Moonshadow (2 page)

As she waved goodbye, Diana fought to hold back the tears, but a few escaped the battle as she turned and went back inside. She felt like she was going to her first day of kindergarten, and felt just as embarrassed she had then. She had cried that day too.

As she walked back to her room she lifted her head up high, trying to force herself to grow up and be an adult. She was on her own now—her own woman—and she had to act like it sooner or later. It might as well be sooner.

When Diana got back to her room and saw her life in boxes, the tears burst forth like a dam breaking.

It had always been the three of them, and now she was alone—in a whole other world. Why did she do this? She could have gone to community college or something back home, with her friends. Her life was back in Indiana; why did she pick a school in Ohio?

Because it was the most responsible option—that’s why. College is expensive, and for some strange reason, Flinders offered Diana a full scholarship. A few lonely years away from home would be better than decades of crushing student loan debt.

With a sigh she plopped down on her bare, unmade, bed and sank her face into her pillow. At least she had her favorite blankets and pillows. As she inhaled the scents of her room at home, however, Diana only felt worse.

Why am I being such a baby? I’m eighteen—a grown woman. But here I am, crying my eyes out like a four year old at a forced sleepover.
No; she’d beat her damned crazy emotions—beat them into dust and wave them goodbye along with her old life.

Diana’s determination failed as she continued to sob into her pillow, and time became meaningless.

Somewhere, beyond the sorrow, Diana felt the shadows tug at her heart. The unconscious sense of dread, the strong vertigo—it was happening again.

She wanted to scream.

Diana was brought back to reality by the sound of keys, followed by the door opening. Relief flooded into Diana as her eyes fluttered open. It had grown dark and the sharp light pouring into the room from the hallway left Diana feeling confused and disoriented.

It had only been the beginning of a normal bad dream—nothing more. The lingering fear remained, however, but Diana buried it deep, where it belonged.

When had she fallen asleep? Having been so exhausted from moving in, her fit of crying must have tuckered her out completely.

Diana’s groggy eyes caught those of her roommate’s as she walked through the door with a bag of groceries in her arms—it was the blonde girl from the pictures.

“Oh hello, you must be Diana. Nice to meet you, I’m Lani,” she said with a wave and sat the bag of groceries down on her bed.

“You too,” Diana replied as she stretched out the last of her sleepiness before sitting on the end of her bed. After regaining her mental faculties, she remembered the other name on the door.

“Did you switch with Gigi or something?”

“Oh right, sorry,” Lani said with a roll of the eyes. “I’m Gigi Bradley. My middle name is Elaine. For obvious reasons, I started having people call me Lani as soon as I could.”

Diana decided to ask the obvious question. “Why Gigi? Is it a family thing or something?”

“Sort of, my grandmother wanted me named Gigi, and that woman always got her way in the end. It’s the name of an old Audrey Hepburn play she really liked.”

Diana smiled. “I love Audrey. I almost brought my poster too.”

Her roommate nodded with approval and grinned.  “I feel many a Hepburn-binge is in our future.”

“Sounds good to me.” Diana looked to her various unpacked boxes and sighed. “I guess I better get started,” she said and then began to rummage around in her duffle bag for her bedding, while Lani tended to the groceries she had just procured.

“Are you from around here?” Diana asked as she began putting her favorite light green sheets on the mattress.

“I’m from Pittsburgh,” Lani replied as she put a few yoghurts into their mini-fridge. “I needed to get away from my family, and I thought three hours away was far enough. Older brothers are a pain, and I have three.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Diana replied. “I’m an only child.”

“Must be nice,” her roommate said with a hint of jealousy as she sat down on her bed.

“Yeah, not gonna lie,” Diana replied with a wide smile. “I get whatever I want.”

Lani arched an eyebrow and appeared to be sizing her up. “You’re not one of those bratty princess girls with her daddy’s credit card, are you?”

Diana shook her head. “My parents aren’t rich, but I
am
pretty spoiled. I like to think I’m just loved the same amount as three kids.”

“I get it. I’m the only girl of four, so I’m a daddy’s girl too—when he’s around.”

Feeling a bit awkward at her roommate’s comment, Diana quickly moved the conversation along. “These rooms aren’t terrible. At least they give us our own desks and bookshelves—the mini-fridge is pretty convenient too.”

“Yeah, it could be worse.” Lani replied as she laid her head on her pillow. “Flinders might be kinda small, but at least it’s not so big that it takes twenty minutes to walk to class. Have you seen Ohio State?”

“We drove by it on the way into the city,” Diana replied. “I had no idea a school could be so big. It was like a town.” She started to laugh. “They even have their own giant hospital complex—that’s convenient.” She’d heard OSU had one of the best medical schools around.

