REAP THE WHIRLWIND I FLYNN CARSEN

Sonnets & Spiderwebs

Sonnets & Spiderwebs

"Nobody's trying to win," Cassandra suddenly burst out, looking like she'd just been struck by lightning, "they're trying to get everyone else to lose."

"What?" Clara said, appearing out of nowhere.

Cassandra impatiently repeated her epiphany.

"The Goths aren't the coven," Clara said, the others rolling their eyes.

"We saw," Eve explained, "plus we also saw a boy barf up a swarm of flies. That's kind of what Cassandra is trying to say."

"The Rule of Three amplifies the spell," Jenkins said from behind them, brandishing his butterfly net, "for good or bad. Any direct harm you do unto others with malicious intent will be visited back upon you threefold."

"There are multiple victims though," Jacob said, brow creasing.

"Well, there will be a wall of backlash wending its way back to the perpetrator," Jenkins said dourly, popping a peppermint into his mouth.

"But who's the source?" Clara asked, bewildered.

"The name Amy keeps cropping up," Ezekiel said, looking bored. "Everywhere we go, it's Amy, Amy, Amy."

"The guy who barfed up the flies used to date her," Cassandra enlightened Clara, who was now completely stumped.

"And Leonard's been crushing on her since forever," Jacob said, looking just as bored, "that's until he set eyes on Clara, of course," he amended.

"How do you know all this?" Clara exclaimed, throwing her hands up in despair.

"Because we've done the legwork," Eve said tiredly, "doing the rounds of displays and whatnot. Amy... stood out from the rest. She's the frontrunner to win this competition."

"Thanks to Super Mom," Ezekiel said, pulling out his phone.

"Pushy doesn't even cover it," Jacob said, shaking his head.

"I - I think I just met Amy," Clara said, wringing her hands, "she was with the Goths."

"And?" Jacob pressed, suddenly on the alert.

"She didn't seem too happy," Clara said nervously.

"What do you mean?" Eve asked, frowning.

"The little Goth guy asked her to Prom," Clara said, biting her lip, "and she got all Joan of Arc on him, saying this science fair thing came first."

"Okay, find Romeo and Juliet," Eve ordered, springing to life. "Maybe we can stop this before more than a few hearts get broken."

~*~

"Come to gloat, mortals?" a sonorous voice intoned from the darkness.

"No, just to ask you a few questions," Jacob said carefully, taking a step forwards.

As Clara's eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she saw the teenage Goth boy from before, sitting cross-legged on a science bench, his face brooding. "Hey," she said quietly, making his head snap up.

"How did you know I was in here?" he fired at her, recognizing her as the witness to his earlier humiliation.

"Second sight," Clara parried, leaning against the science bench. "This is Amy's world," she then said, gesturing round the science lab, "where it all started, savvy?"

The teenage boy exhaled sharply, his shoulders slumping.

"Did your eyes meet above a Bunsen burner?" Jacob joked, Clara hastily elbowing him in the side.

"No, I was reaching for a test-tube rack, and so was she," the teenage boy said deadpan, "our hands colliding, skin tingling, the chemistry instant, putting everyone else's experiments in the shade."

"I deserved that," Jacob admitted, looking as if he wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

"Yeah, you did," the teenage boy said, rolling his eyes.

"What's with you and Amy anyways?" Clara said, trying to sound interested.

The teenage boy hesitated, before pushing back a lock of black hair. "She's an Alpha kid," he said tiredly, "and I'm going through the most clichéd of teenage phases. I don't belong with her, you seen that back there, she's out of my league."

"Maybe she's out of yours," Clara said coldly.

But he just scoffed, raising an eyebrow at her ridiculous statement. "She's an Alpha kid," he repeated, as though that was supposed to mean something. "And me? I like sonnets and spiderwebs. Science and poetry just don't mix."

"She walks in beauty like the night," Jacob suddenly quoted, something in his voice making Clara glance sharply at him, "with cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and bright..." His gaze met and held Clara's, suddenly making it hard for her to breathe. For a long moment, it was just her and Jacob, the rest of the world fading from them. And then he looked away, breaking the spell, Clara feeling like she'd fallen a thousand feet.

"That's Lord Byron," the teenage boy said, brow furrowing.

"He was a bad-ass," Jacob grinned lazily, "and so are you. All this stuff about geeks and Goths, jocks and Alphas, they're just costumes we wear. They're fetters of your own choosing. Break your bonds, kid. Be yourself, painted fingernails and all."

I wear black on the outside
'Cause black is how I feel on the inside
I wear black on the outside
'Cause black is how I feel on the inside...

~*~

"What's up troops?" Jacob asked as he and Clara re-joined the others.

"We did a little snooping around Amy's science project," Ezekiel said, holding up a fancy looking phone.

"You stole a mobile?" Clara said, frowning.

"You should have done that earlier," Jenkins instructed her, "and then we would have been spared your bleating about phoning Flynn."

"Somebody's turned a magic spell into an app," Cassandra said hastily, biting her lip.

"Really?" Clara said, taken aback, snatching the phone from Ezekiel.

"Really really," Cassandra said, eyes growing wide with worry.

"A.L.B," Eve clarified, folding her arms across her chest.

"It's disguised as a brain trainer thing," Cassandra continued, "like an advanced learning buddy. It distracts you with the test, but each level that you advance, tells you to focus on a goal, before kicking you up to the next level."

"If you look at the code," Ezekiel interjected, watching as Clara flipped through the app, "past all the glowy bits, it's way more complex than anything I've ever hacked into, and I've hacked the NSA - allegedly."

"The magic is powerful, even brutal," Jenkins said, frowning, "displaying an expertise in witchcraft I haven't seen for a very long time." For a moment, his gaze fell upon Clara, before settling on a passing parent, pretending to become distracted by their bow-tie.

"This is going to bite somebody in the ass big-time," Jacob said, shaking his head.

"But it's not Amy who's going to get the blowback," Ezekiel said, startling them all, "if you look at the usage data, Amy has never accessed this app. She's not using the spell."

"Then who is?" Eve asked.