Garden of Spiders Volume 1: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 3

by Quil Carter

  “I have something important to take care of, love. I know you did fine.” Silas got to the apartment’s entrance and opened the door. He stopped for a second, and his shoulders fell. “I love you all. I’m… immensely proud of all of you.”

  And he was gone.

  It remained quiet between all four of us for quite some time. Or perhaps it was mere seconds, I didn’t know. All I knew was that when Garrett finally talked, it sounded like he’d lit a firecracker going off in an empty hall.

  “What just happened?”

  I stared at the last place I’d seen my master, and I knew the answer to that question.

  “Fucking Sky Fallon happened,” I said bitterly. “It’s that fucking obsession he has for cloning that idiot. He’s sad because Perish destroyed the Gosselin lab.” I thought that I had gotten through to him, but I suppose his emotions were weakening him to the point of depression. A depression he hadn’t been able to snap out of.

  I would never be like him. Never ever would I be like him. Since I was small did I know just how much of an anchor that asshole was on my master, even though he’d died decades before. Silas needed to get over him and find someone else.

  And for all I knew, that person was going to be me one day.

  The rest of the evening was spent in normalcy. And by that I mean what was normal for our family. Nero got bored and started bothering both Garrett and me, and Ellis continued to whine and flap-about over wanting to go to public school. I was officially the man in charge being the oldest, so she seemed to think that if she harassed me I’d eventually give in and let her go to school with me.

  That was obviously not going to happen. High school was my test, my territory to conquer, and having another sibling nosing around my turf just wasn’t happening. There was another high school in Skyland, Kingstone High, that she could go to, and if she really wanted a challenge,

  she could go to the high school in Moros.

  I had school in the morning so I went to sleep early. Nero and Garrett rarely needed more than five hours sleep but I still wanted to get eight in. If I didn’t get enough sleep, Master Silas said I was insufferable, and blamed it on my intelligence taking up more mental energy. He also said that I could train myself to only need five, like my two brothers, but that was something I’d do when I was older. Ellis was like me, she got bitchy if she didn’t sleep enough and there was nothing worse than that.

  It was strange waking up to a house without Master Silas. He was always here when I walked upstairs, usually telling me what he’d ordered for breakfast or pointing to the kitchen to get cereal if we were rushed. Sometimes if I was shadowing him, we’d get drive-thru breakfast which was such a treat.

  I guess I wouldn’t be shadowing for him for quite a while. Or Perish for that matter. I’d been enjoying learning about cloning from Perish. I was supposed to help with creating the new brothers Silas had been working on, and all that work I’d put into baby Lennix…

  What a waste. All because Perish decided to be an asshole. I didn’t like that man, and when I was old enough I was going to put him in his place, for some reason Silas had never been able to.

  I ate breakfast and got dressed into my best clothes. I decided to keep eating the cafeteria food since I know Tiberius would have something to say if I brought my own lunch after yesterday, and got into the black car that would bring me to my second day of school.

  I made sure I had my backpack this time, and soon I was walking into the classroom. I didn’t want to sit where I’d sat yesterday because of Sacario, so I chose a place in the back. Pretty much the same place I’d sat during English 10, except this was a different classroom of course.

  Everyone else filed in, I got a double take from a lady holding a red backpack. I believe she’d sat in this spot yesterday. Too bad for her I could sit any place I please.

  And she seemed to know this too. The lady sat down where I’d been, and distracted herself by pulling out her books and binder.

  I decided to do the same. This class would be much more fun now that I had my supplies and wasn’t distracted with feeling like an idiot.

  I’d just organized the last of my things when I heard the chair scrape beside me, I looked up and glared haughtily when I saw Sacario flop down on the chair with a bag of Skittles.

  He looked over at me and offered me the bag. “Don’t take the yellow ones though. I love the yellow ones.” He looked in the bag. “There’s lots of purple ones though.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, not hiding my annoyance at all. I looked ahead and crossed my arms, watching Professor Cavana as he unpacked his briefcase. What was this man’s problem? Why wouldn’t he leave me alone? This was unbelievable!

