Quincy entered the university’s
dining area and promptly slammed his hands on the table where Aster sat,
multiple books open, studying for something or other- Quincy didn’t much care.
What he had to discuss was way more important, and, quite frankly, more entertaining.
“Long-handled spoon,” was all he
said.
“What?” Aster, looking rather
flustered, was apparently caught off guard and, in a rare moment akin to
spotting (insert something rare here), she had no witty retort. This did not
please Quincy in the slightest. She came off as apparently having no idea what
this meant to him, and as a best friend this was a travesty of travesties.
“Aster, I found the most amazing long-handled spoon at
Gruffy Mart down the street.”
“I highly doubt it was that good
of quality if you found it at Gruffy Mart, Quincy.” Aster finally understood
what was going on and with that response, Aster assumed the discussion was over
and went back to the books that lay in front of her, and the partially written
paper that was taunting her, calling her name like the shadows the other night.
She had procrastinated, once again, to the last second.
“I didn’t say it was good
quality,” Quincy persisted stubbornly, “I said it was amazing.”
Aster looked back up at Quincy,
wishing with every fiber of her being, nay, every fiber that made up the
university, that Quincy would find something shiny to play with until she was
done with her essay, when she would be more than willing to spend time with her
BFF, and even bother him with some of her own pointless jibber jabber. But she
just did not have time to feed his obsession with long-handled spoons.
She took a deep breath and
gently folded her hands in front of her. If she would humor him, then maybe he
would pay for lunch. “Was there a bear on it,” She started. “Was it amazing
because there was a bear on it?”
Quincy scoffed as though a
majorly important belief of his had been insulted. “Aster Archer, you know that
bears don’t exist!”
Aster was now entertained. She
loved having this conversation with Quincy. “What’s the reasoning behind that
again?” She asked.
Quincy looked as though he were
putting quite a bit of thought into the answer. If only he had put that much
thought into his schoolwork, he would have had a better GPA. “Because- well,
because. It’s like, in all the times we went camping, we never saw one. Not
once. They’re a myth.”
“Quincy, we went to the zoo in
Asheboro on the mainland last week. Didn’t you go to the bear house?” Aster had
no idea what the bear habitat was actually called, probably just the bear
habitat in fact, but it just felt right
calling it a bear house as opposed to a bear tavern, habitat, shack, or, heaven
forbid, cage.
With a deathly serious demeanor,
Quincy responded, “Why would I go somewhere that was obviously a joke?”
“Right. Can we go again next
week? I think we’ll do that. It’s a plan.” After finishing her paper, Aster
would need a ridiculous trip to prove to Quincy that bears existed. Those kinds
of trips were what she lived for- she chose her best friend well.
“I think Wakeman was going to go
with Lucky. So no, no we’re not going.”
“Quincy, he borrowed your
Nutella once without your permission while
he was your roommate freshman year. Now I know Nutella is a sacred thing- I
refuse to share it even with you, that’s why I make you buy your own- but I
think it’s time you let it go.” She patted Quincy’s hand as though she were
consoling a person who had recently lost their great-aunt Edna.
“I mean, I think he’ll solve the
shadow-thingy case first if we go to the zoo.”
“You mean the Gloomies?” Aster
responded rather nonchalantly, going back to her books with an ‘oh, is that
all’ note to her voice.
Quincy started stuttering out of
shock, horror, and resentment. “You named them without me!? Why would you do
that? You know I come up with way better names for things than you do!”
“Sebastian Doegh wrote all about
them in the latest issue of The Horrorscope. I’ve got it in my bag if you want
to take a gander. There’s even pictures. You know how much I like pictures.”
Aster was rather fond of
pictures, and it wasn’t because of her art minor. No, she believed that any
sketch or doodle done in any notebook or canvas was a peek into a person’s
truest soul, a piece of them that they couldn’t hide behind cheap masks reserved
for Halloween and making good first impressions.
It didn’t take long at all for
Quincy to flip through the dreadfully short article, and in his opinion it
didn’t really give any new
information- nothing that Quincy felt he couldn’t have figured out on his own.
Apparently they hated light, being creatures of shadow and all, and the only
way to avoid them in the streets was to stand underneath a streetlamp. But even
that didn’t always work, according to
the article. The real deadly nature of the Gloomies was how they drew out their
victims. The entire pack would surround the person and start calling out their
name, luring them out from the safety of the light. The brief article on the
next page seemed a lot more interesting; it had a picture of a black-haired boy
with headphones smiling, and underneath it the caption read ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS
MAN? DREAMWALKER.’ Quincy didn’t have the patience to keep on reading.
