Tides Between Us

Seeing Things

Maybe I was losing my mind.

Maybe my eyes no longer saw correctly.

“Am I imagining things?”

Because I was sure I just saw Lowell move twenty feet without taking a step to catch a falling fan.

The fan was in the west hall. The one with the tinted windows and the smell of books. It was study time. I was alone, or so I thought.

I heard a sound like breaking metal. I looked up, directly above me.

The fan was coming down. Three blades, spinning. Right over my head. I was too stunned to move.

Lowell was at the window. Twenty feet away. Leaning against stone. Watching outside through the window. I saw him. Grey uniform, grey hair in his eyes, not looking up.

The fan dropped.

Lowell was suddenly under it.

He didn’t run. He didn’t jump. In one blink he was at the window, in the next, his hand was around the fan’s center. Two feet above the table.

The metal didn’t even shudder in his grip.

“Careful, girl,” he said.

He set the fan down on the table like it weighed nothing, like it hadn’t just tried to take my head off.

Then he walked back to the window. Twenty feet. Now he was leaning there again. Watching outside.

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. When I opened them, the fan was still on the table. The room was silent.

Maybe I needed sleep.

I touched the fan on the table. It was cold.

The metal where Lowell grabbed it had five dents, shaped like fingers.

I blinked and examined the fan. The five dents were still there.

I wasn’t seeing things.

Runna walked in. “What’s wrong with you, Selene?”

I showed her the five finger marks on the fan and told her what had happened.

“This is crazy,” she said. “You’re just imagining things, Selene. Look. There are no finger marks anywhere.”

How could he have walked twenty feet from the window to catch a fan?

“Nothing,” I said, “makes any sense. How do you explain this to any sensible person?”

“You need some sleep,” she said.

I agreed with her.

She gathered my things and helped me to the dormitory.

As we moved to the door, I looked back at the table. The fan was there. The metal was smooth. No dents. No marks. Nothing.

I looked again. The five finger marks were back. Deep. Clear. Right where his hand had been.

I stopped walking. Runna tugged my arm. “Selene?”

I looked a third time.

The metal was smooth. The fan was untouched.

I convinced myself I was imagining things.

First it was Velma and the weights.

Then it was Isolde and the whispers.

Silvercrest had rules.

Rule one: do not notice. Rule two: do not ask.

I was trying to follow the rules. I really was. But my eyes kept seeing things they shouldn’t.

It started on the north field behind the tower. Coach Tate called it “strength and conditioning.” We called it punishment. The sky was the same grey as the stones. The grass was wet. My uniform was already sticking to my back and we hadn’t even started running.

“Shot put,” Coach said. He dropped a sixteen pound ball into the mud. “Whitaker, you’re up.”

Velma Whitaker stepped forward. Velma was five feet tall. She had arms like twigs. She wore two sweaters year round because the cold got to her bones. She had an inhaler in her bag. She sat out of gym twice a week.

She shouldn’t have been able to lift it.

Velma picked up the shot put one handed. She didn’t strain. She rolled it in her palm like it was a paper ball. Then she spun.

The shot put left her hand with a sound like a cannon. It cut through the rain. It hit the ground forty feet away. The mud exploded. It left a crater deep enough to twist an ankle in.

Coach Tate marked his clipboard. “Forty one feet. Next.”

No one clapped. No one stared. Isolde yawned and checked her watch. Connor picked dirt from under his nails. Runna was retying her shoe.

I was the only one who stopped breathing.

“Did you see that?” I asked Runna. My voice came out too high.

Runna didn’t look up. “See what?”

“Velma. The shot put. She threw it forty feet.”

Runna finally looked at me. Her eyes were patient, like I was a child. “Velma’s captain of track, Selene. She’s been training since she was eight.”

Velma had asthma. Velma carried an inhaler with a little unicorn sticker on it all year round. Velma sat out of the mile run last week.

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

“Right,” I said. “Training.”

Coach blew the whistle. “Whitaker, move it. Next.”

I spent the rest of practice watching Velma. She didn’t sweat. She didn’t breathe hard. When we ran laps, she stayed at the back of the pack. Deliberate. Slow. Like she was pretending to be tired.

That night I couldn’t sleep. The dorm walls were thin. I could hear Runna breathing in the bed next to mine. I could hear the wind against the tinted windows. I could hear my own heart.

I started writing things down in my notebook. Day 13: Velma, shot put, forty feet. Day 14: Runna, “you’re tired.” Day 15: I crossed it out. Writing it made it real.

Then it was Isolde and the whispers.

It was the south wing library, on a Thursday night. The library smelled like old paper and rain. The windows were green from the tint. They made the world look underwater.

I was at the back table. Alone. Or I thought I was.

Isolde was at the front. Twenty tables away. By the restricted section. She was reading. She always read. Her red hair fell over her face. She didn’t look up for hours.

My pen fell off the table and hit the carpet. It didn’t make a sound.

I was frustrated. Tired. My whisper was for me only. “I am tired of Silvercrest.”

From twenty tables away, without looking up from her book, Isolde said, “Then leave.”

Her voice sounded like we were sitting next to each other having a conversation. It shouldn’t have reached me. The library was a tomb. Sound didn’t travel. Not that far. Not that clear.

I froze. My pen was still on the floor.

Isolde turned a page.

I packed my bag so fast I tore the zipper. I walked out of the library so fast I was scared.

I found Runna in the common room. She was drinking tea from a silver mug decorated with a wolf head painting. Like the world was normal.

“Isolde can hear whispers,” I said. It came out wrong. Like I was accusing her of something.

Runna blew on her tea. Laughing out loud she said, “The south wing echoes, Selene. It’s the stone. Old buildings do that.”

“It doesn’t echo. I was at the back. She was at the front,” I said.

“You’re stressed,” Runna said. She said it gently, she said it like she was worried about me. “You need sleep.”

I had slept. Four hours last night. Six the night before. I counted them.

“Right,” I said. “Sleep.”

Runna squeezed my hand. “Come on. Let’s go back to the room.”

We walked through the halls. Our footsteps were the only sound. Silvercrest was quiet after nine. Too quiet. Like the building was holding its breath.

As we passed the library doors, I stopped. The lights were still on. Isolde was still in there. At the front table. Reading.

She didn’t look up, but I swear she smiled .