Chapter 1

Briiiiing!

The 7th period bell rang bringing an end to Mr. Scatelli’s lecture. Mr. Scatelli, an ungainly bald man, scrambled in front of the door, yelling, “Remember everyone, your character profiles for Catcher in The Rye are due Monday!” Delia Stavros and her friend Vicki Sanders filed out the door with the rest of the 10th grade English class. They started walking through the brightly lit halls, dodging bodies. Hundreds of posters made by student council decorated the bile yellow walls of the hallway, all advertising school spirit, or the spring play, the ice skating fundraiser, the talent show, or the bake sale. People were running around and slamming into lockers. Vicki darted to the side as a stocky tan girl crying her eyes out almost pushed her over on her way to the bathroom. Vicki turned to Delia as they walked.

“Thank God that’s over.,” said Vicki. “Have you noticed how Mr. Scatelli always compares himself to Holden Caulfield in his lectures?” Vicki dropped her voice to a deep baritone, “I was also a very rebellious young man like Holden. I was always getting in trouble and ‘sticking it to the man’ back when I was 16.”

Delia laughed and said, “I know. But Holden wasn’t even rebellious. He was an incredibly pompous character. I mean he’s just an arrogant, preening, poser.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Vicki said impatiently. “We really need to go shopping this weekend. I need a new dress for the Spring Fling dance. I think maybe blue. Or red. And it has to be short and sexy. Or maybe long and elegant. Or...”

Delia started tuning Vicki out. When Vicki started talking like this Delia knew something was bothering her. But Delia had a skill that she had been honing for a couple months, where if she cleared her mind and tuned out the rest of the world around her, she could pick up what emotion the person closest to her was feeling. She let her eyes glaze over and became only dimly aware of the clamor in the hall. She waited for a moment...then...click. There it was. She snapped back to reality and groaned inwardly when she realized the question she had to ask.

“Is something wrong between you and Miles?” Delia asked. Vicki paused in the middle of the crowded hall, and turned to face Delia.

Her blue eyes grew glassy as she blurted, “How did you know?”

Vicki started making little squeaky noises, which she always did when she was trying not to cry. “When we went to the movies everything was fine, but then we went back to my place because my parents weren’t home. We started fooling around, and he wanted to do It.” she paused taking a breath, “and I wanted to wait because we’d only been going out for a month and then he dumped me for that s**t Karen Walsh!”

Delia sighed as Vicki continued talking about Karen Walsh and how she gave it away to any guy that breathed. Vicki had been her best friend since 4th grade, but lately Delia had been growing more aware of how much things had been changing between them. Now that they started Cedar High School in San Francisco, all Vicki could talk about was being popular. She was so focused on gaining everyone’s approval her A’s slowly dropped to B’s, then C’s. Now Vicki always copied Delia’s homework and wrote the answers to tests on her arms. She also wasted whatever free time she had left dating losers like Miles. Delia had developed into the complete opposite. She kept to herself, got straight A’s, and had about 10 close friends. And she didn’t date. She went out with a couple guys at the beginning of the year, because she thought that was what you were supposed to do in High School. But she had found it incredibly annoying trying to have a conversation with a guy when he was staring at her chest the entire time.

But she would be lying to herself if she thought there weren’t any guys at school she was interested in. There was one guy she had noticed. All she really knew about him was his name was Colin Gandric, and like Delia, he also kept to himself. He was about a year or two older than her, and he was tall and lanky, had chestnut brown hair and coal black eyes. He was new, and nobody really knew who he was. He was best known for getting pulled into the principal’s office for ‘defacing school property’. It wasn’t as big a deal as everyone said, he had just painted a mural outside the gym, and the school found out. He hadn’t even tried to hide it; he wrote his signature at the bottom when he’d finished. His audacity had impressed her, because she was a person who, outside of her friends, was paralyzed by shyness when confronted with new people. Delia didn’t necessarily like him or have a crush on him; there was just something about him that was different from most guys. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.

Delia and Vicki walked over to their adjoining lockers. As Vicki twisted her combo onto the lock, she said, “So enough about Karen. But, like I was saying before, we need to go shopping tomorrow. I need you to help me pick out a new dress to make Miles totally jealous at the Spring Dance next Friday. You’re going, right?”

“I don’t know...” Delia began, “Every time I go with you to one of those things someone gets wasted and vomits in the punch bowl.”

“Come on,” Vicki cracked open her locker door “I promise it’ll be fun, I’ve even got the perfect guy for you.” Vicki turned to Delia and waggled her eyebrows “Who knows, maybe he’s ‘The One’.”

“Oh please!” Delia laughed, “I’m still getting over the last guy, you know, Rob? The one who wouldn’t stop talking about his hairless cats: Muffin and Cupcake.”

They both doubled over laughing at the memory of Rob Greckman in his lime green zoot suit at the Winter Social, who cornered Delia by the DJ booth and tried to entertain her with stories about his scary cats all night.

