by K. G. Wilkie
“Not for long,” he muttered.
Aeron hmmd. “I see. So that is your aim, or your group`s? Yet another people backing my brother and agitating to depose me. I guess you wouldn`t really know all the details, though, as even I can tell you are on the bottom rung in the organization.” He sneered, “I would bet you haven`t even been granted a single position yet, Darien.” His opponent blanched. “Humph. I thought I got that correct. I can read you without having even bothered to send one of my people to dig through your past because it’s obvious you are a small fry of no threat to me or my rule.”
“Your rule clearly deserves the threat if you are ignoring all the little people who together could easily overpower you. Your kingdom is at risk with such a negligent leader. Unlike you your brother takes an upset populace seriously. Richard is obviously a better ruler than the famous idiot bastard of the brood,” he sneered.
Now Aeron punched him in the stomach, leaving him hunched over on the ground. “Don`t antagonize your seniors so much, or you might get hurt, little Freshie,” Aeron said.
In the girl`s bathroom, Alyss was desperately smoothing her sleek ponytail and scrabbling through her bag. She was muttering distractedly about lipstick, rifling through all the compartments. A tube of the stuff was pushed in front of her nose. She looked up, to see that Jackie was holding it out to her. “I figured after talking to those fussy people in the office you’d notice that there’s kind of an unwritten fashion rule around here to dress up a certain amount, so I got one of mine from my locker that I haven’t used yet,” she smiled.
“What kind of things have you been wasting your time on at school that you`d have stuff like that on hand?” Alyss grumbled, blushingly accepting the bottle.
“Ah, well, sometimes I don’t look so polished too. The key is to always have the basic products you need to look fancy in five minutes on hand here because all of us have days where we look a little more public school than private school preppy. Because you know,” she whispered, “we wouldn`t want anyone else to know you aren`t really perfect all the time.” They looked at each other for a second.
“Well,” Alyss chuckled, abashedly rubbing her head, “I guess you really do get me, and so quickly too!”? They smiled. A flash of movement in the window caught her eye. “Why do they have a window in a bathroom anyways?”
Jackie laughed, moving so that they were standing side by side. “Well, it`s the second floor and pretty far from the other buildings, and this is the antechamber anyways so he stalls are out of view, so it should be decent.” But Alyss wasn`t listening. She turned pale, looking out the window. Jackie leaned in close to see her expression better, then gasped as she looked outside as well. “That`s Aeron, right?”
“Yes. And he just punched my brother! The pig.” Alyss turned around, running out of the room.
“We don`t know what really happened down there! Let`s talk this through. Wait for meee!” her new friend wailed as she ran down the stairs.
“Aeron, you jerk,” Alyss exclaimed.
He looked at her blankly. “You punched my brother,” she screeched, pummeling him. Each hit of her fist made only the faintest of a thud, but her brow still shined with the exertion.
He stood looking ahead, calmly ignoring her violent outburst. “You realize other people are looking at you right?” She blushed a bright scarlet. “Not the best impression for your first day. She looked around at the crowd, then grabbed his hand, covertly dragging him away to a more secluded alcove.
She fisted his shirt, pulling his face on level with hers. “Just answer this. What did he do to you?” She asked, clearly restraining more violent urges.
“Do,” he mused, watching a cloud drift across the sky. The insistent tapping of her foot brought his attention back down to her. “He didn’t really do anything.” She yelled at him, flitting around him in a furious whirlwind and insulting him for his stupidity and poor character. “What he said, however, pissed me off,” Aeron continued.
“You don`t beat people up for something that stupid! Argh, you`re such a jerk Aeron, I shouldn`t even talk to you, I already figured that out earlier anyways, small minded bullies like you are just trouble and it would be easy to ignore you if you weren’t attacking my family!”
He looked at her askance. “I have no idea what you are talking about, but I hardly beat him up.” He muttered, “I don’t understand why you have such prejudice towards me. You should have remembered your past, should have remembered me.”
