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His last sentence lingers in the air, and Ayden tries to explain. “It’s not like that with Teresa.”
The principal dismisses his comment with a wave. “It’s alright; you don’t owe me an explanation. I’ll leave you to get cleaned up. We’ll shift the meeting to my office. See you soon.”
With that, he hurries away, and all I can do is stare after him, speechless. I can sense Ayden scrutinizing me, trying to read from my face whether his father’s behavior has hurt me. But I’m fine. It was just an awkward moment. All that matters to me is that Ayden cares about me. And he does.
In class, I’m pretty distracted to be honest. Instead of concentrating on Mr. Brian’s lesson, I’m preoccupied with Ayden and last night.
The teacher shoots me a cold look every now and then, but that’s nothing unusual. He does that in almost every class. It seems like he’s fighting an eternal battle. Most of the time, he tries to ignore me, but every now and then he can’t resist making his aversion known to me. At the same time, he takes great pains to treat me the same as the rest of the students. So I guess my threat to tell the principal about the theft of Frida’s painting is still having an effect.
But I make it easy for him and try to stay out of his way and not provoke him. And because he almost never calls my name, it doesn’t really matter that my thoughts keep wandering back toAyden.
“What’s up with you today?” Kate asks as we leave for our next class. The corridors are full, and a crush of students is swarming in the same direction as us, mainly due to the fact that two really big key spirits are trying to stay close to their key carriers. A huge antelope with corkscrew horns squeezes past us, and on the other side, a twenty-foot-long crocodile is plodding along the corridor. Although I’m pretty much used to the spirits now, I can’t help instinctively recoiling from these gigantic animals.
Lucia’s looking at me suspiciously too. “Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Mr. Brian’s class wasn’t that boring, and you’re not usually so vacant. Did you sleep badly?”
Images of last night pop into my head, and my heart rate increases. It’s not that I want to keep me and Ayden a secret, but it’s going to be hard to explain it to them. We’ve been having problems for a while, and I’m supposed to be staying away from him.
I’m about to tell them when I hear a shout beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kate stumble. I reach for her but can’t get to her before she falls on a student in front of her and drags him down.
“Hey, what the hell?!” the boy grumbles, struggling to his feet in the steady stream of people. “Watch where you’re going!”
Some of the students around us look down at them both and then continue on their way.
“Sorry, someone bumped into me, and I lost my balance,” says Kate, slowly getting to her feet. Her hand instantly goes to her waistband, but there’s nothing there. Panic spreads across her face. “No, no way,” she mutters and begins to look around frantically.
I realize at once what she’s looking for. “Ty’s keyring,” I say and begin to search for it too. Kate wades through the throng of students, pushing people aside and eliciting some evil looks.Lucia and Max help with the search, although they’re not entirely sure what they’re supposed to be looking for.
“A keyring,” I explain. “It belonged to Ty.” They both immediately understand.
We all search for it but find nothing. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and turn to say something to Kate when I see her kneeling in the middle of the corridor a short distance away.
My heart contracts when I see her bent forward, cradling something in her hands as if it’s the most precious treasure in the world. I slowly approach her, put my hand on her back, and look at the shards in her hands. The dried leaf that was inside the keyring is crushed into tiny pieces, and the sand is probably irretrievably scattered across the floor.
“Kate,” I say quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
She just sits there holding the broken keyring. Over the last few weeks, she’s pulled it out and looked at again and again. It was a last precious reminder of Ty. Something that meant a lot to him and that he always carried with him. And now it’s irreparably destroyed.
Max and Lucia join us and try to cheer Kate up. “Maybe it can be repaired,” Lucia suggests. But we all know that’s impossible.
Tears trickle down Kate’s cheeks and fall on the floor. But not a sound passes her lips. She just keeps holding the pieces in her hands, without saying a word.
Gray comes to her side and nudges her hands with his big head. He looks up at her with his dark eyes, nestling up to her and grieving with her. Kate lets the shards slowly fall to the floor and puts her hands on Gray’s head instead. She strokes it tenderly, and finally a sob bursts out of her throat. Now the tears come freely, falling on the snake, who also seems to be silently weeping. They’re united in their grief, their pain, their memories of a mutual friend who meant so much to them both.
Then next tear that falls on Gray slowly begins to glitter andshine. It transforms into what looks like a deep blue pearl, and Kate extends her finger toward it, looking utterly baffled. I hold my breath when I see the teardrop begin to move. It slowly rises up in the air and follows the movement of Kate’s finger.
Gray lifts his head, closes his eyes, and suddenly all the tears rise up from him, swirling in the air as brilliant points of light. When Gray opens his eyes again, a surge of ice-blue water shoots out of his body and soaks the floor. Speechless, Kate stares at the wet corridor and then at her hands.
“What... what was that?” Lucia murmurs incredulously.
“I guess Kate just discovered her power,” Max observes.
Kate stares at her hands and stammers quietly, “Grief. The feeling I have to draw on is grief.”
“That’s... I’m sorry,” Max mutters.
But Kate shakes her head and looks at us. “No, grief has its place. Sure, it’s painful and makes us suffer. But we need that emotion in order to process experiences and grow from them. We’ll never forget,” she says, stroking Gray’s head, “but from now on we’ll allow ourselves to feel the grief and gradually let it pass. Only then can something new grow out of it. It’s the only way we can grow stronger.”
I put my arms around Kate and squeeze her tight. Now my tears are flowing too. I know Ty would have been incredibly proud.