Vicki wiped a tear from her eye  “Okay I know Rob was kind of a disaster, but I swear this guy is way better. You know Bryan Chaunders?”

“No,” Delia said warily, “What’s he like?”

“Oh, he’s totally smart like you, and he loves music.” Vicki said, retouching her lip-gloss on her locker mirror, “He plays drums in a band called…oh crap what was it called…”

As Vicki thought about the band’s name, Delia started rifling through the papers in her locker. She couldn’t find her journal with all her lyrics in it. She hated the thought of someone finding it. She had always been a very private person, and would have been mortified if someone went through her stuff.

“Oh yeah! It’s called Last Defense. Or was it First Offense. Oh, whatever it doesn’t matter.” Vicki finished.

“Hmmm.” Delia thought. “Not bad.” Delia actually loved rock music. She lived and breathed it. She played bass and electric guitar, and drums. When she wasn’t playing instruments she was writing and singing songs. She often produced CD’s, and had a whole collection of them. And even though she flew underneath most people’s social radars, she and her friends Kyle and Damian had played at several Bar/Bat Mitzvah’s and Sweet Sixteen parties.

Delia shrugged, “Okay, I’ll go.”

“YES!” Vicki yelled, jumping up and down. “Now you have to come with me to get a dress!”

They shut their locker doors and started walking in the direction of the parking lot.

“So we should totally go to Bloomingdales,” Vicki said “Or maybe Neiman’s? What do you think?”

Delia turned to look at Vicki, “Well, I don’t know. I guess--” When someone out of nowhere barreled into her, knocking her to the ground and making her drop her books.

Delia rolled onto her side, dazed. What had happened? When she realized that someone had hit her, she looked up angrily and opened her mouth to yell at him or her, but nothing came out. It was Colin who had hit her, and she was so shocked the words just melted away. Then she realized his mouth was moving and he was talking to her.

“Are you okay? I am so sorry, I didn’t see you.” He helped her up off the ground, and she noticed he kept an arm around her waist as he asked her one more time, “Are you okay, you’re not hurt or anything?”

“Oh...uh, yeah, totally,” she said, dazed. “Trust me, I’m fine.”

“I really am so sorry,” he said picking up her spiral notebook and handing it to her. He glanced at the title. “Lyrics huh?” he smiled “So you write songs. Say, what’s your name?”

“Oh,” she blushed. “I’m Delia.”

He smiled and extended a hand to her, “I’m Colin.” She accepted the handshake and smiled back.

“Um HELLO?!” Vicki snapped, “What, have I become part of the background?”

“Oh, sorry.” Delia said, stepping back next to Vicki “Colin, this is my friend Vicki.”

 “Hi.” Colin said, barely looking at her, and turned back to Delia. “So listen, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine.” she said. “Just a little head bump, that’s all.”

“Okay, well, it was nice to meet you.” He let his hand linger in hers a little longer before he hefted his bag over his shoulder and quickly walked away.

“Okay, now that was weird.” Vicki pulled Delia out the building and down the front steps. “I mean, the way he was looking at you, it was like you were an angel sent from heaven or something.”

“No he wasn’t.” Delia insisted. Although she didn’t mention to Vicki, before he left, he had slipped a small box into her palm. She quietly dropped it into her coat pocket, and told herself she’d look at it when she got home. “He was just being nice...” she murmured.

She and Vicki walked through the parking lot towards Vicki’s car. Vicki’s birthday was in September, so she already had her license. Even though she wasn’t supposed to drive other minors, she had been giving Delia rides home ever since she had started Drivers Ed. back in January last year. Delia wasn’t as lucky as Vicki, her birthday was April 17th, and so she had to wait a while before she could get her license. As they started driving down Union, Vicki started rambling about Miles again, about how he was going to regret dumping her after he saw her in her new dress at the Spring Fling Dance on April 3rd. Delia couldn’t figure out why Vicki wanted to be with a guy like Miles. The whole time they were together he treated Vicki like trash. He dressed like a wannabe gangster; he even had grillz on his teeth. He used words like “yo” and “homie” even though he was a skinny white boy with blonde hair, and was born and raised in Hillsborough. Just looking at him made her gag.

That night when Delia came home, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching her. Vicki dropped her off at her house in Russian Hill, telling her that they would go shopping tomorrow. As soon as Delia was out of the car she practically sprinted up the steps at the front porch of her blue Victorian house. As soon as she shut the front door behind her, she felt chills. At least her parents were there to distract her. She knew her mom was really making an effort to be nice when she made pizza with black olives, because no one else in their family liked black olives but her. But in spite of this, things were tense at the dinner table, as usual.

Delia picked at her slice of pizza.

“Don’t you like it sweetheart?” her mom asked, smiling tentatively. “I put olives on just for you.”

“I’m not hungry.” Delia pushed her plate away across the mahogany tabletop and crossed her arms. Things had been stressful between her and her parents ever since her brother, Darren, had come out of the closet. They hadn’t kicked him out, but ever since that had happened two weeks ago her parents had stopped speaking to her brother, even when he was in the same room as them.  It drove Delia insane.

