Silver's Bane

Chapter Eleven Hall of Mirrors-1

Chapter Eleven Hall of MirrorsAfter work, Jules went straight to the local fairgrounds to help set up for Aboit High’s biggest fundraiser of the year. She’d volunteered to oversee the carnival games with Gabriel.

She stood and held the end of the banner off the ground as he stood on a tall ladder, tacking it high above their heads.

“Give me a little more slack,” Gabriel said, tugging on his end.

Jules let a few more inches of banner slip through her fingers.

“Where has your mind wandered off to this time?” Gabriel teased as he tugged on the banner again and smiled down at her.

“It’s gone on vacation apparently,” Jules replied with a wide smile of her own.

It was nice to feel less tension between them. She and Gabriel had talked things through a bit when she’d seen him at lunch. Since then, he seemed to be much more relaxed. Apparently, Ricky’s lie had done the trick. He’d told her that he wasn’t comfortable with Ricky knowing what he and Jules were, but since there hadn’t been any more altercations with the Alpha, he would try to put the whole werewolf thing to rest. Jules appreciated the effort this must take on his part. She knew Gabriel had just reason to lack trust in werewolves. But she simply couldn’t judge the whole species for an act that only a few had committed.

Once, a few decades ago, she’d said this to Gabriel. However, he was convinced that it was werewolves’ very nature that made them dangerous. Jules had tried to argue that all vampire must then be judged by their species’ nature, and Gabriel hadn’t spoken to her for a week. He was wrong on this, and she believed they both knew it. But Eileen had lost her human life and Gabriel simply hadn’t been able to find forgiveness inside himself yet. He did say this afternoon that he would try to let it go. This gave Jules hope that Gabriel would, one day, find peace.

Just then, Gabriel finished that side of the banner, jumped down, and moved the ladder to the other end. Jules regained her focus and followed suit, keeping the banner out of the dirt below.

The pre-carnival atmosphere made Jules’s senses throb. The music had begun to emanate from the rides on the midway, which were set up starting one street over. The rising smells of the food vendors were wafting from near the entrance to the grounds. Excited teenagers were chattering and horsing around while they waited for their families and townspeople to arrive. All these things reminded Jules of a day long gone, when she and Gabriel had visited the first circus together.

“Alright, gather around,” Gabriel shouted as he jumped off the ladder again. Jules watched as several girls swooned. Slowly, all the students assigned to the carnival games meandered over.

Jules picked a clipboard up off the nearest table and handed it to Gabriel. Gabriel began taking a shrewd form of attendance and giving each student their individual assignment.

“Missy Thomas, Asher Danforth, Terry Pope, with me at the ring toss.” Several students’ faces dropped at not being able to work with their favorite teacher.

“Tasha Anderson and Ethan Martin with Ms. Bristow at the balloon pop.” Both students nodded. Ethan and Tasha glanced a little awkwardly at one another. Their families lived next to each other, but they didn’t have much in common. Normally, Ethan would have made some c***k about not working at all, but Gabriel moved quickly down the list.

“Kara Willis and Amy Reynolds with Landon Reynolds and Seth Yang at the water shooter.”

“All of you freshmen and sophomores will listen to your upperclassman. Seniors, any questions see Ms. Bristow or myself.”

Amy scowled, possibly at having to work under her older brother. Seth and Landon high-fived, enjoying being in charge for once. Amy smiled at the girl, one year younger than herself. Landon winked at Kara, who giggled.

Nodding and muttering erupted all around, some students happy with their assigned group and some disappointed.

“I don’t have an assignment?” Ricky said quietly. He was standing a few feet behind Jules. Apparently, he was more comfortable with a vampire he barely knew then a whole bunch of peers he didn’t know at all.

“That’s okay. You can work with me.” She smiled softly at him.

He looked grateful at not being left out completely, not that he was the type to admit such things.

“Alright g**g, the carnival opens in twenty minutes. Go prepare your booths.” With this, the groupings went their sperate ways. Jules and her unlikely trio took up position between Gabriel’s booth and the one being run by Seth and Landon.

When Jules entered her booth, Tasha was sitting on the front table and swinging her legs while Ethan lounged against a stack of heavy crates.

“Okay,” Jules began. But she changed directions when she saw that Ricky continued to stand awkwardly at her side. First things first. “Have either of you met Ricky?” Jules asked them.

“Nope,” Ethan said, “other than the fact that he gave me an extra hour to hide under the bleachers and make out with Kara Willis this morning, that is.”

“Ethan!” Jules said, aghast. “I told you to go to study hall.”

“Yeah. I didn’t do that.”

Ricky raised his eyebrows while watching the exchange between Ethan and Jules.

“Thanks, dude.” Ethan gave Ricky a wide smile.

Jules made an exasperated, older sister sound.

“I thought we respected teachers in this school?” Ricky commented to Jules, doing a nasally impression of Belinda.

Jules was about to respond when Ethan spoke again. “For the most part I do, but you see, Jules practically lives at my house.”

This time Tasha joined Ricky in the eyebrow raise.

“She’s is my sister’s best friend. So basically, she’s like another bossy big sister I don’t have to listen too,” he clarified.

“Oh,” Tasha added as she a Ricky nodded.

“Does he…?” Ricky began to ask.

“No, he doesn’t.” Jules cut him off before he could say anything that Ethan didn’t need to know. “Tasha, have you…” Jules began.

“What don’t I?” Ethan asked at the same moment Tasha responded to Jules’s first question.

“Ricky and I met this morning,” she said, looking over at Jules and then turned, smiling at Ricky.

“Good,” Jules said, ignoring Ethan completely. “Ricky and Tasha, why don’t you two work with the darts and re-tacking balloons, and Ethan you can fill more balloons.”

“Why do I get the sucky job?” Ethan asked.

