Even though I had plenty of time before the first bell would ring, I needed to account for the extra time to get to our new room. I ran up the stairs to the second floor of the Green House. There weren’t many differences to our residence. Still the same bland paint. Another simple layout of two-per-room and a community space. And Marcy was still my and Paige’s dorm supe. Seemed they got someone new for the freshman class and the petite blonde decided to shift to watching over the sophomore level.
Fifteen minutes later, I was showered, dressed, and collecting my tablet from my desk drawer.
Paige came from the bathroom and grabbed her messenger bag—already packed from the night before. She gave me a careful onceover, her indigo-lidded eyes narrowing slightly.
“What?”
“Just…”
“What?”
She raised her hands in surrender. “Nothing. Nothing.”
Nothing was right. I had my uniform on—crap—now I had my shirt tucked in, and I had my essentials for classes in my bag. Last year I hadn’t been too concerned on dolling myself up. This year wouldn’t be any different. I was here to learn. That and find my buddy. “Come on,” I said instead of defending myself from makeup and a hairdo that would be predestined to fail within an hour.
We chatted about the highlights of Michigan’s UP on the walk to class. With the several mentions of archaic Wi-Fi at her grandparents’ farm in the middle of the countryside, I gathered highlights were few and far between.
“I mean, if they had a library anywhere near them.” Scoff. “Heck, if there was even a town anywhere near, I would have just walked and got a bunch of paperbacks. Not joking, Layla. I knew what I was getting into. I loaded so many titles on my ereader.” She slashed her hand through the air. “I read ’em all the first week. So I started ordering some online—when I could actually get the browser to work. Then Mom got on my case about spending too much on our joint Prime account. I mean, it was brutal. At least I still got your emails when I used Mom’s phone as a hotspot. Of course, her phone works anywhere.”
“Newer model?”
She shook her head. “Nah. The Academy doesn’t skimp on tech for the faculty. She’s got the good stuff. Gotta stay up to date with the prep for the next year.”
I almost smiled. If Ethel needed to be appraised of Academy business, it was a sure sign my friend was snooping too.
“She had to spend a few hours shifting things around for Sabine.”
I took hold of her elbow and slowed her to a stop. We were almost at the Main Hall for first class. The tall walls blocked out the still gaining sunlight and we stood in the cooler shade on the sidewalk. “Sabine?”
“Yeah. You know, your annoying sister? Who was an idiot enough to fall into the water during finals…”
Yeah, my annoying sister who had gone radio silent on me all summer, after I only saved her life. Then again, I’d heard that Bernie was a, um, strict dorm supe.
“She’s staying?” I reared back and my jaw dropped. “She passed summer school?”
She nodded.
Wow. I didn’t know she had it in her. She must have really wanted to stay out of Coltin. Not that I could blame her. Yet, a couple of times over break, I’d wondered if the fall and fight in the water could have traumatized her, frightened her from wanting to stay here. Maybe if she was a fraction nicer to me, like she had been in the medical clinic after the incident, she could have chatted with me about it. But, no. Sabine wasn’t the kind of person to change like that. She’d had no desire to have me in her life before Olde Earth, and it seemed she wanted to remain distant from me.
Paige smirked and tilted her head to urge me to continue walking. “Mom says Glorian found an upperclassman to help tutor her.”
Aha. “Let me guess.”
“Tall, dark, and handsome must have rejuvenated her brain.”
Well, sometimes the sky’s the limit with the right incentive. I barely had enough time to absorb the news of Sabine being here somewhere again. There wasn’t enough of a moment to truly decide how I felt about it. Even though the elven medicine erased any possible scar I could have from the sea monster’s talons, the memory lurked some nights in bad dreams. I’d never forget. And it was Sabine’s fault I’d even gotten in that water. Part of me wanted to remain furious at her. Another part whispered the need for caution—hers and mine.
