It wasn't just a normal Tuesday. It was a Tuesday he had to lie to his friends. To be fair, they were all lying to him. Maybe that evened everything out. The morning classes were all right, nothing too crazy happened. The period he dreaded most was lunch. They were almost all there. He considered skipping it, but that'd be counterproductive.
He walked up to the lunch table and sat down. Quinn greeted him, "Hey, you're back. You should have told me you were cutting. I would have joined you. Delilah was sick, so lunch was quiet yesterday. What did you end up doing?"
At that moment Paul had to make a split decision. Does he call Delilah out for lying or seal his lips about it? "Nothing crazy. I did go catch a movie." Paul answered. He kept Delilah's secret. A part of him was cynical. Another lie. Why was being honest so hard for everybody at this table?
Paul heard Thalia's voice in his head. "How is your day going? Remember to text me.”
Tyler stared at Paul's bookbag for a few seconds and made a confused face. "Hey man, your bag is talking. Something on in there."
Paul panicked. His phone was in his pocket, and his MP3 was in his locker. The only weird thing in his bag was the ear bone jar. He recovered quickly and replied, "It might be my MP3 player. It's been on the fritz, randomly turning on and off. I probably dropped it too many times."
Paul finished eating and went to throw out his tray. He excused himself, "Hey gang, I'll be right back. I'm gonna grab my history book from my locker."
He rushed out of the lunchroom to call Thalia. "You okay?"
"No, your jar thing was in my bag, and Tyler heard you talking through it." Paul explained.
Thalia was shocked. "He shouldn't have been able to do that. Put it in your locker; we'll talk later."
Utterly nervous, Paul was almost too tense to go back to the table, but he went anyway. When he entered the cafeteria he felt like everyone was staring at him.
Paul sat down. "So, what are we doing for Christmas?" he asked the table.
Melissa perked up, "Yes, good question! There's a Historical Society Christmas party you all need to attend with me."
Beatriz looked annoyed. "Is this really a good time for all this?"
"Yes," Delilah chimed in. "Right now, being happy and normal are the best things for all of us. My aunt Sophia said we could all have dinner there at my house for Christmas Eve."
"Okay, so we will attend The Historical Society party on the 17th, and the following weekend we will have a friend's Christmas on Christmas Eve."
The group continued talking about the individual family Christmas plans they all had. Paul focused on every word, trying to memorize all of it. He was kind of sure this wasn't the conversation Thalia wanted to know about, but still, he wanted to remember it all just in case.
In history, he couldn't help but feel annoyed at his teacher. What was his role in all this? What were his real motives for helping the twins at the town fair? The town fair! How could he forget the town fair? That would be something he had to ask about. What really happened that day?
After school, Paul picked up a shift at the tavern. It was a great place to pick up town gossip. No one really paid attention to the busboy cleaning up plates. Aiden and Rhea were having lunch. It was bizarre knowing that she wasn't real. A part of him felt bad. Aiden and Rhea were really good friends. He was annoyed with the lying his friends did, but this lie was just cruel.
He walked up to the table to take a break with them when Rhea had to leave, so it was just Paul and Aiden.
"I'm free on Sunday if you need something to do. The arcade looks fun. You down?" Paul asked him.
Aiden was distracted staring at Rhea through the window as she left. "Huh? Yeah, man, sounds cool." Aiden paused for a few seconds. "Does Rhea seem off to you? Like, different?"
Paul tried to act confused by this question. "What do you mean?" he said, only screaming yes she is a magic voodoo doll in his head.
"Things are slightly off. She ordered grape soda. She hates grape soda," Aiden said.
"Grape soda? You're suspicious about grape soda? Do you remember the Mr. Everald theory? We played spies for days only for you to admit you were wrong.”
"But I wasn't wrong."
"What do you mean?" questioned Paul.
Aiden got up and gathered his things. "You know what, you're right. I'm always making conspiracy theories in my head. I'll text you, bud."
