The Search for Artemis

Chapter NINE

FLYING BOOKS


“So what do you guys do out there?” Riley asked as he and Landon paced down an aisle in the history section of the Library, searching for reference materials for their assignment on the Cold War.

“I don’t know. I just listen to Dr. Brighton and do what he says,” Landon replied.

As the weeks went by Landon developed a strong confidence in Dr. Brighton. The sessions were working. He was making progress, and he quickly found himself enjoying them. In the moment, he often questioned Dr. Brighton’s methods but always tried to follow them. It took a while, but Landon was finally feeling comfortable with the Tai Chi movements he was taught during his first lesson. It now took less than an hour to go through the sequence, and the exercise seemed to do more for him than connect his mind and body. It actually quieted his thoughts and consternations.

Outside of the sessions, his brain never stopped. Apart from being so preoccupied with the stresses of training and keeping his true apocratusis a secret, Landon had spent over three weeks tirelessly thinking about what the thief was trying to tell him that night and trying to learn who she was. Recently though, he’d run out of plausible ideas and came to the conclusion that she must have just been trying to distract him, or make him question the Gymnasium—the one place that’d helped him figure himself out. But the sessions with Dr. Brighton were the one time when his brain would shut down and his questions would disappear.

In their sessions, Dr. Brighton quickly stopped performing the motions alongside Landon, but instead sat on a large stone beside the creek and gave minor critiques to Landon’s stance and posture. Landon immediately would try and adjust, and soon the critiques became minute—a simple alteration to the hold of his wrist or the turning in of his foot.

Landon quickly came to master the motions he’d been taught. He was gifted, so he naturally caught on and learned things, but this was different. He was trying to impress his teacher, trying to improve himself—for once in his life, he was actually trying.

By the beginning of November, Dr. Brighton added new exercises: plyometrics and strength training to build his agility and physicality; cardio for endurance; and specialized exercises to develop Landon’s telekinetic finesse. Landon was loving it; he looked forward to his morning sessions with his professor more so than any other activity at the Gymnasium.

“Could you be any more cryptic?” Riley asked. “Come on. . . . What’s his secret? I could use whatever he’s teaching you.”

“I’m not trying to be to be cryptic. I’m just doing what I’m told for once in my life, and I don’t think there is a secret.”

“I hate you,” Riley said as he filed away a book he thought was about their assignment, but was actually a misplaced book on food storage. “Come on! Give me something! I’ve never had a private session with a teacher.”

“I’m sorry, man. I’ve got nothing.”

Landon never spoke a word about Dr. Brighton’s Secret Garden or what happened during their training there. Telling people about their sessions seemed like he was breaking the trust he and Dr. Brighton had developed. Saturday training was an experience Landon and his teacher shared. There was no reason to tell anyone else about it.

On top of it, Landon had grown closer and closer to his instructor. Dr. Brighton was a mentor to him; he seemed like an older, more experienced version of himself—a glimpse of what Landon imagined he would become after quite a few more years. Their walks to and from the garden became a time to bond. They would discuss literature and their childhoods. Granted, Landon’s was much more recent than Dr. Brighton’s, but no matter what, the doctor seemed to have a story that made Landon feel connected to him, as if they were the same person. They both grew up being close to their mothers and both shared a maternal force pressuring them to try a plethora of sports and activities. It almost seemed like Dr. Brighton had attempted more things in his life than was humanly possible.

As an adult, the professor was a learned man. He had studied literature, science and mathematics his entire life and decided to use that knowledge to help guide those like him at the Gymnasium. Landon realized he might like to pursue the same selfless endeavor, should he have the courage to do so once he’d completed his training. However, even with their growing friendship, Dr. Brighton was a ruthless trainer. He pushed Landon far beyond his comfort zone, forcing him to improve and progress. It was what Landon needed, and he knew and accepted it.

“Ugh, what on earth could he be teaching you?” Riley sparked up the discussion again after they’d perused another shelf of books.

“Does it really matter? It’s working, isn’t it?”

“True. But—”

“Riley, I haven’t hit you with anything for weeks.” Landon leaned over and looked at Riley with a knowing expression. Humorously, he added, “Now, that’s progress.”

“I guess you’re right. So you should be done with them pretty soon, right?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I still have quite a long ways to go. And to be honest, I don’t know if I want them to end.”

