Seraphim
by R.Weinstein
Copyright © R. Weinstein, 2011
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For all of my Seraphim,
past, present and future,
who remain a true inspiration.
Always.
Chapter 1
A short young man in a camouflage uniform carried a slip of paper down a dark, dank underground corridor. Giant roots broke through the plaster walls. Hanging lights illuminated the concern growing on the young man's face as he increased his pace toward the antechamber. He passed other men in the same uniform but not one regarded him.
The antechamber was as poorly lit as the corridor and smelled of death and decay. At the far end sat an older man in a high backed chair, his hair graying at his temples. Other uniformed men surrounded him, waiting with slips of paper. A great red-tailed hawk perched upon the top of his chair, giving the young man a piercing look that made him flinch.
The young man gripped his memo with sweaty palms. He strode to the table and stopped with his hand held out. The older man took the paper and read it. The others looked up at the newcomer, but did not speak. After a long moment in which the young man held his breath, the older man put the piece of paper down and regarded him.
“He has come to recruit,” the old man said. “Tell number two it is time to step things up.”
* * * * *
“Nervous about Christie?” Katie asked. The school lobby was quiet. The girls could faintly hear kids talking in the downstairs wing, nicknamed “The Dungeon.” They took the steps by twos up to the third floor and turned into the junior hallway. It was still pretty empty. Only a handful of juniors were sitting on the floor under their lockers or leaning in the doorway at the other end of the hall.
“It's not just that.” Serafina felt apprehensive. She always did on the first day back. She dreaded seeing her arch-nemesis, Christie. Christie is such a spoiled brat who always gets whatever she wants and loves to taunt Serafina. But that's not what was bothering her that morning, it was that dream.
Katie gave her a “spill it” look.
“I had the strangest dream last night. In it, there were a bunch of guys in uniform,” Serafina explained.
“Ugh, I hate school dreams.” Serafina and Katie went to a Catholic high school and wore a uniform every day. Being juniors, they looked forward to the day that they would be seniors with privileges like dressing down on Fridays, ordering in for lunch, or cutting the cafeteria line.
“No, the dream was about military guys.”
“Sounds like a good dream if you ask me,” Katie said. “Those army guys are hot.”
Serafina shook her head. “Not these guys. They were pretty scary looking. Especially their leader. He was really creepy.”
“Good thing it was a dream then,” Katie shrugged.
“Yeah, maybe I should cut down on the ice cream before bed.” Serafina reached her locker, grabbed the lock and turned the dial. Her combination lock popped open with a bang and she opened her locker. It was completely devoid of anything inside. With a sigh, Serafina fished locker decorations out of her overstuffed bag and tossed her books inside her locker.
“Cat magnets again?” Katie opened her locker, the one right next to Serafina's, put all of her supplies away and started to decorate the inside as well.
“You know me, the animal lover.” Serafina smiled. She found that from a very young age she had a connection with animals she could not explain. She loved them and they were drawn to her. Stray cats would line up on the porch in the morning waiting for her to come pet them. Her mother, on the other hand, hated cats. She chuckled as she thought of this stark contrast.
“Did you get into portfolio class with me?” Katie asked. Serafina marveled at how Katie was still able to carry a conversation even with her head deep inside a locker.
Katie and Serafina had been friends since the third grade. They had gone through all of elementary school and high school together, taking many of the same classes together, and they were hoping to both apply, and then be accepted, into the same college.
Katie and Serafina were very alike in their beliefs and wanted to be artists like Wyland some day. The girls both loved to paint, and Serafina especially loved to use her face as a canvas. Serafina was very into makeup and loved to show off new looks on her eyelids. That morning she spent twenty minutes perfecting her silvery smokey eyed look that made her bright green eyes pop.
The girls were also both conscientious of the impact they had on their world and did their best to promote being environmentally friendly by joining the school's Environmental Club. Like Wyland, they hoped to someday use their notoriety to help the environment.
“No, I'm going to take portfolio class in the spring,” Serafina said.
