Camille sighed and heaved her camo bag up on the counter of the front desk. At least she was certain she wasn’t carrying anything suspicious. She just set off metal detectors everywhere she went.
“Kids these days and their hoodlum jewelry,” the old woman muttered, sifting through Camille’s textbooks. “Alright, you can go.”
Camille nodded, and looked around the first floor again, seeing no sign of Tailor.
“Can I help you?” the elderly woman prompted again. From the tone of her voice, it sounded like she wasn’t so much desirous of helping as she was obligated.
“I’m...waiting,” Camille said. “For someone. My teacher.”
The old librarian gave her a sour look, like she suspected she was lying. She went back to stamping book checkout cards, throwing Camille the occasional suspicious glance.
Camille adjusted her messenger bag over her shoulder. This was just awkward. She was considering what excuses she could make for leaving - and setting off the alarm again - when Tailor finally came through the front doors.
“It’s hot as hell out there,” he complained. “How are you still wearing that sweatshirt?”
Camille shrugged. There was no simple way to explain what the hoodie meant to her. Besides, it was quite cool inside the library. Now that she’d been inside for awhile she was glad she had it.
“Fine, fine,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs and claim a table. Afternoon, Mrs. Thrush,” he nodded at the old librarian.
“John Tailor,” she acknowledged, sourly.
“You may want to think about getting a library card,” Tailor said, as they climbed the stairs. The fountain was actually in the center of the spiral, halfway between the first and second floor. Camille fought back the urge to run her hands over the ferns surrounding it as they passed.
“Why?” she asked.
Tailor spared a final glance at the main desk through the open stairwell as they reached the second floor. “This way,” he pointed around the walkway to the section that bore the legend ‘Fiction.’ “Because,” he said, quiet enough that it wouldn’t carry throughout the open, echoing space, “Old lady Edna doesn’t trust anyone without a library card. That’s not to say she will once you do,” he admitted, shrugging.
Camille searched the shelves for the books she’d been asked to collect. She knew the exercise was intended to reinforce her comprehension of the alphabet, but she found herself reading the full titles of many of the volumes Tailor was having her pull. There was certainly a trend.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Dante’s Inferno. The Odyssey. Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Did he think she wouldn’t notice? Or was he telling her something?
She emerged from the stacks with a pile of books and dropped them on the table in front of Tailor.
She raised an eyebrow. “Kaibutsu?”
“English,” he said, not looking up from whatever he was writing.
“Akuma. Youkai. Bakemono.”
“English, Teague.”
“All of these,” she gestured to the pile of books, racking her brain for the right word. “Monsters.”
Tailor looked up then, briefly, then put a final flourish into his notebook and shut it and sat back. “Monsters, yes. But not all of them had to be.”
He pulled one out of the pile. The cover was faded blue cloth imprinted with a gothic script whose gold embossing had long worn away. “Frankenstein’s monster was created by one man’s hubris – pride,” he said, seeing her face twist at the unfamiliar word, “It never should have existed, but it never asked to. And though it was hideous to behold, it was not innately evil or monstrous. What made it so was the reactions of the humans around it. The acts it committed made it a monster – but it was never given another choice.”
He pulled out another book. “Dr. Jekyll wanted a different life. But rather than making the hard choices to improve the life he had, he invented a completely different person to change into - and ended up destroying his life and the lives of others in the process. And the fairy tales, well...” He regarded the tome of stories but seemed reluctant to leaf through it. “Tale after tale of those who chose wisely, and cautionary tales of those who chose poorly.”
Camille’s chin lifted. “You think I chose poorly.”
“I don’t think you’ve chosen yet,” Tailor said, folding his arms and sitting back again. “Right now all the choices have been made for you. You do what Gabriel says without question, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t sound so proud of that,” he said, grimacing. “Don’t you know how to think for yourself? Do you know the reasons behind anything he tells you to do? That hunk of metal,” he gestured at the bracer, “do you know what it is?”
Camille took her arm off the table self-consciously. “Do you?” she challenged, even as part of her was dying to know.
“I don’t,” he said. “But if I had something that was probably unnatural permanently attached to me, I’d want to know what it was.”
“It keeps me safe,” she said defensively.
“How convenient,” he said. “That might even be true. Gabriel does like to mix his lies to make them go down easier.”
Ire bubbled up. “He warned me,” she said. “About you.”
Tailor laughed at that. “Gabriel? Warned you about me? God, the world has gotten strange. I guess I’m back to where I started. Why the hell am I the only one who can see him for what he is? You live with him, it should be so obvious that he’s using you.”
“He saved me,” Camille insisted.
“Yes, but for what purpose?”
Camille stood up, shouldering her bag. “Are we done?”
Tailor caught her wrist, and she looked down at him, defiant.
“Monsters are made by their choices, not their abilities,” Tailor said. “Whatever you can do - whatever you think you’re capable of - you can help people, or you can help yourself. The choice is yours. Do you know what they call a monster who helps people?”
“Confused monster?” Camille said bitterly.
“A hero,” Tailor said. He handed her a dog-eared copy of A Tale of Two Cities. “Your reading assignment.”
