The Glass Wall (Return of the Ancients Book 1)

by Madison Adler

  The Glass Wall - Book One

  The Glass Wall

  By

  Madison Adler

  Bento Box Books - First Edition

  Published By

  Bento Box Books

  Edited By

  Grace Benson

  Copyright © 2011 by Madison Adler

  ISBN: 978-0-9835240-1-4

  Bento Box Books Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and didn’t purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to MyBentoBoxBooks.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  This book is dedicated to the wonderful kids in my life.

  I love you all.

  To Jasmine - For your gentle, justice-loving soul and for being my biggest fan

  To Hanna - For your creative “twisted” streak and your wonderful heart

  To Hunter - For your thoughtful enthusiasm and chivalry

  To Kailyn - For your incredible imagination, clever mind, and for being my secret buddy

  To Kian - For being “Epically Awesome” and for your sarcastic wit

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 01…..The Neighbors

  Chapter 02…..A Weird Coincidence or Two

  Chapter 03…..Jerry

  Chapter 04…..The Stealth-Twig

  Chapter 05…..Halloween

  Chapter 06…..What Are They?

  Chapter 07…..Jareth Doesn’t Exist!

  Chapter 08…..Caught!

  Chapter 09…..Bean There, Baked That

  Chapter 10.….The Concert

  Chapter 11.…First Day on the Job

  Chapter 12.….Iron

  Chapter 13…..Aliens and Tinfoil

  Chapter 14…..The Red Tube

  Chapter 15…..More Hints

  Chapter 16…..Tinkerbell

  Chapter 17…..Thanksgiving

  Chapter 18…..The Tulpa

  Chapter 19…..Avalon

  Chapter 20…..Imprisoned

  Chapter 21…..Raven

  Chapter 22…..The Stair

  Chapter 23…..The Glass Wall

  Chapter 24…..Home

  The Glass Wall

  Chapter One - The Neighbors

  I flipped my cell phone shut.

  I’d just told Maya, my mother, goodbye.

  Again.

  It was her fifth stint in rehab. I felt sorry for her. I knew she tried her best.

  The social worker sent me a sympathetic smile as she zipped along Mercer Island Parkway. Through glimpses between the evergreen trees, I could see flashes of Lake Washington as our car whizzed by. I wished she’d just keep her eyes on the winding road. She was a wild driver, weaving through bikers in spandex outfits and dodging incoming traffic at top speed.

  I was seasick.

  “Mercer Island is a nice place,” the woman repeated for the tenth time. “You’ll love it here. It’s always green in Washington State.”

  Her name was Neelu.

  Neelu was a chubby woman in her fifties, with hair dyed a most unnatural Clairol red. She wore traditional Indian attire and sported an armful of gold bangles that continually buried her watch. Shaking them aside, she glanced at the time once again. “We’ll have to hurry, Sydney. I only have ten minutes.”

  She zoomed past a park and a surrounding greenbelt of trees before finally turning onto a tiny side street. With a sigh of relief, she stopped in front of the most obnoxious, blue-painted rambler I’d ever seen. There was a bright yellow Ford pickup truck with oversized wheels parked in the driveway.

  I couldn’t get over the blue house. Who would paint their house neon blue? I wondered if the occupants were color-blind.

  I glanced around.

  It wasn’t a poor neighborhood, but it certainly wasn’t a wealthy one either. There were two houses across the street. The first was a little rundown but an average two-story home with minimal landscaping. In the front yard there was a for sale sign with the word “sold” plastered proudly over the smiling face of the realtor.

  The second house rivaled the blue rambler in gaudiness. It was an ancient-looking Victorian house, painted a fading pink. The yard hosted a menagerie of lawn ornaments. Crammed in every conceivable corner were garden trolls, dwarves, deer (including Rudolph), pink flamingos, at least four different birdbaths, and even a replica of the famous Dutch peeing boy, Manneken Pis.

  Neelu sprang out of the car and clicked up the sidewalk in her heels to the blue house. “We have to make this quick, Sydney. Hop out!”

  I slammed the car door shut and shouldered my backpack.

  The social worker was already knocking on the door, frantically motioning for me to follow. “Come on, Sydney,” she called louder. “I’ve got another appointment!”

  As I stepped onto the creaking porch, the door opened.

  “Sorry, Neelu,” a mousy brown-haired woman apologized as she beckoned us inside. “I had to place another bid.”

  “Sydney, this is Betty. Betty, meet Sydney,” Neelu said, introducing us.

  I shook my new foster mother’s hand.

  Betty was hard to describe. I could really see nothing unique about her. Her hair was medium length, and she was of average height and build. She could have been almost any age. Her face reminded me of at least a dozen others. She was one of those people who could pull off the perfect crime; no witness would ever remember what she looked like.

  “Glad you’re finally here, Sydney,” Betty said, shaking my hand heartily in return. She glanced over her shoulder to the computer on the other side of the living room. “Got to go, Neelu, the cat toilet trainers are ending in five minutes. I can’t miss them this time!”

