"I don’t know what you were thinking bringing her here Aiden? She just doesn’t belong here,” she muttered heatedly.
Aiden looked as if he was about to explode.
Leyla laid a soothing hand on Mila’s arm.
“Then you could just as well say that I shouldn’t be here as well. I'm no Akando, you know that, don’t you?”
"That's something else, Gregory belongs to your family.”
Leyla grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently.
"Stop pouting, she is my best friend and not just mine, you are walking on thin ice here.”
She looked meaningfully at Aiden. He acted as if he didn’t hear anything, preferring to ignore her remark. Mila shrugged.
”You and your stupid love life; such things will never ever happen to me. It’s really embarrassing.”
“Well, well,” Leyla said, “let’s wait and see, shall we? The ones that scream the loudest often get hit the hardest when their time comes Mila. So be careful what you say,” she smiled.
“I know someone who would be perfect for you. He even has a similar attitude lately. In fact at that very moment, you do remind me of him.”
Her remark made Mila sulk again.
Leyla pointed at Gaia and smiled
“Great reception by the way. Gaia wanted to kill me with a frying pan when I got here. She thought I was a Vulture.”
Aiden stepped up, his face stern and serious.
“The elders have decided that after the terrible events, desperate times called for desperate measures and all Akandos would get introduced to their element and get the tattoo at sixteen instead of, as previously, eighteen. So the ceremony for Matt’s little sister Gaia and James twin brothers has been brought forward.”
Leyla was confused.
“Where are these clan elders Aiden? I mean would you please enlighten me. There doesn’t really seem anyone around except you guys. I don’t understand a word you are saying. Where did they get that prophecy if they are not even here? And what’s that ceremony you are talking about?"
Aiden indicated her to sit down with the others.
“Essentially, our parents are responsible at first instance when it comes to the welfare of the Akando community, yet my father is no help at all. As we all know, he has chosen the dark side and he will do anything the Vultures ask him to do. To make it clear, he is Carmines puppet, which makes him one of our biggest enemies, even though he happens to be my father. He will work against us whenever he can. Now that even Sebastian and his parents have been killed, the only parents left are the ones of James, Matt, and Alex. Mila’s grandmother Shalin is pretty weak. That’s why the Akando community has turned to the clan elders. They have retreated to the forests of British Columbia. Difficult situations require their wisdom to take decisions. Don’t look at me like that, they have phones and these days even Skype. They live in a reservation.
The ceremony took place here at the beach house instead of the forests. Under their digital guidance.”
He managed a wry smile.
“As I said previously, tough times, tough measures. We usually take a trip to them to perform our ceremonies. We even had a date fixed for Gregory’s ceremony, which as we all know, unfortunately did not take place. Shalin, the only of the elders that stays among us is in possession of an old shamanic book that she keeps hidden away like a treasure. Mila, as her only descendent has been chosen to follow in her path and will inherit the book. She is meant to become the Grand Master of the Earth, as our people use to call it. That purpose is a big burden she will have to carry on her shoulder. The Grand Master of the Earth will be held responsible for the whole clan’s health and well-being. Today, we will try to decipher the prophecy. Shalin has written down the exact words from the book. She is truly too weak to join us. Now it is up to us to get out some sense of that prophecy. Not even the wise counsel could come up with an interpretation that made any sense. Yet one thing is very clear, the Vultures are afraid of this prophecy. However, we doubt that they know the exact meaning. They might have heard rumors about it and are guessing their way through it. Apparently, they fear for a long time that a savior will come along some day, putting an end to their decadent behavior. Still we don’t really know what they know or think to know. Yet this irrational fear about losing their privileged positions just because of one boy with the power to influence all of the elements must have some deeper origin. However, before Mila is going to read out loud the prophecy to us, I want you to tell us about Gregory’s health conditions.”
Leyla shrugged standing up, looking into the faces of the others.
“As I already said, I think his physically condition is quite good, but he has no idea who he is. He is a stranger who has lost his memory and suffers from paranoia. He might look normal, but one thing is certain in his present constitution -- he is of no use to our cause or us, and if the Vultures should find out that he is still alive and where he is, he will be an easy prey for them. This means that whatever that prophecy means wouldn’t matter anymore, because he will be gone as soon as they find out and then the savior will be history.”
Aiden's face had taken a dusky expression.
“That's why no one must know where he is except Mila, who is still working on the antidote.”
Mila took Leyla's hand, “Come on down. I will read the damn Prophecy again. Let’s hope that you might have some ideas about what it could mean because it’s all Greek to us.”
She said with a sardonic smile on her face.
Leyla was welcomed with a big hello from all of them, as if she had been away for ages. She sat down next to Brooklyn and was quite curious what that prophecy would say. Mila grabbed a brown hardcover book, opened it, and began to read aloud:
"At the turn of the century, a savior with ocean blue eyes will appear. These eyes are the mirror of his soul and will become two turquoises when the time is right. He has the gift to influence the four elements. His destiny shall be to bring the vulture renegades with their leaders of the four dark paths, who have foolishly enraged the elements of the earth back to the proper path and to reconcile the wroth elements The king of the dark paths and his three blood relatives are the four pillars of evil. They will do their utmost to destroy the Savior in their blindness. Yet there is hope, because not all of his blood is to walk on the dark paths.”
