by Shea, K. M.
The twins exchanged looks of indifference while Brannon rolled up his sleeves and Royce took his hat off, tossing it to the side.
“I guess we’ll just have to get down and dirty,” Royce drawled.
The creases in Raven’s forehead deepened as she watched Brannon thunder into action while Royce navigated around the glass cases. The twins sat back, leaning against the wall without care or concern.
Raven remembered herself with a jolt, and smoothed her expression before idly twirling a lock of her hair around her finger. “Oh dear,” she said, watching Jeremiah set a footstool on fire with the hunk of flaming book.
Royce ducked and the book went hurtling over his head. “So who’s up first? My magic is no good here,” he said, peering over a case to watch the book scuttle across a wooden desk.
“I’ll try!” Brannon cheerfully offered.
“WAIT!” Jeremiah shouted.
“Brannon, NO!” Daire thundered.
It was too late. The large boy flopped to the ground. He eagerly thumped his meaty fists on the wooden floor and waited. There was a low rumble that seeped up from the ground, and the floor vibrated beneath Raven’s three inch heels.
“What’s going on?” Raven shouted over the rumble while crouching down, pressing herself against a wall. She held a hand over her heart in a falsified gesture of weakness as the floor violently shook.
“Brannon’s a ground user!” Royce yelled, clinging to the leg of a table while the ground to shuddered. The glass chandelier that hung over their heads tinkled against its brass hook and the drawers in the filing cabinets rammed open and closed.
The twins fell to the ground in a heap while Daire supported himself against a locked bookcase, holding onto Jeremiah’s shirt collar while Jeremiah stumbled and crashed to the floor. The book flattened itself against the glass case, fairing the best out of the group.
Eventually the trembling subsided and the group sighed in relief.
“Brannon, you moron!” Jeremiah said, stumbling to his feet before stalking over to the towering boy, who was still sitting on the floor like a pleased puppy. Jeremiah smacked him on the head. “You nearly got us all killed!”
“Sorry,” Brannon said with a sheepish grin, rubbing his head.
“Since the genius has had his shot,” one of the twins scornfully started, Raven couldn’t tell which one.
“We’ll take care of it,” the other twin finished.
“Go ahead and try!” Jeremiah said, dusting off his clothes and hair as his face twisted into a snarl.
Raven raised an eyebrow as she observed the page turners. The boys might be united against a library invasion, but there was division among the ranks, that was for sure.
The twins ignored him and strode into the middle of the room. They shoved aside several stands, making a small circle in the center of the room.
They cracked their fingers and nodded to each other across the circle, still moving in perfectly harmony. There was a popping noise and a small, cheerful fire flashed into place, sending puffs of smoke curling through the room.
The slimy book froze. It puttered around on the desk it was crouching on before slowly crawling towards the flames. It hopped into the small fire, happily ruffling its pages.
“A fire salamander can’t resist fire. Naturally, neither would a magical book about them,” the twins said, their voices one sound.
Raven frowned, watching the book dance in the fire. “Careful,” she sweetly trilled while the twins slowly approached it.
Quick as a wink the book zoomed out of the fire and darted under tables and cases, leaving a trail of ash and smoke behind it.
“Not so fast!” one of the twins grunted, throwing himself over a desk to corner the book in the first independent act Raven had ever seen one of the twins perform. He kicked the book, sending it flying back towards his twin who was putting the magical fire out.
The other twin caught it, clenching the cover shut while it squirmed in his arms. The book violently leaped out of his hands just as his twin approached with a clamp.
With a roar the book burst into flames and rushed through the room, littering sparks and setting fire to the carpeting.
Royce jumped toward it with a shout. The book violently leaped at him, hitting him square in the chest. Royce fell over with an “oomph,” cringing as his back struck a sharp corner of a filing cabinet. The book bashed Brannon in the head as it sailed by, aiming for a cleared patch of floor.