  With a friendly smile, she picked her way over a sea of boxes littering the floor.

  “Betty runs an Ebay business,” Neelu explained.

  “I’m an Ebay reseller,” Betty said, waving her hand as she settled into the white plastic chair in front of her computer. “Make yourself at home, Sydney. I’ll call Grace to show you to your room. Grace! Grace!”

  After a moment, the back door banged open. A tall girl appeared, dressed in red sweats and carrying a lacrosse stick in one hand. Her black hair was even darker than mine, and she’d pulled it back in such a severe ponytail that I found myself wincing on her behalf. She was big and muscular, and she looked mean.

  “Hi,” she said curtly, watching me closely with her jet-black eyes.

  I nodded warily.

  Neelu had already told me that my new foster parents had a daughter my age, almost eighteen. This girl looked at least twenty.

  “Good, then,” Neelu said, smiling in relief as she patted me on the shoulder. “You have my number. Call me anytime.”

  With that, she was gone.

  “I got them!” Betty leapt up from the chair and did a little dance.

  It looked strikingly like the “Chicken Dance”, but I doubt that was her intention.

  “Come on,” Grace said, nodding toward the hall with her chin. “Your room is this way.”

  “Carry her things, honey.” Betty quit dancing to smile at me and asked, “Is your luggage on the porch?”

  “I just have this,” I said, jiggling my backpack a little.

  “I can carry it,” the girl offered. She reached as if to pluck it off my back.

  “Don’t touch my things!” I snapped. My hands clenched the s
traps possessively.

  They both blinked, a little startled at my aggressiveness, but I couldn’t let them see what was in there.

  “Your things are safe here, honey,” Betty said, recovering first. Waving at us, she turned back to the computer and began to cackle about the next item on the screen.

  Grace stalked down the hall, and I followed her, wondering if I’d just made an enemy.

  She gave me a quick tour of the house on the way to my room.

  Betty reserved the living room for her Ebay business and it contained her computer, a printer, and several tables overflowing with bubble wrap and cardboard boxes. Off to the side there was a family room with shaggy brown carpet, a shimmery gold couch, and an old TV. The kitchen was light yellow with vinyl tile and décor from the sixties. A giant wooden spoon and fork hung on the wall. There were four, square bedrooms, the last one down the hall had been converted into a storage room for Betty’s business.

  My new room was simple but nice. I had a bed with a fuzzy tiger print blanket, an oak dresser and matching nightstand, and a rug shaped like a sunflower. Everything was clean and smelled of lemon furniture polish. A window, with yellow curtains, looked out onto a greenbelt of trees behind the house.

  I peered into the large mirror hanging above the dresser.

  I looked tired. My black hair hung limply over my shoulders and there were dark smudges under my green eyes. I looked just like Maya. It was hard seeing a younger version of her face staring back at me, so I turned away and set my backpack gingerly on the bed.

  “Where is your mother?” Grace asked bluntly from her position at the door.

  “In rehab,” I said shortly.

  “Father?” she asked, leaning on her lacrosse stick like a crutch.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Never met him.”

  Grace grunted in reply. It was a bored sound. “Dinner is in an hour,” she said, and then left.

  A few seconds later, I heard the back door bang again, and I looked out the window to see her playing wall ball against the side of what looked like a small shed.

  She’d only caught three balls before sounds of squawking erupted and Betty yelled from the living room, “Not the chicken coop, Grace!”

  I blinked.

  Chickens?

  Who had chickens in the middle of a city?

  Granted, Mercer Island didn’t look like a city. I was surrounded by trees, but I knew that the island was in the middle of a small lake, with skyscrapers from Seattle on one side and skyscrapers from the city of Bellevue on the other.

  I watched as the weirdest chickens I’d ever seen ran around the corner of the shed. They had big mops of feathers on their heads that covered their eyes. They obviously couldn’t see where they were going. And as if to demonstrate this, one of them ran straight into Grace’s leg.

  Grumbling, Grace began playing wall ball against the chimney instead of the chicken coop, and I turned my attention back to my backpack.

  I unzipped it with care and carefully removed an empty paper towel roll. A series of air holes peppered the cardboard and duct tape securely covered both ends. I peeled the tape away from one end and found myself greeted by a tiny, sniffing nose.

  “Hi, Jerry,” I said, my lips splitting into the silly grin that only he could summon.

  Jerry was nothing extraordinary. He was just a plain, gray mouse. I’d rescued him from a cat the year before and had smuggled him with me wherever I went. He was quite adaptable, living in boxes, drawers, and even my backpack whenever necessary.

  I fed him a few sunflower seeds and let him crawl on the bed, spooning myself around him so he couldn’t escape.

  I yawned. It had been a long day, so I spent my time on the bed playing with Jerry until Betty called me for dinner. After looking around a bit, I found an empty box under the bed and made Jerry a makeshift home. I bunched an old sweater of mine into one corner of it for a bed. He loved chewing holes in that sweater. I’d have to give him a new one to munch on soon. This one was mostly tatters.

