Max gripped the back of Gordy’s shirt as though holding on to the reins of a horse as the two boys crept up the first couple of stairs.
“Just don’t hit me with that,” Gordy said. “Throw past me, okay? You have to arc it.”
“I know what I’m doing!” Max said.
At the top of the stairs, Gordy noticed the door to the lab standing wide open. The Sequester Strap lay on the ground like a coiled snakeskin. The soft giggling was coming from inside the lab. Gordy approached the door, held his breath, and peered around the corner.
Adilene stood behind the table, a row of marked flasks and vials spread out in front of her. Behind her, a blonde-haired girl riffled through one of the recipe manuals.
“How did you get in here, Adilene?” Gordy demanded, lowering the pipette of Funnel Formula to his side.
Adilene looked up and smiled. “We snuck in,” she said. “We walked right past you while you were drinking your juice.”
That couldn’t have happened. Gordy would have seen them enter the house. Maybe she was lying. Maybe Adilene and the other girl had broken into the house earlier and had hidden upstairs until his parents had left. But even then, how could she have done that? The home wards would never have allowed the both of them to just walk right in.
Max unleashed a cry and hurled himself at the opening. He lost his grip on his Vintreet Trap, and it smashed on the floor, coiling vines sprouting up.
Adilene gasped in surprise, and the girl with her glanced up from reading as the writhing vines harmlessly entangled the legs of a folding chair.
“Rivera?” Max asked in surprise.
“Did you mean to do that?” Adilene asked, snickering.
“That was just a warning shot!” Max’s upper lip twitched. “Next one wraps you up for good.” He held out his hand for Gordy to supply him with another round of ammo, but Gordy shook his head.
“You snuck into my house without permission?” Gordy was relieved to see that it was only his friend, but at the same time enraged that she had scared him. What if he had thrown his potion? A Vintreet Trap could be painful, but the Funnel Formula would have transformed Adilene into a mini tornado. She could have demolished the lab, or worse.
Adilene held her smile for a moment but then looked away, embarrassed. “I knew it was a bad idea. I told you we shouldn’t have done this,” she said to the girl behind her.
“Who are you?” Max asked, pointing his finger at the stranger.
“For being her supposed best friend, you don’t treat her very well,” the girl replied. “I’m Cadence. Nice to meet you.” She snapped the recipe manual closed and laid it on the table.
Gordy noticed that the bottles of potions weren’t the only items out of place. Several drawers in the apothecary table had been pulled open, their contents disheveled. In fact, every cabinet door stood ajar as though Adilene and Cadence had been looking for something.
“Aren’t you going to give us the grand tour?” Cadence batted her eyes innocently.
Gordy didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He wanted to rush in, grab Cadence by her arm, and escort her out of the lab, but that was impossible. Even though the Sequester Strap had somehow been untied from the doorknob—and how had Adilene done that, Gordy wondered—it made no difference. Gordy felt an invisible force preventing him from entering.
“Get out,” Gordy said. “Get out now!”
“It was just a joke.” Adilene gathered a few of the bottles and started tidying up the workstation.
“Don’t touch anything else,” Gordy demanded. “I asked you to leave.”
“Okay, we’ll go.” Adilene carefully placed the bottles back on the table. “I’m sorry.”
“No, not you. You can stay. You need to explain yourself.” He pointed at Cadence. “Just her.”
“I’m going with Cadence,” Adilene said. “We both made the decision to come here. It’s not just her fault.”
“It’s all right,” Cadence said. “Besides, I believe Carlisle is waiting for me. You should stay and have a nice chat.” She strolled past Gordy, staring into his eyes and smiling. She looked at Max, and he puffed out his cheeks, his face reddening. Then Cadence skipped down the stairs and out the door. Gordy hurried after her and made sure the door was closed. He watched as the girl climbed into the passenger side of a pickup truck and drove away.
“Who was that?” Max stood in the doorway of the lab as Gordy returned upstairs. “She was like . . . uh, really strange.”
