by T. S. Hall
“Why is all of this necessary?” Allora asked.
Mr. Swan became uneasy and leaned against his desk to explain himself. He took a moment to collect his thoughts, wondering which parts he should refrain from mentioning.
Allora bent her knee, crossed her arms, and raised her eyebrows. “Well?”
“Allora, I… it’s complicated.”
“I’m pretty sure ‘complicated’ is pretty freaking normal from here on out. Now, stop treating me like a baby and tell me what the hell this thing is!”
The other three chuckled at Allora’s sarcasm, and even Mr. Swan smirked.
“Fine. I’ll fill you in the best I can, but this has to be our little secret, even from your mother.”
“My mom?”
“Milly will kill me—perhaps literally—if she finds out.”
After receiving reassuring nods from each of his four students, he walked past them and stopped at the back wall. He placed an open palm on the wall and began rotating his hand. A green glow escaped the edges of his hand while he continued rotating it clockwise, then counterclockwise.
Green lines slowly dissipated on his palm, and a green, glowing circle formed on the wall. A bright flash burst out from the green lines, then pulled back inward. Mr. Swan reached his hand into the wall, just as they had done at Sas’s cave. From the depths of the liquid wall, he pulled out a rolled parchment.
With her eyes wide, Allora shoved her hand into her bag, wondering if he had somehow stolen her copy. The familiar sheepskin she had received from Sas was still safely tucked inside her book bag. Puzzled, she moved closer to look at Mr. Swan’s copy, then anxiously waited as he unrolled the ancient beige parchment.
After it was entirely unrolled, Mr. Swan placed a book on the top to keep the parchment flat.
“That looks just like mine,” Allora said, excitedly pulling the parchment from her school bag.
Mr. Swan didn’t seem surprised. “I figured as much. Ben gave that to Sas for safekeeping, and I was sure he’d pass it on to you when the time was right. I’ve been trying to find the other two pieces to complete the riddle.” He slowly unrolled his copy, but there wasn’t any writing on it; in fact, it was entirely blank.
“I don’t get it,” Allora said. “What good is a blank piece of paper?”
“Just because we can’t see something, that doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Mr. Swan said with a smile. Again, his hands began to glow, filling the room with a green hue. A soft light escaped his palms and covered the seemingly blank page, and a moment later, ink appeared on the parchment, slowly forming intricate, artistic lettering that spelled out four lines of words.
“Whoa!” Tanner said. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
Mr. Swan stared at the writing, grinning with excitement. “I’ve waited decades to look upon this script,” he said. “We exposed the other parchment when the first one was discovered. The ink reacts to hadrons, some pretty unique stuff.” He moved back, allowing the others to take a glance. “Allora, would you like to do the honors and read it?”
“Uh… sure.” Allora inched forward, still feeling uneasy.
Heed the warnings of the path you take,
For one false choice will be the last you make
Be careful to step with winged feet
For one wrong move will send you deep
Allora knew there had to be something powerful about those words, even if she didn’t understand what they meant. Determined to get to the answers, she confronted her teacher. “So what is it? What is this Eye of the Titans?”
Mr. Swan leaned against his desk and took a deep breath, as if he had a long, difficult story to tell. “Do you all know the story of the Titan Wars?” he asked.
Recalling the story of Greek gods and Titans, Allora asked, “So it’s not just mythology?”
“It is discounted as that now, yes, but the war was very, very real,” he began. “The Titans were and still are the rulers of Titanis, the capital of Sonora. Back when the gateways to Earth were discovered, the Titans treated humans as slaves and Earth as its own colony. That was at the time of the initial evolution of humans as intellectual creatures, when humanity began to think on their own. Several Sonoran colonies formed in different areas of Earth, and wars were fought over that land, because each place offered its own unique resources. Before long, the rulers of these colonies became entrenched with the thinking humans. They taught them their ways, educated them in technology, religion, math, science, and language. The Titans of Sonora became infuriated with this, fearing that the humans would become too powerful and attempt to overthrow them. Since the gateways were permanently open, a large Titan army was released on Earth, starting one of the largest, most devastating wars for either world.”
