“We don’t know who they are yet,” he said as blue light washed over his waxen features, “but we’re about to find out.”
Chapter 7
Milo took the crystal everywhere.
It made him feel safe, especially at Dearborn High. He had been correct in assuming he would be the smallest kid in his freshman class. Even the girls were taller than him. And word had already gotten around about the “smart kid” who had skipped a grade when he was younger.
Milo hated it here. Whenever he raised his hand in class to answer a question, the bigger guys would squint and sneer at him. The girls ignored him, more concerned with carrying on secret conversations via text messaging on their cell phones. It became clear to Milo—who didn’t even have a cell phone because his parents were old-fashioned—that he was now in a much different league.
In order not to call too much attention to himself, he spoke very little and spent his free time reading. He read during lunch and then again during recess. He endured the first few weeks like a prisoner in a penitentiary trying to make as few enemies as possible by keeping his head down.
He made enemies anyway.
He scored a 105 on the first science test (an extra five points for the bonus question he answered correctly). The teacher praised him in front of the class, and after that, three boys began to tease him every day during recess. They called him names and said he was the teacher’s boyfriend, which is why she treated him so well. He was giving her “something on the side,” they said, though Milo had no idea what that meant.
After history class one day, they caught Milo looking at the crystal his father had given him. Gregory Wiles, the biggest of the bunch, came up behind him while the class was lining up to go inside. He reached into Milo’s pocket and pulled out the crystal before Milo had a chance to twist away.
“Look at this,” Gregory said, holding it up to the sun. The crystal was fully charged and glittering.
Gregory was a large, hamfisted kid with greasy hair and buck teeth. He had a crooked mouth and equally crooked eyes that were always squinting. Two stringy, goofy-looking boys hung around him all the time, Jimbo and Tucker, and they looked so much alike that Milo always got them mixed up.
“It’s shiny,” Jimbo said. He and Tucker crowded around Gregory to get a better look at the prize.
“Give it back,” Milo said in a voice sharp with desperation. This wasn’t like all the times they’d taken his sandwich or his juice box; no, this time the separation felt different, as if he and the crystal had bonded somehow, forming a symbiotic relationship that weakened him any time the crystal was taken away.
He leaped forward, grabbed at it, and missed. Gregory, surprised at the sudden burst of movement, extended one arm and swatted him as if he were a fly. Milo landed hard on his backside. Jimbo and Tucker laughed at him.
The entire class watched as Milo picked himself up with a grunt.
“Give it back,” he said again, trying to keep his voice from trembling.
Gregory held the crystal up and gazed deeply into it. With growing fascination, Milo watched as the lights glittered, brightening the tip of his nose. Gregory’s eyebrows lowered and his mouth began to open. For a second, Milo thought the bigger boy was going to swallow it.
Their teacher, Mrs. Owlidge, took notice and strutted over, ponytail swinging behind her neck. Her glasses were hard little rectangles that made her eyes look beady and small. Everybody in the eighth grade was afraid of her. Jimbo and Tucker backed away from Gregory, who was still gazing into the crystal. It dimmed with each passing second. It was losing its charge.
“Gregory,” Mrs. Owlidge said, folding her arms across her chest. “What have you got there?”
“It’s mine,” Milo said, afraid that if he took his eyes off the crystal, Gregory would make it disappear somehow. “He took it from me.”
Mrs. Owlidge glanced at her watch. “Gregory, you’re holding up the class. Give it back, now.”
She snapped her fingers a few times near Gregory’s face, then yanked the crystal from his hands. A violent jolt went through the boy’s body. He blinked a few times at Milo.
“Banks,” he said. “You tell her that rock is mine.”
“No way,” Milo said. “It was a gift from my dad.”
Mrs. Owlidge frowned. “I’m not giving this rock back to anybody until one of you proves ownership. I’ll call your parents if I have to.”
“That’s fine with me,” Milo said, relaxing a bit. “I’ll give you my number. My dad’s name is Max.”