“Well, now that disappointment
decided to take up shelter in my soul, how is your day going? Is there any way
I can crush it for you?” Quincy tossed the magazine on top of one of Aster’s
medical books she was getting information from.
“I think I’d be pretty crushed
if you told me I didn’t have to write this paper anymore. Hand to God. I’m not
just saying that! I’ve put so much toil, elbow grease, hard work, witch doctor
wisdom, poison, and happiness into this thing that if I got anything less than
a mega A- yes, that mythical grade whispered about among academic nerds such as
myself, a one-hundred-and-fifty-percent- I would draw and bring to life the
grim reaper and have him threaten to take the souls of every professor here.”
Aster took breath, pausing for the briefest moment so she could lean over the
table and grab Quincy’s face and shake. “Happiness,
Quincy. I somehow managed to put happiness
into a paper about the Ebola virus. Do you know how hard it is to do that? Do
you?”
“I, um. I think you need my happy
long-handled spoon to hold and to sing some happy kid songs. No, scratch that,
you’d make them sound creepy the way you are now. I don’t need that extra
creepy. And you should let go of my face. Please?” Quincy wasn’t sure what to
do; the longer they stayed in school, the scarier Aster tended to get with each
big project. Why she wanted to be a doctor Quincy didn’t know; she had some
silly notion of using her abilities to draw new limbs and organs for people,
and Quincy always had to point out that the government would then abduct her
and do intrusive studies on her person, but she was determined.
After staring intently at
Quincy’s face, Aster finally let go. “Try the sandwiches,” Aster said, “they’re
exceptionally delightful today.”
“Is there bacon in them?”
“Plenty of man candy, yes.”
“Perfect.” Quincy moved to stand
up, and ran into what he would call a freakishly tall individual, the momentum
of said encounter propelling him back into his seat.
“Sorry, are you okay?” The
freakishly tall individual asked, his voice crooning with the sweet melody that
was a British accent.
Quincy stared at freakishly tall
British guy with wide green and blue eyes, mesmerized by his voice. His next
words were not chosen very carefully at all.
“Will you be my new best
friend?” Quincy asked in his stupor of wonder.
Aster choked back her shock
rather visibly. “Quincy!” She scolded.
“What? You’re my lady best
friend. I have room for a guy one, too.”
“This is how the whole Lucky
fiasco happened.”
“But she was the love of my
life, Aster!”
“For three days!” Aster leaned
toward the British student to speak with him. “Please don’t mind my dear
friend, I’m seventy-eight percent sure he has developmental issues which is
more or less my fault.”
“No problem,” the British
gentleman replied with a laugh. He held out a hand. “I’m Basil, by the way. You’d
be surprised how often I get asked things like that as a foreigner. I’m just painfully
mediocre back home.”
“Aster Archer. This fellow here
is Quincy Tate.” Aster took his hand in hers and gave it a quick, firm shake;
she hated limp handshakes and was pleased to see that he had a firm hand as
well. Basil next went to shake Quincy’s hand, but Quincy kept on staring, but
with noticeably less awe than before.
“Don’t mind him, he gets like
this. Probably my fault, too.” Aster patted Quincy’s hand.
“Well, I hope I don’t keep him
transfixed for the rest of the day. I don’t want to be the reason he doesn’t
pay attention in classes.” Basil smiled, running a hand through his short blond
hair. Quincy coughed. “Well, I’ll see you both around. It was nice to meet you
both.”
With basil’s departure, Aster
went back to her work. She didn’t give the encounter another thought for
another five minutes when she glanced back up and noticed Quincy hadn’t moved
in the slightest. She picked up a cold French fry from a tiny plate she had
pushed off to the side and tossed it at his head.
“Quincy?”
Quincy perked his ears. “Smog
was coming from his mouth. It was gross.”
“Doesn’t sound very attractive,”
Aster responded, leaning out to catch a glimpse of Basil walking away, but she
was too late; he had already vanished.
“I know, right? I bet kissing
him would be like making out with a smoker.” Quincy stood up. “I’m getting a
sandwich. Want anything?”
“Only the undying affection of a
rich bachelor with all his own teeth and no more than three ex-wives. Oh, and a
lemonade.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
As Quincy walked off, Aster
thought about what it would be like to see things nobody else could. And she
also couldn’t help but wonder, would seeing those things eventually drive the
young man mad?
