Here I am, on my virtual knees, presenting you with almost four thousand words from my absence. To those of you who continue to leave the most exquisite reviews, thank you. And yes, most of you were correct in guessing that Uni was behind the delays. Second year has made me realise that first year like is riding a bicycle with training wheels. Anyway, the one positive is that the story will not come to an end before next semester, when I begin modules in both romantic literature and romantic lyric poetry. I'm hoping I will be able to incorporate some gems.

'Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart

And come, for some uncertain moments lent.

Man were immortal and omnipotent,

Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,

Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.

Thou messenger of sympathies,

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes;

Thou, that to human thought art nourishment,

Like darkness to a dying flame!

Depart not as thy shadow came,

Depart not—lest the grave should be,

Like life and fear, a dark reality.'

- Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)

~ Note ~

*Lizzie B refers to both the famous, suspected axe murderer Lizzie Borden (1860-1927) and the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Chapter Forty-Six -Messenger of Sympathies

"I have to ring Chris," the words spilled like tangled spaghetti from her lips. Neil nodded vehemently. Kathleen took a breath, both unwilling and unable to peel her eyes away from their oblivious companion's face.

Oh, now. Neil is waiting.

Her brain kicked back into gear, cogs turning to release the blanket scrunched in her palms and unlock her stiff muscles. Her mind ticked over, mapping out the basic instructions - get up, pick up your bag, walk, walk, walk - interspersed with reels of polite exit words to make audible at the completion of her tasks.

"Wait!"

The whirring hum receded from her brain at the command. She pivoted, eyes connecting. Silence.

"You almost ditched Lizzie B, and not" he added, "the murderous one."* He stumbled forward, pausing abruptly in the centre to extend the book in her direction. She accepted it, short-circuiting at the brush of skin. Fingertips aflame, she stepped back over the threshold. Her lips shaped words of thanks.

Her limbs marched her down the corridor after Neil, barely registering Todd melting into line from his post outside the door. Her mind felt like a misplaced windup toy careening over the edge of a table and crashing down to solid ground. Charlie was nowhere to be seen and whether she was more relieved or disappointed by the fact, she couldn't quite decide.

The electric current coursing through her veins allowed her a short intermission as they neared the phones; immediately starting up again as she dialled the familiar number to repair Knox's damage. She loved Knox infinitely, but his stupidity seemed just as infinite.

"Hello-"

"Chris!?"

A sigh echoed down the line, "I thought you were Chet."

"I hope that I'm a welcome surprise."

"Always."

The warmth in her tone dragged a smile from Kat. She twisted the cord as her brain switched gears, grappling with where to start.

"I've been avoiding him all day, and he hasn't called me yet. I guess that means he hasn't heard."

"Ginny told me," Neil laid his hand over Kat's and tilted the phone towards himself. "Knox disappeared yesterday and refuses to say a word about it!"

"He had plenty to say when he turned up at Ridgeway."

The trio exchanged a look. Bitter was not an adjective often used to describe Chris Noel.

"I-I don't mean to be ungrateful. The flowers were gorgeous and the poem, well, nobody has ever written poetry for me, and certainly not about me." She paused, "but my whole class was there. He stood up in front of everyone like we were in some kind of fantasy romance novel. I'll never live it down. I have a boyfriend, a boyfriend who already wants to kill him!"

Kat squeezed her eyes shut, letting the colours cloud her vision like the paintings she had seen in the Noel's home. Hearing Chris relive her humiliation was even more painful than Neil's passionate retelling of yesterdays events. "We'll talk to him," she promised, "he will apologise."

"Please, give me a few days," her voice became quiet. "I can't see him for a while. I don't know how-" she broke off. "I just need some space from him."

"Of course. I'm so sorry, Chris. We're friends with an absolute idiot."

"A sweet idiot."

"Yeah" Kat smiled softly, "he is."

"I've got to go. Chet might call. Tell Knox to be careful, please."

"Trust me, he won't leave our sight." Neil nodded grimly at her words.

"Thank you."

"Don't worry about it. Take care, Chris. Bye!"

As soon as the call disconnected Neil slapped a hand on each of his companion's shoulders. "Tomorrow," he stated, looking them both firmly in the eye, "we corner him where he can't escape."

"Cameron should have finished his meeting," Todd tapped his watch. "We can gather the others."

"Excellent!" Neil herded them back towards the dormitories. "We have a lovesick fool to knock some sense into."

If only, Kat thought, she was able to knock some sense into herself.