Diana began to put her hodgepodge of books onto the shelf, admiring the collection she had brought. It was an eclectic mix—histories of ancient civilizations, Jane Austen novels,
the
Lord of the Rings
. She had a wide ranging taste.

“What’s your major?” Diana asked her roommate from over her shoulder.

“Music Education,” Lani replied. “I want to be a teacher of some kind. Music has always been my passion. My parents play in a band around town on the weekends and they used to let me sing and stuff. Nothing major, but it was fun.”

Lani sat up and moved to the edge of her bed. “How about you?” She had a look of investigative curiosity. “I’m guessing Social Work.”

Diana chuckled. “Not even close. Do I look like a therapist or something?”

Lani shrugged. “You’re just easy to talk to for some reason; like you really care. I know that sounds weird since we literally just met five minutes ago.”

“I get that a lot, actually; I just have a caring face, I guess.” Diana pulled out the green laptop from her backpack and placed it on the desk—it matched her sheets. “I’m studying Archaeology and Ancient History. I want to be a professor someday.”

Lani let out an astonished whistling noise. “You mean like Egypt, King Tut, and mummies and stuff? That sounds . . . practical.” The sarcasm wasn’t missed. Diana’s guidance counselor had made similar comments in the past, using the same tone.

Diana shrugged it off. “I’m not really suited for much else. History is the only thing I’ve ever been passionate enough about to make into a career.” Diana took a rolled up poster from a box and sized up the wall to determine the best place to hang it.

“How’s the job market for something like that?” Lani asked.

“Probably bad,” she replied with a smirk. “Professors usually keep their jobs until they die, or don’t want them anymore. The way I look at it, most of them are really old as it is. By the time I have a PhD, I bet a lot of them die or quit.” She laughed at her own joke.

Lani smirked. “I guess you have a point.” Her eyes went wide when she took notice of the poster Diana had hung on the wall. She probably hadn’t expected the black-clad band, strange runic symbols, and swirling fire.  “You don’t really strike me as the Death Metal type, Diana. You’re not secretly suicidal, are you?”

She laughed at her roommates comments. “No, I’m fine. And they are
Symphonic
metal—no demonic death grunts. Have you heard Legacy of Man? They’re pretty epic.”

“Can’t say that I have,” Lani replied with a sideways smile. “I’m sure they rock pretty hard. I’m a CCR and Stones kinda girl myself. Classic Rock is more my speed.”

“Usually mine too. Just please—no Alice Cooper for a while.”

Lani burst with laughter. “You too? I was about ready to kill my dad before I left.”

Diana smiled. She liked Lani.

As the night went on, they continued to get to know each other a little better and found they had many similar interests. Diana had been worried her roommate would turn out to be a large, unpleasant, tattooed girl who listened to Gangsta Rap all the time. At least she could cling to this small victory.

With one less problem to worry about, Diana drifted off into an untroubled sleep bereft of swirling shadows, her mind occupied by thoughts of her first week of classes.

Chapter 2

With Mother dearest taken from my side,

And Father questing for his love to find,

I am left in Darkness bereft of light.

A woman imprisoned I shall not be,

My own battles will I be free to fight.

I am yours to mold, Draconian Knight.

Diana yawned as she walked across the quad and cursed the god-forsaken metal door outside of her room. The inevitable slam occurred around 3 AM and jolted her awake from a dream. Her sleep for the rest of the night had been considerably less deep. It had taken every ounce of self-discipline Diana had within her to get out of bed when her alarm went off.

A little bit more sleep would have been nice, but it was the first day of classes and she wanted to straighten her thick long brown hair into something a little more presentable than her usual side-braid. Diana typically didn’t waste copious amounts of time on her appearance, but at the very least, she cared about first impressions. She always liked to look her best on the first day of classes—to let people know her abilities—and she thought she looked rather classy in her calf-length olive green skirt and coral-pink cardigan. Tomorrow she would sleep in a bit longer.

After patting another yawn, Diana took her schedule and map from her bag and attempted to gain her bearings. Her first class was History 111—room 307 in Emerson Hall. She quickly found the location on the map and then began walking in what she hoped was the right direction.

After a brisk morning walk and a few more yawns, she found her class room. When she walked through the doorway she paused, startled to find it empty.
Am I in the wrong room?
After making quite certain she wasn’t, and checking the time on her cell phone, she realized that she was the first one to arrive.
I’m barely ten minutes early, where is everyone?
Diana couldn’t possibly be the only student in the class that liked to be early.

