The House In The Forest

Chapter X

Chapter Ten

The next morning, Giselle seemed fully rested at least. She was helping Grandfather with breakfast when I got downstairs. I didn't eat much though, I didn't have much of an appetite. Which she noticed, and naturally asked me if I was okay. I was, I wasn't sick, I was just tired.

"What are you doing today?" I asked her, changing the conversation back to her rather than me.

"I'm going to work, my shift ends when your school gets out, so we can meet up in town if you want," she told me, setting the plate of toast on the table.

"I can pick you up at the bookstore," I told her, and she just smiled and nodded.

After breakfast, I headed to class. Damian was talking about some girl I didn't know before class started, it might have been a celebrity actually, I wasn't sure. Elias apparently wasn't fond of her though, or so I learned.

"You look tired," Marlowe spoke, staring at me suspiciously. "Not getting much sleep?"

Damian just laughed. "Marlowe, you know as well I do that Dr. Beckett would never allow that under his roof."

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't think of her like that," I spoke without really thinking about it. Apparently it was the weird thing to say though as Marlowe and Damian both stared at me like I had grown horns.

Marlowe whistled, seeming impressed. "Wow, you're really in love with her aren't you?"

"Huh?"

"The respect, I'm impressed man, almost jealous really," Damian spoke with a nod. "I want to feel that way about a girl too."

"Maybe you shouldn't spend so much time talking about lingerie models then," Marlowe told him, shaking her head at the boy. Who just shrugged at her comments.

Study hall came quickly, Marlowe said she was going to go get me coffee because I looked like I was going to fall asleep, Damian went with her to help, and Amber and Elias had gone missing. So, seeing as I suddenly had actual free time, I headed towards the library. I hadn't been that interested in it before, but now I knew it had the best view of the town so I was interested.

I still had to finish that book I had bought from the Roses Collection anyway. Unfortunately, when I got to the library, I found Elias and Amber.

"Oh thank goodness, Albert, save me," Elias begged me as soon as he saw me. He was sitting on the floor with Amber, who had a bunch of books all scattered across the floor.

"What are you two doing?"

Amber glanced up like she was just caught guilty of a crime. "Oh uh, nothing?" She chuckled with an awkward smile.

"She's making me search through yearbooks," Elias told me with a sigh.

"Yearbooks?" I asked, glancing down at the books.

Amber frowned, and then glanced at the yearbook in her hands. "I'm sorry Albert, I didn't want to be suspicious, I really like Beatrice, I do, but I just, it didn't make any sense."

"What didn't make sense?" I asked her, narrowing my eyes. Not at her, she seemed rather sad about this, but just at my own thoughts.

"Well, Beatrice said she wasn't from town, but she knew the school's layout perfectly, and she also doesn't know what cellphones are, or any of the movies or shows we mentioned," she spoke, flipping through the pages of the yearbook. "So, I sort of thought, maybe she was a time traveler."

"A time traveler?"

"Yes, she's making me look through a billion books because she thinks Beatrice is a time traveler." Elias sighed, seeming exhausted. He tossed the book he was holding on the ground. Apparently it caught Amber's eyes.

"Hey, that's my great grandmother's class," she spoke, picking it up to smile at the cover. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, I just couldn't think of any other reason she'd know the school layout so well."

I could understand that. She knew the school and town layout almost perfectly, the only stores she couldn't find were obviously new stores. It would make sense, but of course I knew very well she wasn't a time traveler. I didn't really know what she was, just a normal girl that was mixed up with something non normal I assumed.

"She's not a time traveler, Amber, you do realize that's impossible?" I asked her, to which she just shrugged her shoulders.

"I know I know, I just couldn't think of any other reasons," she told me, flipping through the yearbook curiously.

Elias narrowed his eyes. "So you instantly went with time travelers? That's a bit uncreative of you, I'm a bit disappointed."

"You're disappointed because she didn't think of something more creative?"

He nodded to my question. "Yeah, she can do way better."

Amber stopped talking, staring at the yearbook with a strange look in her eyes. "Beatrice Seymour," she muttered, me and Elias glancing at her.

"What?"

"Beatrice, she's, she's in the yearbook," Amber spoke, running her fingers over the old page. "She was a senior here, seventy years ago?"

Okay, photo proof was going to be a bit harder to explain. Which is what led to the meeting in the library after class, Giselle smiled awkwardly as the group stared at the yearbook and then at her.

"It's gotta be," Damian spoke.

"It's impossible, maybe they're related," Marlowe told him with a shake of her head.

"I don't know Marlowe, that's clearly Beatrice," Elias told her.

"It's not identical," Amber spoke, "I know the photos are old, but see, the eye color is different."

Giselle just sighed. "I couldn't exactly change my eye color."

I glanced at her curiously.

"I apologize, but I'm not Beatrice Seymour," she told them with a polite smile.

"Oh you're not?" Marlowe asked her.

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm not, I could never be, but I tried to be."

"You tried to be this girl? Why?" Damian asked. "Is a girl from seventy years ago that big of a role model?"

Giselle just smiled, glancing at the yearbook. "No, she was my best friend."

They all stared at her with a look of disbelief, not that hard to understand why. Couldn't blame them for that.

"So, you are a time traveler," Elias spoke in a soft voice.

"No, it's, it's quite a long story," she spoke with a sigh.

Amber glanced at the clock on the wall. "Well, if you want to tell it, the library doesn't close for a few more hours, is that long enough?"

Giselle stared at the pictures in the yearbook, before closing it. "Alright, so be it, I couldn't hide it forever anyhow."