The four leaned forward, hanging on every word their teacher spoke, as if he was telling them their own life story. Somehow, they all felt a familiar kinship to the history lesson, as if it had occurred in a recent dream. Each word their teacher spoke drew them closer to the characters, closer to the emotions and pain that had consumed those involved.
Mr. Swan continued, “To quell the onslaught of the invading army, the Sonoran colonists formed a secret army, the guardians.”
“Like Sas?” Allora asked.
“Well, Sas is a guardian, yes, but these were different. If you paid attention during your mythology lessons in school or have watched some movies, you might know them better as Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Aries, Poseidon, and the rest of the so-called ‘Greek gods,’” he said, placing mocking quotation marks in the air around the term.
“Why were they called ‘gods’ if that is not what they were?” Tanner asked.
“That was the acronym for the organization. They were originally known as the Guardians of Delphi or G.O.D., because most of the support for the uprising came from the capital city of Delphi on the western continent of Sonora. The Sonoran colonists of Earth joined the guardians to battle the Titans for the freedom of Earth and the freedom of humanity.”
“And who won?” Allora asked.
“Were not sure. No one knows what happened, because all the historical records of the stories were destroyed or hidden away in secret locations to preserve the truth. I’ve been trying to locate them, but I haven’t been successful just yet. Most of what is known was passed down through verbal telling of the stories, all those mythological stories of the war and the leaders of the rebellion, as told from a human perspective.”
“And the Eye of the Titans?” Allora asked. “What is it, and what does it have to do with any of this?”
“Well, The Eye is said to be a myth, but we know better. It was one of the artifacts used to defeat the Titans and bring order to the two worlds,” Mr. Swan said with authority and exuberance. “It is said to be more powerful than any known artifact. I believe it is real, and those pieces of parchment are my proof.”
Allora’s mind began to spin as she imagined an ancient item of great power that could protect the people she loved. She knew that the artifact could be the solution to those who sought to do them harm, and it could even return a sense of normalcy to her life. The threat of constant danger was exhausting, and now she knew The Eye could be her saving grace. “So how do we find this thing?” Allora asked, thoroughly intrigued.
“Well, that’s the problem. We need to find the last piece of the puzzle. It’s the most important piece, because it explains the geographic location of The Eye.”
“Do you know how to find the last piece?” Tanner asked.
“No,” the teacher admitted. The disappointed faces of his students indicated their passionate interest in finding the artifact. “However, I believe I know who might have a clue.”
“Who?” Allora asked eagerly.
“Sas.”
Allora was a little confused. The creature was friendly enough, but he was a hoarder and sometimes somewhat of a bumbling klutz. Besides that, she wondered why he would have given her the parchment but forgotten to tell them this crucial p
iece of information. “Sas? Are you sure? What makes you think he knows where it is?”
“Because his father was the one who found the first,” Mr. Swan said, pointing to the parchment lying on the desk. “According to transcripts that I found, Sas’ father was investigating the existence of the Eye within the old ruins of Shangri-La, and eventually found the first parchment. Only problem was that there was a leak within the organization, which led to his death.” Mr. Swan’s expression turned sour, and he was no longer able to mask the emotion he felt at the memory of a painful past.
Even though they were curious, none chose to inquire further. Instead, Allora remained focused on finding the last piece of parchment. “So you believe Sas’s father told him where it was hidden?” she asked.
Mr. Swan reverted back to the moment, shaking off the pains of his past. “Not necessarily,” he answered. “I believe the location of the last piece is exactly where Sas’s father died.”
“Sounds like a suicide mission to me,” Katie remarked.
“Wuss,” Dax murmured, nudging his sister.
“This artifact could be the key to everything. We must convince Sas to tell us the location.”
“If you think he knows, why haven’t you just asked him yourself?” Allora inquired. “He seems like a pretty talkative guy to me.”
