The Fake Eye (Time Alchemist) Read online

  But I was so lucky to have her in my life now. I couldn’t imagine living a boring life anymore without her and Leon. Yeah, it’s really hard having a double life and living with a power that sometimes feels beyond your control, but all three of us have gone through thick and thin together, and we’ll keep on doing it.

  “A dollar for your thoughts, Emery?” Dove’s soothing voice snapped me out of my thoughts of her, and I shook my head.

  “Don’t you mean, ‘A penny for your thoughts’?” I teased. Dove had told me once that she had lived most of her childhood in Europe with her Father, so sometimes the simplest phrases and puns didn’t really sink in.

  Her lips curved into a smile. “I like my version much better. Isn’t

  everyone’s thought worth more than one cent?”

  I laughed. “If that were true, everyone in the whole world would be rich!” I looped an arm through hers and leaned in. “Hey, wanna make a quick pit stop by the library? I hear the coffee shop has a new selection of cake pops to try.”

  “Pit stop…oh, yes, to refuel our energy, right?” she blinked. “And what’s ‘cake pop’?”

  “It’s basically a bite sized piece of cake. On a stick.”

  “How would you put cake on a stick?”

  I rolled my eyes, grinning. “Let’s go find out then!”

  ○○○

  It was hot. Unbearable, like I was standing right next to an open oven. The heat rolled over my skin in waves, sinking into my flesh and muscles and settling into my bones. It was like I could see the flames licking into me; burrowing into my skin until all I felt was hot.

  The scene before me was fire, fire, fire. It was as if I was standing on stage, in the spotlight, surrounded by a ring of fire. I saw the faint shadowy outline of…trees and…there was a car. It was flipped upside down, crushed so badly I couldn’t make out the color or shape or brand. Blandly, I realized that even though the air was blistering and thick, the ground felt oddly…ice cold. I realized I was standing on a road—though from the burning lights of the fire I could see something else mixed in with the color of the tar—blood.

  The spotlight above me seemed to flicker, and then blue and red lights began flashing, over and over and over and over; every change of color made my head pound like a jackhammer had taken residence inside my skull. A siren wail pierced through the air, vibrating my bones.

  The scene of the fire and the car disappeared just as soon as it appeared. And then it was two people.

  An older woman hovering over the body of a little girl. Her hair was dark, almost midnight black, hanging like a curtain over her face so I couldn’t even see what she looked like. Her cotton dress was stained red; even her trembling hands were gloved in the bright liquid. I couldn’t see the smaller figure very well, but I saw a flash of pink…and clutched tightly in the little girl’s left hand was a small doll with stuffing coming out of its belly.

  Bile rose in my throat. The girl was lying as limp and still as her precious doll.

  Both of them were bleeding horribly; the fires surrounding them threatening to consume them both. I willed my legs to move, but they refused, like my bones had been replaced with cement.

  The blue and red lights flashed painfully in my eyes.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to keep them shut forever. What kind of dream was this? Why couldn’t I wake up?

  And then, as if a pair of invisible hands had pried my eyelids up, I was standing right next to the body of the small girl. The older woman was gone.

  Vanished; as if she had never existed.

  Again, like I was the marionette on an invisible puppeteer’s strings, my legs caved and I was kneeling next to the girl. Her limbs were splayed out, twisting and bloody and broken. The pink dress she wore was ripped and torn to shreds, barely covering her burnt body. She had pretty, soft, strawberry blonde hair that was matted with blood and dirt. A small pink bow was knotted in her hair, as if it was trying to free itself from the hot chaos.

  My hands moved, but I couldn’t tell anymore if it was my will or someone else’s. I gently held the girl’s head in my hand, turning it very slowly

  to face me. She looked so dead; her face was chalk white, her body wasn’t moving.

  But when I turned her my way, I saw that the entire right side of her face was slick with blood.

  And her right eye stared right at me. Still. Unblinking.

  Then there was a horrible, painful flash of white—a feeling that felt so achingly familiar, my heart seemed to crave and loathe it—and then the girl’s eye was a pure, milky white.

