Chapter Thirteen: Bluejay Feathers

El Author's Note: Just so you know: No, Jared's nickname isn't from Inkspell. That was an accident, and I laughed when I read about someone with the same nickname. Also, that weird language that infested my real blog has come over here. The title is just "Chapter Thirteen", in case it became the language. I'm typing this in HTML mode. Anyway, enjoy the story.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said, slightly sarcastically.

He grinned, still looking slightly uncertain. “Well, we, um, got hired,” he said. “As you can probably tell. But, you know…”

I nodded. “Thanks great,” I said, trying my best to sound cheery. “It’s too bad that…” I faked a coughing fit so I could think of the false name that Kaliyan had given Skylar, “Um, too bad that Bandit ran off. I should probably talk to Mr. Donovan to see if I still got the job.”

There was a light tap on the door before it swung open, revealing a very weary-looking Kaliyan, whose face brightened when she saw me. “You were gone for a while,” she commented. “What…how far did Bandit go, anyway?”

I shrugged. “I tripped a few times—you know how much of a klutz I can be—but he came back eventually, with a dead rabbit in his mouth.” I rolled my eyes. “Silly dog.”

The other boy in the room looked confusedly from me to Felix, but finally just turned back to Felix and began whispering; the young Brazilian boys both looked very serious, and both kept glancing at me from time to time as they talked.

Finally, slightly impatient, I cleared my throat. “So, did I get the job or what?” I asked Kaliyan, who was still leaning uncertainly against the wall, spacing off.

She looked up quickly and answered, “I think so. We didn’t really get interviewed or anything, just kind of got sent off to the rooms. These’re just for our age group, by the way. The ages go from, like, 7 to about 40-something. I mean, a couple 7-year-old boys ran across the hallway groaning that they were late for field work. Little boys doing field work! Isn’t that insane?”

Nodding, I headed out into the hallway to have a look around, and was more than a little surprised when Chaska followed me out. He bit his lip, as if considering something, then held a hand out to me, from which was dangling none other than my backpack, looking worn.

I took it, muttered a quick, “Thanks,” and dashed off down the hall, indeed running into a few younger children in my travels. I was thinking long and hard about Chaska, and wondering where his allegiances lay. He worked for Mr. Donovan, but he’d also helped me. Was he a spy, or did he really care?

Maybe he’s neither, I thought, just curious about me. I mean, I’m an outsider that he’s never seen before, and I got knocked out…so maybe—

Suddenly, the breath was knocked out of me as I walked straight into a boy who looked quite as preoccupied as I’m sure I must have. As well as dusty brown eyes, he had thrillingly blue hair, which momentarily caught me off guard as I stumbled and fell backwards, both from the collision and from his shocking appearance.

He blushed profusely and apologized, then gallantly offered his hand, which I accepted with an embarrassed smile.

He seemed to get over his embarrassment quickly, though, as he gave a lopsided grin and introduced himself as Jared. “Nice to see someone pale around here,” he commented, nodding at my almost paper-white skin, which was splashed—more like infested—with freckles.

I grinned right back. “I definitely second that,” I said, then glanced up at his hair. “Is that your natural hair color?” I questioned jokingly, and was more than a little surprised when he nodded seriously and gingerly touched his slightly spiked locks.

“Yeah, actually,” he said, shrugging. “I have a rare disease that causes my hair to be blue. I could never remember the whole name, but there’re only 2 or 3 people who have it.”

My mouth dropped. “Really? Does it affect anything else?”

He shook his head. “Nope, it’s just the hair. All over my body, so when I have facial hair, it’ll be blue as well. Pretty insane, eh?”

I nodded and replied, “I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”

“That’s ‘cause there is no such thing,” Jared said, the lopsided grin coming back, slightly mocking, but in a friendly way. “You totally fell for that,” the blue-haired boy gasped through his sudden burst of laughter, leaning against one of the adobe walls.

With a roll of my eyes, I said, “I sure did; you’re a good liar, Bluejay. So where’re you from?”

Jared raised an eyebrow. “Bluejay?”’

“Yeah, Bluejay. Your name’s Jared, and Jared starts with a J, and your hair is blue. What, don’t you like your new nickname?” I fake-pouted.