XXXX

"Neil, wait! I didn't mean-" Todd's words faded as a rogue shoulder battered his left side and an over-sized satchel clipped his right leg. He came to a skittering halt in front of Charlie, who had shoved his way to through the crowded corridor.

Kat side-stepped, narrowly avoiding yet another eleven year-old - with a satchel almost matching the size of his body - rushing through the narrow hall to class. "I swear this is worse than London" she muttered, trying to catch sight of Neil's head bobbing above the sea of short, over-cologned, and slightly violent children who clearly needed glasses, or perhaps a healthy dose of respect.

Oh no, she sounded like Cameron.

Todd yelped. Kat barely had time to react before a book was sent tumbling out of her grip. Suddenly, a hand pressed in between her shoulder blades, gently guiding her forward. To her right, Todd handed her book back. He smiled sheepishly as he was similarly guided forwards.

"Hey! Make room for the lady. Lady coming through! Where are those manners your Mothers taught you!?"

She was about to protest but Todd's laugh stopped her. They were moving. The crowd was parting like the red sea in the illustrated Bible she had read as a child. Eyes looked up at the trio as they strolled easily down the corridor. Kat looked over her shoulder at Nuwanda's smug expression. Her eyes narrowed, "this is the one and only time you'll ever hear me say this" she warned, "but you were correct in Keating's lesson. You are indeed a God."

His subsequent grin followed them out into the courtyard. Kathleen breathed in the crisp air. Her gloved hands clutched her book tighter as she walked the walled-border, fingers trailing over the uneven stone and meandering over the skeletal remains of flowers.

'I leant upon a coppice gate

When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

Had sought their household fires...'

She felt eyes on her. "Thomas Hardy" she said in the same soft tone, "The Darkling Thrush.*"

Neil applauded, taking the chance to push Todd forward. "If Kat can recite poetry, you can find your muse."

"His what?" Meeks narrowed his eyes. "Did we play follow the leader so that you can chase some elusive muse?"

"No, we came out here on a quest Meeks." Neil dodged several ice filled cracks in the stone as he approached the bench. "We seek the answer to Todd's question" he explained, stepping onto to it. He threw his arms out. "His poetic authenticity is on the line!"

"Todd?" Pitts folded his arms. "What quest can be worth freezing for?"

Kat motioned for Meeks, hands forming a silent symbol. He understood, producing a pair of sewing scissors from his pocket. She snipped a sprig of evergreen, passing them back with a smile as she spun towards Todd. 'Life' she said, tucking it behind his ear. "What is poetry without polarity? Life and death, light and dark, love and loss. In nature we see it all."

She took his arm, and he squeezed her hand in gratitude. His voice wavered in the cold wind.

"I- I couldn't find the line" he flushed, "in my poem."

"The poem he worked on past midnight" Neil interrupted, exchanging a tender look with his roommate. Kat hardly thought it possible, but the red staining his cheeks bloomed darker. Neil cleared his throat. "We can't let him suffer any longer."

"I said I can't do it" Todd's grip tightened around her arm, "and that's okay. I'll move on to something else."

Neil cried out in indignation.

"He's right" Kat tugged him away from the group, releasing his arm and stepping back. "But it cannot flower from follow the leader," she suppressed a smile at Meeks' phrase, "it has to come from you."

Todd stood motionless, silhouetted before the arch with snow coating him like an apparition among ruins. Breathing deeply, his eyes fluttered closed. The white pines standing nearby quivered, their naked branches silenced of their usual rustle. Pine needles whipped across the ground, rising, falling and striking roughened stone. A sole mourning dove hopped across the ground, overturning soil and frost in its wake; its yearning song startling Todd from his reverie.

Neil started forwards, but Charlie pulled him back.

They watched as he moved, boots marking his path with each imprint on the snow. He reached the east corner, hands shaking as they rested on the ledge in the wall, one created by fallen stones. His eyes fixed on the gap, the small window to the outer grounds of Welton.

Kat scarcely dared to breathe. The air seemed dense, crackling around him at the focal point. Neil's barely restrained energy seemed to vibrate through each particle surrounding the group. He was curled in himself like a spring straining for release.

Todd slipped out of the shadows. His eyes alight, infused with a spirit barely glimpsed before.

"I've got it."

Applause ripped through the grey courtyard. His proud grin rivalling Neil's in intensity as the taller boy threw himself at him. Kat pulled the red ribbon from her hair, twisting it around the remnants of greenery scavenged from winter's desolation. The boys fell back into a circle of praise around their final pledge. Kat tied the bouquet to the lapel of his coat, eyes catching briefly on the vacant space where Knox should be.

