Jelly Cooper: Alien (16 page)

“Go on.”

Thorn wets his lips.

“Maurice bent forward and placed th
e tray on the bedside cabinet.  As he turned away, he caught the rim of a glass with his elbow, pitching it clean off the edge of the tray.  The glass fell towards the floorboards.  On impulse, Cal sat up in bed and reached out to catch it, but the glass stopped mid-flight and placed itself back on the tray, in its original place.

Maurice had kept
Cal’s secret so diligently because he had been keeping one of his own.  The Inn-keeper was telekinetic; he could levitate objects and move them with nothing more than his thoughts.  On that day, an alliance was formed between the two men that lasted the rest of their lives and beyond.  They would strive to understand the mysteries of the Earth until Cal had gathered enough knowledge to get him home, to Javoria.  You’re home, Camille.”

I jump and turn away.

“I don’t know that your story is true and, even if it is, any Hunter would have that information at his disposal.”  I know that my voice sounds strange, but it won’t gain strength.  I walk to the window and stare at the avenue below.  I hug myself, feeling tired, afraid and responsible: responsible for getting my friends involved in this madness and responsible for keeping them alive.

“You haven’t convinced
me that you’re not the Hunter.”

“Are you so convinced that I am?”

Agatha appears my elbow.  She murmurs in my ear.

“He’s bleeding, Jay.  That knock on the head you gave him
might have done real damage.  Should we do something?  I mean,” she glances back at the man pinned to the ground.  “What if he is telling the truth and he dies or something?  We’ll have killed a teacher.”

“He’s not a teacher, either way, is he?  He’s been lying all along, why should I believe him
now?” I stamp my foot.  “No.  There is no way I’m letting him go until he gives us some concrete evidence of who he is.” 

I stomp over to
Fletcher.  Using my powers, I bring him upright.

“
Convince me that you’re not the Hunter.  I want proof.”

He throws me a smile so similar to
Crin’s that it freaks me out. 

“Take off my glasses
.”

I blink.  “
Huh?”

“My glasses.
  Take them off.  You’ve got me pinned, so you’ll have to do it yourself.  Go ahead, take them off.”

I lift his glasses free. 
Blue eyes stare back at me.  Confused, I can’t look away.

“T
ake out my contact lenses.”

Something uncurls itself in my stomach.  

“No.”

Fletcher
curses under his breath.

“Come on, Jelly.  Take out my contact lenses.”

My hair swings as I shake my head.

“Oh for Heaven’s sake
,” Rhiannon leaps off the bed.  “You lot are
so
squeamish.” She pushes me out of the way. “Here, let me do it.”  She leans forward and opens his eyelid with her finger and thumb.  With her other hand, she carefully pinches the lens away from Thorn’s eye.

I turn away.

Agatha screws up her face.  “Yuk, that’s gross.”

Rhiannon ignores her. 
“Hey!  They’re tinted!  Cool.”

Thorn bli
nks.  “Good, now the other one.”

Rhiannon repeats the procedure with the other eye and flounces back to take her seat on the bed, the contact lenses collected in the palm of her hand.

“The glasses aren’t magnified,” he says in his low, even voice.  “Neither are the contacts, but both were necessary for two reasons.  I didn’t want to alert the Hunter if he saw me and I had to disguise my real identity from the descendent of Cal Sakiiri until it was safe to reveal myself.”  He pauses.  “Jelly.  Turn around.” 

Unable to do anything else, I turn.

A brilliant image explodes in front of my eyes and I stagger as the moons of Javoria appear.  My vision fills with the pale yellow sky and craggy blue mountains. 
Home
.

As suddenly as it appears, the image fades. My eyes fly to
Fletcher’s.

“Where…?”

The question dies in my throat.

Staring back at me are two crystal clear, deep green eyes.  Burning in their depths is a pale flickering flame.

“That’s not possible,” I whisper.

Staring back at me are my eyes –
my eyes
.  In every fibre of my being, I know that I’m looking at one of my planet’s descendants.  Somehow, he and I are connected, and there is no way on Javoria that Thorn is the Hunter.  I feel that with a certainty that goes right to my core.

I retract the bonds and launch myself into his arms.

“What the..?”

Humphrey is on his feet in a heartbeat. 

“Sit down, Sir Lancelot and let me explain.”  Gregory Thorn smiles as he holds me, my head buried in his shoulder.  “Does it look like I’m hurting her?”

Humphrey lets Agatha pull him back and settle him on the bed.  He doesn’t take his eyes off Thorn.

“You can put me down now.”  Embarrassed, I ease myself away.

“Is it just me, or has Jelly lost the plot?”  Rhiannon looks from face to face in utter confusion.  “Have I just bashed myself black and blue for nothing?”

Thorn winces, seeing her bruises. “I’m sorry about that.  You were choking the life out of me.  I shouldn’t have panicked and flailed around; I’m sorry.  This whole thing did
not
go as planned and, believe me, I have sat and imagined this day more often than you could ever imagine.”

“But you acted so…
weird
,” I say.

Gregory Thorn shakes his head and blushes. 
“I know, I’m so sorry.  I was so worried when you didn’t come to school and so excited to meet you, finally.  I guess I got carried away.”

Abruptly, Agatha leaves the room.  Concerned, I follow her.

“What’s up?  Where are you going?”

She systematically opens the doors on the landing and smiles as she finds what she’s looking for.  “He’s still bleeding
,” she disappears into the bathroom.  Her voice floats out of the door, “You go back in, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Agatha is something else.