Gregory’s face turned pink with rage. He seemed to grow bigger as he glared at Milo.
“Both of you get back in…” Mrs. Owlidge stopped. She gazed into the crystal, her mouth opening a crack.
“Oh no,” Milo said.
The light in the crystal finally went out. She looked saddened by the change. Then a girl’s voice shot up from the line of students.
“It’s Milo’s crystal. I saw Gregory take it.”
The voice came from Jocelyn Cary, a pretty girl with long, straight hair the color of wheat who sat a few desks away from Milo in his language arts class. She stepped out of line and stood with her hands behind her back, chin raised.
Mrs. Owlidge’s eyes narrowed. She lowered the crystal and blinked a few times.
“Here, Milo,” she said, giving him the darkened crystal. Her voice was laced with a mysterious emotion almost like fear. “Don’t ever bring this to school again or I’ll confiscate it.”
She spun Gregory around and led him toward the school. Gregory looked back over his shoulder once at Milo, the expression on his face one of seething rage.
Milo glanced at the crystal as he made his way toward the other students. The light in its core had gone out, which meant the crystal was no longer carrying a charge. Maybe he should keep it that way, in case anyone else got hold of it again.
He remembered his father’s words.
Keep that crystal with you at all times and keep it charged…
Milo shook his head, sighed, and slipped the crystal back into his pocket.
He spent the rest of the day in classes, musing about the past couple of weeks and all the strange things that had been happening. He couldn’t bring himself to stop touching the crystal. Its presence made him feel safe but also deeply anxious. Now and then, he would glance over at Gregory, who wouldn’t stop giving him dirty looks.
When classes were over and the final bell sounded its signal of freedom, Milo grabbed his backpack and rushed to his locker. He tossed in his stuff and closed the door without taking out the books he would need to complete his homework. His mind felt as scattered as a bag of pellets someone had spilled all over the floor.
Jocelyn Cary was walking down the hallway with a friend. Suddenly anxious, Milo wanted to turn and blend in with the rushing crowd of students. Then he imagined how rude it would look, especially after she had saved him out there on the playground. He took in a lungful of air, made eye contact with her, and approached. Her friend saw Milo coming, gave an embarrassed smile, and said “See you later” to Jocelyn before turning down another hallway.
Jocelyn smiled upon seeing him.
“Oh, hi,” she said.
“Hey, Jocelyn.” Milo scratched his temple as if it would help him come up with the right thing to say. It didn’t. They walked side by side at a slow trot. “I just wanted to—well, I guess I…”
“You wanted to thank me. What was that thing, anyway? That weird stone you were carrying.”
“Umm…”
Should he tell her about the crystal’s mysterious origin, that his father had bought it from a man who was a hundred and ten years old? Or should he just make something up—say that it was a trick rock he’d bought at a joke shop?
“It’s a crystal my dad gave me. It’s sort of like jewelry. But for boys, I think.”
“Can I see it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s very—fragile.”
They were walking toward t
he front door now.
“I’m a girl,” she said with a frown. “I handle fragile things all the time. Someday I’ll have to hold babies and diamonds and stuff.”
They were outside now. Sunlight gathered on Jocelyn’s hair and shoulders in yellow pools. Milo was struck by how pretty she was. What had he done to deserve this attention? She walked ahead a few paces, ignoring him as if she was no longer interested in being his friend. An unbearable feeling of loss soared inside of him.
“OK. You can hold it.”
She whirled around to face him, a big smile on her face.
“Let me see, let me see!”
Milo slipped the crystal out of his pocket and handed it to her. The crystal was still dark from a lack of charge. Jocelyn looked at it for about three seconds before letting out an exasperated sigh.
“Just some rock,” she said, handing it back to him. “I’m glad I could help you get it back. It seems to mean a lot to you. My mom gave me her class ring once. I took it everywhere with me, but one day I dropped it in the sink and it went down the tubes. It wasn’t that nice of a ring, though. There weren’t any rubies on it or anything like that. Will you walk me to the bus?”