Landon’s improvement was astounding. Once he managed to tap into his abilities, he could move and control items with ease. But even with his achievements, Landon still required a severe level of concentration to do anything that related to his gifts. That was the one part of his training Dr. Brighton hadn’t had an ounce of success in fixing, and the more strenuous the request, the harder time Landon had accessing his gifts. Dr. Brighton insisted that Landon had the strength within to easily perform the tasks put forth, but that it was just his mental blocks he couldn’t get past. He couldn’t develop Landon’s powers to become instinctual, as they were meant to be, rather than something to be turned on or off, like a light switch.

“What? Not want them to end?” Riley asked, shocked. “You get up at six o’clock . . . on Saturday! And you don’t come back until an hour or two before dinner. Then you basically sleep all Sunday. . . . Your whole weekend is shot. I don’t think I could do that forever.”

“To each his own, right?” Landon replied as he pulled a book off the shelf on Ronald Reagan and his role in the arms race during the Cold War. “It’s—”

Suddenly, a high-pitched, piercing scream echoed through the Library and interrupted Landon mid-sentence. Screaming wasn’t typical in the Gymnasium. Their abilities allowed them to sense pranks and attacks—serious or otherwise—before screams would be heard. This scream was blood curdling, and they recognized the voice—it was Katie Leigh’s.

Without a word between them, Landon and Riley dropped the books in their hands, bolted from the History section of the Library, and headed toward the voice. It was hard to pinpoint where exactly she was because of the Library’s labyrinthine halls, but they soon emerged from behind a shelf to find Katie Leigh floating two feet off the ground, pressed against a bookcase, tears streaming down her face. They could hear laughter coming from a group of people, but they remained just out of sight.

As Landon and Riley approached, the source of the laughter emerged; the Crane twins were both hunched over, laughing like hyenas, and standing silently between them, with his hand outstretched, was Brock Holbrooke.

Even as roommates, Brock and Landon barely spoke to each other. They didn’t have much in common. Brock was a man of privilege. Raised in Connecticut by a well-to-do family, he was never for want of anything. His apocratusis occurred during a lacrosse game in which he was the team captain. He was then brought to the Gymnasium after someone from the facility visited his family at their estate. True to form, since his arrival he’d risen swiftly to be the premiere student, excelling in all facets of his training, particularly Telekinetics. Landon was none of those things, and he only knew these facts about Brock through other students. He was a living legend in the eyes of most—someone to fear or revere.

That aside, Landon found himself wondering about Brock’s whereabouts more often than he’d care to confess. Much like his first night in the dormitories, Landon would return to his room in the early hours of the morning to find Brock missing. Sometimes he would be missing for days on end leaving Landon with no clue as to where he’d gone or when he’d return. Many times Landon thought about asking him about it, only to dispel the idea, realizing they weren’t close enough to warrant such a personal question.

“Let her go!” Riley yelled.

Brock turned his head to the pair of them, glaring menacingly. Riley stopped in his tracks and took a slow, audible gulp, regretting his initial outburst.

“And why should I do that?” Brock asked, mockingly. “She offended me. She needs to learn a lesson on when it’s appropriate to speak to her superior.”

The Crane twins stopped laughing for a second and stared at one another. This peculiar exchange between the twins must have been what Riley was talking about after Landon’s orientation. Then, moments later, they erupted in another outburst of laughter.

“What could she have done to you?” Landon asked, dumbfounded by Brock’s air of superiority. Landon couldn’t stand to see someone act with such a level of elitism. He’d experienced it in high school during his freshmen year, and he couldn’t believe that a teenager could consider themselves so above their peers. “She’s twelve, and what could she have said?”

“I don’t answer to you, roomie,” Brock returned. “So mind your own business.”

“Yeah, mind your own business,” the twins echoed in unison.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.” Landon’s reply was stern and confident, and a bit unsuspected by everyone in the room. “Katie Leigh’s our friend, and until you let her go, we aren’t leaving. Right, Riley?”

“Right,” Riley answered hesitantly.

“I’m Brock Holbrooke. You think you’re a match for me?” he continued. “Everyone in this place knows you’re good for nothing. And if rumor has it, I’m going to be living alone again before Christmas, since they’re gonna kick you out. If you must know, she was insubordinate. She corrected me. And I don’t do well with insubordination. Isn’t that right,”—he looked over to Katie Leigh and lifted her another foot off the ground—“little one?”