  And in that eye were heavy, silver markings.

  That one pale eye blinked, and the little girl opened her mouth, and screamed.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was rare for the girl’s bathroom to be empty—especially on a Monday morning.

  Normally, the (very) large restrooms—with white, pristine porcelain sinks, polished walls and even a sitting area with plush chairs and bowls of sweet smelling assorted potpourri—was always crowded, it seems, every hour with giggling girls putting on thick layers of makeup and spraying that ritzy, awful smelling perfume and hairspray so much that it fogged up the windows.

  But hey, if it was just dumb luck I would take it. The day was staring out pretty well, even though I had Physical Education II this morning. Today was a pre-exam day—running a mile around the tracks. In some effort to keep “focus and attention”, Coach Gilkes has the boys running the first half hour and the girls the last.

  It was perfect. And it was a small window of break I needed today. After my grueling training with Leon (who seriously did not hold back from last time!), I loved having a little extra time to relax before my test began.

  I tossed my bags on the counter, catching myself in the streak-free reflection of the mirror. I still looked the exact same since I had met Dove and Leon: bright green eyes flecked with little bits of brown and gray, almost hidden beneath thick reddish-coppery colored bangs. My hair brushed past my shoulders with a slight wave, and I tried (and often times failed) to tame the army of frizz that crowned my scalp. My face didn’t look like anything too special or too simple; it was as normal as normal can get. Thin lips, a bit of a round, babyish face. Nothing unusual, but nothing that stood out.

  Out of habit, I double checked under the stalls before I began undressing. It’s not like I had a problem changing clothes in front of other

  girls (I mean, Dove and I share a room, so I’m okay with her), but I really wouldn’t want to strip down to my underwear and scare some poor freshman or (God forbid) have some girl have her phone out and take a picture.

  Believe me when I say that St. Mary’s Academy truly prides itself on its academics, its class, and its wealth. In that order. But once the clock strikes five o’clock, it’s like all of the elite boys and girls strip away their studious masks and become little booze happy, stuck up monsters. And if you make enemies with the wrong people, they will do whatever it takes to make your life living hell. Being stuck on school grounds for so long, I guess they needed something to pass the time. (Yeah, right).

  Especially if you’re one of the minorities at St. Mary’s: a scholarship student. In this town, if you can’t even afford to buy a second uniform then you may as well be called dirt.

  It also really, really helped that there was no one around to question the tattoo on my chest. I’m pretty sure that in the St. Mary’s Official Student Guide Book that tattoos weren’t really allowed.

  But these weren’t just any kind of tattoo. They were etches called Runes.

  Alchemic Runes.

  As I folded my short sleeved dress shirt (they finally let us take off our blazer for the remainder of the year, thank goodness!) and placed it neatly on the countertop, I couldn’t help but let my reflected eyes drift down to the markings on my chest. Although I was wearing a white tank top, I could see them clear as day: over my heart was a large gold symbol shaped like the face of an old fashioned grandfather clock.
The markings spread, in the shapes of grinds and gears (just as if I really were a living, breathing clock), all over my chest and over my shoulders.

  It was these Runes that gave me the power to harness my alchemy. Dove

  explained them to me a while back: they act as gateways for an alchemist to tap into their power. But only Blood-Borne alchemists—alchemists who come from a long line of other “pure blooded” alchemists—have Runes somewhere on their skin. Dove is (or was) a Blood-Borne alchemist. Even though she can’t use her alchemy anymore, she still has her markings.

  Leon is a different story. He’s what we call a Self Taught alchemist—a person who is aware of the alchemy inside of them, but they have to work ten times as harder to “unlock” it—they usually have manmade Runes on some sort of object: clothes, jewelry, weapons…just like Leon’s heavy metal wristbands.

  The tattoo had originally started out small. It formed right in the very place that I had been stabbed—in the place where Dove had healed my heart with a small pocket watch. The Runes had grown that one day in December, when I seemed to have really unlocked my true potential. Although it was beautiful, and I felt proud to parade around with them, it was a huge pain to hide them.

