Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light (3 page)

He hung up the phone and sighed. “Remember Jack Alder, Liz? From college? He died last night.”

CHAPTER 2
The Best Man’s Funeral

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Jennifer hadn’t really known Jack Alder. According to her parents, he had served as best man at their wedding. He came across state to Winoka once a year or so to reconnect with old friends. Broad and tall, with short-clipped reddish-gold hair and a beard, he had reminded Jennifer of a Norse god—one that drank well and laughed plenty.

Of course, during his visits, she had never talked to him much. He would say dumb things like, “You’re in seventh grade already?…Wow!” and “You’re in eighth grade already?…Wow!” but not much more than that. If the Alders stayed for dinner, Jennifer usually excused herself right after eating and retreated to her room.

Although she didn’t tell her parents this, she felt bad—because she didn’t really feel so bad. She knew they would miss their friend, and she felt sorry for them. But he was their friend, not hers.

During the drive to Roseford for the funeral, she wondered if thinking that made her a bad person.

By the time they pulled into the generous Roseford Funeral Homes parking lot, with its neatly clipped lawns punctuated by friendly evergreen trees, she was no closer to an answer. But she forgot all of that when she saw another family walking across the lot.

It was the Blacktooths.

Eddie Blacktooth and his parents, Hank and Wendy, lived next door to the Scales, back in Winoka, on Pine Street East. Eddie and Jennifer had grown up together, and the Blacktooths were beaststalkers like Elizabeth, but the families were hardly friendly. While never exactly pleasant to begin with, Mr. and Mrs. Blacktooth had become positively hostile once they discovered what Jennifer and Jonathan were. At the point last spring when Jennifer most needed her childhood friend, Eddie had turned against her. The two had not seen or spoken to each other since.

As soon as he caught sight of Jennifer, Eddie turned red and looked away. His brown hair was cut shorter, and Jennifer could make out a few scars on the back of his neck—training wounds, she guessed, since she also had a few. But he still looked an awful lot like a sparrow to her, with his gentle beak of a nose and his penchant for wearing brown—in today’s case, a chocolate suit that overwhelmed his modest frame.

They walked by, and Hank and Wendy did not bother to hide their disgust when they saw the Scales. Hank looked like a larger, stockier, and angrier version of Eddie, and might have been ready to foam at the mouth on the spot. Wendy had a smooth, calm appearance not unlike Elizabeth, but with sapphire eyes that pierced from beneath shiny black hair. The two women held each other’s eyes, and Jennifer saw the mutual distaste. Then they were past, and the Scales all breathed out a bit.

“What are they doing here?” Jennifer almost spat.

“Ms. Blacktooth and I went to the same college as Jack. St. Mary’s, right down the street from here. The three of us were in the same dormitory our sophomore year.”

“Really?” This seemed like a coincidence. Jennifer adjusted her dress, checked her hair in the minivan window, and decided to redo her hair clips. “How did that happen?”

“Wendy and I were roommates, actually. Best friends.”

“You’re kidding! Ugh, this hair is impossible…”

“I don’t kid, honey. Here, let me fix that.” Her mother’s hands worked deftly at the platinum strands and black clips. “We were quite inseparable. Went to the same high school, too. Started our beaststalker training together.” Then she shifted subjects as if she hadn’t just admitted being best friends with the woman who had almost killed her daughter. “You know, Jack and I even dated once or twice. Didn’t last long after graduation, but we parted on good terms. A few years later, Jack introduced me to one of his new business associates in town…your father.”

“Ewww! You dated the dead guy?”

“When he was alive, dear. He was cute. Nice butt. Kissed like a dream.”

Jonathan coughed. Jennifer groaned.

“I so don’t need to hear about your past love life.”

“Yes, well, believe it or not, the world did turn on its axis—several times, at least—before you were born. And people lived here, and did things. Without you.”

“Funny, Mother.”

“I just find it amusing that you never took an interest in your parents’ lives until this past year. There, all done.” Elizabeth’s hands stopped poking at the hair clips, and Jennifer checked her reflection in the window again. She looked suitably put together—and quite austere, in her black dress.

