reaction, I scoffed and then brushed his hand off my thigh for emphasis.
Chuckling, he started the engine and by the time we’d made it to the house, I could not discern whether I was infuriated with him or impassioned by him. It wasn’t until he slipped his arms around my waist just outside the kitchen back door did I know.
“ Your impatience is one of your most endearing qualities,” he said.
It wasn’t one or the other. It was both.
CHAPTER FOUR: Fernando Vega
The next few days passed quickly and followed the same patterns as the first day back. Faculty and students continued to keep their distance from Eran and me, though the rumors started to dissipate in favor of Becky Monahan’s reaction to alcohol at the latest party. Intermittently, Eran or I would find the warden peering around the corner at one of us, ensuring we were keeping Ms. Beedinwigg’s promise, and watch as a frown rose up in finding that we were.
Homework began piling up so Eran and I were the last ones to sleep each night, books covering the kitchen table, heads drooped over them. While we knew much of it all ready, having experienced some of it firsthand, the actual paperwork needing to be turned in was mountainous. The kitchen lights were the last ones turned off for the evening.
I began feeling stronger, I noticed. My muscles moved easier, their aches having subsided. My meal portions, which had been twice my regular amount, were subsiding too, my body no longer needing it. My appendages, oddly enough, itched to be released, which I complied with when I started lessons again with Ms. Beedinwigg.
Ms. Beedinwigg was surprised and exhilarated to find me at her doorstep midway through the week. She led me inside for a quick hello to Mr. Hamilton and then down the stairs to her underground training room. There, she had jerry-rigged the walls to support her frame and a system of levers and pulleys so that she could spar with me airborne. I’d thought my appendages would give me an advantage but after the first lesson, as we sprang from wall to wall and flew around the room in the midst of fighting drills, I found that she was nearly as good a fighter in the air as she was on the ground. Our trainings lasted only an hour but it left me physically drained and inspired me to keep working on my recovery, which also kept Eran happy.
My work at The Square the following weekend was especially fulfilling, knowing I would be leaving again soon. It seemed as if word had spread throughout my regular customers that I was back because every one of them stopped in for a quick message delivery to their loved ones. That night, I had over forty messages to deliver from both new patrons and regulars.
Of the new ones, I witnessed a few of the most dramatic afterlife habitats I’d ever come across. One woman had recreated every locale where she’d ever found herself happy while on earth. I found her sitting halfway between a vineyard and the Pacific Ocean, one leg in each realm. A man who’d been Italian in his last life had created an elaborate dinner party for a few hundred of his closest family and friends. I had to deliver my message following him around an enormous kitchen with ovens stacked five high and along both walls as he fluttered between them, delivering hors d'oeuvres as they came out. Finally, a little boy who’d passed on from a hit-and-run accident was, in my opinion, the most exciting. He’d created his afterlife as a continuum, moving from a land of dinosaurs to one filled with zoo animals openly wandering an expansive range to the Wild West with cowboys and Indians roaming the hills. I’d had to chase him through two of his realms before catching him and delivering his mother’s message. He smiled softly and gave me a discreet message in reply. “I love you, Mommy,” he said and then, in typical childlike fashion, he returned to creeping up on a sleeping lion.
By the end of the first week, I felt fully recovered and the
Chuckling, he started the engine and by the time we’d made it to the house, I could not discern whether I was infuriated with him or impassioned by him. It wasn’t until he slipped his arms around my waist just outside the kitchen back door did I know.
“ Your impatience is one of your most endearing qualities,” he said.
It wasn’t one or the other. It was both.
CHAPTER FOUR: Fernando Vega
The next few days passed quickly and followed the same patterns as the first day back. Faculty and students continued to keep their distance from Eran and me, though the rumors started to dissipate in favor of Becky Monahan’s reaction to alcohol at the latest party. Intermittently, Eran or I would find the warden peering around the corner at one of us, ensuring we were keeping Ms. Beedinwigg’s promise, and watch as a frown rose up in finding that we were.
Homework began piling up so Eran and I were the last ones to sleep each night, books covering the kitchen table, heads drooped over them. While we knew much of it all ready, having experienced some of it firsthand, the actual paperwork needing to be turned in was mountainous. The kitchen lights were the last ones turned off for the evening.
I began feeling stronger, I noticed. My muscles moved easier, their aches having subsided. My meal portions, which had been twice my regular amount, were subsiding too, my body no longer needing it. My appendages, oddly enough, itched to be released, which I complied with when I started lessons again with Ms. Beedinwigg.
Ms. Beedinwigg was surprised and exhilarated to find me at her doorstep midway through the week. She led me inside for a quick hello to Mr. Hamilton and then down the stairs to her underground training room. There, she had jerry-rigged the walls to support her frame and a system of levers and pulleys so that she could spar with me airborne. I’d thought my appendages would give me an advantage but after the first lesson, as we sprang from wall to wall and flew around the room in the midst of fighting drills, I found that she was nearly as good a fighter in the air as she was on the ground. Our trainings lasted only an hour but it left me physically drained and inspired me to keep working on my recovery, which also kept Eran happy.
My work at The Square the following weekend was especially fulfilling, knowing I would be leaving again soon. It seemed as if word had spread throughout my regular customers that I was back because every one of them stopped in for a quick message delivery to their loved ones. That night, I had over forty messages to deliver from both new patrons and regulars.
Of the new ones, I witnessed a few of the most dramatic afterlife habitats I’d ever come across. One woman had recreated every locale where she’d ever found herself happy while on earth. I found her sitting halfway between a vineyard and the Pacific Ocean, one leg in each realm. A man who’d been Italian in his last life had created an elaborate dinner party for a few hundred of his closest family and friends. I had to deliver my message following him around an enormous kitchen with ovens stacked five high and along both walls as he fluttered between them, delivering hors d'oeuvres as they came out. Finally, a little boy who’d passed on from a hit-and-run accident was, in my opinion, the most exciting. He’d created his afterlife as a continuum, moving from a land of dinosaurs to one filled with zoo animals openly wandering an expansive range to the Wild West with cowboys and Indians roaming the hills. I’d had to chase him through two of his realms before catching him and delivering his mother’s message. He smiled softly and gave me a discreet message in reply. “I love you, Mommy,” he said and then, in typical childlike fashion, he returned to creeping up on a sleeping lion.
By the end of the first week, I felt fully recovered and the
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