It nimbly avoided Jeremiah, who crashed into Daire, sending both of them sprawling. On his way down Jeremiah fell against a table, thrusting it into Raven’s side while the book cleverly weaved around her feet, tripping her. She fell to the floor with a girlish yelp and saw the book aiming for the cracked door. “Oh pages, NO!” she said, grimly pulling off her shoe. She couldn’t let it get out of the room. It would storm the hallway and head straight for the patrons!
Gripping the toe of her high heeled shoe, Raven slammed it down on the book’s cover, impaling the magical manuscript on the heel, which went right through the softened surface.
“Touch down!” Brandon trumpeted from the floor.
Raven triumphantly leered over the book, her lips curling up in a smirk before she realized she didn’t look at all feminine or helpless, which was how the apparently sexist Gram wanted her to act. Switching tactics, Raven shrieked and threw her shoe, the book still impaled on it, away from her.
It landed in a ruffled bundle at Jeremiah and Daire’s feet.
Jeremiah cried as Daire clamped down on the book. The blond hurried across the room, tripping over askew furniture, and opened the gate as Daire followed. Daire shoved the book into place after removing Raven’s shoe from the book’s cover. He buckled the manuscript to the shelf and slammed the gate shut with an ominous clack.
Everyone lay still for a moment, deeply breathing and inspecting their bodies for injuries while fanning away the predominant smell of singed hair.
Jeremiah broke the silence first. “Excellent work for your first day, Ray-Ray,” he said with a lopsided grin, bending over to pick up Raven’s shoe where Daire had dropped it.
“Thank you,” Raven said, pausing in the middle of awkwardly rising off the ground.
“You’re welcome,” Jeremiah smiled, handing the footwear to her.
“But I can’t take credit for capturing the book,” Raven said as she internally decided Jeremiah was probably just as sexist as Gram so everything was likely to work out. “It was Daire who got it shelved. With your help!” she hurriedly added.
Royce barked with laughter and rolled to his feet. “That was a disaster,” he stated, looking around at the room that now bore black burn marks and piles of ash.
“Can you fix it?” Brannon asked Royce as he gestured widely around the room.
“Royce needs to watch the desk,” Daire said, ambling away from the iron shelving unit. “We all need to get back to work,” he announced, glancing back at the newly shelved magical book. (It still growled behind the bars.)
“What’s there to do?” Jeremiah wondered.
“Paperwork,” Daire crisply said while stalking across the room.
“I think I’ll work with the customers, thanks,” Jeremiah said, following the prefect out of the room. Brannon strolled after them, humming under his breath.
Royce slipped his Stetson hat back on his head. “Good work, Ray!” he nodded in approval.
“Thank you. Is there anything I can help you with?” Raven asked, eagerness lining her voice.
“Not really. We only have a few reports assigned from headquarters. We don’t get many assignments thanks to our bad relationship with them. You can go home,” Royce shrugged.
“Oh,” Raven blinked. “Well… thank you, then. And goodnight!” she said, biting her lip.
“Night! This’ll be fun. I bet those users have worked themselves into a tizzy,” Royce said with a sigh, striding out of the room, leaving Raven alone with the twins.
The d
uo stared at her for a few moments before turning on their heels—in perfect harmony of course—and leaving.
Raven grumbled and slipped her shoe on. “I don’t want them to take an ‘interest’ in me like Royce mentioned, but their way of ignoring someone is just awkward.”
By the time Raven strapped her shoe back on, the page turners had left the hallway. Raven carefully navigated the up and down passages of the hallway, making her way towards the kitchen. She wrinkled her nose at the foul stench and was so distracted by the disgusting room she nearly missed the sound behind her.
Raven swung around just in time to see Jeremiah exiting a stone passageway, the wall swinging shut behind him. He smiled at her as the painting on the newly closed wall swung back and forth behind him.
“Hello Ray-Ray,” Jeremiah smiled.
