Quickening

Chapter 1

Cassie Wilson stood up from her desk, picked up her report and started to walk towards the front of the class. Her long brown hair was pulled up into a ponytail and she could feel it sway with her movements. She hoped it made her look easygoing and confident. She blinked a few times, mostly to make certain that her brown eyes hadn't gone wide in fear. Inside, she was quaking. Her mouth was dry and her hands wanted to shake. She hated speaking to groups, hated speaking to strangers, hated speaking to anyone really. It wasn't that she was overly shy, she wasn't, at least she didn't think she was, although she did let others think that was what her general quietness meant. It was just that she always managed to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. There were so many things she couldn't say. Saying nothing at all was a much safer course of action.

'Most aren't even paying attention, ' Cassie reminded herself as she started up the center aisle. Geography was right before lunch and no one was particularly interested. 'Well accept me, ' she conceded. She always liked Geography, the way it made the world seem vast and yet oddly knowable with all its place names clearly delineated with carefully marked dots on a map.

Cassie loved maps, especially the topographical ones with the raised mountain ranges. She loved running her fingers over the landscapes, pausing now and again to read the names out loud. Certain names seemed to call to her and she often found her fingers searching those places out as though they were magnets and her fingers metal. In her bedroom at home she had maps on the walls the way others had posters of their favorite musicians. Some of her maps were quite old, or reproductions of older maps and she liked to see how the various place names changed over time.

'All I have to do is go through the talking points and hand Mrs. Garner my report, ' she reminded herself, swallowing back her nerves. Her report was on the Amazon River Basin and she was actually quite proud of it. Concentrating on her own jitters, Cassie made her way to the front of the class. 'I can't go wrong if I just stick to my talking points. I can't say the wrong thing then.'

"Freak, " she heard Kelly mutter under her breath as she passed, her surrounding cohorts chuckling nastily in a chorus. Cassie felt her spine stiffen, but didn't stop moving, knowing it was better not to acknowledge them. She felt the foot connect with her shin, but didn't realize what was happening until it was too late and unable to stop her forward momentum. Cassie gasped as she began to fall, her arms pin wheeling out in a desperate attempt to regain her balance. Her papers went flying. A soft sound of distress escaped her lips.

'I should have stapled them instead of just using a paperclip, ' she thought oddly as the pages fell like bizarre snowflakes. She crashed into something softer than the ground and found Eric Ellington, Elkdale High's star quarterback, caught her, preventing her from colliding with the tile floor.

"Nice save Ellington, " one of his friends called from the back of the room. Eric flashed his friends a grin as laughter filled the room. Cassie felt her face burning as he looked down at her.

"Are you all right?" he asked. Concern, or maybe puzzlement, creased his forehead.

Cassie nodded and pulled away from him to gather her scattered pages. To her surprise, Eric helped her instead of returning to his seat. As she gathered the papers, Cassie looked up and caught the look of hatred plastered across Kelly's face. Normally, Cassie wondered what she did to earn the rather single minded hatred of Kelly Larsen, head cheerleader, class president and nominal ruler of Elkdale High. Today she knew it was Eric's attention, no matter how generic, that put her on Kelly's radar. It was no secret that as head cheerleader she felt the school's quarterback should belong to her. To Kelly it was the natural order of things. The fact that Eric didn't necessarily agree was immaterial. People didn't tell Kelly no.

'Of course Eric doesn't exactly tell her no, ' Cassie reminded herself as she picked up the last of her pages. 'He just doesn't return her flirtations.' Or at least that was how it always seemed to Cassie. She wasn't exactly one of their inner circle and could only judge from a distance. Personally, she liked to think there was someone, somewhere who stood up to Kelly. Cassie was well aware it wasn't going to be her.

Papers finally gathered, she mumbled a 'thanks' to Eric who handed her the pages he collected and resumed his seat. Cassie reached the podium without further incident and somehow stumbled through her verbal report. When she rattled to a halt, Cassie realized she couldn't remember exactly what she said and hoped she managed to only cover the salient points instead of adding inappropriate details.

Looking out over the room Cassie saw glassy eyed stares. The amusement of her near collision with the floor tiles faded and pre-lunch apathy reigned. Inwardly, she sighed with relief. Cassie looked to Mrs. Garner who gave her a small smile of generic encouragement and allowed her to make certain her pages were in order before turning the report in. This time, if she said anything strange, no one noticed.