With a shrug to herself, Diana sat at a desk in the middle of the second row. Her vision wasn’t always the greatest so she liked to sit near the front. She reached into her bag for a notebook and placed it on the desk, then took out a pen and laid it on top. She was ready to go.

After she sat in nervous silence for a few minutes, more students began to trickle into the classroom. Each looked more tired than the next; some even a bit queasy—probably from having started their college party days the first night.
You’ll never see me barely making it to class because I’m hungover from the night before.
She had more to worry about than parties and drinking. Diana was determined to reach the highest levels of scholastic achievement; drinking and carrying on were not going to get in her way—not if she could help it.

When the clock hit 8:30 the professor finally walked into the room, with a few flustered students rushing in after him. He arched an eyebrow at them from behind his thick glasses and placed his bag on the chair in the instructor’s station. As he began to write his name on the chalkboard, Diana couldn’t help but smile to herself at how much the man looked like a crazy professor from a movie. He wore tan slacks and a maroon sweater—that looked like his grandmother had knitted for him in the 60’s—over a white shirt and green tie. His rusty-colored beard had flecks of gray in it, and could have used a trim, while his unruly matching hair surrounded the sides of his bald head. Only a pipe in his hand could have completed the image.

He took the class roster from his bag and addressed the room. “My name is Dr. James Osgood and I will be your professor for History one-eleven. It’s going to take me a while to put all of your names with your faces, so I’d like to ask you all to sit in alphabetical order, at least for the first week or so. Then, I can see who shows up to class and determine whether or not it’s worth remembering your name.”

Diana stood up along with everyone in the room as they grabbed their belongings and waited to be called.

“Also, please tell me if I butcher your name when I call it.” He looked to his roster. “Lacey Albright,” he called and then gestured to the front desk. The blonde girl, to whom the desk would belong for the time being, quickly took her seat.

Diana waited patiently for her name to be called—one of the many joys of being a Selene—and began to scan the room, examining the other students. It was the typical group of college freshmen, although there were likely some upperclassmen mixed in with the group as well. She could tell by their demeanor. Diana could feel the nervous anxiety of the freshmen as they were filled with both excitement and fear on their first day of college classes. She greatly empathized with them, being one of their number herself.

The upperclassmen had a different sort of bearing about them. She could feel they were just going through the motions, perturbed that they even had to be here. The irritation of one echoed within her more than the others—a smartly dressed boy with black hair gazing out the window like he wanted to sprout wings and fly through it, away from everyone that surrounded him.

Diana couldn’t take her eyes from the boy. Something was strange about him—something she couldn’t quite figure out. He seemed extremely out of place in this group of college students, but why? Other than dressing considerably better than every other guy in the room, nothing about him suggested that he was anything other than a typical young man starting classes for the year. His black hair was slicked and combed in a vintage style that greatly contrasted the mops of varying lengths on the heads of the majority of the guys standing around him, and he wore light tan slacks, a white collared shirt with a blue and red striped tie, and a red-lined blue sport coat—an ensemble that looked like it had been set out for a prince to wear on his first day of school.
Maybe that’s it; he’s some royal slumming it at a school in America.

“Diana Selene? Is Diana Selene here?” Dr. Osgood’s raised voice tore her from her strange fixations. He sounded as if he had called her name a few times already.

“Yes—sorry—I’m Diana Selene; I’m here,” she answered. She quickly sat down at her assigned desk in the front corner, quite pleased to not be sitting in the back of the room.

While Dr. Osgood went on assigning seats, Diana felt a strange coldness in her chest and turned towards the window to see if it was open, but it wasn’t. For a brief moment, her eyes locked with those of the black-haired boy; he had a puzzled look on his face but he quickly returned his irritated gaze out the window.

Was he staring at me?
Diana shook off the notion as the professor called a few more names. A guy like that had no reason to stare at her.

“Darien Shepherd,” Dr. Osgood called and motioned to a desk a few behind hers.

Without a word, Diana’s strange black-haired boy nodded his head to the professor, as if Dr. Osgood were a valet that had brought his car around, and then took his seat. His attention was immediately given back to the world beyond the window.

Darien Shepherd
. The name did sound like some British lord from a Jane Austen novel. Maybe she wasn’t so delusional after all.

Turning around in her seat to look at the clock, Diana stole another glance at Darien. He had a peculiar maturity about him—like he’d traveled the world and had experiences typical children don’t usually get to have. He was also strikingly handsome. Everything about his fair skinned face was perfect—his strong pointed nose, prominent cheekbones, and thin lips—but what drew Diana’s attention the most were his eyes. They were a deep, sparkling, gray color that looked like polished stone.