She was still crying and winced with fear as the books pressed against her back.

“Corrected you?” Riley interjected, after a sputtering laugh burst from his lungs. “Don’t you realize you’re talking about Katie Leigh Chapman? It’s what she does. If she didn’t correct you, she’d explode.”

Brock’s gaze focused on Riley. The muscles of his face tensed up around his eyes, forcing them into a threatening, predatory squint. The twins fell silent, and Riley backed up slightly.

“Now leave before I decide you two should join little Katie Leigh here as a permanent decoration of the Library,” Brock threatened.

Riley looked over to Landon, but Landon didn’t move. His unbroken gaze was fixed on Brock. Like two rams battling for territory in the wild, they were sizing each other up before attacking headfirst. What had gotten into Landon? Why was he so hell-bent on defending Katie Leigh and sending them both into the depths of social destruction?

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Riley said under his breath to Landon before clutching his lower lip with his teeth. Riley looked green with anxiety.

“Not really, but we can’t stand for this,” Landon whispered in reply before directing himself back toward Katie Leigh’s aggressors. “We’ll leave when you let Katie go.”

“Well, if you’re set on staying in the Library,” Brock said, “then it’s time for you to go and read a book.”

The words were like a dart, piercing Landon’s brain. He could instantly feel sweat building up over his body and a strange heat on the back of his neck. Go and read a book. He’d heard those words iterated by his mother hundreds of times, a code she used to tell him to leave the room so she and his father could argue. But since the drug-induced reliving of his apocratusis on the day he was brought to the Gymnasium, he only heard his father’s voice echo them through his mind. Moments before he had attempted to slap his powerless mother across the face, his father arrogantly said those five simple words to Landon as if he was a dumb child. Every day since, he wondered if things would have been different had he not listened to his mother’s request all those times. Why didn’t you tell me he hit you? he thought to his mother. Why was I so stupid not to see? What would have happened if he’d stayed to protect her earlier rather than allow his father to beat and abuse her?

Brock swiped his hand through the air and a stack of books resting on a nearby table rose off their surface and jetted toward Landon and Riley. It happened in a fraction of a second, but to Landon, it was in slow motion. Each book slid off the pile, one after the other, flecks of dust flicking into the air, and they grew in speed as they moved closer and closer to his body. He watched Riley hunch over and raise his arms to protect his face. Landon instinctively raised his hand to block them from meeting with their intended target, and then, inches from his outstretched hand, they stopped.

Time returned to its normal speed. The books floated in he air motionless, suspended as if cast in a vat of clear gel. Surprised, Landon released his power and let the books fall to the floor. He couldn’t believe he’d been able to access his abilities in such a high-stress situation. Everyone in the room was standing silent. Even Katie Leigh, still suspended above the ground, had stopped whimpering and looked at Landon in shock. Brock’s menacing scowl shifted; his lips were now slightly parted, and his eyes were wide. Both the Crane twins’ jaws had dropped. Riley looked as if he was going to be sick.

How had he done that? Landon wasn’t even sure how he’d managed it, and the others in the room were noticeably just as shocked. Brock had powered the books across the room with lightning speed and for someone—anyone—to have the ability to react before they connected with their target was unbelievable.

Unknowingly, Landon had done more than just stop a few books from hitting Riley and him. He’d laid down the gauntlet, challenged Brock Holbrooke through this blatant act of defiance.

Brock’s face returned to its aggravated grimace, and he started to walk toward Landon and Riley. The twins followed suit, walking a pace behind their leader. Raising his arms and widening his stance, Landon tensed up and entered into the starting position Dr. Brighton had taught him. He anticipated a flying fist or swift kick to come at him, for which he would need to defend himself, but Brock and his minions just walked by, heading toward the exit.

“We’ll settle this later,” Brock said just before passing through the doorway. “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood.”

Once Brock and the twins disappeared through the door, Katie Leigh’s body released and fell in a heap onto the floor. Without blinking, Riley darted over to her and attempted to comfort her and make sure she was okay.

“I’m all right. I’m all right.” Katie Leigh rose to her feet and pushed Riley away. She instantly started to tweak and flatten her clothes, attempting to collect herself from the ordeal. After pressing a final unruly crease out of her shirt and releasing an audible huff, she looked like her usual pristine self.