Paige took my silence as a hint to continue. “I guess the Head Gs assumed she wasn’t going to pass summer school and hadn’t accounted for her in the sophomore dorms. Mom had to help with the scheduling and whatnot as well. That’s the only way I know she’s going to be a sophomore. You didn’t know?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t see her once.” Then again, I hadn’t seen much of anyone. Flynn and Marcy for the rides to and from work, and Otis at the stables. My people-less break was refreshing, and not running into Sabine on campus was just a bonus.
Paige shrugged before she shouldered open the wide, wooden double doors to Main Hall. Like stepping through a portal of dimensions, we went from the dawning cool morning of fresh air and dew wetting our shoes to the darker, stone-caved interior of the academic corridor. Spotless oriental runners welcomed us and I grimaced at the leaves clinging to my shoes. Everything was always so spotless. Untainted. Too clean.
“We’ll be sure to see more of her, though. I bet we will. If they’re assuming you guys might show the same powers, they’ll stick you in the same courses.”
Sabine? Power? I nearly laughed out loud as Paige led the way through the throng of uniform-clad students in the hallway. If the Academy assumed I had mammal abilities—or that I would have mammal powers—then it’d make sense for them to estimate my twin would have the same.
Only, Sabine hated fur. She loathed animals. My sister made fun of me for being such a fan of creatures. It was unfathomable for her to have some bond to animals. Unless she’ll gain her powers on her elven date…
“Hey, Layla. Paige.”
I turned at the sound of Lorcan’s voice in the crowd. He was jogging up to us, his red hair longer and bouncing with his gait. Twisting and dodging students who were mingling in the scholarly hallway, he approached us.
“Hi, Lorcan!” Paige reached over for a hug. His smile had yet to dim and he faced me while he hugged her and flicked his hand in a wave. “You guys have a good summer?”
Paige snorted. “Oh, sure. Because being down on the farm is always so exciting…” She gagged for a second before grinning again.
“It was…busy,” I admitted. It had been a hectic couple of months. Otis kept me preoccupied enough that I’d lost chances to attempt sneaking into the Menagerie again.
“That’s right,” Lorcan said and gripped his messenger bag strap with both hands. “You and Flynn were working here. He emailed me a couple of times.”
Oh? I was stupidly curious what he might have said about me.
Before I could reply, Paige leaned between us and pointed down the hall at a cluster of sophomore boys. “I’m gonna go say hi to a certain someone before class starts.”
Lorcan studied me for a moment and a blush just nearly crept up my neck. At least he was stuck staring at my face, not my legs or other parts of my body. Does this self-consciousness fade over time or does having boobs just make it worse for all eternity? I crossed my arms regardless. He blinked after not finding whatever he must have been searching my face for and quickly smiled.
“I think we’re in the same homeroom. Wanna walk with me?”
I shrugged and smiled. “Sure.” Still, I looked past his shoulder for Flynn. Where was he? He’d said the night before that he and I had almost the exact same schedule.
“So…” His voice lacked the casual happiness I knew him for.
“So… How was your break?”
Flynn had mentioned Lorcan had returned to Australia, back home with his parents.
He sighed. “Interesting.”
We came to the door for our first room and he followed me inside. No
t many students loitered here yet, so we claimed two seats next to each other in the back of the room. Not my usual turf. But this was homeroom. It wasn’t like it was a lecture or anything. I could forsake my preference of being close to the teacher for Lorcan’s clear need to chat in private.
“Good interesting?” I asked as I sat and maneuvered my bag to the floor.
“I…I don’t know.” He didn’t take his bag from his shoulders, sitting forward, his forearms on his desk and his hands folded together. Slanting toward me, it struck me almost as a serious we-need-to-talk pose. “I had to go with my dad on some business trips. Mom was too busy to spend time with me. But he started to…uh, explain some things to me.”
“About?”
“My brother, Stu. This…” He slanted his brows and surveyed the classroom. After he released his hands, he waved one around. “This place.”
“Mr. Williams’s homeroom?”
He shot me a come on smirk.
