The Search for Artemis (The Chronicles of Landon Wicker) (16 page)

“What do we win?” Landon asked.

“Uh . . . being the winner,” she replied as if it was obvious. “And I don’t lose.”

“Well, you’re off to a bad start having me as your partner.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re better than you give yourself credit.” Celia and Landon stared at one another for a minute until Celia awkwardly patted Landon on the shoulder and then sprinted off toward the woods. As she got farther and farther away, she turned her head and yelled over her shoulder, “You start here and I’ll look in the woods!”

Landon continued to watch her until she disappeared behind the thick line of trees. Since their orientation, Celia excelled at everything she attempted. She was a star pupil in Telekinetics and had no issues in Tactometry or Thought Reception. If there was really an award for “Most Awesome New Student,” Celia blew him out of the water. The only point Landon could have possibly claimed against her was that his extensity radius was one meter wider than hers. That was not much of a feat considering the wealth of skill she could employ within her twenty-four meters compared to the minimal capabilities Landon had in his twenty-five.

Within minutes of starting, he found the pencil and the rubber band through sheer observation, but he knew Professor Tzu would not make everything so easy to acquire.

For the next hour, Landon scoured the area Celia assigned to him. With his mind still lingering on the events of the previous night, he reverted back to old methods of accessing his abilities, and like before, they produced less than stellar results. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t concentrate.

Eventually, Celia came out of the woods carrying a small pile of items in her hands. She gave Landon a contemptuous glance when he presented her with only the two items he’d stored in his pocket. When they looked over the list, they realized they had fourteen of the twenty.

Celia silently turned away from Landon and methodically walked around the lawn and lakeshore, stopping ever so often to pick things up off the ground. Well not so much pick them up but hold her hand open in front of her and have the item jump off the ground and into her hand.

Landon managed to become the storage unit for Celia, fighting to hold all of the items in his arms as she walked back to him with one object after another. In minutes, they had nineteen of the twenty items with only the steel ring remaining unfound.

Before heading back out to find the final elusive object, Celia glanced up at Landon to see the embarrassment written on his face.

“Come on. You’re gonna to find the last one,” she said, waving for Landon to follow her.

Landon was taken aback. Celia was so competitive—how on earth was she going to put the fate of their winning the exercise on his shoulders? But he obeyed and caught up with her while struggling to hold on to the nineteen objects in his arms.

She walked casually, which surprised Landon even further.

“So what’s really on your mind?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Landon returned.

“Well, you’ve been distracted all morning, and I know you don’t do well unless you can really focus. So what’s getting you?”

“There was some craziness last night that I can’t seem to get out of my head.”

Landon hadn’t really spoken to Celia much since they arrived at the Gymnasium. They were more acquaintances than friends. They shared almost every training group, but she had proven herself to be in a different league than Landon, elevating her into a superior social cast in the Gymnasium. That aside, Landon wasn’t sure what he could tell her about his late night run-in with his mystery woman. He didn’t feel right telling anyone until he knew for himself what really was going on.

“Really? What happened?” she asked, concerned.

“Uh, it’s really nothing. I need to just put it out of my mind.”

“That’s probably best. . . . So why do you think you have so much trouble with all of this?”

Landon’s face drained of color, and he felt his palms get sweaty.

“I honestly have no idea,” he returned timidly.

“Well, I think it’s because you’re too hard on yourself.” Celia looked over to Landon, who was staring at his feet. “I think if you just lightened up a bit, you’d be showing us all up.”

Landon lifted his head and looked over at Celia, who now looked out over the water of the lake. The morning sun gave her an ethereal glow.

She then turned to look back at Landon and, with a crazed look in her eye, said, “Come on! . . . We’re going swimming.”

Before he could even respond, she was diving into the water; her shirt and pants laid on the sandy beach.

“Come on! Have some fun!” she yelled after letting out an invigorating
woo!
upon bursting out from under the water.

Landon stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment.
There’s a hot girl in her underwear asking me to go swimming with her. . . . How is this happening?
The excitement grabbed him, and he couldn’t help but join her. He cast the nineteen objects in his arms aside, manically stripped down to his boxer shorts, and ran into the water, high-stepping to catch Celia.

As he dove under water, his breath was taken away. The water was icy, but invigorating in the best kind of way. Somehow the constriction of his muscles loosened the tensions in his mind.

When he came up for air, he looked around and saw that Celia was about ten yards away. He swam over to her, a smile stretched across his face.

Once close enough, he stopped and began treading water. Celia was giggling beside him but had a maniacal grin. He then realized she was looking up and when he did the same, he watched as a ball of water she had lifted into the air plummeted toward him and engulfed his head. He was laughing out loud when he resurfaced and started to splash her in retaliation, pushing his hands forward with all his might.

The splashing went on for minutes, but when Landon turned his head to avoid getting water in his face, he noticed the water of the lake looked really agitated, like the ocean in the middle of a thunderstorm. He continued to push water toward Celia, but soon realized that with every shove of his arm, the water all around him formed into waves and crashed in Celia’s direction.

“Landon Wicker and Celia Jackson!”

The voice came from the shore and was barely audible through the sound of the splashing water, but Landon and Celia both froze in place. When they looked over, Dr. Brighton stood on the beach with a book in his hand and a disapproving scowl on his face. They both kept their eyes down as they returned to shore, not daring look Dr. Brighton in the face. The water quickly subdued and returned to its usual ebb and flow.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working on your Tactometry exercise right now?” Dr. Brighton asked as the two attempted to pull their clothes onto their soaked bodies.

“Yes, sir,” they replied in unison.

“So what were you doing out there?” he asked.

“Well, we found nineteen of the twenty items on our list and we were looking for our last when we discovered it was actually hidden on the lake bottom,” Celia replied.