Mr. Swan fidgeted around uncomfortably. “Let’s just say the big, hairy one and I haven’t really seen eye to eye on this,” Mr. Swan said in a vague tone that Allora found most disconcerting. “He’s been on a witch hunt to find his father’s killer, and won’t disclose any information because of the traitor. I can’t convince him to tell me.”
Allora closed her mouth and swallowed the numerous questions she’d intended to ask.
After rolling up the precarious pieces of parchment, Mr. Swan moved to the back of the room and faced a blank space. He motioned his hand in circular patterns, twisting his open palm as though opening a safe. A green glow shot forward, spreading into a large, liquid circle upon the wall. He placed the documents into the liquid, then sent another open-palm spark into the wall, solidifying the area. “There,” he said as he made his way back to the front of the classroom. “I’ve created a safe to protect the directions to The Eye.”
“Whoa! Brings a whole new meaning to ‘wall safe,’ huh?” Dax joked. “Do we get to learn how to do that?”
“Perhaps when you’re able to focus hadrons,” he answered. “For now, I need you four to talk with Sas. That last piece is critical.” He then sent a wall of green throughout the room, pulling the silencing glue from walls and collecting it into a ball again. He motioned for them to go, then sat down at his desk and began grading papers like a normal teacher.
Before Allora left, she glanced through the small door window to see Mr. Swan staring blankly out the classroom window. His distant gaze was eerily emotionless, as though his entire tumultuous past was suddenly coming into focus. It was as though he had blocked out his painful memories and was now converging on an answer to an agonizing question that had plagued him for a lifetime. Allora walked away from the window, wondering whether she would ever find out the truth to the past that they seemed to all share; a past she wasn’t sure she would ever understand.
Eleven
GLUE
An arrow sliced through the air, leaving a faint glow as it shot from the end of the bow. The shooter saw the trail of clear violet and reveled in her new abilities. The steel-tipped arrow penetrated its target with extreme precision. The tail end protruded, still wobbling up and down, indicating the powerful force of the hit on the six-foot, straw-filled dummy that Allora was shooting at with her composite bow.
The trail of light slowly dissipated, leaving Allora in awe at the wonders of her new life. While amazing, her new life presented overwhelming complications that made those incredible moments of magic seem infinitesimal. Part of her wanted to give it all up for the normalcy she’d had before the incident at soccer tryouts. For weeks, she’d suffered from a severe identity crisis.
As she watched her closest friends sparring with inanimate dummies, she realized that the potential consequences of their new lives were inescapable. What will I do if one of them gets killed? The grim and terrifying thoughts made her sick, so ill that she almost keeled over.
“Hey, you all right?” Tanner asked as he noticed Allora turning pale and wobbling on her usually steady feet.
Allora shook her head, unable and unwilling to discuss her thoughts.
“Looks like we’ve got our first puker!” Dax said, laughing and sparring with a fighting post called a muk yan jong. “Don’t be embarrassed, Allora. I can’t tell ya how many times I’ve barfed during practice, especially when Coach Hale makes us do suicide runs.”
“I’m fine,” Allora said, backing away from Tanner, trying to act tough. “I’m just not feeling very well.”
“Maybe we should call it a day,” Katie suggested.
“No way! We need to be prepared,” Dax insisted. “I’m pretty sure that red-eyed creep in the woods isn’t gonna call it a day.”
Reminders of the beast were unwelcome, but they couldn’t deny it or take it lightly. Images of the malicious red eyes were permanently plastered in the forefront of their minds, and even the thought of facing the unknown creature sent chills through their bodies.
“Look, I’ve got physics homework, and I have to find a Halloween costume before Friday, so I need to call it a day,” Katie said.
“Oh yeah! Halloween!” Tanner said, as if he’d forgotten. “Are you guys coming to the party?”
Allora shook her head, but Katie jumped in and answered for both of them. “Of course we are!”
“Katie, I…” Allora began. She was reluctant to participate in the popular social event, which most had been looking forward to for weeks because of the absence of Robert Mondrach’s parents. Katie ignored her best friend and insisted they’d be there.