Mila’s gaze traveled around questioningly.
“Do any of you have an idea what could be meant by that?”
Nobody answered.
"Let’s go through the whole thing sentence by sentence,” Leyla suggested.
"The first sentence I find a bit confusing, Gregory happens to have blue eyes and they are not turquoise. Still we can tackle with that second part, the one with the dark paths or the king of the vultures and his three blood relatives. That really has to be a metaphor, I think. Not that I would be experienced in decoding, but it just feels that way to me.”
Brooklyn spoke up quite unexpectedly.
“Or it actually has to do with these very real colors. Gregory has very unusual blue eyes.”
Mila snorted.
“How typical these idiotic remarks can only come from a non-Akando.”
She made a dismissive gesture and looked around.
“Does anyone else have some other stupid ideas about jelly bag caps of red dwarfs or other irrelevant phenomes?”
Matt interrupted her, accompanied by James’ approving murmur. “Why should that be such a stupid idea? Don’t be so full of prejudice. Gregory happens to have a very unusual eye color, or are you denying that?”
Mila crossed her arms over her chest obviously angry as Leyla suddenly remembered something.
“My God folks, Matt is right.”
Mila looked at her as if she had just unexpectedly shot her from behind.
"Sorry Mila, but he's right. Gosh, how could I not have noticed that?”
"Damn, what has gotten into you?” Mila asked, completely unnerved.
“When I
left, I noticed that Gregory's eyes were no longer blue but somehow turquoise. I thought that it didn’t mean anything, that it could have been caused as a side effect of the poison.”
Mila shook her head in disbelief.
“I’ve never heard such bullshit before. You've surely imagined that.”
“You're right, it might sounds crazy, but it's a fact. Maybe it does not mean anything and really is a consequence to the poison. Yet if we consider the possibility just for a brief moment, that it is because he happens to be the Savior in this prophecy and he is ready for the showdown, as his eye color has changed, once he remembers who he is again. This could be an important sign for us. Ok, I must admit, it is unlikely,” she struggled for words, and she didn’t want to annoy Mila any further.
“My conclusion is that we have to deal with this possibility.”
Everybody applauded except Mila.
“All right then, I give up. You win,” she said resigned, but far from convinced.
"I'll have a look at him while I’ll bring my mixtures to Port Hope next Saturday.”
Leyla and Aiden rolled their eyes heavenwards and looked at each other, and then they cleared their throats and looked at Mila disapprovingly. That girl just could not keep her mouth shut. They had agreed that the whereabouts of Gregory had to be kept a secret. Mila realized too late that she had prattled away the secret and did not know how she could cover it up discreetly, without making things worse.
“We should look at the rest of the prophecy now,” she said, sounding a little lame.
Leyla didn’t feel like decoding any further after Mila’s faux pas.
“I think we had enough excitement for today, we'd better talk about how we should behave at school tomorrow. It is extremely important, don’t you think so?”
They all agreed and were momentarily distracted from Mila’s faux pas. Remained only to be hoped that no one else prattled away what they heard previously.
Mission antidote
Mila was on her way to Port Hope. Leyla and Aiden had decided that it was best if she drove there alone. Although she did not particularly like Brooklyn, she had to admit that it was a brilliant move to go with the Lexus, her father’s expensive car, to Port Hope. First, it was very luxurious, and second, Brooklyn was probably peeing her pants in the meantime out of sheer fear that she would damage the luxury car. Third, the Vultures certainly did not suspect her in a Lexus with tinted windows. She drove the car right out of the parking lot of the luxurious house in which on one hand the bank in which Brooklyn father worked was situated and on the other hand Brooklyn was living with her family in that very same building. Brooklyn had stolen the keys in a halfway criminal action from her father. They hoped that everything would turn out right and that he did not return from Zurich sooner than expected. She grinned to herself, “Who would have thought that Brooklyn had such a criminal vein.” With a sneer she mused, “That Brooklyn’s true motive for her generous help was probably only to impress Aiden.” She laughed and stepped on the gas. The car shot forward. Before she turned off to the Highway, she stopped at a Take-Away of Kentucky Fried Chicken. She desperately needed food. She ordered a giant bucket of chicken, fries, and a large Coke. Then she turned east to the High Way letting the events of last week pass through her head once more. Leyla's mom had made a big fuss when they suggested involving the cops and reporting Gregory missing, as they had all agreed at the meeting.
She feared a major impact, since his stepparents in Italy would have to come over and the cops would give out a national search for him. They would have had to lie to the cops and that shot might have backfired. So Leyla spread the news at school, that something had come up and he had gone back to Italy due to some urgent family business and it was not yet clear when and if he would ever come back. The Vultures had no choice but to swallow it, otherwise they would have been forced to do something drastic causing a lot of unwanted attention. Yet they hadn’t reacted at all so far. In retrospect, Mila had to admit that Leyla's mom certainly had done the right thing when she prohibited them to report Gregory missing.
