It was obvious that Mr. Moonworthy was thirsting to hear who would be interrogated; this greedy little crow was out for any breath of scandal, Leyla thought amused. Yet the amusement passed quickly, when she heard the cop say her name. She looked horrified to Brooklyn and got up when she was asked to follow the cops. What was that all about? Why did they get her from her math class? Her mind was racing. What made the cops think that she knew anything about those murders? Why her?
Despair spread through her. She followed the officer to Mr. Forster's office. When she entered the office, another shock waited for her. Aiden, Mila, James and Matt were already sitting in Mr. Foster's office with pale expressionless faces. “Please sit down,” Mr. Foster made an inviting gesture and Leyla sat in the only empty chair.
“Well,” the grim looking bald cop said with a serious expression on his face, “I am sure that you all wonder why we brought you here. The thing is we have had an anonymous testimony that all of you have been observed after the murder of Sebastian di Santo being on the school grounds while going around with flashlights. At first, we wanted to consult each of you individually, but then we decided that the truth would rather come to light in a direct confrontation. So, does any of you want to tell us what you were looking for on the school grounds?”
It was so quiet. One could have heard a pin drop. No one said a word. Leyla couldn’t hold back any longer, she had to do something. It was all too much to take. The pressure weighing on her grew too heavy. If she didn’t try it, she would lose control. She got to her feet, walking nervously up and down the room.
”It's all my fault and the others have only been there because of me!”
They all looked shocked and probably wondering what the hell she was up to. Had she completely lost her mind? Leyla was feverishly making up a story, not yet sure how she would trot it out to the cops. When all of a sudden she had the most dazzling idea of her live. She would save their asses, she really would. She saw the imploringly look on the cops faces and started to speak.
"My cousin Gregory, who also attended this school at that time, had drank too much.”
She made an apologetic gesture, “He was new here and in Italy, alcohol is permitted at eighteen.”
The two cops as well as Mr. Foster looked at her blankly. She continued.
“Anyway, I wasn’t able to find him and I was afraid that something had happened to him.”
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Aiden and Mila exchanging puzzled glances and truly hoped that they would bust her. Well, they didn’t have much trust in her, she thought, slightly amused, although the situation was anything but funny.
“That's why I asked them to help me find him.”
She felt the officer’s confused looks on her.
“He was really drunk and I thought that he might have fallen asleep somewhere outside. My parents are very strict and they would have sent him back to Italy, if they found out.”
She paused for a moment and then went on thoughtfully.
"Which was exactly what happened because Gregory didn’t faint on the school grounds as I expected, but had gotten home somehow. My father caught him so to speak in flagrante delicto. Well, what can I say? That very weekend, he was sitting on a plane on his way back to Italy. As mentioned before, my parents are very strict when it comes to underage drinking and they can’t take a joke when it comes to that. After all, they took responsibility for him and he thanked them with such a bad behavior. As I said, in Italy things might be different than here when it comes to drinking wine and such at our age.”
She had talked herself into rage and one of the officers interrupted her.
“Now, now, Miss Johnson, we do not want to be racist to that point and we do have to be open-minded and accept other countries and their customs.”
Leyla lowered her head guiltily.
“I'm sorry officer, I got carried away. Gregory had problems in his old school and now he has screwed up his second chance. He is already back in Italy. I just feel sorry for him. You can verify it with my parents anytime.”
Great, she thought. Gregory forgive me that I have just pegged you as a chronic drunkard.
The cops watched her thoughtfully and Mr. Foster confirmed her statement partially.
“I can confirm that the said Gregory Rossi didn’t come to school after the summer festival, and Miss Johnson's parents have signed him out.”
Leyla hardly held back from sighing relieved.
The cops appeared to be satisfied with Mr. Forster's statement.
“Thank you for this information. We will of course check with your parents.”
Leyla nodded and was pleased that did certainly not pose a problem. Her parents knew what had happened and they knew what could be happening if the Vultures thought that someone was aware of where Gregory was hiding. They had not forgotten the storm yet, even if they were still trying to explain it with rational reasons.
The cops got up showing them out of Mr. Forster's office.
“You may all return to your class, the matter is settled for now.”
Meanwhile, the bell rang and they trotted along to the outside. So far, no one had said a word. They went to the bench on the other side of the meadow where a weeping willow stood and sat down. Brooklyn came running out of the building. Fortunately, without Natalie, as she recently had taken up her relationship with Jason again and had only eyes for him.
“What happened?” Brooklyn asked, slightly out of breath.
“What did they want from you Leyla?”
Angel could hardly get her gloating smile out of her face standing by the stairs watching them closely.
Aiden pulled Brooklyn beside him on the bench saying quietly, "They've all taken us from class for interrogation and your friend Leyla is an incredibly talented actress! She saved our asses. I still can’t believe it.”
Brooklyn looked blankly at Leyla, who was standing apart. Everybody knew that she didn’t like to occupy center stage.