Aiden walked away and Paul went back to work. He wanted to tell Aiden everything, but he didn't know if that would be a bad idea or a good idea.
The next three days, he did the same thing over and over. School and spying, then work and spying. He was kind of getting exhausted from picking up shifts, but he wanted to learn what the people in town knew. Maybe he could uncover a secret evil plot.
On Friday, he ran into Noah and Zane at The Fireside Tavern meeting with the sheriff. He tried to eavesdrop and caught some words and phrases. What he gathered from all that was that the brothers wanted the sheriff to look into someone. The sheriff left and said goodbye to Paul on the way out. As Paul was walking he made eye contact with one of the Carlyle brothers.
Noah exclaimed, "Ah, my favorite normal high schooler. Come talk to me."
Paul's heart started to beat faster. He went over anyway. "Hey guys, what's up?"
Noah grabbed him by the shoulder, looked straight into his eyes and asked, "I need you to tell me everything you know about that lady Thalia.”
It was his guess that Noah was trying to use that weird vampire hypnotizing skill. He answered, "Seems nice. Left town for college 10 years ago and moved away."
"What did you talk about with her?" Zane followed up.
"Colleges and moving away.”
Zane looked relieved and Noah looked angry. "See," Zane said to his brother, "You're being too suspicious. She hasn't given us any reason to be suspicious."
Noah looked Paul in the eyes again, "Forget we talked and go back to work."
Paul sighed in relief as he took off to the kitchen. He was going to text Thalia about it, but they were supposed to meet up in an hour. So he would wait until then.
She gave him directions to the tunnels. He was surprised to learn the entrance was by Melissa's and Aiden's house. Using his phone as a flashlight, he followed the directions Thalia gave him. Eventually, he spitted a light at the end of the tunnel and went toward it. There Thalia was sitting on a rock and writing in her journal.
"Hello, Paul." she said without looking up.
"So today at work, stuff happened. Aiden thinks something off about Rhea. Rhea hates grape soda, fake Rhea ordered it."
"Really? Grape soda? Anything else?" she asked.
"Oh, Zane and Noah asked the sheriff to look into you and then Noah used his hypnotism."
Thalia cut him off to correct him. "It's called compelling."
"Yeah, that. Noah asked me about you. I told him we had talked about colleges," Paul finished. Technically not a lie.
"Well, just be careful. Also remember they have super hearing." Thalia warned.
"That's stupid." Paul commented. "Before I forget, I wanted to ask about the town fair."
"Here's what I found out. The night of the fair the priest put something in the food that would target all supernatural beings. He had to have help from a witch to activate the herbs in the food. The witch brought help though. There were vampires dressed as medical staff and instead of helping those people they killed them with a poison they injected.”
"Quinn's dad wasn't supernatural." Paul affirmed.
"Not in a traditional sense. I think he was a carrier for the werewolf gene. Some people are naturally werewolves, some have to be made or helped along. The only reason Quinn survived a werewolf bite is because he already has the genes. Whatever spell they used was so strong it targeted people with dormant potential for being supernatural.”
"Is that why Beatriz collapsed too?" Paul questioned.
"I think so." she replied.
"He didn't die from a fall did he?" Paul asked.
"That would be Noah," Thalia answered.
Paul was getting confused. He deliberated if he should make a board with string and photos like they did on crime shows.
"We should tell Aiden" he stated.Thalia looked at him like he was crazy. "That's crazy. We don't know where his loyalties lie. His sister is a vampire. I don't know if I can trust your friends."
"What made you think you can trust me?"
"From what I saw, you're genuinely good. You care for people. You cared about Rhea. You're the one person in your group that wasn't already knee deep in it."
"Well Aiden was her best friend. Plus he can fill in the blanks." he suggested. Paul was hoping she'd just agree. He really needed a friend on his side for all this. Plus Paul felt shitty about lying to him about Rhea being alive.
Thalia paused for a while. "I'll think about it. Don't hold your breath.”