She regarded it with a frown, then stuffed it into her bag. “Now we’re done?”
He sighed, sitting back. “Now we’re done.”
She started to walk away, then stopped, and turned.
“Why can’t Gabriel come in the library?” She couldn’t explain it, but somehow this was what was burning a hole in her perfect resolve.
Tailor regarded her silently for several moments. The hushed sounds of people browsing the aisles of books and typing away on laptops suddenly seemed quite loud.
“There’s a spell on the building,” he said at last. “You can’t get in if you’re immortal.”
Immortal. Camille nodded slowly.
“You don’t look very surprised,” Tailor noted.
She wasn’t. Not really. But hearing someone say it out loud, confirm what she’d always guessed at...
“There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who can’t die,” Tailor said. “They have nothing to lose.” He returned to scribbling in his notebook.
Camille stood silently, still absorbing the information. Nothing to lose, was that it?
“You’re wrong,” she murmured.
“What was that?” Tailor looked up.
“You’re wrong,” she repeated. “He has me.”
Chapter 8
Mac
Ten o’clock on Saturday, and my mind is split. Half of my brain is focused on finding that ninja-thing, glad we’ll finally have the time and daylight to trek into the woods and check out the abandoned lumber mill. The other half of my brain is still at school.
“Did you see him? Did you? He was practically groping her! Isn’t Kei supposed to be dating Hayley?”
“They’re not dating,” Destin says, sullenly. We’re in my kitchen, swiping food for our trek into the woods.
“He’s creepy,” is all Destin admits.
I glance sideways at him. “You’re acting weird.”
“I’m worried we’ll end up doing all the work on the project,” he says evasively.
“Not a chance. Hayley never does her own work when she can con someone else into doing it for her - but that’s probably why Miller put her with us. She knew we’d hold her to a line.” I nod to myself.
That doesn’t seem to comfort him. “I’m also worried about wandering around in a rotted out building in the middle of the woods. Why aren’t we telling anyone where we’re going?”
I grab my backpack and sling it over my shoulder. “Because adventure is its own reward.”
“That...has nothing to do with what I just said.”
“Oh! Grab that last sandwich, I forgot to put it with the rest.”
My sister's voice comes from the hall, right outside. "I think there's some juice leftover from - " Hayley and Amity walk into the kitchen and we freeze, holding an open backpack full of sandwiches.
Hayley raises an eyebrow.
“We’re hungry,” I say.
“The last time you made eight sandwiches, I found a note on your bed saying you were going to the Sahara, and would send me a postcard when you found King Solomon’s treasure. You were also nine. Aren’t you a little old for this?”
“You’re never too old for adventure,” I say dramatically. “And that state trooper totally brought us back in one piece, for the record. Now if you'll excuse us, we'll be - ”
“Scouting for a tree fort?” Hayley says, condescendingly.
"Playing cowboys and Indians?" Amity tacks on.
"Maybe some cops and robbers?" Hayley laughs. "Oh no, wait, or is it mutants and...whatever it is mutants fight? I wouldn't know, I'm not trapped in kindergarten."
"Survival training," I glare at her.
"For what, DragonCon?" Amity derides, naming Atlanta's yearly comic convention.
Hayley gives her a look of mild horror. "How do you even know what that is? I have an excuse, I live with that," she waves a hand at me.
Amity flounders slightly. "I...heard..."
"Never mind." Hayley gives a longsuffering sigh, and turns back to me. "You know there's no way Mom and Dad are letting you go into the woods. We've never been allowed out there."
"Well then maybe they should have picked a house that wasn't surrounded by woods," I return. "Seems like faulty logic to me." I zip up the bag and back towards the door. "Since we're such a huge blight to your eyes, we'll just get going."
"Did you even ask Mom if it was okay?" Hayley says loudly.
"Keep it down!" I hiss, but I already hear the sound of the office door opening, and my mom comes in, paint flecks in her dark blonde hair and a wide paintbrush still in hand. She has this thing for repainting rooms, but she ends up getting more on herself than the walls.
"What's dramatic now?" she says suspiciously, eying the four of us, one hand on the waist of her painting overalls.
"Hayley, as usual," I say.
"Mac and Destin are sneaking off to the woods," Hayley snaps.
Mom's eyebrows raise, blue paint smudge and all.
“We're not going far, Mom.” I reach for the handle. “We’ll be back by dinner, promise...”
“MacAlister Dupree,” my mom says harshly, and I cringe. “You are not wandering around in those woods. They’re full of snakes and poison ivy, and there’ve been reports of coyotes lately.”
Coyotes? Did that have anything to do with the ninja? “We won’t go out of eyeshot of the house, promise,” I lie.
Mom gives me the narrow appraising look that means she’s reading my mind. I hate that look. “No. The girls and I are going shopping in town, you’ll be coming with us. Destin, you’re free to stay or come with us, of course, but I’m not leaving the two of you here to wander off the instant my car leaves the driveway.” She didn’t have to ask him if his dad knew where he was. It was Saturday. Destin spends more time in our house than his own anyway. Also, his dad isn’t nearly so micro-managing as my mom.