“Everyone out. We’re not supposed to be in here.” Gordy tried once again to step across the threshold into the lab, testing the strength of the still-lingering ward that hadn’t dispersed despite the absence of the Sequester Strap, but his feet wouldn’t move forward. It was taking all of his will not to scream. Adilene and Max and even that weird girl, Cadence, could walk around freely in his lab without any restrictions. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t fair.
“Adilene, stop,” Gordy said, annoyed. “My mom will clean the mess up later.”
Adilene looked up from closing drawers and tucking away baggies of ingredients. Several test tubes clinked together as she moved them. “Please don’t tell her what I did, Gordy.”
She and Cadence had done a number on the room. A whole bundle of Bolivian achocha cucumbers lay precariously close to a vial of Antarctic glacial water. Both were highly combustible substances generally used for explosive potions.
As the three friends headed downstairs, Max seemed caught up in a daydream. Gordy brushed past him and sat on the couch while Adilene nervously shuffled over to the recliner. Gordy didn’t want to be mad at her, but after all that had happened this past year with Esmeralda and Yeltzin and B.R.E.W., pulling a stunt like that was beyond foolish.
“I’m so sorry, Gordy,” Adilene said. She held her hands in her lap, staring at the floor. “I should have never agreed to come here.”
“So it was Cadence’s idea?” Gordy asked.
“Yes.” Her meek voice quivered. “But it wasn’t like that. We waited outside in the yard, and when Bolter dropped you off, we followed you inside. I thought you would have noticed—I was sure of it. But you didn’t see either one of us. And then Cadence suggested we hide upstairs to scare you. She thought it would cheer me up.”
“What a troublemaker.” Max cracked a smile. “This Cadence girl’s feisty and mischievous.” He stuck his feet on the coffee table and reclined on the couch. “Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Cheer you up?” Gordy asked, ignoring Max. “From what?”
“Because of what Sasha said about you Projecting your ability onto me.” Gordy started to object, but Adilene’s breath hitched in her throat. “I know it’s true, so you don’t have to pretend just to make me feel better.”
“Why were you looking through all of my stuff?” Gordy finally asked. That wasn’t the only question on his mind, though. He needed to know how the two girls had slipped past the wards.
“Cadence said she had never seen inside a real lab. She was curious, and I should’ve stopped her.”
“But she’s a Dram,” Gordy said.
Adilene shook her head. “She’s not. She just knows a lot about potion making. And she gave me this.” She held up a vial containing a dark-blue substance. “I was going to show you during lunch, but then Sasha sat down, and things became complicated.”
Gordy narrowed his eyes as Adilene passed the bottle to him. He removed the wax and waved the vial under his nose. Inhaling, Gordy caught only a flavor of something grainy and thick, but he couldn’t sense any other ingredient. Much like the Eternity Elixir had failed to give off a substantial scent, this potion was equally mysterious.
“It’s just ink.” Gordy squinted at the vial. Normal, basic ink. Nothing spectacular, and certainly nothing to get excited about.
“It’s more than that,” Adilene said. “It’s very
powerful.”
“Yeah, right,” Max scoffed. “How is it powerful?”
She glared at Max. “It got me in here, didn’t it? Without Gordy seeing me. And it allowed me to untie the Sequester Strap simply enough.”
Gordy studied the vial more closely. “You drank this?”
“Not at first. Cadence told me I had to build up to that. I rubbed some on my skin and blended in with everyone else at school.” She smiled at Gordy. “I sat behind you in geometry, and you didn’t even notice me. I called your name too, but you thought it was Brittany Lister.”
“That was you?” Gordy remembered turning around when he’d heard someone whispering his name, but Brittany had only glared at him and told him to mind his own business. Gordy had assumed she had been trying to sneak a peek over his shoulder at his quiz.
Adilene rose up from the recliner and crossed the room. “It’s really neat. I’ll show you.”
Gordy pulled back the vial. “I don’t think you should be fooling around with this type of potion.”
“She’s just messing with us,” Max said. “None of that is true.”