But this time, there was no getting around that. Suddenly she was being surrounded and got into some kind of group hug.
"You saved us, no doubt about it. You are a genius, you are aware of that?”
Matt picked her up and swung her around in circles.
“Put me down! Are you crazy? Everybody is watching us. We must act normal.”
He set her down and sat on the lawn visibly offended. Instantly, Leyla felt sorry for being so rude.
“I'm sorry, I didn’t mean it Matt, but we really should be careful and try not to attract too much attention. I think that swinging me around and being obviously that happy after an interrogation is rather conspicuous. Don’t be offended, please.”
Matt looked up smiling ruefully. He got it, as on the other side of the meadow some people were gazing over to them obviously interested in what was going on.
Above all, Angel! She was standing beside Greyson and neither of them looked particularly happy. Angel, because her little anonymous witness maneuver hadn’t turned out the way she planned. Greyson because now with Gregory finally out of the way, he sensed new competition in getting Leyla's attention.
Meanwhile, Aiden told Brooklyn about how Leyla mastered the crisis and Leyla remembered that she had to call her parents warning them that the cops would sure be showing up on their doorstep soon and her dad would have to keep his act together making them believe he was a strict anti-alcoholic.
She smiled, her father was Italian and was never averse a glass of wine. Well, it would be his problem how he would keep up to her story. She had done her best to save the situation. She managed to reach her dad just before the next lesson began. Fortunately, not another lesson with Mr. Moonworthy she thought relieved.
(Poly) nomen est omen
Leyla's euphoria over her inspiration during the police interrogation held exactly till the moment when Brooklyn mentioned the upcoming math test. Mr. Moonworthy had announced during her absence. Shit, no. That could not be true. The topic of the test w
as so damn difficult to understand and she was so distracted with Gregory's vanishing, Shane and all the other Akando stuff that was going on. She hadn’t been wasting a second of her time thinking about math. Truth was that she was no math genius even under normal circumstances and she just wasn't able to get that crap into her head no matter how hard she tried. She shuddered thinking of this Mr. Moonworthy that reminded her of big evil crow. It made her spine tingling and made her feel sick. Yet she could not afford another failure in math because it was almost time for the parents queuing calls. Looking unhappy, she shared her fears with Brooklyn.
"Come over to my house, we can hit the books together. Aiden is a real math genius and he explains it very well.”
Leyla sighed, “No, thank you. I'll leave you two alone. Don’t worry, I'll find a solution.”
She really liked Aiden and Brooklyn was her best friend, but the two of them together in their enthusiasm for each other were just too much to take and kind of difficult to take over a longer period. Certainly not to get prepared for a math test. Not that she was jealous, she simply presently felt that everybody let her down. For Gregory, Shane and even Brooklyn, she no longer stood in first place. She knew that her thoughts were completely unfair and out of line, but she couldn’t help feeling this way. She knew that sometimes her thoughts might be a bit illogical but she couldn’t shake of this feeling off being left behind and alone.
Brooklyn looked worried at her.
“You can come anytime you want, you know that, don’t you?”
Leyla shrugged, “No, forget it, I will figure it out. No need to worry.”
She headed home without Brooklyn, bumping into Melissa on her way to the subway. Melissa was bragging the entire time about how prepared she was for the math test tomorrow and that she was by far the best in their class when it came to knowledge of the Italian Language. Then she told her about her new super diet where apparently, one seemed to eat only roast beef and some fruit.
Leyla could have thrown up on the spot, trying not to let it show. Finally, they arrived at Main station and she could get away from Melissa. She shuffled shiftlessly towards her house. Once there, first, she threw her shoulder bag into a corner and second, she buttered herself two pieces of bread with a thick layer of Peanut butter. Then she drank a pint of cold chocolate. After that, she felt kind of queasy and sick, but at the same time, she also felt strengthened. Screw math, she thought furiously and grabbed her laptop. A little surfing had never hurt anyone, and would also bring her different thoughts. About half an hour later, she knew who of the celebrities had a love affair with whom, who had just split up and who had gained or lost how much weight. After she had admired Lady Gaga's latest outfit, she decided that she had experienced enough information about the celebrity world. She went to the YouTube page and typed in the magic words polynomials trigonometry.
Immediately, a list of different tutorial clips appeared on the screen. She looked at them one by one. After another hour and a few fully scribbled pages, she thought that she had understood as much that she would be able to get a sufficient grade with some luck. Still should she maybe surf another round to make sure to get an even better grade? That was a good question.
She yawned and left YouTube to consult her friend Google too. She wanted to enter polynomials, etc. Maybe she would get even better results this time, you never know. Hastily, she hacked on the keyboard and mistyped. Instead of PO, she had entered PRE.
Immediately a list appeared and she was pretty confused.
Where had she landed this time? The first result of the list on screen was a word that shook her to her bones. Predictions - Shamanism.
