Flicker Blue 1: Plain Jane Read online

Chapter IX

  Sweet Sixteen

  “Janie? Are you up? I have a surprise for you.”

  It felt like all of five minutes had passed since Cris left her room, but Jane’s alarm clock showed that it was after four o’clock.

  “Five more minutes,” she mumbled into her pillow.

  “Not a chance,” retorted the last voice Jane expected to hear. She snapped her eyes open to find Lucy Harris standing next to her bed.

  Cris shrugged from the doorway. “I told you I had a surprise.”

  “Lucy! What on earth are you doing here?!”

  “Well, despite my former best friend forgetting to call me for almost three months, I’ve come to celebrate her birthday with her. I’m just that sweet,” Lucy added as she batted ebony lined lashes.

  “Yeah…I’m sorry, Lu. I’ve just been so busy here, and I—I’m really sorry.”

  “Whatever. Move your ass. Your guests will be here in a few minutes, and you look like death.”

  “Okay. Cris, I’ll see you downstairs, okay?”

  He nodded and left them without a word. He still appeared a little shell-shocked.

  As he closed the door behind him, Lucy made a little whistle through her teeth. “Well, I guess you have been busy, Jane Thomas.”

  Jane laughed and threw a pillow at her old friend. “Shut up, Lu! It’s not like that. We’re just friends.” At least we were until this afternoon. I don’t have a clue what we are now.

  “Uh-huh. So, what are you wearing to your party?”

  Jane looked down at herself. She still had on the jeans and sweater she’d rushed into in the moments before Cris barged in on her that morning. Lucy, on the other hand, had donned a black-and-white striped top and a short skirt that resembled a flattened black tutu—her own interpretation of party attire. “Uh, I don’t really know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Well, let’s see what you’ve got.” Lucy opened the closet door and stepped inside. “Holy crap! Where did you get all of these clothes?! This is amazing!”

  “Angelita, our housekeeper—Cris’s mom—she helped me pick most of them out, but Uncle Mederick bought them for me.”

  “Uncle Mederick?”

  Jane took a breath. “Yeah, that’s what I call Dr. Sylfaen.”

  Lucy pulled a few outfits from the closet and laid them out on the bed. “Creepier by the second. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  She’d hoped the party would be a small affair—just the five members of the family. Jane was still a bit taken back by how easily she’d adopted the Sylfaen household as the family; they had been strangers scarcely three months before. But they had accepted her just as readily—the scale of the party they’d planned for her was sufficient verification of the fact . The entire downstairs of the mansion had been decorated in pink and silver (Yuck, Jane had thought, but she was flattered all the same). There were streamers draping the staircase and great room columns, and enormous bouquets of pink roses and baby’s breath decorated every table in sight, except for the formal dining table, which was occupied by a three layer cake. It would have looked like a wedding cake if it had been white instead of…well, pink, of course. Jane mused to herself that, if she lived to reach seventeen, she would have to somehow hint to Angelita that she wasn’t really a “pink” girl. Well, at least when Hannah Grace gets here, someone will be able to fully appreciate the effect.

  “Well Jane, this must be Lucy,” a voice from the staircase sounded over the party music, not five minutes after the two girls walked downstairs.

  “Yes, Uncle Mederick. This is Lucy Harris.” She gestured to her friend, who seemed suddenly rooted in place. “Lucy, this is my godfather, Dr. Mederick Sylfaen.”

  “It’s—uh—nice to meet you…sir,” Lucy added quickly. Jane had never seen her so nervous. So much for not being able to wait to meet him. She hoped her other friends fared better when they arrived.

  “Jane, dear, could I talk to you upstairs for a moment, before the party begins?”

  Yeah, I knew this one was coming. Might as well get it over with. “Of course. Lucy would you mind waiting down here?”

  “No. I’ll just, um…I’ll go see if I can help Cris hang those streamers out on the back porch.” Lucy shot her an impish smile—she was clearly over her momentary loss of composure—and Jane began the ascent to the library.

  “Jane, do you think that you could teleport again if you tried?”

  “Yeah.” Her response was automatic, though she was unsure why she was so confident. “Do you want me to do it now?” They had been talking for over half an hour, and Jane heard the sounds of guests arriving downstairs. She could definitely picture her friends gathering around the great room clearly enough to make them the focus of her teleportation (that was the word Dr. Sylfaen kept using, and it seemed appropriate—if not for sounding like something from a hokey sci-fi story).