  “Okay… you can have a yellow one, I guess. Just one though.” I heard the bag crinkle and glanced over to see him extending his arm. He was wearing his dark hair into long gelled spikes and he was wearing black eyeliner and black leather. This boy was dressed like an absolute freak.

  “I’m fine,” I said again, more sharply this time.

  “You can have all of them if you’re going to pitch that much of a fit.” I heard him shake the contents into his hands and half a minute later his hand extended with four yellow ones.

  Wanting him to just leave me alone, I took the yellow Skittles and popped all four into my mouth. Yellow was not my favourite at all… in truth, purple was.

  Professor Cavana cleared his throat after that and all eyes were in front and focused on him. He began talking about the next radanimal we’d be learning about which was an irradiated bear called an urson. Like before, he asked if anyone had seen the animal, and we listened to a story one of my classmates told about seeing one when he went to visit a brother in a place called Tintown. Once he was done, Cavana told his own story about hunting them for food, but in the end losing it to a pack of ravers. He was a good storyteller; I would tell him someday to write some stories about his experience. I’d love to read them.

  Halfway through the lecture, a folded up piece of paper was tossed onto my desk. We were in the middle of answering questions about what Cavana had just talked about, but honestly, I’d finished five minutes previous and was daydreaming about going urson hunting with my brothers and Silas.

  I glanced over and saw Sacario staring forward with that usual blank nothing-going-on-between-the-ears look. I shook my head, tempted to just toss the note back at him, but curiosity got the best of me.

  Slowly, while glancing up at the teacher to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I unfolded the piece of paper.

  It was… blank.

  I stared at it, before giving Sacario a flat and confused look.

  The man looked back at me, his dark grey eyes unblinking. “I thought my piece of paper may be lonely. Just being thoughtful, giving him some company and all.”

  I slowly turned away from Sacario and just stared at my sheet of answered questions. My mind just blanked over what I should do with that annoying flea of a man. He was absolutely exasperating, and that was putting it nicely. He didn’t respond to normal social cues, he was weird and seemingly deranged, and his humour, if you could call it that, was unorthodox and alarming. I couldn’t stand him! But yet, I had no idea how to handle him either.

  So I just looked at my desk, not knowing what else to do, just knowing that it was going to be a long… terribly long… school year if Sacario was determined to sit beside me. I had two different classes today after lunch, both normal grade seven, and I was praying to the universe that he wasn’t in one of them. The schedule was that every day but Friday’s I had FFS and English 10, but the two classes after lunch alternated: History and Psychology 10 Mondays and Wednesdays, and Business 10 and Introduction to Skytech Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays was complicated since it was Introduction to Skytech, Psychology 10, then in the afternoon Business 10 and History.

  Yeah, it was complicated.

  The class ended and I got up as soon as the bell rang and left as quickly as I could. I couldn’t sta
nd the impatient looks from my classmates, I could still feel their eyes drilling into me.

  I didn’t have anywhere else to be, no one I could hang out with during break, so I just ended up deciding to go to English 10 and start reading The Giver. I arrived and didn’t expect anyone else to be in there, but to my surprise, Professor Britain was there eating half a sandwich and reading a book with a tattered cover.

  He looked up and when he gave me a welcoming smile I was shocked that my heart skipped. That was confusing, I didn’t know what that was… the last time I’d gotten that was when Todd dragged me out for that smoke during the party.

  I smiled back and tried to play it casual, even though my heart was skipping and pattering in my chest. “What are you reading?” I asked. I didn’t want to sit in my seat quite yet since it was in the back of the class, so I sat down on one of the front desks.

  “Oh I’m just reading The Giver, Prince Elish,” Professor Britain said. He glanced at the cover but it was too faded and torn to be able to read. He certainly did have beautiful eyes. “I haven’t read it since last year for my other class and I like to be on top of it in case anyone has any questions. Have you started it yet?”

