Light Through the Window

by Cassandra Morphy

  "Well, you could just ask them. Wait, why haven't you asked them."

  "Because..." Ellie stood up in her place amongst the bushes, trying to look directly at Becky through the ones she was searching. She still hadn't said just how it was that she was detecting who was one of them and who wasn't. If she knew, she wouldn't think it was so simple as a league of ninjas. If she knew, she probably would think Ellie was completely insane. "I... I actually knew of a few leagues of ninjas at boarding school."

  "Wait, seriously?" Becky asked. She perked up, similarly standing up in the bushes, though she was further down the row than Ellie had been thinking. "You mean like those things actually exist? Do any of them follow Ra's Al Ghul?"

  "Becky, this is serious. This isn't some comic book. They are serious groups, dangerous, not to be trifled with. And, they certainly take their secrecy seriously. If they had the slightest inkling that we knew something we shouldn't, we'd both be dead. Heck, I actually knew a girl in my class that... well, the rumor was that she was being recruited by one of the groups and that she failed the test. She ended up dead, floating in the lake."

  Becky's eyes went wide as she stared down at the bushes around her. "I suddenly don't want to look for this envelope. Can I go back to not knowing about this stuff? Do you have like a mind eraser ray or something?"

  "Oh, come on. Those things don't exist."

  "Hey, two days ago I didn't think ninjas existed. Now I find out I'm living with one."

  "I'm not a ninja, not even close. I only took two years. It's like... Well, did you take a language in high school?"

  "Yea, Spanish."

  "Are you fluent in Spanish?"

  "No. No hablo español."

  "Exactly. Besides, this isn't that. If this was a group of ninjas, they would have been by to recruit at the school. It's this whole thing, what with the secrecy and all. They wouldn't try cornering me like these people have. They wouldn't be creeping me out so much. They wouldn't even be going to college. Why would a ninja need advanced schooling? Once a ninja can... well, ninja, they're pretty much set."

  "Yea, I guess. It's kind of the coolest job for a drop out to have. It's like 'yea, I dropped out of high school to be a ninja. No big deal.'"

  "Trust me, it's not as glamorous as it sounds. The one time I was there for career day, they had like three ninjas, and they all just said it was pretty boring. I mean, what is it you think ninjas do for a living?"

  "I don't know. Kick people's asses?"

  "There are mercenaries and security guards that do that sort of thing, and they're all about the guns. No, ninjas... Well, other than the few ancient orders that are still out there, it's all about stealthy infiltration and assassinations. As for the ancient orders, though, they're all just so rich they live off their surplus and work towards preserving their old ways."

  "Yea, like I said. Kicking people's asses."

  "Whatever, anyway, that's not what we're dealing with. Even if Rebecca Anne ninjaed her way down the stairwell, they're not all going to be ninjas. And they're not looking to recruit me because of my training."

  "Well, maybe that's the key to figuring out who they are," Becky suggested, as she ducked back down into the bushes to resume her search. The sun had come up in earnest, and neither of them knew how long it would take before the others would come looking for the envelope. Ellie wanted to be long gone before that happened.

  "Trust me," Ellie said, as she, too, ducked down. "If I knew why they were so interested in me, I'd tell you. Or, well, I'd probably have ditched town and never met you."

  "If you ditch town over this, can I come, too? I mean, yes, searching these bushes for something that's probably not here isn't all that glamorous either. But this has been probably the most fun weekend I've ever had, and it's only Saturday morning."

  "I'm guessing you've never had a serious boyfriend, because I've had way more fun weekends just spending time with Mare in our room."

  "Aw, that's sweet. But, yea, no, no serious boyfriends anywhere near me."

  "Wait, what did you mean by it's probably not here?"

  "What?"

  "Well, you said the envelope is probably not here, that we were searching for something that was probably not here. What did you mean by that?"

  "Well, I just... I mean, if it was here, wouldn't we have found it by now? It could have blown away in the wind, or someone could have found it, or you could have dropped it somewhere else."