Basil seemed to appear more
often than Quincy would have liked and he covered his mouth every time the
British man spoke. Aster would always give some excuse; like Basil had terrible
breath or Quincy was learning how to control what he said. And every time Basil
laughed, or said something funny in reply, and every time Quincy would see
plumes of smoke pour out of his mouth. It went on like this for a week, and
Quincy couldn’t quite handle it.
“Aster, can we go to the zoo
already? I’m tired of running into that guy,” Quincy whined before class one
day. He sank into the seat of his desk.
“Day after tomorrow. I’ve got an
art project due soon,” Aster replied, doodling on some paper. She was doing a
basic outline of what she wanted to draw; a man in brown carrying flowers but
whose face was never shown. She had drawn this man many times, a strange figure
the two both remembered meeting once during their childhood, and often in the
paintings or drawings his face was obscured by a black bar across his eyes, a
balloon, or some other such thing.
Quincy sighed, and when Aster
didn’t look up he sighed again, approximately five times as loud. She kept on
sketching, only stopping to smudge something here or there and then to switch
to a pencil with softer led. Quincy, exasperated, got up and left the class to
get some water from the fountain down the hall.
On his way, Quincy said hello to
Lucky and narrowly avoided falling head over heels for her again when she
replied with her sweet Scottish tone of voice, completely ignored Blake Wakeman
who, in all honesty probably wouldn’t have said hello to him in the first
place, and finally arrived at the water fountain. And at the water fountain was
Basil, chugging away until his thirst was quenched.
Swears nearly escaped Quincy’s
lips. He turned to walk, but a hand on his shoulder prevented him from leaving.
“Quincy, how are you?”
Heavy smoke floated past
Quincy’s shoulder. Accidentally inhaling some, Quincy began to cough violently.
“Careful now. I don’t want you to
die before I can get a chance to talk to you.” Basil laughed politely, which
struck Quincy as impolite. Large puffs burst out of Basil’s mouth with every
chuckle. “I’d really like to get to know you better. You’re an interesting
fellow, Quincy Tate.”
The more Basil spoke, the
heavier the cloud that surrounded Quincy got until it eventually enveloped him.
He hacked and coughed louder, harder; through teary eyes he spotted specks of
blood on the hand he used to cover his mouth.
“Stop,” Quincy choked out, “stop
talking, you freaking jerk.” Quincy couldn’t see anything. He didn’t even know
where Basil was until an outline came through the smoke. Basil knelt down, bringing
his face uncomfortably close to Quincy’s.
“You’re so blunt, that’s one of
the things I like about you. You’re really wonderful prey. Too bad you don’t
have more fight.”
Quincy lost consciousness.
Dreams had never been something
Quincy was entirely comfortable with. They were ever-changing, and the most
peculiar things happened in them. The current dream he was having involved
floating geometric shapes, a few telephone poles, a brick wall with Aster’s
doodle of the man in brown on it and a duck pond with no ducks. This greatly
bothered Quincy as he adored ducks and saw no reason why his subconscious would
want to torment him like so by not including them in his dream. He was, after
all, just knocked out by a British man with smoke that came out of his mouth
every time he spoke so Quincy really could have used the comfort.
Quincy sat on top of a picnic table next to a turkey dinner. With a quick
turn to his right, he saw a young man around his age gently holding one of
geometric shapes that glowed softly much like a firefly. The young man had
short, nicely styled white hair and white clothing. It was a little blinding in
Quincy’s opinion, but entertaining nonetheless.
“What in my subconscious brought you to life?” Quincy said aloud. He was
expecting to at least startle the white-haired boy, but instead he rather
calmly turned to look at Quincy with a solemn look on his face. His warm
magenta eyes locked with Quincy’s blue and green ones. Quincy couldn’t help but
feel the boy looked familiar.
“My name is Isaiah, and I’m afraid I’m not part of your subconscious.”
Quincy felt a strange warmth in his chest. It worried him.
“That’s cool, I guess. If you don’t mind, though I should probably wake
up now.”
“If you’ve got something better to do then by all means, wake up. I’ll
move on to someone else’s dream,” Isaiah responded, letting the geometric
figure, a rhombus, float away. It exploded with an underwhelming popping sound.
“Well, Aster tells me if I start dreaming to wake up as soon as possible
because whatever happens to me in dreams affects my body. It really sucks.”