“I can’t believe the Blacktooths have to be here. Is—I mean, was Jack also a beaststalker?”

“No,” Jonathan replied. They were walking into the funeral home foyer, so he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Not a weredragon, either. He was a regular guy, a computer software sales manager. But I think he began to figure some of us out, after our enemies burned down Eveningstar and we moved to Winoka. As for Hank and Wendy, they didn’t really catch on to us dragons until last year, of course.”

“I can’t believe you moved in next door to a beaststalker family back then, knowing what they were!” Jennifer tried to keep her voice down, but disbelief made it hard. “How dumb are you guys, anyway?”

Her mother glared at her, but Jonathan breezily pulled his wife along. “Hey, you try to find good real estate value in a seller’s market someday.” That was all her father would say, since they were entering the funeral home.

After the ceremony and graveside service, Jack’s mother hosted a short wake at her house. Jennifer didn’t even know the elderly woman’s name, and there were virtually no people her age to talk to. In fact, the only other teenager there at all was Eddie. So she stayed close to her parents, waiting out their conversations with people she had never met.

Only one person stood out—a gaunt, middle-aged woman with brilliant red hair and a sober gray dress. She approached Jonathan as if she had known him for years, turned him away from the other guests, and passed him a photograph. “From the crime scene investigator,” she said.

“One of us?” Jonathan guessed.

“One of us.” The woman glanced cautiously at Elizabeth. She’s a weredragon, Jennifer guessed. She also guessed this woman, like all weredragons outside of her own family, had no idea Jennifer’s mother was a beaststalker.

She saw her father’s expression turn white when he scanned the photo, and she shifted position to get a look.

It was the first time she had seen a photo of a murder victim, and she had to force her stomach to remain calm even though there was no blood apparent. Jack was lying faceup on the carpet of his apartment living room, staring just past the camera. Two details stood out to Jennifer. First, he looked thirty years older than she knew he actually was. How can someone age that fast? she wondered.

The second detail was a phrase gouged by some sort of sharp implement into the carpet next to his blanched hair:

No friends
.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jonathan mumbled. “No friends? Jack had plenty of friends. Women, especially. They gravitated to him. And he had us. And…”

He stopped short with a painful expression, as if something unpleasant had stung him in the kidneys.

“Dad?”

He didn’t respond. His eyes did not leave the photo.

“Honey?” Elizabeth peered over her husband’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Mr. Scales, perhaps we should put the photo away for now. People may begin to notice.” The red-haired woman was clearly nervous.

“You’ve obviously upset him,” Jennifer whispered harshly. “Couldn’t this have waited?”

Her father suddenly noticed her, which broke him out of his trance. He slipped the photo into his breast pocket. “You’re right, ace. It can wait. You shouldn’t be seeing this sort of thing anyway.”

Jennifer slid away, irritated. Again, guilt at not feeling worse gnawed at her. She felt sorry for Jack, of course, but she was uncomfortable here and wished her parents had let her stay home.

She caught a glimpse of Eddie, sandwiched between his parents as they droned on with some strangers, and saw the same wish on his face. It almost made her smile. Then he turned and caught her gaze, and her face froze in a frown. The relish tray on the buffet next to her had carrots, and she decided to count them until he looked away.

…sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…

“You eating those, or hoarding them?”

She gave a start. Rather than disengaging, Eddie had come right up to her. His expression betrayed no emotion, but the attempt at a joke felt like a try at friendship.

It was a try Jennifer wasn’t ready for. “Hoarding them. Back off or I’ll shove one through your eye socket.”

“Hey.” His palms went up, facing her. “How about a one-day truce? I know you’re still angry at me, but—”

“Angry isn’t even a start, Eddie. Your mother was ready to dice me, and you stood there like a statue.”

“I didn’t have—”

She picked up a baby carrot and gnawed on it. “What is that, anyway, some kind of family code of conduct? My mom hasn’t had time to go over the full Beaststalker Happy Fun Camp Handbook, yet. Maybe there’s a chapter toward the end about how to betray your friends and act like a creep. You must be ahead of me. Star student.”

Eddie winced. “I don’t expect you to forgive me right now. I’m still working through what happened that day. This is so confusing, Jennifer.”

