“See ya in a bit,” he said, trying to ignore the crack in his voice.
This felt like the defining moment of his life. All their time together, his racing heartbeat, the butterflies in his stomach, the warmth he felt when she smiled at him—he was about to find out if she felt it, too. If she always had. It seemed like destiny, just like Shakespeare said. It seemed to be written in the stars somewhere that he and Alex were fated to be together. Hopefully their story was not meant to be a tragedy. But this was real life, not some old play written by a rhyming lunatic, so their ending had to be happy.
Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to be so clever. But Shakespeare didn’t title his sonnets, and so neither did Chase. Maybe if he had entitled it “Alex” there wouldn’t have been the confusion. Maybe then Alex would have received the note instead of the girl who picked it up by accident. So when he made his way frantically down the hallway after class, it was certainly not Alex who came sprinting down the hallway in his direction.
Clutched tightly in Becca Blackman’s fist was his poem, entitled “Sonnet 14” for the fourteen years he’d been in love with Alex. It was Becca who jumped into his arms and pressed her overly glossed lips against his while her friends giggled and clapped.
Where was Alex? What would she think of this? Oh, God.
Finally, he found Alex’s face in the crowd. Her expression wasn’t one of hurt or anger or jealousy. She smiled. Like she was proud of him or something. He couldn’t admit the truth. He wouldn’t, because the moment was ruined. It wouldn’t be perfect. It was a mess.
And so he snatched the note from Becca and shoved it in his pocket. And with it, he tucked away his feelings. He stuffed it deep in his pocket, somewhere down there with his pride.
Pride. Professor Van Hanlin worried it would be his demise.
He was not a teacher by choice. He’d spent the better part of a century highly ranked in the office of the Legem Patrol, a corps of spirits who dedicated their afterlives to maintaining order, justice, and peace. The Patrol was his life, his purpose, and because of one mishap, he’d been demoted to a measly law professor. Granted, it had been a rather costly mishap. That meant he was doomed to spend his time preaching to generations of arrogant teenagers who considered themselves to be above the law simply because their souls were strong enough to exist in the afterworld. What’s worse, the professors rotated the obligation to debrief the latest newburies in a workshop so cleverly named “Intro.” The most recent batch of dead kids had been assigned to him, and although it was safe to say he didn’t look forward to the workshop, the children were less horrid than some newburies he’d encountered in the past.
The only part of his job that he loved was his classroom. Secluded at the far end of the third floor, it was monstrous and impressive, and it made the mere four newburies in attendance seem that much smaller. Chocolate-brown stadium tiers stood proudly on the lovely navy carpet of the circular hall. The layers of seating overlooked the generous podium for the teacher. When he entered the room that morning, he didn’t even bother to greet the students. He set down his briefcase and promptly wrote floccinaucinihilipilification in large letters on the chalkboard. They’d know what to do.
He dusted off his hands, looked up at his newburies and nearly choked noticing a girl in the middle row. His first instinct was to laugh. Someone must have gone to great lengths to pull off such a joke. He swiveled back to the board for a moment. No, if this was a joke, it was a cruel one. Anguish took over. Maybe he’d imagined her sitting there. Maybe he was losing his mind. Was it possible for a ghost to see a ghost? When he faced the class again, there she was, frowning at the word with a face identical to that of the girl who had cost him his previous job.
It wasn’t until Madison Constance started explaining the directions to the girl that Van Hanlin accepted her as real. He’d been just as baffled when Erin Ash arrived nearly two decades ago. This new girl was the spitting image. Anything short of witchcraft would make her appearance impossible. He knew all too well how valuable she was. The entire city had been hysterical after Erin Ash’s arrival, but it was nothing compared to how they’d reacted to her disappearance. They must be keeping quiet about this girl, because he’d heard nothing about her. Or perhaps, considering the circumstances, they only decided to keep him in the dark.
“We have a new student,” he said, trying desperately to stop his hands from shaking. “I’m Professor Van Hanlin.”
He realized his tone wasn’t welcoming at all. It was suspicious. The imp of a girl tried to smile, but likely found it difficult to do so under his surveillance.
“Welcome … ?”
“Alex,” she replied. “Alex Ash.”
Another Ash.
“As your peers are aware, I am the law professor here on campus. In this introductory workshop, we will cover the basics. General questions and such, enough to get you accustomed to life here.” He circled the word on the chalkboard. “Do your best to brainstorm the given term.”
Alex Ash gaped at her classmates when she saw that they were scribbling notes on their papers. Certainly floccinaucinihilipilification was not a term she used in regular conversation. He watched her glance at the word again, and then her expression became one of surprise. “Oh,” she murmured. He imagined the sensation that rippled through her head was much like watching the pages of a flipbook. Such was always the case with him. The images appeared and disappeared so quickly it was like shuffling at warp speed through a card catalog.
“Write what you see,” he advised her. After minutes of drumming his fingers on his pedestal, he invited Alex to share what she’d written.
Mr. Jackson in seventh grade science discussing “‘pili.”
A tree.
Misspelling “purification” as ‘pilification.”
Sitting in church with the Lasalles.
Nihilistic themes in a song?
He was pleased. “I think you were rather successful with the activity. Your brain now has more potential than you could imagine, a fact justified by what you saw in your head when you merely glanced at this word. Your mind conjured up everything you’d ever experienced with the word or pieces of it.”
Or even, he thought to himself, future experiences.
“Can anyone wager a guess as to what the term means?”
Madison Constance raised her hand. Of course. A normal teacher would probably admire her vigilance, but Van Hanlin found her to be bothersome.
“I saw a science classroom just like Alex did,” Madison chirped, perched on the edge of her seat. “Is it something to do with science?”
“No,” Van Hanlin responded curtly. “Pili is plural for pilus, or cellular organelles. Wrong association.”
“What about history?” Joey Rellingsworth asked. “I saw my old history teacher.”
Van Hanlin smiled at Joey. Upon receiving his list of newburies to mentor, he’d been pleased to find the name Rellingsworth. Joey was multigenerational. He came from a long line of spiritual chemists.
“Often the word is used in political circumstances.”
“And nothingness,” chimed in another girl. He didn’t remember her name, and he didn’t care.
“Nihil in Latin means nothing,” he explained. Kind of like your significance, he wanted to add. This girl was a first-generation spirit.
“Why did I see the weather channel?” Joey asked.