her goal, but Naomi and Dawn were both in there; they would be fine. If she was gone for too long, Dawn would probably come looking for her anyway.

At the end of this hall was a small study room. It didn't have any bookshelves in it, just chairs, desks, tables, and plenty of light. Like most of the other rooms in this building, it was fairly empty. Maybe they could move their reading to this room—but that would involve carrying the yearbooks, which were no slim tomes, to and from the room. No, Corrie decided, she'd better get back to the room where Dawn and Naomi were and get back to looking for Leila.

She was turning, about to go out again, when some movement caught her eye. She turned toward it and saw that someone was waving at her. It was one of Byron's theater friends—Wendy, whose pink hair dye was starting to fade. She and her boyfriend, Gareth, were sitting together in one of the large armchairs. Corrie waved back, feeling embarrassed to have interrupted them, but Wendy started gesturing for her to come closer, so they obviously didn't mind too much.

Corrie walked over to them and leaned on the side of one of the other chairs. "Hi guys. What's up?"

"Everyone is boring this weekend," Wendy complained. "I guess I understand, my parents came last year... Did yours go home?"

Corrie nodded. "Last night."

"Cool. What are you up to in the library? There's hardly anyone else here."

"I noticed. I'm just doing some research with Dawn and Naomi." It was true, as far as it went.

"Oh. That's boring too."

Corrie laughed. "Sorry to disappoint you. What, isn't Gareth entertaining you enough?"

"She has a very short attention span," Gareth said in his slow, quiet voice.

Corrie nodded, and was trying to decide how to extricate herself from this uncomfortable social situation when a thought occurred to her. "Hey, do you two know Leila?"

Wendy nodded. "Assuming you're talking about the same Leila I know, yeah."

"Well, she's a theater major, so probably. Do you hang out with her?"

"A little bit," said Gareth, with a shrug that had the effect of pulling Wendy closer to him, since his arms were around her waist. "She has her own circle of friends. Why do you ask?"

"I... well..." The truth was probably best, or most of it. "She's dating my roommate, and I dunno, she kind of gives me a weird vibe. I wanted to know what you thought of her."

Wendy and Gareth exchanged an inscrutable look. "She's a good actress," said Wendy finally. "Personally, I don't know her well enough to make any kind of judgment, but I haven't made any effort to get to know her, either. Byron knows her better, I think."

Corrie nodded. "Byron set them up. She's probably okay. I just wondered. Well, I'll see you guys around, I guess." Gareth inclined her head in a nod, and Wendy waved again.

Once she'd gotten close to the door, Corrie stopped and fished her four-leaf clover out of her pocket. Then she turned back and looked at Gareth and Wendy, who, as she'd expected, were busily making out again and paying no attention whatsoever to her. The clover didn't show her anything different. Of course, that was apparently an unreliable method, but there couldn't be all that many faeries out there who looked exactly the same with or without the glamour, could there?

On a whim, she returned the clover and went into her other pocket for her keys, remembering how well they'd worked on the faeries in the woods who'd kidnapped Annie. Again, nothing happened, but she made a mental note to try iron with Leila. If she was a faerie and dangerous, perhaps the keys would show something the clover didn't.

She opened and closed the door of the study room carefully, so she wouldn't make noise and disturb Wendy and Gareth, and walked quickly back to the room with the yearbooks.