by Nissa Gordon
"...they've increased again, since the summer." he went on angrily, but now Lucy could see that he was waving a newspaper at someone. "It isn't just plants anymore, every other week. It's moved onto animals, and it’s every other day...more and more of them are being found dead," He paused while whoever he was spoken to; Lucy though couldn't focus on whoever it was, which she thought was kind of strange, as though they had put up some kind of spell to block anyone from seeing or sensing them. "I don't care that they're calling it 'The Black Sleep', cause we all know that it isn't sleep. It's death, and yes they're all black...just husks of what they used to be after having the life drained out of them..." He shook his head as he stepped back, and Lucy was able to see who it was finally; and was actually quite surprised. It was Professor Loring; she had heard quite a bit about him from her sister and her cousin, both of them had a crush on him. She didn't fully understand why, though he was kind of handsome; but he was teacher. "I don't think I can do this...it's too dangerous...think about the students...and don't forget the humans, if they found out about all of this." He seemed shocked by the other person’s response as he took another step back into the bookshelves behind him. "They could be killed...and then the humans would declare war on us..." Loring started suddenly, but Lucy hadn't heard anything.
She watched him as he quickly looked around and then walked off without another word to the person that he had been talking to, but she still couldn't figure out who it was. She looked around herself, wondering if she should risk getting closer to see who it was before they too disappeared, because she could feel them walking away. She was just working up her resolve when a hand touched her shoulder; she screamed and almost jumped out of her skin stumbling away from whoever the hand belonged to. Lucy heard laughter next to her in-between hyperventilating from shock.
"Oh, my, god," Alex managed to say in-between fits of laughter.
"I can't believe we actually got you," Troy said smiling at her while she just glared up at him.
Will smiled at her as well. "So...Lu...that's not like you..."
"What?" Lucy said distractedly, as she remembered that whoever had been hiding from view had still been close enough to hear all of that; she quickly twirled around but there wasn't anyone there and the presence that she had sensed was also gone.
"Lucy?" Will said questioningly. "Are you alright?"
Alex leant against the bookshelves grinning broadly, quite pleased with himself. "She's fine...she's probably just annoyed that we actually got her...finally,"
Lucy turned back around rubbing her chest, still trying to get her breathing under control, and wondering if she should tell them what she had heard. It wasn't as though she had heard about anything like that going on back home, but after all her dad didn't tell her everything, and they might know something.
"Lucy?" Will prompted again.
Lucy looked at the three of them, and decided that she might as well tell them. "I...err...kind of over heard a couple of teachers talking,"
"Again? What are you doing, taking up spying as a hobby?" Alex teased.
"Alex..." Lucy said shaking her head, knowing how stupid this all sounded, but she had to tell someone. "It was Professor Loring."
"Who's that?" Alex asked; Will shrugged next to him.
"He's a potions teacher," Troy told them. "My sisters like him, and from what they've said, so do half the girls in the school,"
They all looked at her, as though waiting for her to explain this to them, but she didn't. "Anyway, I have no idea who he was talking to because I couldn't hear him. But I'm sure that there was someone here,"
"Maybe he was on the phone," Troy suggested.
Lucy considered this, but then dismissed it. "That's stupid...if he was going to use a phone for this sort of private call, he would have used his quarters or office,"
"What was they talking about?" Will asked intrigued. "Were they talking about this mystery person like Validus and Domnus, the other day?"
"Actually no, Loring was talking about strange deaths in the city's," Lucy told them, which seemed to get their attention.
"Dad would have said something." Will told her, but he didn't sound that convinced.
"You know as well as I do, that they had an awful lot of work over the summer, and they didn't tell us about it," Lucy told him, and she could see that she was right. "He called it 'The Black Sleep'. Plants and animals having the life sucked out of them,"
They all stared at her as though wondering if she was telling them the truth, and then Alex burst out laughing before he walked off, obviously he hadn't believed her. Will and Troy stared after him and then looked back at Lucy, who was still stood there looking deadly serious; they had known her long enough to know that she didn’t really lie about this sort of stuff.
Lucy flung her arms up annoyed with them as she stormed past them, that was fine with her, if they didn't believe her, they didn't have to, she wasn't going to force them to, especially considering that she didn't have any proof.
They followed her back to the desk where her other friends were, still trying to get her to talk to them, but she wouldn't, instead she was giving them the silent treatment and she didn't care how childish she was being.
Lucy gathered up her things. "Do you want to get something to eat?"
