touch

Her voice echoed oddly. My heart picked up speed at the proof Mrs. Wrightly was no longer herself, and I took another step back.

Clavin, thinking I meant to leave, reached out to stop me. Mrs. Wrightly pivoted and stepped between us. Clavin’s hand met with Mrs. Wrightly’s chest instead of my arm. I continued to back away while watching them.

Regarding his hand in absolute horror, Clavin started stammering an apology. While Clavin looked ready to pass out, Mrs. Wrightly’s focus didn’t shift. She appeared completely unconcerned with the fact Clavin had yet to remove his hand.

“Did you bruise her?” Mrs. Wrightly asked in a deceptively calm soft manner.

The question worried me since it’d asked just about the same thing at lunch.

Clavin blinked at Mrs. Wrightly stupidly. “It was an accident,” he reiterated.

I wondered if he heard the echo in her voice. He didn’t seem any more disturbed than he had before, so I thought not.

Neither paid any further attention to my slow shuffling steps back. Like before, I saw the change. Mrs. Wrightly relaxed slightly as Clavin tensed, reminding me of air filling a balloon. As it jumped, it immediately focused on me again. I paused, confused by the switch.

“Clavin? What are you doing here?” she demanded looking around for me. She found me ten steps behind her in the nearly empty atrium. The remaining students talked in groups covertly trying to hear what Clavin said next.

Clavin didn’t take his eyes from me as he answered her with the strange echo present. “Making amends. Atoning for misdeeds.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Tensing, thinking he would come after me now, he surprised me by turning and walking out the doors.

The conversation between Clavin and the thing possessing Mrs. Wrightly, hadn’t taken more than five minutes. Just enough time for the buses to fill. Through the glass doors, I watched the first bus pull away. The rest followed in a slow procession.

Clavin kept a steady pace as he walked across the large cement quad separating the doors from the parking lane. Dread pooled and solidified in my stomach. The final bus departed and student cars started driving past.

He didn’t turn to walk on the sidewalk, but kept walking toward the line of traffic.

“No!” I yelled running forward. I heard Mrs. Wrightly’s gasp as she too realized what Clavin meant to do.

As I pushed through the door, Clavin stepped off the curb in front of a car. The driver, busy with the radio, didn’t react in time. The thud of Clavin’s body hitting the hood and the squeal of tires covered my second cry. I didn’t stop moving. The impact knocked Clavin back a few feet. He collapsed to the ground.

Skidding to a stop, I fell to my knees by his side but didn’t touch him unsure if the thing had released Clavin yet or not. The cold asphalt bit into my knees as I studied him.

He calmly looked up at me without speaking, still possessed. Blood streamed from his head where it had connected with the ground. The people surrounding us began to yell for help. Teachers poured from the school yelling for the students to move away.

The engine of the car that hit him quieted. I didn’t look up. Someone else knelt beside him and started asking questions. Neither of us paid any attention.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

He smiled and reached up to touch my face. I flinched away and he dropped his hand.

“Now that I found you, I will take care,” he said. Clavin’s voice was only a rasp, but the echo behind it came through strong and clear.

“Of what?” I asked, but as soon as I said the words, his eyes rolled back in a faint.

Standing, I met the eyes of those in the small group surrounding us slowly turning a circle searching for the thing that had just left Clavin. Its ability to jump from person to person terrified me.

Everyone looked away as soon as I made eye contact. Where did it go?

“Tessa!”

I turned at the sound of my name. My grandmother stood outside the crowd trying to get to me. The crowd parted for me as I ran to her, cautious and frightened faces giving me wide berth, and pulled her away from the accident.

“We need to get out of here now,” I whispered frantically to her, careful so no one would over hear me. “I’ll drive.” I held my hand out for the keys. They shook, badly, but she willingly surrendered them.

No one moved to stop us. The teachers swarmed around Clavin trying to revive him.

She hurried to her side of the car as I slid behind the wheel. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. Shaking, I fumbled with the keys trying to insert them into the ignition.

Something out there hopped from body to body, watched me and wanted to hurt people who hurt me. And, apparently, only I could perceive it.