“Trust me, you don’t,” Ricky said.

“What will you be doing then?” Ethan asked.

“Helping.” Jules crossed her arms and looked down at Ethan, who had dropped onto the dirt and gathered up the air hose to start filling more balloons. The first balloon Ethan filled, burst with a bang.

RICKY

The carnival opened and people began to team in through the front gate. Many went straight to the food or the midway, others meander toward the games. “You don’t strike me as a particularly social person,” Tasha said observantly. In fact, Ricky hated massive amounts of social interaction. When there were too many people around, he generally started to feel overwhelmed. “So why don’t I take the front office?” She motioned toward the front of the booth.

Ricky shrugged. But, in reality, he was relieved by the thought of not having to converse with hundreds of strangers throughout the evening.

In the first couple of minutes, Ricky could see why Tasha had offered to be the one who talked to the carnival goers. She thrived amidst the chaos. Talking to anyone and everyone seemed like a completely natural occurrence. Ricky was genuinely surprised that her personality was as openly vibrant as her hair colors. At first sight, he’d thought she was introverted like him, but now he could see that they were actually opposites. This intrigued him all the more.

He pulled the darts that had just been thrown from the board and handed them back to Tasha. “Better luck next time Mike,” Tasha said, waving off the customer who failed to hit his mark.

“Ethan behave,” Ricky heard Jules say.

Ricky rolled his eyes, he had tuned out Ethan Martin’s banter with the vampire long ago. He was amazed that the teenager seemed so comfortable around Jules. Still, he didn’t think Ethan knew what she was. So, he didn’t know that he should fear her.

The next person missed the board completely and Ricky picked the darts up off the ground, brushed them off on his shirt, and handed them back to Tasha for the next person to use. “Cheer up, Ricky Harrison,” Tasha said, taking the darts from him. “It’s for charity.”

“Charity?” Ricky repeated skeptically.

“Well not technically, it’s for the school. But it feels like charity on my part,” Tasha joked. It feels like slow, arduous t*****e to me, Ricky thought but didn’t say aloud. This was going to be a long night.

A little under an hour after the gates opened, a bi-racial couple arrived at their booth. Their gorgeous daughter stopped at the next booth over and kissed the senior named Seth on the lips. “So, do you get a break later?” she asked him.

“Probably not,” Seth replied.

Ricky heard a balloon actually pop. He walked over to pull the darts free and stapled another balloon in the empty space.

“Hey bud,” the man addressed Ethan, who was sitting on the ground filling balloon after balloon.

Ethan didn’t respond.

Jules tapped his leg with the toe of her shoe.

“Huh!” Ethan shouted, looking over at Jules, who pointed. “Oh, hi dad.” Ethan turned off the air compressor.

“Jules has got you doing the hard work I see.” Mr. Martin winked at Jules.

Jules left her spot near the front of the booth and walked to the corner closest to the middle-aged couple. “Oh yes.” Jules smiled. “He’s my least favorite student, you see.”

“I am not!” Ethan said, most likely not as offended as he sounded.

“How’s is it going sweetie?” the woman asked, but she wasn’t talking to her son. She was addressing Jules. This had to be Ethan’s, clearly human, family that Jules, the vampire, practically lived with.

“Pretty good,” Jules replied.

“Are you behaving?” Ethan’s mother asked her son, who had walked up next Jules’s shoulder.

“Yes,” he said.

His mother looked at him skeptically.

“That’s half true,” Jules told her.

“Traitor,” Ethan grumbled.

Ricky heard a pop which indicated that someone had hit their intended target. He turned and watched a girl hit two more in a row.

“Great job!” Tasha praised.

Without comment, Ricky walked over, returned the darts, and stapled three more balloons over the empty rubber carcasses of the last. As he did so, he continued to watch Jules and the humans from the corner of his eye.

“Jules.” Ethan’s sister finally left Seth’s booth, joining her family at theirs. “You should probably know that I’m coming over tonight. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. I mean, I see you in the mornings but I haven’t actually spent time with you since…”

“Monica, really,” her father chided.

“What?” Monica shrugged.

“Inviting yourself over to other people’s homes whenever you want. Where did we go wrong?” The man asked his wife, but it sounded like a joke.

“It’s Jules,” Monica said as if this was an obvious exception to propriety.

Ricky was watching this family’s interaction sadly. Three days ago, that was him. Happy family, loving parents, snarky teenager who they loved and adored. It was very different now. His mother wasn’t the same person she’d been last week. He assumed she was upset about his father’s murder somewhere deep inside, not that she had shown that to him. But it was his dad, not his mom, who had always been the one to let Ricky in on the inner workings of his mind and emotions.

“You okay, Ricky?”

Ricky turned, expecting it to be Tasha who’d inquired, but she was making some grand gesture, calling people over to the booth to take their chances. It was Jules who had momentarily turned away from the human family and spoken to him.

Ricky scrubbed a tear from his cheek that he hadn’t realized he had shed. Instead of answering her question directly, he said, “so, does she know what you are?”.

“Who? Monica?”

Ricky nodded.

Jules hesitated for a moment as if deciding how much to say. “She does.”

“And she’s okay with it?” he asked, astonished.

Jules looked him dead in the eyes as she spoke. “I don’t hurt people.”

“I believe you.” Ricky turned at another set of multiple popping sounds.

“That’s the best round so far!” Tasha said, congratulating the man standing in front of her. “For that, you get a bunny.” Ricky handed Tasha a blue, stuffed rabbit, who passed it to the victorious customer.

“Luca!”

Ricky’s attention was jerked to the next booth over. Luca, along with the couple whose wedding reception he’d skipped out on last night, approached the booth next to theirs. Between the hunt and the reception, Ricky had put together that Amy, Landon, and the newly-wed wife were siblings.