Serafina put the pictures of her family and friends up with the magnets and then put an organizer at eye level so she could see herself in the mirror. Serafina took out a mini brush, pulled it through her hair a few times, and then put it in one of the pockets of the organizer. She was fixing her necklace in the mirror when Katie leaned on her locker door.
“You're not primping yourself for Ian, are you?” Katie asked. Ian and Sera had dated for only a few months before he dumped her for a senior girl.
Serafina pursed her lips. “No.” He's a jerk.
“Sera, get over him. We need to find you someone new.”
“I am over him!” Serafina said.
“How about him?” Katie pointed down the hallway behind Sera.
Serafina looked from Katie to the mirror where she could see over her shoulder that a new student had arrived. He had light brown hair, deep, brown eyes, he was tall, thin, and had well defined muscles. Wow, this guy's pretty cute, Serafina thought.
Sera turned around and looked in his direction. “Whoa, swoon.” She feigned a swoon and leaned against her locker, her arm over her head like a fainting silent film star.
This new student looked like he didn't know anyone. He had stopped at the first set of lockers and was scanning the locker numbers in search of his own. As alone as he was, he seemed to have this outer glow about him, and soon people started to gravitate to him. The captain of the football team, Keith, and his friends crowded around him and shook his hand.
“I'm Michael,” he said.
That was all Serafina heard of the conversation, because just then he glanced at her and she got completely lost in his deep brown eyes. He kept glancing at her while he spoke to Keith and then Christie when she popped over too. Michael caught Serafina's eye again. So lost was Serafina in Michael's eyes that she didn't even hear Katie when she called her.
“Sera, helloooo! Serafina!” Katie grabbed Sera's arm.
“Oh, what?”
“You were ogling him,” Katie said.
“Oh, I was? Sorry.”
“Come on, we're going to be late for homeroom.” Katie grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into homeroom. Then Michael entered the classroom and sat right behind Serafina. She felt a tap on her left shoulder.
“Hi, I'm Michael. I'm new here.”
I could just die, Sera thought. She glanced sideways at Katie, who stifled a giggle. Just as Sera thought it couldn't get much worse, she got another tap on the shoulder. Sera turned in her seat. She was completely scarlet.
“I said, I'm Michael.”
“I know,” Sera said. Sera mentally chastised herself and bit her lip. That was so stupid!
Katie jumped in to save her. “I'm Katie. And this is Serafina.”
“Serafina, what a nice name,” he said.
“You can just call me Sera. Everyone does.” Sera's redness was starting to fade.
“Well, I hope I see you around, Sera.” Michael turned to his books. Sera and Katie turned around in their seats. Katie stifled yet another giggle. As it turned out, Michael wound up being in every one of Sera's classes.
Their first class was literature. After an ice breaker exercise, the class got down to business. Mrs. Johnson passed out the class syllabus and acceptable use agreement forms to be signed by a parent.
Then the class broke out a Stephen King book. Serafina loved to read, and had read several of his other works including the entire Gunslinger series, but had not read this one. She wondered why they would be reading Carrie in school. It seemed just as out of place as it would be to read the Harry Potter series for class.
Mrs. Johnson pushed her silvery bangs out of her eyes, adjusted her glasses and then read the first page aloud to the class. Then the class divided to do small group reading. Sera was grouped with Katie, Keith, and a girl named Brittany. Michael was in a group across the room, but Sera noticed him looking in her direction every few minutes. She tried to avoid direct eye contact, but it was inevitable. Every time she looked in his direction, he was looking at her. She caught his eye, he smiled, and she blushed and turned away. Sera found it incredibly hard to concentrate on the group reading.
The bell rang and Sera headed off to her Biology class while Katie went to gym. Some freshmen rushed past her in their hurry not to be late on their first day of high school. Michael caught up to Sera and walked next to her. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. They climbed the stairs back to their homeroom hallway, rounded the corner and bumped into Christie and her groupies.
“Oh look girls,” Christie said, “It's Serafina, and she's got a new boyfriend.” Sera blushed and tried to go around them.
“He's not my boyfriend.” Sera looked furtively at Michael.