Why did she find him so intriguing? He was probably just the typical rich, handsome, jerk that treated the common, middle-class, folk like rubbish. She’d known a few guys like that in high school; they barely acknowledged her existence most of the time, which was fine by her. Darien didn’t hold himself like they did though—reclining in some unearned confidence that signaled to those around them that they deserved their respect and admiration for no other reason save they have money. Darien, by contrast, sat straight and tall with a veiled confidence, seeking no one’s admiration, or attention, whatsoever.  Caring very little for the world unfolding around him, he looked like an elegant brooding vampire.

“You’re wondering if he sparkles, aren’t you?” The guy seated behind Diana positioned himself to block her view of Darien. 

His grin startled her back to reality and she almost burst with laughter. He had read her mind.

“Vampires don’t sparkle,” she replied with a smirk. “They are supposed to be scary creatures of the dark—not emo.” She nodded to Darien, “And that guy definitely seems the emo type.”

“He’s something all right,” said the boy, who turned out to have a nice pair of green eyes and short, unkempt, dirty-blonde hair. He looked the California surfer type but she doubted he’d ever seen the Pacific in his life. “I’ve been here two years now, and I’ve never seen that guy out doing anything other than studying at the library. The only people he ever really talks to are teachers or his brother and sister.”

“His brother and sister go here too?” she asked, finding the notion rather odd. “Siblings don’t usually go to the same colleges; they must be a pretty close family.”

“Yeah, the brother and sister are way different than Darien—they actually like to go out and have a good time. I see them at parties once in a while. I don’t know what his problem is though. He even treats professors like trash most of the time. I bet he’s French.” He extended his hand to her. “My name’s Eric Seymour, by the way.”

“I remember”, Diana replied. She really didn’t, even though the professor had just called his name less than ninety seconds ago. She had been so spaced out that she hadn’t even heard her own name called.

“I’m Diana, in case you forgot,” she replied, surprised by her flintiness. It wasn’t like her to flirt with a guy she had literally just met. He was pretty cute though, for a surfer boy. 

For the rest of the class period, Dr. Osgood went over the syllabus and explained the structure of the class. In the next session, there would be a lecture on the ancient Sumerians; a subject that Diana found particularly exciting.

The remainder of her first day of college turned out to be just as uneventful. In each of her classes the teacher went over the syllabus and talked about how the class was structured, grading, and the like. Her schedule was pretty tame. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday, she had History 111 at 8:30. At 10:00 she had Quantitative Reasoning—a general education math class—then she was free until 1:30, when she had English 110. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she only had two classes, Cultural Pluralism at 10:00 and Akkadian at 1:00. Out of all her classes, she was only really looking forward to Akkadian. Learning the language of ancient Babylon was going to be a lot of fun. She was such a history nerd.

—

Diana’s zeal for Akkadian fueled her with enough energy to get through the next morning and the mind-numbing snooze-fest that Cultural Pluralism turned out to be. She was fairly certain she already knew that racism was a bad thing and that all cultures should be treated with respect. Hadn’t she been through all of that in elementary school? Being required to take a semester-long college course on the topic was rather irritating. Only backwards, ignorant people were still racists in this day and age, and they probably wouldn’t be going to college to be educated about such things anyway. At least her grade point average would enjoy the class.

After finally arriving at Malory Hall, Diana’s excitement faltered at the four flights of stairs she’d be climbing to reach her classroom. Reaching the fourth floor exhausted and out of breath, Diana was met with a closed door and the previous class still in session.
Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be early
. With a drawn out sigh, Diana slumped down on the floor with her back against the wall, pulled out her cell phone, and began to wait.

While mindlessly flipping through social media, Diana’s apps suddenly went crazy, froze, and the device finally shut itself off.

“Stupid phone,” she muttered to herself as someone appeared from the stairwell and stood beside her. Looking up, Diana was startled to see Darien Shepherd looming overhead, wearing a perfectly tailored gray suit with a black tie, and impatiently checking his watch.

“Oh hello,” Diana said with a smile. “We have World Civ together. Are you taking Akkadian too?”

Darien turned his piercing gray eyes down towards Diana. They seemed to find her presence unbelievable.

“How are you in this class?” he asked a bit too incredulously. “It’s a graduate level language course.”

A slight heat of defensive anger rushed to Diana’s cheeks as she stood up. “I asked the professor for special permission; he didn’t seem have a problem with it.”

“I see,” he replied while taking the measure of her like a piece of evidence in an investigation. “Forgive me, what was your name?”

“Diana Selene,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

Darien’s eyes twitched in surprise for a moment before a curious look filled them and a slight smirk crept to his mouth.

“Diana Selene?” he repeated, as if her name sounded unbelievable.