“Aw come on, Mom, we wouldn’t do that!” I protest. We would. We absolutely would. But we’d absolutely be back before she was, so she’d never know.
She takes the backpack from me and starts transferring the sandwiches to the fridge.
“The woods are off limits,” she says firmly. “Always have been, always will be.”
Hayley gives me a smirk and sashays out of the kitchen. Amity glances back at us with an expression I don't quite understand - something like hunger - but quickly follows her out.
I glare at Destin for having the nerve to look relieved. Did he want to collate homework handouts? If we were going to clear our names, we had to find that little...whatever it was!
Alright so, to be fair, I should probably come clean about why the whole possibly-mythological-creature thing didn’t freak me out as much as it should. And, you know, Destin and the feathers.
When I was eight and he was nine, Destin fell off the jungle gym in my backyard. He was mostly fine – some scrapes on his hands and bruises – but there was this pile of feathers all around him. At first I thought maybe he fell on a bird or something, but then he swore me to ultimate secrecy and told me the truth.
He wasn’t human. Not him, or his dad, or his mom, or his sister. Their whole family was some sort of other race. Feral, he said. Apparently being feral sometimes meant you got abilities. Usually it was useful things like strength or speed or really good eyesight. Not Destin – he just molted when you scared him. Bummer of a superpower.
So anyway, that was how I first learned that there’s a lot more going on in the world than most people know. Naturally I wanted to know as much about this stuff as possible – but Destin’s knowledge about his heritage is pretty limited. Apparently his parents’ families immigrated from somewhere far away, to get out of a bad situation, and have wanted to lie low ever since. His dad was pretty vague about it to him, he said, and refused to explain any more. He also claims that if I ever let on that I know anything, his dad will go berserk. I’ve never seen the man so much as curse in traffic, so I don’t know about berserk, but so far I’ve kept my mouth shut and done my part to help Destin hide the feathers. The down jacket was my idea. Pretty clever, right?
Meanwhile, foreign people built a weird school in the middle of some old cotton fields and started collecting kids that give me the heebie jeebies.
“It’s the school,” I say. “I’m serious, there’s something really fishy about the whole situation.”
I’d managed to convince my mom to drop us off by the library downtown while she, Hayley, and Amity go dress shopping. Research is a much better fate than listening to them fight about skirt lengths.
“We’re not actually writing that paper for history, are we,” Destin states, as we cross the street to the large, three story stone edifice that is the Havenwood Public Library. For a town as small as ours, we really outdid ourselves on our library. I like to call it THE CASTLE OF BOOKS. In all caps.
“Who said anything about a history paper?”
“You did, five minutes ago, when you asked your mom to take us to the library.”
I make a dismissive sound. “I wrote that already.”
“Well I haven’t.”
“Oh come on, it’s Civil War crap, it took like ten minutes.”
“It’s a five page paper, how do you do that?”
“I’ll give you my notes. Come onnnn, don’t you want to know what’s going on here? We’re clearly in the middle of some crazy mythological stuff, and we have got to figure out some way to clear our names. It’s bad enough that guys like Hyde and Chase want to beat us up, we don’t need the principal for an enemy. You think writing a bad paper for Caldwell is a problem? Umino is scary, dude.”
“Oh alright,” he sighs. “But if my dad fi
nds out we’re doing any of this...”
“Yes!” I exclaim. How he could be so apathetic about his own origins is a mystery to me. If it was me, I’d want to know. “Okay so I’m thinking we start with property records. I mean there has to be a reason why they went to all this effort to build on that particular piece of land – ”
“Kid. Hey, kid.”
There’s a woman sitting on a bench in front of the library, presumably enjoying the shade of the awning. She can’t be comfortable in that much leather – it’s scuffed and stained and her mid-length hair is tangled and unkept. My first assumption is that she’s homeless.
“V’you got a library card?” she asks in a distinct British accent.
“Uh...yeah?” I say, taken off-guard by the question.
The woman holds up a twenty dollar bill. “Be a mate and check something out for me. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“It’s a public library,” I state slowly, not sure she’s all there. “You can check it out yourself.”
“I’m not from around here,” she grins, and it’s unsettling. “That makes things complicated and I’m in a bit of a hurry. Do you want the money or not?”
Something about her pings my creep-o-meter. I’m not sure if it’s the weird request, the squiggly red tattoos running down one side of her neck, or the smell of alcohol that rolls off her. Probably all of the above.
“Yeah sorry, we’re in a hurry too, so uh...no thanks,” I say, and we shuffle past her into the library.
“Dustin Heron,” Edna Thrush says sharply.
Destin twitches. We were trying to sneak past the library’s front desk, but the old lady is like a hawk. A tiny, wrinkled hawk. Or as Destin likes to call her, a troll.
“It’s Destin, ma’am,” he say sheepishly. Destin and I have been going to the library our whole lives, and she always gets his name wrong.
“Whatever unusual name your parents decided to give you, you still owe twenty-two thirty for that late return.”
“I’ll um, I’ll have it next weekend,” he offers.
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