Sonora and the Scroll of Alexandria (Book #2)

by T. S. Hall

  Underneath the newspapers, there was an odd jewelry box. She blew off the dust and opened it, revealing a small black marble. Allora rubbed away the blackish-blue grime. The marble hovered above her hands, spinning and floating down right above the ground. From the top of the round object, a holographic image of her uncle appeared, projecting upward.

  “Uncle Ben,” Allora said, reaching her fingertips into the light, longing for his presence.

  The image smiled, looking down as if reacting to her movement.

  “Hello, Milly,” it said. “If you are watching this, it means I have failed. I hate to say it, but you were right. Hades has infiltrated the guardians. I feel like I have thwarted his quest in finding the Scroll of Alexandria though. I still don’t know what sort of information it holds, but I believe Hades thinks it’s crucial to the king’s plans. Look, I know you don’t believe in the SSS or our methods, but this scroll may be the advantage we need to protect this world. It also may have information about how we can find or use the Eye of the Titans. Please believe me. I know how much you want to protect our family. This may be the only way we can. All the information you need to find the lost city of Alexandria is contained within the memory orb. And, sis, remember your promise to me. When she’s old enough, you must tell her the truth.”

  Uncle Ben placed his hand over his heart, with his index and middle fingers pointed to his shoulder and his thumb toward his chin. Allora took in his masculine shape, strong jaw, sweet smile, and crystal-blue eyes. She couldn’t help but cry upon seeing the image fade. Left alone in the dark hiding spot, she took the marble off the ground and located the small orb that her uncle had mentioned. She placed the orb in her shirt and rubbed away the dirt. It was black and looked like the Eye of the Titans but was much smaller. She sniffed, sucking in her emotions and blinking away her tears.

  “Well, here goes nothing,” she said, pointing her index finger at the memory orb.

  Allora pulled in a few hadrons, focused them to her finger, and shot a spark into the black orb. The room exploded in light, and Allora shot backward into a pile of hay in the corner. Sudden pictures flashed in her mind. Her uncle… a dark man…her school…a tomb filled with skeletons…the desert…a large city in a cave…a pyramid…a dark chamber with hieroglyphs…the horizon in Sandy…and then darkness.

  Allora heard her name in the distance. Muffled sounds of yelling followed. The outburst of energy exploded upward. Bright sunlight beamed down into the hole. Chicken feathers littered the air. Allora blinked rapidly. Her eyesight was fuzzy, and her head pounded as if it was in a vice. She went in and out of consciousness. Fuzzy figures appeared, climbing down the wooden ladder.

  Her body felt limp. Allora watched the green haze of grass flow beneath her feet as she was carried inside her house. Slowly, her eyesight came back, but the pounding headache continued. She was handed a bag of frozen peas and placed it on top of her head. Then Milly appeared, hands placed sternly on her hips.

  She turned to her sister. “Did you know that Ben had a secret hideout underneath the chicken coop?”

  Aunt May shook her head.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Milly asked.

  “It feels like I got hit by a bus.”

  “Great, you broke open your stitches too,” Aunt May remarked, noticing the red stain on Allora’s pants.

  Milly shook her head. “What were you doing down there?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Allora answered. “What was that thing?”

  Milly dug into her pocket and pulled out the black obsidian marble.

  “It’s called a memory orb. They are used as storage devices, kind of like a hard drive, except you can store visual images based on experiences.”

  “Why am I only able to see glimpses or short images?”

  “That is because you’ve just downloaded a lot of information. It’s going to take quite a while for all of it to be processed by your mind.”

  “Why would Ben leave it for Allora?” Aunt May asked her sister.

  “It probably just had a basic bio-hadron encryption that would allow anyone with our family signature to access it. I don’t think Uncle Ben thought it would take this long for us to discover it.” Milly turned over the small black marble, pointing to the strange small blotches. “Look, it has deteriorated. Ben must have been in a hurry and accidentally left it out of its casing.”

  “What do you mean?” Allora asked.

  “Memory orbs require a constant cold temperature of zero degrees Celsius, or else the processing chip inside will overheat and slowly burn away the memories stored inside. You may only be able to see a few of Ben’s memories. When those memories do get triggered, you must tell me everything.”

  Milly got up and went to her room. When she came back, she was dressed in a very tight, black bodysuit with a silver tube strapped to her back, a pistol on her thigh, and a sword slung around the other side of her back.

  “Allora, I’ve got to go somewhere, and I need you to do me a favor.” Allora stood up, walking toward her mother. “I need you to go to Swan and tell him about Ben’s memory orb. Tell him everything that you saw. And please make sure not to get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

  “Where are you going?” Allora asked as her mother went quickly out the back door.

  Allora placed the bag of peas back in the freezer and went to the backyard. Milly took the metal tube from her back and sparked the end. The metal split along a seam and then unrolled, hovering in midair. The flat plank was about an inch thick, with no other markings. Allora ran her finger along the edge. It was cold and stationary.

  “This is called a skipper,” Milly said, watching her daughter examine the metal board. “Humans referred to them as magic carpets. The design has evolved, but the basic concept has remained the same.”

