A Grimoire

Because Kate knew she wouldn’t do it, she knew that Niva would.  And Niva would continue to do this work for her, because she had no idea how much Ana was going to use her.  At that moment, Kate disliked Ana enough to turn on her heel and walk into her room, shutting the door quietly.

Kate couldn’t control Ana, or Niva, but she could control her reactions to them.  Right now, she was angry at Ana for trying to use her, and angry at Ana for using Niva.  Maybe at some point she would sit down and talk to Niva about how Ana was going to abuse her, but for right now, she had to do some normal studying.

 

-3-

The vacuum sucked up the last bits of popcorn from the floor.  The anger and hate that Kate had the night before had cooled into a pool of disgust.

It was raining today, a perfect day to crawl into bed with her books and a cup of tea.  As it was, she was busy dusting and cleaning the two common rooms of the apartment.  The kitchen was cleaned first, and it was spotless; now she was vacuuming the living room and would soon be finished with the dusting.  She had found Ana’s books on the coffee table and piled them at the door to her room.

Lynn was lucky to have gotten three hours’ sleep before heading to the bus stop to catch the bus to campus; Niva had presented Ana with a perfectly typed paper that morning, adding to Kate’s irritation.

Kate looked at the clock after the vacuuming and decided she was going to take a quick walk to the convenience store across the street and pick up something special for lunch.  She really wanted a tuna sandwich, but needed the key ingredient.  She hoped that the store would have chunk white, but would be happy with the simple chunk light instead.  She got her coat on and went down the three flights, pausing at the second floor to hear a baby cry.

She didn’t know that one of the girls on that floor had a baby, and she knew from the landlord that was a particular no-no, as this was for single college girls.  If they had boys over, that was their prerogative, but no children were allowed.  Maybe someone was babysitting.

The baby’s cries were stopped suddenly, though she heard nothing to make it stop.  She shrugged and kept on going to the store.

The store was empty except for three older men who leered at her and then at the Kino screen, watching small bouncing balls hit numbers on a TV.  She went up and down the aisles, searching for tuna.  She finally found some, a pair of dusty cans, and plucked one from the shelf, checking the expiration date.  There was one month left.

She shrugged, and brought it to the counter.  After paying three dollars for it, she pocketed it without a bag and ran back to her house.  As she approached the second floor, she heard the baby cry again.  She hesitated at the door, not wanting to disturb anyone, yet, not wanting to get anyone in trouble, either.

Back at home, it would be perfectly all right to knock on someone’s door and ask if they needed any help or had a cup of sugar.  But this was the big city, and people here were not as friendly or as forthcoming as they were from her hometown.  She had her hand raised at the door, to knock, and thought long and hard.  What would the girl say if she knocked on the door and said she heard a baby crying?  “Yes, and I know it’s a bad thing but I have no where else to go”? “Yes, please don’t tell the landlord”? “Yes, I’m babysitting”?

The more she thought about it, the more she realized it was probably the last.  It wasn’t her problem.  She brought her hand down, and as she turned to go upstairs, the door opened and a harried girl stepped outside.  The baby was still crying.

“Excuse me,” Kate said, and the girl stopped for a moment.

“Yeah?” she said, fumbling to lock the door.

“Do you hear that baby?”

“What baby?” she asked, and hoisted her backpack onto her shoulder.

“The baby crying?”

The girl gave her a look that Kate immediately read as, “You’re off your rocker,” while the girl said, “Yeah, right,” and went down the stairs.  The baby stopped crying again.

Kate went back upstairs, and no longer heard the baby cry.  When Lynn came crawling in around dinnertime, Kate saw from the look on Lynn’s face that she had an up close and personal date with her bed, and so she let her go.  Niva came home next, followed by Ana at around nine, smelling of cigarettes and booze.  The tromped into the apartment, and was obviously drunk.

It’s not my problem, thought Kate, shutting off her light.

The next morning, she had a ten o’clock class, so started to leave to go catch the eight o’clock bus.  One of the girls from the first floor, a Vietnamese girl named Thanh fell into step with her.  She was born in America, and her mother was dead.  Her father was working three jobs to put his four children through college.  Kate thought that was crazy.  “He loves to work,” Thanh said as they sat on the bus.  For once, she didn’t have her earbuds in.

“Did you hear the baby yesterday?” Kate finally asked.

“What baby?”

“The baby crying, on the second floor.”

“No, we’re not allowed to have children in those apartments.”