Adilene pursed her lips, but she kept her focus on Gordy, as if he were the only one whose opinion mattered. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“But you did sneak into Gordy’s house,” Max reasoned.
Adilene held out her hand and waited.
Gordy knew drinking strange substances was a bad idea, but he gave it to her anyway.
“You’ll see.” She pressed the opening of the vial to her lips and sipped the inky liquid.
“Not too much,” Gordy warned. He reached out to pull her hand away from her mouth, just as Adilene vanished.
She didn’t fade from view. One moment she was standing by the coffee table; the next moment, she was gone. It took Gordy a couple of blinks to register what had happened. He stared at Max and then back to where Adilene had stood.
Max shot up from the couch as though ejected from the cockpit of a fighter jet. “What happened to Rivera?” he shouted.
Something invisible ruffled through his hair, making it stand up like a reddish mohawk.
“Right here, Maxwell,” Adilene’s disembodied voice taunted from behind the couch.
Max unleashed an unnerving squeal as he and Gordy scrambled to their feet, watching as items began to float up from their resting places and dance about the room. It was awesome and surreal and more than a little creepy all at the same time. Max squawked as several magazines drifted from the coffee table, their pages fluttering. Gordy’s half-full glass of orange juice flew into the room from the kitchen and circled about Max like a curious hummingbird.
“Make her stop!” Max demanded, swatting at the glass.
Gordy had taken plenty of stabs at trying to brew an invisibility potion over the years, but the most he had ever been able to do was make his teeth disappear for a short while. Not only had Adilene’s potion rendered her completely invisible, but it had also worked instantaneously. Was this how the girls had gotten into Gordy’s house? But the wards should’ve still recognized the intrusion and turned the two girls away—invisible or not.
“How long does it last?” Max asked.
“I only took a sip,” Adilene said from over by the fireplace, “so about thirty minutes, I think. Cadence explained it all to me. She said that a typical vial will last several hours. But I’ve taken a few sips today.”
Gordy found his voice. “That’s not safe. You could get sick from drinking too much of a potion you’re not used to.”
“I did get sick.” Adilene was now across the room by the stairs. “But not anymore.”
“Stop moving around, Rivera!” Max demanded, falling back onto the couch and covering his eyes with his hands. “You’re making me dizzy!”
“Where did Cadence get this potion?” Gordy asked, suddenly alarmed.
“She didn’t tell me,” Adilene said, now back in the recliner.
“This girl just showed up one day completely out of the blue?” Max asked, digging in his pocket. “Seems suspicious to me.”
“Max is right,” Gordy agreed. “To suddenly appear out of nowhere and then give you a potion like that—it’s weird. Maybe she’s up to something.”
Adilene giggled. “She’s not up to anything.”
“You let her into your house without questioning it,” Max said, pulling something out of his pocket and tossing it in his hand. “What kind of moron takes a weird potion from a complete stranger and starts drinking it?”
“You do that all the time!” Adilene protested. “Gordy always tests his potions out on you, and you don’t ever question it.”
“But we’re friends,” Gordy said. “We’ve known each other forever.”
“Cadence is my friend!” Adilene shouted. “She understands what it’s like to know Elixirists and not be able to join them! She knows what it’s like to see your friends working together but excluding you. I know you want Max as your lab partner. You don’t even have to say a word and I know it already,” Adilene said. “You’ll act like it’s a tough decision, but you’ll eventually choose him.”
Max opened his mouth, probably to say something sarcastic, but Gordy swatted his arm with the back of his hand.
“Adilene, stop.” Gordy held out his hands to calm the invisible girl.
“And I just bought all my own brewing equipment. What a waste!” she yelled. “I might as well toss everything into the garbage.”
Suddenly, the upper half of Adilene’s body appeared in the recliner, her face momentarily enveloped with bluish light. She pawed at her glittering eyes in surprise, staring down at her forearms and wrists as they flickered within a strange beam of light. She was not quite transparent, but faded enough so that Gordy could see the outline of the recliner behind her. Gordy followed the beam to the source, which originated from Max’s fingers.
