The Hunters: Moonsong Chapter Eleven

C cancelledee, my dear? Professor Campbel c languaged, Elena reminded herself chartered. At her nod, he bounced to his feet and bustled over to the tiny c despatchee commitr perched on top of a teetering stack of papers.He brought her a cup of coffee, creamed and sugared, and breakonized bulge forbidden happily in his chair, gazing across his displace desk at her with an twist of innocent enjoy custodyt. I cerebrate I establish any(prenominal) cookies, he offered. non homemake, merely theyre moderately tasty. No? Elena shook her head politely and sipped her coffee.Its very good, she said, and smiled at him.It had been a a couple of(prenominal) days since she had t iodine-time(a) Stefan and Damon she needed to take a break from them. by and by a such(prenominal)-needed incision session with Bonnie and Meredith, she had d cardinal her best to be normal going to sort out, having tiffin with her relay transmitters, kee marijuana cigaretteg up a merry mask. Part of this attempt at northward was climax to jams office hours, so that she could promise more almost her parents. Even though they couldnt be there to comfort her, public lecture nearly them offered some solace.My God crowd cried out. You have Elizabeths grammatical construction, and hence, when you smile, doubting Thomass dimple comes right out. just now the same as his on besides one side. It gave him a certain harum-scarum charm.Elena wondered if she should thank crowd together. He was complimenting her, in a way, provided the compliments were real y directed toward her parents, and it felt a diminished presumptuous to be grateful for them.She settled for saying, Im glad you think I att difference equivalent my parents. I memorialise view when I was little that they were very elegant. She shrugged. I guess al little kids think their parents are beautiful.Well, your develop certainly was, James said. only if its not just your looks. Your portion sounds like h ers, and the comments you made in class this week reminded me of things your father would have said. He was very observant. He delved into his desk drawers and, after a bit of rummaging, pul ed out a tin of butter cookies. veritable you wont have one? Ah, Well. He chose one for himself and took a bite. Yes, as I was saying, Elizabeth was exceedingly lovely. I wouldnt have cal ed Thomas lovely, but he had charm. Maybe thats how he managed to win Elizabeths heart in the end.Oh. Elena touched her coffee absently. She dated other(a) guys, and so? It was ridiculous, but she had kind of imagined her parents as incessantly being together.James chuckled. She was quite the heartbreaker. I imagine you are, too, dear.Elena mind unhappily of Stefans soft, demoralise green eyes. She had never wanted to tolerate him. And Matt, who she had dated in high enlighten and who had quietly gone on love her. He hadnt fal en in love, or even been real y fire in, anyone else since then. Heartbre aker, yeah.James was watching her with chic, inquisitive eyes.Not a happy heartbreaker, then? he said softly. Elena glanced at him in surprise, and he set his coffee cup collapse with a little clink. He straightened up. Elizabeth Morrow, he said in a tremendous businesslike voice, was a freshman when I met her. She was always making things, particularly astounding sets and costumes she designed for the theater department. Your father and I were some(prenominal) sophomores at the time we were in the same confederacy, and close friends and he couldnt offend talking close this amazing lady friend. in one case I got to accredit her, I was sucked into her orbit, too. He smiled. Thomas and I each had something special(prenominal) roughly us I was academical y gifted, and Thomas could talk anyone into anything. But we were both cultural barbarians.Elizabeth taught us about art, about theater, about the world beyond the smal southerly towns where wed grown up. James ate some o ther cookie, absentmindedly licking sugar off his fingers breadths, then sighed abstrusely. I thought wed be friends forever, he said. But we went in incompatible directions in the end.Why? Elena asked. Did something happen? His bright eyes shifted away from hers. Of course not, he said dismissively. Just liveness, I suppose. But whenever I walk down the third- chronicle corridor, I cant help stopping to look at the photograph of us. He gave a conscious laugh, patting his stomach. Mostly vanity, I suppose. I actualise my young self more easy than I do the fat aging man I operate in the mirror now.What are you talking about? Elena asked, confused.The third- ground subject corridor?Jamess mouth made a roofy O of surprise. Of course, you dont know al the col ege traditions soon enough. The coherent corridor on the third fib of this building has images from al the different periods of Dalcrests history. Including a nice photo of your parents and yours truly.Il have to ret ain it out, Elena said, tactile propertying a little excited. She hadnt seen some(prenominal) pictures of her parents from before they were married. There was a dab on the door, and a smal girl with deoxyephedrine peeked in. Oh, Im sorry, she said, and started to withdraw.No, no, my dear, James said jovial y, getting to his feet. Elena and I were just chatting about of age(predicate) friends. You and I need to have a serious talk about your sr. thesis as soon as possible. Come in, come in. He gave Elena an mistaken little half bow. Elena, wel have to advance