  Oh shit, I’d totally forgotten about reading that book. I’d barely been able to do the homework that I had yesterday. I’d fallen asleep as soon as I got home and after that… the things with Silas…

  But how can I explain that to him? Royal matters were none of his business and I didn’t want anything negative about my family to get out. Especially with Silas being gone for a week, possibly two.

  “I… sorry I haven’t,” I said embarrassed. “It was rather busy when I got home.”

  Professor Britain nodded understandably. He brushed a black curl away from those beautiful blue eyes, like an ocean during the twilight hours. “You’re a prince, don’t beat yourself up about it. You have a busy life being the Heir of Skyfall. I know as soon as you sit down with it you’ll be done in a day… just like you said.” He winked at me after that and my face flushed like I’d opened up the oven door while it was broiling. Not only that, my heart skipped again – I was beginning to get worried about that visceral reaction. I didn’t like it when my body made me feel emotions that I hadn’t prepared myself to feel. Yet this one seemed to be different… even though it made me uneasy, I liked the feeling. Just like I’d liked it with Todd…

  Except Professor Britain wasn’t going to turn into a total asshole like Todd.

  Of course Todd had turned into an asshole because Professor Britain was being nice to me. But if I had a choice over who I’d want to befriend… I think it would be the professor. I liked the fact that he was mature and quick, not a drooling idiot like Sacario, or an immature little shit like the other assholes in my classes.

  I decided then I was going to become Professor Britain’s friend.

  “What’s your favourite book?” I asked him. “Since you’re an English teacher, you must love reading as much as I do, right?”

  Professor Britain laughed. “Yeah. The greywaster expeditions were always an exciting time during my childhood. Perish would bring boxes of books back from the greywastes and hand them out to the kids at the elementary school. I got hooked on the same one that everyone else in Skyfall did: Harry Potter. I had the third and the fourth but I didn’t want to read them until I got the first one. The day I finally did… well, let’s say I was addicted after that. What about you?”

  He didn’t know it, he had no way of knowing it… but him just saying Harry Potter made my heart hurt. I hadn’t touched that book since… the incident four years ago. That had been the book he’d read to me, it had been our book.

  I swallowed it and forced the emotions that were bubbling up down into that pit where all my other bad memories went. I smiled instead and nodded. “I loved that series too. My favourite is Lord of the Rings. It’s taken me a few reads to understand all of it though.” I perked up, remembering something. “King Silas has even taught me elvish, a language called Quenya. He found a Lord of the Rings book with a guide inside about the basics, many many years ago, and created a little booklet for me.”

  Professor Britain’s eyes lit up. “Really?” He looked absolutely fascinated, and of course, that made my pulse jump like it was a rock being skipped over water. “That’s… incredible. I’m jealous as all hell.”

  He had the most beautiful smile and straight white teeth, lips that were pinker than normal people’s, and his deep blue eyes… the blue looked even more vivid with his thick, yet groomed, eyebrows.

  “I can teach you.”

  I stared at Professor Britain, wondering for a moment just who said that before I realized that it was me. I’d just said that – Why did I just say that? Elish, what’s wrong with you?

  The professor laughed. He glanced over and so did I, and saw several kids start to file in. Almost on cue, the bell rang. “You’re trying to teach the teacher are you?” he asked with a wink. He put the rest of his sandwich back in his bag, preparing for the class that I’d forgotten was about to start, then rose. “I might like that. You’d need to ask King Silas–”

  “He’s… not here right now. He doesn’t care,” I said, once again before I could stop myself. I got up off of the desk, my heart pounding. What was I doing? “He’d be fine with it.”

  More people were walking in. It was getting busy in here and I had to save my spot. I shoved my hands into my pockets and watched the professor’s face, wondering if I’d just made a complete ass out of myself.