“I know, but I could have sworn I heard a baby crying yesterday.  This girl out and out lied to me when I asked.”

Thanh shook her head.  “No, I’ve never heard any babies on that second floor.  Creaking beds, maybe, but no babies.”

The two laughed over that, and Thanh promised to come upstairs sometime to visit, while Kate promised to do the same.  Neither had the same classes, as Thanh was one year ahead, but Thanh said she’d be happy to have her along as a study buddy.  Especially for her Western Civ class.

Kate went to her Algebra class and then was free until noon, when she worked at the computer lab for three hours before heading home on the three-thirty bus.

She got to the second floor and heard the crying again.  Finally, she could take it no more and knocked on the door.  An African-American woman opened the door.  “Yes?”

“Hi, I’m from upstairs and…do you have any…sugar?”

The woman looked her over, and Kate knew that she didn’t look like she was baking, seeing as she had just come off the bus.  “I think so, how much do you need?  Come on in.”

“Thanks.”  Kate stepped inside.  She expected the crying to be louder in here, but it wasn’t.  It was the same volume as it was out in the hall.  Kate looked around the kitchen, furnished as it was like hers upstairs, with one kitchen and a large living room, and bedrooms off the kitchen and living room.  In this set up, the TV was opposite the windows, and there was a doorway as opposed to an archway to the living room like her apartment was.

“How much do you need?”

“Much – Oh, only half a cup.”  As soon as she spoke, the crying stopped.  The woman took down a large tin from the cupboard and then took out a zipper plastic bag.  She measured a half a cup with a measuring spoon.  As soon as she poured the sugar into the plastic bag, the crying started again.

The woman gave her the plastic bag, and Kate murmured, “Thanks.”  Then she asked, “How can you stand the crying?”

“What crying?”

“You don’t hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“The baby – there, it just stopped.”

The woman smiled, “Honey, there’s no baby here.”

“I can hear it crying.”

“I swear, there’s no baby here.”

Kate frowned.   “Okay, well, thanks for the sugar.”

“You’re welcome.  Anytime you need anything, just come over.”  The woman quietly shut the door behind her.  Kate shook her head, thinking that the woman must think she’s crazy.

Kate heard the baby again and went up the stairs.  As she did, she bumped into the landlady.  “Hi, Mrs. Cohen?”

“Hello,” she said, her accent harsh.  “I left a note upstairs.  I got a complaint yesterday that one of you came in late singing up a storm.”

“I know who that was,” Kate said, her head down.

“You tell her I do not tolerate this here.”  She started to walk back down the stairs.

Something occurred to Kate.  “Mrs. Cohen?”

“Yes?”

“Was there ever a baby here?”

Her face went cold for a minute.  “Does someone have a baby?”

“No, but, and this is going to sound crazy, but I hear one.  And I checked, but there isn’t a baby there.”

Cohen looked at the second floor door.  “I won’t let babies here anymore.  I did once, once.  It was awful, awful.”  Then Cohen knocked on the second floor door.  The same woman as before unlocked the door.  “I want to check your place,” she said.  “I heard you have a baby.”

That was just what Kate did NOT want to happen, and the woman said, as she closed the door, “I told her that we don’t – “ and the door shut.

Kate went upstairs and immediately jumped onto her computer.  She Dug her own address.

There it was, in black and white, a newspaper report from the ‘80’s.  A baby was found in a closet, suffocated.  The mother was an 18 year old college student who had suffocated her two month old baby because it wouldn’t stop crying.

Now it wouldn’t stop, and there was something in that apartment that was making it cry, making its soul stay behind.

She had to find Daniel, he could find the thing that was making its soul stay behind.  But she had told Daniel to leave her alone.  What an idiot she was.  She turned right around and bumped again into Mrs. Cohen.  Apologizing, she ran down the stairs and to the bus stop.

Kate sat in the middle of the bus, hoping he would be there, but he wasn’t.  She said he lived in a castle in Longwood, so she got off the bus at the terminus and walked the four blocks to the beginning of Longwood Mall, a long expanse of trees and woodland where, according to him, the Summer Fairies were.

She walked along it, and it grew dark around seven; pretty soon she was stumbling around on the outskirts.  Then she saw a house from a distance, a house bathed in light, with a fountain also bathed in light, facing the Longwood Mall.  It looked to her like a castle on a hill, made of light.

She headed for it.