The Academy. Huh. Lorcan Wright was one of the traditional families. An established elven lineage. At least, that was what I’d gathered by his statements. Lorcan had told us that everyone in his family came to Olde Earth, so he hadn’t been shocked when he’d been shipped to campus. Yet, he had sported an air of naivety last year, like he wasn’t up-to-date on Olde Earth secrets and missions. I’d almost thought he was an outsider, like me and Flynn.
“I thought my folks just wanted to stay loyal to their alma mater. You know? Like continuing the school’s legacy for science geeks like them by sending their science geeky kids here?” He huffed and leaned closer. “I never knew… I never would have even believed that this place is for…”
After I glanced around to gauge how far away everyone was from us, I raised my brows and nodded. “Me neither.”
“You know?”
That Olde Earth was the only school for elves? That was just the tip of the iceberg of astonishing know-how on my radar. Again, I nodded.
He reared back and exhaled a rushed whoosh of air. “Wow. But you’re not a… You’re not from a…”
“‘Traditional family.’ Yeah. I know.”
“Then how—”
Paige came into the room, giggling loud as she hung on to Jonas’s elbow.
I did a double-take. Jonas? She said she was emailing Marcus all summer. Seems like we’ll have plenty of drama this year…
Lorcan looked at me again with a growing grin. “Ah… Paige. She’s a wealth of information, isn’t she?”
I nodded. The less I actually said, the less I’d have to feel guilty about. Or scared about. For as hush-hush as this school was, I got the point. I wasn’t one of them, that they knew of. Plus, I couldn’t dismiss the warning from Ethel, to remain as mum as possible about my powers.
“It just…” He shook his head and then squinted at me. “Seems so far-fetched. I get it. I do now. Dad explained as much as he could. A few months after my birthday and I might be ‘connected’ with birds.” A scoff laced his lingering disbelief.
Birds? Hmm. I couldn’t help but think of the black crow. That inky bird that had followed me last year, the one that guided me in the water to find Sabine and the sea monster. I hadn’t seen it all break.
Mr. Williams entered the room. At least I guessed the tall, gray-haired man in a tweed sports jacket was the instructor. Lorcan had plenty to chat about, but our time was running short.
“What did you mean about your brother? You said you learned something interesting about your brother too.”
I’d never met the guy, but his name had stuck ever since Flynn and I overheard Ren and some other traditional students chatting in their secret meetings.
“Stu was some kind of rare freak of nature, I guess. Dad wouldn’t tell me everything, and what he did say was vague.”
More and more seats were taken around us. Lorcan shifted to lean toward me and I pivoted to close in our bubble. My knees pushed against his and I ducked closer.
“But he hit his date thing, or whatever, and he had all kinds of… I don’t, abilities.”
What kind? Like talking to birds? Interacting with them? I was used to what I could do. But with Flynn’s comment last night, about the potential for more powers, I was on edge. If I was going to have some upgrade to my crazy life, I wanted an idea of what was coming!
“He went…rogue. That’s the best way to say it. He got his powers, and he got cocky about it. Not many in his class were that advanced, so he rebelled and didn’t listen to his teachers—”
“Another minute, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Williams announced at the head of the room.
“Rebelled how?” I asked.
Lorcan twisted his lips in a heck if I know smile. His ignorance relieved me. He wasn’t almighty and knowledgeable like other older families and I was at ease with it. He was still Lorcan. Not some conduit of elfish greatness.
“He didn’t follow orders. I guess they give you tests later, to see how powerful you are. He ignored them. Glorian, or maybe it was Suthering. One of them ultimately expelled him for screwing up a field exercise when he’d tried to push his powers too far.”
Push his powers too far. How? I frowned, letting that sink in. I could command animals and ancient species. If I wanted to push my power too far, what could I do? Tell a cat-lizard to cough up a hairball on someone? My breath stilled in my lungs at this thought.
Why not? I frowned in thought. Well, they wouldn’t have hairballs, would they, if they have scales and not fur— Not the point…
I didn’t want to. And it had never occurred to me to use an animal for my own gain or ulterior motive. All my life, I’d silently commanded animals to calm down. To leave me alone. To coax dogs to let me feed them antibiotics. To reassure a longma to trust me so I could aid it.
