Granny reached over and stabilized the glassware that Joe’s outburst had disturbed. “Joe!” she reprimanded, as she righted the experiment. “Now calm down. Let the man finish. Irrational reactions won’t help.”
Joe backed down, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, Gran.” He motioned toward the screen. “Go ahead, Rish.”
The slender Indian man raised an eyebrow, but then continued, “No problem, my friend. It is a disturbing message. I understand. As I was saying, it does indeed appear that we have what you would call a leak. There were only a handful of us who could have known your stopover points—the three of you, me, a couple of Council members, Angel, Elodie, and the pilots.”
Grace spoke up, “Well, Angel and Elodie slept half the time, so I don’t think it was them.” She looked at Joe. “What about the flight crew? Or the ground crew? How well do you know those people?”
Joe shook his head. “They’re all above reproach. Ditto the Council members. There’s no one in this organization I don’t trust with my life.” He paused, then gave Grace a small smile. “Or yours.”
Granny piped up, “Grace, did you or Elodie talk to anyone on the ground? Maybe in the restroom? Did you buy anything…even a coffee? It could have been the most innocent—”
“No! We didn’t even get off the plane.”
“She’s right, Gran.
I
was the only one who left the cabin. I did all the talking. It’s got to be something else. Someone’s tapping into our communications. Gotta be.” Joe looked up at the screen again. “Rishi, I know you’ve been all over this, but will you review the transmissions for me one more time? Check
everything
that passed through those frequencies for the last twenty-four hours.”
Rishi gave Joe a mock salute. “I will do it, my friend. You know I am thorough, but there is always another stone to overturn.” He looked up in his head a moment. “Come to think of it, there is this incredible new tech that Visnu has been playing with…” A certain sparkle came to Rishi’s eye. “I will call you later, friends.” He made eye contact with Grace and added, “You will be there still, won’t you, lovely lady?”
Grace forced a smile. “Oh yeah, I’ll be here. Got nowhere else to go.”
“Dee-lightful! I look forward to it then.” Rishi punched a button, and the screen went black.
Grace glared at Joe as he attempted to stifle a smirk. Before he could open his mouth, she raised a finger at him. “Don’t!”
“Sorry, Gracie, but the guy’s had a crush on you since you were like, seventeen.”
She made a wry face. “Don’t remind me.” Joe was right. Back then, when all of this was new and dazzling and a world filled with wonder, Grace was flattered that some crazy computer prodigy from half a world away was apparently smitten with her. The bloom fell off the rose the day her sister learned that her fiancé was a Gifted One.
“All right, you two, back on task.” Granny snapped her fingers, demanding their attention like a school teacher chiding her class.
Grace nodded silently, and Joe responded, “Look, Granny, I think you’ve overreacted a bit. We don’t know that there’s really a problem. Maybe Rishi’s wrong. Maybe his info’s off, or he’s misinterpreting the chatter. Let’s let him take another look and get back to us. We’re not going to solve this one right now, and I know three young ladies who are tired and hungry.” Joe looked at Grace. “Let’s figure out where you and Ellie are going to sleep tonight, and then maybe we can come up with a creative way to tell Ellie she really has no idea who she is.”
# # #
Ellie turned her head sideways, trying to make sense of a rather abstract painting on the wall of a large room that Willow had referred to as the studio. The room really didn’t look like it belonged in an old farmhouse. The exterior wall was almost floor-to-ceiling windows, and at least half the ceiling had been replaced with glass to allow maximum natural light inside. There were fifteen or twenty easels set up in various locations around the room, and numerous tables and stands, each covered with papers, paints, pencils, chalks, and assorted half-finished sculptures or pottery. It looked a lot like the art room at Ellie’s school.
Ellie had been working her way around the perimeter, studying the products of many different artists, some exquisitely talented, and others, like the one she was currently examining, not so much. She looked up as Willow emerged from a doorway at the back of the room, carrying a brightly colored clay pot. She set the pot down on a table near Ellie as she spoke, “Sorry to keep you waiting, hon, but I promised one of the students I’d check on this for her. She’s trying to catch up on her Mandarin lessons.”
