Page 29 of Soul of Shadow #1
“Marcus Whittaker is off the table,” Lou said as she, Charlie, and Abigail walked down the hallway toward the cafeteria. “Apparently, he and Sheila Perkins made their relationship official last night.”
Last night. Charlie massaged her forehead, hoping it would rub away some of her sleeplessness.
The dream with Sophie had felt like far more than a dream.
It had felt like a warning, a message brought from the afterlife.
She knew that was a ridiculous idea, but you know what else was a ridiculous idea?
Goblins. Fairies. Wood wives. She was living in a brave new world, and she had no idea how far its rules could stretch.
“Dammit,” said Abigail. She flipped the pages of her binder until she found Marcus’s profile, then ripped it out. “Another one bites the dust.”
Charlie blinked down at her friend’s handiwork. A flurry of paper scraps indicated that Abigail had been periodically ripping out Instagram profiles as their owners became unavailable.
“Take this one out, too.” Lou reached down and tore out the page for Carrie Ramirez. “Molly asked her already.”
“God dammit,” Abigail muttered, flipping to the end of the binder and making notes on a lined piece of paper that was already half filled with text. “That’s, like, half of the openly gay women at this school. Yet another perk of moving to Wonder Bread America.”
The gnome chose that moment to stick his head out the top of Charlie’s backpack and into her line of sight.
Charlie nearly yelped with fright. She probably would have, but the little creature had been doing this all day.
In math class. At her locker between classes.
Even during gym, when she specifically instructed him to stay inside, she spotted him out on the track, his little hat waddling back and forth between the orange cones.
No matter where she left him, he found her. He wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Can we talk about something other than this ridiculous date game?” Charlie asked loudly as the v?tte climbed up onto her shoulder. To be honest, she couldn’t believe that her friends couldn’t see him; it was taking all of her effort to pretend he wasn’t there.
“Sure.” Lou crumpled up Carrie Ramirez’s page and tossed it into a trash can across the hall. “Let’s talk about how sketchy you’ve been acting lately.”
Charlie stiffened. “Hmm?”
“Oh, don’t try to play this off,” said Lou. “You look like you ran a marathon instead of sleeping last night.”
“Thanks,” Charlie muttered.
“I’m serious. And you’ve been even more spacey than usual the last few days, which I didn’t think was possible.
” Lou was really getting warmed up now. She had clearly been holding back, but here it was, all spilling to the surface.
“If something is going on with you, I’d really rather you just tell us. I mean, we’re your best friends, and— ”
They turned through the entryway into the cafeteria and stopped dead in their tracks.
The cafeteria was no longer the cafeteria.
There was the normal assortment of wooden tables and cushioned chairs, yes, but the far wall—two stories high, blank-white plaster, normally reserved for event posters and opportunities to sign up for clubs—was no longer visible.
It had been covered, floor to ceiling, in roses.
There must have been hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. Roses upon roses, painted either emerald green or shimmering gold. They formed an enormous wall of flowers, with only the very center left uncovered. Inside that opening was a huge banner that read:
CHARLOTTE HUDSON …
HOMECOMING?
The cafeteria erupted into applause at the sight of Charlie and her friends. Startled by the noise, the v?tte dove into her backpack.
Charlie spine went rigid. Lou and Abigail gasped in unison. Together, they looked down, eyes traveling to the bottom right-hand corner of the wall of roses. To the boy standing there. The boy who had set it all up.
Elias Everhart stood on the floor of the cafeteria with a bouquet of green and gold roses in his arms, grinning like a gambler who knew he had the winning hand.