this conversation later.Of course, Elena said, and rose, shaking Jamess offered hand.Speaking of old friends, he said casual y as she turned to go, I met a friend of yours, Dr. Celia Connor, just before the semester started. She mentioned that you were coming here.Elena whipped back around, staring at him. He had met Celia? Images fil ed Elenas mind Celia held in Stefans ordnance store as he traveled faster than any human, desperate to save her sprightliness Celia fending off the phantom in a room ful of flames. How much did James know? What had Celia told him?James smiled blandly back at her. But wel talk later, he said. After a moment, Elena nodded and stumbled out of his office, her mind racing. The girl who was waiting held the door open for her.In the hal outside, Elena leaned against the wal and took stock for a moment. Would Celia have told James about Stefan and Damon being vampires, or anything about Elena herself? Probably not. Celia had become a friend by the end of their battle with the phantom. She would have kept their secrets. Plus, Celia was a very excavate academic. She wouldnt have told her col eagues anything that might make them think she was crazy, including that she had met actual vampires.Elena shook off the unease she felt from the end of her conversation with James and thought instead of the picture hed told her about. She climbed the stairs to the third appal to see if she could find it now.It turned out that the third-floor corridor was no problem to find. While the second floor was a maze of turning passageways and module offices subdivided from one another, when she stepped out of the stairWellon the third floor she spy it was a persistent hal that ran from one end of the building to the other.In melodic phrase to the chatter of hoi polloi at work on the second floor, the third floor seemed abandoned, silent and dim. Closed doors sat at regular intervals along the hal .Elena peered through the glass on one door, only to see an empty room.Al down the hal , amidst the doors, hung large photographs. Near the stairWell, where she began looking, they seemed like they were from maybe the turn of the century young men in side-combed hair and suits, smiling slapdash girls in high-necked white blouses and long skirts with their hair pul ed up on top of their heads. In one, a row of girls carried garlands of flowers for some forgotten campus o ccasion.There were photos of ride races and picnics, couples dressed up for dances, team pictures. In one photo, the cast of some schoolchild play maybe from the 1920s or 30s, the girls with shingled flapper cuts, the guys with funny covers over their shoes laughed hilariously on stage, their mouths frozen open, their hands in the air. A little farther on, a group of young men in army uniforms gazed back at her seriously, jaws intemperately set, eyes determined.As she moved on down the hal , the photos changed from black-and-white to color the array got less formal the hairstyles grew longer, then shorter messier, then sleeker. Even though most of the people in the photographs looked happy, something about them made Elena feel sad.Maybe it was how fast time seemed to pass in them al these people had been Elenas age, students like her, with their own fears and joys and heartbreaks, and now they were gone, grown erstwhile(a) or even dead.She thought briefly of a bottle tucked deep in her closet at home, containing the weewee of eternal life shed accidental y stolen from the Guardians. Was that the answer? She pushed the thought away. It wasnt the answer yet she knew that and shed made the very clear preference not to think about that bottle, not to decide anything, not now. She had time, she had more life to live natural y before shed want to ask herself that question.The picture James talked about was close to the far end of the hal . In it, her father, her mother, and James were sitting on the grass under a maneuver in the quad. Her parents were leaning forward in eager conversation, and James a much thinner version, his face almost unrecognisable beneath a straggly whiskers was sitting back and watching them, his expression sharp and amused.Her mother looked amazingly young, her face soft, her eyes wide, her smile big and bright, but she was also somehow exactly the mother Elena remembered. Elenas heart gave a painful but happy throb at the v olume of her. Her father was gawkier than the distinguished dad Elena had know and his pastel-patterned shirt was a fashion accident of epic proportions but there was an requirement dadness to him that made Elena smile.She noticed the pin on his horrific pastel shirt first. She thought it was a smudge, but then, leaning forward, she made out the shape of a smal , shameful blue V. Looking at the other figures, she realized her mother and James were draining the same pins, her mothers half-obscured by a long golden curl fal ing across it.Weird. She tapped her finger slowly against the glass over the photograph, pitiful one V and then the others.She would ask James about the pins. Hadnt he mentioned that he and her dad had been in a fraternity? Maybe it had something to do with that. Didnt frat boys pin their girlfriends?Something nudged at the edges of her mind. Shed seen one of these pins somewhere. But she couldnt remember where, so she shrugged it off. Whatever it stood for, it was something she didnt know about her parents, another facet of their lives to be discovered here.She couldnt wait to learn more.