"Lucy, come on," Troy said as he put his arm around her shoulder. "You can try again, but maybe something a little bit more believable,"
Lucy was furious with him and the others, wondering why they didn't believe her, she really could think of better things to lie about. She grabbed his arm and twisted her foot around his as she bent forward slightly, then threw him over her shoulder. A couple of the girls screamed, while Troy grumbled on the floor rubbing his side.
"Wow, you're one scary girl," Travis teased stood with his two friends on the other side of the table.
"Wow Lucy, don't you think..." Alex started, but she cut him off.
"No, obviously I didn't, but it felt good," Lucy shouted at him.
"Excuse me...but what about me?" Troy said still on the floor.
Will grabbed the newspaper off of Travis and threw it down on the table, he might as well find out if she was telling them the truth.
"Oh, you want to check out more about 'The Black Sleep'?" Travis asked him, making everyone look at him. "It says in there that half dozen more animals have been found..."
"Animals been found?" Jess asked confused.
"It's true?" Troy and Alex asked.
"Yeah, it’s been going on for months..." Travis told them, but Liam elbowed him. "Wait a minute, you lot...err...are you from magical families?"
"Of course, Shepherd." Lucy told him.
"She's from a magical family," Reed told them.
"How can you know that?" Libby asked. "I always thought it was a normal name,"
"It's a well known magical family," Lucy told her.
"It is actually, quite an old one," Selena agreed.
"Do you think this is what our dads had been working on?" Will asked.
"It could be; it would explain why they've had so much work and wasn't telling us about any of it," Lucy said.
"Except when you broke your arm," Troy pointed out standing a couple of feet away from her.
Lucy didn't want to get into what had happened on that mission, and it had nothing at all to do with this.
"So, everyone’s keeping it a secret; because my dad wouldn't tell me either and he works for the Lictores and everything," Liam told them.
"They didn't want the humans finding out," Selena told them. "If we all knew what was going on, then word would probably get back to them...I mean considering that other paper the other day,"
"Yeah, Hunter was pretty worked up about that," Travis agreed. "Me personally, I still can't believe that someone sold us out,"
"Yeah I know; this place has been kept a secret for thousands of years," Liam said.
Lucy considered telling them everything that she had heard, but she didn't
want to panic everyone, and anyway from what she heard no one was supposed to be able to get here without the school knowing about it, so they were pretty safe from whatever it was that were really killing animals back home.
Chapter Fourteen
The alarm blared over head somewhere, but Will just buried himself deeper under the covers, not wanting to get up, sure that it couldn't be time already as he only felt like they had all just gone to bed after spending hours doing their science and potion homework.
"Off!" Will shouted through the quilt, and then there was a knock at his door.
He slowly pulled back the covers as the alarm went off, thinking that it was strange that someone was knocking at his door, considering that he was normally always the first one up; unless he was just dreaming it, because he did kind of feel as though he was still half a sleep, and would have preferred to be completely asleep. Then the knock came again, and Will knew that he wasn't imagining it; the door slowly opened and Troy stuck his head in.
"Wow...you're actually still in bed," Troy said surprised opening the door wider as he came in further. "You do know what time it is though, right?"
"What?" Will said confused, wondering why he was up and dressed already.
"Damn if we'd known you were still in bed, we would have knocked on sooner," Troy told him.
"What do you mean sooner, what time is it?" Will asked throwing the covers off of him and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, grabbing his watch from the side table; he couldn't believe what he saw. "Why didn't you wake me?"
Tory held up his hands in defence. "We thought you were already up. You're normally up before we are,"
Alex came up behind Troy. "You're not dressed?"
"I just got up!" Will shouted at him, as he rushed past them and out of his room over to the bathroom; then stopped suddenly at the door with his hand on the handle. "I'll meet you at school,"
"We can wait," Troy offered.
"You can just meet us in the food hall," Alex suggested.
"No, it's fine...I'll just meet you there...at the school," Will told them completely annoyed with himself, he had slept in and still didn’t feel any better for it, and now he was also going to miss breakfast.
"Okay then, we'll see you there," Troy said as they grabbed their bags and headed for the door.
Will had a wash and got dressed in record time, still annoyed with himself that he had over slept; but they had done so much yesterday, trying to fit in everything that they could. Then he had spent what was left of the night with Lucy going over their homework for Jevidah, which he knew he should have done first before they spent the day exploring the rest of the estate, but they hadn't done much of that on Saturday after they found out about all the strange stuff that had been going on in the cities, instead they had gotten hold of everything they could about it. Will still found it so strange that no one had any clues, or that no one could have seen anyone doing these things, they had all happened in major public places according to the papers; but there had been no witnesses.
