NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1: Destination – Crescent
Jonas Campbell hated flying. He’d always hated flying, just like he hated cramped spaces, the smell of recycled air, and meals that managed to be too hot on the outside while frozen on the inside. He gritted his teeth as the ascension made his ears pop and did his best to ignore the feeling of his sinuses trying to escape through his eyeballs. Looking out the window didn’t help, because the landscape was at a forty-five degree angle, making things even worse. Something about the way the front of the cabin felt like ‘up’ had always reminded him of being trapped and falling. A hand reached past him and closed the window cover.
“Hey,” his companion in the next seat said. He turned to Brett, who was obviously trying not to worry about Jonas. “Just close your eyes and focus on breathing. You’re just going fast, that’s all.” He did as he was asked. This wasn’t the first time Brett and him had gone flying, and it was obvious the smaller guy knew what to say. They’d been friends since the first day of high school, and now they were about to go off to college together. “It’s gonna be a short flight. Just four hours. Maybe try to get a nap in,” Brett added, relaxed to an infuriating degree.
“Pfah,” he said. “As if.” Still, Jonas tried, closing his eyes and leaning back against the headrest. No first class, not this time. Both their parents wanted them to have a more ‘authentic’ experience stepping out into the world on their own. That had meant getting dropped off at the airport and coach tickets. He groaned softly. The irony of the situation didn’t escape him. He was almost a whole foot taller than Brett, and throughout high school, he’d stood up for and protected the little guy, who seemed to be perpetually teetering on the brink of a deeper depression. But in here, Brett was in his element and Jonas wanted to crawl through the little window to get out of the stiflingly small cabin.
“Move your head,” Brett said, tutting like an overbearing mom. Jonas opened his eyes in confusion, and then noticed Brett holding the little neck-pillow. He grinned as Brett put it in place. “There, that’ll be better.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Jonas smirked. Brett huffed and glared playfully at Jonas.
“You listen here, young man. You had better behave or I’m turning this plane around.” He wagged a finger threateningly in Jonas’ face. “You’re not even wearing your seatbelt!” Someone on the other side of the aisle looked over with concern and Brett had to backpedal fast. “Sorry! Misunderstanding!”
“That was adorable,” Jonas said, happy for the distraction. “Really showed me.”
“You shut your mouth, you,” Brett said, grumpily crossing his arms, and then reached down for the little pamphlet he’d been leafing through since he left home. The cover was a beautiful illustration of a campus, like an architect’s wet dream. In white letters at the top was the name. ‘Crescent Moon University’.
“You don’t know that whole thing by heart by now?” Jonas asked. Brett looked at him, idly thumbing through the pages. Jonas himself had already studied the booklet cover to cover, reading about the new University. About how the town of Crescent, Oregon had once been a small industrial town in the middle of nowhere, alive only because of its lumber mill, how the mill and the adjacent town had been bought out by an eccentric woman, who had turned the whole thing into CMU.
“I mean, kinda,” Brett said, “but it’s the only thing we know about this place, you know? There’s so little info about it online, a part of me still thinks this is all a scam or something.” He wasn’t wrong. When Jonas and Brett had both received their invitations for the ‘Crescent Moon Outreach For Excellence Program’, he’d immediately looked it up and had found… almost nothing. Half of the search results had been people asking the same question, and the other half had been some of the same accounts coming back to say that, yes, Crescent Moon was legitimate, but it wasn’t for everyone. Obviously, that hadn’t been very reassuring. The website had been ‘undergoing updates and maintenance’ all year and through the summer. But their parents had been on the phone with the Program organisers and they’d been convinced. Graduates of the school seemed to be doing very well for themselves, so accepting the offer had been a no-brainer, for their parents at least. Jonas couldn’t help but wonder if there had been a monetary incentive, but if there was, his parents weren’t telling.
“Well, if you discover anything new in there, let me know,” he said, closing his eyes again. He didn’t know if the little pillow made him more or less comfortable, but he was happy to have it regardless. Regardless of what CMU was gonna throw at them, he was convinced that, between the two of them, they were going to handle all of it just fine.
***
Some thirty-five thousand feet below them, and a little to the left, Elliot Parker sat in an overheating bus, reading through the same pamphlet. She’d been looking at it in disbelief since the day it had arrived, along with her acceptance to CMU. Sure, she’d worked hard, but a part of her was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for all of this to be a mistake, a joke, or a cruel prank. She didn’t
get to just... have things. That didn’t really happen to her, or her family. Her parents had been so proud of her. There had been a lot of hugging and crying. Even more surprising was that McKenzie had also been accepted.The blonde was clearly suffering under the sweltering heat of midwest summer, and had her eyes closed and her headphones on. The two of them had started off as… well, definitely not friends. McKenzie Lowell had been the popular girl, a small swarm of Mean Girls around her, while Elliot’s tendency to hyperfocus and talk about things that were Not Cool had made her into something of the class weirdo. But then stuff had happened with McKenzie’s boyfriend and Elliot had found her crying, and after several years the two of them had become friends. McKenzie liked Elliot because Elliot was honest, she’d told her, and Elliot liked her back because she’d taken the time to get to know her, and had encouraged other students to stop picking on her. It had been a fragile alliance at first, but it was there.
