"Could you stop staring at me?" Carson said suddenly.
Valie didn't realize she was, and felt her face grow hot with embarrassment.
"Sorry,” she pushed the book towards him. "There's nothing in here."
He took the book, flipped through some pages and apparently came to the same conclusion that Valie did. He shut it and pushed it back to her.
They sat for a moment in an awkward silence.
"Do you feel any different?" Valie asked.
Carson glanced at her, but looked away quickly. He was avoiding eye contact.
"What?"
"Since last night, I've been thinking about my body and how it might be different than my friends'. I mean, I guess I don't know what having a normal body would feel like, but I never picked up on anything being weird...other than the fact I've been so tired lately."
As if to illustrate her point, Valie started to yawn, but didn't want Carson to think she was doing it on purpose so she tried to stifle the yawn, which created this strange nostril-flared face.
“We are as only as blind as we want to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Carson waved off the question. "You play any sports?" He asked.
"Um, yeah, why?"
"Which sports?"
"Softball, I'm a pitcher."
"I bet you're pretty good, right? One of the best players on your team?"
Valie nodded. "I have a strong arm, good reflexes."
"Anything else?"
"Um...I was on swim team for a while when I was a freshman and sophomore. I was pretty good."
"What made you so good?"
"Just a good swimmer, I guess."
"You don't do it anymore?"
"No," Valie said quietly. She had been asked a lot, if she'd been so good, why she didn't swim anymore. "I just didn't want to."
"That's lung expansion." He said bluntly.
"What?"
"You can hold your breath for a while, because your lungs can expand more than a normal person. Start paying attention to the little things," he instructed.
The little things? Her reflexes and the fact she was a good swimmer, she was like that because she was created that way? Valie wondered. That's what Carson was saying, and for a moment she wondered why she wasn't given supersonic hearing or something that would make her special.
"You seem like you're the popular kid at your high school. Must be nice for you."
He looked up at her and looked like he was deciding on something, and then said, "I have friends."
"You just...you look like the type of guy that everyone likes, that never had to struggle for anything." What Valie really wanted to say was that he looked like the type of guy that would've picked on Trent; he would've probably fit in with the The M's.
"What exactly is it that you've had to struggle for?" He said harshly, defensively.
This was Valie, not really thinking before she spoke. She wasn't trying to offend him, but part of her resented people that looked like Carson because it made her think of Trent and what he'd gone through.
"I've struggled," Valie said unconvincingly.
"You're a very pretty girl, you probably get good grades, you have a nice home to go to every night, so why don't you tell me, Valie, how hard is life for you?"
Valie said nothing.
"You don't know anything about me. Don't judge someone that you barely know, there are layers to everyone."
He was right and she felt guilty. Maybe she was a little judgmental and naive, she figured. She had never really been outside of her hometown. Even on family trips, they only really interacted with each other. Valie wasn't very "cultured."
"You're right, I'm sorry."
"Are you kidding me?"
"No?"
He narrowed his eyes at her, "You're a strange girl."
"I'm not strange."
He chuckled, and although Valie was annoyed that he was basically laughing at her, it was nice to see the break in his face. Everything lightened up when he smiled, she liked it. It seemed that he knew what Valie was thinking because his face fell serious again.
"I can't believe this is happening," Valie mumbled. Suddenly all of her efforts to just stay focused in the situation failed. She looked up and her eyes started to well with tears...again. "I'm sorry," she whimpered.
Carson leaned forward, "What's up with the crying?"
"It's a...thing...that happens..." the tears started to come quicker, "it's a problem, okay?!" She buried her face in her hands and Carson laughed.
Valie looked up and gave him her meanest look. She wasn't used to being laughed at. People would normally look at her sympathetically, or uncomfortably, but no one ever laughed at her crying spells.
"It's not funny." Valie said.
"I apologize. You're right, it's not funny." He humored her.
Harsh whispers coming from the computer lab grabbed their attention. Valie saw Trent trying to pull Maddy from her chair and Maddy resisting by smacking his hand away. Valie grabbed the book and she Carson quickly got up.
"What's going on?" Valie asked running to Trent's side.
"I'm not finished!" Maddy hissed.
"We need to get out of here, there's a van that's circled the library three times. It could be nothing, but I don't think we should chance it," Trent said breathily.
"C'mon, Maddy, we have to go!" He yelled to her.
"I'm not done yet!" she snapped back. People were already looking, but now everyone's attention was focused on the four of them.
Carson grabbed Maddy's arm, lifted her up, and slung her over his shoulder as she started kicking and screaming.
"Put me down!" she wailed.
Carson walked towards the door, leaving Trent and Valie standing there in shock. The librarian was glaring.
"Sorry," Trent and Valie said simultaneously, and they quickly followed Carson out the door and hustled to the car.
