Heart of Glass

Chapter 27

Ariel closed her journal,. Casting a quick glance at Emily, who was lost in thought by the window, she stashed it at the bottom of her open suitcase, beaneath a pile of clothes.

The pile had originally started as the clear pile, but had slowly drifted in to the washing pile, and now she needed to resort them out. Looking at the pile, she inhaled sharply.

Not today. Today she had other mountains to climb.

The morning was almost over. After being up half the night with Oscar, she'd slept in, only to be woken by Amelia's unique alarm, telling her she needed to check on Zeke. If she dawdled any longer, Amelia would more than likely send another alarm. Her subtlety left a lot to be desired, if the message was anything to go by –

Do that thing in the office! Get up!

It wasn't the smartest thing to shout loudly in her room, especially since the alarm had woken Emily too. She'd been casting Ariel furtive looks as she scribbled furiously in her journal. Ariel was waiting for her to ask what the alarm meant, but so far she had avoided Ariel's gaze every time she caught her staring.

Standing up, she stretched her arms high above her head, enjoying the odd snap and crack as her muscles grew taut.

"Are you going to do that thing in the office now?" Emily finally asked.

Ariel bit her lip. "Oh, yeah I am."

"What are you doing?"

"Oh nothing really," she looked at her nails, examining a broken cuticle. "Just checking potions and whatever. Boring really."

"Honest," she added when Emily didn't look away. Her eyes seemed to be scanning her soul, searching for lies.

"Is it really such a big secret that you can't tell me?" She asked.

Her voice was filled with hope; hope that Ariel would trust her enough to share this secret.

Guilt washed over Ariel. "I want to tell you, Em, I swear but it's not my secret to tell..."

Her face fell. "It's fine, I get it."

She moved as she spoke, brushing past Ariel and rushing out the door.

"Emily..." she heard the bathroom door close and inhaled sharply. She didn't know what to do. After just getting back on good terms with everyone, she was already stuffing things up again.

She didn't think Emily was behind Zeke's 'accident', and she honestly didn't see the harm in telling her –

'Get off ya butt and check it now!

"Okay! Geez..." Ariel waved her hand through the ball of smoke that had materialized in front of her face and it disappeared with a small hiss.

She passed Michael on the stairs, murmuring a quick good morning. He barely noticed her, his eyes alight with joy and she spied a letter in his hands. Guess his fiance finally wrote him another letter, she thought.

Lucas' voice drifted through the kitchen door as she passed, saying good morning to Samson and her step faltered. She wanted to speak with Lucas - preferably alone - but she felt she needed more time to sort things out with him. If she didn't get to Zeke first she had a feeling another one of Amelia's special alarms would pop up and scare the crap out of her, and then Lucas would undoubtedly ask about what she was doing too and everything would get worse. She decided she would check on Zeke first, then organise her plan of attack with Lucas.

She stepped into the small alcove; drawing out the key Amelia had given her from around her neck, and stopped as she nearly crashed into someone crouching by the door.