The Glass Wall (Return of the Ancients Book 1) (11 page)

“A trade? Surely, you are taught a trade at school?” Rafael asked curiously.

Didn’t they know what we were taught in high school? Warning bells were going off in my head, but then I felt a wave of shame. They had just rescued me and I was more than a little grateful for that. I was also just too mentally exhausted to analyze or investigate anything right now, so I just mumbled, “Not yet. And I usually don’t stay in a foster home for more than six months, anyway. It’s kind of hard to keep a job, even if I could find one that would only let me work after school.”

Harmony nodded and then yawned as if she were extremely bored.

Rafael sent her a displeased look before he picked up the third cup and handed it to me. “Hot chocolate. Drink some. It will help calm your nerves. I can’t take you home to Betty looking so upset. She’ll wonder what happened.”

I clutched the hot drink. “Aren’t … you going to tell her I was shoplifting?” I asked, looking him directly in the eye.

“You didn’t, though you tried.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I paid for it before you left the electronics department. I imagine even before you put it in your backpack.”

I scowled, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do. I was dangerously close to sniveling again. “Why?”

“You have enough troubles. Why add more?” he asked, stirring his drink before taking a sip.

Troubles? I wasn’t sure what he was referring to, but it sounded ominous.

“Look, here is a job ad.” Harmony interrupted, thrusting a flyer under my nose. “This place needs a part-time worker. You should apply.”

I took the flyer without reading it and stuffed it in my backpack. I was too frazzled. I sipped the hot chocolate and gagged a little, reaching for the Equal myself. The chocolate was bitter and definitely needed sweetening.

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling the need to apologize once more. “I won’t do it again. I really owe you both for helping me out tonight.”

“Then please take this,” Rafael said, placing the plastic bag on the table. “You can pay me back later, if it makes it easier for you. It’s Betty’s birthday, after all.”

“You seem to know an awful lot,” I murmured, wondering for the first time how he’d known that I had shoplifted. I hadn’t seen him there. My nose was dripping, so I reached into my pocket and pulled the napkin out. Several fairy runes fell out on the table and floor.

“What’s this?” Harmony sat bolt upright. She grabbed one and held it out in astonishment before turning to glare at Rafael.

His face didn’t betray any emotion as he steadily met her gaze.

“I’m not sure…” I trailed off. “I think some kid dropped them on Halloween. They are all over the yard.”

“They are?” Harmony asked in soft, clipped tones. Her eyes still locked with Rafael’s.

It was obvious they knew what the fairy runes were, and I couldn’t suppress a shiver. Harmony was angry and Rafael apparently defensive. There could be little doubt that he was involved somehow. I wondered briefly if it had to do with Jareth and pretty much figured that it did.

When neither one spoke, I cleared my throat and added, “Yeah. I thought they were pretty. I kind of stuck a few in my pocket…”

“You should carry them with you at all times,” Rafael said, still looking at Harmony.

At that, Harmony slammed her fist on the table. The fairy rune bounced onto the floor. Abruptly, she stood up. “We should be going. It’s late, and Rafael has to study.”

“Study?” I asked, rising to my feet. I turned to look at him. “Are you in college?”

“Yes.” He nodded curtly.

They were obviously angry at each other, and I felt bad because I figured that somehow I was the cause—probably in more ways than one. Trying to break the tension, I politely asked, “What are you studying?”

“Medicine,” he replied shortly. He picked up the bag with the mouse in it.

At that, I snorted in surprise. I couldn’t imagine Rafael as a doctor. I’d expected him to say Theater or Ballet or something. I had a brief, humorous vision of him operating with blue eye shadow and wearing feathers in his long blond hair while dancing around with the forceps, but then I became aware of the bag in my fingers and glanced down. I opened my mouth to protest.

“Please.” Rafael looked into my eyes and laid a long finger on my lips. “Allow me to rescue a damsel in distress, if only just this once.”

Harmony sniffed and rolled her eyes.

His words sounded so corny and straight out of a medieval novel, but they made me want to cry. Ducking my head, I followed them out of the coffee shop. We walked through the rain in silence to the parking lot.

It wasn’t even time for dinner yet, and it was already dark.

Ajax, sitting in the front passenger seat of the sports car, let out a bark and began to wag in greeting.

Harmony slipped into the back seat of the car, and I prepared to do the same, but Rafael frowned.

“Ajax, get in the back,” he ordered, sliding into the driver’s seat.

The Doberman looked at me and wagged his stub of a tail once before glancing back at Rafael.

“I can sit in the back,” I volunteered.

“Now, Ajax!” Rafael lifted a brow.

Ajax flattened his ears and jumped to the back, but not before briefly turning my direction and lifting his lip in a vicious sneer.

I stared, shocked at the dog’s nasty expression and knowing that I wasn’t imagining it.

“Get in, Sydney,” Harmony ordered from the back.

Quickly, I obeyed.

It was a fancy car. Black leather covered the entire interior, even the door handles. It must have cost a fortune. If I hadn’t had such a lousy evening, the short ride home would have been fun. As it was, I was glad when Rafael pulled up the driveway, and I got out of the car.

“Thank you,” I said to them both, bending back down to see them better. I jiggled the plastic bag. “I promise I’ll pay you back. Soon.”

Rafael nodded and smiled. “Please tell Betty that we also wish her a happy birthday.”

Harmony bared her teeth in what appeared to be a smile and Ajax showed his teeth as well, but his looked like anything but a smile. I closed the door. I couldn’t tell if Harmony was mad at me or Rafael, or maybe at us both. I didn’t know what I had done to upset the Doberman. Despite what Rafael had said, that dog was the opposite of friendly.

