Rising Shards

“And then Letoh’s and Diast’s classes were pretty normal, nothing really exciting to report.” Oka said, wrapping up her rundown of the first day over breakfast.

“I was gonna have fun in Diast’s class, but then I remembered you weren’t there and that ruined the idea I had.” Kalei sighed.

“What idea?” I asked, squinting. Even if she didn’t literally tell me I was part of whatever she had planned, had that ‘scheming something’ smirk on her face would've given something away.

“Ah…nothing.” Kalei said.

“So kinda…” I started, then sneezed. “Kinda mostly the same as always?”

Oka said something, but it didn’t register to me. Her voice sounded like it came from a different place than seconds earlier and it was a bit disorientating.

“What?” I asked.

Oka pointed to the top of my head.

“Oh.” I said, feeling that my cat ears were back. My body shifting every sneeze was a pain (not physical pain outside of the soreness from the cold, the annoyance kind of pain). I was in my school uniform, which Dr. Diast told me would keep me covered up if I went full cat again and back to myself, so I didn’t have to worry about that at least. “I hope you don’t get this.”

I swapped my sneezed in mask for a clean one that wrapped all the way around my head, convenient for when my ears were presently cat styled atop my noggin.

“Well, it won’t be the end of the world if I did,” Oka said.

“Yeah, I’d love to get out of some of these classes already even for a day.” Kalei said.

“You don’t have to get sick to miss classes, if you catch my drift.” Marmalade said.

“Are you suggesting some sort of class skippage?” Kalei asked, getting that sneaky grin again. “Why, Marmalade, have you ever missed a class or two for non-sick related reasons of this manner before?”

“I may have,” Marmalade said. “I could teach you, if you wanted.”

Lillia called over to us, seated by herself a few tables away, not wanting to catch my shift sickness.

“What?” Kalei asked.

“I said don’t skip class.” Lillia said.

“Booo.” Kalei said. “Next time tell me about that when she’s not around. And, maybe after beam chasers season is done so I don’t get in trouble and kicked off the team or something.”

“Oh yeah, that starts soon, huh?” I said. “How are you feeling about that?”

“I’ve been waiting since before school started for this,” Kalei said. “That about sums it up.” She stretched and yawned, and I almost expected to hear my sister’s voice saying “biiig stretch” again after all the times she said it the prior day. “It’s good you’re back though, Zates. Oka almost lost her mind completely by 8^th period.”

“I did not!” Oka said.

“If I remember right, you started chanting something about needing to marry ‘Zay-buh,’ saying that over and over, ‘I have to marry Zay-buh…’”

“Zay-buh?” I said. "Marry?"

“We don’t need to talk about that,” Oka said. “How about you?”

“I mostly just sat around, turned into a cat a few times,” I said. “And then the whole Tik thing.”

“Are you doing alright after that?” Oka asked. I had texted her the details already, but I hadn’t told the others much about my latest experience seeing family memories. And maybe my family’s present with that bit with my mom. I did my best to explain that whole thing.

After I had switched back to my normal self, Tik stayed to chat with us a bit. I told her what my mom said (I had forgotten the numbers she told me to remember, but Stella had written them down since she could see all of it). Tik wasn’t sure where my mother was, but Tik explained the mental link a bit more. Because Tik’s powers could show familial pasts, it also could link people mentally. So since we were looking into my mom’s past, I was able to subconsciously connect to her location. And the shift sickness heightened the connections all around.

“So now does she know we’re after her?” I asked.

“It’s hard to say,” Tik said. “She’s cunning, so it’s possible she pieced this together. Knowing her though, she’ll be so focused on her work that she won’t care much for what we’re up to.” Tik could tell that answer didn’t make Stella and I feel much better. “I’m sorry. I know how difficult this is.”

“It is, but…” I sighed. “If it helps us stop them, and if Stella’s OK with it…I think we should keep going.”

“I…think…” Stella trailed off. “I don’t know what I think.”

“If it’s too much to see them again, I can do my best to,” I said.

“And if you’re doing your best to, I can as well,” Stella said. “I wanted to put them behind us and move on, but maybe sweeping them under the rug isn’t the best way to do so.” She turned to Tik. “And having you to help us move on is a better way than sticking my head in the sand.”

“If you’re both willing to help, I would be incredibly grateful,” Tik said. “As I’ve said enough times to bore you by now. But I will do everything in my power to make sure this is as pain free as I can make it.”

“What’s next, then?” I asked.

“Next is you resting,” Stella said.

“Right,” Tik said.

“But after that, I mean.” I said. “Are we going to see what happened at that event Mom was at?”

“I think that would be our next target,” Tik said. “The more information we can gather about what happened that day the better. You can gain a greater understanding of things, and I…can also.” She trailed off. I could tell this was a lot for Tik, too. Which helped me trust her a bit more. If it was tough for her to face this past as well, we had that in common.

“So I’m gonna be doing that family flashback business after class,” I said, finishing telling the others. “And maybe sometimes in class, Tik said she’s waiting on permission for that.”

“See, I told you it was just like those void crime scene shows,” Kalei said.

“Wasn’t Marmalade the one who said that?” I asked.

“Uh, maybe,” Kalei said. “Marmalade’s cool though, so if I was lifting that from her it was just because we were on the same wavelength.”

“Heh,” Marmalade said. “But yeah, if it helps Zeta, I’ve seen tons of void crime shows so all that doesn’t sound too abnormal. My family has those on constantly.”

“It’s still kinda really scary,” I said. “I’m not looking forward to learning more about this old guy who…yeah. Didn’t make it.” A silence fell over the table. “Sorry, didn’t mean to kill the mood.”

“You didn’t,” Oka said. “Maybe since Tik’s a detective, it’ll be like one of those mystery stories where the worst part’s at the beginning.”

“Maybe, yeah…” I said.

“I dunno if that makes any sense,” Oka said.

“I for one, have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kalei said.

“I got it,” I said. “Tik said she’d try to make seeing it less gruesome at least.” Another silence answered me. “Now I really brought the mood down. Can we bring it back to class? Did anyone start that Corinani-nomics book?”

“Oh my god!” Lillia said, loud enough to hear her clearly despite being a table over. “That may be the worst book I’ve ever read. Ever. I don’t want to risk catching your illness, but...” She got up and started pacing around, keeping her distance while ranting about Ms. Corinani’s book. Us having something to riff on took my mind off of the Mom and Dad thing, which I gladly welcomed any time away from thinking about.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!