They drove for a while, purposely going in circles to see if anyone was following them. No one was. Valie couldn't speak for the others, but she was on edge. The entire time her heart was racing. She was absolutely petrified that what happened to her last night was going to happen again. Carson drove, looking into the rearview mirror every couple of seconds, taking right turns at every chance. They were soon able to see that no one was following them. After they realized that no one was following them, Maddy began to complain that she wasn't finished and that she was “on to something” back at the library. Valie still had the book in her hand and she felt a little guilty for taking it without checking it out. There was no mysterious van following them, so they figured it had just been a bad coincidence.
After complaining for at least a full 10 minutes (while the others ignored her) Maddy stated that she was able to find out one thing on the internet. Many books had been written on The Wozniak Five, but there was one that was actually reputable. Through some “extremely brief research,” Maddy said that it appeared the book was called The Truth and Betrayal of The Wozniak Five, it had been written by a man named Decker Beckett.
“The truth and betrayal of The Wozniak Five?” Valie scoffed, “How very cryptic. How do we find it?”
“That's the problem,” Maddy continued. “Everyone wants one, but...no one can find one, not one, not a single book.”
Valie felt like her heart stopped. It was another blow. How were they supposed to find out any information when there wasn't information to be found...anywhere.
Maddy continued by saying she had tried to find any excerpts online, but apparently only five hundred copies of the book had been made. They were out of circulation now, and try as they might, as far as Maddy gathered; the followers of The Wozniak Five were never able to retain a copy of it.
“We need to find that book,” Valie said while staring out of the window.
They drove for a while longer, no one speaking. The morale in the car was low. None of them knowing what to do, each of them scared.
; They pulled into a grocery store parking lot. Carson put the car in park, telling the others to stay in the car. He'd go in and get some food.
Valie could hear Trent protest. He wanted to get out and stretch his legs. Carson said something about hurting him if he tried running and Valie sat there thinking about who was going to cover her shift when she didn't show up for work tomorrow.
Maddy turned in her seat and looked at her. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“It's impossible not to be thinking about anything.”
Valie gave Maddy an expressionless glance.
“Ooookay then.”
Valie's eyes shifted from Maddy to the clock on the console just behind her, a minute ticked by, another minute they did not have. Valie had suddenly become very entranced with that clock. They had left the cabin over two hours ago and they weren't any closer to figuring out where their pendants were.
Valie thought of her uncle, wondering where he was and why he wasn't there to help them. Why didn't he plan this out better? What went wrong? Thinking of her uncle being hurt put a lump in her throat.
“You know,” Valie began, “I've been thinking, and thinking, and thinking...there's not a single thing that I can think of that would help us find our pendants. Nothing.”
The thought of not finding the pendants had entered her mind more than once. Valie couldn't fathom dying. She began telling herself over and over in her head that they would find them. They were all so close to turning 18, so in a sense, she knew that they were each already dying. The closer they got to their birthdays, the weaker they would become. It had to be the reason why she hadn't been “catching” so well and why she had been so tired, according to Phaedra anyway. She was dying, her body was quitting. These thoughts put tears in her eyes and she started crying again.
Maddy looked at her curiously.
“Aren't you scared, Maddy? Aren't you scared you're going to die? These so called pendants meant absolutely nothing to me yesterday, and now suddenly their mere existence will determine whether we live or die. The practical side of me still doesn't fully believe it...but the thing of it is, nothing about this entire situation is practical, it's just not normal.”
“You sure do cry a lot.” Maddy pointed out.
“I know.” Valie shot back, obviously defensive.
“I mean, I'm not trying to imply its bad, nothing like that. Only an observation.”
Reluctantly, Valie explained to Maddy about her condition. She was without her medication and it was making it harder to control. Maddy didn't have much of a reaction after Valie told her, almost as if she wasn't really surprised.
“So...you don't, like, carry your medication on you?”
“No, Maddy. I don't.” Valie said obviously. “I carry a picture.” Valie pulled it from her pocket. “Little things, like this picture sometimes help. This is a picture of me and my mom," Valie showed her. "I carry it all the time, every day. It helps me, sometimes it stops the tears. She died and it's really sad, but the picture actually helps."
Maddy nodded, "I lost my cat a couple of years back so I get it. Loss is hard."
Was she joking? Of course she wasn't, Maddy didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor.
"Can I see it?"
Valie handed her the picture.
"Awww...adorable," she said with a smile. "You know, your condition isn't so bad," Maddy then started to explain that she suffered a little from obsessive compulsive disorder, although to Valie, she seemed like she was in a bit of denial, she stated that she had "OCD-like tendencies" but it was "never really a problem."
Yeah, right. Enter the hand sanitizer, the inability to have other people near her or even touch her and every once in a while it looked as if she was repeatedly counting her fingers and mumbling the numbers under her breath. Valie was curious to know what that was, but didn't have the energy to hear about it.
Maddy asked Valie about her life, school, friends, and what she did for fun, but Valie didn't answer, she shook her head instead, but only because she was trying to hold herself together.