Landon looked at her, confused. Was she making this up?

“Then why did you not just lift this item off the lake bottom and draw it to you with your abilities?” Dr. Brighton asked. “If you sensed it, you could easily lift it, correct?”

“Of course, sir,” Celia continued. “But our Tactometry training would be over for the day, as we were only tasked with discovering the twenty items in our designated area. It was the last item on our list, and since it is such a beautiful day, we thought it more engaging to swim and retrieve it rather than simply pluck it from the depths with our gifts.”

Landon never said a word; he just stood there, looking at Celia as she wordsmithed their way out of danger.
She is amazing at this,
Landon thought.

“Look, sir, if you don’t believe me, here’s the ring.” She held out her hand and resting in her palm was the steel ring, shining in the late morning sun. She then pointed to the place in the sand where Landon had dropped all the rest of their objects. “The other nineteen are right there in that pile.”

Dr. Brighton looked down at the pile of items strewn about on the lakeshore for a minute before turning back to Celia and Landon.

“Very well. I’m not against having fun, just please make sure to check in with your professor before deciding to go for a swim. I guess I’ll see you both tomorrow morning, and Landon, I hope you’re ready for Saturday. After what I just witnessed, I think I have an idea.”

Dr. Brighton headed back up to the Gymnasium. Celia and Landon finished getting dressed, collected their items, and hurried across the lawn to check in with Professor Tzu.

As they walked, Celia broke their silence by bursting out with uncontrollable laughter. Landon looked at her for a split second and then joined. He couldn’t figure out what was even that funny, but he couldn’t help himself. Something inside had snapped and he now couldn’t control himself. They were laughing so hard their stomachs started to hurt, and they continued to laugh as they presented their twenty items to Professor Tzu. He nodded with approval.

“Students,” Professor Tzu interjected.

Landon and Celia both attempted to hold back their laughter and listen to their teacher. Landon found it nearly impossible; he hadn’t laughed this hard in months and his chest convulsed incessantly as he forced himself to contain it. 

“You’re the winners,” said Professor Tzu, who started to chuckle as he watched his two students erupt in excitement, their laughter spilling out of them as they hugged and jumped up and down in gratuitous overexcitement.

“What did we win?” Landon asked as he gasped to inhale between laughs.

“Yeah, what did we win?” Celia added.

“A bag of tasty treats,” Professor Tzu answered as he giggled. Professor Tzu was known to be a bit eccentric.

Celia and Landon took their small bag of candy and began toward the Gymnasium. They continued to laugh hysterically until they reached the Atrium, where they realized they were attracting a lot of attention.

Both took a few deep breaths and regained their composure. They then decided to head back to their respective rooms to change out of their wet clothes.

“So I thought I was supposed to find the ring,” Landon started as they entered the Atrium’s northeastern staircase leading up to the dormitories in the Student Tower.

“I know, but I had to think quickly. I was planning on letting you find it once you were in the water. I figured the swimming might distract you enough to let you concentrate and find it.” Celia looked over at Landon, who still had a large grin plastered across his face. “I knew it was there before we got in, but when Dr. Brighton caught us playing around, I made it come to me as we got out. It was the only way I thought might get us out of trouble.”

“Good thinking. It worked beautifully.”

• • • • •

Landon stumbled into the shower at six in the morning on Saturday, hoping the water would wake him up to be coherent when he met with Dr. Brighton for his first private training session.

When he got outside, a thick fog blanketed the valley, making it difficult for him to even see the woods in the distance, but as he got closer and closer, he soon recognized the silhouette of Dr. Brighton standing stoically just before the wood’s edge.

“Good morning, Landon,” he said as Landon approached.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Please follow me. It isn’t far to where we’re going.”

Landon obeyed without question. This was the first time Landon had set foot in the woods since his arrival at the Gymnasium. He found it magnificent and menacing at the same time. As it was autumn, the leaves of the oaks and maples had turned from their usual greens into an array of golds, reds and oranges. It was beautiful, but some of the trees had already shed their entire coat of foliage. At times, bare, jagged branches jutted in and out of the fog, giving the forest a sinister quality.

Dr. Brighton set an unbelievable pace, making it difficult for Landon to keep up. He seemed to navigate the forest with the utmost ease, gliding between the trees with supernatural agility, while Landon stumbled over fallen sticks and slipped on wet, rotting leaves that had accumulated on the forest bed. Soon Dr. Brighton had led Landon to an inconspicuous rock face on the northeastern edge of the valley.

“You are the first student I am taking into this place. It is very special to me, so please be respectful,” Dr. Brighton said as Landon confusedly stared at the solid wall of stone.
What is he talking about?
Landon thought.

Then, without warning, Dr. Brighton widened his legs, securing his stance, and with a forceful motion of his arms, a large boulder in front of them rolled aside, revealing a doorway into a hidden garden.

Landon’s jaw hung open as he entered the secluded paradise. It was a splendid Japanese garden. Small Japanese maples, cherry trees and interestingly contorted junipers sprinkled the landscape, scattered between lush patches of colorful foliage. Rocks and boulders appeared meticulously placed throughout to give it a sense of nature in its more untouched form. A small creek snaked through the garden, depositing water into a tiny lily pond toward the center of the enclosure. The water babbled over the stones, setting a calming atmosphere. An arched bridge extended over the creek, and massive stone lanterns, water basins and shaded arbors were interspersed throughout the landscape. As they continued down the narrow path, a three-story pagoda emerged from the fog. It looked straight out of Japan, as if the ancient structure had been shipped from the Pacific, or that by some magic or technology, Dr Brighton and Landon had been transported half way around the globe when they passed through the stone entry.