“Hello Jeremiah. Where on earth did you come from?” Raven asked, indicating to the wall with a flicking motion of her pointer finger.
“Hm? Oh, that was a secret passageway,” Jeremiah factually said.
“A secret passageway?” Raven repeated.
“Saint Cloud has loads of secret tunnels,” Jeremiah nodded. “Daire probably knows them the best, but I know quite a few myself. It makes it easier to get around the library. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if the twins know all of the passages and tunnels. That would explain why they materialize when they are least wanted,” Jeremiah said before collapsing in a chair.
“Wow, I didn’t know,” Raven said, genuinely surprised. Nothing in her research about Saint Cloud had indicated there were secret tunnels.
“It is odd isn’t it? But it’s just another oddity of Saint Cloud. You can go, by the way. You and the twins are both under 16, yes? State laws say you can’t work past eight,” Jeremiah continued, changing the topic. “Plus, we don’t have enough to keep all six of us occupied, much less you as well. The computer lab needs only so much supervision.”
Raven caught the inconsistencies between his previous speech earlier that day, boasting how the computer lab needed all of the page turners, and his speech now, but she did not mention it. “If there isn’t enough work for everyone, why do you all work here?” Raven inquired, careful to keep her voice light and airy.
“Prestige. Better career opportunities. People respect you if you say you worked at Saint Cloud,” Jeremiah shrugged. “Have a good evening, Ray-Ray. If you’ll excuse me, I really should get back to the patrons,” Jeremiah said with a charming smile. “Good night!” he called before disappearing into the computer room.
“Good night,” Raven said as she stewed over Jeremiah’s words.
When Raven gathered up her things and left Daire watched her leave.
“Did you hear the full time staff called an emergency meeting a few minutes after Ray-Ray showed up?” Jeremiah said, looking at the computer sign in log for the day. “That strikes me as being odd. They’ve only called two since we started working here. And both times there were drastic results.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Daire said, watching Raven swish her skirt before she left via a side door. “Speaking of ‘Ray-Ray,’ she’s some spy,” he said. “She’s got the IQ of a troll.”
“I’m not sure,” Jeremiah said, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked up. “I’m not convinced she’s a spy.”
“Of course you wouldn’t be. She struck you dumb because she’s your type.”
“Maybe… but she seems to be quite taken with the library.”
“That makes her an even less desirable character. The last thing we need is some do gooder prancing around the library, trying to ‘save’ it,” Daire shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. My uncle said I can do what I want, and I intend to see her out.”
“There’s something about her,” Jeremiah reflectively continued. “I’m not sure what it is, but I feel as though there are depths to her that we could never fathom.”
“Your English class is going through another poetry unit, aren’t they?
“Shut up!”
Chapter 4
Raven did her best to smile and look engaged while taking discreet glances at her Japanese language notes.
“It must be so hard to transfer now,” a female student, one of the group members Raven was “working” with, twittered.
“Oh no. School’s been in session for barely a month. It’s not a big deal,” Raven said with a winning smile before her brown eyes flashed to the teacher standing in the front of the classroom.
Yamashita Sensei was giving them time to work on a group exercise, but, following school tradition, students instead idly chattered. And of course Raven had to keep up and chatter with the best of them.
Raven clenched her teeth behind her smile and wondered why she chose such a difficult language as her language class.
Across the room Asher and Aron erupted in laughter for a few moments, grinning at each other before lowering their voices and continuing to talk. They worked alone with no additional members in their group.
Raven watched their willing isolation, creases appearing in her forehead.
“Don’t even bother, new girl,” one of the girls said, heaving her makeup caked eyes to the ceiling.
“Excuse me?” Raven asked, whipping her attention back to her partners.
“It’s useless,” one of the three girls, a blond wearing a sparkling shade of sky blue eye shadow, said. “So many girls have targeted those two, but they’re so tight nothing alive can get between them,” she said, wrapping a piece of her hair around her finger.
