The Mortal Fringe (16 page)

"You heard what Tristan said. About
what's going on?"

"So?"

Elizabeth takes me to some dark
corner, like if she wanted to make sure no one could hear our
conversation.

"Goddesses always had a better shot at
finding the shadows, in all past regencies at least one shadow
bounded to a Goddess.”

She takes a long breath, as if every
word she was saying was punishing her.

"Constance hasn't stopped talking
about them for the last years. The first time she had a female
Immortal something went wrong, she does not like to mention that,
but I know it still hurts, deep inside her. "

"The crossed out name from the
wall?"

"Yes. Malenie. She was her favorite.
"

"Alright…" There's too much
information that I don't know that it's too hard to concentrate. I
don't understand a word of what she is saying. I don't know what
the shadows are, and yet she keeps mentioning them as if everyone
knew about their existence. "I don't…"

She gasps hopelessly.

"So, Alex, what if she wants me to
find them and get it right this time?”

CHAPTER 22

"What are the shadows
anyway?"

The tiny streets of the old city of
Barcelona are empty and my voice sounds louder than it really is.
Elizabeth stares at me with that look of hesitation on her face
that keeps reminding me that something is wrong. I don't want to
get her on trouble, and maybe that's exactly what she would be
facing if she told me about the deepest secrets of her world. So
after a couple of minutes of silence I start walking towards the
underground station that stands nearby, frustrated and surprisingly
mad at her. She wants me to open up, she wants my total trust, and
yet she gives me neither.

"Where are you going?"

"To sleep. If you don't trust me, I
don't need to be here" I am tired of not knowing what I am going
through, too tired.

She doesn't come to get me, and I
don't turn back, the night is over for both of us. We don't say
goodbye, why should we?

The tube is so crowded that I can't
stop feeling uncomfortable; there are so many couples cuddling
around and so many people getting ready to party that I get off at
the following station. I don't need to feel more miserable than I
already do. It is a long walk home, but some walking will be great
to put all my thoughts together.

The city is at twilight, and there's
less than a handful of people along the way. I suddenly find myself
thinking about when I should tell Elizabeth what happened last
year. I have never told anyone about it, and perhaps she should be
the first to know from my own telling. I only hope Constance won't
tell her before I do, but I need to be ready, reviving it won't be
easy. I will wait for the right moment.

The cold breeze of the night is
already here and I still have a long way to go before I get to the
residence. I start running and while I do so I try to picture the
situation, there's a whole other world underneath my feet, and for
all I heard, these people walking or running near me could be Gods
in search of those mysterious shadows that Tristan and Elizabeth
have been talking about. That makes me think that perhaps I've been
too harsh on Elizabeth and that I should not have left in such a
way. I hope she understands that all this is too much to take in.
At least I am no longer terrified to be with her, and that's even
more terrifying if I think about it, after all, she is going to
kill me.

When I get in my room Jay is lying on
his bed wearing nothing but his underwear. The shower is running
and the fun look on his face tells me everything I need to
know.

"Can I stay?" I ask as if I was a
total stranger

"Of course you can, you live here" he
smiles and sits on his bed "So, how was it?" the stupid voice he is
using makes me nervous.

"Life changing" I fake a smile, still
thinking about everything that happened in The Atlas. I won't let
him read my thoughts, so I enjoy the suspicious look on his face. I
sit back, take my book about the Immortals and read a random
page.

The shower stops and the door opens, I
should not look, I know, but an unexpected moment of curiosity
makes me drop the book accidentally and I am surprised to see
Jessica, the neighbor, walking out of my room with nothing but a
towel wrapped around her body.

"Seriously?" I ask without even
looking at Jay.

"Yeah" he pauses "life
changing."

I want to stand up and make him
swallow the volume, but I don't, I just try to avoid laughing. Jay
falls asleep before I can finish reading one paragraph in the book,
and finally, I am alone, or as alone as I can be. I turn to the
beginning of the book, hoping to find a reference to the Shadows,
but after a close look, and a complete study of all the topics
dealt in the volume, there's no reference to what I'm looking for.
I leave the book back on my night table, filled with
disappointment.

I would contact Elizabeth, it would be
as easy as simply calling her on my thoughts, but I stop myself
before doing it, perhaps she will do it. That's perhaps the most
selfish idea I've had in a very long time, but given the situation,
she is clearly the one taking the lead, so I might as well wait for
her to call me, so to speak.

It seems that the best way to avoid
thinking in this room is to have a nice, calm, and relaxing hour
under the pouring water. I have been in the shower more or less
since Jay fell asleep and the one thing I don't want to do is get
out. It is so incredible that after years and years of reading all
this books about fantasy heroes and watching films about Zeus and
all those stories, I'm suddenly part of it. It's too bad I won't go
down as part of history, I think they should have a list of
"mortals that helped create our society" or something like that.
Clearly, the shower helps, I would never joke about that myself.
But everything has come to a point where I can't prevent any of
this from happening, so I will just make the most of it. As in
history, there's always someone who has to sacrifice himself in
order for others to become something. That, I am sure, is my goal
in life. I will be a drop of silver life, attached to Elizabeth's
soul.