Quincy picked at the turkey next to him, but every time he touched it, that
spot on the turkey began to rot. “I’m kind of in a sticky situation right now
anyway, some British guy named Basil thought it’d be totally awesome to
suffocate me with this weird smoke that comes out of his mouth whenever he
talks. I really want to wake up before he tries dumping my body in the ocean. I
don’t really like the water much.”
Isaiah, as if floating, made his way in very few steps to Quincy and
gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “Trust and be not afraid,” he began in
his soft voice, “the Lord will hear your prayers.”
The world starting stretching, making Quincy feel sick. He covered his
mouth with his hand and began hacking once more. Isaiah lifted a glowing finger
to Quincy’s forehead, and then he blacked out again.
Quincy Tate awoke with a start in one of the dorm rooms on campus; well,
he assumed it was a dorm room anyway. The room, sparsely decorated, looked
larger and nicer than the one he had shared with Wakeman his freshman year in
Taffner Hall. Quincy tried sitting up, but he was tied to the bed with some
rope.
“You woke quicker than I thought. Do you know how light you are? You need
to put on some more weight.”
Basil came in through the door, closing it gently behind him. He walked
over to a desk on the other side of the room and opened a drawer.
“If you’re saying I’m scrawny, then you’re wrong. I’ve got plenty of
muscle, barely any fat on me. And if you untie me I can show you how much
weight I pack behind my punches.” Quincy tried breaking through the ropes, but
he wasn’t nearly strong enough.
“That’s kind of adorable right there. Better luck next time, eh?” Basil
ruffled Quincy’s already fairly unkempt hair. Quincy tried biting him, to which
Basil could only laugh. “Come on, now. Where was that fight earlier? I already
caught you. This isn’t any fun.”
“What do you even want? I’ve got places to be, people named Wakeman whose
lives I need to make unbearable, the usual stuff that I can’t do tied to a bed.
Did I mention how creepy this is?”
“I want your eyes,” Basil responded coolly. This answer did not please
Quincy in the slightest.
“They’re mine. Well, the left one is anyway. The right one belongs to
Lucky. Or maybe it’s the left one. Listen, the point of the story is that
they’re mine.” Quincy continued his struggle against the bindings, but was only
giving himself rope burn.
“Only one is yours? How does that work?” Basil frowned. It was the first
time Quincy had witnessed this. “Does that half your power?”
“Well, we fell in love. And when you fall madly, forehead-touchingly in
love sometimes you switch an eye with that person. I think she was already
sensitive to ghosts and psychic impressions so my eye just opened up my ability
to her. I’m pretty sure my body took the eye I got from her and filled full of
the same power, ‘cause I haven’t noticed any difference except sometimes I see
what she sees.”
Basil quickly hit Quincy and covered both his eyes. Quincy swore loudy.
“What was that for?”
“I need to kill you and get out of here before anyone notices you’re
missing. I can’t have that girl see where you are.”
“Idiot, someone has to notice that I’m gone by now,” Quincy shot at his
captor.
“So I need to be quicker about this.”
“Why do you need to kill me?” Quincy hated not being able to see.
“If I’m going to gain your vision I have to kill you and eat your soul.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work. My soul’s artificial.”
Slowly, Basil removed his hand from Quincy’s eyes. His frown had only
grown larger and the sight was so troubling to Quincy, being the first thing he
saw after having been blinded for the better part of two minutes, that he let
out a small yelp.
“Artificial?”
“Yeah.”
“Artificial soul and eye switching. Who are you?”
“Quincy Tate. I thought you knew that?”
Pulling out a knife from Quincy wasn’t sure where, Basil slowly caressed
the blade with his fingers, looking like he was making a hard decision. Quincy
assumed that’s what he was doing, anyone, because of the strange, almost sickly
look on Basil’s face that wasn’t much better than the frown.
“Really, who or what are you? I need to know if I can risk eating your
soul.”
“Well if you put it like that…” Quincy laid his head back, unsure of what
to do next. Obviously he hadn’t been able to break free from the ropes, but he
wasn’t about to admit that to Basil. He hoped he was still fooling the
kidnapper into thinking he had the strength to break the bindings.
“Answer me.” Basil drew the blade along Quincy’s cheek, drawing some
blood.
“This feels really cliché,” Quincy said bitterly. “What’re you going to
do? Kill me? What’s the point? If you don’t eat my soul and find out later that
you could’ve, you’ll kick yourself for not getting a straight answer.”
