Capítulo 7: Chapter 7: Dissection
Alessa stumbled into the huge auditorium, her heart still pounding. Thankfully, Janie had saved a seat for her towards the back.
"Cutting it a little close, aren't you?" she jibed with a mischievous smirk.
Alessa, unfailingly punctual as she was, knew that Janie - who was always running ten minutes behind - must take a small amount of pleasure in seeing their roles reversed for once. Usually it was a frazzled Janie plopping down into her seat, frantically pulling out her notes seconds before the beginning of class. Today it was Alessa's turn.
Alessa looked at Janie. She didn't know where to start.
Janie's expression shifted into concern. "You look like you've seen…"
"A ghost, yes," Alessa said under her breath.
Janie's eyes popped. "Just now?" she whispered urgently.
Alessa noticed that Professor Liu was stepping up to the podium. "Yes," she hissed back.
"What happened?" Janie breathed.
The professor had started speaking, something about being pleased with the results of this morning's exam.
Alessa lowered her voice to give Janie the summary. "The same thing as always: he was just standing there in my room, and then he disappeared."
"Kind of anticlimactic."
"No kidding."
Janie thought for a moment. "Did you find anything at the library?"
Professor Liu raised his voice. "Ladies in the back, is there something you'd like to share with the class?"
Alessa flushed. She shrunk back into her chair and mouthed a sheepish, "Sorry."
The professor returned to his lesson plan, but as had been the case of late, Alessa just couldn't focus on what he was saying. She unfolded the little desktop from its storage space under her armrest and took out her laptop. Opening a blank document, she angled the screen toward Janie, intending to write a short note explaining what she'd learned at the library. Luckily, there was no one sitting directly behind them, so she didn't have to worry about anyone reading over their shoulders.
"Found the librarian from that article," she typed. "She showed me some old records. I found the house."
Feigning attention to the lecture as she scribbled in her notebook, Janie quickly shifted her eyes to Alessa and raised an eyebrow, encouraging her to continue.
Alessa cleared what she had written and started a fresh sentence. "A Mason family built the house in the 1870s, and the last generation to live there had a son named Isaac. I think it's him."
Janie nodded and wrote something in her notebook. She slid it quietly towards Alessa. Alessa saw something scrawled in the margin in Janie's signature tiny capital letters. She leaned closer for a better look. "ISAAC? SEXY." Janie had underlined the last word for emphasis. It was amazing how Janie's voice rang clear in Alessa's head, even just from her writing. Alessa could hear the innuendo dripping from those two syllables.
Alessa rolled her eyes playfully. She turned back to the keyboard and was opening the file with her physics notes as Janie pushed her notebook in Alessa's direction once again. "SO WHAT'S THE PLAN?"
Alessa looked at Janie and shrugged. She typed, "Going to see if I can find death records. Then, not sure what?"
Janie acknowledged the response with a nod and went back to her notes, and with a reluctant sigh, Alessa forced herself to focus on the lecture as well.
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An hour and fifteen minutes later, Professor Liu was reminding the class to check the syllabus for the reading due next session. Alessa was surprised at how much she had absorbed once she started paying attention - she thought she should be able to skim through the reading, which might just give her enough time to continue her research about the ghost between now and Thursday's class.
Janie turned to Alessa as she was packing her notebook into her messenger bag. "Did you eat lunch yet?"
Alessa was surprised to find that she actually had an appetite for once. "Nope. Did you want to grab something? I've got a half hour until my next class."
"Let's go to the cafeteria."
Janie led the way down from the back of the lecture hall, following the tide of students to the door. As they passed the front podium, Alessa was startled to hear someone other than Janie call her name.
"Ms. Khole?" Alessa and Janie stopped in their tracks and turned around. Professor Liu was looking directly at Alessa.
"Yes, Professor?"
"Yours was one of the few exams I had time to grade before class today." Alessa felt a twang of trepidation; this couldn't be good news. She braced herself.
The professor continued. "I was quite impressed with your performance."
"Oh, uh, thanks," Alessa stammered. That was not what she was expecting. She reminded herself to smile.
"I haven't finished the curve yet, but I think you can expect at least an A-minus. Keep up the good work."
