~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

Timelines

{Leo}

They stood in the courtyard of an old compound, like a monastery. Red brick walls were overgrown with vines. Big magnolia trees had cracked the pavement. The sun beat down, and the humidity was about two hundred percent, even stickier than in Houston. Somewhere nearby, Leo smelled fish frying. Overhead, the cloud cover was low and gray, striped like a tiger's pelt.

   The courtyard was about the size of a basketball court. An old deflated football sat in one corner, at the base of a Virgin Mary statue. Along the sides of the buildings, windows were open. Leo could see flickers of movement inside, but it was eerily quiet. He saw no sign of air conditioning, which meant it must have been a thousand degrees in there.

   "Where are we?" he asked.

   "My old school," Hazel said next to him. "St. Agnes Academy for Colored Children and Indians."

   "What kind of name—?"

   He turned toward Hazel and yelped. She was a ghost—just a vaporous silhouette in the steamy air. Leo looked down and realized his own body had turned to mist too.

   Everything around him seemed solid and real, but he was a spirit. After having been possessed by an eidolon three days ago, he didn't appreciate the feeling.

   Before he could ask questions, a bell rang inside: not a modern electronic sound, but the old-fashioned buzz of a hammer on metal.

   "This is a memory," Hazel said, "so no one will see us. Look, here we come."

   "We?"

   From every door, dozens of children spilled into the courtyard, yelling and jostling each other. They were mostly African American, with a sprinkling of Hispanic-looking kids, as young as kindergartners and as old as high schoolers.

   Leo could tell this was in the past, because all the girls wore dresses and buckled leather shoes. The boys wore white collared shirts and pants held up by suspenders. Many wore caps like horse jockeys wear. Some kids carried lunches. Many didn't. Their clothes were clean, but worn and faded. Some had holes in the knees of their trousers, or shoes with the heels coming apart.

   A few of the girls began playing jump rope with an old piece of clothesline. The older guys tossed a ratty baseball back and forth. Kids with lunches sat together and ate and chatted. No one paid Ghost Hazel or Leo any attention.

   Then Hazel—Hazel from the past—stepped into the courtyard. Leo recognized her with no problem, though she looked about two years younger than now. Her hair was pinned back in a bun. Her gold eyes darted around the courtyard uneasily. She wore a dark dress, unlike the other girls in their white cotton or pastel flowery prints, so she stood out like a mourner at a wedding

   She gripped a canvas lunch bag and moved along the wall, as if trying hard not to be noticed.

   It didn't work. A boy called out, "Witch girl!"

   He lumbered toward her, backing her into a corner. The boy could have been fourteen or nineteen. It was hard to tell because he was so big and tall, easily the largest guy on the playground. Leo figured he'd been held back a few times. He wore a dirty shirt the color of grease rags, threadbare wool trousers (in this heat, they couldn't have been comfortable), and no shoes at all. Maybe the teachers were too terrified to insist that this kid wear shoes, or maybe he just didn't have any.

   "That's Rufus," said Ghost Hazel with distaste.

   "Seriously? No way his name is Rufus," Leo said.