“How come Alex still has her mind, then?”
Darby shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. She was lucky, I suppose. Alex, don’t scream though, just in case.”
She regarded him with trepidation. “Are you saying that a scream can shatter someone’s thoughts? Ruin their mind?”
“A voice is a powerful thing.”
“How are they hunted?” Reuben called out louder than Alex had ever heard him speak.
Finally, a topic he enjoyed.
“The Patrol contain them if they are able to. Most banshees are destroyed in their attempts to fight back, however.”
“How do they fight them?”
“Training. They know their habits, their weaknesses, and how to keep them from screaming. Plus, they rarely battle alone.”
Darby waved his hand again and the next image appeared on the screen. It resembled a Louisiana bayou with its drooping dull green branches and muddy gray water. “Banshees do not wander into our area, which is why the sightings have raised questions. Banshees are prone to warmer climates because they are attracted to energy. They flock to the swamps for the seclusion. Now whether their attraction to swamp plants is a result of this habitat or if it is simply a part of their survival strategy, we don’t know, but they have been known to appear in areas that grow bladderwort and sundew.”
“What the heck are those?” Linton yelled.
“Here is where we get into your science lesson. Be sure to take notes,” Darby recommended. Another image appeared. “Drosera!” Darby’s voice rang from the rafters. “Typically referred to as sundew!” It looked like an alien slug. Dozens of purplish-red antennae sprouted from its green peapod body. “If you notice the ends of the tentacles, there are bulbs composed of an oozing substance called mucilage, which lures insects to their deaths. The insects are attracted to the syrupy scent, and once they venture near enough to touch it, they adhere to the liquid and the sundew envelops them.”
Ironically, Alex thought the vicious plant was rather pretty. It was more like something that would live at the bottom of the Caribbean, not in a disgusting bog somewhere.
“The second plant, Utricularia, or bladderwort, is also carnivorous. A teardrop-shaped pouch opens at the sharp point to swallow its prey, much like a beak. These traps protrude from the stem-like tree branches.”
“Is there a picture of the bladderwort?” Madison asked curiously.
“You were supposed to see them up close and personal. I thought there were plenty in stock here to show you, but it seems the number has depreciated.” He squinted into Duvall’s tank. “We’ll have to live without a visual for the time being.”
At the end of class, everyone visited Duvall’s aquarium, hoping to catch a glimpse of what Darby described to be “banshee catchers.”
Duvall scoffed. “Bladderworts in November? Any idiot knows that they won’t bloom again until May!”
23
Chase walked toward Alex, who stood with her back to him in the Brigitta vestibule, watching the rain pelt the pavement. He didn’t need for her to turn around to know it was her. He could probably wander the world with his eyes closed and somehow eventually find her. That was how he’d felt the past year without her. Blind. Did it make him a horrible person that he wanted her to die just so he could have her back again? He’d always been drawn to her. It seemed the strings of his life were attached to hers. If she tugged in one direction, they both had to move. In two separate worlds, the pain of the pull was too much to live with but also too much to live without. Marionettes don’t do well without their strings.
Most of the spirits venturing across the square had given up on the idea of umbrellas. Vicious raindrops fell like stones, and they stung like paintballs. The other day, he'd overhead a newbury asking Westfall how pain could exist when spirits existed only as energy. Westfall had replied by saying the reflection of the sun on the ocean stings the eyes nearly equally to the pain of staring at the sun itself. Like most of the veteran spirits, Westfall liked to speak in rhymes and metaphors.
Chase came up behind Alex, and her body relaxed as the pull of the strings slackened.
“Hey,” she murmured without turning around. The colors flickering around her changed from lavender to bright pink. He’d grown accustomed to seeing the rainbows of emotions around people. Usually he saw lavender during workshops when someone was staring into space or out the window, daydreaming. He usually saw pinks and reds around Alex.
Chase wrapped his arms around her waist. He would never tire of the way her touch sent shockwaves throughout him.
“This isn’t going to be fun,” Alex said, gesturing out the window. “Thank goodness I don’t bruise so easily anymore.”
Chase sighed. There was something about Alex that was still very fragile, but he couldn’t say that to her now. It wasn’t a bad thing. The most beautiful things in the world were also the most breakable.
Alex turned to look over her shoulder, and he couldn’t help himself. He grazed his nose against her cheek. The feeling was better than skin-on-skin contact in life. Here touch had a current, a life of its own. Although, his mind clung to its old sensations, too, like when his stomach dipped because his lips hovered so close to hers.
It took all his strength to take a step back. He still didn’t know how much was allowed. In life, the only thing he ever cared about was keeping her safe, and that included her heart. He had watched her body slowly deteriorate, and it tortured him to witness it. How could he be selfish enough to fall for her if that would only make her death more painful? He’d never imagined they’d get an opportunity like this one. They couldn’t have dreamed of a better place. His feelings were so strong now, but what would happen to him—what would happen to her—if he gave in for just one moment and decided to kiss her? Half of him worried the force of it might devour the slice of life they still had. The other half of him feared it wouldn’t be perfect, that it might not live up to the years of desire they’d both endured only dreaming about it.
That was the thing about them. The intensity between them was not born from their death. When they were alive, sometimes he couldn’t breathe because she was just too much. It would always be all or nothing with them. And he’d rather have this uncertainty between them than broken expectations.
He tugged at her hand. “Come on.”
She followed reluctantly when he led her to the door. The force of the rain would feel like stepping through sheets of glass, but Chase would choose to brave this hurricane with Alex tucked beside him rather than choose to walk in the sunlight alone for the rest of his existence.
“What are you doing?” she yelled over the rush of the storm. “Why are you moving so slowly?”
Was he? She squinted at him through the rain, flinching with each drop that struck her. He yanked at her arm, forcing her small body to fall toward him. He hunched over her, sheltering her. If he could help it, nothing would ever hurt her again.
When they entered the Grandiuse and headed to their usual table, Jonas was grumbling in typical fashion. “You’d think Duvall would be happy that her students are so excited about one of her dumb plants for a change.”
“No teachers are happy that students are so enthused to learn about banshees. It seems like they’re afraid we’re trying to fight them for some reason,” Kaleb said, flipping pages in his ABC text. “How gross were those pictures though? Is that what they really look like?”
“They’re worse,” Jonas said. Alex took the seat opposite him, and he allowed his eyes to rest on her for longer than was necessary. She didn’t see it, but Chase did, as did Kaleb who snickered loudly.