It took Milo a moment to process what she had just said. He fidgeted with the straps on his backpack.
“The bus?” he said. “Sure. Which one do you take?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
He followed her out behind the school, where the buses parked every day at 2:30.
“It’s such a nice day out,” Jocelyn said.
Milo was too nervous to respond. Jocelyn was a whole year older than he was, which made the situation even more confusing. He was glad to see her looking up at the sky and not at him.
They turned a corner into the parking lot. A shadow seemed to move near the edge of the building, as if someone had slipped around the corner at the last second. Milo stopped. He put his hand on Jocelyn’s arm to stop her as well. The lot was silent.
“What is it?” she said.
Milo put his hand into his pocket and thought about rubbing a charge back into the crystal. But if he did that, Gregory would only want it more. There was something addictive about its mysterious green energy.
“It’s him.”
Gregory turned the corner into the lot. He made his way toward them, taking forceful strides as if he were slogging through snow. Jimbo and Tucker appeared a moment later and tried to catch up. Jocelyn moved closer to Milo until their shoulders were touching.
“What do you think he wants?” she said.
“The crystal. Maybe you should go, Jocelyn.”
“No way. I won’t let them bully you just because you’re younger.”
“Thanks, but I can take care of myself.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded, hoping she wouldn’t notice how he kept swallowing. He reached into his pocket and began to charge the crystal. He might need its protection, if such a thing could even be real.
“You’re brave,” she said, backing away. “He looks pretty angry.”
She gave Milo one last hopeful look and turned to leave. Gregory broke into a sprint toward her. But why her? Shouldn’t Milo have been his intended target?
He stepped into Gregory’s path; anything to stop the bigger boy from going through with whatever he was planning. But Gregory would not be detained. He knocked Milo to the pavement with a single swipe of his flabby arm.
Milo groaned as pain shot up his side. It was only the second month of school and already he’d been knocked down twice. Terrific.
Gregory grabbed Jocelyn by the arms and pinned her to the brick wall. Milo dropped his backpack and ran to her.
“Hold him,” Gregory said, keeping his eyes on Jocelyn.
Hands grabbed Milo from behind and pulled him back. Jimbo and Tucker. He struggled to get free but wasn’t strong enough. He could feel the two idiots breathing down his neck and snorting laughter at him, their fingers digging into the backs of his arms.
“The crystal,” Gregory said, grunting with effort as he tried to keep Jocelyn from squirming out of his grasp. “Give it to me or I’ll hit her.”
“You wouldn’t hit a girl,” Jocelyn cried out. Her eyes had begun to water.
“Wait,” Milo said. “She has to catch her bus. If she’s not on it, they’ll come looking for her and you’ll get in trouble. So just let her go.”
There was a mad look in Gregory’s eyes. The crystal had changed him; he was no longer a mischievous bully but a hunter on a mission.
“The crystal,” he said. “Toss it over, or I’ll find your twin sister and I’ll hit her, too. I’ll hit her so hard you’ll feel it.”
“It’s in my pocket,” Milo said, trying to be calm even as he pictured Gregory hitting Emma. “I can’t reach it like this.”
Jimbo—or was it Tucker?—reached in, took out the crystal, and tossed it over. Gregory tried to catch it but missed. The crystal bounced off the bricks and landed by his feet.
Gregory let go of Jocelyn and bent over to pick it up. Jocelyn skipped forward and kicked him in the rear, sending him sprawling face-first into the pavement. Jimbo and Tucker doubled over with laughter.
“Run,” Milo told Jocelyn. She gave him one last look of despair and fled, not even bothering to pick up her backpack.
Milo watched her go. Then, before he had a chance to react, he felt a fist crash into his stomach. Sky and earth flipped as he fell twisting to the ground.