"They loved us, Valie.” Maddy said quietly, “Our parents, I mean. They do love us. I love my mum more than anything in this world; she wouldn't do anything to hurt me, so I know she did what was necessary."
"You don't have any trouble believing?"
"I did, I mean, I do. Just a bit, but I've always known how smart my mum was. She's a very smart woman. I knew that something was different; I knew that I was different. It's not even something that I can really explain, it was just a feeling that I've always had, and as scary as all of this is, it's almost a relief at the same time."
Maddy held the picture next to Valie's face, "You can tell it's you," she said with a smile, "Your eyes are just the same...lovely. They look purple."
When she pulled the picture back, Valie noticed something; she quickly took it from Maddy and flipped it over.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't...I don't know." Valie stammered.
There had never been anything written on the back of the picture before, but now there was writing:
H- 712 Elm Street
T- 11 N. Mayfield Way
C- 1023 Race Street
M- 1200 Olbrich Garden Park
J- 96 Manassas Drive
Look for the X under the Willow tree.
"This writing has never been here before." Valie's heart started to beat faster and faster.
"What does it say?" Maddy pressed.
"I think, they're addresses."
"Really?!” She craned her neck to see.
“Someone had to have written it just recently.”
“Who could've done it? Who knows that you carry it?"
“The only people who know are Trent and my uncle and the only time that I don't have it on me is when I put it on my nightstand when I go to bed.”
"Your uncle!” she exclaimed. “Your uncle must've done it, knowing you would eventually see it!"
It made sense. He knew that Valie looked at the picture often. It was the reason she always carried it, it was something she looked at when she needed to calm down. If she didn't have her medicine, it would've been one of the few things that could help her. It was the clue that he left for her, it was one of the “signs” they were supposed to follow.
Maddy was still invading Valie's personal space, looking at the picture. "The letters in front, H, T, C, M, and J--are those are the first letter of all of our names?"
"My first name is actually Helena. So, yeah, it must be.”
Valie felt a surge of excitement and relief. They had part of the mystery solved. For a second, it almost felt like a game, a very dangerous game.
Maddy jumped out of the car and ran into the grocery store to tell Carson and Trent what they'd discovered. Valie sat there, reading the addresses over and over again.
It was real. The pendants, they were real, they were hidden. This was proof, it was proof Valie told herself over and over again. She had to make herself believe it.
They emerged from the store a couple of minutes later. Carson carried two grocery bags and it looked as if Maddy had taken some time to convince Carson to buy her some more sanitizer because she was admiring a bottle in her hand.
They got into the car and Valie filled them in.
The addresses helped, but they were still missing part of the puzzle.
"So...where do we go from here?" Valie asked the others, putting the picture back into her pocket.
"Don't lose that!" Carson said quickly.
Valie gave him an obvious look. "Yes, Carson. I understand."
They sat in the car and ate sandwiches. Nothing fancy--bread, cheese, and sliced turkey. Maddy was ever so carefully pulling the crust off her bread, while Trent ate bread and cheese because he never ate meat. They were throwing around ideas as to where the pendants could be. Trent was insistent that they had to be in Wisconsin. Maddy reminded him of what Phaedra said, their parents got onto
planes. To be sure, Carson started to fiddle with the GPS that Phaedra had left them.
Valie wasn't eating, she didn't feel hungry. She was too anxious to really pay attention to her stomach.
Then, a moment later, "One of these addresses registers in Wisconsin, well actually three of them do, but this one I'm sure is in Wisconsin."
"Which one?" Valie asked. It was a tense moment.
“Maddy's.”
“Oh!” Maddy exclaimed, clapping her hands together, “Wonderful, I'm saved!” Then she went back to her crust-less sandwich.
Carson began to drive again, handing the GPS off to Trent. Their next stop would be the mall. They needed supplies, in case they had to do traveling by foot. The thought of that made Valie feel queasy. Not that she didn't like walking; she had always been an active person, but Carson made it sound like they might need to survive in the wild, and that was not an appealing thought.
They drove intently, as time was of the essence, and they were on a mission to save their own very lives. Maddy was reading the book from the library, holding it extremely close to her face, Trent was messing with the GPS, Valie was the only one not making use of the time, she just stared out of the window. The low hums and soft singing from the radio was the only noise in the car.
Once they got to the mall, it was not yet noon. There weren't too many cars in the parking lot.
“Everyone stay here, this won't take me long.” Carson ordered.
Valie wasn’t about to take orders from Carson and she was tired of sitting, so she got out.
"No, get back in the car." Carson demanded.
"I need a shirt,” Valie snapped back. “This one..." she looked down, not really feeling like an explanation was necessary. There was dirt and blood on it from the night before, not to mention it was her work smock.
“Alright.” He reluctantly agreed.
Valie followed him to the mall. He grabbed her forearm, "Listen, we have to make this quick, stay with me."
The Pendants and the Mystery of the Wozniak Five Part I Page 10
