The Time Seekers (The Soul Seekers Book 2) Read Free

not heard, learn on our own, explore our talent—if we had any. With no real direction, I spent most of my time doing the suggested exercises in our textbook, but soon I became restless. With a great amount of longing, I watched the exciting projects other students were working on, all the while wishing I could bypass the mind-numbing purgatory I found myself stuck in.
    I shared a drafting table with Cowboy Jim—a rancher by trade. On the first night of school, we’d chosen to sit together. At least, I’d chosen to sit by him. He had a calm nature, was all prairie and sky and smells of earth. With thick gray hair flattened permanently by a brown Stetson, he was different from the younger students in class. Though perhaps the real reason I liked him was because he reminded me of my father.
    “Hey, Blondie. Working on something new?” He had his all laid out, a beautiful landscape half done. I was hoping he’d keep me entertained with one of his stories; they often kept me from drifting off. After last night’s lack of sleep, I really didn’t have the energy to keep up any kind of conversation. I’d had another dream about the eclipse. About Jesse. Why couldn’t I stop dreaming about him? What was wrong with me? I was married to Will.
    Once again, I gazed at my bare ring-finger with a frown.
    “Well?”
    “Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m working on something new.” I opened my half-filled sketchbook. On the first empty page, someone had written: Put your heart into it this time, Bennett. With black permanent marker, no less.
    My heart sank. My mouth fell open.
    “I always put my heart into my work,” I muttered to myself. Glancing over my shoulder, I locked eyes with our class instructor, Mr. Hershel. He sat in a relaxed state, chair back and feet up on the desk. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he was Penn Peak’s most sought-after professor—even though he dressed shabby and wore his hair halfway down his back. His beard was thick enough to break the finest of razors. But this leftover hippie was also a great artist. Well, he hadn’t spoken a single word to me since class started in August. I figured he thought I was a high school dropout who married too young and had babies at home. Not worth his time. He was right about a couple of things: I was married, and I was young. But I didn’t have children, and I wasn’t without talent. Too late—he’d gone through my drawings and made his own assumptions. What a jerk.
    “What is it?” Jim asked.
    I’d let my thoughts slip to my tongue. “Oh, sorry, Jim. It’s nothing. Totally nothing.”
    Ignoring the first twitch of a migraine, I flipped through the drawings in my sketchbook. Line study, shading, abstract, and a still-life of objects I’d thrown together on a table and drawn for two weeks. It was all amateur. I felt a drop in my stomach as I realized Mr. Hershel was right; my work lacked effort and expertise. But still, what had he ever taught me? I needed direction.
    He yawned before reaching over to flip on his little desktop radio. The Doors drifted across the room in a hypnotic melody.
    I stood and then sat back down. Then stood again.
    “You okay?”
    “Yeah, Jim. I just—I need to talk to Mr. Hershel.”
    “What for?”
    “Because I think it’s about time one of us asked him to help the first year students, don’t you?”
    Jim let out a dry whistle. “Go ahead. I’ll cut in if things get bad.”
    “Doubt you’ll need to. But thanks for the backup.”
    I took my time approaching the desk, giving a soft throat-clearing to announce my arrival. “Mr. Hershel?”
    “Call me Max,” he said, with slight annoyance. He swiveled in his chair and picked up a small brass object. “What do you need?”
    “I need . . .” He didn’t seem to be listening. Why wouldn’t he look at me? “I see the note you left. Should I be reading more? Come into art lab on the weekends? I’m lost. Everything I know is self-taught, and it