She looked confused at that and he shook it off. “Anyways, one little warning punch can`t really be considered a full assault in any realm besides human courts.” She growled again, more accusations and fists wildly flying at him.
“You liar! We saw you. You were holding a guy up by the collar!”
“We?” Aeron asked gently. “Who else was in this ‘we’ you mention.” She blushed and turned away, lips pursued against an answer. “Regardless, have you considered that there are other blond guys in this school that might be trying to beat someone up?” She looked blank so he added, “Like your beloved bro.” She scoffed, trying to push aside the possibility. “I punched your ‘brother’,” he held up finger quotes in the air,” because he wouldn’t stop attacking some guy.”
“My brother,” she said icily, “would never do that.” Cheeks fiery she exploded, “My brother has never hurt a fly!” She walked away then, “You rotten liar,” she huffed.
He was unruffled. “I can`t help who he is. Even our relatives get angry with other people, you know.” She growled, so he was inspired to elaborate. “It seems the victim was someone you accidentally kissed when falling down. Your brother wasn`t a fan of that.” His calm manner was infuriating beyond words, and she was accordingly silent for a few beats. She then stuck her tongue out at him and flounced away.
There were some others in the crowd, but they parted for her. Whispers spread through the school like wild fires, And it was clear that several had done the rounds on her. Some girls whispered and pointed at her hair, oohing and awing. Some boys chuckled and pointed at other, more prominent attributes, joking and sharing their ratings with friends. Such merriment was soon silenced, however. Some of the members of Aeron`s earlier bus riding gang retinue circulated through the crowd, whispering secrets behind their hands shielding their mouths from any lip readers in the crowd.
Those they talked to gasped in shock. They ran through the crowds themselves, sharing the news with the closest of their friends in complete secrecy. So, naturally, it spread like wild fire through the grounds, all of them looking with fear at those big three suspects; Aeron, Darien, and of course Alyss. The longing looks and jealous glances were now absent, fear and hatred more prevalent than before. Soon the rumors of Alyss`s good sense of style and her connection o that hateful boy intermingled, leaving the student body unsure of how they felt about her, but very sure that life would be easier for them all if she had never even moved up North in the first place from where she had come.
Whispers began among some of the most popular and influential students. “We can`t just all ignore her,” They agreed. “She, and them, would only give us so much more grief over that.” The others nodded in agreement.
She walked back to the courtyard, and started to run when she saw that her brother was walking away from it. “Wait!” she called. He turned around, and smiled when he caught sight of her. He caught her up in a big hug and assured her he was alright.
He then shooed her off again as Jackie came running into the courtyard, yammering about how worried she was, “Glad to see no one is super hurt. But Alyss get this, I heard on my way here about the celebratory bonfire coming up in honor of the boy`s lacrosse victory. “More importantly,” she confided, “one of the guys from the team is having a party at his place. I don`t know how he can afford to live in that place by himself, but it should be lots of fun!” Darien stared off after as she walked away. He smiled, and disappeared into the crowd that had almost magically appeared once all t
he violent currents had disappeared from the area. Jackie in turn leaned in close to ask if Alyss was okay in a whisper.
“Oh, no, it`s okay,” Alyss responded. “I’m still incredibly peeved right now but I need to focus on school right now and leave brooding for later. By the way it’s pretty cool you are still cool with me even though I seem to have become enemies with a wannabe mobster.”
“Ah well, I’m not a fan of that, but as long as I don’t end up in the middle of it, then I still want to be friends and help you start out here.” At the other girl’s promise to try to keep her fight against tyranny limited to just the person in question.”
Aeron was standing at the first row of lockers as soon as they walked into the English building. “Ah, can you believe we have almost the same schedule! I`m so glad we get to share some time together!” Jackie was chatting and giggling while Alyss smiled and occasional spoke up as well. Jackie shivered. When Alyss asked her, in concern, what was wrong, she hemmed. Aeron`s icy glare never left them.