Alessa perked up. "Thanks, Professor." She turned towards the door and caught a surprised look on Janie's face.
As they exited into the hallway, Janie said, "He knows your name?"
Alessa was just as puzzled. Besides his brief chiding in the beginning of class, Alessa had never had any direct interaction with her physics professor. "I guess so… He probably looked up my photo in the student directory or something."
"You must have really done well on that test."
"I didn't think I did that good." After a second, she added, "Guess we have to be more careful not to get caught talking from now on."
Janie chuckled. "Guess you need to be more careful. He still has no idea who I am."
Alessa laughed. "True."
After a short walk, they arrived at the cafeteria. Alessa and Janie swiped their meal cards then diverged to opposite ends of the cafeteria. Janie, as usual, went to the salad bar. Alessa scanned the hot food entrees. It was a chilly day and after her earlier incident with the ghost, she could use some comfort food.
Bingo. Macaroni and cheese, her favorite. Alessa scooped herself a slightly overgenerous portion then, on second thought, added a spoonful of steamed broccoli to her plate as well. She didn't want to hear Janie's nagging to eat her vegetables.
Sure enough, the moment they sat down across from one another, Janie eyed Alessa's plate. "You really shouldn't eat that junk." Janie's plate was piled literally eight inches high with fresh raw vegetables and nuts. For someone who was so health-conscious, she had a voracious appetite.
"I got some broccoli," Alessa offered. She watched as Janie dug a fork into her mound of produce and shoveled it towards her mouth. "I really don't know where you put all of that."
Janie swallowed. "It's low calorie and healthy fats."
"No, I mean, physically. How can you fit that much volume in your stomach?"
Through a mouthful of food, Janie replied, "Practice."
Alessa smiled and started in on her own plate. The mac and cheese was definitely hitting the spot. It reminded her of her mom's homemade recipe, creamy and buttery with a thick layer of crisp breadcrumbs across the top. Heaven. It felt like forever since she'd eaten something so rich.
Janie looked up from her tray and took a deep chug from her glass of milk. "So, how are you feeling? You look better than when you walked into class."
Alessa definitely felt better. "Yeah, I'm okay now. Thanks for asking." She took a sip of water. "I forgot how -" she searched for the right word, "- much it is, seeing him."
"Well, I'd be scared out of my mind, that's for sure," Janie agreed.
"Yeah, it's not just that, though… For some reason, seeing him - seeing Isaac - stirs up all these other emotions in me, too." She thought for a moment about how to explain it. "I know I've told you before that I can see that he's distraught, but it's almost like I can feel it, too - it's this overwhelming sorrow, and longing, and deep, heavy grief. It's like this whole bucket of emotions gets dumped on me in the span of a few seconds… and then I just feel like a complete wreck."
Janie looked puzzled. "Is that normal for ghosts?"
"Is what normal?"
"Making you feel things, like maybe what they're feeling."
Alessa hadn't thought of that. "You know, I'm not sure. It kind of makes sense… and it would certainly help to explain why it does this to me."
Janie thought for a moment. "Was it always like that? I don't remember you being such a mess at first."
Alessa reflected back over her history with the ghost. "No, the first few times - when I saw him at the foot of my bed, and behind me in the bathroom mirror - were much briefer, only a second or two. And pretty much all I remember feeling is shock, and fear. All I could think to do was get up and run."
Today, though, she had been transfixed. She couldn't seem to summon the will to flee, even as every instinct screamed at her to go. But those first few times, she had been able to take action.
Alessa confirmed Janie's suspicions. "You're right. I think they're lasting longer and longer, and getting more intense."
"That's a little scary."
Alessa could only gulp her drink in response. Now that she realized what was happening, she was starting to get worried. "Maybe I'll look into it when I get home tonight - there's got to be something about this online, right?"
"If there's any place to find crazy ghost stories, I imagine the internet would be it," Janie laughed.
Alessa savored the last bite of her mac and cheese and put down her fork. "I've got to head to my ethics seminar."
Janie still had a sizable pile of veggies in front of her. "Okay. I'm going to stay and finish up. See you back at the house tonight?"
"Absolutely," Alessa agreed. As far as she was concerned, this evening couldn't come soon enough.
Presentes
-- Presente
recebido Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder