Chapter 21
MIA
Stolen? It didn’t make sense. Could someone be pulling a Lanford? Pretending to be nice but only after what Rae might have? Carter? The dean? Julian? Or worse, Devon? Rae stared at her desk and then at Devon in disbelief. He could have come here looking for me after he left the Oratory and found the journal. Then hid it—
“No one knows about the journal except for Uncle Argyle,” she whispered. “No one here knows it even existed.”
“Somehow, someone does. It’s gone.” Devon cocked his head to the side. “Shhhh—” He held a finger up and paused. “Nothing…No one.” He pulled his phone out of his back pocket, typing into it furiously. “Whoever took it is long gone. Write down everything you can remember. Actually, e-mail it to me. I’ve seen you type. It’s faster than I can think.” He pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “I’ve got to tell the Privy Council. And check on Ann—someone.” His last words were mumbled, as if he was talking to himself.
The bloomin’ Privy Council—again? Why did Devon feel the need to score points with them at a time like this? Rae blew her bangs away from her forehead. Of course, this was important but it irked her the way he always seemed to put them before everything–even her. “I doubt the Council really cares about a journal that’s twenty years old and written by a teenager.”
“You’re wrong. They’ll care very, very much. You said it yourself your dad wrote in it and mentioned brainwashing. There could be more vital information inside.” Rae opened her mouth to retort, but he held his hand up to stop her. “The journal belongs to you, I know. But, if it’s stolen, someone’s after its contents.” He began pacing the small room. “I just spent the past two months going to the four corners of Britain to retrieve parts of a brainwashing device no one knows how to work. Someone beat me to one corner, replaced the item with an exact replica--that doesn’t work. So if they took the journal, they must know more about it than we do.” Devon paused and pulled at his hair in frustration, making his hair stand up at odd angles. “All that freakin’ work, a waste of time.” He shook his head and breathed heavily. “You have no idea how hard this is, how screwed up your father was.” The stress he was throwing off got to Rae, and she couldn’t hold back anymore. I’m so tired of being attacked just because this monster fathered me—.
“My father? So it’s my fault?” She exhaled a breath, trying to keep it slow and controlled. Relax, Rae. He’s not blaming you. “So that’s where you’ve been? Getting these hidden pieces?” Rae dropped into her chair, pulled out her laptop, and punched the power button harder than necessary. Despite being ticked, she still planned on typing what she could remember. She just wished she didn’t feel so personally responsible for every horrible thing Simon had done in his life. I could really use a photographic memory tatù about now.
“Yeah. Me n’ Julian. Let me tell you, it was no picnic.” He shook his head and sighed. “Someone else is after the same stuff, so it’s a race against time. Plus trying to figure out who it is trying to get Simon Kerrigan’s work back up and running. There are some seriously delusional people in this world.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “This pile of crap just keeps getting bigger, and now it’s like someone’s shoveling it into a fan.”
“What are you talking about?” Rae asked. Devon was tormenting her by giving her the tiniest of glimpses into the bigger picture that he was dealing with.
“It doesn’t matter.” Devon kissed the top of her head. “Listen, type what you can remember and then send it to my phone. I gotta go. I’ll call Carter and let him know what’s going on as well. No one’ll bug you about missing classes this afternoon.” He turned to go. “If you see Julian, will you tell him I’ve gone?”
“Sure.” Rae stared at the closed door long after Devon left. Why won’t he clue me in? I’m not stupid— I know there’s a helluva lot more to the situation than just trying to keep this one evil tool away from the bad guys. Why won’t he tell me everything, and why does Devon trust the Privy Council so blindly? It was a question she had never gotten an answer to. She actually had a ton of questions spanning a wide range of topics. She kept thinking if she could just get some answers, she might be able to help. However, it was evident that no one trusted her enough to give her any real info. She wasn’t feeling a whole lot of trust for anyone in particular these days herself, especially not if Devon was right and the journal had been stolen. The only thing she knew with any degree of certainty was that if she couldn’t trust Devon, despite his erratic behavior, she was lost. Slowly, she turned to the computer screen, and willed her mind to go blank. She clicked on the word processing program, drummed her nails on the desktop, and willed the words to come to her fingertips.
She typed in a few points. The first being that her dad’s parents both had tatùs. That was something she hadn’t known, and she had a hunch the Privy Council didn’t either. Her grandfather had set her father’s idea, maybe ideas, in motion. Maybe more family history existed that she didn’t know of. Someday she needed to do a family tree and find out everything she could about both sides of her family and why Simon had chosen her mother. I’m beginning to wonder if it really ever was for love.
Typing these points, she clicked on the little disc icon to save the document but didn’t send it to Devon. She wanted to learn more on her own before telling anyone. It was a gut reaction she couldn’t, or maybe didn’t want to explain, and simply couldn’t deny. Opening an e-mail to let him know there was nothing to tell, she suddenly remembered the quote at the beginning of the journal. She quickly entered Devon’s e-mail address and typed in the Erich Fromm comment: “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”
Rereading the weird thought, she tried to figure out why her dad thought it important. She added her own note to Devon: “I don’t get the meaning behind this quote. I’ll e-mail my uncle Argyle to see if he knows anything.”
She sat back, chewed on her bottom lip and thought about her dad’s rantings. Devon might want a summary of what I got from it. Rae realized that she couldn’t very well keep it all from him. She had to give him something. So, she e-mailed her thoughts:
“My dad hated the Privy Council and hoped to one day overtake them. He’d only had his tatù a month and was cocky enough to believe he had the power to rule the world. That’s all I remember, then I took off to class. Sorry this isn’t much help, Rae.”
Hitting the send button, she then shut down the computer. Waiting in her room, twiddling her thumbs just drove her crazy. She reopened the computer and checked for a reply from Devon. Nothing. Hitting the refresh button every five minutes didn’t help either.
The rest of the afternoon passed incredibly slow. Meeting up with her friends offered no answers to the questions she sought, nor did it speed time up in any way. She didn’t see Julian at dinner and assumed he had gone to meet Devon. Later that evening, she lay in bed, arms folded with her hands tucked under her head. Who would want the journal bad enough to steal it? No one knows about it and it’s more a collector’s item or family memento than a book of hidden secrets. She sat up. Would the Privy Council do this? Carter? Nah, she shook her head, he’ll be getting it eventually, and pretty much knows that. She punched the mattress. This is driving me crazy. I don’t know what to think – or what to do.
She pushed herself out of the bed and checked her phone. Still nothing from Devon. Might as well go for a walk, or shift… do something. I can’t sleep. The clock radio said half past one. She could slip outside and just walk for five minutes.
Using Devon’s tatù it took ten minutes to slip down the stairs and past Madame Elpis’ room. Once outside the cool air helped lower her racing heart. I don’t know why I get so paranoid; I know how to move quieter than a mouse.
“Rae?” The low male voice made her jump and levitate in surprise. She whirled to the bench under the light. Julian sat in plain sight. How had she missed him the first time? Too busy lost in her own thoughts to notice him, apparently.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked him.
“Waiting for Devon.”
“So you’ve spoken to him tonight?”
He shook his head. “No. I, uh, got locked out of the building. I didn’t get back till after doors closed. I can’t get in and I figured Devon was with you. I saw your light on when I walked around Aumbry.”
“I saw Devon at lunch and told him about a journal my uncle sent. It’s got stuff from my dad while he was here, at Guilder. We went back to my dorm to grab it and it was missing. Devon thinks someone took it.”
Julian stood. “Who?”
“No clue. No one knows about it. My uncle told me about it when Molly and I were in New York for Christmas. I told Devon today and now you know. That’s all.”
“Devon left?” Julian’s forehead crinkled with lines. “Where’d he go?”
Rae shrugged. “I assumed to the Privy Council. He left in the car.”
“In the car?” Julian shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know. I haven’t heard back from him and he obviously hasn’t contacted you yet. Aren’t you guys like official partners or something?”
“Yeah. Something’s up.” Julian grabbed the phone in his back pocket. “I’ll let you know if I hear from him. Go back to your room.” He took off running.
She went back inside the building and up to her room. Back in bed she sighed. No way I’m getting any sleep tonight.
Devon didn’t reply to any of her messages and by mid-morning, Rae was living on pins and needles. I’m going to go crazy if something doesn’t change. An exceptionally quiet morning class in the Oratory made time feel like it stood still. Carter’s absence didn’t help calm Rae’s nerves either.
“Where’s Kraigan?” Rae asked Nic while they pretended to be discussing a topic the supply teacher had set for them. Rae didn’t even remember what it was.
“He’s got the flu or something. Heard him throwing up in his room when I knocked on the door.”
Guilt filled her on top of all her worry. She needed to talk to him and explain that she hadn’t been avoiding him. Better wait a day if he’s sick.
“Rae?” Maria tapped her lightly on the shoulder. “Do you have a minute?”
“Of course. What’s up?”
Maria played with the button near her collar. “I finally went to see the doctor yesterday. I know I told you I’d go back around the time of the dance but I’d been feeling fine since then. I went because the doctor actually called me.”
“Do you have mono or something?” Nicholas asked.
“No. It’s strange though. He only called because the blood work results had been faxed to him way back in September and they’d been misfiled. One of the nurses stuck them into someone else’s file by mistake and mixed theirs up with mine.”
“Everything came back normal?” Rae asked. Something about the confused look on Maria’s face gnawed at her.
“No. There were trace amounts of chlorine and some other gas. It’s what knocked me out.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t remember what happened that day but when the doctor told me I remembered I had been looking for you and stepped into the Oratory to see if you were there. As I went in, I got hit by some mist that I assumed was the air conditioner reacting with the heat outside. I never thought anything more about it…until the doctor started asking me a bunch of stuff.”
“That’s really, really strange. Are you sure?” Rae didn’t like questioning her friend but who would want to hurt Maria?
“The more I think about it, the more I’m sure.” Maria glanced at Nicholas and then turned back to Rae. She sent Rae a mental message. I’d been looking for you. I think the gas was meant for you to walk through, not me.
Rae knew her mouth hung open but she couldn’t tell her brain to tell her body to close it.
Nicholas put his arm around Maria. “Have you told Carter? Maybe something’s off with the AC system in here. The place is as old as the hills. Look what happened to Alecia.”
Had that been an ‘accident’ too?
“I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets back.” Maria nodded and glanced at Rae. I won’t say anything to anyone. I just thought you should know.
I appreciate it. I hope it’s just a mishap of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Rae didn’t want her friend to worry even though something in the pit of her stomach seemed to be telling her to be very worried. There were just too many strange incidents for it all to be random.
Friday afternoon crawled by at a snail’s pace and when the final buzzer of day rang, Rae hurried out of class to check her phone—hoping for a message from Devon. On her rush to get out, she bumped into Dean Wardell in the hallway. The very last person in the whole wide world I want to see, and he has to be right here, in my way.
“Sorry, sir.” Rae kept her head down, continuing on her way back to the dorm. I have no desire to talk to you right now. The dean’s shoes stayed in her line of vision, keeping pace with her. She slowed her gait, hoping he would walk right on past her. Yet, when his larger shoes slowed to match hers, she sighed in frustration, a little louder than the she had intended to.
Outside the building, Dean Wardell cleared his throat several times. Head still down Rae rolled her eyes, stopped walking and waited for the dean to speak. Irritated, she began tapping a sneaker against the heel of her other shoe. Great. A lecture from Dev’s dad is the last thing I need today.