She replayed the scene to Ashley in homeroom. She twisted her hands, back and around, and looked around them. “We can`t talk here, come on!”
She dragged her down the hall, peeking into one room after the other. “Just checking pep rally day class attendance, seems good in here,” she`d cheerfully answer each curious face, and move on to the next room. Finally she found what she wanted, or seemed to, and dragged her friend into it. She looked around again, at the dust motes and silent room, then crossed to the door and closed it. “What are you do-“ but she was cut off.
“What are you doing?”
Alyss pursed her lips. “Do you mean about giving that bully a piece of my mind?”
“Of course you don`t like him, but you can`t antagonize him,” she was practically growling at this point. “It`s not safe, Alyss!” Alyss looked at her doubtfully. What could one little creepy kid really do? They had adults, police, people to fix delinquents. Why not send him away? She left the questions unasked, but Ashley growled at her again, finally letting out a reluctant sigh.
“I didn`t want to tell you this. I`ll get in more trouble.” Alyss urged her to continue, and finally it burst out, like a great river that had been kept behind a dam for too long. “Look, people have disappeared, ok? We had a Mrs. Hutchins for this class last year. Mr. Kirk had to step in when she disappeared last Winter, and he`s been here since.”
Alyss looked at her doubtfully again. “Look, you aren`t being reasonable here. She could have had a baby, could have moved… You know, personal stuff. At each negative shake of Jackie`s head, her rebuttals got a little louder. “Look, I`m just saying, one instance is not enough to create a character profile from! You need facts. A pattern. This isn`t a pattern, it`s a bunch of gossip gone so wild even the adults seem to have bought into it!” She finished, huffing indignantly.
“Look, it`s not just that. You think I`m stupid? There have been other things. Bad things.” But she refused to say any more, and responded to each new question with a nervous giggle and chatter about random fluffy nonsense straight from some teen drama. As she dragged Alyss back to home room, and for the rest of the day, she refused to talk about Aeron or the strange atmosphere of the school and chattered nonstop about the lacrosse team party that was actually going to be hosted at someone’s apartment with no parents around as chaperones and party poopers, so of course it was officially going to be the biggest must do event of the year that Alyss was glad to go to even as she worried about her strange new school.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sleeper Cell
Darien stared at the computer in his room. He could do anything he wanted in here, as neither his adoptive parents nor his sister were likely to disturb him at this time of night. And yet he almost wished they would. School had started here and was interesting enough, but he had plenty of memories to haunt him that the sight of the prince had brought roaring to the forefront of his thoughts again. That day and time, in another room, with less of his own belongings. It had been more of a hovel really, perfectly average for an apprentice.
A man burst into the room. His hair was wound up in a long white braid down his back, and he had an even longer gray beard in the front framed by enough wrinkles on his face the boy was certain the skin would stretch a foot wide if he dared to walk up to the man and stretch his face taut. Of course he’d never do such a thing, and not just because it wasn’t really the best thing to do to waltz up to people and manipulate their features. It was far more pressing that the elders of the domed city ruled it and had very particular egos, and those who damaged those egos in any way were always cast out of the community for ever after.
“We all know for certain you’ll mess everything up but we’ve decided. We need you to do it,” the elder told him.
He paused in his mopping and looked around at his clothes, his work, all symbols of how insignificant he was considered here, and they were asking him to do such an important mission?
The elder pursed his lips. It was clear he had a strong idea of what the young one was thinking, and he was not a fan of even thoughts questioning his orders.
“It is not your concern what goes on in the minds of your betters.” He looked at the boy and jerked his head. “ I suppose it will do no harm to discus the plans you are soon to be involved in, however. It has come to our attention that the person they call the crown prince, as if their so called rulers had any authority over us or our people,” he added with a sneer, “Has been looking for a person he holds very dear for fifteen long years. Or well,” he paused thoughtfully, “considering that they are not human, perhaps that could be considered a very short period of time. Anyways,” he snapped back into focus on the topic at hand, “Due to the superior skills, resources, and intelligence of our people, we found the person he has been looking for first. She’s in the human world.” He paused and stroked his beard for several minutes.