  “What does it do?”

  Milly sparked the metal again. The interior seemed to melt toward the ground in varying length and depth, creating what looked like the seat of a motorcycle. In the front, two handles rose up, and a clear screen formed. Milly placed one foot onto a slanted backing, put her knee into the depressed section on the side, swung her leg over the middle seat, and placed her chest into the slightly depressed resting area in the middle.

  “Whoa,” Allora said, standing next to the hovering motorcycle-like vehicle.

  “I’ll be back in a couple weeks,” Milly said, inputting something into the front panel. “Make sure to feed the animals, and take care of your sister. Oh, and please help Aunt May rebuild the chicken coup while I’m gone.”

  With that said, Milly sparked the front panel. The sides of the hovering metal spread over Milly’s body, connecting in the middle. Then the odd-looking metal contraption accelerated like a rocket being launched. The skipper flew toward the edge of the forest, pulled up vertically, and zipped across the sky, hovering above the tree line before disappearing over the foliage.

  “That thing is so cool,” Allora said as Aunt May walked up with her hands in her pockets. “Will I get to ride in one of those?”

  “Eventually.”

  Allora’s head began to pound again. She closed her eyes hard and held the side of her head.

  “That’s going to probably hurt for quite some time.”

  Allora shook her head as the pain subsided slightly. “Where did she take off to so quickly?”

  Aunt May hesitated and jerked her head toward the house. They walked inside. Aunt May got a bag of frozen corn from the freezer and stuck it on top of Allora’s head and then brought her into the living room.

  “We need additional resources for protecting the town. Those skimmers were a bad omen. It means that the Titans have a far more powerful presence on Earth than we realized. Milly is heading to a place where we still have allies.” Aunt May gave her a look, pausing to see if she could guess it. Allora racked her brain and then shrugged her shoulders. “Sonora.”

  Three

  SENIORS

  The knock at the door came rapidly and
then changed into a rhythm, like the beats of a drum. Allora heard the familiar pattern and ran out into the living room as her aunt opened the door. Katie had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and was wearing a pink baseball T-shirt with pink lettering on her chest that read “Seniors.”

  “Hey, May,” Katie said. “Thought I’d drop by and see if your overachieving niece was ready for senior year.” From behind her back, she pulled out purple version. “The other girls want us all to be wearing those tomorrow.”

  “It’s kind of weird that we’re now seniors,” Allora said, putting on the shirt to see if it fit.

  “Feels like yesterday that I was changing your diapers,” Aunt May said, rummaging through her pocket. She pulled out a set of keys. “Since you are now a senior and your mother is out of town, I figured you could start driving yourself to school.” She handed Allora the keys and smiled. “You break it, you buy it.”

  Allora wrapped her arms around her and squeezed tightly, grinning emphatically.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “Just don’t let me regret it,” Aunt May said, leaving the room.

  The next day Allora got dressed and ate breakfast quickly. She grabbed her book bag, pulled her sister out of the door while she was eating toast, and got into the van. Turning the key in the ignition was almost as satisfying as when she’d found the Eye of the Titans. Allora relished the moment as she drove onto the main road.

  “Why are you so happy?” Bell said, noticing the grin on Allora’s face.

  “I got a car.”

  “You mean you got a minivan. Not exactly something to be that excited about.”

  “Well, aren’t you the little snob. I had no idea that you were such a princess.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Well, pipe down, you little pipsqueak. I like my big boat of a van. And this will probably be what you’ll be driving when I go off to college.”

  “You really think that you’re going to college?” Bell said, her eyes dropping down as she put her chin against her chest.

  Allora was speechless. It was almost as effective as if she had been punched in the stomach. Bell’s question was filled with emotion. It was like a scream that nobody had heard. The entire summer Bell had kept to herself. Allora was so caught up in trying to find more information about the Eye of the Titans, along with training, that she had never noticed her little sister’s struggles.

  “You know that I’m never going to let anything happen to you, little squirt,” Allora said, pulling into the school parking lot.

  Bell nodded and exited the van. She looked back at Allora, forcing a smile as she left the parking lot. Katie pulled up next to her.

  “What’s up?”

  “I don’t know,” Allora said, noticing Tanner and Dax at the edge of the school property, hanging out by the old wishing well. “My little sister is acting strange.”

  “What’s new?” Katie said, as they walked over to the boys. “Your whole family is strange.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “What up, senior ladies?” Dax said, jumping off the edge of the old stone well. “You two going to do a little freshman hazing today?”

  “Absolutely not, Dax,” Allora said sternly, slamming her index finger into his chest. “I see you harassing any of those poor little freshmen, and you’re dead.”

  “Whoa! I was just kidding, Allora.”

  “Bad memories?” Katie asked, laughing.

  “First week of freshman year, I was cornered in the bathroom by a bunch of senior girls who dunked my head in the toilet,” Allora admitted.

  “You never told me about that,” Katie said.

  “Not exactly something that you go around bragging about,” Allora said, looking down into the dark well. “It was completely embarrassing. I had to change into an old sweater out of the lost and found, which made me itch all day.”

