• March 16, 2009.

    Cassandra Haldeman sighed as she gazed out the faraway window and saw nothing but rain, rain, rain. She turned her gaze back to the board where Miss Osborn was drawing a triangle and explaining how to find the area of it. We've gone over this three times, she groaned in thought. We all know how to find the area of a triangle. Correction, she thought as she looked around at the blank faces of her fellow classmates. I know how to find the area of a triangle.

    She brushed a lock of her black hair out of her blueish-gray eyes and picked up her pencil. Just as she started to copy what was on the board, her mind started to wander. She got an idea for a poem, and wrote it down instead of the math notes (which, by the way, she already had from yesterday.)

    The darkness surrounds me,
    I am alone.
    But not afraid.
    I welcome the darkness,
    With its mysterious manner
    It is not a part of me.

    She felt a brush on her arm and looked up to meet the eyes of Stephen Lorran. They, like Cassa's, were bluish-gray, except sometimes they seemed more gray than blue, and sometimes more blue than gray. Today gray seemed to by the predominant color. His muted gold hair framed his face, and gave his skin a sort of light glow. He was looking down at the notebook.

    "Bug off!" she hissed at him, shielding her notebook from his gaze with her arm. "You can't read it!"

    "Who says I can't?" he replied, grinning.

    "I do!" she snapped. Afraid that anyone else heard that, she looked around. Nobody was paying attention to her. She thought that was curious, why couldn't they hear a conversation taking place at full voice level. Some sort of magical shield, she thought, and mused on the idea for a good minute before Stephen spoke.

    "It's a very good poem, Cassandra," Stephen remarked. His voice was soft and lovely to hear, with that boyish touch that made it so dear to his girlfriend, Megan. Cassa, however, was uninterested in the unnatural sweetness of his voice.

    "And it's a PRIVATE poem." By now she was totally comfortable using her normal voice tone, since no one was listening. "And I prefer to be called Cassa. You've known that since fourth grade."

    Stephen made a kind of half smirk. Cassa rolled her eyes and continued to write.

    I am friends with the darkness,
    I communicate with the darkness.
    I understand.
    It needs a friend in the world of light.
    I am that friend.

    Just then, she thought she heard a low mutter of "Yes." She turned to Stephen. "Did you say something?" she demanded.

    "No," Stephen replied. "42."

    She was startled by this comment ("42", not "no" ), and then realized they were in math class. It had seemed for a minute that they were somewhere outside of class. No one else had communicated with them.

    "Question 29. Cassa?"

    "45," she replied hastily.

    "Question 30..."

    She glanced over at Stephen. He was now drawing something in his notebook--doing a sketch of Isabelle, she realized. Somehow she looked different in the sketch than in real life, but Cassa couldn't quite pinpoint the difference.

    She turned back to her notebook. Realizing that she had completed the poem, she wrote down a few more things, just ideas that flowed into her head.

    Skin sort of glowing...

    Unnaturally sweet voice...

    Magical privacy shield...

    She realized that all of these thoughts were related to Stephen. And soon, her mind was ticking a mile a minute...