“What do you mean?” Raven said.
“They’re twins, right? And they’re really hot,” the third girl piped in. “It’s pretty safe to say that a majority of the girls here have crushed on the Montamos twins at some point in their life. Sometimes there are girls stupid enough who will try to, like, buddy up to them in hopes of snagging one of them. Never works.”
“The last girl that approached them? They made her cry. Five minutes after she sat down by them!” the first girl added.
“The guys stopped trying to befriend in them in grade school when it was pretty clear they didn’t want any friends,” the girl with the sky blue eye shadow said. “But we girls press on, hoping that one day they’ll let us in,” she sighed.
“Or at least the girls who want to be in an abusive relationship press on,” the third girl shrugged.
“I would put up with the attitude if I could spend my day looking at him,” the first girl grinned.
“Which one?” Raven said.
“Does it matter?” she blinked. “They look exactly alike.”
“Yeah,” the other girls agreed.
Raven teetered on the brink of feeling bad for the twins and feeling bad for their classmates. It was obvious the twins were very keen on their self imposed alienation. They had probably harmed many friendly souls who had tried befriending them out of pure kindness.
But on the other hand Raven felt taken aback. Who could blame the twins if people acted like they could be traded like socks. (Of course part of that was probably their fault since they did everything possible to look and act alike.)
The bell rang, and Raven was knocked from her reverie. “Thanks for letting me join your group,” she said with a flashy smile as she scooted her desk back into its row and started packing up her books.
“No problem new girl. If you want to pay us back put in a good word for us at the library,” the girl with the sky blue eye shadow mischievously winked. It was beyond Raven how the girl knew she worked at Saint Cloud. “You should hang with us sometime, Ray-Ray.”
“Thanks! I will! I’ll see you tomorrow,” Raven called to the group members as she shouldered her bag and left the room.
She got to her locker and stashed her books before leaving the school, her heels clicking on the cement.
She then walked down the block. And she walked. And walked. And walked.
Raven glanced up and down the empty street. “No one is around?” she murmured before he
r shoulders collapsed in relief. “Good! I want out of these heels, now. I’m going to need corrective surgery on me feet at this rate.”
Raven slipped out of the black shoes, her flared jeans brushing the cement as she picked up the heels and started walking, barefoot, down the sidewalk. She did not take the small, dainty steps her heels demanded, and instead took long, swaggering strides, reveling in the release.
Raven froze when she heard a chorus of laughter that was swiftly becoming familiar. She spun around, her shoes still dangling from her fingers.
Sure enough, strolling behind her were the Montamos twins. One of them held a plastic bag, which appeared to have candy in it. They took turns passing the bag back and forth, stuffing themselves with chocolate and other delicious treats.
Raven cursed under her breath and delicately shook out her heels with a flicking motion of her wrist, hoping to make it look like she was shoeless because something had gotten wedged in her heels.
Raven put the dress shoes back on and started walking again, taking the usual dainty steps. She expected Asher and Aron to pass her after a few minutes. They were walking quite fast when Raven got her first look at them. Instead they lagged behind her, keeping a block between Raven and them.
Raven slowed down even more to force the boys to pass her. (She would not wear her heels any longer!)
They stayed behind her.
Raven risked a glance over her shoulder. The boys had practically slowed to a snail’s pace.
When Raven found Main Street she took a right, instead of taking the correct direction—a left. Raven hurried, planning to duck into an ice cream store until the twins were sufficiently up the street so she could slink back out and remove her shoes.
“Hey,” two voices called out. “You’re going the wrong way.”
Raven turned around, a smile on her face. “I was just,” she trailed off, gesturing over her shoulder at the ice cream parlor. “I just wanted a…,” she paused. Both boys were staring at her with unbelieving eyes.
Raven dropped her hand and slowly minced back to the crosswalk. “Thank you Asher, Aron,” she tried to smile.