Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace (4 page)

Pleck
.

A spot appeared on one of the windows. Jennifer squinted to make out the shape. A rather large bug had run into the glass and splattered itself.

Pleck. Pleck
.

Two more spots appeared, right near the first. Jennifer could make out long, transparent wings on the remains. It was getting dark outside.

Pleck-pleck. Pleck-pleck-pleck. Pleck-pleck
.

Like sharp drops of rain, more small, smooth bodies dashed themselves against the gloomy windows. Dragon-flies, Jennifer saw now. Underneath the rhythm, she could make out a low, thrilling hum.

“Um, Ms. Graf?” One of the girls close to the window had noticed the bugs, too.

Before the teacher could react, a barrage of dragon-flies drove themselves into the window. Heedless of their fate, they landed with the force and volume of hailstones. Cracks began to appear in the glass.

“Everybody out of the room!”

Nobody moved. It was too terrifying. The hairline cracks lengthened and connected to each other. A chip of glass fell onto the countertop below. Still the black swarm came. It was even larger farther out in the sky, where it blotted out the sun. A vast column was aimed like a twister at the southeast corner of Winoka High’s second floor.

In the midst of the chaos, Jennifer stole a glance at the Swordtail. It wailed in her hands. Her gut churned.

“Stop it,” she whispered to it. The butterfly ignored her. “
Stop it
!”

It stopped.

The dragonflies vanished. Not the dead ones—those still stuck like wretched paste all over the classroom windows. But the humming and splattering stopped, and the cloud outside dissipated.

Jennifer turned around slowly, and let the butterfly drop onto Skip’s desk. Like everyone else, he was looking at the windows—no one had noticed Jennifer’s whispered command to the butterfly. But his face was aglow.

“That was
cool
!”

Jennifer knew better than to bring the matter up with her parents. But the moment she got home from school, she discovered it was useless to hide anything.

“I heard about the dragonflies,” her father said as she walked by the kitchen table where he and her mother were sitting.

“Fine, thanks, and you?”

“Jennifer, I think we need to talk. Before I go on my trip tonight.”

“Why yes, Father, my day
was
nice. And yours?”

“Now, Jennifer.”

“Daa-aad!” She stomped her foot. “I don’t want to talk about this. It was a bunch of dumb dragonflies. Tonight, on the news, they’ll say it was a tornado. Or a weather balloon. Who knows? Who cares?”

“We don’t want to talk about the dragonflies. We want to talk about you, and changes that are coming.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Even
you
can’t be this clueless. I learned that stuff in third grade. You gave me books. I surfed the Internet. Boy loves girl, girl loves…”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Jennifer, be quiet,” hissed Elizabeth.

She stared at her mother. Elizabeth Georges-Scales was holding her head in her hands. Tears were streaking down the doctor’s cheeks. Jennifer felt tears well up in her own eyes. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought someone had died. “What—what’s wrong?”

“Sit down, ace.” Her father kicked out a chair. “There’s no easy way through this.”

Two hours later, sobbing into her pillow up in her own room, Jennifer had to agree with at least
that
much. There was no easy way, not at all, anymore.

Mors vestra gloria nostra erit.
Your death is our glory
.

“My—what?” Jennifer looked around her. She was in a dark, cold place, and it hurt to move. “My death?”

Justice. Law. Prophecy. You die, worm
.

“What is this place? Who are you?”

A small fire burst in front of her eyes. Ms. Graf stepped out of the flames. Gone were the glasses and frumpy dress: She was in full shining armor with a glittering crown on her head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re leaving now.” There was the whisper of a blade leaving its sheath, the song of the sword slicing through the air, and then the greatest agony Jennifer had ever known. She reached out, too little too late. The room tipped crazily and she rolled toward the fire. Her body stood still behind her. It was the body of a Swordtail butterfly, with bent wings and no head. Then it toppled over backward …

***

Jennifer sat bolt upright in her bed. The faint edge of sunset warmed the room. Her hands flew to her neck, making sure her head was still there.

Bad enough she was a freak, bad enough her parents had gone crazy, but these nightmares were getting out of hand.

