The air shimmered. Madam Zenda in her white caftan and turban appeared. So, all this time our yoga teacher had been colluding with—I wasn’t sure what to call her—with a woman, a murderer, who was not of the real world.
“I would like an explanation,” Charlotte Glasspool said quietly, glancing at the man behind the glass. “The fae I disposed of a moment ago was not from the queen’s court. I doubt if he will be missed. Arion, however, is another matter. The fae may be seeking him even as we speak. If he is not returned soon, Others will come after him; but he cannot go back in his present condition. The responsibility for his . . . absence will be laid at my feet. What do you propose I tell them?”
“Return him?” I interrupted. “He’s already—”
“Oh, no, he is not dead,” Charlotte Glasspool said. “I would not destroy the queen’s property. But stasis may be even worse.”
“If you want answers,” Madame Zenda sniffed, “ask that nosy little bitch.”
Me?
“The blame for everything can be laid directly on her and her friends.”
“All of them? What a busy lot they are.” Charlotte Glasspool’s eyes were on Mindy who was stunned and nowhere near recovering. “I doubt that one will be a problem,” she commented. “As to her other friends”—she frowned at Jade and James— “their skin walker blood does present a complication—again. Their magic is of a different sort. There is only so much I can do. Even with my . . . talent.”
“Those matters can wait.” Madame Zenda shuffled forward. “The only question the council wants answered now is about the book. Someone needs to give an explanation. Your apprentice—if that is what she is—is too horribly low. I am afraid you will need to speak in her stead.”
“Then why this?” Charlotte Glasspool gestured toward the petrified Arion. “Why bring him here?”
“Ask her.” She glared at me. “It was her car that hit him. Even if we knew which portal he came through, we could not send him back. Not like that.”
Hit him? Ice ran through my veins.
“I never meant to,” I said. “I saw a flash of light—green light—it blinded me. And then the car—”
“Green light . . .?” Charlotte Glasspool said turning. “Zenda . . . please say you were not using elfbane.”
“I am quite capable of using whatever I choose,” Madame Zenda said.
“I see,” Charlotte Glasspool said. “We will discuss this later.” She turned to me. “Go on, what were you saying.”
“Elfbane?” I said. “What’s that?”
“It is none of your business. Finish what you were saying, or I will finish you.”
“I would have helped him”—I stopped, not sure whether to look at Arion or Charlotte Glasspool or the sparkling dust motes drifting through the room, all that was left of the Firefly— “if I knew how, but he was gone. I don’t know what happened to him. I didn’t see him, I really didn’t. I thought it was a branch—or someone else did—I mean I thought it was.”
“He was glamoured even then,” Madame Zenda mused. “Well, of course he would be, the fool. That’s why the elfbane was not as effective.”
At the word elfbane, the barest trace of annoyance flickered over Charlotte Glasspool’s face. The next second it was gone.
“Where were you when it happened?” Charlotte Glasspool said. “I asked you before and you did not answer.”
“Near—well, somewhere on Valley Boulevard,” I said.
“You idiot! I don’t want to know the street. I want to know the city. Where in the city.”
“Manhattan Beach,” I said. “Not at the beach—it was east of the park, Royal Oak Park.”
“A park,” she said thoughtfully, “that would make sense.” She paused again. “And you claim to know nothing about it, about him?”
“How could I?” What little I knew I wanted to forget, not remember.
“There is nothing unusual about the area?” Charlotte Glasspool said.
“Like what?”
“The streets, their names, Oak, Elm, Laurel, Walnut, are just . . . names, is that what you think? You never thought there might be a reason? The whole area is like a naturally preserved park—or was. The fae are a woodsy type. It reminds them of home.”
She stopped— as though noting my confusion. Little by little, I was beginning to understand what she was getting at.