“Mandarin…”
“Chinese. Maya’s a Communicator. Real gift for languages, that one. It’s amazing to listen to her chattering away with Ones all around the world.”
“Ones?” Ellie scrunched up her nose. Maybe she was just tired, but this Willow person was confusing her.
“Yes, dear, Gifted Ones.” Willow shifted her gaze from the pottery to Ellie’s face. She wrinkled her brow. “Hasn’t anyone…”
“Hasn’t anyone what?”
“Miss Willow!” They were interrupted by a gleeful greeting from little Poppy Prentiss bursting back into the room with Angel close at her heels. Poppy ran directly to Willow and wrapped her arms around the woman’s long skirt.
Willow forgot about her conversation with Ellie and picked up the little girl, settling her on to one hip. She picked a couple sticks of hay out of Poppy’s hair. “Poppy, have you been running Angel all over the farm?”
“Boy, I’ll say!” Angel collapsed into a chair and brushed a few strands of hair back from her face. “Give me a roomful of Samurai swordsmen, and I’m all over it, but this kid? She could beat down the greatest Defender on the planet.”
Willow grinned. “I thought that was you.”
Angel straightened up in her chair and dusted a little dirt off her leather pants. “Well, it is. Just a little tired from the last twenty-four hours. And hungry.” She looked at Ellie. “How ’bout you, chica? You ready for some supper?”
Ellie’s tummy was growling, but she ignored the food question. “Wait, Gifted Ones? Defender? Am I missing something?”
Angel stood. “Ah, I’m going to let Joe tackle that. C’mon, let’s see if we can find you some clothes. Renni doesn’t allow denim in the dining room.”
“Wait!” Poppy wriggled away from Willow and darted to one of the other tables. “I made you a picture, Angel.” She picked up a paper from the table and brought it to Angel. “Miss Willow told me to draw my favorite person, and she gave me the colored pencils. See? It’s you!”
Angel took the picture and held it up. She grinned broadly. “Quite the imagination! I look like a princess.”
The child was gleeful. “Yes, yes, you
are
a princess.”
Angel reached down to the little girl and mussed her hair. “It’s beautiful, honey, I love it! I’m going to frame it and hang it on the wall.”
Ellie stepped over to see the Princess Angel image, expecting a typical child’s drawing of a stick figure, dressed in a pink triangle and maybe a crown. When she saw the picture, however, she gasped. “Sh-she did this?”
Willow joined them in admiring Poppy’s drawing. “Impressive, isn’t it? Art therapy is such a wonderful way for children to express themselves. And Poppy’s so good with colored pencil. It’s a more complex medium than most people think.”
“Complex?” Ellie blinked in bewilderment. “This is the most amazing drawing I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s just…” Words escaped her. The picture was an upper body shot of Angel, with soft curling hair tumbling over the shoulders, eyes sparkling, and a smile as sublime as the Mona Lisa. A necklace with a single, simple stone was drawn in, hanging just below the neck, and the top of a pink ruffled gown dipped below that. Other than the ultra-feminine touches, the likeness was remarkable. But the image’s brilliance went beyond that, beyond color and contrast and shading. There was a haunting depth of emotion that the most skilled artist could not have captured.
Ellie shook her head again. “How did…I mean, how could…”
Angel just gave her a quick wink and inclined her head toward the door of the room. After they left the studio, Angel led Ellie up the creaky stairs of the old farmhouse and to a small bedroom with antique-looking furnishings, frilly curtains, and the requisite flowered quilts. Unlike the glass-roofed studio, it was pretty much what Ellie expected to see in an old farm house.
Angel motioned toward a door near the back of her room. “They’re putting you in the next room over. It connects to mine through the bath there, so I’m never far away, okay?” Angel started to peel off her leather jacket. “Granny dug up some clothes and things for you to use until your stuff arrives. Should be here tomorrow or the next day.”
“Wait, my stuff? Like from our house in Atlanta? Someone went there and got it?”