“You know what’s not confusing? Your pathetic excuse of a friendship. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

“I know who I am,” he hissed back. “The question is, do you know who you are?”

Jennifer bristled, not least because part of her suddenly realized she didn’t have a very good answer. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not the only bad friend here. You hid yourself from me last year. It hurt when my parents told me what they’d learned about you. They had to piece it together from what Otto Saltin was doing, but when they figured it out, they knew more about you than I did.”

“Gee, you’re right, Eddie, I’m sorry. I should have come running to you right away, just as soon as I was in the shape of a dragon. Then you could have betrayed me right away to your mom and dad. I mean, they’re sooo understanding. They probably would have stitched a lovely corsage to my wing before slicing my head off.”

“They don’t want that,” he insisted. “Not if you’re part beaststalker. Mom even said the other day there may be hope for you.” He was trying hard to look as though he wasn’t really talking to her. Jennifer scanned the room and saw the Blacktooths spot them. Their expressions were pure poison.

“Yeah, she seems really delighted to see me. Your dad, too. They probably can’t wait to embrace me as the daughter they never had. Listen, I don’t want you to knock yourself out trying to make nice. You’re already avoiding me at school, so just stay the course. And keep your family away from mine.”

With that, she flicked a carrot at him and strode back to her parents.

The Wednesday after the funeral was the first day of tenth grade, with new teachers and classes. High school this year was only slightly less scary than it had been last year. But she was just glad to be experiencing it—last year she didn’t think she would be able to ever go to any normal school ever again, since most weredragons had to keep to a strict schedule of changing with every crescent moon.

But as the Ancient Furnace, Jennifer was different—and at Winoka High, “different” could be a harrowing experience. So she stuck close to her best friends, Susan Elmsmith and Skip Wilson. Skip, son of the late Dianna Wilson and Otto Saltin, had put his life on the line to defend Jennifer against his own werachnid father.

Because of Skip’s bravery, she always wore the necklace he had given her, with a Native American wood carving of the Moon of Falling Leaves. Since her father told her that he and Dianna Wilson had been good friends before Otto Saltin came on the scene, Jennifer felt that there was history to build on—and that maybe some weredragons and some werachnids could be good friends instead of mortal enemies.

Right now, however, she just wanted her geometry textbook back.

“Come on,” she pleaded. He returned a mischievous grin and used his wiry frame to hold the book high above her head while Susan rummaged through her own locker. “Susan and I need to get to math class. Don’t make me kick your ass for it. It’ll embarrass you.”

“All I want is a date to the Halloween dance.”

She ignored Susan’s resigned hiss and gasped with transparent indignation. “That’s blackmail! Are you really that desperate?”

His green-blue eyes twinkled with mischief. “Desperate to hear you say yes. C’mon, Jennifer, I’ve asked you twice and you said you had to think about it. You’re killing me.”

“And you’re killing me,” interrupted Susan grumpily, slamming her locker shut and twirling her brown curls with a well-manicured fingernail. “Both of you. For heaven’s sake, get a room.”

“Well, gee, Skippy, I dunno.” Jennifer gave a coquettish smirk and rubbed the floor with her toe. “The dance is almost two months away, and it’s only the first day of school! I could still get a better offer.”

His smile disappeared and the textbook came down. “Are lots of guys already asking you?”

She stammered a bit at the question. “Um, well, yeah. A few. But no one I like has asked me yet,” she hastened to add.

At Susan’s gasp and Skip’s fallen expression, she talked even more quickly. “I mean, no one besides you! Ah, geez, Skip. Yeah, okay, I’ll go to the dance with you.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” he sulked.

“What do you mean?” Jennifer began to panic. This had started all in jest, but she began to feel a fun night slip through her fingers. What was going on?

“I know you could get better offers,” he explained. “If you just want to be friends, just say so. But I don’t want your pity.”

“Oh, Skip, no! Don’t take it that way. I thought we were just playing around. I want to go with you, really! Look, see, I’ll ask you.” She cleared her throat and straightened up. Her voice came out throaty and serious. “Skip Wilson, will you go to the Halloween dance with me?”