“You’re catching on,” Charlotte Glasspool said. “Albeit slowly, but yes. And the ocean as well, there is a connection between it and the fae. Those who prefer the sea instead of the woods cannot live without the ocean nearby. The early morning mist, the hazy sun, the long afternoons. They grow wistful at the mere thought. They also become quite hostile if anyone intrudes. All of them.”
“What are you going to do about it?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“Then why—”
“Because I don’t need to, you see. The fae in the South Bay have grown complacent—they take too much for granted, or did, and now they realize their mistake. It is too late. Their habitat is disappearing, and without it, so will they.”
Madame Zenda listened, her hands clasped in front of her, her chin lifted. Waiting, I’m sure, for a chance to stab someone in the back.
“And you knew of this girl’s interference, Zenda?” Charlotte Glasspool said. “She hit Arion with her car, and you knew?”
Madame Zenda drew herself up and breathed deeply, but she did not reply.
“It would have saved time and effort if you had told me. We could have sacrificed her and her family as the true culprits and by doing so made amends. It might have proven satisfactory if at the same time we had returned Arion before his condition . . . declined.”
“I used my best judgment,” Madam Zenda said, without looking at Charlotte Glasspool. “My intentions were good. What is done is done. But all is not lost.”
“Judgment?”
Zenda pursed her lips. “I believe the investigator did leave a small scroll, or a partial one, outlining what he discovered before he . . . departed.” She blinked her eyes rapidly as a flurry of dust motes drifted in front of her. “The problem is,” she went on, “my people have searched for it everywhere and found only this.”
She removed a scrap of paper from her sleeve but did not offer it to Charlotte Glasspool.
I was still out of sorts, but I knew I was witnessing a power play. Knowledge is power, so my grandfather says, and that was a good reason to listen and let them talk without interrupting. Maybe I could learn something that would help get us out of here—before they killed us.
“What are you waiting for, Zenda?” Charlotte Glasspool did not reach out to take the paper but waited for Zenda to come forward with it.
Would she be inviting criticism if she went to her instead or acknowledging that Zenda might have the upper hand? By doing so in front of us, would it lessen her authority in our eyes? When kids are trying to one-up each other, bystanders watch to see how it plays out. But when adults disagree, they try not to do it in front of their kids. They want to present a unified front, but we know better.
Of course, if she planned to kill us anyway, why would it matter what we saw or thought, which meant maybe there was a chance to stay alive after all.
A slight movement caught my eye. I was still shaky and in the dim light and unfamiliar surroundings I could not be sure of anything. Maybe I was experiencing the aftereffects of a concussion.
I glanced at Mindy, looking for a reaction from her that would tell me she saw—or didn’t see—the same thing. Her eyes widened. She stared from one section of the dark wall to the other, as if searching for where the movement was coming from.
It was not my imagination. With each passing second, it became more obvious whatever was on the other side of the walls was trying to get out. The walls moved again and this time there could be no doubt they were expanding. Was it an earthquake? I had never experienced a bad one, only tremors or a single jolt from an earthquake with an epicenter fifty miles out at
sea, or sixty to seventy miles inland. Still, I never thought I would ever pray that a swaying house would actually be an earthquake.
The floor moved as if it were a ship rolling on waves, and not a building on solid ground. Everyone in the room swayed from side to side and seemed as if they were ready to bolt. Their eyes flitted back and forth from the walls to the ceiling. Would the mansion collapse?
“We need to get out,” Mindy whispered.
I wanted to run but everything I had ever heard about earthquakes said not to run, to get under a heavy desk or table but we were on the first story of a mansion. Nothing in the room could withstand a three-story building falling on it.
The spell with which Charlotte Glasspool had stopped James and Jade had worn off. James beckoned to me and Mindy to move toward the door. Jade’s gaze swept over Abigail and Pamela as if assessing how to get them out.
“You are not leaving,” Charlotte Glasspool said. “It is not what you think.”
Through the windows I saw the shadows of trees. They were not shaking or swaying. Charlotte Glasspool was right. Nothing was moving except the mansion.