“Oh yeah, don’t worry. I’m sure they got everything that would’ve meant anything to you—clothes, books, photos, all that stuff.”
Ellie sunk into the bed, confused. “But why—”
By now, Angel had moved to her closet. “I would’ve loaned you something of mine, ya know, but we’re nowhere near the same size, and…” She threw open the closet doors. “Not much the same taste.”
Ellie forgot her question and looked over. She had to smile. There wasn’t a spot of color in Angel’s closet. It was jam-packed full of black leather pants, jackets, and boots, as well as an assortment of t-shirts, blouses, and sweaters—again, all black.
Angel shrugged. “Makes it easy to get dressed in the morning.” She grabbed the bottom edge of her t-shirt and yanked it over her head.
As Angel turned toward the closet to pick a clean shirt, Ellie acknowledged that she was right—they were nowhere near the same size. Angel’s shoulders, back, and arms were broad and rippling with well-defined muscle, and her lacy black bra had some serious work to do, while Ellie’s lightweight camisole struggled not to sag on her barely-there boobs, nor to slide down her pencil-thin arms. And that was beside the fact that Angel stood a good six or seven inches taller than Ellie. Of course, she was older than Ellie, too. Maybe Ellie would catch up.
As Angel began buttoning up a black satin blouse, Ellie shifted her view to the bedside table. She picked up a decorative photo frame and looked at it closely. The picture inside was aged and torn on the corner. It showed an attractive Hispanic woman, thirty-ish, with an adolescent girl by her side and a toddler in her arms. “Is this your mom?”
Angel walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder. Her voice was soft, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s my mom. And that’s me and my baby brother, Enrique.” She reached past Ellie and touched the edge of the frame. “She passed a long time ago. Like your mom.” Angel sat down on the bed next to Ellie and started trading out her thigh-high boots for a pair of ankle-high ones.
Ellie was sorry she’d asked about the photograph. Dead parents weren’t exactly the topic of choice for a budding friendship. She bit her lip and tried to think of a cheerier subject to bring up. Fortunately, she didn’t have to, as they were interrupted by a low rumbling noise and a vibration in the floor, followed by a loud boom, a little screaming, and possibly some breaking glass. “Omigod! What was that?” Ellie dropped to her knees on the floor and covered her head.
Angel was moving swiftly toward the door of the room, but threw back, “Relax, I got this. Just get dressed and meet me downstairs.” And then she was gone.
Chapter Five: Biology 101
Ellie wasn’t sure from Angel’s tone if she really needed to be worried about that explosion noise or not. She stayed in her tucked position for a minute or two, listening for signs that all was well and that the house wasn’t about to blow up. Finally, she got up and stuck her head out into the hallway. There was no smoke and no sirens, and the disturbance down below seemed to have quieted, except for the intermittent sounds of Angel’s voice in what seemed more like a motherly tirade than an act of war.
Deciding she was safe, Ellie stepped to the door of the next room down and peeked inside. Like Angel’s room, it reeked of early Americana—a quilted spread covered an old four-poster bed, lacy curtains adorned a large window, and an old desk and dresser completed the ensemble. Ellie wondered whether they were true, valuable antiques, or just really old stuff, like all the furniture in their house in Atlanta.
A pile of clothes and bath items were neatly arranged on the bed, with one outfit obviously laid out for dinner. Ellie tried it on. Based on the way Granny dressed herself, Ellie had half-expected a Depression-era dress, compression hose, and sensible shoes, but it turned out to be a pretty cool combo—a slim-fitting sundress in a pale lemon color, covered with a tiny daisy pattern, and a white cashmere sweater to match. Ellie had never even seen a real cashmere sweater before, didn’t know they still made them. She ran her hands over the soft fabric; it was like petting a rabbit. She donned the outfit and then finished the job with the smattering of cosmetics and hair accoutrements that had been included in the pile. Funny how this Granny person seemed to know just the kind of things Ellie liked.
When she was ready, she made her way back to the stairs. The place looked deserted as she walked down, and she started to wonder if perhaps she’d been wrong to dawdle. Maybe something horrendous had happened, and she was the only survivor…