Returning to the bedroom, I pause in the doorway.  Gregory Thorn looks up at me and smiles.  Relief so raw it leaves me breathless runs through the entire length of my body.  I’m not alone in this fight anymore.  There are others. 

***
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Once Agatha finishes bathing his head, we sit in the kitchen.  Gregory Thorn begins his story, the food strewn across the table, untouched.

“Cal and Maurice began trave
lling around the country searching for people like them: extraordinary people, people with hidden gifts and amazing talents.  Cal told Maurice about Javoria and the battle between his people and the Hunters. 

He fled
Javoria in a life pod.  The Hunters were rising.  They attacked his village, drove out the families; killed whoever they found. He almost lost his life in the fight to escape.  The pods were hidden in one of the deep caves.  He scrambled into one and took off.  He saw the base blow up from the air.  He lost everything.  As the pod flew through space, Cal vowed revenge on the Hunters.   He swore that he would return to Javoria one day and rid his home of
bashrak
.”

“He never made it back, did he?”

Thorn looks at me.  With his hair tangled and his clothes rumpled, he looks twenty years old.

“No, he never made it back to
Javoria.  He tried until his death in 1979, but he never found a way back.  His pod crashed off the coast of Scotland and sank without a trace.  Cal was lucky to survive the landing at all in his weakened state.  He was washed up on the beach and the pod vanished into the sea.  He never gave up hope, though.  He became convinced that somewhere on Earth there was someone who could help him.  He often said that nothing in this universe happened without a reason and that fate had brought him to Earth and had delivered him into the hands of Maurice.”

“Sorry to burst the bubble, but isn’t this all a bit too fortunate?  I mean, what are the chances of both
Cal and Jelly landing here on Earth?”

“Humphrey –

“Oh, come on Jay!  You aren’t actually
buying
this are you?”

“Humphrey!  Stop it!”

“No,” Thorn holds up his palm.  “It’s a good question.  There are probably hundreds of thousands of Javorian refugees scattered throughout the galaxies.  Cal had to leave because of the war; he had no other choice than to leave.  Fate brought him to Earth, but there are sure to be descendants from his time on other planets.  It’s probably the same with Jelly.  For some reason, twenty years ago, Jelly’s parents feared a threat of some kind and sent her from Javoria to Earth.  The fact that Cal had landed here almost a hundred years ago is purely coincidence.”

He uses
Javorian years, not human.

There’s more to Mr
. Thorn than meets the eye.  He’s more connected to Javoria than he’s letting on, I’m sure of it.  I hope he’s not trying to shield me from information like Crin was.  I make a mental note to delve deeper.

“Satisfied?” I ask Humphrey, raising my eyebrow in a silent challenge.

“I suppose.”

Thorn grins.  “OK for me to go on, Mr
. Goddard, or would you like to get the thumbscrews out?”

Humphrey
unwraps a chocolate chip muffin and ignores him.

Thorn’s grin grows wider.  He leans towards me and nods his head at Humphrey.

“Don’t worry, he’ll come round.”

He leans back in his chair and smiles at Agatha.

“Yes Agatha.  Can I help you with something?”

Agatha
’s mouth drops open.  Thrown, she stammers,

“I was just
, erm, wondering how you figure in all of this.  I’ve worked out that you’re a descendent of Maurice Thorn, but I haven’t got any further than that. And, um, I was also wondering; how did you find Jelly?”

“Yes, how did you find me?”

Thorn looks to the window and rubs his face.

“Jelly, I know how much this means to you and how much you want to hear more, and I know how selfish this is going to make me sound, but I’m drained.  I’m not pure blood
Javorian and I’ve exhausted myself today.  I haven’t had to draw on my powers like that before and it’s left me weak.  Can you wait until tomorrow?”

NO! 
Don’t stop, please don’t do this to me.

“No,” I say, “but I think I’ll have to.  You look like a man who’s had a bump to the head and is about to keel over.”

He pushes the heel of his hands into his eyes and whispers a thank you.

“That’s right,” Humphrey says, spraying the table with muffin.  “Make good your escape and leave us hanging.”  He swallows and clears his throat.  “Questions get too hard?”

Sometimes Humphrey can be a real dick.

Thorn rises to leave and I walk him to the
front door.

“I’m sorry about Humphrey.  He’s worried about me.  He’s over-protective.”

“Then you should never apologise for him.”

The lump in my throat won’t be swallowed away.

Thorn takes my hand and gives it a squeeze.  “I’ll see you tomorrow at school.  We’ll take it from there.  Get some sleep tonight; you look like you need it.”

“You too,” I smile, squeezing back.  He leans around me and
calls back to Humphrey,

“The group
set up by Cal and Maurice.  Its name is Kavalrion.  Google it.”

“I will,” Humphrey manages around another mouthful of muffin.

Thorn chuckles and lets himself out.

I watch him until the front door closes and he’s gone.

Chapter Thirteen

I sit in front of the computer, the glow from the screen the only light in the room.  Twenty minutes ago, I called up Google and typed Kavalrion into the search bar.  Only I can’t press the enter button.  As much as I want to find out more, as much as I
crave
knowledge, I can’t do it.  I can’t because of the doubt that’s niggling me: the fear that Kavalrion doesn’t exist, that it’s all a lie, a cruel joke.  I guess I’ll always be standing at the prom, waiting for that bucket of pig’s blood to pour over my head.  I don’t want to give in to doubts.  I want to be fearless and bold.  I should press ‘enter’ and find the proof that it’s there; it’s real.

I shut down the computer and sit in the dark for a long time.

***
              ***              ***