So engrossed she was in the chapter that she didn’t notice when her relief came in.  She waved to her, and then headed for he last class of the day, Mass Communications.  Here they would talk about TV and what it meant for Western culture.  Though she didn’t like to watch TV, she had to pick one day to watch and one channel to watch and write in a journal about each episode.  She had picked Sunday prime time, watching A&E.  It was not exactly her cup of tea, but it was either that or PBS.

After that class, she got on the bus to head home.  About halfway down Commonwealth Avenue, she remembered something.  It tugged on the edge of her consciousness, making her look through her notebooks to find something she wrote down.  She found on the back of her Comp notebook, the words, “Black duster.”  She remembered the boy with the brown duster in her Algebra class, but couldn’t remember anything else.

She decided that she needed new music, so she got off the bus at Fry’s, a local CD shop.  They usually had the college alternative music that she found herself growing to like, but they also had a good selection of country, which she had been brought up with.  She went inside, and started pawing through the used CD rack, looking for old Loretta Switt or the Sex Pistols.

Someone came up to her side, and she looked up, startled.  It was the young man in the black duster from the bus.  “Hi,” he said, and plucked a CD from the rack.

“Are you stalking me?” she demanded.

“I want to apologize for earlier.”

That memory came flooding back.  “What were you doing?”

The young man pocketed the CD.

“You are a thief!”

“Shhh.  Do you want to draw attention to yourself?”

“You’re going to walk out of here with that, aren’t you?”

“Maybe, maybe not.  I wanted to show you what I found.”  He went in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a woman’s silver ring with dark blue and light blue stones in it.  “This is what drew that man to the store, time and time again.  It was his favorite piece.”

She looked at the ring.  It looked simple enough, split in half down the middle with the two stones set inside.  “Why?”

“Why do you like the music you do?  Who knows.”  He pocketed the ring.  “Once I cleansed the ring, he was able to go to his final rest.”

“What?”

“Let’s go get some coffee, and I promise to explain everything.”

“I was planning on eating dinner – ”

“Then I’ll take you to the pizza place right next door.”  He smiled.  “It’ll be a date.”

“I don’t date thieves.”

He sighed, and put the CD back.  “Spoilsport.  C’mon, my treat.  And I’ll explain everything.”

She crossed her arms in front of her and regarded him for a minute.  “What’s your name?”

“Daniel,” he said.  “Will you come with me?”

She frowned, and followed him.

They walked out of the CD shop and next door to the pizza restaurant.  He ordered four slices of pepperoni, though she had often eaten a large pizza all on her own.  He got her a Pepsi, though she preferred Diet Coke, and they sat across from each other in a booth.

“First of all,” he said, after biting into the pizza, “I told you I’m a mage.”

“Yes,” she said, eating the pizza ravenously.  “You make rabbits pop out of hats.”

“No, that’s a magician.  I’m a mage, which means I do all sorts of magic.  I would have gotten that CD for you without setting off any alarms.  You do know that they put anti-theft devices in those CD’s, right?”

“I kind of thought they did,” she said, finishing up the first slice of pizza.  He still hadn’t finished even half of his.  She drank soda to cover up how hungry she was.  “What do you mean you ‘cleansed’ the ring?”

He sat forward, warming to his subject.  “When ghosts are around, it’s usually because they’re tethered here because of something or someone.  Ghosts are people’s souls, who have something here they have to finish, or do, or like or love.  Loved ones can have other souls follow them for life; sometimes they’re stuck in a certain place because something happened to them there.  Or, like this ring, it’s something that they loved and wanted to be tied to forever.”

“That man was doing that forever?”

“I don’t know how long ago it was, but that store’s been closed the last thirty years.  It was a jewelry store in the 50’s, then a pawn shop, so it could be that he’s been doing it since the 50’s, or since he died.  That ring has been there since then.”

“What are you going to do with the ring?”

“Sell it at a pawn shop, probably.”

“Where do you live?”

Daniel ate some pizza.  “Ah, that’s where we get into some nitty gritty details, and especially how I know your name.”

“You said you’d explain everything,” she said, starting in on the second slice, forcing herself to go slow.

“Yes,” he replied, “and it’s probably going to blow your mind, so don’t freak out until I’m done, all right?”