  "Wait, the wind. Of course." Ellie jumped up again, coming out from the bushes to stand by the road.

  It was still too early on a Saturday for the traffic to have picked up, but there were still a few cars passing by them. She turned around slowly in a circle, trying to remember how the place had looked in the dark. Rebecca Anne was close behind her as she ran, so she hadn't seen much the first time through. However, had the envelope blown out and up, or behind her, the other girl would have seen it. She would have known that Ellie had lost it while running. Without it being in the bushes, she figured it would have blown further up the road, heading for the intersection.

  She walked along the road for a while, looking all over for a flash of brown paper. Fortunately, the lack of traffic also meant that the cars that were parked along the midway were the same ones that had been there the night before. The envelope hadn't been light enough to be blown far in the wind, even the stronger gusts that the city had become known for. She thought she had seen something by the wheel of one of the cars, but when she got closer to it, it was just a cardboard box.

  Still, she stood by the box, looking around the area more, trying to see any little hint of the envelope. She slowly turned around, looking at every detail of the area, just like they had taught her at school. By the time she took in the complete circle, she could have passed a test on what was in the area. The only problem was there wasn't anything there. At least nothing worth noting. It looked like just any other street corner in America, though it had more foliage than most of them did.

  "Uh, Ellie?" Becky said.

  "One second," Ellie said. She licked her finger, sticking it up in the air, trying to judge the direction the wind was heading. However, she had never quite figured out how that whole thing worked. That wasn't something they taught her.

  "No, really, you're going to want to see this."

  Ellie rolled her eyes before turning towards Becky. "You're going to want to see this," she mumbled. "Why don't you just..." She trailed off when she spotted them, a group of three abyssal eyed people walking towards them. They had already spotted her, as they were smiling in her direction, though it wasn't clear if they had seen Becky. Unfortunately, Ellie couldn't warn her, couldn't tell her to run, without calling their attention to her. However, it was quite clear why they were smiling, and why she hadn't been able to find the envelope.

  In the center of the group was Barry, standing tall above Miranda and Rebecca Anne. Clutched in his hand was the envelope, held up high so that Ellie would be able to see it across the distance. They were still half a block away from them, closer to the door to the dorm than to them. Their walk seemed more a strut to Ellie, though anything those people did seemed malicious to her.

  "Come on, Becky, let's go," she said, without actually looking in her direction. "Whatever was in that envelope isn't worth dealing with these people right now."

  "This could be your chance," Becky said. She had slipped between the bushes and come up next to her, without being seen by either group, so Ellie had once again been surprised by her arrival. She was beginning to wonder if there was something different about her, as well.

  "My chance for what?"

  "To ask them why they're so interested in you."

  "Yea, I'm afraid to ask."

  "Seriously? Why?"

  "Because they might tell me."

  Long before the group managed to get to them, Ellie twirled around in place, jogging away from them and towards the campus. After a few seconds, Becky joined her, and together they headed b
ack to their room to regroup and figure out what their next move would be.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Stress

  The two of them spent most of Saturday holed up in their room. Every time someone knocked on one of their neighbors' doors, they'd jump in place. They'd look towards their own door as if it were about to burst open, letting a flood of abyssal eyed demons in to eat their eyeballs out of their sockets, turning them as dark as their own. Neither of them said much, though they both knew they were worried about the same thing.

  It wasn't until dinner that they dared to venture out of their room, their own hunger getting substantial enough that they'd risk the outside world. As the two of them walked across campus towards the cafeteria, it seemed to Ellie that the abyssal eyed people were everywhere, looking out at them from every direction. To her, it was like walking through a minefield. Any wrong move could take her too close to one of them and she would simply disappear, even in the middle of the crowd that surrounded them. To Becky, without an ability to see them, to detect them in any way, it seemed more like a cat walking through a room filled with rocking chairs. She jumped at the slightest movement, at any of the people, normal or otherwise, that came too close to them.