A jagged crack split the wall near the base of the floor and branched jaggedly upward. The mansion groaned and the floor buckled.
“I don’t care what she says,” I whispered hoarsely to Mindy. “The wall is going to burst. I’m not waiting to see what’s on the other side.”
Black liquid seeped from one of the cracks. It pooled and expanded across the floor. With everyone staring at it, I shifted to the side which caught Mindy’s attention, and we ran to the door. Before we reached it, a lock clicked, and the shutters closed.
Shadows emerged from the cracks in the walls, amorphous at first then taking shape. Hollow-eyed, gaunt-faced men, woman, and children.
They seemed familiar, like people who had disappeared over the years and whose pictures appeared briefly online: happy smiling faces posted by police and others searching for them, but with the passing years they were now aged and unrecognizable.
One window did not have shutters. Bars covered the glass on the outside. A narrow purple light shone between the bars and winked out. A narrower red light flickered through the trees. The wail of a siren sounded faint and far away.
A blur of silver light flashed through the room. James now stood behind Charlotte Glasspool. He had moved so fast my eyes didn’t register it. He had Pamela draped over his shoulder and held the backs of her legs with one hand to keep her from slipping. With his other hand he warded off a green fire stream hurled at him by Charlotte Glasspool. She pointed at him again. He raised his arm, his fingers spread far apart. A shimmering wall encircled Glasspool. Her image wavered and she screamed but only a small sound escaped.
“I can’t hold her off.” James’s arm strained with the effort of keeping the wall in place; Pamela hung limply over his shoulder. On the other side, Charlotte Glasspool stepped back, her face contorted, her lips moving.
Jade rushed over to me and knelt on one knee. “You were kidnapped. Do you understand?” She grabbed my shoulder and shook it. “Did you hear me?”
I stared at her glimmering iridescent eyes and her pointed ears and could not speak.
“Oh. That.” Jade blinked; a quick shake of her head and her ears smoothed and rounded. Her eyes still glittered green, gold, blue. She blinked harder; they turned emerald green.
“Jade!” James called.
She didn’t turn, but I did. His forehead glistened with opalescent sweat; my eyes bulged.
Jade saw what I was staring at and blinked once at him.
He started and frowned at her. The glimmering sweat disappeared. His ears were no longer pointed.
“It’s stress,” Jade said.
“Who are you? What are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
“We’re people of Uktena, an ancient tribe.”
“Right, that’s clear.”
“Okay, we’re elves, half-bloods; Uktena is the other half. Is that enough? I don’t have time for more. It’s partly true, and the easiest explanation.”
I stared at her. Easy for who?
“Never mind. You were kidnapped, remember that. It’s the only way out.”
She looked from me to Mindy, then Abigail, and back to me.
“I don’t understand,” I said, my voice shaking.
“Jade!” James yelled. His arm wavered. The shimmering wall exploded. Sparkling motes glittered through the room. He waved his arm as if pushing aside a curtain and a round opening appeared in the wall.
Charlotte Glasspool swiped at the dust motes. They sparked and died as her hands touched them.
James ran through the hole in the wall. A firebolt exploded against the wall where he had been a moment before. Flying debris stung my arms and face.
James ran down the dark corridor. Charlotte Glasspool extended her hand, fingers spread. Five points of green light flew from her fingers to the opening as it closed.
Three exploded on the wall, two went through the opening. James veered, pressed his back against the wall, and held Pamela close. Green light flew past his chest and his face and exploded on the winding corridor. He stepped away from the wall, ran, and was gone. The wall was closing, but Jade had not left.
Charlotte Glasspool raised her arm and made a slow circling motion, stirring the air around her.
“Yes! I understand! Go!”
Jade hesitated.
“Yes.” I forced myself to say it calmly. Mindy was too stunned to react. Abigail’s face contorted as if she was ready to attack anyone who got near; she glared at Jade but did not speak.