XXXX

By mid-afternoon the plot was ready to enact. As planned prior to recent events, Kat met to discuss the influence of the Shelley's European tour, and the subsequent Geneva circle* over tea and biscuits with Keating. As lunchtime drew to a close, she proposed the plan in all of Cameron's meticulous detail, finally leaving his office with a grin at the pleasing - albeit expected - result.

As the sun sunk west, they set the stage for what they hoped would be final scene of this drama. Little Timothy, much to Cameron's dismay, was entrusted with the role of a messenger and dispatched to bring the final character from the wings. Neil directed each to hiding place, most ending up in the closet like a childhood game of sardines. Keating himself took centre stage behind his desk. Within minutes, the metaphorical curtain fell with the opening of a door.

"Captain?"

Keating rose, welcoming the poor boy with a sympathetic smile. "Mr Overstreet, thank you for coming."

"Sir? Is everything okay?"

The Captain beckoned the bewildered boy into a seat, placing Kathleen's poetry book before him. His eyes widened in recognition. "I-I don't understand."

"I admire your spirit, and most importantly your heart. But I have said it before, and I'll say it again. Sucking out the marrow of life does not mean choking on the bone." With his parting words reverberating, Keating absconded.

Neil flung himself from behind the open door, slamming it shut and barricading it with a desk. Knox remained rooted to the spot in utter disbelief as his friends emerged from various places in the room, converging around him at his desk.

"I guess this is an intervention" he said, finding his voice at last.

"A mad poetry reading is generally encouraged" Charlie said lightly, "when the recipient isn't cornered."

Knox blanched, "cornered? I didn't corner her!"

"Knox, honey" Kat perched on a nearby desk, "I know you want to be Mr Darcy. But honestly, that was a Mr Collins ambush."

"Pride and Prejudice?*" Cameron wrinkled his nose, "is this really the time?"

"It's always the time for Austen!"

Neil snapped his fingers, "hey! We can fight later, and Cameron please stop being ridiculous."

"What Kat is saying" Cameron continued, ignoring her childish smirk, "is that you embarrassed her. You could have got her into a lot of trouble, and that is ignoring that amount of school rules you broke by yourself."

"Sure, she was too worried about Chet to focus" Knox defended, "but she loved the poem, and I brought her favourite flowers!"

Kat sighed, "we're not saying it wasn't romantic, Knox."

"Chris rang last night" Charlie crossed his arms, his posture radiating challenge. "You embarrassed her in front of her class, made her life difficult with her boyfriend who already wanted to kill you, and she won't accept an apology just yet. She wants space from you," he emphasised. "The problem is not the poem, it's your ignorance of her wishes."

Knox let out a shaky breath, "did-did she really ask for space?"

"She did" Neil lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. "And although she called you an idiot, she called you sweet idiot."

"Save the serenades for secret addresses at club meetings." Kathleen tapped the book, "just until she figures out how she feels."

He nodded slowly, ducking his head. "I'll apologise, I promise. I-I didn't think."

"We know," Neil looked at the others for help.

"The poem" Todd said quietly, "Chris never said she didn't like it. She said no one had ever written one for her." His words drew a faltering smile from Knox, strengthened by Kat's hug as she passed on Chris' message. She had specifically asked for him to be careful. And suddenly, his future no longer seemed so dim.

XXXX

For seventeen years, Marley's ghost* had been as essential to a festive evening as home-made mince pies and snow to Kathleen Murray. Each year her father's snowy boots dusted the entrance hall as he wrestled a six-foot pine tree through the aged front door. And as the years flew by, the three, little hands clutching the oak banister, and the eyes peeking tentatively through the gaps in the elaborate carvings, had grown into helping hands weaving magic into their home. Beneath her grandmother's quilt, A Christmas Carol was told, ghosts flickering in and out of the hearth as the yule log flickered and crackled with flames.

Within minutes, the annual comfort provided by Charles Dickens was obliterated by a single, verbal sparring match.

Kat lowered 'A Christmas Carol,' all attempts at subtlety abandoned as she witnessed Cameron snatch the instrument away from Charlie's outstretched hands. The clarinet glistened under the low light, its sleek exterior reflecting its worth, despite the deafening sounds produced by the amateur handler of such a prize.

To his credit, Charlie had tried to conceal his winces. "Try taking a quick breath before the middle note" he advised, his back turned to the rapidly growing audience anticipating the night's crescendo.

