Page 81 of Sour Lollipops and Sweet Nightmares
Missing time was the very definition of unconformity. It was a gap in the geological record where rock was either not deposited or had eroded before new layers built up. But the word erased for some reason felt nefarious. It echoed in my mind a second too long.
All I could picture was some thief sneaking up in the middle of the night and plucking out a chunk of time from history, which, of course, could never happen. No one had that kind of capability. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
If you could easily erase time, then what about me, or Rachel, or the guy sitting next to me tapping his pencil against his notebook? Would anyone look for us if we disappeared? Or would we be another unconformity, like the missing layers of rock in that picture?
I peered over at the guy beside me and took mental notes of a few things. The tattoo of a rose on his forearm, the scar under his chin, and the ring on his left hand that looked like some championship thing. I didn’t know his name, but if he went missing, I could give the police a half-decent description.
Why I felt this was necessary, I couldn’t explain. That was where my thoughts were going today. I saw danger everywhere I went. Every shadow had someone hiding in it, every word whispered was some ominous secret plan, and every sound had a hidden agenda. Someone sneezed in the cafeteria this morning, and I jumped ten feet in the air.
I felt like I was losing my mind, and it started with the writing on my mirror.
I kept going over that moment, trying to figure out if the words I saw were actually there or if I imagined them. Logic told me I had imagined them. No one was in the house, there were no signs of a break-in, and when I went back into the bathroom, the mirror had fogged up again, erasing whatever might’ve been there.
That day was beyond messed up. Nothing that happened made sense. Why did I hug Levi? Why did Ravi bring my stuff back? Why did Issac show up at my house and hit Ravi? But most of all, why did I clean his wound instead of calling campus security?
It wasn’t that I thought they would’ve done anything. Issac seemed to have the police in his pocket, so why would campus security be any different? But it would’ve been better than sitting down beside the man who’d been tormenting me, as if he wasn’tdangerous. I obviously couldn’t trust my action that day, so why would I trust what I’d seen? Or what IthoughtI’d seen.
That’s what logic told me. But no amount of logic could get rid of my eerie sense of being watched. It bled into everything I did. When I woke up this morning, it felt like someone had been in my room. Which, of course, was preposterous.
If someone had snuck in during the night, I’d be dead, not hearing whispers in the shadows. And they certainly wouldn’t have locked the door behind them.
The only key to Craven House was on my keychain. I knew this because the guy who kept calling me Grace told me not to lose it because it was the only one he had when he gave it to me. Meaning I was either going insane or having some kind of breakdown. I wasn’t sure which.
I looked back at the image at the front of the class and wondered how many trucks someone would need to remove that much rock.
Dr. Kellerman folded his pointer and said, “Now imagine if someone removed those layers on purpose.”
My eyes narrowed.
Did he know what I was thinking? Of course, he didn’t. Telepathy wasn’t a real thing, right? Issac was oddly fast, and Levi somehow got me to touch him. The men at Renfrew didn’t seem to be normal, and Dr. Kellerman was oddly attractive for a geology professor.
Don’t get me wrong, professors could be attractive, but the people who typically went into my chosen field didn’t wear tailored suits, or style their hair like they were getting ready for a magazine shoot. Maybe Dr. Kellerman was put here to watch me?
Oh god, I was losing my mind. Renfrew wouldn’t hire someone to keep an eye on one student. And if they did, that student certainly wouldn’t be me.
Shaking the thought out of my mind, I returned to the lecture.
Dr. Kellerman continued talking about stratigraphic silences and gaps in history. But the only thing I could hear was the hum of the lights overhead. The more I tried to ignore it, the louder it got.
Was the classroom always this quiet?
I looked up at the fluorescent bulb on the ceiling above me. That incessant humming continued picking at my brain like a mosquito buzzing in my ear.
Hmm….
Hmmm…
HMM…
HMMM…
I clamped my hands over my ears, “Shut up.”
The entire class quieted and turned my way.
Crap.
Dr. Kellerman’s brow lifted. “Do you have something to add, Miss Pyne?”
