Dark Waters (Elemental Book 1) by Rain Oxford Read Free Book Online

much more
sinister part of the building. Worse, I was completely lost. The hallway was
dark with a doorway on each end as well as to either side of me. No matter
which door I took, it was to a hallway that was exactly the same. I picked one
end of the hallway and went through the door. I didn’t stop and went straight
through to the next door… and the next. There was no end.
    I wouldn’t panic. Nothing ever came from panicking.
This was a school; someone had to find me eventually. Maybe after I was dead,
but someone would eventually find me… unless I got eaten.
    Shit. Five thousand a week isn’t enough.
    Then I smelled something odd, which I instantly
recognized as seaweed. It wasn’t a bad scent, just unexpected, so I followed it
to one of the side doors. I opened it and found an office. The fragrance of
seaweed was gone and although I saw nobody in the room, I heard something.
    This was what I thought an alchemist’s study would
look like. Every inch of every wall was taken up by bookshelves, which
contained not only thick volumes of heavy, old books, but also beakers, vials,
and cases. There were three solid tables, all piled high with similar items. In
one table was a built-in sink. It looked like a mad scientist’s secret lair.
    The noise I heard was made by a small glass ball,
only about six inches wide, filled with what appeared to be dirt, ash, and
herbs. That in itself wouldn’t have caused me to look twice at it, except the
damn thing was rolling around on the ground in a perfect circle with a diameter
of about five feet.
    After a few minutes of gawking at it, my instincts
told me to stop it. Cautiously, as if it would explode, I reached out my foot
and stepped lightly on it, forcing it to halt. In that instant, a man appeared
in front of me, which startled me into stepping back. The ball resumed its path
and the man vanished.
    I circled around it, looking for mirrors or strings,
but never stepped inside the ring. This is what I get for dealing with
magic. I stopped the ball with my foot again, and again, the man appeared.
    “Please don’t let it go!” the man rushed to say. He
had a slight German accent.
    He was a scruffy looking man; six-foot, thin, ginger,
with too much facial hair. His hair was unkempt, but his facial hair was
somewhere between, “haven’t been out of the house for a month,” and “lost in
the forest for who knows how long.” He wore a robe, like the other teachers,
but his was steel-gray and thicker. Beneath it, he had on a black sweater and
pants.
    “Where did you just appear from?”
    “I’ve been right here since I was trapped. I don’t
know when, I don’t know by who. Please, just don’t let it go.”
    “I have class in less than five minutes and I can’t
show up kicking a ball around.”
    He breathed heavily with desperation. “Pick it up and
set it somewhere.”
    Although I had absolutely no reason to trust him, I
picked up the sphere. It was very light. When I set it in the sink so that it
couldn’t roll out, the man rushed forward and hugged me. I tried not to gag at
the cloud of odor around him that was a strange mixture of cat and vinegar.
Once he let me go, he dashed around the room and fussed over the clutter. He
wasn’t cleaning anything; he would just pick something up and set it back down.
    “How long have you been trapped in here?”
    “Oh… um… what day is it?”
    “September first.”
    “Then… three days.”
    “September first, 2014.”
    “Oh… then more than three days.”
    “Do you need me to call someone for you? A therapist
maybe?” He wasn’t listening anymore, so I opened the door to leave.
    I was now in a crowded hall. I closed the door
cautiously behind me, pulled the map out of my bag, and asked the nearest
student where we were. “Right here,” he said, pointing out a hallway very close
to my next class. I looked behind me…
    The door was gone.
     
    *          *          *
     
    I checked my watch and