Shock of Fate: A Young Adult Fantasy Adventure (Anchoress Series Book 1)

by D. L. Armillei

  The Chief mumbled into his shoulder speaker microphone. “Confirmation, visual. Butterfly is unharmed.”

  He wrapped his arm around Van’s shoulders and let out a relieved chuckle, as if his primary objective was making sure Van remained safe from harm, rather than dishing out disciplinary action.

  “Come on, I’m taking you home.” He shuffled her toward the buggy, as two others screeched to a stop in the clearing and flicked on their rooftop spotlights. The Chief yelled to the other security guards, “Sweep the area. Make sure no kids are lingering. We’ll deal with punitive measures tomorrow. There’s no place for these kids to hide on the island.” He turned toward Ken and motioned him to the buggy. “And you, Kenan. In. You, too, Paley.”

  Paley settled into the front to ride shotgun, as Van slid into the back seat. Ken slipped in next to her. Van glared at Ken and slid out the other side.

  Chief Mumford twisted around from the driver’s seat. “Vanessa! What’re you doing?”

  “Van, we need to talk,” Ken said, attempting to follow her out of the buggy.

  She snapped her palm at him. “Don’t.” With her other hand, Van shakily gripped Paley’s arm and tugged her from the passenger seat.

  Van’s insides jittered. “We’re going to walk,” she declared, knowing the adults on the island were soft on her and usually let her have her own way. At least, she hoped this was still the case. Because now everything she had thought about herself and her place on the island had jumbled up in her mind. She needed the walk to sort out what had happened with Pernilla, and she still felt furious with Ken. “We’ll go straight home. Promise.” She jerked her head at Ken, who sat like a forlorn puppy in the back seat. “He needs a ride, though.” She slammed the buggy door in his face.

  “Straight home, both of you,” said the Chief. “No detours, or I’ll know about it.”

  He packed the security buggy with a few more stray partiers to take home, as Van and Paley entered the path through the woods. The full moon cast some light but deepened the tree shadows, making it difficult to see. Thankfully, having grown up on the island, they knew the woods better than they knew each other.

  “It must be bad if you wanted to walk home,” Paley said, with a side glance at Van. “For someone in the Reservation Program, you sure are lazy.”

  Paley was trying to cheer her up, but Van was in no mood. She only wanted to burrow deep into the earth and never come out.

  “I wasn’t worried about you fighting Pernilla,” Paley said. “I know you can call on your imaginary friend for help.”

  “Jacynthia’s not imaginary,” Van snapped. She strode ahead of Paley, now wishing she was alone. “Just ’cause you can’t see her.” Van ducked under some low-hanging branches. “This better not mess my dress or my hair.”

  “I loved the twirly thing you did with that stick,” Paley said, dodging a branch as she caught up to Van. “Didn’t look like rhythmic gymnastics to me.”

  “Twirling can be used for combat, too,” Van said.

  Paley's round eyes turned toward Van. “I wish they taught regular kids that stuff,” she said enviously.

  Van looked at her with a solemn expression. “I’ll teach you.”

  Paley changed her eye color as often as the wind changed directions. Right now, even in the moonlight, her contact lenses glowed an unnatural bright green. Her gel fingernails gleamed, painted to match. Both courtesy of her job at the Naked Ape.

  Although Van’s Casadei boots had a low heel, her feet were killing her. “I haven’t broken in these boots yet. I don’t think they were made for walking.”

  “I don’t think you were made for walking,” Paley teased.

  Van remained silent, lost in her own thoughts.

  Paley persisted. “Can you believe—”

  “Is Pernilla right?” Van asked, interrupting. “No one gives me credit because they think the Elders fix my grades and rig the Games? Which means I . . . ” Van could barely bring herself to say it. “. . . never earned my placements.” This would be devastating news to her stepmother and father—unless they already knew her high placements were a scam.

  Paley scrunched her face. “You can’t listen to Pernilla. Winning the Games went to her head. She’s gone crazy with power.”

  “I have no desire for power,” Van said.

  “It’s easy to say you don’t want something when you have it,” said Paley.

  The path in the woods ended, and they turned onto well-lit, paved Honeybell Road.