I get back in my bed, with no
intention of doing anything but finally going to sleep. Tomorrow I
have class and it's only three weeks before Christmas, so my exams
will be here soon and all the resting in the world won't be enough
to at least try not to make a fool of myself when they arrive. If I
die next February, I want to go out as clean as possible, and
failing my exams will clearly not help.

"
Good night, Alex."

I smile when I hear the sound of her
voice in my head. My heart starts beating so hard that I fear I
will be awake all night, but I do my best and before I can think of
the words, I am sleeping.

The wet ground again. There's mud
on my head, and my hands are stuck on the floor. I feel like in a
vantage point and everyone is staring at me. The unknown figure
with the green eyes is looking at me with a sadistic smile on her
face. The long dark hear waves with the air and when I try to
stand, she stabs my heart so fiercely that I die, almost
instantly.

The dream.

I feel the blade of the knife
entering my skin and the back of my head wet and full of black,
deathly mud. The stabbing pain in my chest disappears in a couple
of minutes and I can breathe again. I wake up, and take a cold
shower to make sure I am really awake and not just
sleeping.

When I look into the mirror and I see
my green eyes I almost jump of fear, it takes me some seconds to
analyze the situation and remember that everything is fine. At
least as good as it can be.

My classes today are more interesting
than ever, for some reason I am paying much more attention than I
used to do a couple of weeks ago. I barely had problems with
Constance other than some insulting comments that where obviously
addressed to me, but I guess I couldn't care less.

After her class I walk straight to my
next lesson and I am impressed to see how many people are gathering
around the Christmas party posters, making plans already. It's
three weeks away, just after the exams, and for what I've been
hearing, some girls are already making plans to go shopping to
look, as they put it, "so terrific that no star could ever beat
us". I would like to be so naïve as well, unfortunately, I think I
know too well the world I live in now. I give more importance to
living the day, rather than organizing my life around a party that
will only last five minutes, because after that, everyone will be
so drunk that no matter how nice you look, everyone will be exactly
the same: drunk students pretending that their lives are much more
interesting than the ones of those around them.

Elizabeth doesn't show up at the
following class and even though I would have liked seeing her, it
makes me be more attentive.

"Excuse me?" someone touches my
shoulder on my way out. It's my neighbor Jessica. "Hi."

Awkward.

"Oh hi" I try my best to look nice and
comfortable.

"I wanted to apologize about
yesterday."

That just makes it even more
uncomfortable.

"It's quite alright" I say mimicking
Tristan's words from when I almost touched his soul.

"Thanks" she says, and before I turn
away and start walking again she gives me a couple of tickets. "For
the Christmas party.”

"Thank you, but I don't think I will
be going."

"Take them, in case you want to come,
it's the least I can do."

I take the tickets politely and thank
her once more, then I make some excuse up and run away from the
conversation. My first instinct is to throw the tickets away but
before I get to the garbage can, I reconsider it, and put them in
my front pocket.

When I get to my next class I see a
note on the door that says that my literature teacher is not coming
today. Good, I didn't have a chance to read whatever it was we had
to read for today's class so I'm quite relieved.

I leave the university building, put
my headphones back on and start walking as I listen to some U2.
Their music keeps me alive, that's the way I picture music: it can
either put me off or keep me alive. I personally don't care about
greatest hits albums, they usually get it all wrong so what I do is
my personal set list and simply hope it will work to build up my
mood for the moment.

Walking through Barcelona is like
witnessing thousands of different stories at the same time, and the
longer I live here, the more amazing it gets. The mixture of people
walking near you is such that I could go from one side of the world
to the other just by asking the names of the people I have in front
of me. I am glad I have one of these days in which I don't think
about myself, I just want to get home, get on with my homework,
study, and whish that tomorrow will be just like today.

With no self-regret, and worries about
what's going to happen next, I go on.

CHAPTER 23

Classes again, and still no sign of
Elizabeth. I didn't have a chance to ask Jay about her when I got
back to the residence yesterday, he wasn't there either. I am
starting to worry, and I can't stop wondering if they would feel
something like this if I were to disappear. Probably they would,
but not for what I consider the right reason.

"Are you there?"

No answer.

Whatever it is she is doing, I hope it
doesn't go on for much longer.

My grammar class is as boring as it
usually is, although I try my best not to let my mind flew
elsewhere. It is no secret to anyone in the class that I am an
American so there's a general assumption that I don't need that
lesson. I can't say they are wrong, but it would be nice if it was
a little bit more challenging. However, I really can't focus on the
board or on what the teacher is saying. I only think about my last
minute with Elizabeth, I revise it over and over again.

I get back at lunchtime and luckily
Jay is in the room eating something while reading, again, my book
about the immortals. I am at least a little bit relieved to see
that he has not vanished.

"I literally cannot believe that you
bought this piece of junk."

"I literally cannot believe that you
keep reading it" I drop my bag on the ground and go straight to my
bed. It's been a tiring day. "So, where were you
yesterday?"

"With Elizabeth, and she thinks the
same about the book".

I stand up immediately.

"Why, what happened? Is she alright?!"
I might have been too euphoric, I didn't want to look desperate,
well done Alex.

"Hey man, take it easy" he looks at me
with that look on his face, like trying to say «you loving boy»
"she's fine, everything's fine."

"So why hasn't she been attending
class?"

"I don't think that's your
concern.”

I take the book from his
hands.