“That was embarrassing,” she said, nonchalant. “And Landon, I’m impressed. It would appear that since Riley’s and my little breakfast altercation, you’ve improved dramatically. It seems your sessions with Dr. Brighton have been enlightening, to say the least. I’m very happy for you, but I really must be going. I—”

“Hold up, Katie,” Riley interrupted. “You need to tell us what happened.”

“No time right now, Riley. I have to be getting back to . . . to my studies. We can talk more tomorrow at breakfast.”

Katie Leigh bolted straight for the door and left Riley and Landon standing in the Library, confounded by her strange behavior after what had just transpired.

“That was weird,” Riley said once he’d returned to Landon’s side.

“What can you do?” Landon replied while keeping his eyes on the now clear doorway.

• • • • •

“I mean she didn’t even say ‘thank you,’” Riley said through a mouthful of French toast. “And now we’re doomed to be outsiders. There’s no way around it. We’re doomed.”

When they left the Library, Riley was overflowing with excitement to the point that he flew around Landon, darting from side to side, performing exaggerated reenactments of the heart-pumping “fight” to every person they came across. He was a consummate showman, regaling each with a consistent, exuberant routine, never missing a single detail of their valiant rescue of Katie Leigh. Landon laughed to himself when he pictured Katie Leigh erupting into a fit of rage and punching Riley in the eye if she ever heard him call her a “damsel in distress.”

By that night, Riley had drawn a crowd. The women of the Gymnasium couldn’t seem to get enough of the story. It was understandable, as not much in the way of teenage intrigue happened in the facility, so they circled around Riley as he provided another repeat performance of the story in the Rec Center. Riley seemed to love the attention—he basked in it.

However, now that it was breakfast, Riley’s sentiments on the event appeared to have changed. With a night to sleep on it, he seemed to realize with utter anxiety that they may have destroyed their slim chance at popularity in one foolish moment of valor.

“I mean, what were we thinking? It’s Brock Holbrooke! We’re doomed!”

Riley’s worried ramblings over their perceived social suicide had started the instant they met up in the cafeteria, and they hadn’t stopped yet. It didn’t much matter, though, because Landon wasn’t listening. He’d nod and attempt to express the appropriate amount of horror at their new social plight, but his mind was on other things. It’d been three months since he’d come to the Gymnasium, and yesterday was the first time he’d ever managed to use his abilities without concentrating on it first.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Katie Leigh said in a somewhat bubbly manner as she sat down beside Landon. She seemed back to her normal self, but Landon noticed a look in her eye that said much more than her words.

She seemed grateful. Katie Leigh’s intellectual prowess made her much too proud to acknowledge ever needing help, and to add insult to injury, Riley, her least favorite person for the past month, was one of her rescuers. For her to say “thank you” would be like her admitting she was wrong—it would never happen. Landon accepted this subtle gesture of appreciation with a gentle nod.

“All right,” Riley started, “spill. I’ve been dying to hear what you did to kill any chance we had at being accepted here.”

Katie Leigh turned her attention to Landon. “I see not much has changed.” She keep her attention on Landon and looked to be ignoring Riley altogether. “But I did say I would tell you at breakfast, and I always keep my word.”

Katie Leigh leaned in slightly. Landon and Riley followed suit and hunched over the table until they were all at a fairly close proximity to one another. Katie Leigh continued a moment later in a soft voice.

“So I was in the Library reading, obviously, when Brock and the Crane boys blundered in. I minded my own business until I could hear them talking to one another. They were trying to look something up . . . poorly, I might add.”

“What were they looking for?” Riley asked.

Katie Leigh stopped for a second and glared at Riley scornfully before turning back to Landon and continuing. “Anyways, I don’t know if you noticed, but we were in the Folklore and Mythology section. Because of the obvious influences antiquity had on this place, I’ve developed quite an interest in the subject since I arrived here. So I was sitting in a chair, reading the Iliad, when Brock ordered the twins to look for anything they could that talked about Artemis.”

“Artemis?” Landon asked. “Like the Greek goddess, Artemis?”

“Really?” Riley interjected, sounding almost ashamed of Landon. “You know who she’s talking about?”