“Sure I like it. And I’m from the States, actually. I’m just here for the summer to visit some people, and I wanted to make a few cents. So I came here. But…” He suddenly grabbed my arm, and beckoned me into one of the empty rooms that lined the hallway. Then he looked seriously into my eyes—this time it really was serious, I could tell—and whispered, “Can you keep a secret?”

I nodded; my heart was pounding. Maybe Jared had a clue about the veneno powder that could help me get Skylar back to normal again.

But I was disappointed in that aspect—but very pleased overall with what he said next: “The plants they grow here, they’re called ‘poison’ in the local tongue, and…well, there’re people with ESP and all that stuff, for real.” He checked my face for any sign of my not believing him, but my expression was instead a very sardonic one. “What?”

“It’s just…I have ESP, I guess you could say. I’m precognitive.” At his slightly shocked look, I continued. “I see the future in my dreams, usually conversations or that sort of thing. A few of my friends have ESP too; I know a telepath, a psychometric, and a couple clairvoyants.” He finally nodded, still looking lost. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, I thought to myself, smiling. “Anyway, keep going.”

By now, Jared’s mouth was hanging way open, and it was a few seconds before he closed it partly and responded, “Wow. I’ve met my match, I guess. I’m retrocognitive, actually, also by way of dreams. I’ve never met anyone else with ESP before. Nice to meet you…um…”

It was then that I realized that I hadn’t given him my name. “I’m Emily,” I said, grinning, “and jealous that your talent can be put to use at school.”

Jared laughed, running a hand through his azure hair. “Yeah, well, yours is cooler. I don’t really like being retrocognitive much, actually. It’s not much use knowing about some old man who died a hundred years ago or something.”

“I guess that’s true,” I said. “Lots of retrocognitive people are mediums too…maybe you’ll develop medium abilities later. That’d make it a lot cooler, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, it would make it cooler,” Jared answered, then quickly resumed speaking. “Anyway, people with ESP can obviously stop having ESP as they get older. Most people lose their ESP by about the time they enter school, if not before so. Most people with ESP, once they enter middle or late adolescence, experience either the rapid growth, or disappearance, of their powers. Most often, of course, it’s the disappearance that goes into effect, but sometimes people sustain the ESP.

“Those who do usually go onto great careers, preferring to make themselves extremely well-known and use their powers often, which causes them to go extremely insane, or show signs of growing old in, say, their 40s or 50s. Sometimes earlier.”

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, that’s got nothing to do with anything. What I mean to say is, the plant’s powder is basically a damper for ESP, and it’s really powerful. I haven’t seen a thing since I came here…but they say it wears off at some point, like a few years.”

“No crap,” I responded sarcastically. “That’s not hard to figure out with a little research. That’s why I’m here, actually; one of my friends is having a few problems. But there’s actually an instant—we hope—cure for it, which isn’t proven quite yet, but we got word from a reliable source that it was effective, so…you know, we’ve got high expectations.”

Jared raised an eyebrow. “Who’s ‘we’?” he asked shortly.

“My friends and I. My best friend Kaliyan, the telepath, Felix, a kid I met in Manaus, and Skylar, who’s…a really long story.” I shrugged.

“We’ve got plenty of time.”

I sighed, knowing that there was probably no way out of the conversation. “He’s just some kid I met a while ago, didn’t see for a really long time, and just met again a few days ago, that’s all. He’s…different. Even more so than you and me,” I said hurriedly, trying to avoid talking about it too much, while giving some of the information so that Jared might refrain from questioning me.

Jared himself, however, just slowly slid down the nearby wall and to the ground, staring straight ahead of him and looking slightly lost. “He’s the dog,” he said flatly, and at first I was slightly offended that he referred to Skylar like that, but then realized that he meant that Skylar had been acting as my guide dog, and nodded firmly in way of response.

“Yeah. He somehow got some of the poison on him, I guess, and now he’s stuck in wolf form,” I explained, “which is why we came here. I think I’m losing my psychic abilities, too, but it’s slowly, like I haven’t had much contact with it or something…I don’t know.”

Jared, made somber by the topic, shook his head dejectedly. “No one knows anything these days.”