Mila had been very impressed how Leyla’s mom had dealt with the situation and got her way at the end. Super strong women like Leyla’s mom impressed her. The story they made up about Italy gave them time to get their act back together and to re-establish Gregory back to normal eventually. The Vultures hands were bound for now. Mila enjoyed the trip more than she would have thought, her gaze wandered happily to the black leader seat, where the dark red velvet box lay, which contained four flasks.
The fluid of the antidote in each flask was of a different color. Mila was convinced that one of them would help Gregory in fighting the poison.
She had created them with Shalin's help. Shalin said that for every poison, there had to be an antidote. If she weren’t able to find it this time, which was quite unlikely, she would find it next time.
Her eyes sparkled confident. The car had a great air conditioning and she no longer felt the heat that accumulated outside on the High Way.
She wore a black tank top, khaki shorts, and some kind of combat boots looking a bit out of place in the middle of summer. Her hair was tied up.
Her hairstyle resembled a palm tree, especially with her big brownish copper earrings, swinging back and forth like two huge coconuts.
Mila had placed her XXL Menu of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coke,and fries in the passenger seat and was eating like a pig. The whole front part of the luxury car was full of garbage. She knew that Brooklyn would kill her in cold blood, if she caught only one glimpse of the mess in that car. She was a freaking tidiness fanaticand her father was probably little different. She had to clear up the mess on her way back otherwise Brooklyn was in for a heart attack. Yet for now, she was having way too much fun and simply did not care. She was singing along, as they just played one of her favored songs on the radio.
“I wish that I could wake up with amnesia and forget about those stupid little things,” she giggled like a twelve year old. Oops, that had already happened. She grinned at her reflection in the rearview mirror. If the others could see her like that, her reputation would be ruined forever.
Who the hell is Alice?
Shane had offered to pick up Romeo, the horse of his mother’s former riding pal, to bring it back to Elmhirst resort. He hadn’t done anything that friendly for a long time. Yet since he had this Gregory character breathing down his neck, he thought that it might be a good idea to take him along. Maria would finally have a couple of hours free for a change.
One had to take really good care of that damn guy, not letting him out of sight for more than a minute. He seemed to want to get away whenever he had the chance, even if he didn’t know who he was or where he could go. Nevertheless, it was a fact that he had tried to take off several times.
It always depended on his medication level. If he was hopped on full dose, he sat somewhere and looked into the void. However, when he slowly came around, one had to be extremely careful that he didn’t go astray.
Shane was kind of annoyed that he had to play the part of Gregory’s nanny. On the other hand, Leyla would probably kill him if he didn’t watch him like a hawk. Good old Leyla, he had always liked her. What a pity that she’d been spending her time with a bunch of lunatics lately, the type that believed in some kind of conspiracy theory. A real shame it was, and she seriously thought that he would buy in to all of that savior crap. In his opinion, they had smoked too much weed, or maybe they had happened to come across a bad batch. Apparently, Gregory had taken an overdose of something or other. Poison, my ass! Who would ever believe such a dumb story? They had to be kidding. Who knew? That dude might never come off his trip, like ever again. He truly hoped that he didn’t have to look after the dude forever. He had read a lot about people that were never ever the same again. He acknowledged though, that he was quite curious about this Mila and her so-called antidote. Probably some Goth scene chick, with black eye make-up and a deadly pale face, from
a satanic cult. He had just loaded Romeo into the horse trailer when Gregory scuffled out of the house. His eyes flashed briefly with interest when he saw the horse. Shane wiped the sweat from his forehead. It was insanely hot. His T-shirt and jeans clung rebelliously to his body, and he longed for a cold shower.
The luxurious car shot up their drive like a bullet, and came to an abrupt halt with screeching tires. The sudden unexpected noise scared Romeo, bucking in the horse trailer. Shane tried to calm the stallion down, speaking softly and stroking its head. He could feel how agitated the animal was. To his amazement, Gregory even tried to help him.
Shane turned around again to face the intruding vehicle. In the meantime, the driver had gotten out. To Shane’s surprise, it was a girl. She didn’t look as if the car belonged to her.
She looked damn young and wore combat boots, even in the sweltering heat. He looked at her closely, and had to admit that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid his eyes on, in spite of her weird camouflage shorts and her black tank top, which reminded him of a military mission. She truly looked like an amazon queen. He tried to stop staring at her.
"Hey you, why are you staring at me like a moron?”
Apparently beauty and good behavior don’t necessarily go hand in hand, Shane thought to himself, looking irritated at her. “You've frightened Romeo and as you are here on my property, you could at least apologize, instead of insulting me.”
Mila wiped her hair out of her face and she felt queasy from her previous feeding frenzy.
"Oh gosh, I can hardly hold back the tears. Is Romeo your little brother? Then you’re probably Juliet. Am I right?”
ELEMENTARY VIRTUE: The Savior Page 19