Escapade

TWO - MARELLA

   Mom had been having a rough day. She hadn't left her room, and she'd told us to ignore her but it was hard to concentrate on dwarven subterranean geography when your mother is convulsing and screaming. And it varied, depending on the situation. When I went into her room, she stopped screeching, and got uncontrollable giggles. She would indecipherably mumble to me, trying to explain what was so funny about me. When dad went in there, I could hear her, as she started to ramble about stuff. Everything. She rattled on about the shiny walls, and the light that came in through the windows. She talked about me, and how funny I was.

   Hours after I'd gone in there, and a lot of coaxing from Dad, she fell asleep.

   I finished my fruitless research for the dwarven geography. My result: I had no freaking idea how she got in. I'd felt like tossing all my charts onto the ground. But the sliver of sensible brain cells remaining after the antagonizing work, had told me that was a bad idea.

   After I had given up on the maps, I had an even more infuriating problem to solve. What had happened with Sophie? Lihn had been worried sick about her. I wasn't sure if she knew something I didn't, about Sophie. I wasn't super worried about her. It hadn't the first time she had ignored me for many weeks on end.

   Keefe had also been unresponsive. This had been what worried me more. Not because I had liked Keefe or anything, it was just that—in the past—his mother hadn't actually succeeded in capturing him. While the others had been focusing on figuring out what Lady Gisela would do to him—with her Archetype, or something—I had depended on him not getting caught. But Gisela had done her creepy thing on him already, so my plan was now out of the question.

   All elemental abilities are sort of connected, and while I was not a Shade, I could tell that there was some serious power in his condition. Elwin spent hours at his side. And that was not a good sign. When Lihn went to see him she reported Bullhorn resting near him. It was only when someone was near death, that a Banshee would do that. Another really bad sign.

   The thing that topped off my depressing week, was when I went shopping. I had just gone shopping in Atlantis the day before. I had only been getting some gifts for Lihn and my mother. Just as I was preparing to leave, I saw someone from Foxfire. Her name was Bethani and she went by Beth. The only reason I was unfortunate enough to have met her before, was because she used to be one of Stina's minion-friends. That was when Stina was a jerk, and the bully of the school. That was before the big problems started. After Stina sort of left their group, Beth took over as the leader. She started parading around with her friends and her boyfriend. Though she was my level, she had already picked up her first Match list, having manifested as a—weak—Telepath. I had heard a few rumours that she couldn't even erase memories, or reach out without physical contact to the temples. Much less probe. Since not many people had known that I was a Pyrokinetic, I got teased a lot, around that time. Despite my ability, I'm branded Talentless by the public. There were only three other prodigies in level six that hadn't manifested at that point. There might have even been less, as I hadn't been informed, due to Foxfire's extended hiatus. It had been months since the closing of school. I hadn't heard much gossip. I hated how I couldn't keep up with any gossip when we weren't in school, but I was happy I didn't have to do all of my research with Lihn, on top of school.

   Anyway, Bethani teased me publicly. I had no snappy comebacks. I had really, really felt like singeing her makeup-covered eyebrows, that would've be some gossip. I couldn't say anything, either. Until the world was figured out, I would just have to deal with people considering me Talentless. Even though I had one of the most powerful abilities ever.

   I hated being stuck at home with no where to go but Choralmere, to talk to Lihn. And even so, she had been away with Tam, interrogating Glimmer, over the past few days. Worst part was, we didn't even know whether Glimmer had really left the Neverseen or not. I was worried that they would be away from the Lost Cities, and get ambushed by the Neverseen, and have it all be coordinated by Glimmer.

   On the other hand, I could've gone to Maruca's and see how she was doing, but in my past visits, she's gotten angry, and thrown tantrums. She was most likely just frustrated that she had sort of failed at the ambush in the dwarven capital. Though I was often angry with the way life worked, and furious with the Neverseen for out-pacing our long plotted schemes, I never got as out of control as she did. The time before, she had closed herself in a force field, and didn't come out for about ten minutes, when she told me to go away. Her father said that she was just pouty, but he hadn't been told the whole story. He just thought that I was a lowly, Talentless, who wanted to be friends with his powerful daughter. And that was beside the fact that he's an insignificant Vanisher, not even part of the nobility. I had heard that he wasn't even great at his ability, and rarely used it, to keep embarrassment to a minimum.

   He had been told that Maruca had been asked to do some tests for the council, while she had actually been in Loanmore, fighting the Neverseen. If only that had been the truth.

   At the time, it seemed like everyone who teased me about being a Talentless, were people who were not so high and mighty themselves. People who I was actually far more powerful than. Sometimes, I was tempted to just yell in their faces, that I was a Pyrokinetic. But that would lead to even more scorn, and probably put me in an even lower class of society.

   And the only thing I was told to do with my magnificent, rare, extraordinary ability, was stick around with my screaming mother, studying maps, trying to figure out how Lady Gisela got into the Throne Room in Loanmore.

   For some strange reason, my life seemed unfair to me. Wonder why.