  Despite the hunger that had brought them out of hiding, neither girl had much of an appetite when they got to the food line. Ellie just got a banana and a bagel, while Becky went with a sandwich, figuring it would travel easily. Without having to say anything, the two of them had an unspoken agreement to just take the food back to the room, back to hiding out from the people who were bound to be after them. Even though there were plenty of the abyssal eyed students around, Ellie hadn't recognized any of them, and it wasn't clear how much information they spread throughout the group. It might have just been the three of them, the group that had been walking with Barry, that knew of the break in.

  However, as they were leaving the cash registers, Alex spotted them and waved them over. She was sitting off to the side of the room, with Eric and George. The three of them sitting together reminded Ellie that they still had the test on Monday. The rest of the world didn't stop just because they were being hunted by an unknown force. After a quietly exchanged look, they both headed over to the group. They were halfway there before Ellie realized there was a fourth person at the table, and was only a few steps away when she recognized who it was.

  Ellie tripped over her own feet as she tried to pull herself into a halt and run the opposite way at the same time. Instead, her banana went flying, though she was able to hold onto her bagel. The banana bounced off the table and landed in Sam's hands so perfectly that it was like he knew exactly where it was going to fall. He smiled over at Ellie, holding up the captured fruit out to her. She wasn't sure if that offered fruit was an olive branch or bait.

  "Hey, guys," Alex said. "We were starting to wonder if you were abducted again."

  "What?" Ellie asked.

  "Again?" Becky asked, at the same time.

  "Oh, you didn't hear about what happened with Ellie? What was it, two years ago?"

  "Wait, how did you hear about that?" Ellie asked. She was pretty sure it wasn't common knowledge that she had been abducted from her home by some henchmen when she was trying to find her dad. As Sam's smile only broadened, she had an unsettling feeling that their group had something to do with it. Although all of the henchmen had been captured or killed, she had never heard about their origin, beyond being organized by the headmistress.

  "What can I say? Your dad is really proud of how you handled yourself during all of that. It may have come out at some point. Now, it's kind of become an urban legend, the shadow group that kidnaps kids to extort their parents."

  "Sounds pretty spooky to me," George said.

  "I bet paint drying too fast sounds spooky to you," Eric said.

  "Now, now, lay off George," Sam said. "Some of us are more sheltered than others."

  "Then again, some of us are badasses," Alex said.

  "So true," Sam said, smiling broadly. "Do you want your banana back or not?"

  "Huh?" Ellie asked. She looked between the banana and the man a few times before cautiously extending her hand to retrieve the fruit. As she pulled it back, she eyed the banana warily, as if he was able to poison it just by holding it. Half of her wanted to just throw the banana out, uneaten. Although she wasn't sure she could do that without seeming rude, or paranoid.

  "Come, sit," Alex said. "We were just talking about the test on Monday."

  "What's he doing here?" Becky asked, seeming less worried about offending people that Ellie was.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Sam asked, teasingly.

  "Yea, what's that supposed to mean?" George asked, defensively.

  "I just meant..."

  "Sam is a senior," Ellie finished for her. "Unless he's really bad at physics..."

  "I thought I'd help out in the studying," Sam said. "I saw Alex earlier and she was looking a bit ragged and stressed about this test of yours. I took the class when I was a freshman. I didn't do too bad in it, if I do say so myself. Your dad really is a ball buster when it comes to his tests, though."

  Ellie flinched at the reference to her father. She knew that she had told Eric and George, with Alex and Becky already having known. It took her a few moments to remember that the group of girls, the first group with the abyssal eyes that she had seen before, had also found out about the association. Suddenly, the reference to her father felt less of a revealed secret and more of a subtle threat. Would they go after him if she continued investigating the group? Or, worse, was it join them or they'd hurt him?

  "Wouldn't it be kind of awesome if we went in on Monday and he just... didn't show?" George said.