She looked at the time. The early autumn darkness had fooled her; it was only six o’clock. It was Friday night, her friends were probably at the mall, and she was here in her room, sulking and working herself into bad dreams.

“Enough,” she muttered. She hopped off the bed, slapped the wrinkles out of her clothes, and started for the door. Then she paused. Would her parents let her out?

She decided to use the window instead. A breath of cool wind blew her silver-streaked blonde hair back as she lifted the window and screen. One deft maneuver had her out and scrambling down the trellis. She made no noise at all.

Twenty minutes later, she was jogging into the downtown plaza. The clusters of cars in the parking lot, the generic storefront signs, and the mobs of careless teenagers shrieking and laughing all made her feel normal again. Her shoulders relaxed and she slowed to a walk.

Ridiculous
, she thought of her parents.
Insane. They’ve lost it. Or they’re just messing with my head. Some technique they learned in a parenting magazine
.

She dimly wondered what lesson they were trying to teach her by making her so miserable, but a familiar voice broke her thoughts.

“Jenny!”

Eddie was strolling the sidewalk outside of the mall entrance. Next to him, to Jennifer’s surprise, was Skip.

“Hey, Eddie. What’re you up to?”

“Patrolling for hot chicks. Hey, we found one!” Eddie seemed embarrassed by his own lame joke. “Jenny, you meet Skip yet? He’s new in town.”

“Yeah.” She nodded briefly at Skip. “We’re in science with Ms. Graf together. Hey.”

“Hey yourself, Jenny.”

“It’s
Jennifer
.” It came out colder than she meant.

Skip smirked. “You sure are touchy, Jenny.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Neither backed down.

“Aaanyway,” Eddie interjected, “Skip and I are on a mission for ice cream before my dad comes to pick us up. You want to join us, Jenny … er… ifer?”

“If your ride’s coming soon, we can go on without you,” Skip added. There was a trace of defiance in his voice and eyes—almost as if he were daring Jennifer to blow off her ride.

“I walked. I’ve got all night.” She took two steps forward, right into Skip’s face. “I’d love to go with you,
Eddie
.”

“We’d better move double-time,” said Eddie with a glance at his watch.

The ice cream stand was at the other side of the mall. They walked outside, Eddie between Skip and Jennifer and talking the whole way. He seemed oblivious to the fact that both of his friends kept glaring at each other. After a few minutes, Jennifer found she preferred the sight of the bare, bright sliver of moon in the western sky.

They ordered quickly and then jogged back—gingerly holding their overfilled cones—to the mall entrance where Eddie’s dad would meet them.

In fact Hank Blacktooth was already there in his dusty brown pickup truck, motor idling. Mr. Blacktooth was a glimpse of a future Eddie—if Eddie was fated to get heavier, hairier, and angrier. He glared at Eddie as the three kids approached the passenger door.

“You’re late.”

Eddie held up his watch. “You said six-thirty…”

“That was three minutes ago.” Mr. Blacktooth held out his thick wrist. The stark digital watch read 18:33.

Eddie sighed. Skip looked at them both with a question on his face, but Jennifer knew Eddie’s father better than to do anything but stare off in the distance.

“Can we give Jenny a ride home, too?”

“I’ve only got room in the cab for three. She’ll have to ride in the back.”

Jennifer opened her mouth to say she’d rather walk, but Eddie stopped her. “Geez, Dad, show a little chivalry. She doesn’t have to do that. I’ll hop in the back. She and Skip can ride up front.”

Without another word, Eddie stepped aside and vaulted into the back of the truck.

Alarmed, Jennifer looked from Eddie to his father to Skip… and back to Eddie’s father. Hank Blacktooth’s eyes narrowed. In awkward silence, Skip and Jennifer sidled into the cab. Their seat belts made uncomfortable snaps, and then they were off.

It was an interminable minute before anyone spoke. “So, Skip. You were saying on the way here that your dad works in construction.”

Skip was drying his palms on his jeans. Jennifer almost nudged him before the boy suddenly recognized the question and blurted out, “Yeah.”

“Has he had much success lately?”