“Come to my office now—” He cleared his throat. “Would you—Do you mind stopping by my office—please?”
Something in his tone drew Rae’s eyes to his face. His complexion was sickly pale, hair mussed, he appeared exhausted—and nervous. “S-sure.” This has something to do with Devon, not me.
Neither spoke during the ten-minute walk to the main building. Once inside, their footsteps echoed on the marble stairs, each step making Rae more anxious. The school secretary smiled at the two of them when they came through the stairwell then went back to putting files away. The dean held his office door open for Rae.
Rae stood by the Oriel windows, staring out at Guilder’s grounds. Again out of habit, she began banging her sneaker against the floor. Rae watched the dean’s reflection in the old leaded glass window.
“Could you stop that?” His reflection pointed to her foot. She froze, foot poised in mid-air to drop, instantly irritated by his request. He must have sensed it. “Sorry. I appreciate you coming here. I—I—I’m not sure,” the dean spoke, running his fingers through his hair like Devon did. “I’m, uh, shoot. I—we—we need your help.”
Rae’s heart rate kicked into overdrive. She spun around to face him. Something’s wrong. Really wrong. “You what?”
“Devon’s missing. He contacted the Privy Council yesterday with a high emergency and then that’s it.”
Rae inhaled sharply. “What?”
“They’ve been searching for him. His mustang was found this morning, abandoned near a wooded area not too far from here.”
The bottom dropped out of Rae’s stomach and she didn’t think she could find the words to respond. Devon missing? She had been paranoid with him gone, but not that paranoid. He had been away without communication for most of the school year. This really wasn’t that incredibly different. Except her heart told her she was just fooling herself. Who knows who has him or the trouble he might be in…or if he was alive. No, she wouldn’t let herself think like that.
“The Privy Council asked if I might have a word with you to see if you were willing to help. They…I need your help to find my son.” Dean Wardell leaned against the edge of his desk, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“Kidnapped?” Rae’s eye grew as wide as the window behind her. She had to save him.
“That’s what the Council thinks.” The dean puffed out a short breath. “Carter disappeared after the morning class and then called to inform me. The Council believes you have a journal. Devon left to bring it to them and–”
Oh no, no, no! She couldn’t let him continue with the accusation, and decided to set the record straight. “The journal’s gone. Devon thought it’d been stolen. I’d just gotten it and only read a few pages before someone took it. When I went to tell Devon about it at his dorm, someone must have broken into my room. He…” Rae didn’t know why she babbled; she simply couldn’t focus her thoughts. Devon kidnapped? “Do you think he’s been hurt?” Rae bit a hangnail, wincing when she pulled too much skin and ripped it off. The burn distracted her momentarily. She sucked her finger and then used the healing tatù to mend it.
“I don’t know. I hope he’s alright.” Dean Wardell blinked rapidly, his eyes bright. “I’d like to ask you to work with the Council to find my son. You’ve a very powerful tatù and I believe you can help them and keep him alive.”
“I don’t know what I can do to find him.” Might Devon be dead? She felt numb with the thought.
“You’ll come up with something. After all, you’re responsible for his disappearance.”
Rae’s breath caught. She blinked in disbelief. “Pardon?”
The dean sighed in frustration and angrily crossed his arms. “Come on, Kerrigan. This either has something to do with you, or your father. Don’t tell me you don’t feel partially, if not fully, responsible for putting Devon in danger? Just get him back here, preferably alive. That’s all I ask.”
The man had changed from loving father to an emotionless crazy nut in a millisecond. She was totally shocked and blindsided by the change, but first and foremost, she wanted out of the room. “I’ll do what I can.” Rae stormed past him, no longer caring what he thought of her. She needed fresh air and time to think. She strode for the staircase, jumping the last six steps in her rush to get outside. As much as he was a jerk, the dean spoke the truth. Somehow, someway, I’m responsible for Devon’s disappearance.