“Okay…” she said, and ate pizza while he told her:

“I am a fairie.  I live with my prince in his castle over in Longwood.  Many of us help humans, at least those of the Spring Court like myself.  The ones of the Fall Court do not, and the ones of the Summer Court could care less, since they are forever entertaining each other.  The Winter Court are all dead.  Regardless, what we do in the Spring Court is try to keep humans unaware of what happens around them, and we try to help them against the Soul-stealing Vampyrn that exist.  That’s where you come in.”

She had stopped eating her pizza after the first sentence.  He paused to eat his pizza and she asked, “Are you done?”

“Nope,” he said, taking a drink of his soda.  “What you do is you see the souls of people, and you can see whether or not someone is Vampyrn.  Vampyrn wear other people’s souls like cloaks, and hold onto those souls; that is what gives them power and strength.”  He ate the pizza, saying, “Okay, ask away.”

She had set her pizza down, leaned back in her chair and said, “You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth.”

“You don’t look like a fairie.”

“You’re thinking I’m a pixie.  Pixie and fairie are two different things.”

“What’s this about Courts?”

“It’s how we align ourselves.  Spring Courts are usually helpers of humans, and most of the fairie who walk among human kind are of the Spring Court.  Fall Court fairie also walk among humans, but they cause sickness, mental illness, and all sorts of maladies.  Summer Court fairies live in the woods, like Longwood Mall, and are very close to the Spring Court.”

“The Winter Court is dead?”

“It’s where dead fairie go.  They sometimes have some impact on humankind, but it’s mostly in the realm of nightmares and dreams.”

“What are these Vampyrn?  I’ve never heard of them.”

“That’s what’s supposed to happen,” he said, “You’re not supposed to know about them.”

“Well why are you telling me?” she demanded.

“Because if you’re going to help, you need to know what they are.”

“Who said I was going to help you with anything?”

Daniel tilted his head, and tried to give her a pleading look.  She got that look from her brothers when they begged her for something, so it didn’t work on her.  “Please?  I’m asking for not only the fairie, but for you humans.”

“Are there Vampyrn here?  Like now?”

“I don’t know.  You would be able to see.”

“How?”

“You’d look at a person and see their soul.”

“Look,” she said, pushing the pizza away, “I’ve never had this happen to me until I saw you.  For all I know, you’re doing this to me, you magician.”

“I’m not a magician – ”

She got out of the booth.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to see you again.”

Daniel got out of the booth, leaving his food there.  “Please, look, I’m begging you.  Don’t go.”  He stood in front of her.

“I’m not helping you with your crazy scheme.  And get out of my way.”

Daniel sidestepped, and she pushed past him.  She felt a little bad for him, being delusional at such a young age, but she couldn’t see herself doing anything to help a thief.   Fairie.  Vampyrn.  What the hell was this guy thinking she was, some hick who fell off the turnip truck?  She wasn’t going to “help” him; next he was going to ask her for money, or some such things.  No, she wasn’t falling for any of that.  She wasn’t born yesterday.

She got back on the bus and headed back down Commonwealth Avenue to her apartment.  As she got closer to her apartment, the whole thing seemed like a dream.  She pulled out her comp notebook and under the Black Duster, wrote down what had happened, using the words “fairy” and “Vampirin”.  She would search the Internet for these terms later.

Kate got home and it was still light outside, as she walked past the four buildings.  At the frat boy’s building, someone tossed beer over the upper porch just moments before she walked in that direction.  She ducked close to the house to avoid any more falling debris and found her way back to her house.

She had no class tomorrow, so she decided to buckle down and study.  She went into her room and pulled out her comp book, ready to write a compare-contrast essay for two books that she had read over the summer.  Unfortunately she didn’t have the books with her, so she had to rely on her memory, which was pretty shoddy these days.

She opened her Comp book and turned to the back page, seeing what she had written.  She fired up the computer and got on Dig-It, her Internet search site of choice.  She looked up fairy, and there, in bright colors, was what she had imagined: a little girl in a gossamer gown with wings.  There were different kinds of wings, from pretty thin little paper wings to thick angel wings.  Vampirin didn’t show up as anything.

 

After a very boring lecture, she debated about lunch.  Even though that boy in the cafeteria was being immature, he was right, in the sense that she was buying a lunch at 10:30 in the morning. She didn’t want to go through possibly seeing him again, though she knew that she would be hungry.  She decided to go to the library, thinking that maybe reading a newspaper or doing anything but the cafeteria might be better.

As she went to the library, she smelled fresh-baked bread.  Her head turned in the direction, and there was the Student Union, where there was a Subway.  Well, maybe the boy wasn’t in the Subway, and maybe nobody would know, so she headed there.