  “No, Jane. I want you to refrain from experimenting with your new ability unless I am present to supervise you. If it happens again accidentally,” he eyed his goddaughter severely in a manner that suggested that he would know the difference, “you will call me immediately. Do you understand?”

  Why does this feel like I’m in trouble? “Yeah—uh, yes sir.” Jane leaned her head against the back of the chair and redirected her eyes to the window. She was just beginning to fathom the idea that she, the girl who had been called Plain Jane Thomas by her classmates since she was in elementary school, had an extraordinary ability that set her apart. Forget the big house, or the new clothes, or the flashy little BMW—Jane Thomas could teleport. And now, just as she began to grasp the inherent coolness of her newly discovered gift, Dr. Sylfaen was slapping on experimental controls, no doubt to make her the subject of his research. How could she not be slightly resentful?

  The old man pilfered through the top drawer of a cabinet on the far side of the room until he found a small black cell phone, which he gave to Jane. “Keep this with you, on your body, at all times.”

  “On my body?”

  “Yes…in a pocket, for example, rather than in your purse.”

  Jane crooked a quizzical eyebrow as she ran her fingers over the buttons of her new phone. She’d never had one before.

  “Your backpack did not travel with you. Cris brought it home with him,” Dr. Sylfaen explained.

  Jane considered this for a moment. “But I brought my clothes with me.” Heat flushed in her face as she imagined landing on the porch stark naked, meanwhile leaving Cris standing alone in the cafeteria next to a pile of her clothing, complete with granny panties and graying socks. She stifled a grateful giggle. “But I wasn’t holding my backpack—it was on the table next to me.”

  “Yes, you were able to carry your clothing. Were you holding anything else?”

  Jane’s already pink face went scarlet. Had she teleported just a few moments earlier, she would have been holding something, all right. Cris. What would have happened to him if she had not pushed away from him, stopped kissing him when the lights turned blue? Could I have brought him with me? Could I have hurt him? In the course of one violent shudder, the blood (and color) drained from her head. She looked up at her godfather. “No, Uncle Mederick.”

  He nodded. “We’ll have to experiment with the possibilities there,” he whispered toward his dusty books, and Jane wondered whether he meant for her to hear. “Alright, Jane. That’s enough for now. Let’s go down and enjoy your birthday party.”

  Jane could tell that Angelita had, as she suspected, been the ringleader of the party-planning. She even made Jane blow out the candles and open the little cache of presents stacked next to the cake. Most of her school friends had not brought gifts with them, for which Jane was grateful, but every member of the family had added a small gift to the stack. A BMW keychain from Gregory, a pretty short-sleeved sweater from Angelita, and a beautiful jade-green journal from Cris. The last box, with a note that said “With love, from Uncle Mederick,” was the smallest. It was also very light
. Jane opened it and pulled back the lid. Inside, she found a passport. Her passport.

  Jane jumped up from her seat and threw her arms around her godfather, ignoring the stares and whispers of the two or three dozen friends and acquaintances gathered around the table. She still didn’t have a clue where they were going; she wasn’t even positive that Dr. Sylfaen knew. But she did know that this was his way of reminding her that he meant to keep his promise. She was going to find the answers to her questions. And now, she had more questions than ever.

  Throughout the party, which even Jane had to admit was a lot of fun, Jane was aware of both Angelita and Dr. Sylfaen watching her closely. No doubt the former was still perplexed by her strange behavior earlier that afternoon, and the latter was anxious to pump her for information in the coming days. But they also eyed Cris in a way that made her uncomfortable. What did he do when he rushed home to tell Uncle Mederick about my vanishing act? What did he tell him? Jane blushed every time she wondered whether Cris had revealed to either of them that they had been kissing when she disappeared. And the thought haunted her throughout the festivities—every time she caught one of them studying Cris a little more closely than was necessary. Only Gregory seemed oblivious to any unusual tension, or, if he was aware of it, he successfully deflected it with his typical displays of joking and joviality.

  The crowd of guests began to thin around eleven o’ clock. Officer Harris came to pick up Lucy, and Dr. Sylfaen took advantage of his presence to express, in person, how appreciative he was to the Harrises for looking after Jane in the days following her parents’ passing. Officer Harris mumbled an uncomfortable “you’re welcome” and turned for the door, but the foyer was filled with a loud knocking sound just as Dr. Sylfaen reached for the doorknob.