Will knew that he shouldn't be worrying about stuff like that, not when he was so late; he should be more worried that if he didn't get a move on he was going to miss the last main carriage and he would have to get the extra one, then he would end up with detention. He grabbed his bag, quickly checking to make sure that everything was inside, not wanting to get into anymore trouble for forgetting something important, like the homework that he had spent hours on. It was all there, so he rushed out into the hall, made sure that the door was locked and then ran over to the stairs going as fast as he could; but he almost stumbled when he thought he saw the wall shimmer. He moved closer, wondering if it was like the one that Lucy had gone through the week before, as they hadn't actually managed to find anymore since, which was kind of disappointing.
Will reached out his hand, knowing that he probably didn't really have time to investigate a doorway that he had no idea where it would led, especially when he was already so late, but he couldn't resist the urge to know what was on the other side. A couple of inches away from the shimmering wall, he felt something grab his wrist and pull him forward; he didn't have time to brace himself as he fell forward through the doorway.
A sudden rush of cold air hit him as he fell through stumbling, trying to regain himself. The ground beneath his feet didn't feel right, as he looked down and saw a road. He knew this wasn't good, even before he looked up and took in his surroundings; looking out across fields as far as the eye could see, with a few scattered trees here and there. Will turned around hoping to see something that he recognised, perhaps something from the journey to school or even when he had come from the villages, but there wasn't anything.
Will turned around hoping against hope that there was something, or that someone would come along, because he had no idea which way he was supposed to head towards. For a moment he thought that he was alone, but out in the field to his left he saw a figure in black by the first cluster of trees; he was just about to shout over to him hoping that it was the ground keeper that they had been told about, then changed his mind. He wasn't really sure why, but just looking at the figure in black made him feel even more nervous than being lost out here, in the middle of no where.
Will stepped back, knowing that he should get away from it, not really caring which direction he went just as long as he got away from it and the sooner the better.
A hone sounded behind him, making Will visibly jump, his head wiping around at the sound of the noise. He couldn't believe his luck, it was a motor bike, and Professor Domnus.
"Mr Ryker, what're you doing all the way out here, and on your own?" Domnus asked just as surprised to see him, as Will appeared to be to see him.
Will didn't answer him as he quickly turned around to check on the figure but it wasn't there now, which made Will wonder if he had seen it at all considering that there wasn't really anywhere to hide out here, not unless it knew how to teleport or if it knew where the doorways were.
"Are you alright?" Domnus asked him.
Will turned around to face him finally. "What?"
Domnus looked at him concerned. "Is there a reason why you're on your own on the road to school?"
"Well actually..." Will started, then wondered if he should tell him what happened, but how else was he supposed to explain what he was doing out here alone.
"Yes," Domnus prompted.
"A wall shimmered," Will said, hoping that he was doing the right thing.
"Damn it, again," Domnus said annoyed, and then shook his head. "Get on. It's alright, they've been acting up recently, and we can't seem to figure out the problem. Best to stay away from them for now, especially when you could end up anywhere,"
"Oh...okay," Will said kind of pleased that had gone alright and that he wasn't in trouble, and he had found out something important as well. "So, that's what that guy had been doing out there then?" Will asked pointing over his shoulder in the direction where the black figure had been.
Now Will could see that Domnus had no idea at all what he was talking about, and that worried him, especially when he climbed off of the bike and pulled out his wand as he walked across the road to the edge of the other field. Will followed his line of sight, where he had pointed out the figure; it hadn't returned, but the trees that it had been stood next to, were black and lifeless.
"Get on the bike, now!" Domnus told him as he grabbed his upper arm and directed him over to the bike.
Domnus got on first while Will put the strap of his bag over himself before he got on behind him, if this wasn't so serious, he would have been quite pleased that he was going to get a ride on the back of a motor bike. But he had read the paper, and knew that those trees were dead by the same thing that had been in the city for several months.
"Sir...?" Will said questioningly.
Domnus didn't answer him straight away, instead he seemed to active some sort of radio that was located with all of the dials; it crackled for a moment before he spoke. "
I need to radio in a sighting,"
"Go ahead Ordin," Validus said through the radio.
"Mr Ryker came through a doorway, along the road to school. He sighted someone in the fields just before I turned up, the trees have turned black,"
"Are you sure?" Validus asked.
"I've seen the trees myself, though from a distance, they still seem to appear to be affected like the others in the city. Could you send a team out here to check the area over and to do a complete scan to find out if anymore of these doorways have been activated?"
"If they are using doorways, it would explain how they're getting in and out without being seen," Validus said, and then paused for a couple of seconds. "I've triangulated your signal, and will send a team out shortly,"