Pittacus Lore: Return to Paradise

JOLLYROGER182: want me 2 look into it some more? i can try to call around again

GUARD: No. Take a look at this. Sound familiar?

He sends me a link to a post on an online journal. It belongs to some girl named Meredith down in Miami. It starts out really sad—her parents think she’s on drugs and have had her in and out of institutions—and I can’t figure out why GUARD is interested in it. Then, after a few paragraphs, I get to what he’s talking about: the reason her parents think she’s on drugs is because she says she watched some random dude on the streets of Miami use what she describes as “mind powers” to shove her boyfriend up against the wall of a coffee shop, keeping him pinned there a few feet off the ground.

My chat window dings while I’m reading.

GUARD: What do you think? Telekinesis?

GUARD: Could this be your friend? The time stamp on the journal entry is yesterday, but she doesn’t say when the coffee shop event happened.

GUARD: Emailed to find out more info but she hasn’t gotten back to me.

JOLLYROGER182: hold on

Luckily, this girl’s listed the facility her parents had checked her into and her full name. Not exactly smart stuff to put on the internet, but great for me. I look up the hospital and call the front desk.

“Hi,” I say when a woman picks up. “I’m trying to get in contact with Meredith Harris.”

“Just one minute,” the woman says. I can hear the clacking of keys in the background for a few moments before her voice comes back again. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, but Ms. Harris was checked out a few days ago.”

“Oh, um . . . ,” I say, trying to come up with my next question. I realize that I probably should have thought this through more before I called, but thinking before I act isn’t really my style. I go off instinct.

“Um, that can’t be right,” I continue. On my computer screen, I see the date of the journal post, and something clicks in my head: It’ll be easier to figure out if it was John in Miami if I know when this chick first got sent to the hospital . “Maybe I have the wrong number. When was your Meredith Harris checked in?”

“Well . . . ,” the woman says. I can tell she’s hesitant to give me any more info.

“Please, ma’am, this is my sister. I’m just trying to make sure I know where she’s at.”

I must have come up with the right amount of sob story, because she gives me a date—one that puts Meredith Harris going into the hospital at the same time I was trying to kick John’s ass on the hayride.

I thank the woman on the other end of the line and hang up, then turn back to GUARD.

JOLLYROGER182: no dice. i called the hospital. the girl was admitted while John Smith was here

GUARD: Maybe the actual incident occurred before he came to Paradise?

JOLLYROGER182: i don’t think his powers came until he was here

At least, that’s what John told Sarah. In all our conversations about the Loric and the Mogs, I’ve gotten to know basically everything he ever told her about himself.

GUARD: Ah. Okay. Maybe it’s another Loric then.

JOLLYROGER182: must be a dumb one begging to become Mog food.

GUARD: So much stuff happening these days. A lot of weird activity.

GUARD: I get the feeling everything must be coming to a head sometime soon. Don’t you?

I hate that I agree with him.

I poke around online a little more before calling it a night, my eyes strained too much and a headache coming on. I lie in bed and think of the same scene that’s been replayed in my head a million times since everything went crazy. It’s not even one of the weirder moments, like when a damned lizard monster attacked us or John’s dog turned into some kind of dragon. Or when alien bad guys turned into ash after being stabbed. It was when I was at John’s house.

It was when I’d found out that aliens existed.

I’d gone over to John’s house to ask about the video. That stupid video someone had shot on their phone of John flying like Superman out of my burning house, Sarah and the dogs with him. I’d ended up in the middle of a fight between him and the guy I’d thought was his father, Henri. And then weird stuff started happening. Henri stopped moving, like he was frozen in place, which I now realize meant that John was using his telekinesis. They were talking about Sarah being in trouble, and then John was just gone. Running, I guess, all the way to the school.

After he’d left, Henri was able to move again. I’d been furious that no one was answering my questions, but I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. He looked like he was about to break in every way possible. I’d kept asking questions, but he kept ignoring me. He ran into another room. When he came back out, he was carrying a shotgun and this locked box with all kinds of weird symbols carved into it. I could tell he was on some kind of mission as he headed to his truck. I was fast, though, and got there before him, planting myself in the passenger seat. I needed to know what was going on. Especially if Sarah was involved.

“I don’t have time to deal with you,” Henri had said as he jumped into the truck. “Out!”

What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to react to that?

“If Sarah’s in danger, you take me to her,” I said. “No matter what.” And I meant it. Suddenly that was the only thing that mattered.

Henri had looked at me long and hard before starting his truck. As we peeled out of his driveway, he shoved the locked chest into my lap.

“What’s this?” I asked.

Henri just shook his head.

“Boy, you’ve got a lot to learn in the next five minutes.”

Then everything went to hell.

Lying on my pullout bed at Nana’s, I think about this interaction, wondering why I got in the truck in the first place. I don’t know, really. Looking back on it, I should have called my dad. Or let Henri go alone. Or any number of options that wouldn’t have put me at Mog ground zero. But something had told me to go with him. I’m glad I did. I mean, I saved John that night, and probably Sarah too.

But a little part of me wishes that I’d never gotten into that truck. That Henri hadn’t told me about the war we were driving towards—a battle on Earth between two alien races.

Part of me wishes I’d just walked away. Life would have been a lot less complicated that way.

THE NEXT MORNING I REALIZE I NEED TO TELL Sarah that the FBI and the police know about her and John. We’d assumed they had, but every concrete piece of information we can find helps us build a clearer picture of what’s going on. Plus, I want to tell her about the stuff I’ve been researching with GUARD. I’ve only ever talked about “Aliens Anonymous” in an abstract way, mentioning articles I’ve found online but not explaining that I’m now a part of a super-nerdy alien conspiracy blog. Maybe today’s the day to tell her.

She agrees to meet me for lunch, and by the time I get to the pizza place on the downtown square, she’s already there.

“Hey,” I say as I slide into a booth opposite her. She looks at me with concern, her eyes darting around nervously. I’m confused. “If you don’t want pizza, we can go someplace else.”

“No,” she says, forcing a smile. “I’m just having kind of a weird day.”

“How so?”

“Is there a woman with red hair in a black suit behind me?” Sarah whispers.

I scrunch my eyebrows together in confusion and then look over her shoulder. Sure enough, there’s a red-haired woman in dark clothes drinking a coffee alone and reading from an electronic tablet a few tables behind us.