“What? My mom told me all about ancient mythology.” Landon tried to defend himself. “She got a minor in Classics in college so she liked teaching me about it.”

After another rather disdainful look at Riley, Katie Leigh moved on with her story. “Exactly right, only just after they split up, Brock said, and I remember it clearly, ‘He’s got to be mentioned in here somewhere.’ So you can see why I had to say something.”

Riley and Landon sat unresponsive. They were waiting for an explanation.

“He said ‘he.’ He!” Katie Leigh raised her voice, but when the heads of numerous people bolted around to look at them, she crouched back down and whispered again.

“Come on, Landon. You already said it. Artemis is a goddess.” She waited for a nod of understanding, but one never came. “God, you both are dense. Artemis is a goddess. . . . Goddesses are women. . . . Brock called her, ‘he.’ Obviously I had to correct him. I turned around in my chair and just said, ‘She, she’s got to be mentioned in here somewhere.’ I guess he didn’t like that so much because next thing I know I’m being thrown out of my chair and against the bookcase, and that’s it. A minute later and you two were running in. But so you both know, I had everything under control. I am Katie Leigh Chapman, aren’t I? I only screamed because he surprised me.”

“That’s it? That’s why Landon and I are now doomed for all eternity?” Riley appeared to be somewhere between shock and infuriation. “We risked our future happiness all because you couldn’t let a little slip of the tongue go by? I—I can’t even look at you right now. I’ve got to go.”

This time Riley stood up and stormed from the cafeteria, but not without a considerable number of glares and huffs as he made his way to the door. Landon was still sitting on the bench. His eyes moved slowly around in his head, shifting from the upper right and left corners of his socket, as if he were literally attempting to search his brain for an answer.

“So,” he finally started after racking his brain with no result. “Why were they there in the first place?”

“In the Library?” Katie Leigh asked, a bit confused. “I told you . . . to look up Artemis.”

“Brilliant work, Watson. Simply brilliant. I think you’ve cracked the case.”

Katie Leigh’s face shifted to the same scornful glare she’d been giving Riley a bit earlier—she obviously wasn’t a fan of sarcasm.

Landon paid her no mind. “What I mean is, why would they be looking up Artemis? It’s not like mythology is part of our curriculum. It definitely isn’t a part of our training. And as far as I can tell, our tutoring sessions are filled with math and science, not ancient folklore. So why would they be looking that up?”

“Ah, I see.” Katie Leigh rested her head in the palm of her hand and started to drum her fingers in rhythmic time on her cheek. “I hadn’t thought about that. It is a bit of a random inquiry. Maybe they overheard someone talking about her and their curiosity was too much to stand. That happens to me all the time.”

“Yeah, but you’re Katie Leigh Chapman. This is Brock and the Cranes. I don’t picture them holing themselves up in the Library searching for the answers to all of life’s questions.” Katie Leigh stopped drumming on her cheek for a moment to give Landon another contemptuous glare.

“Well, I still think they must have overheard someone talking about Artemis. As you said, it isn’t something they would have encountered in their studies here, and based on Brock’s inability to even know the gender of the goddess, he obviously didn’t have any real prior knowledge on the subject, which leads me to stand by my hypothesis. But I have to give him some credit. He did know she had something to do with mythology, so there’s some underlying context there that at least pointed him in the right direction.”

“Quick question, what do your parents do for a living?” Landon interjected.

“My mother’s a psychologist and my father’s a doctor of anthropology.”

“Ah, so that’s why you talk that way,” Landon said as if coming to a life changing realization.

“Ha. Funny,” Katie Leigh replied, sounding less than amused. “But now that I’m thinking about it again, his reaction to my correcting him was a bit harsh. Maybe I surprised him . . . and they were trying to do this without anyone knowing. Yeah, that would make sense. I was a victim of circumstance. As they say, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“So now I think the real question isn’t why was he looking for Artemis, but who did he overhear talking about her that it made him so curious that he ran to the Library to find out anything he could on her?”

Landon stared at a blank space on the ceiling as he followed Katie Leigh’s train of thought. She seemed to be onto something. The ‘why’ was obvious: Brock wanted to know who Artemis was. However, the motivation behind that search was the real mystery. Landon couldn’t explain it, but for some reason he couldn’t shake the feeling that Artemis was somehow linked to the mysterious girl.