hold her, feel her soft shoulders relax under his arms, and say all the words to her that were jumbled inside his head. Make a bit of sense out of the confusion he was feeling.
That’s why he sought refuge in the pool. He needed life for a few moments to be just about him and the invigorating water. Swimming in the narrow lane of the pool, he could make sense of things, he understood what he needed to do. Put his right arm over his head, then his left, then lift his head to breathe. It was a simple rhythm, a known routine, nothing at all like life outside the pool. Everything outside the water was royally screwed up and getting worse by the second.
Why won’t she just stop so I can help her back to St. Anne’s? Fritz thought. She couldn’t walk all the way over there by herself, not with the curfew, not with whatever or whoever killed Penry still on the loose. He stopped abruptly when he heard the growl. It was low and deliberate. “Who’s there?” Stupid question, Fritz, like an animal’s going to respond. But it did. With an even louder growl, this time with a cracking sound at the end of it like a jaw breaking or expanding. Fritz looked in front of him and saw Imogene just as she disappeared into the woods. When he turned back around, all he saw was fog.
“What the …?” he muttered. He couldn’t see anything in front of him except a thick gray mist hovering a few feet away. He held his breath, his ears searching the grounds for a sound, any sound that would indicate the beast was getting closer, but he didn’t hear a thing. Then he noticed something odd: He wasn’t afraid. He should be; there was something out there, something very close by, but he felt, no, he knew that somehow he would be unharmed. But just to be safe, he turned and began to sprint and didn’t stop running until he heard the front door to St. Peter’s Dormitory lock behind him.
Michael couldn’t believe those sounds had come from him. When he thought Fritz might be trying to harm Imogene, something clicked in his brain and he wanted to use his newfound power to protect her. Fritz was no longer his friend, but an enemy who had to be stopped, an enemy whose sweet blood was pumping furiously through his veins. Michael felt his fangs descend and the pain in his stomach swirl into something even more cruel. It had become need. He needed to taste Fritz’s blood, he needed to devour him, not only so he could prevent him from attacking Imogene but so he could feed his own body, which was so close to collapse. As he leapt into the air, he envisioned killing him the same way Nakano had killed Mauro, quickly and unmercifully. And he would have if it wasn’t for the fog.
But where had it come from? And why was it now evaporating as suddenly as it appeared? The fog began to condense, becoming more vertical than horizontal, but instead of continuing to rise, instead of disappearing into the black sky above, it curved from its highest point and sped toward Michael like a giant gray snake.
Michael found the courage to stand firm. He couldn’t run from this thing that had been plaguing him; he had to find out what it was. He didn’t flinch when it landed a foot from him, the gray smoke shrinking and spinning until it was no higher than Michael himself, until it was no longer fog and had turned into something else.
“Phaedra?” Michael asked in disbelief.
“Hello, Michael.”
Astonished, he was going to ask her how this was possible, how she could possibly be this fog. But then he realized that was a foolish question. He knew better; anything was possible. And yet this was unbelievable.
“For someone who’s been stripped of his mortality,” Phaedra said, “you look a bit surprised.”
Michael couldn’t erase the shocked expression from his face, and then her comment registered. “You know?”
“Since the moment it happened,” she said gently.
He felt his body waver but couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Phaedra grabbed his arm to stop him from falling, and Michael barely felt her touch. “You’re like air.”
Sitting next to Michael on the grass, she corrected him. “Like an efemera.”
Maybe it was the dizzying sensation that was still making his brain jumbled, but he had no idea what she just said. “Like a what?”
“An efemera,” Phaedra repeated. “That’s what I am.”
Michael clutched his head and the spinning actually felt like it was slowing down, it was coming to an end. His confusion, however, was not. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Smiling, Phaedra wrapped her arms around her knees; she looked like a teenager, innocent, human. She wasn’t any of those things. “We’re not as well known as vampires, but we do have a following,” she began. “Efemeras are protectors, spirits who are called upon to watch over humans who are in danger.”
The dizziness threatened to return. “But I didn’t call upon any spirit to be protected.”
“No, you can’t ask to be protected. We don’t hear those requests,” Phaedra explained. “We’re called upon to protect a loved one.”
Of course! “Ronan asked you to look after me.”
The love between these two is so strong, Phaedra admired. “No, he does love you fully and completely, but it wasn’t his call I responded to,” she said. “It was your mother’s.”
Tears stung his eyes and he felt his body slump as if someone had reached inside him to steal his breath. “My mother?”
“Before she died, moments before, she begged for us to watch over you,” Phaedra said, her eyes searching out the stars in the night to give Michael some privacy. “And when we hear a call from a dying soul that is filled with the purity of love, we have no choice but to respond.”
“I don’t understand,” Michael said, ignoring the tears that now fell freely down his face and the anger that swelled in his chest. “She committed suicide. She didn’t care about me or anybody else! Why would she ask you … anyone to watch over me when she couldn’t be bothered to do it herself?”
Pointing to their left, Phaedra said, “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
Standing in a clearing, some newly fallen leaves twirling at her feet, was Michael’s mother. Grace looked different; her face was softer, the lines from years of worry, anxiety, regret were smoothed away, her eyes were no longer cautious but eager to take in all they could see, especially her son.
Like a child taking his first steps, Michael walked toward his mother. Unsteady and unsure that he would reach her, but filled with joy for the opportunity. When he stood before her, when he saw her face again, which he never thought he would, all the anger he felt toward her for choosing to leave him floated off of him and was carried away by the breeze. “Mom?”
Grace’s voice was quiet, but strong. “Yes, Michael, it’s me.”
This is my mother, Michael thought, back from the dead. Yet another unthinkable possibility come true. Michael threw his arms around his mother and breathed in her warmth. He no longer judged her for her actions; he didn’t care why she chose to leave him, he was simply grateful that she had returned. “I’ve missed you so much,” Michael cried.
Grace held her son tighter, his touch truly a gift. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“Me either,” Michael said, which was the last thing Grace ever expected to hear.
She pushed Michael away gently and looked at him, her unbeating heart breaking at the sight. “Why would you ever think that you hurt me?”
Dig deep, Michael. Find the courage to tell her; you may never get another chance. “Because of what I am,” Michael said, his voice hushed with shame.
For a moment Grace didn’t understand what Michael meant, but then understood that he was talking about his sexuality. And then she was the one who was consumed with shame. “No. No, Michael, you have nothing to apologize for. You have never hurt me,” Grace said. She didn’t think she would be able to cry any longer, but she was wrong. “I’m the one who hurt you. I let you down in so many ways.” Fervent for another touch, Grace grabbed Michael’s hands in hers and held them against her face, wishing she had taken the opportunity to comfort her son like this when she was alive. “I should have told you that it didn’t matter to me. I was never upset or ashamed that you’re gay,” she said, looking directly into her son’s eyes. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t brave enough to tell you how I felt. But you need to know that I always loved you.”
Unable to resist, Michael had to ask. “Then why did you leave me?”
Wind fluttered past Grace, and her body vibrated. She was out of focus, then clear once again. “I don’t have much time, Michael, and none of that matters.”
“It matters to me,” Michael protested.
Scared, Grace looked to Phaedra, but she no longer had any control over the situation. “What matters is that