Looking around the room, she saw no one she knew, but the place was crowded.  It being just after 12:30, this was the lunchtime crowd that didn’t want the ethnic cafeteria food.  A simple ham and cheese sub (small), no lettuce, just peppers, and she was good to go.  Someone vacated a spot, and she dove right into it.

She kept an eye on the door and inhaled her sandwich, feeling very guilty.  When she was nervous, she ate more than usual, and that boy in the lunchline had made her nervous and guilty. However, when she ate and how much she ate was her business, even though she felt that the world was watching and someone would say something.

Kate finished her sandwich and looked around.  People were eating their own food, not looking at her, looking at devices or laptops or out into space.  She gathered up her detritus and threw it out.  As soon as she cleared the seat, another person jumped into it.  She left the restaurant and the building, heading back south through the quad, to the computer labs where she would begin her Work-Study.

She finished her shower, turning the water off suddenly.  Shivering a bit in the chill air, she toweled herself off, avoiding looking in the mirror.  Kate then got dressed in her t-shirt and shorts again, and headed back out to the living room, then the bedroom.

Kate debated sitting on the computer for a minute or two, surfing the internet, but she really was tired.  Something had happened to her tonight, and she wasn’t sure what it was, what had left her in a state of panic earlier.  It didn’t matter all that much, as whatever it was, it couldn’t have been that important.

2.

It all came flooding back, the minute he sat next to her again.  She stared at the young man in the black duster, who said, “I’m really sorry about what happened yesterday.”

Kate was on a different bus, at a different time of day.  This time she was going to her morning class.  Was this guy following her?  He had been on the bus already, and sat down next to her a few minutes after she sat down.   She started to get up again, to move somewhere else – she couldn’t be late for class.

“Wait, hear me out, please?”  She could see his eyes, imploring her.  His hand reached out, as if to take her by the arm, but he stopped himself.  “Please?” he said again.

She huddled her backpack close and took her earbuds out, letting them dangle over one shoulder.  “How do you know my name?”

“It came to a friend of mine in a dream, all right?”

“They some kind of psychic?”

“She is, yeah,” he replied, taking his hand back and giving her a small smile.  “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“We?”  This was freaky.

He looked around the bus, seemingly looking for something or someone, and then he leaned in close, closer than she would like.  “Not here.”  He leaned back.  “Let’s get off at the next stop.”

“I have to go to class,” she said.

“You can catch the next bus in time for your class.  It won’t take long, I promise you.”

Her senses were telling her no.  She looked him over again.  He was thin.  She probably could put up a good fight.  She had nails.  And she had roughhoused with her brothers when she was younger, so she knew how to fight dirty against a boy.  This was an early morning, and there were tons of people.  So long as he didn’t drag her down a dark alley, she felt  she could be safe in the crowd.

“Okay, I guess.”  She looked outside, watching the stores go by and people walking.  Yes, she would be safe in a crowd of people.

He pulled the cord that signaled to the driver to stop at the next stop.  When the bus slowed down, he got up.  Kate followed, her backpack over her shoulders to keep her hands free.

They got off the bus, heading up Commonwealth Avenue toward the campus.   He stood close to her, and then took her elbow and guided her toward an empty storefront. He looked around again.

“I’m a mage,” he said quietly.  “And you’re a Seer.”

Her first thought was that he was loony.  He seemed so sincere about it though.  Her heart flew in her throat.  She noticed that he wasn’t crowding her, that she had room to run.  “What does that mean…exactly?”

“You can see things no one else can see.”

“Like what?”  She looked around too.  She saw people, and stores, and vehicles – nothing out of the ordinary.  “And you’re not answering my question – “

“Ghosts,” he said.  “People’s souls.”

She stifled a near uncontrollable laugh.  “I think you have the wrong person.”

“I know I have the right person.  I’ll prove it to you.”  He turned the door handle to the storefront, and it turned easily in his hand.  “Trust me?”

“Are you kidding?” she said.  “No, I don’t trust you.”

He nodded.  “I really don’t blame you.  Look, I’ll go first.  You can leave the door open, too.”  He stepped inside the darkened store.  She looked around her, but no one seemed to be looking her way.  Maybe if she left the door open, she could have room to run.

