When the Raven Calls

Chapter 12

THEY CAME, OF COURSE. DESPITE my desperate wishing that the moment just would end--that I could stay there, laughing on the floor with my best friends--Syrena, Chris, and Aria (both of whom had been staying with us for the past few days for convenience) showed up in various states of messiness from sleep, glaring at us.

"What's going on? Why are you guys up at, like, 12:30 in the morning?" Syrena snapped. Aria and Chris looked at her, surprised. Clearly, the 'let's shun Sam' thing hadn't been explained to them.

Nonetheless, I still couldn't stop laughing, and neither could the others. Any time one of us was about to stop, it'd start all over again. I think we went on like that for at least 10 minutes before calming down enough to explain.

"Um, you see," I said, still trying to catch my breath. "I was coming down... with Macey... to get some food. And I, uh, bumped into Thomas, and we started talking, and then Macey ran back into the room and started... throwing..."

I started laughing again, and Thomas finished for me. "Chocolates. She threw chocolates at me."

And it started all over again. Aria was smiling, amused but still uncertain of what was going on, but Chris was still focused on Syrena (who didn't appear to be even slightly amused).

"Right, so Macey throws chocolate--"

Another round of giggles started, and she rolled her eyes.

"--at Thomas, and your response to this is to wake up the whole block with your noise?"

"No, I just..." I felt my breathing even out slightly, "It's been too long since we had a good laugh, and you know it. We just needed the excuse."

"Yeah, about that--why has everyone been acting so weird lately?" Chris asked. Aria glanced at him, curious, but his only response was to shift so he'd stand slightly closer between them. I wondered what was between them--sometimes they acted like they were going to kill each other, others they seemed like brother and sister.

I had bigger problems, though, and was actually trying to signal Macey not to say anything, which she apparently took the wrong way.

"Sam had super-powers and has been lying to all of us for ages," she blurted.

"Macey!"

"Sam!" Chris yelled.

"What?!?" Aria exclaimed, disbelief and anger written on her face.

"Macey, I was telling you not to tell them!" I said, momentarily ignoring all the shouting in the room.

"Well, I didn't tell them everything! LIke, I didn't tell them that I walked in on you and Thomas making out on the carpet."

"Macey!" we shouted in unison.

"In my defense, there was a 75% chance everyone would've known in a day anyway!" she said, putting her hands in the air, nervousness and guilt written across her face.

"Okay, someone needs to back up, here. What's going on?" Aria asked, looking at everyone, confused.

"Yeah," Syrena said, eyeing Thomas and I like we were particularly smelly insects, "I think several explanations are in order."

***

AN hour later, we were sitting in the basement, looking down at the same wooden table that had carried so many important decisions.

If these walls could tell stories...

"Alright, start from the beginning. What happened?"