  Van snorted. “If I had any power, I’d keep you here. You still plan on leaving the island when we graduate?”

  “Yep,” Paley said, skipping. “I can’t wait to leave this rock.”

  It was two years away, but Van already felt an uncomfortable tug in her chest. “Stop talking like that. Now you’re the one who’s crazy. If you leave, the Elders won’t ever let you return.”

  “I don’t want to come back.” Paley’s light steps stopped. “Out there, I can find out what happened to my parents, where they came from, where I came from.” She glanced over her shoulder at Van. “You can’t possibly understand.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.” Van faced Paley. “I love my little island, I feel so . . . connected to it—the sugar maples, the salty sea air, the ocean lapping against the shore . . . ”

  Paley glanced left and right and whispered, “The Native Islanders worshipped your mother. They would have considered her tribal royalty, if the Elders used those kind of titles.” Her normal volume returned. “It makes sense for you to feel that way. You’re a legacy.”

  And a burden, thought Van. She had always known she was different, but now that Pernilla had exposed her as remedial, Van realized she must be a constant humiliation to her family.

  She hadn’t even come into the world right. If Van hadn’t been born, her real mother would be alive and her father wouldn’t have been forced to give up field duty to take care of her. At least, Aelia wasn’t alive to see her daughter become a huge failure. Van wrapped her arms around herself, as if bracing against a chill. Paley didn’t know how lucky she was not to be bogged down by family tradition. She had the freedom to do whatever she wanted. She could act as smart or as dumb as she wanted, as ladylike or as unrefined, as good or as bad. Nobody had any expectations of her.

  “How long are you going to be mad at Ken?” Paley asked.

  “Well . . . he is my permanent placement.” Van forced a chuckle. They had a running joke about Van being Ken’s wife as a career track. She and Ken had dated since the sixth grade. She wouldn’t throw away their history together over his brief lapse in judgment with Pernilla. Besides, her stepmother would get furious if she and Ken broke up over something like that, because it would reflect poorly on the family. But Van would make him pay by not speaking to him for a few weeks.

  Paley grinned. “Oh, right. Your dream of marrying Ken and having eight sniveling little brats running up and down the waterfront.”

  “And shopping all day, and beach hopping, and going to the spa . . . ”

  Paley groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ugh. You’ll be as useless as Genie.”

  “Oh, real nice.” Van’s giggle was real this time. Paley always found a way to cheer her up.

  They had come to the intersection where the island’s seven main roads met, unofficially called the Crossroads. This undeveloped, treed-in area stood dead center in the narrowest part of the hourglass-shaped island.

  “See ya later,” Paley said. She turned south onto Reservation Road, heading in the direction of the Gables Orphanage.

  “Yup, bye,” said Van, who veered north onto Sandy Cove Lane toward Mt. Hope Manor—a house she hadn’t earned and therefore didn’t deserve.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Day 1: 1:32 a.m., Earth World

  For such a promising start, Van’s night had gone downhill fast. She welcomed the solitude of the walk home, despite the painful blisters swelling on her heels. Things aren’t handed to me, she thought. I earned
my grades and my trophy. Visions of Pernilla’s snarling face haunted her brain. Pernilla! Of all the nerve! Seducing Ken. Saying the Elders force people to be friends with me. She’s such a—

  Van saw something scurrying up the road toward her. She halted uneasily.

  “What the—?” She stared at the small furry animal.

  It stopped before her, just under the glow of a nearby streetlight, and sat upright on its hind legs. Its round eyes locked onto Van’s. It had the face of a kitten, but with ears too long, like a rabbit’s, and white fur, though much whiter than any animal should be. It almost glowed.

  “Whatever,” Van mumbled. Not my problem. It wasn’t the first time she had seen a strange animal running loose on the island, a protected tribal reservation and a national wildlife preserve. Rumors abounded of a scientific research facility on the reservation. The critter had probably escaped from that facility or from the preserve. Either way, Island Security would take care of it. She swept her hand. “Shoo!”

  As it scampered into the woods, Van glimpsed a coiled tail. She rubbed her eyes. “I’m going to need a pair of Paley’s contacts soon.”

