by Jess C Scott
“I’m managing, Annie,” Chloe said quietly. She took the money anyway. “I get by on what I earn here.”
Anya leaned forward, crossing one heel over the other foot. “Rich folks just get richer—there’s no way for people like us to catch up.”
Anya resented the fact that honest, morally sound people—like her and Leticia’s family members—weren’t rewarded for their hard work ethic. If being a thief would lead to a better life, so be it.
Anya thought of the hooded man and the young couple she had seen running off with their prized cans of beer. Maybe they’d get bolder in future, and pull off a successful bank heist. To Anya, that was more worthwhile than a string of petty thefts.
Her thoughts shifted to the elves, The Velvet Underground…and what other secrets they could be hiding.
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
Anya stared at her mother with a vacant expression. Anya didn’t want to cause her mother any more distress.
“Shopping,” Anya lied, lightly tapping her fingers on the tabletop. Maybe I’ll become a compulsive liar like Nin, too.
“How’s Leticia?” Chloe liked Leticia, Anya’s best friend since junior high.
“Still sane, still happy. We’re helping out with a school play.”
Anya suddenly remembered there was a rehearsal the next day—Anya and Leticia were stage hands, helping with props and makeup. Anya had circled the date with a red pen, on the calendar in her student diary. She had been too preoccupied with overseeing a smooth transaction with the diamond orb.
Chloe smiled. “Tell her I still think she makes the best chocolate cookies.” She paused, not wanting to nag, but not unconcerned, either. She smoothed down some of her frizzy hair. “And…stay in school, okay?”
The stout boss at the counter signaled to Chloe, gruffly, with a grunt. She had to get back to work.
“I don’t like him.” Anya shifted her eyes to Ashmore, then back to Chloe.
“He gives us free meals.”
“Yeah…like, leftovers.” Anya wondered why her mother was content being passive. “Remember, I quit in a day, when I was here.” A brief succession of repeat circumstances was precisely what had prompted Anya to take a shot at trying something new. Like being a career criminal.
“Do you believe in…magic?” Anya asked, out of the blue. The question caught her mother by surprise. Chloe stood by her seat for a moment, looking at Anya’s clear hazel-brown eyes. Anya tried to sound like she was taking a trip down memory lane. “All those stories you told me, a long time ago. King Arthur, Robin Hood—my favorite—”
“Yes, I know,” Anya’s mother said with affection.
“Witches, faeries…” Anya took a breath. “Elves. Did you believe in all of that?”
“Of course,” her mother answered, with a sparkle in her eyes. Anya recognized the sparkle from her childhood days, when Chloe would read to her. “I always did. Good stories have a tendency to take you away to whole new worlds.”
Anya kept quiet. She knew she’d trip over her own tongue if she made any mention about Nin and company.
A distant smile seemed to light up Chloe’s face. “Those who don’t believe in magic are the ones who never find it. Great things happen to those who Believe.”
* * *
Back in her apartment, Anya spent a couple of hours researching everything she could find on elves and medieval parchments. Several empty Recovery energy drink cans were strewn about the surface of her desktop, and her upbeat Korean-Pop playlist was blasting in the background. She made a short list of the important points she had gathered so far:
. Elven Types .
Half-elf = Elandili | High elf = Cala’quessir | Moon elf = Ithil’quessir
Sea elf = Ear’quessir | Light elves = Ljosal’feir | Dark elves = Dokkal’feir
. The Elven Race .
Elves are a semi-divine species in between heaven and earth (humankind), similar to the Biblical notion of the angels. Light elves restore balance and beauty in the human world. Dark elves, in contrast, are responsible for maladies befalling humanity (bad dreams, illnesses, etc.). High elves are the Rulers of Elves—they have power, skill, and knowledge.
Physique Youthful, lean, light and strong body. Do not be fooled by their lean frames. Elves are also identifiable by their leaf-shaped ears.
Beauty More beautiful and wiser than humans, as seen by the phrase/insult: “Lle holma ve’ edan”—“You smell like a human.”