“Oh good, then I can have him,” Christie sneered. She twirled her hair and turned back to Michael. “So---”
Michael completely blew Christie off and walked around her and her groupies to rejoin Serafina. Sera turned away to hide a little smile and walked on toward Biology class.
“Hey! Mike! Where do you think you're going?” she shouted down the hallway.
Michael looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Biology. And it's Michael!” He turned to Sera. “She really thinks she's something, huh?”
“Yep.” Sera tried not to look at him.
“Did you get a load of the look on her face? Priceless.” He laughed, and it was such a wonderful sound, it made Sera think of hundreds of tinkling silver bells, though she wasn't sure exactly why. She laughed along with him and they both made their way into the Biology room.
Gym followed Biology. Sera didn't exactly hate gym class, but she didn't really like it either. She had a kind of love-hate relationship with it. It wasn't so much the running, jumping, and failing miserably at basketball. No, that she could handle. It was really how awful she looked in the gym uniform that made her dislike gym. The shorts were so long and baggy, and the t-shirt was a one size fits all. She looked like a little kid playing dress up, and what was more, sometimes when she ran, the shorts started to fall down. She dreaded the inevitable day when the elastic waist would fail her completely.
Everyone else was waiting on the bleachers when she emerged from the locker room. Their teacher, Ms. Price, was dressed in a blue track suit and was going over the beginning of the school year gym rules. Ms. Price was a tall, thin woman with a sharp upturned nose, a brunette pixie cut, and piercing blue eyes. She was well-liked among both the students and faculty alike.
As Ms. Price droned on, Sera lost focus and her eyes wandered the gym, taking in the multiple basketball championship banners, the outdated scoreboard, and the stage with the faded red curtains. All too soon the tattered curtains would raise on the fall play. Sera's eyes stopped on Michael, who was again looking at her. Embarrassed, she dropped her eyes to her feet.
"Okay then?" Ms. Price finished her speech. "Let's play some volleyball!"
Michael was on the opposing team, and Sera again found it hard to concentrate. More than once she found herself looking at him, but he was focused on the game, until one moment she saw him turn and look at her. It seemed so dream-like, almost as if it were in slow motion.
"Sera, heads up!" He shouted.
The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back looking into Ms. Price's concerned face. The rest of her team was huddled around her, whispering.
"Why weren't you paying attention?" Ms. Price scolded her as she sat up. "Didn't you hear someone warn you that the ball was coming?"
Embarrassed, Sera wobbled to her feet.
"Hold it," Ms. Price said. "Tina, take Sera to the nurse to get checked out." Sera insisted she was fine but Ms. Price would hear none of it. Tina retrieved Sera's gym bag and escorted her to the nurse.
"Rough first day, honey?" Mrs. Kline asked. She was a round woman in her seventies who wore her eyeglasses on a beaded chain around her neck, made everyone with anything from a hangnail to a headache lie down until they felt better, and called everyone, even the principal, honey.
"Always is, Ms. Nurse," Sera replied.
Mrs. Kline checked Sera's pupil dilation, checked her head for any contusions before deeming her okay. "Okay, go lie down until you feel better."
Sera lay down on one of the green vinyl cots and a short while later fell asleep. After gym was religions of the world, which Sera missed, then lunch. Mrs. Kline woke Sera as the lunch bell rang. At lunch, Sera and Katie sat with their regular lunch group that included several other juniors, a senior and a few sophomores. The freshmen all kept to themselves, scared, at the far end of the cafeteria. Chris, the senior, was a really good basketball player. He was dating Shayna, a junior, who always snagged the lead in the school's play productions. Shayna's friends, Ally and Kristen, both juniors, sat at the table with them too, and Nick and Jeff, both sophomores on the basketball team, also joined them for lunches.
Shayna gave Katie a huge hug. “I missed you!” Shayna was their class thespian. Not only was she a very talented actress, but she was also very beautiful. She was tall and thin, very pale, and her face was covered in freckles. She had bright blue eyes and gorgeous brown, curly hair that bounced when she walked.