He tried to ignore the pain. The crystal was only a few feet away. He reached for it, coughing and sputtering as he crawled. He was only a moment away from grabbing it when Gregory dropped like a sack of rocks onto his lower back.
Milo’s breath rushed out of him. His ribcage was being crushed, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Gregory had started driving his brutish fists into Milo’s shoulders.
“You—little—punk!” he shouted, punching away as if there were some school record he wanted to break.
Milo tried to ignore the blows, each one like an earthquake that caused cracks of pain to open all over his body. He reached for the crystal, but it was hopeless. If only he were a few inches closer…
Finally, Gregory got off Milo’s back and stood over him, panting. Milo scurried forward and made a desperate leap for his prize.
But Gregory was quicker. He stepped on Milo’s fingers like someone crushing an insect. Milo let out a cry of surprise and retracted his hand. Gregory chuckled as he bent over to pick up the crystal.
“Poor little Milo Banks,” he said. “Milo’s a dog’s name, did you know that? Figures, since you’re a little…”
“A little what?” a man’s voice said.
A shadow fell over the pavement. Gregory, Jimbo, and Tucker—none of them laughing now—stared up at the man.
“I believe you have something that belongs to my son.”
Maxwell Banks towered over them, his face dark as his head blocked part of the sun. Milo pushed himself off the pavement and brushed the dirt off his pants. His father looked at him with a hint of a smile, as if this were all some sort of joke. Otherwise, he wasn’t moving. He looked more like a statue than a man, carved from a block of granite.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” Gregory said. “I just wanted to look at it, and then I was going to give it back.”
“Give it here, kid. And I don’t want to see any of you boys near my son again, you understand?”
The boys nodded and avoided eye contact with him.
“Get out of here,” Max said, whisking the air with his right hand. The boys gave Milo sour looks, then picked up their bags and jogged across the parking lot.
“Thanks a lot, Dad,” Milo said. “Now everyone’s going to think I don’t have the guts to stand up for myself.”
Max put a hand on his son’s shoulder and handed over the crystal. It was only half charged.
“But you stood up for that girl. That took more guts than anything else.”
“I don’t know,” Mil
o said, squinting at the distant running figures. “I should’ve clocked him when I had the chance.”
Milo went over and picked up Jocelyn’s backpack, hoping she didn’t have too much homework for the night. He’d give it back to her tomorrow.
When he returned, his father dropped into a crouch so they could be the same height. He looked Milo straight in the eye.
“Hitting people should always be a last resort, especially at school. They could expel you for that here. Milo, you’ve got a bright future ahead of you. No need to mess it up by getting into schoolyard fights.”
“But he started it!”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re better than him. Look at me. You have better things to do with your time and energy, understand?”
Milo nodded in understanding, even though a small part of him still wanted to give Gregory a good punch in the jaw. He slipped the crystal back into his pocket and let his father lead the way. As they walked back to the car, Milo noticed something unusual about this situation.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“You got here at just the right moment, even though Mom usually picks me up. Does that mean the beacon crystal works?”
His father winced a little and looked away.
“Your mother wasn’t feeling well. Hey, how about we get a little B-ball in before dinner?”
Milo sighed in frustration. His father had too many secrets, and it was getting on his nerves.
Chapter 8
The sightstone threw pulsing blue light into the surrounding forest.
Querrigan gazed into the stone’s core, his eyes narrowed into slits. Coscoros and Basher stood farther back but kept their eyes fixed on the stone. The images within flickered and became clearer, but it still looked as though they were watching events taking place at the bottom of a shallow river.
“This is from earlier today,” Querrigan said, leaning in to get a better look. “A captured essence. But look here, something’s obscuring it.”
What they could see, just barely, were children fighting behind a building made of red bricks. A boy with a layer of tough-looking fat on his body was holding a skinny girl up against a wall. Behind him, two lanky boys were holding a smaller one back.
Savant (The Luminether Series) Page 4