Weaknesses Pure iron is the elfin version of kryptonite. Pure iron to elves is what kryptonite is to Superman. Prolonged exposure is lethal.
The information was only making Anya more confused. Were the online sources to be believed? Which type of elf was Nin—did his name have anything to do with it? What did it mean to be a moon elf anyway?
She took a short break, looking around the room, at the cardboard egg cartons that sound-proofed the room. She and Leticia had covered the whole apartment when they’d moved in, just as a precaution—nobody really knew who could hear and see what, at any time. Prisons were tightly regulated. Anya wondered when that prison policy would become mainstream.
She gazed down at a scrap piece of paper, where she had scrawled: I’m a tough cookie / But what is he like, really / NIN = Mr. Perfect.
It felt so weird, feeling drawn to Nin, when she hardly even knew him. He didn’t even seem real, in the sense that he didn’t seem to be a part of the world that Anya and Leticia were familiar with. Or maybe that just made him more real than anything else.
Anya brought down the volume of the speakers, when she heard the door open. There were two low voices—Leticia’s familiar, warm, friendly voice, and a lower, more subdued voice. It belonged to Julius Lycata, Leticia’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. Anya thought they made an odd couple. They complemented each other because each was what the other lacked.
Anya was just about to save the document when the computer froze.
“Whatcha doing?” Leticia sailed into the room with Julius. Anya guessed they were on-again. Anya had always been a little envious of Leticia’s constant stream of suitors and admirers, though she hid her feelings well.
“Research,” Anya replied, not looking up from the screen. She clicked the mouse several times—the CPU whirred in response.
“Elves! Ah…” Julius was standing behind Anya too. He seemed slightly more muscular than the last time she had seen him. He had changed his glasses too, to a rimless frame. He looked less studious—as a result of Leticia, no doubt.
“Uh…” Leticia wanted Julius out of the room, fast. “Anya’s got a project.”
“So right.” Anya tried to stay calm. She switched the computer off anyway. “I’ve got to reboot.” The last thing Anya wanted to do was shoot herself in the foot, with any more explaining. “Damn computer hung on me.”
“It happens,” Julius commented, running a hand through his short blond hair, before picking some lint off the shoulder of his Hilfiger polo shirt.
“Mister…Perfect?” Leticia read part of Anya’s scribbles aloud, before realizing this wasn’t that much good as a distraction either. Not with a name there.
Anya swiped the piece of paper and slipped it into her shorts pocket.
“Love letter?” Julius inquired, with a teasing smile.
Anya didn’t have to pretend to look awkward. She answered with a deadpan monosyllabic response, then crossed her hands over her lap.
Tension crawled over her skin, as Julius eyed her. Anya felt like telling him to stop psycho-analyzing her. She’d never believed in romance. It was escapism. Pure fantasy. Julius should know—he was the intellectual with the cool-headed logic.
“I didn’t know you wrote poetry.”
I don’t remember you being so chatty, Anya wanted to snap at Julius, but thought of what Nin would reply. He’d be civil and polite.
“Only when I’m suitably depressed,” Anya answered, with a slight amount of sarcasm she thought Nin would appreciate.
Just then, a scrumptious aroma wafted in.
“Pizza!” Leticia’s voice rang out. Anya and Julius left the room. Leticia widened her eyes at Anya when Julius wasn’t looking. Anya had to be more careful next time. For now, both she and Leticia breathed easy.
The three of them were seated in front of the television.
“What’s the project on?” Julius asked, after he’d taken a second bite of the pepperoni pizza slice.
Anya was surprised by the unexpected question. Her mind had been on the piece of paper tucked away safely in her pocket, half the time.
“Tolkien’s masterpiece?”
Anya nodded, to show she understood. She remembered that Julius was a big fan of the accomplished professor’s work. “I’m writing an essay,” she said, trying to look convincing, “on mythical creatures.”