  And Dad would just freak out if he saw them!

  I had just pulled my St. Mary’s gym shirt (a dark crimson tee with the St. Mary’s emblem stitched over the right breast pocket) when the door slammed open. I jumped three feet in the air, twisting around in a panic to see

  —

  Mallory Wells, flanked by two of her lackeys standing at the door like they were prepared to walk the runway and this restroom was their stage.

  Mallory may be a beauty on the outside, with long, chocolate locks pulled into a tight ponytail and blemish-free skin that made me green with envy, but she was a Queen that nobody wanted to stand in her way.

  And, like any other clichéd novel situation of a new girl trying to fit into an elite, snobbish school, she was my arch nemesis.

  I braced myself for the sneering, the screaming, the hair pulling, but it never came. Instead, the three walked right past me and settled themselves at the other end of the counter. I couldn’t honestly tell you what’s worse: when people purposely try to hate you or when they simply ignore your existence.

  But if they were gonna leave me alone, I’d do the same.

  “BETHANY!” Mallory snapped, dumping her cosmetics bag into the sink. “I told you to pack my Sweet Pearly Pink Number Seven nail polish. This is Sugar Baby Pink Number three. GO back and get me the right one!”

  “Yes, Mallory! Right away!” The small girl, Bethany looked as frazzled as a baby bunny, zipping out the door so hard it smacked against the wall with a crack. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes (wouldn’t want dear Mallory or her friend, Tasha Lewinski, to see and make that some sort of excuse to start a fight).

  As I was packing my bags neatly—I always had to have it a certain way, in case I forgot anything—putting my neatly folded shirt in first, followed by the skirt…I couldn’t help but overhear Mallory and Tasha gushing about (what was new?) boys.

  But more specifically, new boys.

  “God, he’s just so hot, isn’t he Mals?” Tasha sighed, twirling a curling iron through Mallory’s hair. Mallory simply lifted a shoulder, a half attempt at a shrug. “He may be hot, but I don’t really go with those emo kinds of boys.

  Did you see how gross his hair looked? It’s like he got zapped by lightening or something.”

  “But he, like, hardly says a thing. He’s not only hot, but he’s mysterious too. He’s got those soul-searchy eyes going on.”

  “Who cares?” Mallory snorted. “He’s obviously some punk wannabe.

  How he even got into this school with that hair and those ugly tats is beyond

  me. Really, they just let anyone in the gates these days, huh? At least, anyone with a little cash.”

  Here, I purposely ducked my head as I rifled through my bag, but I swear I could feel Mallory watching me through the mirror ’s reflection. And for that, I felt my face burn like the sun.

  But the mention of that tattoos got me curious. How rare is it that the St.

  Mary’s vice-Headmaster (a fill in to replace the…former Headmistress), would let a student who has an obvious violation of the dress codes come in with such ease? Dove had no problem getting her and Leon in (though she has yet to tell me the how and why of the case), so maybe the new HM isn’t as stiff as the old one?

  Tattoos don’t define you, and just because someone had tats doesn’t mean that they were one of… us. But I was still curious as Alice chasing after the white rabbit, and I wanted to check it out. I gathered my things, sent a sugary smile to Mallory (who had turned away and was snapping at some poor victim on her phone; probably her new slave Bethany), and rushed out.

  It didn’t take me too long at all, actually. Outside the Science and Math Hall, a crowd was gathering that consisted mostly of small, blushing girls.

  When Dove and Leon had “transferred” to St. Mary’s, I had been assigned as their tour guide, and let me tell you, it was like walking between a Victoria’s Secret and a Calvin Klein model—they turned people’s heads so fast they cracked from the velocity. I wonder which one of those girls was eager to become this new student’s “personal tour guide” for the semester.

