Page 5 of Bows & Eros
I caught my laugh on a little cough, covering my lips to hide the sound and not draw attention to myself.
"Perfect! She sounds like just the type of person who could use a magic arrow in the butt!" Mr. Curie said with a conspiratorial wink. "You ready?"
"Yeah! How do I make it loop-de-loop?" Aaron swiped a purple airplane from his pile and aimed the pointy head at Ms. Mayflower, who wasmuchtoo far away for any hope of a hit.
Later, I told myself that the unlikely distance was why I allowed this to play out. I like to lie to myself to avoid guilt, you see.
"Decideit will loop-de-loop," said Mr. Curie. "Anddecidewhat you want."
"I wanna see Ms. Mayflower act silly," said Aaron Weaver. He reared back his little arm and sent the paper airplane flying. "And do a loop-de-loop!" he added in a panicked afterthought to the tail of his launched missile.
For a moment, time seemed to slow. I watched in awe as the purple paper airplane soared over my head, then dipped down and around in a perfect spiraling loop. It justkept going, looping and looping and looping until it somehow found its waybehindMs. Mayflower and colliding, point-first, with her derriere.
I heard the gales of laughter from behind me from Aaron and the substitute teacher, but for a good few seconds I couldn't move. Astonishment will do that to a girl.
I watched Ms. Mayflower rub her backside in confusion, then lean down and pick up the paper airplane with a little frown on her face. Then, rather than tightening into a thrumming ball of rage and marching into the crowd to find the culprit, she did the strangest thing.
She giggled.
Maybe I could have stopped it then. Maybe I should have known all hell was about to break loose when stodgy, buttoned-up Ms. Mayflowergiggled. Or maybe it was already too late. I watched her with my mouth on the floor as she patted her hair, and looked around the room, leaving a big, fluttery sigh at the sight of our custodian, who was minding his business in a corner, completely unaware.
I considered stopping her as she began to saunter over to him, loosening the bun on top of her head as she went, but I couldn't. I was frozen in awe. I couldn't make out what she whispered to him once she reached his side, but from his reaction, I couldguess.
He blushed a deep red and whispered something back, making her lips curl up in the biggest smile I'd ever seen on that pinched, stressed-out face.
Craziest of all, no one else seemed to notice it happening. I could only stare as the two of them sneaked off like sophomores in detention to go find a broom closet, unable to process the series of events that had just unfolded.
By the time my senses returned to me, a rainbow of paper airplanes were looping through the air of the auditorium, sailing with an unnatural aim toward their targets.
And the little town of Crete was never the same again.
CHAPTER3
(Two Hours Later)
Knocking three times is usually sufficient. I knocked at least a dozen times, I rapped on that door until my frozen knuckles were warm again. I didn't stop until the door was wrenched open.
Ethan Weaver looked just as annoyed as I felt, and as such, he was completely unrecognizable. It wasn't just that he was looking me directly in the eye, irritation blazing behind those baby blues. He was also free of his slouchy, sloppy, too-big sweaters and jeans.
He was covered in what looked like chips of marble, his surprisingly sculpted arms bare under a workman's apron. He had pushed protective goggles up onto his forehead, and while his sandy hairwasin its usual disarray, it looked almost deliberate, in line with the disheveled artist ensemble he apparently wore when home alone, where no one could see him.
Later, I'd be sure to wonder why he dressed like a hobo in public if he looked likethatunder all the heavy knit. It startled me enough to throw me off my line of thought, and for a moment I just stood there, staring at him, clutching a baggy gray coat that didn't belong to me around my middle. I had grabbed the topmost coat from my peg and run here in a panic, grateful that I had such an intimate knowledge of how to navigate Crete on foot.
"Miss Avri?" Ethan Weaver prompted, his irritation seemingly giving way to alarmed curiosity. "Did youwalkhere? Come in."
He stepped back, ushering me into the warmth of the house and practically shoving me onto an armchair.
My legs collapsed in gratitude, though my hands remained clutched around the borrowed coat. My ears were burning and my hair felt like frozen grass against my cheeks and neck. I realized that my teeth had begun to chatter, now that the adrenaline had room to seep from my pores, and I stared up at Ethan Weaver in a dazed realization of what I'd done.
"Is Aaron okay?" Ethan Weaver said to me, possibly more than once. "Miss Avri! Are you here about my son?!"
My eyes scanned the home, avoiding meeting those of the man who needed a coherent explanation from me. It was tidier than I'd have imagined, though through the open door to the garage workshop, I could see the sculpture in progress that had coated Mr. Weaver in white. It was a woman, or it was going to be, when it was finished.
"Aaron is ..." I began, forcing myself to swallow. "He's ..."
This was going to sound insane.
"Yes?" he prompted, crossing those muscled arms across his chest.