But McKenzie had not been a model student, far from it, although she’d definitely cleaned up her act in the last year. She’d done some extracurricular work in her free time, despite the fact that, with her mom’s money, she could’ve afforded to just coast for the first dozen or so years post-high school. She could’ve gone backpacking through a continent of her choice and come back Changed and Enriched. Instead, she’d also been accepted to Crescent Moon University. Why she was even in Elliot’s bus had been something of a mystery. She could afford to fly, after all. Elliot, by contrast, had saved up as much as she could to pay for the trip itself. Her parents sure as heck couldn’t afford it. But everything at CMU would be paid for by the Program, apparently.
She looked at the pamphlet again. There was a whole section about ‘accepting people who were different’, and she swallowed away a lump in her throat. That, of course, had been the other reason she’d found it so hard to connect to people in high school. Living closeted had made it very hard to open up to people. If this school was really as diverse as the brochure said, maybe she’d feel more comfortable there.
‘Everyone’s experiences are different,’ the pamphlet said, ‘and it’s important that everyone is open to someone else’s view of the world. At Crescent Moon, we don’t discriminate on people’s life, love, shape or form, and we ask, no, demand that you don’t either.’ Sure, it was framed a little weird, but to Elliot, the message was loud and clear. But she also didn’t trust an organization like a school to actually stand behind those words, so she was cautiously optimistic.
She wiped some sweat off her brow and thanked her lucky stars she wasn’t sitting by a window. She was already worried she was going to be peeling herself off the leather seat, if the heat didn’t kill her. She sighed and, as she lowered it, the pamphlet was swiped out of her hands. McKenzie gave her cheeky little smile as she started reading.
“What’s this place going to be like, anyway?” McKenzie asked. Elliot resisted rolling her eyes, but only barely. It was entirely in-character for the other girl to only now start looking into the school they were going to be attending soon. She’d never been very proactive about this kind of stuff, having relied on her ability to improvise to brute force her way through high school.
“Well… I’d tell you, but you’ve got the literature right there, Kens,” Elliot said, a little snippy. She pulled her feet up on the couch -- they sat in the back. If the driver could even see her, he probably didn’t care -- and immediately realized it was a mistake. She hissed as her bare calves made contact with the hot leather. She’d done her best to wear appropriate clothing, but there really wasn’t an appropriate dress code for being charbroiled in a fifty year old shuttle bus. Still, she’d really hoped the khakis-and-shirt combo would’ve been more effective. “Ffff--”
“It says here there’s a lake and stuff nearby,” McKenzie said, skimming the pages, “but that we shouldn’t ‘go out after dark.’ That’s a little…”
“Sensible?”
“Creepy. Anyway, that means we have to go swimming at night.” Elliot shot her what she hoped was a withering glance over her glasses. McKenzie didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. In fact, despite the heat, she still looked fabulous. Her hair had been done perfectly, rolling down her shoulders like waterfalls, and combined with the light summer dress she looked like a model. All things considered, Elliot considered herself very lucky to have never had a crush on her only friend. That would’ve made things awkward. She’d wondered why, and it was probably because she’d only really started talking to McKenzie when the latter had been in a very vulnerable position. Gay-brain had taken a backseat to good-friend-brain, and they’d been in that position with regards to McKenzie ever since.
“We’re not going swimming at night,” Elliot said resolutely. McKenzie opened her mouth to retort, which Elliot, knowing her well enough, immediately cut off too. “No skinnydipping, either.”
“Boo,” McKenzie said. “You whore.”
“You really are a dork at heart, you know that?”
“If you tell anyone I’ll hit you with my car.” Elliot didn’t take her threat in the least bit serious. Sure, McKenzie’s car was a menace in its own right -- a sweet-sixteen four-wheel-drive gift from dad -- but Elliot also knew that her friend was too much of a softie to actually do anything dangerous. Well, anything dangerous when it came to bodily harm. Elliot had held McKenzie’s hair more than once during a morning hangover.
“You would never,” Elliot shot back, “you love that car too much.”
“You’re right. I am a good friend.”
“That’s not even close to what I said.”
“Yeah, but you were thinking it,” McKenzie said. “What do you think they mean with ‘Student relationships are strictly monitored for everyone’s safety’? That feels a little… weird.” Elliot nodded. She’d noticed that passage too. Of course, her high school had also demanded that students ‘Leave room for Jesus’ at all times, but the phrasing was still weird. There were several things like that throughout the brochure. Maybe for the person who’d written it, English was a second language? “I’m not saying I’m worried, El,” McKenzie said, “but I’m not in the mood for puritan bullpucky, yknow?”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. What’s the worst that could happen?” Elliot asked, like a fool.
