Just a trick of light.
Just a passing shadow.
The Headmaster enjoyed visiting this town. The rhythmic clatter of tourists walking among the cobbled streets. Students bustling nearby, scrambling to get to class on time. It reminded her of another version of herself. Not the one who had belonged to the world of the living, but another. The one who had found her strength in the halls of an academy. The one who had clawed her way to the surface, despite the prickly threads of grief that had attempted to pull her back.
Tonight’s visit, however, would be different.
There was business to attend to.
She entered the town in the dead of night. Shadows shrouded the empty streets. A calm, inviting silence drifting in the chill air. It was a Friday night, and a few students scurried in the dark, bundled together, giggling into their hands as they drunkenly waded through mounds of fallen leaves. Pale light shone upon the black asphalt. There was a full moon; the white-laced moon hung high in the night sky, unburdened by the thin gray cloud swimming around it.
The Headmaster glanced down at her watch.
“It’s almost time,” she whispered out loud. The fluffy creature at her side peered up at her with his beady red eyes. “Shall we?”
The creature sneezed and the Headmaster smiled.
Together, they crossed the street, heading for the small square that sat near the town’s university. Full, lush oak trees adorned the perimeter of the courtyard, though the leaves had begun to change as autumn’s breath blew upon them, tinged in hues of deep auburn and delicate orange.
At the center of the courtyard stood a fountain surrounded by a stone ledge.
And there, seated upon the stone ledge, beer bottle in hand, was a girl.
Her hair was as auburn as the molting leaves of the trees. Her eyes a pale blue.
The Headmaster looked up at the sky.
“Any second now,” she whispered.
Three…two…one…
The boy came into view, entering the courtyard with his hands tucked into his pockets and his gaze fixed forward. His hair was the color of raven’s feathers. His eyes a silvery gray. He hummedalong to the song blasting from his corded headphones, completely unaware of the girl seated only a few yards away from him.
The Headmaster rolled her eyes.
Must I do everything?
She snapped her fingers and a sudden gust of wind blew through the trees, knocking the boy’s headphones out of his ears. He staggered, reaching for them, but the cord slipped right through his fingers, drifting across the ground. He scrambled, chasing after them, though he skidded to a halt when he realized his earbuds had come to a stop right beside the girl’s shoes.
He glanced up.
Their eyes met.
The girl reached down, picking up the earbuds. She stood up and faced the boy, dangling them in front of him.
“I’m guessing these are yours.”
The boy let out a nervous chuckle. He grabbed them and tucked them into his pocket.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
The girl laughed and a cloud of frost billowed from her lips. When she smiled, the boy swore he had seen it a million times before. Swore he could shut his eyes and draw it from memory.
“Do I know you?” the girl asked. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stepped closer.
The boy shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe.”
The girl took a long sip from her beer. Her blue eyes bored into his, that same inkling of familiarity radiating inside them. She stared at him like she knew him—like they’d known each other from the very start.
