Where the Wind Goes

Chapter 20 - If You're Dead

The world was ending and Oliver didn't know what to do. It had all started that stupid day when he'd let Penny trick him into opening the door for her. And now that door was locked, Penny was the Queen of the Changelings, and Iri was going to be killed.

Somehow, everywhere he went, life went on as normal. His classmates chatted and laughed as if nothing was wrong, and he had to keep reminding himself that to them, nothing was wrong. They were in motion. They had a future. And there Oliver was, lost in the middle of it all, feeling like tugboat adrift at sea. He didn't understand how two people could sit right next two each other and yet feel so far apart.

Maybe that's what Penny had been trying to tell him that night when she'd walked alongside him in the dark, holding his hand and urging him to speak.

During his final period, a faded slip of photocopied paper was left on his desk. Blocky letters read: You have an appointment with the school counselor on Monday, October 31st!

When the final bell rang, he crumpled up the note and tossed it into the abyss of his locker. The last thing on his mind was school. He couldn't fathom graduation, let alone next week. It was like a black hole sat at the end of each moment, waiting to swallow him up.

His classmates streamed around him, yelling and jostling as they stampeded for the doors. But he lingered, struggling with the zipper on his backpack until the chorus of slamming lockers had stopped and the crowd in the hallway had thinned.

"What's your problem?"

He looked up to find Madison leaning against the row of lockers. She wore a pair of paint-stained overalls tied around her waist and carried of bucket of art supplies in one hand.

"Nothing," he said. "I'm fine."

She reached into her back pocket and held out a handful of colorful candies. "Want some? My math teacher tried to bribe us to behave with it."

"Thanks," he mumbled, taking one at random.

"Hey, Madison!" Two students approached from the other end of the hall, carrying rolls of crepe paper and black fabric.

Madison glanced in their direction. "I'll be right there."

"They've already started painting," one of her friends called.

Frustrated, she waved them on. "Start without me!"

Oliver hefted his backpack onto his shoulder. "You should go with them."

"Hold on," she said. He could hear the candy clicking against her teeth. "Answer my question: What's your problem?"

"Madison," he groaned. "What do you want?"

"You're fidgety, it's annoying me."

"I'll try to be less annoying."

"Not possible," she snorted.

"Are we done here?"

"No," she said.

"I just have something to take care of." Oliver did not typically work in words, and he was unnerved by how loud they sounded in this empty school hallway.

"You have something to take care of," she repeated, rolling the words over her tongue thoughtfully. "Like what? A problem? Your mistake or someone else's?"

He laughed darkly. "I don't even know."

Madison leaned against the locker and slid down to the ground. Oliver followed suit, letting himself droop like a wilting plant. There was the occasional click of heels and snippets of conversation. Someone opened a door outside, and the sudden gust of wind swept a flurry of leaves into the building. There were piles of them at every door, orange leaves that browned over the course of the day until the janitors swept them out at night.