It was pouring, so I ran to the porch before turning to wave as they backed out of the driveway. I shivered, not altogether because I was wet and cold, but then Al opened the front door for me, and I went inside.

“Rafael gave you a ride home?” Grace asked as I sloshed into the kitchen.

“Yeah,” I answered warily. She was acting stiff, almost angry.

“I wonder why he did that.” She frowned.

I didn’t have a chance to respond as Al came into the kitchen with Betty’s birthday cake. We put candles on it as Betty shut down her computer in the living room for the night and by the time she walked into the kitchen, we had them lit and were all singing “Happy Birthday”.

Betty loved the computer mouse. She even got the joke. Al and Grace gave her fuzzy socks and books.

“What a wonderful birthday!” She hugged each of us with tears in her eyes. “Sydney, turn that computer right back on and put that mouse on it right now! I want to try it out!”

I smiled, but it was a bittersweet smile. I was glad she loved the mouse, but I knew it was going to be hard to walk by it each day where it would be a perpetual reminder of my stupidity.

I grabbed my backpack and Betty’s new mouse and headed toward her computer in the living room. The mouse wasn’t too difficult to install, and shortly thereafter I got out of the chair and offered it to Betty with a flourish. As she sat down, her foot caught on my backpack. It tipped and the contents dumped out on the floor.

“I’m sorry, honey!” she apologized, bending to help me clean it up.

“It’s my fault,” I said. “I should have remembered to buckle it.”

She picked up the job ad that Harmony had given me in the coffee shop. I’d forgotten all about it.

“Oh, are you trying to get this job?” Betty asked curiously, handing the paper back to me. “I can help with that. Samantha is such a nice woman and that would be a good little job for you. She really works with student schedules.”

I looked at the paper. On it was printed:

Attention all you Doughboys and Javagirls!
Bean There, Baked That
is looking for a motivated and hardworking individual to join our Stimulating Caffeine Scene to work some evenings and on weekends!

“We’ll probably see Samantha at the soccer game tomorrow,” Betty continued. “I’ll drop in a good word for you.”

I nodded, not really thinking anything would come of it. I left Betty trying out her new mouse and went to bed.

It had been a very stressful day.

I overslept the next morning, so in the frenzy of getting ready for school I didn’t have any time to think about Jung, Equal or Rafael’s mysterious appearance at the store. And by the time I did have a chance to relax, I realized I had a new problem.

Grace was mad at me.

At first, I thought she was just tired and grumpy, but as we walked over the bridge and up the stairs to school, I noticed that she was being sweet and cheerful to everyone but me. It didn’t take long for me to suspect the probable cause.

It had to be Rafael and the fact that he had given me a ride home.

I felt like telling her that she was being ridiculous, that he was just being nice, but I really didn’t want to talk about the previous evening for many reasons, my shoplifting being the first.

I settled down in my class, focusing my eyes on the teacher, but my thoughts were elsewhere. I reached for the fairy runes in my sweatshirt pocket. I still felt a sense of comfort every time I touched them. However, the mist and the Equal were becoming too much of a coincidence with what Jung Lin had written before she died. I was going to have to dig out my science notebook and continue my research.

The soccer game was right after school, so I didn’t see Grace until she was out on the field. It was just as well. I’d seen her at lunch, but she had pointedly ignored me.

I made my way to the bleachers, scanning for signs of Betty and Al.

“Here we are!” I heard Betty call out and then I saw her standing up and waving near the top.

Waving back, I headed her direction, squeezing my way through groups of arriving people.

Ahead of me, a boy pushed a wizened old lady in a wheelchair. Even though it was chilly, she looked miserably cold. She was bundled in a hat, coat and had a neon pink lap quilt tucked over her legs. I felt a little sorry for her. I was stuck walking behind them for a few moments before the crowd parted enough to let me pass by. As I did, her lap quilt fluttered to the pavement and then the boy rolled the wheelchair right over it.

“Hey, you dropped something!” I yelled, but he didn’t seem to hear.

Scooping it up, I ran after them and laid a hand on her arm. “Excuse me, I think you dropped this.”

The poor old woman jumped and made a gargling sound.

I felt terrible. I hadn’t meant to startle her. She looked like she was going to tip out of the wheelchair.

“I’m sorry!” I found myself apologizing. “I—” I broke off abruptly as her hand latched onto my arm and her fingers dug into my flesh.

“Hey, can you watch her for a minute?” the boy pushing her asked, noticing me for the first time. He didn’t even wait for my reply before he ran off, whistling at some girl.

As the woman’s fingernails burrowed even deeper into my skin, I winced and turned my full attention to her.

She was small and hunched over, her skin a mass of wrinkles, but her bright blue eyes were disturbingly alert. Agitated and shaking, she desperately held onto me as if she never wanted to let go.

“It’s ok,” I said, because she looked scared. I searched the crowd for the boy, but he was gone.

It was beginning to sprinkle and a gust of wind blew in our faces.

“Well, I’ll just move you there under the roof, where you won’t get wet.” I said, pointing to the handicap area beside the bleachers. I pried her fingers loose from my arm, grasped the handles of her wheelchair, and pushed her forward.

That boy, whoever he was, was certainly inconsiderate! I kept an eye out for him, but he seemed long gone. It was hard to push her. She was small, but she wouldn’t hold still. She kept moving and lunging, as if she was trying to twist around to see me. It made me nervous.

As I reached the bleachers, Reese appeared to block my way.

“What are you doing with Aunt Melody?” she asked, frowning and flipping her long black hair over her shoulder.

“Melody?” I repeated.

“Yes! My Aunt Melody!” Reese was obviously exasperated. Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed the wheelchair handles from me and pushed the elderly lady away.

I watched, feeling sorry for the poor woman. She was still trying to twist around. I wondered why she was so agitated.