  A soft rumble of vehicles in the distance grew louder and louder.

  Not security again, she thought. She’d had enough of people messing with her tonight.

  She hurled her body behind the nearest tree, as three Grigori military-style buggies careened by. Van hoped they would continue on to Oceanview Drive, which led to the back of the reservation. Her stomach sank as the buggies instead bore down on Manor Road, which led to one place: Mt. Hope Manor.

  It’s not about me. I’m going straight home, just as I told Chief Mumford. And it wasn’t unusual for Grigori to congregate at the Manor at all hours of the night. While growing up, Van felt as if her father was more dedicated to his job than to his family.

  Moments later, Van reached her yard and strode past the creepy stone jaguar gargoyles guarding the entrance. She saw the black military-style buggies in the U-shaped driveway, their shadowy outlines emphasized by lights shining from every window on all four floors of the sprawling Colonial manor house. Van glimpsed movement through the cathedral window of the first-floor sitting room.

  She had no desire to run into anyone, so she walked around to the back, slipped through the servant’s door, and entered the kitchen. Even here, every light had been turned on, and Van felt like she needed a pair of sunglasses. Once her eyes adjusted, she noticed items askew and out of place in Genie’s obsessively neat and orderly kitchen, as if the room had been searched.

  Heated voices from the sitting room echoed down the hallway.

  Van’s stomach knotted. She figured Genie was ripping into her father for missing the placement ceremony today, and in front of other Grigori, too. Van cringed. She didn't want to be the cause of her father’s trouble.

  Intending to take the servant’s staircase off the kitchen to reach her bedroom, she heard muffled voices above. She paused, as moving furniture scraped the floor and drawers opened and closed. The sounds reverberated down from the second story.

  Van panicked. She whipped around, ran back through the kitchen and out the servant’s door, then skidded to a stop on the dew-covered lawn.

  Wait a minute, thought Van. Why is the Manor being searched? They’d better not be rifling through my rooms! Maybe I can find out what’s going on. Besides, this is an island. Where could I run to?

  She crept along the outer perimeter of the house until she reached the side yard, then crouched under an open window of the sitting room.

  “—few nights ago when his partner was killed in the field under his supervision, which is suspicious enough on its own,” said a gruff male voice. “Now, tonight, Grigori Cross has gone missing on the same night that the Balish crown prince was assassinated. Coincidence? We don’t think so.”

  “Grigori Fynn, easy,” warned a familiar-sounding female voice. “The problem is, with Michael—uh, Grigori Cross—unaccounted for, the Balish will use this as evidence that the Lodians’ Grigori are responsible for the death of Prince Devon. You may feel safe hidden here on Providence Island, but the tension between our two tribes in the Living World is already strained. This situation will make it worse. Much worse.”

  Van could place this voice now. It was Uxa Huxatec—her father’s boss.

  “You two were close enough to be on a first-name basis. Why don’t you know where he is?” The voice that answered, Van would’ve recognized anywhere. She’d heard it constantly nagging her for the last fifteen years. It was her stepmother, Genie. “Last I knew, he missed the placement ceremony yesterday because he got called into work by you.”

  Uxa sighed. “He is my First Assistant, Iphigenia. Nothing more.”

  My father is missing? This was news to Van. Who are the Balish? The Lodians? Where is the Living World? She figured they were using code words and became more interested. Gathering her courage, she peeked in the window.

  Uxa stood in the center of the sitting room, dressed in the customary attire of the reservation Elders: a tunic-styled, sky-blue uniform with silver edgings and exaggerated shoulders, with a matching cape. Van had met Uxa a handful of times and had always felt intimidated by the imposing black woman who wore her dark blonde hair scraped back into a long, straight braid.

  Uxa’s sharp blue eyes focused on Genie, who sat on the Edwardian-style sofa with her arms crossed and a pout on her full pink lips.

  “Grigori Cross is demonstrating a blatant pattern of disregarding the rules,” accused Fynn, a young man with curly blond hair and a nose that looked like it had been broken at least once. “He transports to the Living World without authorization. While there, he travels outside the boundary of Salus Valde, as he did in the past. Which, might I remind you, is an illegal act. And we believe he’s done it again tonight. His mysterious absence has put us in a very precarious position with the Lodian Consilium—the oversight committee for the Grigori.”

