The Glass Wall (Return of the Ancients Book 1) (15 page)

I nodded a little impatiently. I figured the sooner I got Harmony out of the office, the sooner I’d learn why she was here. “I’m happy to show her around, Sister Ann.”

Harmony dimpled a smile and we were out the door.

I decided to be blunt. “Why are you here?” I asked.

If she was surprised at my bluntness, she hid it well. “I’m just checking the school out,” she answered.

“I know you don’t go to high school.” I snorted a little. “Does this have to do with Jareth and his Blue Thread of Fate?”

I really shocked her then. She couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open in surprise. Grabbing my arm, she tried to pull me aside, but I shook her off. “We’ll be late for English,” I said shortly.

I was peeved. After all, the last time I’d seen her was in Rafael’s car, when she had practically bared her teeth at me. Ajax had, actually, but he had an excuse: He was a Doberman.

Ignoring her attempts at conversation, I stalked down the hall as the bell rang. I wasn’t about to let her mess up my classes. Feeling oddly empowered, I marched into the classroom and she followed behind.

Making her sit through English was unexpectedly amusing, and it gave me time to think. She obviously needed something from me, but try as I might, I couldn’t figure out why she had bothered coming to my school. If she had wanted to talk about Jareth or Rafael, she could have just as easily walked across the street in the evening. Her presence at Issaquah Catholic made little sense.

The bell rang, and I headed to science. Harmony followed.

“Sydney!” she called out my name several times as we walked down the hall.

I ignored her. The science lab was only a few doors down.

Once inside, I pointed to a desk. “Sit!” I ordered.

I left her at the mercy of several other students as they clustered around her and tried to be friendly. She clearly didn’t appreciate their attempts. She sat, slumped in her seat with her brows drawn together. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or perplexed. No doubt, she was thinking of what I’d said earlier about Jareth and the Blue Thread of Fate. She probably wondered just how much I knew. I wished it were more. If I were careful, I might be able to learn more from her than she would from me.

For the next couple of hours, I kept her hopping between classes, making sure she didn’t have a chance to ask any questions while I tried to come up with a plan. She was growing increasingly frustrated, and by the time we headed to lunch I had decided to let her talk. After all, I really didn’t know what these beings were capable of doing. If they could disappear, they could probably do other things much more dangerous. I didn’t want to think about that, because it made me want to lock myself in a closet and never come out. So I brushed my fearful thoughts aside and decided to start asking questions, but in a way that would hopefully make her think I knew more than I did.

“Hey, Harmony,” I said as she sat next to me in a secluded corner of the lunchroom. “Why are you really here—” I was going to add “on Earth” but, she interrupted me.

“You should know that Jareth is on drugs,” she said without preamble. “He can’t be trusted.”

I ripped the top off my yogurt and began to spoon it out. It was then that I noticed she was dumping Equal in her bottle of water. I was really going to have to dig out that science notebook again and update it.

A sudden thought crossed my mind: Maybe it was my responsibility
alone
to investigate these creatures—for the sake of humanity. I found myself warming up to the idea that I might have a crucial part to play in solving a grand, new cosmic puzzle. The fate of the world itself might depend on me.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

“Yeah, Jareth is on drugs,” I repeated and then added, “Rafael said the same thing.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You can’t date Rafael, you know.”

At that, I blinked. “Huh?” I lost my train of thought.

“He isn’t available,” she informed me. “He’s already taken.”

“Well, good for him,” I said, frowning at her. “Dating is the last thing on my mind, I assure you.” If my mother had raised her, she would have understood my response.

As it was, she squinted at me suspiciously, trying to determine if I were telling the truth.

“Is that why you’re here … to tell me to leave your brother alone?” I laughed a little. If they really were aliens on some kind of mission, they probably weren’t even related. I couldn’t resist and added, “That is … if he even
is
your brother? I mean, isn’t it just a cover story for your mission here on Earth?”

Harmony’s long lashes fluttered in surprise.

It was pretty much an admission that I was on the right track. Pleased with my developing detective skills, I smiled before a new thought struck me, and I had to ask. “Are
you
his girlfriend?”

“Heaven’s Bells, no!” She looked disgusted at the thought.

Oddly, I was relieved. I paused, confused at my unexpected reaction. The pause was a mistake, because I then lost control of the conversation.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Sydney. You’re sounding a bit strange. I’m merely here to check out the school, and you haven’t really told me much of anything about what it’s like here. What do you do every week? Let’s take last week for example. What did you do last Tuesday or Wednesday? Thursday?”

I shook my head, clearing my thoughts and began to plot how to weave my list of questions back into the conversation when I suddenly recalled Jareth’s comment about my having been
touched
and Rafael claiming it had just happened in the past few days. Something clicked. Harmony was here to find out when and how it had happened!

What did being
touched
really mean? I shivered and fear flooded my mind as a new worry surfaced. Maybe I was infected with a virus or something worse!

“Are you there, Sydney?” Harmony was growing exasperated. She shook my arm, hard.

Taking a deep breath, I regained control of my thoughts.

“I was asking you about your schedule last week!” She practically growled.

“It changes every week,” I answered, a bit cross. I wished I could take a perverse enjoyment in watching her annoyance. It would have been satisfying, but now I was fretting about being
touched
.

Harmony slammed her palm on the table.

I jumped, nervously.

“Well, if it isn’t Jareth’s new girlfriend—drumroll—Sydney!” Ellison’s voice sounded from behind me.

Harmony bristled, but I couldn’t tell if it was over the mention of Jareth’s name or the fact that Ellison and his posse of friends had interrupted our conversation.