“Did you mention Legolas? Arguably Tolkien’s most famous elf.” Julius laughed at whatever was happening in the mindless reality TV show (about mindless reality TV shows) that was playing on the TV. Anya wasn’t really paying attention. Leticia leaned her head against Julius’s shoulder.
“If only they really existed…” Leticia murmured, drawing a line down Julius’s chest. Leticia was more comfortable than Anya, with physical displays of affection. Anya thought maybe that’s what got her all the boys, since she knew how to work her ample body too. But Anya would have duct-taped her own mouth shut before hurting her best friend with a snide remark.
“Yeah.” Julius snuggled up to Leticia. “Hypothetically, they couldn’t have.”
“Why not?” Leticia lost herself in his light, bluish-gray eyes.
Julius chewed on his food. “Lack of evidence. No bones, no archaeological finds. Nothing.”
“How’s your lithium essay coming along?” Leticia asked, stroking his hair. She was doing a fine job shifting the topic of conversation.
“Is that a band?” Anya asked Julius, crossing one leg under the other as she shifted her seat position, on the sofa.
“No…” Julius pushed his glasses up his nose bridge. “The element, Lithium. Group One element, alkali metals.”
Anya remembered the periodic table from Chemistry 101.
“I’m writing about the history of lithium in psychopharmacological drugs,” Julius continued, sounding like he’d just discovered a meteorite. Anya was mentally counting the syllables in the second last word of Julius’s sentence. “Helps patients from schizophrenics, to bipolar and borderline disorder, to depression.”
“Some kind of miracle drug.” Leticia thought he’d find a cure for cancer, one day.
“Writing that essay would make me very, very cranky,” Anya said to Julius.
He grinned back. “Just another day in the life of a biochemistry senior.” He twiddled his thumbs, with a faintly vacant look in his eyes, as he pondered on something. “You should have seen the research project on DNA repair enzymes we had to do last semester. It took eight weeks to polish the final draft.”
“What did you title it?” Leticia asked, looking at him through her lashes.
“The Benefits of Biosculpturing.” Julius cleared his throat before adding in a low voice, “On how a new Bio Sculpture Gel accelerates correction and recovery of aging skin, with the power of DNA repair enzymes.”
“Could I have a sample?”
Julius leaned forward, and lightly traced the side of Leticia’s face with the back of a fingernail. “Your skin’s still smooth.”
Anya looked away for a moment. She knew how Leticia could shudder at the mere thought of discovering her first wrinkle.
“Aced it, I guess?”
“Full marks.”
“Overachiever,” Leticia concluded, before saying something about not knowing how Julius got enough sleep.
That seemed to divert the topic of conversation away from all things Elven, and mythological. Anya secretly heaved a sigh of relief, then thought of her mother for a moment.
Maybe Chloe did have it better off than Julius, in some ways, whose family owned a fourth-generation multinational company. His family seemed to be the all-work-and-no-play sorts. Working at a diner was probably less antagonizing than working at expounding theories, and processing lab analyses, all day.
Besides, Anya found some of the super-smart students to be quite dotty, when it came to matters that required plain old common sense.
Julius was busy during an ad break, texting a reply on his phone—a GVMT model.
“We heard those aren’t, super good,” Anya started, treading carefully. While she had no need to make any mention of the elves, she had to warn Julius, if what the elves said about the subliminal powers of the phone were true. “Our phones run hot, sometimes.”
“Really? I thought that was kinda…normal.” Julius flipped the phone around while holding it with his left hand. “I don’t use it much, though—not when I’ve got you around.” He put an arm around Leticia’s shoulder, and gave her a kiss on one cheek.
“He’s part of the 10% who doesn’t sleep with their cell phones within an arm’s length.” Leticia’s lazy smile let Anya know that she’d try to convince him to switch models, some other time.
“Rehearsal’s tomorrow,” Julius murmured. He had co-written the script for The Lunartics, a satirical play on the effects of a full moon, put up by the University of Zouk City’s senior-year students. He also had a lead role as a sparkly werewolf. It was the play Anya and Leticia had gotten reeled into to help.