That couldn’t be a coincidence. She clicked on the link and the first thing appearing on screen was a drawing that had her
gasping and her blood freeze in her veins instantly. The boy on the drawing looked like Gregory. After looking at it more closely, he didn’t look exactly like him, but there was a certain resemblance. The same facial features and above all, the same eyes. The drawing was marked as number 1.
There were several other pictures of houses, tools, jewelry, etc. She decided that she would read the explanation to that first drawing at the end. She read through the text that was quite wordy. My God, she thought, yawning, the author of this page was not that talented to write interesting texts. If she had not been interested in the subject because of Gregory, she would have dozed off after a few sentences or would have left the page.
She scanned the text, scrolling to the bottom of the page. Fortunately, there was a kind of summary at the end and had her stop breathing for a moment.
”A prophecy?”
If this didn’t happen to be the unspeakable forsaken prophecy.
She'd bet her savings on it.
She read the introductory text of the prophecy:
“According to an ancient heritage, which I found in the Canadian National Museum of History and Society in Ottawa. The people of the Onenda clan of which two tribes are still living among us today, drafted this prophecy hundreds of years ago in southern Italy and in Canada (Akandos, Chogans).”
Who the hell were the Chogans? She opened a second browser window and tapped in the word Chogans. Her currently best friend Google would certainly know who they were. She heard a Bing from her laptop, she read the word, and everything was clear to her. Bingo, Indian black bird.
Well, well. What a coincidence. Vultures were birds too!
It seemed as if the elders of the Onenda clan might be better off consulting Google from time to time, than trusting in smoking signals. Apparently, they were not much into electronic media. As it seemed, neither the Akandos nor the Vultures had consulted the Internet for their problem. Incredible! She hoped that it would continue to stay that way. Well to be honest, she hadn’t exactly been looking for a prophecy. It had been a typing mistake and the list was about previsions. She had no clue what the difference was between a prophecy and a prevision. She checked the author of the page.
It was some history professor who not only dealt with Shamanism, but with the diversity of all Indian tribes, where and when they had emerged and what had become of them. His research was not complete, and he pointed out that there was no hard and semi-solid evidence for his statements. The author was a certain Professor Chayton R. Di Santo.
Hadn't Sebastian's name been Di Santo? Could this be a coincidence? Somehow, she didn’t believed in coincidences. Not anymore.
She started reading:
The complete heritage prophecy from the museum:
"In every century, close to the end of the century, a savior with ocean blue eyes will appear. The eyes are the mirror of his soul and become two turquoises when the time is right. He has the gift to influence the four elements. His destiny is to lead the renegade vultures from the four dark paths back to the paths of the earth and to appease the elements the foolish vultures have angered. The king of the dark paths and his three blood relatives are the four cornerstones of evil. They will do their utmost to destroy the Savior in their blindness. Still, there is hope, because not all of his blood is to walk on the dark paths. If the mission of the Savior fails and the dark paths are being pursued, nature will strike with storm and inferno. The earth shall quake and devastating floods will emerge. A great catastrophe will befall humankind. Many of us will die and there will be another century passing until the next savior shall appear. Each time a Savior fails his purpose, the punishment of the earth becomes worst until a flood will overcome the earth completely.”
It sure looked as if Mila had only gotten hold of some kind of summary in her grandmother’s book, Leyla thought confused. This seemed to be the real thing. She continued reading.
(The King)
The first dark path = Greed
He has strong needs that can be met only by external influences through lack of self-love, the desire for recognition, the addiction of power and wealth that cannot be satisfied by anything or anyone.
(The blood relatives)
The second dark path = Cruelty
A dictator, who imposes his will, enjoys the pain of others, insane, considers himself divine and destroys all that stands in his way.
The third dark path = Coldness
The alleged knowledge that everything is for sale, and the disability to love neither himself nor others.
The fourth dark path = Selfishness
Has declared himself the center of the world. Everything belongs to me even though I thereby destroy the world. Whatever I say is true. All the others are wrong and must submit to me.
The author assumed that the four paths were considered to be people and that the Savior had to either convert them to change their devious path or destroy them. Interesting approach, Leyla stared captured at the screen. Four people? Who could they be? Surely, one of them had to be Gabe's father, and then there was Aiden's father and finally Angel's father. But who the hell was the fourth pillar or cornerstone of evil. Spontaneously Mr. Moonworthy popped up in her mind. Ridiculous! But, maybe not. He had appeared out of nowhere, was kind of creepy and she didn’t like him. Possibly the fourth pillar of evil was the author himself, because he knew so damn much about the prophecy. Though, then the question would be, why would he informed the world about his knowledge on the Internet. She didn’t know. My God, what a week. It was not even Wednesday and events were overturning. She hit against her forehead.
“Think, damn it,” she said aloud to herself.
What was she supposed to do? She had to find out until Friday where Gregory was. She decided that once she found out where he was, she would go there on the weekend to tell him in person about the consequences of the prophecy. Yet, shouldn’t she tell her friends what she had found out? Or was it wise to keep the knowledge to herself?
ELEMENTARY VIRTUE: The Savior Page 27