Jade took a breath, closed her eyes, raised both arms, and gave one hard push on each side, shoving the air away. The glass door on the armoire shattered. Red light flared; a silver light flashed. A shriek echoed through the room. The force had hit me. I gasped at the pain; my head thrown back.
When I opened my eyes, the silver-haired Arion was gone. I was alone in the room.
Chapter 27. Snared
When Jade said, “You were kidnapped,” only one of us reacted. Me. I didn’t realize it then, but with that agreement—and in the case of Abigail disagreement, and Mindy nothing at all—Jade determined where each of us would be when the police arrived.
I had no idea where Abigail and Mindy were, but I was on the floor in the dark library where Jade had done her magic. There were no cracks splitting the walls, no blood on the floor; the ghosts were gone. Was it Jade who made them disappear, or was it the work of Charlotte Glasspool?
Across the room a rolltop desk stood in front of a large window. Red and blue lights flashed from police cars pulling into the circular driveway. Another black and white drove in and the siren droned out. I heard voices and footsteps as police circled the mansion.
More footsteps pounded through the halls. I was about to throw myself against the door where I was locked up, but at the sound of them shouting, I backed away from the door. Not that I could have broken it down. It was heavy and thick. If I threw myself against it all night, it would not have done any good and I probably would have broken my shoulder. It’s just common sense not to stand in front of a door when the police are on the other side ready to knock it down. I once called the police when I was home by myself and forgot to turn on the alarm. I thought I heard someone inside and phoned 911. The police came in with guns drawn. I don’t know if they had safety catches on, but I’ve heard more than once about someone being accidentally shot by a safe gun. I hear about guns all the time—who hasn’t seen them in movies? —but a real one is frightening.
“It’s locked,” I yelled.
“Get away from the door!”
I was already off to the side but moved farther away. They broke the lock and kicked the door open. They told me not to move and to keep my hands where they could see them, and I did.
“Olivia!” Officer Brown entered the room. He stared at me, frowned, and told the other two officers with
him that I was the daughter of one of his former D.A.R.E. kids. Though he knew me, and his expression seemed to relax, he did not put his gun away, nor did the officers with him.
I was shaking so badly I couldn’t talk. A swarm of policemen were in the house, going slowly upstairs, guns drawn.
Abigail’s muffled voice called out, “I’m here! I’m in here!” A weaker voice cried, “Help!” It was Mindy.
“It’s all right,” Officer Brown said, but I saw the unspoken question in his eyes. What the hell are you doing here?
“We were—kidnapped,” I gasped. “They brought us here.”
Two officers came down the stairs with Abigail and Mindy. They were both shaking, their faces pale and dirty. I had forgotten about the muck we had fallen in at Finder’s Hill. Much of the dirt had washed off in the rain, but dust and debris from the explosion added to what was left. We looked like we had been tunneling under the mansion.
“We were kidnapped!” I screamed. It came out easily enough—and I was nearly hysterical so screaming helped—but I said it as a warning, a reminder, to Mindy and Abigail about what Jade had said. It’s your only way out.
Chapter 28. Befriended
Juvenile detention is a place I never wanted to see. I had thought of becoming a lawyer and if I did, I would start as a public defender and meet with defendants who were in jail. But to experience it from the inside and not be able to walk out when I wanted to? No, I had never imagined that.
Handcuffs were another new, horrible, and unexpected, experience.
“It’s procedural.” Officer Brown sounded apologetic as another police officer clamped the handcuffs on my wrists. Not being able to bring your hands to the front of your body is infuriating, and unnatural. I hated the feeling of helplessness. Wrists do not have much flesh and they bruise easily. Even with all the volleyball I played—digging spikes that slammed into my wrists, getting rope burns when I jammed the net—nothing prepared me for this.
I felt damn near off balance with the handcuffs on, but most of all I was pissed.
I wanted to resist but knew better. I had heard enough from my mom and grandfather to know the last thing you should do is make a policeman mad at you.
One of Us: The City of Secrets Page 19