"It won't work" Cameron said flatly.

"That's one opinion."

"It's not an opinion" he snarled, "it's a fact."

Charlie's body hit the wall with a sigh of utter distress, collapsing in on himself like a deflating composer. Mottled spots spread like rouge across Cameron's cheeks. He clutched the barrel like a gun, mouthpiece pointed at its owner.

"Fifteen minutes in and you're already taking a nap. I can hardly say I'm surprised with your academic record."

He lazily opened his eyes, cocking an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm sorry. Let me refund you for-wait, you're on my time. For free!"

"Then make it worth your time and give me some instruction."

Nuwanda plucked the sheet music from his temperamental protégé, lapsing into silence as he studied it. And whether he chose to ignore the words Cameron uttered under his breath, or if he simply did not hear them was indiscernible. Cameron's reaction, however, left nothing to the imagination.

"You never listen to me" he sniped, slapping the paper away so he could no longer be dismissed. "Why would my music be any different?"

"Oh, I'm sorry" he glared, taking the folder from the stand and pushing it into his chest, "I didn't see you there, you're too far up on your high horse."

Richard exhibited the strength characteristic of his name; he drew a deep breath and lowered the clarinet back into its velvet case.

"You never change, do you Cameron? Always quitting at the slightest adversity."

"Are you satisfied?" He snapped, throwing down the folder. His fearsome glare fixed his opponent.

"I wouldn't go that far" Charlie smirked, "but I will admit to being somewhat appeased."

Kathleen ducked behind her novel. She could hardly fight the giggle itching at the back of throat. A shadow fell over her as Todd perched on the left arm. She had never been so grateful for the lack of personal space allowed by the old armchairs; the distraction was a welcome remedy to her merriment.

"I give it five minutes before Cameron storms out" Todd whispered. He surveyed the focus of the room which lay unanimously on the explosive duo. "I can't decide if your idea was a terrible one for them, or brilliant for bringing the rest of the senior class together."

She tilted her head to face him, "what can I say? I'm full of bad ideas." He grinned, but the words dripped heavy like oil from her lips. The stain spread through her thoughts, reality becoming slippery with their grease. Scorching feelings swept through her blood once more, catching alight on the trail she had unwittingly laid for herself.

"Hey," a gentle squeeze extinguished the flames. "Are you okay?"

She breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. "Hypothetically speaking, what should someone do when a bad idea becomes appealing?"

Todd paused. "What kind of bad idea?"

"The kind that will give the most happiness - fleetingly - and hurt irreparably for far longer."

Rather than a grimace, his mouth twisted into the faintest hint of a smile. "Can I tell you a secret?" He asked, struggling to tune out the memory singing through his heart. She nodded. His hand flexed from underneath his chin, fingertips gently tracing over his lips. "It's worth it."

Kat shot up, almost tumbling out of her seat. "Do you mean-" she cut herself off, catching sight of his expression. "You did!"

"We didn't get a chance to talk yet" Todd defended, ducking his head. "Did something happen?"

"Almost," she flushed at the admission. "But Neil, well, never mind."

"Maybe it will happen again."

She watched the boy in question pick up his scattered papers, abandoned by Cameron as Todd's guess came to fruition. His dejection was barely palpable through the mask of nonchalance. If Neil had not pitched in with a kind smile and forced joviality, she doubted it would have been perceptible at all.

"Maybe." Kat tugged the blanket closer around herself, observing the faraway look in her confidant's eyes.

And maybe next time she would let it.

This likely sounds far-fetched, but the crowds parting to make way for one girl is something that really happened to me a few years ago.

I was seventeen and in my final year of high school, standing in between two sets of double doors trying to enter a building. Eleven year-olds in their first year were swarming the halls and practically running to class with huge backpacks. A group of fifteen year-old boys entered the other set of doors and saw me struggling to get through. One of them shouted "let the lady through!" Another started shouting, "make room for the sixth-former!" And before I knew it, about six boys were actively clearing a path to escort me through the hall. To this day, it is still one of the most surreal and entertaining moments of my life.

Has anyone else experienced something fiction worthy?

* The Darkling Thrush, Thomas Hardy (1900)

* The Geneva Circle - Refers to a group of writers: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori. They stayed at Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland in the Summer of 1816. Poor weather kept them inside and challenging one another to write.

* Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (1813)

* Marley's ghost - Reference to 'A Christmas Carol,' Charles Dickens (1843)