Too Late To Save Time

Another Year, Another Secret Revealed

"I thought you said you would give me Christmas presents today!" I whined. Lucas looked up from his book and raised one eyebrow at my childishness.

"I will. As soon as you finish your history homework." Dawn replied. I pouted and crossed my arms.

"I want my presents." I complained.

"Stop acting like a toddler, finish your work, and you'll get them." Casey said. I groaned and started scribbling in the answers to my history homework.

"I can't believe I also have to make up my classes over break. This place is so-" I searched for the right word.

"Annoying?" Lucas offered.

"Irritating?" Casey added.

"Maddening?" Dawn put in. Their voices were all flat.

"Exactly!" I exclaimed, reading the excerpt from the history textbook to answer the question about the Wurlu war.

"I want to learn about the portal revolution already. It sounds interesting." I commented after a few minutes of scrutinizing a wordy, difficult-to-understand problem.

"In Mageiology we'll be learning about how to make a portal and what frequencies open which dimensions. Next year we can take Physics-Mageiology, which is a lot more complex." Lucas informed.

"What'll we be doing over summer break?" I asked. If we did stay for over a year...

"We might not even be staying here for more than the school year. Now that your whole running away phase has died down and the attacks have also disappeared for a while, Eli, Aaron, Honey, and Derrick can concentrate on getting into people's heads and figuring out who's associated with the rebels." He replied.

"But I thought we already figured out-"

"We know there's a woman out to get you or Dawn, that has power over demons by using the name of the flower Zaquiera. We also learned, while you were gone, that the stem and petals of the Zaquiera are lethal, while the fruit and nectar act as portals to the fifth dimension. These portals also distort the user into something of another nature. Like dragons and unicorns and the such. We found a book you can look at about the Zaquiera and how it changes living things. But anyway, that's all we have. We don't even know if she's part of the group of rebels." He interrupted.

I stayed silent and went back to my worksheet.

"So Eli, Honey, Derrick, and Aaron are out worming their way into people's minds?" I asked after a few minutes.

"Well, Honey is scouting out for a barrier so Derrick and Aaron can just work on getting into the heads of those people, and Eli, because he's lazy, is checking open minds for anything, just in case there are a few idiots in the rebellion." Casey said. I nodded.

"Makes sense. So what are the rest of us going to do? And where's Miranda?" I continued my random interrogation.

"We're on the defense side at the moment. Miranda is guarding Hannah and Danny at the moment. When you've caught up you can join Eli and the others in scouting out for suspects. We've given them a limit of how many heads they can go through a day. Fifteen guarded minds and fifty unguarded minds. It takes a lot of energy out of you to use magic, and we don't want anyone falling down out of exhaustion." Dawn explained.

"Mmhmm..." I mumbled.

***

"Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. HAPPY NEW YEAR!" We all screamed. I'm pretty sure I heard a lot of other kids in the school yell it out too. Levi popped the confetti and Zac threw around the streamer pieces on the floor.

Jezebel turned up the music on her radio while I eyed the porcelain doll Dawn had given me. She said they're called Soul Eaters. They can come to life by puppetry by a Soul Fae because of the ashes of people from the Sacrificial Rituals were stored inside, bringing with them what was left of the spirits of the dead. That fact alone is enough to creep me out, not to mention that these dolls were made in that time, so sacrifices' bodies would be taken after one week of excavating the human soul from the lifeless carcasses, and burnt into ashes just to be put inside the dolls.

The ashes held only the negative feelings the human souls left behind to go to heaven. The souls are fae demons trapped inside a porcelain doll. It's a scary idea.

"I like your Soul Eater, Fallon. Who are you going to use it on?" Jezebel asked. My eyes widened and Dawn did a facepalm.

"She's not-" She started, then sighed.

"What? I thought she might want to use it on her enemies. What type is that one? Shadow? Soul? Or ssomething from the other dimensions?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Do I want to know?" I asked Dawn. She shook her head. "Kay then. Pass me a coke?" Casey tossed me a diet and I wrinkled my nose. "Is this all we have?" He shook his head and held out his hand. I gladly gave him the diet back.

"What, you want cherry or zero?" Alex asked me.

"Zero." Devon answered. I glared at him but nodded to Casey, who was looking to me for certification. He tossed me a coke zero and I took a sip.

"What's our course of action after this?" Levi asked.

"Same. We've got a few leads and some definite rebels. Jez, you'll follow those leads and Dawn, you'll send those rebels back with a message to their leader." Casey responded.

"I'm going to go through the dimensions and be back within a month with some news on how everything's going." Zach said. "We need to know how everyone else is doing. I'll look for leads throughout all nine dimensions."

"That's good. We don't want any loose ends making us go back to square one once we've dealt with the rebellion here. This is where it started, so I'm assuming this is where home base is." Casey nodded.

"Shouldn't you bring someone with you?" Jezebel asked. "Don't tell me your being so stupid as to go on your own." Her voice held anger. She obviously didn't know about his plan, and was worried about him.

"No, I'm not that stupid. Levi's coming. And Aaron has a cousin who said she would come too." I turned to look at Alex and narrowed my eyes.

"Who's the cousin?" Dawn asked for me.

"Umm, I can't remember her name..." Zac said, snapping his fingers in attempt to remember. I have no idea why people do that. Alex looked worried, or frantic. His body was relaxed, but his jaw was clenched and he was looking between me, Lucas, Dawn, Casey, Miranda, Honey, Eli, and Zac. I suddenly had an idea of who Alex's cousin was, and who he was talking on the phone with before the first 'battle'.

"Come on, Zac, try and remember!" Miranda tugged on his arm playfully. He grinned and looked up.

"I got it! Claire Silver, that was her name!" He exclaimed. Six pairs of eyes snapped to Alex. Mine were already glued on him.

"Aaron's related to Claire?"