“Or I’ll go after Lucky.”
“Touché.” Quincy furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, when Aster was five she
created me and I came to life and stuff.”
Basil leaned in, curiosity plastered all over his face. “Created you? She
can do that?”
Quincy rolled his eyes in a ‘well duh’ sort of way that teenaged girls
were expert at. “Yeah, it’s kind of sort of awesome. Get over it. It’s not like
she could do it again, making a person with a soul drained her.”
Here was no response for a few minutes as Basil soaked all of the
information in, tapping the bed frame with his finger. Quincy mulled the
situation over in his head for the umpteenth time. It all felt pretty hopeless,
but he Quincy was never very good at knowing when it was time to give up.
“Are you done thinking yet? ‘Cause if you’re going to kill me, get it out
of the way so you have some time to creep on others and I can see what heaven’s
like.”
“If I eat your soul you won’t get to see heaven.”
“Well, I’m not sure they would’ve let me in anyway.”
“I’ll take a chance on you,” Basil said with a cheery tune in his voice.
“Throw caution to the wind, you know?”
“Oh, sure. You’ll have an easier time, but will it really be worth it?”
“Yes.”
Quincy banged his head on the bed. He was stuck.
The murderous Basil lifted his knife in an arc, the blade slicing through
the heavy air. His eyes met with Quincy’s. Basil licked his lips. There was a
knock on the door.
“What?” Basil looked confused, which made Quincy feel a tad better as he
had in fact not invited more creeps in on the ritual sacrifice to feast on his
man-made soul. Basil placed a rag in Quincy’s mouth and went to the door,
placing the knife in his back pocket. Slowly, he opened the door so as not to
allow Quincy to be seen. He put on his best nice voice. “Yes? Hello?”
“Hi, hey, how’s it going? How are you?” Came the voice on the other end
of the door. Quincy exhaled slowly; it wasn’t Aster. The voice belonged to a
boy.
“Um, fine. May I ask why you’ve knocked on my door?” Quincy could see the
smog piling out of Basil’s mouth.
“I’m dandy, not unlike a lion, thanks for asking. My name’s Bradshaw,
Isaac Samson but just Sam is fine. I think you have a friend of mine in there.
I’d be pretty dang happy if you’d let him out.”
Quincy had no Idea who Sam was but he wasn’t going to complain. A rescue
was a rescue.
“I’m sorry, you must have the…”
Sam didn’t let Basil finish. He slammed his hand on the door and pushed
Basil inside. Basil retaliated with his knife, cutting Sam on the cheek. Quincy
watched as Sam dropped a piece of paper on the floor. Basil stepped closer to
Sam, his eyes filled with an angry passion. He threw the knife and it stuck in
the wall next to Quincy’s would be rescuer’s head. Basil leaned in close to
Sam.
“I will kill you and eat your soul,” Basil said coldly, prying out the
knife and sticking it to Sam’s throat. Blood started trickling down in little
pellets that hit the ground in a melodic beat. Quincy knew Basil wasn’t
kidding.
“Step a little closer. I couldn’t hear your empty threat.”
Apparently Sam had no idea that Basil wasn’t kidding.
Basil took a step closer, his foot landing right on the paper that Sam
had dropped. Strange and obscure letterings and words, some of which Quincy
recognized as French, crawled up Basil’s leg. He reeled back, grasping at his
leg and trying in a desperate fervor to scrape off the words as they grew and
spread along his body. Smog flowed out of his mouth, slowly at first, but the
stream steadily grew larger and came out faster until it finally stopped and
Basil collapsed.
“I’m wearing my favorite shirt today. I can’t die violently while wearing
it. I’ve specifically told people I want to be buried in it, so it can’t be
covered in blood.” Sam was out of breath, visibly shaking. He looked strangely familiar
to Quincy, like a darker-haired version of the man in his dreams. Quincy also
took notice of the man’s shirt; it was a light blue with a tiny, cartoon lion
on it with a flowery mane. Underneath it said “Dandy Lion.” It slightly
disgusted Quincy, and if Aster ever drew something like that and brought it to
life he vowed to either never talk to her again or to kick the dandy lion into
oblivion. Why anyone would want to be buried in that was beyond him.
“Hey, can you untie me?”