  “Who could that be, just getting here this late?” Angelita wondered aloud.

  “Good night, sir. It was lovely to finally meet you, Lucy,” Dr. Sylfaen said as he opened one of the large doors for the Harrises. As they left, he gestured to the two shadowed figures standing in the faint light of the porch lamps.

  The taller of the two said, “Excuse me,” to Officer Harris and his daughter as they passed on the front steps, and Jane thought she heard Lucy make a little gasping sound as her father led her out. A moment later, the first of the two men stepped into the doorway, and Jane made a small choking noise of her own.

  “Welcome,” Dr. Sylfaen said, a bit formally, to the newcomer, a tall, middle-aged man in a beautiful suit of ashy gray. “Allow to me introduce Angelita and Cristobel Marquez, and you remember Gregory, of course. And this is my goddaughter, Miss Jane Thomas.”

  “How do you do?” she managed to say. As she did so, however, she felt her eyes driven to look behind the man, where she perceived the silhouette of the remaining figure who had not yet stepped fully into the reach of the gas lamps.

  The man at the front step smiled in apparent amusement as he crossed over the threshold. He had thick, brown hair and a light olive complexion, but most striking of all were his brilliant emerald eyes, which seemed out of place against his tanned skin. “I am moved beyond words to make your acquaintance, Jane. I am your…neighbor, Charles Everword.” He flashed a smile of perfect white teeth, kissed the hand she had offered to him for a handshake, and gestured to the figure in the darkness behind him. “And allow me to present my son, Evan.”

  Had she been in her right mind, Jane may have found the introduction a little corny, but at that moment, she was transfixed as the stranger—her stranger—stepped into the light and into the house—her house. “Hello, Jane,” he said with a roguish glint in his eyes, which were the exact shade of green as his father’s.

  All attempts at eloquence were officially over. “Uh, hello,” she stammered as everything in her peripheral vision blurred. Evan stepped toward her and shook the hand she’d raised to greet his father and failed to put down.

  He looked a great deal like his father—brown hair and broad shoulders—except that he was a bit thinner—taller, and he had a much fairer complexion. Both men had tousled hairstyles, though the elder Mr. Everword’s was shorter, and both of their faces sported a great deal of stubble. I guess when you dress that well, you don’t have to shave if you don’t want to, Jane thought, but she did not disapprove. Despite their obviously expensive suits (Evan’s was a bit more modern, in an even deeper shade of gray), father and son alike exuded an earthy wildness that Jane found both fascinating and intimidating. She could not have felt more in awe if two live mountain lions had stepped into her foyer.

  “Now then, Angelita, perhaps you and Cris could begin taking down the decorations while Jane and I show our guests the library.” Each of the Marquezes nodded and obeyed, though Cris squeezed Jane’s hand before he left, then glanced back to the foyer more than once before he was out of sight. Gregory, never one to miss a detail, also found something pressing to do and excused himself, leaving Jane at the mercy of her godfather and the Everwords.

  “Charles, I wasn’t sure you were going to make it this evening,” Dr. Sylfaen admonished as the four moved up the staircase.

  “There appeared to be quite a crowd already, so we decided to wait until we could make a more private introduction. Your Jane is quite popular.” He looked at Jane, apparently waiting for a response.

  She willed her mouth to move. “Not really—just a few friends from school. I barely know most of them.” Come on Jane, be sociable, she scolded. She tried not to keep stealing glances back at her stranger—Evan. She failed. “You, um, said your name is Everword? Like the town…and the lake?”

  The elder Mr. Everword nodded as the party entered the library, and they each took a seat around the oak table. “Our family has had…connections in this area for a very long time.”

  “Oh.” Jane ventured another peek at Evan, who was openly watching her every move with a scrutinizing expression. “Do you always live in the house next door? I mean, I haven’t really seen you around since I’ve been here.”

  Evan snickered—it was a cold, rude sound, yet somehow not unpleasant. “Really? I’ve seen a good deal of you since we’ve been home.”

  Jane’s stomach dropped. The ringing in her ears picked up, and the room tilted at a nauseating angle. Dr. Sylfaen watched her curiously, then his eyes turned toward Evan. He stood and poured two drinks from a decanter of amber liquid on his desk. When he passed one of the drinks to the elder Everword, he whispered something into his ear.

  Mr. Everword leaned forward under the pretense of moving closer to Jane in order to answer her question, and he put one hand on his son’s knee when he did so. The ringing in Jane’s ears subsided but did not disappear altogether.

