Chatoyant College Book 5: Parents' Weekend

Chapter 41: In Circles

In a panic, Dawn stepped back, reaching out behind her for something solid. Her left hand hit a tree trunk; her right hand hit something else, something narrow and soft. She was about to shriek when she realized it was someone's arm. She clutched at it gratefully. "Dawn?" said Corrie, who evidently belonged to the arm. "Is something wrong?"

Dawn couldn't seem to make her mouth work in order to answer. Instead, she let go of the tree and pointed ahead. Corrie stepped forward and gasped. "What... what is that?" she asked in a shaky voice.

There was a clearing ahead of them, it was true, and it even held buildings that were not so different in construction from some of the campus buildings; that is, they were made of weathered brick and square in shape, but there the similarities seemed to end. Instead of flat on top, they had sharply-angled tiled roofs. There were only three of them, and two were taller and square while the third was much shorter, only one story, and long. They had also clearly fallen into disrepair. One wall of the nearest building had some sort of vine with bright red leaves crawling up its side and into a couple of the windows. Most of the windows that Dawn could see had broken glass in them. Not all the roof tiles were still there, and a door of faded, splintered wood hung at a crazy angle from the nearest building's doorway.

"Where are we?" said Naomi in a high-pitched tone Dawn had never heard her use before.

"I have no idea," Dawn said. She was surprised at how steady her voice sounded. Apparently the part of her brain that did the speaking was unaffected by the panic the rest of her felt.

"Please tell me we didn't just time travel or something," said Roe.

Corrie shifted her arm so she was clutching Dawn's hand. "You keep thinking in movie terms today, don't you, Roe?" she asked in a falsely light tone.

Roe gave a nervous giggle. "I've been thinking in movie terms since I got to this college. It makes a lot of sense, actually. You just think it's weird because you think in book terms."

"That's true," admitted Corrie. "And going through some time traveling portal would happen in a book, too. It's definitely possible..."

"Calm down, guys," Dawn said, though she knew that was just about impossible to do. "I doubt we time traveled. I probably just lost track of what direction I was going. We're in a different part of the woods, that's all."

"But if we're in a different part of the woods," said Naomi, "how are we ever going to find our way back?"

No one had an answer for her. Dawn looked around to make sure they were all there. Annie had been silent, but she was there, standing to Dawn's left. They were all clustered together just on the clearing side of the trees.

"Maybe we should investigate the buildings," Roe suggested. "Just in case we are in some kind of alternate timeline or something like that... I mean, if this is some different version of the campus, then the logical thing to do would be to go back into the woods and wander around some more, so that next time we'll come out in our own version of campus."

"That's logical?" asked Naomi.

"Sure," said Roe. "Anyway, I can't think of anything better to do than investigate the buildings. Can you?"

"We could walk around the edges of the clearing," said Corrie.

"What good would that do?" Roe asked.

"We would be able to see all sides of the buildings," Corrie explained. "You know, in case there's something lurking there that we can't see from here."

Roe nodded. "Works for me."

"Let's do it," said Annie softly.

"Wait," said Dawn. "We should mark where we started out first. If the laws of physics and time are getting messed up, we should be sure we know when we've gone all the way around."

"Good idea," said Naomi. "What should we mark it with?"

Dawn looked around. Of course, the only things to use were what they had on them and the plants. So she let go of Corrie's hand, bent down, and pulled a branch off a bush. She wedged the branch into a fork in the tree nearest here. "There. Unless there's some serious wind, that should stay."

"Great," said Roe. "Now let's go!" With Roe in the lead, they started carefully around the clearing, sticking as close to the trees as they could. But there didn't seem to be anything interesting to see. The buildings were just as decrepit from the other sides, and the long building appeared to be some sort of barn. Dawn took down the branch when they came back around.

"Okay, then we should—" Corrie started to say. But then she stopped suddenly. Dawn turned around.

Someone had just come out of the building.