Cassie stepped off to the side and re-ordered her papers as Jeremy Farwell began his report on the Gobi Desert. By the time he finished his brief presentation, Cassie had her pages in order. She handed her report to Mrs. Garner as the bell to end class sounded. She let the others stream past her, filling the hallways with echoing noise before heading to her desk to gather her things rather than trying to fight the crowd. At her desk, Cassie stuffed her notebook in her satchel and swung the strap of her bag to her shoulder. She took a deep breath and left the classroom, hoping Kelly wasn't lurking outside the door.

Luckily, she wasn't and Cassie made it to her locker safely. She had no doubt that since she hadn't face planted on the floor and, in addition, committed the mortal sin of touching Eric, reminding one of Elkdale's social elite that she actually existed, Kelly would make a second run at her.

"With luck whatever it is will hold her for a while." Cassie muttered. While Kelly's animosity was strong, her attention was often diverted and Cassie only had to deal with her about once a week. As today was Friday and Kelly left her alone all week Cassie felt she should have known something was coming instead of foolishly hoping she'd moved on to tormenting someone else for a change.

Cassie shook her head at her own foolish thoughts. At her locker, she exchanged her books and grabbed her lunch bag. She headed to the cafeteria and slipped into her usual space at the table in the back. As was typical Kyle, John and Mike were comparing gaming stats, Carley was texting someone, her fingers moving at a blur and Sarah had her nose buried in a book. Today's book looked like a trashy romance. From experience Cassie knew Sarah alternated between fiction and non-fiction in her reading selections. Earlier in the week she had been reading a book by Stephen Hawking.

'I guess she finished that one, ' Cassie thought taking her seat next to Carley.

"Hey, " Carley said absently, her fingers still moving at a frenetic pace, never looking up from the screen.

"Hey, " Cassie replied with the daily greeting, wondering, not for the first time, what Carley actually had to say and who she was actually saying it to. Cassie placed her lunch bag on the table. She then took out the various components of her sandwich. The two slices of bread were in one plastic box, the crispy, fried chicken breast in another box and the jalapeno slaw she brought to top it with was in a third container. Cassie assembled her sandwich, sliding the empty containers back in the bag. She then took out her cookie and thermos full of lemon and mint infused iced tea. No one noticed her lunchtime assembly and she took a bite of her sandwich, happy with the way it turned out. She poured some of the tea into the cup to wash it down.

"Look who still has Mommy pack her lunch, " Kelly said derisively as she sailed by with her plastic tray of whatever the cafeteria was serving today. Predictably, her entourage snickered on cue. Cassie thought briefly of correcting her, but knew it would be more trouble than it was worth and kept her eyes on her sandwich until they passed instead.

The rest of lunch flowed by without incident and as the lunch period neared its end, Cassie tidied up her lunch bag and its various components, washing down her chocolate macadamia nut cookie with the last of the tea and tucking the now empty bag filled with equally empty containers in with her books. Knowing the routine, Sarah sighed and added a bookmark to keep her place, putting the romance novel into her book bag. Carley likewise completed her texting marathon and as per school regulations, turned off her cell phone. Cassie stood up from the table meaning to go to the bathroom to wash her hands before her next class. She made it to the trash cans by the large double doors when she was intercepted by Kelly and company.

'So close, ' she thought resignedly.

"Eric is so out of your league, freak, " Kelly hissed right before she tipped her tray and spilled its contents on Cassie, soaking her sweater, skirt and the right leg of her tights with far more marinara than one school lunch could account for dispelling any notion, however slight, that this was an accident.

"Oops, " Kelly said widening her eyes and pursing her lips, the expression on her face mocking. She dumped her now empty tray in the return and sauntered out, an exaggerated sway to her hips, her entourage fanned out behind her like geese in the sky. Cassie bit her lip and headed for the girls' bathroom. She got sympathetic looks from the girls fixing their hair at the mirrors and a couple of them slid over to allow her space at the sink to see what she could do with water and paper towels.

She was still blotchy and smelling of tomatoes when the bell rung and she had to leave for her next class. 'At least she'll probably be satisfied, ' Cassie thought resignedly, pushing open the bathroom door and stepping into the hallway. Shivering in her damp clothes, Cassie saw the hallway was already mostly empty and hurried towards her next class her footsteps sounding loud in the space as she raced through the corridor.