Neither Sam nor Quincy knew quite what to do with Basil once Quincy had
been freed, so they locked him in the closet and left. Sam had said he had
never used that spell before and didn’t know how long Basil would be out but
assumed he wouldn’t try going after Quincy again based on the fact that Sam
planned on telling campus police right after they found Aster, which was
Quincy’s idea. Sam had wanted to go to the campus police first.
“Campus police don’t do squat. I’ll have Aster make a cage to stick Basil
in,” Quincy said, sounding disgusted when he came to Basil’s name.
“Is she a metal smith or something? That’s kind of hot,” Sam responded,
rounding the corner to the library with his rescued male damsel. “Would you
hurt me if I suggested going to campus security first again?”
Rather than respond with words, Quincy put Sam in a headlock right in
front of the entrance of the library.
“Hey, what’re you-? Stop!” Sam tried pulling Quincy off, but he kept a
tight grip.
“What, didn’t you ever roughhouse with your older brother?”
“Wellington and I didn’t really
wrestle,” Sam choked out.
“Older brother Alexander and I did this all the time.”
“Older brother always won, too.” Aster leaned on the door frame of the
library, hugging her text books loosely against her stomach. She had that
reserved smile on her face. “You make a new friend? Is he British, too?”
“Not especially, no.” Sam slipped out of Quincy’s grasp and held up a hand
of greeting to Aster. “Sam. Nice to meet you.”
“Aster Archer. Nice to meet you, too.” Aster ran a hand through her tawny
hair. “Quincy, you up for the zoo tomorrow?”
“Am I ever! Basil knocked me out and tried to kill me for my eyes, and
Sam saved me. Basil’s locked in a closet right now.” Quincy added the last part
as an afterthought.
“Hey, zoo. That sounds like fun.” Sam sounded a tad bit envious. Quincy
knew he should be.
Aster stared at the two boys, unsure if they were joking or not. Quincy
put Sam in another headlock, and that one nonchalant act convinced her that
they were telling the truth. She heaved a little sigh and shook her head.
“You know what this means, right? Now I can’t marry a British guy. Basil
ruined it for me.” She bit her lip, slowly shaking her head. “Sam, you’re not
going to do the same thing to us, are you?”
“I’m not British. Or evil. So no.” Sam managed to slip out again and
began dodging Quincy, who tried to catch him again. He feigned to the left and
hid behind a pillar. Quincy squinted, trying to figure out the best way to
attack.
“Good. We really like meeting new people, but things like this happen a
lot.” Aster thought for a moment, and pushed herself off the doorway. “Quincy,
head into the library for me. I think I forgot a notebook. The one with the
daisies.”
“That was my birthday present to you! You can’t lose that!” Quincy rushed
into the building without a second thought, leaving Aster and Sam quite alone.
“So,” Sam began. He drew out the so, which bothered Aster because it made
the word sound awkward while signaling at the same time that Sam had something
on his mind.
“I know, you’ve probably got some questions, and I do too. How did you
find Quincy?”
“Quincy was knocked out and having a dream. I’m a dream walker. And stuff.”
Sam scratched his head, then checked his fingernails. The conversation was a
bit slow. “Quincy said that if he got hurt in the dream world it would affect
his body. I’ve never met anyone like that.”
“That’s because I made him,” Aster replied.
“Like a batch of cookies?”
“I created him,” Aster said, hoping the rewording and new emphasis she
placed on the words would help Sam get the idea.
Sam uncomfortably looked from the pillar, to the door, to the doorway
then at Aster. “Like a recipe for a batch of cookies?”
“When I was five my older brother Alexander told me my imaginary friends
weren’t real. So to prove him wrong I created Quincy. All I did was draw him on
some paper and he came to life- but it took so much of my power at a young age,
so now I can only bring small things to life. Nothing else with a soul.”
An ‘oh’ was all Sam could muster up.
“He’s got a few defects to him, but most people don’t notice. I should go
find him, but let’s keep in touch. If a less cool guy girl group calling
themselves the raincoats happen to find out that you’re a dream walker, ignore
them and say you’re with us. They’ll get really jealous,” Aster said with a
wicked grin.
“Ghost hunters, like Kristjan.” Sam smiled weakly. Aster wasn’t sure how
to respond, only hoping that a third group of specially talented people wasn’t
forming up on campus as well. It was bad enough having to deal with the
raincoats and scary enough realizing with the introductions of Basil and Sam
that there were a lot more people like her on the tiny island and any one of
them posed a threat to her and Quincy.