I was grateful when they all sat down and began to chat. They teased me unmercifully for a few minutes about the Jareth misunderstanding. No one doubted me when I said it had been a mistake. Oddly, it was a little insulting that they were so quick to believe me. It’s not as if I were the ugliest girl on the planet.

Harmony grew increasingly aggravated. High school was hard enough on humans. I supposed it was even worse for an alien, and patience obviously wasn’t her strong suit. Her demeanor was making me increasingly uneasy.

As everyone chattered around me, I shoved my hand in my pocket and played with the fairy runes and the mirror Rafael had given me. They had a peaceful, calming effect, and I found myself beginning to think clearer. I took comfort in the thought that if being
touched
were bad, then surely Rafael would help me. He seemed to have been protecting me so far. I didn’t think he’d ever let me be contaminated with something awful, or at least I spent the remainder of lunch trying to convince myself of that.

As we headed back to class, I watched her walk ahead of me and wondered where she was from, exactly. Did she even really look like that, or was she a little green person inside a human suit? Or a lizard? The thought of Rafael really being a lizard was oddly humorous, and I entered my history class with a tiny smile on my face.

We had a new substitute teacher, a Mr. Hunter. He began by ordering each of us to take notes on his forthcoming lecture.

“You, the girl in the blazer,” he said, pointing to Harmony.

“What?” Harmony asked, a bit rudely.

“Take notes!” He snapped his finger.

“She’s a visitor,” I inserted, clearing my throat. “I’m her Buddy.”

“Then give her something to write on, Buddy!” Mr. Hunter directed in clipped tones.

A little taken aback by his brusque behavior, I searched through my notebooks for one to lend her. I was careful not to select the science one with my research in it. That would have been a disaster! Handing Harmony my English notebook, I muttered, “Just doodle on it.”

Mr. Hunter began to speak. As he droned on and on, I found my mind wandering, and I began doodling myself.

Then, my first useful thought of the day struck me. Metal. How would Harmony react to metal? Jung had mentioned that it causes them problems, but I hadn’t confirmed it yet. If true, it would definitely be a useful thing to know. I hated to think about having the need to defend myself, but I couldn’t just ignore Jung Lin’s fate. She had ended up dead, and there was very little chance it was an accident.

Next to me, Harmony randomly flipped through the pages of my notebook, obviously bored out of her mind. She was sitting on a plastic chair, her legs crossed and not touching the chair’s metal legs; but then again neither were mine. And the tops of our desks were made of wood. Surveying the room for metal objects, I realized there was actually very little exposed metal to be found. But then—I grinned a little evilly to myself—my next class was Ceramics. There would be no shortage of metal in that classroom.

It seemed forever before Mr. Hunter finally ended his speech and we were free to go.

I hurried downstairs, nearly running down the steps to the art studio.

“Ceramics,” I announced cheerfully as I pushed open the door.

Harmony paused on the threshold.

“My favorite class,” I said, grabbing her hand and pulling her into the room. She appeared reluctant for some reason, so I baited her a little. “Actually, you know, last Tuesday we did have a special speaker for our mentor class.”

It worked. She perked up, asked me for details, and followed me to my workbench hanging onto my every word. I made up a bunch of stories while I collected my tools for class. As I blabbed nonsense, it suddenly dawned on me that the small metal mirror in my pocket, the one Rafael had given me the night of the concert, appeared to be, in fact, made of metal.

I was disappointed. Jung’s assertion had been wrong; they
can
touch metal. But then another thought came to mind. Maybe they can’t touch a specific kind of metal. Actually, the whole thing sounded a bit preposterous. I mean, how could metal hurt anyone simply by touch? That brought up the thought that Jung had only said it caused them problems. That could mean anything. Suddenly, I felt like my head was going to explode. I definitely wasn’t cop material. I didn’t like puzzling out these mysteries, but I was still determined to try.

I kept chatting about the make-believe visitor as I scanned my workbench for metallic objects. I had to be careful, because I didn’t want her to catch onto what I was doing. In my mindless rambling, I must have contradicted myself about the special speaker, because she interrupted suspiciously.

“I thought you said she was an older woman?” She sounded a bit annoyed.

“Huh?” I mumbled. I had run out of time. Not really expecting anything to happen, I picked up a hammer with a huge cast iron head. Holding onto the wooden handle, I thrust it into her hands, the iron head first.

Her reaction was beyond anything I could have imagined in my worst nightmare.

A scream ripped from her lips. Her blue eyes widened in horror as she fell to her knees, gasping. Her hands seemed glued to the hammer, and she was clutching it as if she couldn’t physically let it go. She continued to scream.

As everyone in the classroom descended upon my workbench at once, I was jolted out of my own shock. Grasping the handle of the hammer, I wrenched it free from her grasp and tossed it away. She curled her hands up into fists, hugged them close to her chest, and remained where she was on the floor, tears running down her cheeks and her face chalk white.

“What happened?” The ceramics teacher asked, running to my side.

“I’m … not sure.” I swallowed, completely unnerved. I felt terrible. I really hadn’t believed anything would happen, much less this.

Harmony had quit shrieking, but she was still gasping and clasping her hands close to her chest.

“Where are you hurt?” the teacher asked as she placed a hand on Harmony’s shoulder.

Harmony drew back and made a noise not unlike a growl. I found it a disturbing reaction.

The teacher withdrew her hand and quickly said, “I called the nurse. Oh, look! She’s already here.”

“I don’t need a nurse!” Harmony growled again, but she was shaking now.

The school nurse pushed her way through the crowd of students, ordering everyone back to their workbenches. They ignored her until she clapped her hands and then they scattered.