“Well, I don’t follow it much, but Dad seems pretty happy, or as happy as he’s been since Mom passed on. He was talking at dinner last night about finishing some municipal contract work he’s been doing for years…”

They went on like this for a while. Hank Blacktooth was a real estate developer, and Skip calmed down and seemed to know enough about property and development to make small talk. Jennifer found her ambivalence about this odd boy shift into faint admiration at his increasing poise, squashed as he was between two strangers.

Of course, she knew Eddie’s father would not ask
her
any questions. Ever since that day nearly seven years ago, when they had caught their son and the new girl next door playing an innocent game of “doctor” in the backyard, Mr. and Mrs. Blacktooth had treated Jennifer like a leper. They all but forbade contact between their families.

Eddie had managed to remain friendly over the years. But he never challenged his parents openly. Instead, he sought Jennifer out on school grounds, gave her quick pecks on the cheek when they sneaked a walk home together, and even dared an occasional visit to the Scales’s house, where he always got a warm reception from Jennifer’s mother.

“How’s your mom, Jennifer?”

The icy tone startled Jennifer out of her reverie. Did he just ask her a question?

“Fine,” she maneuvered. “She’s working on a grant for the hospital.”

“Yeah, she’s still a nurse, isn’t she?”

“Still a doctor, actually. Surgical chief.”

Jennifer meant the correction kindly, but Blacktooth’s quick look made her swallow.

“The folks at church still ask after her.”

“After all these years?” Jennifer tried to sound breezy, but inside she was burning. Her mother had tried to become an active member of the local church when they first moved to Winoka, but some vicious gossip about her husband and another woman had driven her out within a year. Since the gossip had started soon after the Blacktooths freaked out over Jennifer, she heavily suspected them.

“She and your father still getting along all right?”

Jennifer just clenched her teeth. At first, it was in restraint. But suddenly, it was for an entirely different reason: terrible pain shot up her spine and through her jaw. “
Aaach
!”

Skip flinched. “Are you all right?”

Like that, the pain was gone. Jennifer rubbed the back of her neck. “I guess. Did we run over something?”

Mr. Blacktooth muttered irritably.

Another flare of pain swirled around her rib cage. Her hands flew up to her sides. “
Gaaagh
!”

Skip’s eyes were wild. “Mr. Blacktooth, I think she’s going to be sick!”

Until now, Jennifer had forgotten all about the conversation with her parents that afternoon. Meeting Eddie and Skip, getting cones, and running into Mr. Blacktooth had all seemed so normal for a while. But the reality of her situation came crashing down on her.

Her parents weren’t crazy. They weren’t using some weird parenting technique. She knew it, in her bones.

Literally.

Her teeth began to tingle and slide against each other. She coughed uncontrollably, and before she could slap her hand to her mouth, she spat blood on her palm.

“Mr. Blacktooth, I think we need to get her to a hospital!” There was no hiding the panic in Skip’s voice.

The truck swerved to the curb and stopped short. Mr. Blacktooth muttered a curse, and then reached over Skip to shake Jennifer by the shoulder. “Coughing blood! What are you, on drugs? What did you just take?”

“She mainlined chocolate chip ice cream, not heroin!” screamed Skip. He waved his awkwardly long arms in the air. “What’s the matter with you? Drive to the hospital!”

Jennifer didn’t give them the chance. She reached down and unfastened the seat belt with her bloody hand while opening the door with the other; Then she scrambled out of the car and ran, through the yard and past the house into another yard, and out of sight.

Eddie called out to her from the back of his father’s truck, but she could not hear her childhood friend. The blood was boiling in her ears.

The journey home was the most frightening experience of Jennifer’s life. Alone, staggering through the dark, unable to hear beyond the confines of her crackling skull, Jennifer felt new sensations, most of it unbearable pain, in every corner of her body.

Not just her teeth, but her entire upper and lower jaws were flaring. Her shoulder blades felt like they were splitting open and piercing skin. Her spinal cord curled and stretched.

She screamed and then flinched. A roar of an animal burst through the chaos in her ears.
A lion or an alligator
? There was no one around her, though some of the bushes nearby cast deep shadows.

Pine Street was quiet, with no joggers and only an occasional car. Most people were settling into prime-time television or a late dinner. Jennifer was both glad of this and alarmed—she didn’t want anyone else to see what she knew was about to happen, but she didn’t know if she could make it back home without help.