  "That would be a nice change," Sam said.

  "No, George. It wouldn't be awesome," Ellie said. "That's my dad."

  "I didn't mean... I meant just like he got sidetracked or something, not that he was in an accident or anything. I never would wish anything bad on anyone, least of all a teacher. I just thought it would be nice to be all worried about the test only to not have it."

  "Or, we could just study all weekend and ace the test," Becky said. "There's that idea, too."

  "Speaking of which, we should get back to it," Ellie said. She moved towards the door to the cafeteria, but Alex's hand quickly reached out, grabbing her arm. The familiar feel of her ex's skin against hers held her in place more than the hand did. Ellie knew that Alex's strength was no match for her own, though she was no match for the sensations running through her. She had to remind herself that she had a girlfriend, that Alex had broken her heart and she wasn't about to let her do it again.

  "No way," Alex said, her eyes looking up into Ellie's. There was a familiar look about her, one that said she knew exactly the effect she was having on Ellie. "We all had agreed that we needed a break from studying. Sit down. Eat with us. I'm not letting you go until you agree with me."

  Ellie rolled her eyes, but she knew how stubborn Alex was. She knew that she really would hold onto her until she agreed to stay. Ellie could have broken free of the grip, with just a simple twist of her wrist. But she didn't want to hurt Alex's feelings. Besides, she was tired of hiding from these people. If they were going to go about their day as if nothing had happened, why shouldn't she? Slowly, reluctantly, she sat down next to Alex. With a heavy sigh, Becky followed suit, sitting next to George. Sam smiled over at Ellie, sitting diagonal from her across the table. It was the furthest he could have been from her without being at a different table, but it was still too close for her liking.

  Once Ellie had sat down, Alex let her hand linger in place for a moment before taking it back. As she did, she brushed it against the back of Ellie's arm, her fingers sending electricity through Ellie, before slipping it into her lap. When it was there, Alex rubbed her hand against her pants a few times. Ellie might have been offended, but she knew that Alex's hands tended to get sweaty, especially when she was aroused. As Ellie tucked into the bagel, she
silently promised herself a nice long cold shower when she got back to the dorms.

  "So, what are you guys planning as far as studying goes?" Becky asked. "We were just going to hide out in the room for the next day or so." Ellie smiled when she noticed that Becky hadn't mentioned they'd be studying while they hid out.

  "We had been at our usual table in the library," Eric said. "You know, like we had planned to do? Were you guys just hiding out in your room all day? Some of us were a little worried when you didn't show up."

  "Oh, shut up," Alex muttered, though she blushed a little at the comment.

  Ellie tried to focus on her bagel, but she could see it when Becky's eyes traveled between the two of them. A questioning look flitted over her face, but Ellie just shook her head. There was no way she was going to be talking about that in front of everyone else.

  "I don't know why you guys are so stressed over this," Sam said. "I mean, it's just a test. Not even a midterm or anything. He has a bunch of those tests, so no one test will tank your grade. When I had him, I think I had a test like every other week with him."

  "Yea, I think we have another one on the 26th," Eric said. He pulled out his copy of the syllabus out of his backpack to look at it. "Yup. The 26th is the next one. God, are we going to be stressed like this all semester?"

  "Both semesters," Becky said. "We have him again in the spring."

  "Yea, the quarters worked so much better that way," Sam said. "It was only twelve weeks instead of fourteen, but then we never had time off. I liked having the summer off again."

  "Wait, the 26th?" Ellie asked. She reached over, past Alex, to snatch the sheet out of Eric's hand. The paper tore down the middle, but Ellie managed to get the part that mattered. Circled in red, near the top, was the words "Sept. 26th - Second Exam". "Damn, so much for that plan."

  "What?" Alex asked.

  "Hey," Eric said, pointing towards his offended paper.

  "Sorry," Ellie muttered, before handing back the other half of the paper. "Mare's birthday is the 26th. I had been planning to slip over to Colorado to surprise her."