"No running, " she heard the vice principal, Mr. Babbin call from behind her. Cassie gritted her teeth and slowed her steps.

'He does not have tusks, he does not have tusks, ' she mentally repeated, steeling herself as she turned around. 'He does not have tusks.' She offered the vice principal a wan smile, the sight of the tusks she was pretending not to see curling up from his lower jaw to make half-moons of white ivory against his sun tanned cheeks fading after a second making him look like a normal, slightly pot-bellied, balding, forty something year old man.

Without tusks.

"Sorry sir, " she told him before turning back towards her classroom and moving at a more acceptable pace. She made it to class just as the bell sounded and slipped into her seat. Her heart was racing as it did every time she was forced to pretend not to see one of the things no one else seemed to be able to see. Her grandfather's words echoed through her mind as she took out her math homework and prepared to pass it forward with everyone else.

Don't let them know you see.

When she was little, she didn't realize that not everyone could see what she saw. Her parents called it over active imagination and ignored it for the most part, telling their friends that imagination was the sign of an intelligent mind. They trotted out her IQ scores to prove it. Then of course they dismissed her back to her room and continued on with more adult conversations. They only got mad when she insisted her imaginings were real and caused them embarrassment. The only one who realized she wasn't actually making things up, but merely pointing out what she saw was her grandfather. When he pulled her aside it was a relief when he told her that he believed she was telling the truth. Relief very quickly turned to fear when he made her promise not to tell anyone what she saw anymore, including her parents.

"Don't ever let them know you can see them, " he told her, his voice tight and his eyes worried. She could tell he was scared and that in turn scared her. Grown-ups weren't supposed to be scared like that. Even though he never explained who 'they' were or why she shouldn't let 'them' know, his fear convinced her to promise.

It was a promise she never broke, although she was beginning to think some of the odd looking people she saw suspected she saw something. It seemed lately any time she ran across someone like the vice principal, they made it a point to make her look at them. She knew from experience that if she hadn't turned around to face him when he called her in the hallway, he would have called her over and made her look at him as he lectured her on running in the halls. With him, and the others she occasionally ran into Cassie found it easier to brace herself and look at them before they required it. Many of them seemed to study her when she did and Cassie perfected the art of the blank stare, giving away nothing.

Or so she hoped.

Cassie shivered as a stream of air from the vents washed over her wet and clammy clothes. 'At least the day is half over, ' she thought. 'And Kelly is not in any of my afternoon classes.' The thought was some comfort. The rest of the day, Cassie moved from class to class, finally making it to the end.

'Thank God it's Friday, ' she thought as she went to her locker. She pulled the books she needed for homework over the weekend and put the ones she didn't need inside.

"Hey, its Cassie, right?" she heard a male voice to her left say. Cassie looked over and saw Eric standing there. This close she noticed his brown hair had a sheen of red highlights and his smile went all the way up to his brown eyes. She shook the thought away before she could find him any more appealing.

"Uh, yeah, " she replied. "And um, thanks for earlier."

"For not letting your brains splatter all over the classroom floor?" he added with a smile.

"Yeah, I kinda prefer them inside my skull."

"I've heard that might be useful, " he replied. "Hey, you going to Scott's party tonight? It's gonna be epic. Everyone will be there."

"Um, " Cassie began. Before she could get any further one of the other guys from the football team walked by moving as fast as he could without actually breaking out into a run. She doubted anyone would stop him if he did run. She was the only one who seemed to get the no running in the halls lectures from Mr. Babbin.

"Dude, you know coach will kill us if we're late, " he said in passing not bothering to slow down.

"Yeah, " Eric replied. "Coming." He turned back to Cassie. "See you at Scott's then." He said favoring her with a lopsided grin before turning to run after his teammate.

Cassie shook her head and closed her locker wondering why Eric thought she would be going to a party at his friend's house. As she headed to the parking lot, Cassie wondered who Scott was. "Probably one of the football team, " she decided as she reached her car and unlocked the door. She shrugged as she got inside, tossing her bag into the passenger seat. It didn't really matter anyway. If Eric was going to Scott's party then chances were good Kelly was too. Seeing Kelly on school property was bad enough. There was no way she was going to willingly place herself in Kelly's vicinity outside of class.