“I was only in the Bahamas for two weeks!” Katie laughed.
“I know, but it seemed like forever,” Shayna said. “It looks like you didn't get any sun while you were there. What, did you hide in the hotel all day?”
“Ha ha, no. My mom makes me slather on the sun block. She wants to keep all of us from getting skin cancer, but I don't know about that stuff. Putting chemicals on your skin doesn't seem right to me.” Katie had three younger brothers who were even paler than she was, all with matching blond hair and blue eyes. They were all in elementary school still, but Matt, the oldest of the three, would be coming to the high school the following year.
Sera told Katie about what had happened on the way to Biology class and the rest listened in. None of them hid their animosity toward Christie.
“Michael was great,” she said. “You should have seen her face, she was pissed that he dissed her like that.”
“Oh wow,” Shayna said. “I wish I had been there. That must have been something to see.” Everyone laughed and started Christie bashing.
“Hi, can I sit with you guys?” Sera looked up into Michael's glowing face. He smiled at her.
“Of course you can!” Katie said quickly, and shoved over so that he could sit between her and Sera. Sera shot her a look of death.
“Thanks. You guys are basically the only people I know,” he replied.
“Oh.” Well, if that's the only reason you'd sit here... She turned away from him and sank her teeth into her turkey sandwich.
Michael must have sensed that Sera had taken what he had said the wrong way because he immediately tried to make up for it. “That's not what I meant. I like you guys.” Sera contemplated her sandwich as if it were a map to Atlantis and ignored Michael, but he pressed on.
“Really.” He put his hand on her arm. “I like you guys a lot.”
Sera looked up into his face and he was smiling at her again. That outward glow was back around his face, and in the bright light of the cafeteria, with all its lights and great big windows, he looked angelic. His hand felt so warm, not hot, but a pleasant warmth. Sera blushed and apologized.
“No need to be sorry.” Michael handed Sera a paper packet. "Here, I got your religions of the world syllabus."
"Thaaanks," her response was drawn out and dripping with sarcasm. Michael didn't skip a beat.
"No problem." He grinned wide.
During her afternoon classes, World History, Music, and Spanish, Sera tried to keep her focus on her studies but found it very difficult. More than once her mind drifted back to Michael at lunch, his warm touch, and his glowing, smiling face. Once she was called on in Spanish, and couldn't provide an answer.
“Really, Serafina, the first day back and you already can't pay attention?” Senora Martinez said. Sera was embarrassed and turned several shades of pink. She sank low in her seat. The rest of the class chuckled at her.
By the time the final bell had rung, Serafina was more than ready to go home. She grabbed her bag, loaded it full of books she would need, as the teachers didn't fail to pile on the homework the very first day back, and headed toward the front stairwell. Katie caught up to her and walked her out.
Katie and Sera parted ways in the parking lot, where Sera headed toward the elementary school parking lot and Katie got into her '96 Jeep Cherokee. Serafina wasn't even seventeen yet, so could not drive herself to school. Instead, she had to rely on her friends for rides, but she relied more heavily on mass transportation.
Katie's parents not only insisted on their children's skin welfare, but also insisted on their safety. As old and beat up as the Jeep was, it was a steel-framed tank. Katie often complained about its age, but inwardly, she was quite attached to the old Jeep.
Sera left the elementary school parking lot and crossed the street to the old church. As she turned to wait for the bus, she saw Michael running across the parking lot; he called out to her. The bus had just turned the corner at the light as Michael reached the halfway point of the parking lot. Sera looked at the bus, then back at Michael. She couldn't afford to miss the bus. It would be another hour before the next one, and she just wanted to go home and lie down. The bus came barreling down the street and stopped right in front of Sera with a squelch of air brakes.
“Serafina, wait!” she heard Michael yell, but she could not. She climbed up the three steps, handed the driver her fare and took her seat in the sideways facing seats at the front. The door of the bus closed just as Michael had reached it and the bus took off.
“Serafina!” Michael waved at Sera, but he looked disappointed. I wonder what was so important, Sera thought.