Max moved his hand, and the light transferred to the ceiling. Adilene vanished again, and Max guffawed.
“Did you see that?” Max asked, shooting up from the couch and staring at the object in his hand. He was holding the odd-shaped rock he’d found at B.R.E.W. Headquarters. The one he was supposed to return. It was glowing in his fingers. The crisp blue beam seemed otherworldly, and Gordy noticed it possessed a thick consistency, as though it had more substance than natural light. He wondered if he passed his hand through it, would he be able to feel the particles radiating from the stone?
Gordy snatched the rock from Max and redirected the beam to the spot where Adilene had been sitting, but she was gone. The front door flung open with a crash, and Gordy could hear the sound of her footsteps racing away.
He thought about going after her, but how would he find her? He stared down at the glowing rock in his hand. He rubbed its surface and felt the center section depress beneath his thumb.
All at once the light extinguished.
It was like some primitive flashlight. Gordy’s thoughts whirred in his brain. Where had the rock come from? And how had it ended up on the floor near the Vessel room?
Mrs. Stister stood in the lab, studying Max’s rock with a magnifying glass, while Gordy and Max waited in the hallway. A pewter cauldron filled with quicksilver and a few ingredients simmered on the counter next to her. Max paced back and forth, checking through the doorway every few seconds, as though waiting for his pet dog to come out of the operating room at the veterinarian clinic.
“Just don’t smash it, okay?” Max pleaded. “It’s special to me.”
Gordy’s mom glanced up from her inspection and fixed Max with an incredulous gaze. “Tell me again where you found this.”
“On the floor in the hallway at B.R.E.W.,” Max said.
“And you just decided to bring it to me today?” she asked.
“I forgot all about it,” Gordy answered. So much had happened since their first fie
ld trip to B.R.E.W.
Gordy’s mom tapped a finger on her chin. Then she tossed the stone into the cauldron, where it produced a soft, chittering splash.
“What?” Max clamped his hands on either side of his face and squeezed until a deep fissure formed on his forehead. “You’re boiling it? Great. Just great. I never even had a chance to test out all its features.”
“It’s a rock,” Gordy said.
“Yeah, one that glows!”
“I hate to break it to you, pal, but whatever this is, it’s not going home with you,” Gordy’s mom said. “From my initial scan, it doesn’t contain any known minerals or elements, and”—she gazed into the cauldron as tendrils of smoke drifted from the bowl—“it’s not registering on any Scrute level either.”
“What could that mean?” Gordy wanted so badly to join his mom at the counter. His Deciphering skills were top-notch. If the stone contained any traces of a potion, Gordy would be able to detect it immediately. The stupid Sequester Strap was ruining his life.
“I’m not sure,” she muttered. She didn’t, however, seem that concerned. Or maybe she wasn’t worried about B.R.E.W.’s affairs anymore. It had only been a couple of days since her termination, and she hadn’t said much of anything since the weekend.
“It’s alien!” Max’s eyes widened. “I’ve made contact with an extraterrestrial.”
Sometimes Max’s enthusiasm bordered on insanity. But to Gordy’s surprise, his mom nodded.
“He may be right,” she replied.
“Are you serious?” Gordy asked.
Max started to squeal, and he thudded Gordy’s shoulder with his fist.
“Easy, boy,” Gordy’s mom said wryly. “‘Alien’ doesn’t mean it’s from another planet. It’s just not something recognizable within our databases. We’re constantly discovering new species every day, on our world. So I wouldn’t get my hopes up.” She exhaled, watching the cauldron bubble aggressively. “Although, I don’t know how such a thing ended up downstairs near the Vessel room,” she said quietly. “I suppose someone might have accidentally transferred it there by mistake. I’ll have Bolter ask the guard that was on duty that day and check his logs. I’d do it myself, but the wards won’t let me near the property until they’ve completely disconnected me from the Vessel.”
The Transparency Tonic Page 15