  “Gross,” Katie said, scrunching her nose.

  Tanner pulled four quarters from his pocket and handed them out. “It’s tradition to place a coin in the wishing well at the start of your senior year.” They all walked up to the old stone well and looked down into the dark waters fifty feet below. “Here is to the next adventure.”

  “Booyah,” Dax said as they dropped their coins. The plopping sound echoed up the stone walls. Allora squinted her eyes at something that seem to reflect off the splashed water. It was somewhat abnormal against the moss-covered grayish black stone.

  “Come on,” Katie yelled back as they were walking toward the high school. “I’m craving one of those sugar-glazed donuts before first period.”

  “Fatty,” Dax muttered out the corner of his mouth..

  Katie punched him hard on the shoulder. Allora looked one last time but couldn’t find the odd reflection in the dark well. She gave up on it and caught up with the other three. They watched the pint-sized freshmen scurry out of the buses, unsure about where to go, clutching textbooks to their chests. Juniors hung around on the front lawn, playing hacky sack and sitting in the sun. Sophomores made their way to the back hallway where they could seclude themselves from the rest of the school. Seniors were littered about everywhere, either helping the new freshmen find their classes or hazing them when the teachers weren’t looking.

  Allora, Tanner, Dax, and Katie walked toward the front double doors, side by side. Small groups of kids lingered on the lawn talking quietly, their voices turning to whispers as the four walked by. Darting eyes turned away as Allora scanned the other students’ scared expressions. They had spent most of the summer together, so they were unaware that the student body had been spreading rumors about their run-in with Kim in the spring, and the car accident. Allora gripped onto the strap of her backpack tighter as she walked through the front entryway.

  Allora pushed open the front double doors of Sandy High School and smelled a mix of wood, sneakers, and air freshener. It was an odd combination that was unique to the school. After getting their class schedules at the front desk, they walked down the senior hall to their lockers. At the end of the hallway, there was a tall, dark-haired boy harassing one of the freshmen. Allora peered around the older boy’s body to see a black-haired kid with glasses, wearing a plaid, tucked-in shirt and pleated pants. He looked scared as the older boy pushed him up against the locker. Allora stomped down the hallway, feeling infuriated by the sight. Tanner tried to stop her in a feeble attempt to try to justify the hazing of freshmen. Allora grabbed the taller boy by the shoulder and twisted him around.

  He dropped the smaller freshman. “Hey!” Allora pushed him up against the locker. The older boy had a look of shock on his face. “Wow, you are strong.” He smiled. His teeth were perfectly straight and ivory white. His hair was neatly gelled, flowing down over his ears. He had a strong jawline, a distinguished nose, and dark-brown eyes. Allora had to struggle to keep from staring at his large, muscular chest and arms.

  “You OK?” Allora asked the freshman.

  “Yeah, thanks,” he said, running down toward the freshman hallway.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Allora asked authoritatively.

  “I thought that was how it worked around here,” the boy said. “Seniors introduce the freshmen to high school.”

  “You know, he is right,” Dax said, walking up with Tanner and Katie. “The seniors tried to stick me in a trash can when I was a freshman.”

  “Didn’t you almost get expelled for beating them up?” Tanner asked.

  “Like I said, they tried to stick me in a trash can.”

  “Well, it’s not going to happen while I’m around,” Allora said, looking back at the boy. “Got it?”

  “Loud and clear,” the boy said, stretching out his hand. “The name is Marcus. I’m new to the school.” He smiled again, looking as if nothing had happened. Allora reluctantly shook his hand, telling him her name. He remained there for a few seconds longer than was comfortable, staring into her eyes. She couldn’t help stare back at the extremely attrac
tive boy.

  “I think it’s time we got to class,” Tanner said, moving up and grabbing Allora by the hand.

  Marcus stepped forward in a show of aggression. “I think that she will go when she’s good and ready.”

  Tanner stepped forward, mimicking Marcus’s gesture. “Here for not even a day and you already think that you’re big man on campus?”

  “You scared?”

  “You wish,” Tanner said, getting right into Marcus’s face. The two were touching chests, wondering who would throw the first punch. “Why don’t we go outside and find out?”

  Allora split the two with her hands and pushed them both back. “Stop it.” She could see something new and strange in Tanner’s eyes. It was more than just anger. She turned to Marcus. “I think that you should go.”

  Marcus took a few slow steps backward. “Well, I hope I get to see you again.” His smile was arrogant but charming at the same time.

  “Not likely,” Allora said, smirking back at him. Marcus left, and she turned back to Tanner. “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t like that guy,” he said. “And what were you doing flirting with a guy like that?”

  “Flirting?” Allora exclaimed, her eyes wide with shock. “Seriously?”

  “Whatever. I’m going to class,” Tanner said, walking away. Dax left with him.

  “Are you kidding me?” Allora yelled down the hallway, holding out her palms.

  Katie put her hand on Allora’s shoulder. “You were kind of flirting,” she said. Allora rolled her eyes and then went to her locker. “I don’t blame you.”