  But it wasn’t the boy in the middle that caught my attention. Although his black, dusty colored hair really was wild and spiky, like he had jabbed his finger into an electrical socket, and his eyes (from where I stood) did look a little “soul-searchy”…but really, he looked just, well, bored. I couldn’t see any tattoos on his bare arms, and he had his hands stuck in his pocket. His shirt, the

  same white dress shirt that every student wore, was open in the front, showing a black top underneath that had bits of blue paint splattered on it. Though there was one cool thing I noticed—he had at least three solid black earrings on his left ear alone, all glistening in the morning sunlight like specks of gems.

  From where I was in the back of the crowd, I couldn’t much of a good look…

  but where there some sort of colorings or markings in those earrings? No way to tell, really.

  True, he was very intriguing, but it was the small girl that stood right next to him that made my heart all but swoop down to my feet, smacking into the grass as fast as a rocket. I had gathered closer towards the outer circle, just enough to really get a good, decent look. Suddenly, my throat clogged up, as if cotton had been stuffed inside my mouth.

  She really was small—she barely reached the boy’s shoulders (and he must be at least as tall as Leon, maybe more. Six feet?), with soft strawberry blonde hair tied in two low ponytails with adorable, doll-like white ribbons.

  She clutched a black bag to her chest and smiled to something another student asked. The crisp white shirt looked too large on her petit frame, and the black pleated skirt almost came down past her knees. She wore plain white socks that were a little rumpled around her ankles, along with a pair of neatly polished black mary-janes. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn she was just a little girl—not a teenager.

  But it was her eyes that made my muscles go cold. One was a soothing cobalt blue, but the other one—her right eye—was covered completely by her blonde hair, swooping down over her face like a delicate lace curtain. There was something else tied around her right eye, like a bandage, but from the looks of the other mesmerized students, nobody really seemed to pay attention, or care, that she was wearing a medical eye patch.

  It could be for any real, rational reason. I had no true motive to jump

  on, but seeing her there, in person, made the entire world spin on its axis.

  I had seen her before. She was older, that was for sure, but it was still the same person.

  She was the little girl in my dreams.

  CHAPTER 5

  I had an eerie sense of déjà vu. My limbs suddenly felt thick and heavy, as if they were tied down by anchor wei
ghts. How could a little girl that I saw in my dreams just last night be standing there, twenty feet away?

  But she wasn’t that little girl with the tattered, blood soaked dress and baby doll pink ribbon. She was older. And she looked…well, okay. Not bloody.

  It was just a coincidence. A strange, freaky coincidence. Tasha never really said that the new students came today….it’s possible I saw them sometime yesterday, or even the day before. Maybe it was just a glance, and that could explain why I had some (abnormal) dream about a girl I’d never met.

  But if that’s so…why was my heart pounding? There was this strange, melancholic tingling in my veins. The girl was unfamiliar to me…yet it felt like we had a connection. Something I couldn’t form into words.

  It felt as if she…was just like me.

  And just as I thought that, the strawberry blonde turned her head slightly in my direction, and our eyes (or…eye) locked, rooting my feet to the ground.

  Something thumped beside my leg. I hadn’t realized how sweaty my palms were until my backpack had slipped from my hands; half of my books and pencils scattering on the grounds, and I swore that I had zipped it all the way closed. But who cared about that?

  I took a step forward, then stopped.

  What would I say? “Hey, I saw you in a dream last night, except you were just a little kid and you were bleeding and everything. Name’s Emery.

  You?” I shook my head, infuriated with myself and my stupidity. But I was

  saved the trouble when the crowd of giggling female students ushered the puzzling girl and her tall sidekick in the opposite direction.

  Somewhere, the clock tower chimed out. I was late for gym. Even when I bent down to shove my things back in my bag, it felt as if I had swallowed ice; my insides felt cold and numb.

  I had to find out who those two new students were. There was definitely something not normal about those two.

  ○○○

  I kept a sharp ear out for any rumors regarding the new kids. I heard nothing exciting that seemed factual—most of the mindless gossip stretched a little too thin, if you get what I’m saying—other than that the two new kids were cousins, they apparently paid heavily to come in so late in the semester (some believed that they were rejected from St. Mary’s and had to bribe their way inside), nobody knew where they were from, and someone even said that the boy’s name sounded like a reindeer (what?).