  We had just finished setting the dinner table when my new foster father arrived.

  Neelu had said his name was Al and he strode into the kitchen dressed in fatigues. He was very tall and very bald. His eyes were bright blue and his brows seemed stuck in a perpetual frown.

  “You must be Sydney!” he barked.

  I nodded cautiously.

  He unlaced his army boots, shoved them in the closet, and sat at the table.

  “It’ll do Grace some good to have another girl around here,” he said. “She’ll be happy to have a friend.”

  I rather doubted that. From what I could tell, Grace and I didn’t have much in common.

  “Yes!” Betty shouted from the living room. “I got them!”

  “Time to stop working, Mom,” Grace mumbled through a mouthful of toast.

  We were having eggs, ham, and toast for dinner. With all the chickens in the backyard, I figured we would be eating eggs every day. There was a huge bowl of them on the counter next to a half dozen plastic cartons.

  “I’ll take Sydney shopping tomorrow for school supplies,” Betty said as she came into the kitchen and stretched. “Looks like she could use a few things.”

  My eyes narrowed, and I felt a twinge of suspicion. Was the woman implying something? Was she trying to be my friend? I’d met lots of those types over the years, the ones who enjoy bragging about their good deeds to anyone who will listen.

  “UPS is here!” Grace announced, crunching on another piece of toast.

  They all stood up, scrambling for their shoes.

  “Come on, Sydney.” Al ordered. “We all help with the UPS.”

  I followed them to the driveway where the UPS man was already unloading a mound of packages.

  It took quite some time for Grace and me to lug all of the boxes inside while Betty chattered with the driver and Al signed with the digital pen. I wondered how that qualified as “help” but didn’t say anything, of course. I didn’t know these people.

  I’d just picked up my last box when a deep rumble of an engine caught my attention.

  A large van with “Bob the Mover” printed on the side, lumbered down the street. It stopped in front of the house with the Sold sign, next door to the one with the cement zoo.

  “Oh, look, Al,” Betty said. “Our new neighbors are here.”

  We watched as two men in coveralls jumped out of the cab and began to unload a mass of modern furniture.

  “I love that couch,” Betty murmured, almost drooling.

  “Expensive stuff,” Al observed, folding his arms. “It’s all new. We’ll have to keep an eye on them.”

  “Don’t be so suspicious!” Betty shook her head with a little laugh and slipped her arm through his. “Heading the neighborhood crime watch has really gone to your head, honey.”

  “Just saying it don’t match the house, too expensive,” Al muttered.

  “Doesn’t, dear,” she corrected. “It doesn’t match the house.”

  “It’s suspicious,” Al insisted.

  “I’m going to shoot some hoops…” Grace began, but she fell silent as a shiny black sports car swerved around the corner.

  I’m not a car person, but even I could tell it was outrageously expensive.

  “That’s a Bentley.” Al gave a low whistle. “That car is worth more than the house!”

  It certainly looked it. As the sleek car slowed in front of us, the driver’s dark window rolled down.

  I only got a glimpse of him as he passed, waving a long-fingered hand in greeting, but it was enough that both Grace and I found our jaws dropping.

  His shoulder-length blond hair was styled in a fashion straight out of a Japanese anime book. Designer sunglasses covered his eyes. His nose was long and straight, and his jaw firm. He wore a black muscle T-shirt that did a superb job of highlighting his athletic physique to the fullest.

  Even Betty watched as he exited the car with the grace of a cat.

  I found myse
lf agreeing with Al. There was something very suspicious about this new neighbor. He didn’t look like the type who lived in rundown houses. He stood out in this neighborhood like a sore thumb.

  “Time to work, girls,” Betty ordered cheerfully.

  I followed her inside.

  Al stayed outside to wax his truck, but even I knew it was really to keep an eye on the new neighbor. Grace wanted to ‘help’ him, but he sent her into the house to unpack Betty’s boxes.

  “We should introduce ourselves to the new neighbor,” Grace said, tossing me a utility knife.

  I caught it and opened my box. It was filled with “Hook, Line, and Stinker” fishing games that you were supposed to play while sitting on the toilet.

  “Or we could give him some eggs,” Grace continued with a goofy smile on her face.

  “He probably doesn’t cook,” I said. No, he reminded me of the kind that blended every meal in a Vitamix while lifting weights.

  My next box contained boot and glove dryers.

  Grace had a case of little machines that spread butter on toast.

  “What do you think he eats?” Grace wondered, gazing into the distance.

  At the moment, I was more fascinated with the odd selection of items we were unpacking than strange blond neighbors. “What do you do with all this stuff?” I asked. I giggled a little as I held up a piggy bank shaped like a butt. It was called a “Fanny Bank”.

  “These are for gift baskets,” Betty explained. She surveyed her purchases with a pleased expression and then shook her head. “I missed the Snuggie craze. I could have bought cases of them before they turned viral!”

  “Mom, videos go viral, not Snuggies,” Grace growled, obviously a little embarrassed by her mom. Resuming her dreamy expression, she murmured, “We could make him some cookies.”