  “Stop talking to me like I’m an idiot,” Genie snapped, jumping up from the sofa. “You’re insinuating Michael snuck out of Lodian territory to go plot with someone in the Balish royal family who wants the throne? The Balish? Really? The tribe that wants to snuff the Lodians out of existence? I can’t believe you’re questioning my husband’s integrity again. Didn’t we go through this fifteen years ago? Haven’t you learned anything?”

  “Cross managed to weasel out of a conviction back then, but not now,” Fynn said. “He’s a disgrace to the Lodian people. A traitor!”

  “Grigori Fynn!” Uxa scolded the young officer. “Watch your words!”

  Genie shrieked, and her voice rose furiously. “How dare you! You stand in my house, saying my husband’s a traitor! Fynn—you call yourself a Grigori? You are nothing but a lost little boy! Uxa’s lapdog! I won’t take this disrespect from any of you. Get out! Ohhh!” Genie swept her arms into the air and fell back onto the sofa in a dramatic semi-faint.

  Uxa slid onto the sofa and took Genie’s hand in hers. “It’s just—we’re expecting trouble with the Balish royal family,” Uxa said in a placating tone. “They have called for a formal meeting later today.”

  “Devon’s twin sister, Princess Solana, is now the heir,” Fynn said, carefully using a neutral tone. “She’s only twenty-two and very ambitious. The Balish are a patriarchal society. As a female, she’ll be looking to prove her worth. It means trouble is headed our way.”

  Van started and half-ducked, as a brutish man stormed into the stately room and addressed Uxa by her official title, HG, or Head of the Grigori. “The yard was clear, and we’ve finished searching the Manor’s upper floors,” he said.

  Van sighed in relief at her lucky timing, arriving in the yard after it had been swept.

  Three other men and four women followed the loutish man. Van recognized their midnight-blue military uniforms—the same uniform her father wore to work, now that he was back in the field. The same uniform Van had said made him look like a member of a SWAT team. Now that she k
new about her father’s trouble at work, the memory tugged at her heart.

  “And?” Uxa asked.

  “We found nothing.”

  “Happy now?” Genie said.

  Van wondered whether this mess had been caused by Genie misplacing something. Van had become skilled at finding things for a reason; she had to, with Genie being such a ditz. Yet Van couldn’t help but gaze at her stepmother in awe. The yellow-and-white-lace trim of Genie’s silk nightgown peeked out from under a white cotton bathrobe. The robe clung to her body, complimenting her toned figure, curvy in all the places men seemed to care about. Her natural silky white-blonde hair, a trait valued by their community, appeared uncharacteristically disheveled but added to her allure. Van figured her stepmother’s breathtaking beauty was the reason women on the island disliked Genie and the reason why her father chose to create a scandal by marrying her so soon after Van’s mother had died.

  A rustling noise next to Van startled her.

  She hurled herself to the ground and tried to calm her heart rate while on all fours, half-expecting a head to pop out of the window and accuse her of spying. Instead, she heard a soft chirrup. She glanced over to see the small white animal she had encountered earlier. It sat on its hind legs, staring at her with large, soulful eyes.

  “Mrrrwwp?” said the little thing.

  Van raised an index finger to her mouth, hoping it would get the hint and be quiet. She could’ve sworn she overheard Uxa say they planned to search Michael’s private rooms in the basement but couldn’t be sure, so she turned her attention back to the window.

  “Mweep rrrrwp!” the animal chattered even louder.

  Van glowered down at the little thing. “Shush.” Yet it had her attention and began turning in half-circles, glancing from Van to the far end of the house. Van ignored it and looked back at the window.

  This only agitated the creature more. It twittered louder and bounced back and forth, swiveling to face Van, then the far end of the house.

  Terrified that its noises would draw attention to the window, Van crept close to the little animal in an attempt to shoo it away. But when Van moved nearer, it stopped making noises and scurried forward. When Van stopped, so did the animal, and then it started chirruping noisily again.