  “I think I might take you up on that.” My heart soared as Professor Britain said that, and it took me with it like it was a sailing balloon. “We’ll talk after class.”

  “Okay,” I said, too quickly for me to maintain any type of casual air. I turned around after that and headed to my seat in the back.

  I didn’t even see Todd sitting down several desks behind me until I passed him. My old crush didn’t even look up at me, in fact he was kind of glaring down at his open binder, glaring so hard I thought I’d start seeing smoke rise up off of the pages.

  There certainly was something going on between the two of them. Todd was jealous of me; I might be new to social interactions with people outside of my family but I could tell that.

  Someone I didn’t know, and didn’t care to know, sat beside me and class started. Today was Tuesday and apparently that was spelling. I was already an excellent speller and aced the spelling test he’d given us and all subsequent worksheets he’d handed out. I knew I was going to get an A in this class, that was obvious, but since he added extra credit questions, I was gunning for over 100%.

  Class couldn’t end fast enough. And since lunch was after this class I could sit and talk to Professor Britain as long as I wanted. Maybe he’d want to have lunch with me? Oh I should’ve asked the sengils to pack me one! My fault for wanting to blend in. Dammit.

  The bell finally rang. Finally! But just as I got up I realized that I had a dilemma… they were all waiting for me to leave. I wanted to stay behind though.

  Everyone’s eyes turned to me and I made a motion to rise. But then out of the corner of my eye I saw Todd giving me a glaring look and I decided to be an asshole.

  “I’m staying after class to talk to the professor,” I said, in the most nonchalant, careless manner I could muster. Then I said, “You all may leave.”

  “We may leave,” Tiberius muttered under his breath. It looked like he was saying more, but the sounds of chairs scraping against the linoleum drowned out whatever snarky thing his pea-sized brain was spouting. The meathead had behaved himself today, or perhaps his brain had already reached its quota.

  Whatever it was, he left with the others, leaving me alone once again with Professor Britain. He was packing up his briefcase and when he saw me approach he gave me another one of those beautiful smiles.

  I’d already planned on what to say to him, another thing that had helped pass the time. I decided that since it was me inviting him, it would
be proper for me to make the plan and the place. He wouldn’t want to invite himself to Alegria, and would never think of inviting me to a place that I wasn’t familiar with.

  So I would take control. I was a prince after all.

  And I kinda wanted to show him off to my brothers and sister.

  “Saturday at five,” I said to him. I put my hands behind my back and made myself look as tall and as adult as I could. “You’ll stay for dinner with me and my siblings and after we can start our class. I can arrange for a car to pick you up and return you.”

  I caught a flicker of bewilderment from him. I think he was taken aback by my forwardness, but he got over it quickly. The smile turned into a half-smile, the corner of his lip making his left eye squint. I promised myself I’d make him smile like that again – maybe on Saturday.

  “I live near the ocean; a vehicle would be helpful. You’re on, Prince.” Professor Britain wrote down his address on a green Post-it note and handed it to me. “Saturday at five.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. I realized he looked nervous.

  I was impressed when he made no move to hide this apprehension from me. “I must admit; it’s quite terrifying going to the Prince of Skyfall’s house. I’ve only seen you on television and Stadium and now in the course of two days I’m being invited over for dinner and lessons.” He laughed nervously and ran a finger through his crinkly curly black hair. “Fate is interesting, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I said, hoping I wasn’t staring because I couldn’t take my eyes off of his face, his movements. It was Todd all over again but I was smitten with his personality, not just his charisma like with Todd. Anyway, I was younger when I began crushing on Todd, just an idiot, I knew what I was feeling now.

  Oh fuck it, no I didn’t. I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew I was going to pursue it.

  Not just because I wanted to, but because I wanted to give a big fuck you to Todd for being an asshole. I’d spent months pining over him and daydreaming about becoming his boyfriend, and he treats me like this because Professor Britain liked me? Fuck him. I could have whoever I wanted, when I wanted, and I was going to let that glaring little asshole know it.