Yet, it was possible. Power could be used for the better or for the worse.
Perhaps Stu had pushed birds to…attack? Something bad enough for Glorian to kick him out?
“I gotta tell you,” Lorcan whispered now, as Mr. Williams started introductions and students’ chats faded. “I’m a little scared to know what’s coming.”
Faced with the possibility that others with unique abilities could be coming at me, rather than adapting to them with me, I could only nod.
Chapter Six
Instead of being surprised at the returning faces behind instructor podiums, I was comforted. Many of my teachers were repeats from last year. Mr. Alwin for Botany. Mr. Chan heading up Biology, still with the awful coffee breath. Mr. Souza in Latin again… The biggest change of my schedule was the addition of Zoology. It was a topic I was admittedly dorkish about to begin with. Yet my enthusiasm waned when we met the instructor in the period just before lunch.
Ms. Bateson was a shock. Her English accent wasn’t impossible to understand, but at times, like when a student asked for clarification, she’d drop even further into this brogue-ish dialect—almost on purpose to mock us, daring us to say huh? again. As much as her speech could hint at die-hard Irish, she held her tall, slim frame elegantly, her nose turned up in a pose that screamed snobby London. Miranda Priestly could only hope to have as much backbone as our new Zoology instructor.
Like all the other syllabi and explained expectations from all my teachers, Ms. Bateson was going to be a slave-driver. Nothing out of the ordinary with that. Olde Earth was simply that kind of a demanding school.
Challenge accepted. I managed last year. Suthering even called me a stellar student. I wasn’t about to get cocky, though. Lots of hard work awaited me. I scrolled through Bateson’s syllabus on my tablet again, excitement gaining at the topics and lessons we’d cover.
“Finally, I catch up to you,” Flynn said as he took the seat across from me in the cafeteria. Students entered in a steady flow behind him.
I smiled at his greeting. We’d hardly had a chance to chat, privately at least. He’d shown up tardy to homeroom—overslept and Lorcan figured he’d get up on time—and then in the hallways between classes, Lorcan or Paig
e had walked with us.
“I’m a fast girl.”
He quirked a brow at me and my neck burned. Any second my ears and cheeks would turn red.
“I meant running. I run. So I’m fast…”
His smile was too slow and knowing for my liking.
“Oh, just never mind.”
He sobered immediately and glanced around. “Before anyone else comes over, I wanted to know what you thought of what Paige told us last night. About our dates.”
We’d abruptly dropped the topic of elven powers and our elven dates. Too busy with dinner and then my birthday gift, there wasn’t a good opening to return to that tricky subject.
I nodded. “Has Lorcan told you about his brother and…”
He sighed and nodded in reply. “Yeah, last night. He was late flying in, but he managed to bring his stuff up to our new room. We talked after our picnic.”
I told him that we’d met up on the way in the morning.
“Rare freak of nature.” I drummed my fingertips on the lunch table. “That’s what he called Stu.”
“You think that’s what we are?” He ducked lower to be at my eye level, crowding closer to me as the roar of too many conversations filled the room.
“He didn’t say anything about Stu having his powers his whole life. Just that they were abnormally overwhelming after his date.”
Flynn shrugged one shoulder. “But maybe he did. And then he’s here, where others can challenge him about those powers…”
It was a valid point. “I wonder if we could ask if others have ever had their powers before their dates.”
He shook his head and brushed some of his chestnut hair off his forehead, gripping it as he hunkered toward the table. “No. Layla, we promised to keep it between us.”
“Yeah. I know.” And I sensed his urgency to keep it a secret was because of how hard and impossible it was to discuss it out in the real world. He’d suffered just as I had for being different. At Olde Earth, it wouldn’t be an absurdity to mention our kinds of special abilities—it’d be welcomed or expected. “But—”
“Please, Layla? Don’t.”
Discovery: Olde Earth Academy: Year Two Page 5