  “Yes and no, Jane. We spend a great deal of our time travelling. We are home now for a few months, though.”

  “Oh. Okay. That’s nice.” Jane knew she must sound like an idiot. She toyed with the strap of the little purse Lucy had selected to match her dress. How stupid, to carry a bag to a party at your own house, she thought with self-conscious pang.

  “And how do you like living with your godfather, Jane? Have you found everything to your liking so far?”

  Jane looked up and blinked blankly. The entire room was hazy except for the perfect Evan Everword, who sat in the periphery of her field of vision. “Uh, everything is nice. It’s very…beautiful,” she stammered, not really meaning to turn her face toward Evan as she answered.

  Evan sputtered another cold laugh, and Jane didn’t see his father kick him below the table.

  Jane was ready to die, right there in the middle of the library. She’d never felt so embarrassed and stupid in her entire life. Why can’t I think straight? Why can’t I speak properly? And why the hell won’t the room stop spinning? She’d thought her last birthday had been a disaster, but this one definitely took the prize. It was, hands down, the single strangest day of her existence.

  “Well, you certainly have made a great deal of friends in such a short time,” Mr. Everword continued w
ith a chivalrous smile meant to smooth over her awkwardness.

  “Indeed,” interrupted Evan. “But watch out for the mangy-haired one downstairs, Jane. He’s quite taken with you.”

  “Evan! There is no need to tease her,” Dr. Sylfaen scolded, and Jane felt her face begin to burn.

  He was referring to Cris, of course—everyone always had to mention Cris, ask her about Cris. I wish I’d never even met Cris, she fumed silently as she turned her thoughts again to her last birthday, which had been such a disappointment then, but seemed so peaceful and uncomplicated now. Just Jane and her parents talking and laughing at the small kitchen table over three plates of boxed spaghetti and three glasses of sweet tea. Her mother had attempted to make a cake. It all seemed a thousand miles away, like she was looking at it through a muddy fog, but Jane could actually see the scene in her mind’s eye for a moment. Her mother, her father, and her perfectly normal self, crowded around the little pine table, eating and chatting as they had countless times before, all through a clouded lens…a blue clouded lens.

  “Come, Mederick, he meant no harm,” Mr. Everword said to Dr. Sylfaen, though his eyes flashed a look of caution to Evan. “Don’t be angry, Jane. He was simply pointing out that the boy—Cristobel, is that right?—is not your kind.”

  Jane shut her eyes in mortified disgust at the sheer bigotry of Mr. Everword’s statement. She took a breath and, when she opened her eyes again, the library did not look the same. Oh no, oh no no no no. The great oak table flashed—once, twice, then faster and faster as it was replaced by the small pine one from the scene with her parents that she’d envisioned moments before, then it was back, over and over as if she were seeing it through an old movie reel, and the shelves along the walls faded into an ever-deepening expanse of shimmering blue. Dr. Sylfaen sat before her, apparently unaware that the room was coming apart around him, and Jane gestured to him wildly before he disappeared.

  To the old man’s eyes, though, it was she who vanished, without word or warning of any kind except for a loud, echoing, hollow sound, like a giant snapping his fingers. He raised his silver eyebrows in alarm, jumped out of his chair, and dove one hand into the top drawer of his desk.

  “Now you’ve done it, Charles!” he roared as he fished through the drawer for a small phone that was stashed there, identical to the one he had given to Jane that very afternoon. “What a terrible thing to say! What were you thinking?!”

  Charles Everword, however, was not listening. He sat slumped, unconscious, in the upholstered chair. Evan stood, supporting his father’s weight so he would not slide out of the chair and onto the floor. His eyes flashed angrily at the old man.

  Dr. Sylfaen uttered a loud, ragged sigh as he pushed all of the books and papers off of the oak table with the back of his free arm and placed the cell phone in the very center of it. “Serves him right,” he snorted.

  “How dare you say that,” Evan seethed. “She was clearly not ready to meet us yet.”

  “Ha! And you were a great help to her, I’m sure. You and your distractions. I would like for the two of you to leave as soon as he is able.”

  “I’d like nothing more.”

  Dr. Sylfaen sat back down in his chair, eyeing the small phone so intently that he could have stared a hole right through it, and the table beneath it, too, had that been one of his abilities. He took a deep breath and steadied his shaking hands on his knees. All he could do now was wait for it to ring.