After placing the equipment in a large wooden shack, they went through the portal and down to Allora’s house.
“Don’t forget about Mrs. Ferris’s room after school tomorrow!” Allora yelled before the others pulled out of her driveway.
* * *
The next day, they all met in the junior hallway and quickly looked around to make sure they hadn’t been followed to Mrs. Ferris’s room, which appeared to be empty when they opened the door.
Suddenly, a lady with curly red hair and wearing a long, white lab coat popped up from behind a counter. Mrs. Ferris was a short, stocky woman with large, thick spectacles that seemed to devour half of her face. She was holding a glass beaker in one hand and bottle of some sort of liquid in the other, humming as if she didn’t realize she had company. When Dax closed the door with a loud bang, Mrs. Ferris jumped and let go of the glass beaker, which flew into the air and shattered on the tile floor.
“Sorry, Mrs. Ferris,” Dax said, feeling guilty. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, not your fault. I put up the silencing glue before you got here,” Mrs. Ferris said, walking over to them. “As a matter of fact, I believe I owe you an apology for getting goop all over you. Mr. Swan said my first batch didn’t work out very well. Sorry about that, but I think I’ve worked out all the kinks now. The new formula should skip biological signatures when it expands now,” she said, lifting the broken glass with a wave of her hand and gesturing the floating pieces toward the trashcan.
“Man, you’ve gotta teach me how to do that!” Dax said.
“Maybe then your room wouldn’t be such a pigsty,” Katie snapped.
Dax sneered at his sister.
“You’ll get your chance, young man.” Mrs. Ferris then pointed to the back of the room, where four pots had been placed on the burners in the lab. “For now, though, you’ll each be making your own batches of silencing glue.”
The exuberance was palpable, yet Dax’s excitement suggested something more mischievous. Allora could almost imagine the pranks he was coming up with.
&
nbsp; Mrs. Ferris led them to their stations, and then walked to the shelving on the far side of the room. She pointed to the wall, and a small yellow spark shot forward. All of a sudden, everything on the shelves melted into the wall. Containers of ammonia and vinegar disappeared, as if consumed by small black holes.
The four teens stood there in shock, watching as strange contraptions, bottles, cauldrons, potions, human skulls, rolled parchment, animal skins, and odd, colorful orbs materialized from inside the wall.
Next, Mrs. Ferris grabbed a handful of items, and as soon as she walked away, the weird objects were absorbed back into the wall, and the regular lab material reappeared. She was so busy placing the items on the lab stations that she didn’t even notice her students’ shocked reactions to the magical display.
Allora picked up one of the bottles and read the label out loud, “Balumar Family: Signature Slug Sauce.” She wrinkled up her nose, shrugged, put the bottle down, and picked up another, a very small glass bottle with tiny writing that couldn’t be read with the naked eye.
Seeing Allora uncork the container, Mrs. Ferris yelled, “Stop!”
Allora froze, unsure why her teacher had snapped. “Uh… sorry. I was just—”
Mrs. Ferris carefully took hold of Allora’s wrist and, like a puppeteer, directed her hand to place the cork carefully back into the top of the walnut-sized glass bottle. A hard sigh followed, suggesting something dangerous about the innocent-looking container. “That is Tiranis extract,” Mrs. Ferris said. “It is made from the Tiranis plant and is the stickiest substance on Sonora. One drop can deform the skin and glue you to any surface for years. If you are going to handle it, you must do so with extreme caution and only with gloves.”
Allora slowly lowered the bottle to the linoleum countertop and inched away as if it were a ticking bomb.
Mrs. Ferris neatly arranged the necessary items on the rest of the stations, then made her way to the blackboard. After she carefully wrote the instructions on the board, she said, “Please begin.”
Allora started by boiling two cups of slug sauce, then slowly poured in a half-cup of liquid spider web, followed by two teaspoons of crushed lilac powder and a tablespoon of dragon blood. She let the mixture cook for ten minutes, until a shallow film formed on the top.