“Yep,” Leticia replied. Anya made no comment. If Leticia realized it coincided with the scheduled Gilbreth break-in, she made no sign of it.
Julius gave Leticia a kiss on the nose. Then they started to make out on the couch.
Anya glanced over at the couple, not minding she was being ignored out of existence. Leticia had a knack for keeping guys wrapped around her little finger.
Anya would tell Leticia later that she had no intention of attending the rehearsal, which would begin at 8.15pm. If the break-in was going to happen as planned, Anya wanted the day off to rest. She was always on the lookout for new and unique experiences, and enjoyed the whole process of psyching herself up before any assignments.
Anya leaned against the arm of the sofa, one elbow propped up by the side of her head. She rubbed the back of her ear, absent-mindedly, before recalling it was the same spot that Nin’s lips had gently touched.
“Until tomorrow…”
Anya swung around, startled. Anya could’ve sworn she heard someone whispering in her ear.
Julius and Leticia were still absorbed in each other—hands going lower—to the sound of a belt unbuckling.
Chapter 5:
A dreamless, uninterrupted night of sleep passed for Anya London.
She stared at the ceiling when she woke up, calling to mind the safe location of the envelopes from the “A : Mizuno” bag. But she decided to doublecheck that they were indeed, as she had left them.
Anya opened the cabinet in her room, moved aside a pile of books on the floor, and removed a light switch box on the wall. It hid a cubbyhole where she and Leticia stashed their earnings. She realized it was a little bit like Nin’s safe, apart from the fact that his was hidden in plain sight.
The stash was still there. Anya headed over to the chin-up bar on her room door, to do some pull-ups. She gazed out through a crack in the curtains at the police guarding the vicinity of their apartment. She’d spent so many mornings, dressed in the black sleeveless tank top she slept in, looking out at the police with her arms folded across her chest. The police traveled in saucer-like land vehicle machines on stilts, which kept watch over the city and its inhabitants. Anya was always on guard when she gazed upon the police. She’d wonder when she would get caught.
Anya checked the front door next—Julius’s tennis shoes weren’t at the entrance. He was no longer in the apartment. She hadn’t heard him leave, though he’d spent the night with Leticia in her room. They’d kept Anya awake for a certain portion of the night.
“I’m not going to the rehearsal tonight,” Anya let a blurry-eyed Leticia know, who had just rolled out of bed and sauntered into the living room.
Leticia blinked a few times. “Did Nin say when we’re supposed to meet?”
A text came in on Anya’s cell phone:
Greetings—we’re planning on striking at midnight :-) Can you & Leticia be @ the stone church earlier? For a quick rundown :-)
“They wanna enter The Gilbreth Institute at midnight,” Anya replied Leticia, flipping the phone between her palm and fingers. Midnight was fourteen hours away. “Meeting earlier to go through the details.”
Leticia sat across Anya at the table, resting her face in her hands. “I thought the rehearsal was on Thursday.”
It was currently a Tuesday morning.
“Just tell Julius we had something at the last minute,” Anya replied, as if the matter was settled. “Your little brother is in the hospital for, something-something.”
At the same time, she messaged Nin:
Midnight’s cool :) What time at stone church?
“Remember when we did say that, the other time? When we couldn’t meet Julius and his buddy for a movie?”
“Yeah…” Anya thought back to the incident. “February twenty-fifth. We stole, I mean”—Anya corrected herself—“returned, a Mayan amulet.” She could still picture it clearly. The amulet of the ancient civilization was forged in the shape of a sun, and inlaid with four gems of jade, sapphire, obsidian, and turquoise.
Leticia nodded. “And Julius bought a huge teddy-bear, and get-well-soon card, and wanted to visit Rafael?”
Anya remembered. Julius was very concerned, and proactive, that way. She wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that it involved hospitals and medicine. That was his family business after all.
“It’s a full dress rehearsal…” Leticia trailed off. “Does Nin…need me, there?”
Anya gave a sigh. “Julius needs you more?”