She stepped inside.  The place looked like it had been a pawn shop or a jewelry store, with d cases still together in a large U leading out from the door, with the bottom part of the U on the opposite side of the door.  Everything was in a diffused light, mostly coming from the front of the store.  People walked by and the shadows flickered along the walls.

Kate looked at the opposite corner, diagonally across from her and could see a man there.  But it wasn’t a man.  He was in muted colors, as if m was a clothed store mannequin left out in the sun too long.  It wasn’t a mannequin, either, if no one dressed a balding, short mannequin in a suit and tie.

“What do you see?” the young man asked, looking in the same direction she was.

“You don’t see that man over there?” Kate asked, pointing.  The man stepped forward to the counter and looked like he was speaking to someone sitting at the counter.  He pantomimed pulling out something from the display case, and offering it to the people there.

Then he stood up straight again, went back to his place against the wall.  He stepped forward, speaking again, pulling out something.

“I don’t see that man over there,” said the young man, “but my friend sensed someone there a while back.”

“The psychic?”

“No, someone else.”  The young man walked over to the counter, going around it.  He had his hands outstretched, as if a blind man trying to find his way.  “He’s around here, isn’t he?”

She watched the young man move, “You’re almost right on top of him,” she said.  The man didn’t move, but seemed to shimmer, like someone had put a hand in a bowl of water and the reflection in that bowl rippled.

The young man nodded.  “What is he doing?”

“It looks like he’s showing someone something.  From the display case.”

The young man glanced into the display case and rummaged with his hand around inside.  Kate looked out the door, then back at him.  “What are you doing?”

“Ghosts are drawn to a certain place for a reason,” he said, and straightened.  “There’s something over here that this ghost needs laid to rest.”

“Are you some sort of ghost hunter or something?”

“No,” said the young man, looking up.  “You’d better catch the bus, you’ll be late for your class.”

“Are you a thief?”

He laughed.  “I wish.  I’d make more money that way.”  He rummaged around some more.   “Close the door, please.  You’re either in or out.”

Class or this young mysterious man.  School or finding out who “we” were.  The first class of her major or finding out how he knew so much about ghosts.

She stepped outside and shut the door behind her.  She ran back to the bus stop and waited about five very long, agonizing minutes.  She kept glancing back at the store, to see if he would come out, but he didn’t.

He had to be some sort of thief.  Maybe he was like that show with the pie man…she couldn’t think of the name of it.  Her mother watched it once or twice.  The bus came and she hopped on, glancing at her watch as she sat down.  She had lost maybe ten, fifteen minutes, still enough time to get to class.

She watched the store go by, still looking uninhabited.  She wondered why she didn’t go to the cops, to report this guy.  But what was he doing?  Breaking and entering, maybe.  But he didn’t break in, the door opened for him.  He just turned the handle, and it opened.  Right?

Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be in that abandoned property.  She didn’t feel right there.

Then it hit her.  She had just seen a ghost.

A Seer, he called her.  But Seers were fortune tellers, as far as she knew.  They weren’t people who saw ghosts and spirits.  She half-believed in ghosts, or in life after death – her parents were Methodist, so she was brought up in the faith – but she stopped going to church when she was fifteen.  She believed there was something after death, there had to be.  She also believed that ghosts were because someone had done something horribly wrong or horribly bad, that they were haunted.

This couldn’t have been a ghost.  It was a mannequin, that’s it.  She was overusing her imagination, and some guy had talked her into it.  He was a mage, he said, so he could be using powers of illusion to create things that weren’t there, like David Copperfield.  That was it, that had to be it.  She was suckered by some guy, a guy she couldn’t remember quite right, but who gave her a sense of unease.  She’d be able to pick him out in a line up.  Maybe she should report him to the police.  But how, if she couldn’t quite remember him.

She had an aha moment, and pulled out a notebook.  On the back page she wrote “Black Duster” in big letters and stuffed the notebook back in her pack.  There, now she would remember the most important part of him, the part that stuck in her mind even after he had taken her into the store.  She would make a point to remember to open her notebook the minute she got to class, and she would look inside the back.

The bus pulled up to the campus, and most of the people on the bus got up.  This was usually the end of the line for this bus, even though it hit three other stops before turning around in the campus and heading back to Commonwealth Avenue to restart the process all over again.

She got off at the second stop, looking at her watch again.  Fifteen minutes to get two doors down and two flights up.  Not a problem, so she walked, not ran like some of the other kids were doing.  She didn’t know what their hurry was; she had all day.