“Sir? Should I continue working so you can come back later when you’ve remembered whatever you are thinking so hard about? I wouldn’t want to interrupt your thought processes or distract you,” the boy cut in.
The elder glared at him. “You want a break, eh? Well I’m not so old and feeble yet. You will stand there and listen obediently until I’m finished giving you your orders.”
The boy paled. “Sir! I certainly didn’t mean that. I would never intend anything so disrespectful to your or any of my honored elders.” He bowed deeply and elegantly despite the mop he still awkwardly clutched.
The elder could not be so easily comforted, however, and launched into a long lecture on the idleness of youth, the uselessness of apologies, the disturbing nature of the whims of the weather, the disgusting tendency for water to be served with lemons when he was sure it was flavored with tastier morsels like ginger in his day, and the related disturbingly poor quality of modern glass goods. He got so thoroughly absorbed in the pleasure of a good rant he almost forgot about his audience. He finally looked over at the boy still holding his mop and seemed to snap back to the subject at hand again.
“Well, you have no proper respect, but I suppose your teachers already know how useless you are or they would have long since given you a rank of some sort. Heck, you wouldn’t be doing the cleaning unless you were really hopeless. But that’s not why we need you for this task.” The elder stopped talking and let his flapping jowls still before he talked again. “We have already sent a much higher ranked individual than you to see to this particular person. They have done their task well. Unfortunately, they were so successful that there seems to be a great risk the target will soon relocate to another location in maybe just a year or two, and we fear this relocation will put her within the purview of the crown prince’s spies. We cannot risk him getting all he wants.” The elder sighed again. “Unfortunately, to some extent it could be said this last mission was not as great of a success as it could have been. We cannot risk a full failure, as the council agrees that would bring the wrath of the royals and perhaps even unify the bro
thers against a common enemy, which would give them the clarity and peace to prevent our efforts and that is the last thing anyone wants.”
The boy nodded along and tried to look like he understood everything that was being said, but it was clear from his face that he wasn’t quite understanding everything going on.
The elder sighed again. “This time we only have a mission of surveillance. We need someone to follow this target. If the suspicions our great minds have agreed on as likely come true, which is quite likely as anything we think will likely happen almost always does happen due to our vast skill and intelligence, then it’s nearly certain that the crown prince will also soon be in the area. We’d need surveillance of his deeds as well.”
The elder paused and looked at him meaningfully. They both waited for the other to speak.
“So,” the boy ventured to say. “What exactly do you need from me?”
The elder just shook his head at him. “Tut tut, and this is why you are still unranked. You just don’t understand these things like one would expect of our superior citizens, Dillon.”
“My name is Darien, actually.”
The elder waved it away. “The names of those without skill or merit are unimportant. Feel pleased that I even briefly thought of addressing you at all and leave it at that.” Darien suspected the old man had simply forgotten his name but stayed silent instead of risking the unwise move of telling those who think highly of themselves that they are not perfect.
“What all of this means, boy, is that we need someone to go to the mundane’s human world.” He paused. Darien still looked confused so he continued. “We are sending you on this mission of surveillance.”
In the present Darien groaned. He had to succeed at this, had to bring back satisfactory results to the leaders of his people so he could gain a position of higher rank and the lodgings and authority of a respected and successful apprentice. He only wished his role didn’t feel so deceitful, his relationship to Alyss now poisoned by the knowledge that he knew things he couldn’t tell her. He knew she was the goal of the leader of the entire Shadeworld as well as the leaders of his own people. He only hoped his efforts to keep her safe from both of them while maintaining the respect of his elders would turn out well in the end, but now that the prince had become involved he wasn’t sure any of them would be safe.