“So how was your day dear?” Delia’s mom asked her. Delia’s dad didn’t say anything; he kept munching on the pizza and stared at his plate.

“It was fine. Look, I have a lot of homework to do.” Delia stood and picked up her plate. “I’ll finish my food in my room.”

Okay…..”Her mom furrowed her brow, looking to Delia’s father for some parental input, but he remained silent. “That’s fine dear.”

Delia started walking to the kitchen before remembering her brother. “Wanna help me with my homework, Darren?”

“Sure.” He said, standing and following her out of the room.

Darren was a senior, and was going to UC Berkeley in the fall, so at least he didn’t have to live with their parents for much longer. But Delia knew how hurt he was by the way they were acting. He had always been the star of the family before this, he was on the football team, got straight A’s, and was popular with everyone. Like Delia he had dark brown hair, green eyes, and olive-toned skin. But unlike her he was incredibly tall at 6’4, and Delia was only 5’3. Secretly Delia had always been jealous of him, The Golden Boy, how everything always came easily to him. But now that she knew the truth she was embarrassed at her jealousy, and she and Darren had become closer than they had in years.

She stomped upstairs all the way to her room. Her walls were purple and white striped, with antique furniture that had come with the house. She had been lucky; she had gotten the room with the balcony. She and Darren had fought over the room when they had first moved to the house. But Delia had won that battle. When they were in her room she slammed the door and sat angrily at her desk.

“I can’t believe them!” she exclaimed. “They act like those creepy perfect women from the Stepford Wives.”

“It’s okay,” Darren, said, “They’ll get over it, just give them some time. I know it’s hard for them to accept, because we’re Greek Orthodox and all, but I’m sure it’ll work itself out.”

“How can you be so optimistic?” she asked.

He merely shrugged and sat on her matching sleigh bed. “Hey, what’s that?” He asked, pointing at the package from Colin on her desk. “Is it an early birthday present?”

“No. At least, I don't think it is.” She said. “My birthday’s not for another 2 weeks.”

“Oh.” he said, “Then what is it?”

“You know, I haven’t bothered to look at it before now.” she said thoughtfully.

“Open it! I wanna see what’s inside! Who’s it from?”

“You know Colin Gandric?” she asked

“That guy gave it to you? The junior?” he whistled, “Damn, he’s a hottie. A weird hottie, but still a hottie.” He grinned.

“Shut up!” she blushed. She started tearing off the brown paper, and underneath shined a small wooden box. It was about as big as her palm. She pulled open the lid and gasped. It was a necklace; a long silver chain, on which a beautiful pendant hung. It was either a sun or a star, Delia couldn’t tell, but it was incredibly intricate. In the center was a stone, which at first seemed a milky white, but on closer inspection it appeared almost blue, with rosy pink and green flecks.

“Whoa, that must have cost a lot of money.” Darren said. “He must like you a lot. I think that’s real silver.”

She shrugged and looked closer at the pendant. On each point of the star/ sun, there was a different symbol, it looked like it was an alphabet from an arcane language.

“Hey look,” Darren said, “I think there’s a note inside.” Delia reached back into the box and pulled out a piece of paper, folded twice. She opened it and it read aloud:

            Delia-

Wear this necklace. It’ll protect you.

            -Colin

“That’s creepy,” Darren said grabbing the note for closer inspection.

“I don’t think so,” Delia said. “Although I admit it is a little weird. Maybe it’s just a good luck charm or something. But wait, I totally just remembered something I have to show you. This is going to blow your mind.” She grinned and put the necklace on her desk, forgetting it for the moment.

“Okay,” She turned to him, “Give me a small object.”

Darren looked around, and handed her a pencil from her nightstand, a questioning look on his face.

“Just wait.” She said.

She laid the pencil in her palm and stared at it, concentrating all her energy and focus on that one object. Then, out of nowhere, a slightly blue translucent sphere surrounded the pencil, suspending it in the air.

“Holy s**t!” Darren jumped back, his eyes fixed on the orb and pointed a shaky finger at it, “How did you do that?!”

“Calm down.” Delia said. “It’s totally fine, it wont hurt you or anything.”

“What is it?” He asked, coming a little closer, still staring at it.

“I don’t know.” She admitted. “I’ve been able to do this to small objects for a week or so now. I think it’s some kind of a barrier, or force-field.” Delia didn’t tell Darren how much her ‘tricks’ scared her sometimes. She had first noticed that she could do these things` a few months ago. She didn’t know how it had started, or why. She had been in the middle of a heated argument with her father, about a party she wanted to go to. It escalated into a screaming match and as her father put a hand out to placate her, she thought he was reaching out to hit her. So in a panic she held up her hands and a barrier appeared in front of her. She and her dad stopped yelling and just stared at the translucent wall in between them. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She couldn’t think about what she had just done, she just cleared her mind and the wall vanished. She and her dad avoided each other since then. Delia thought maybe he was still in shock, but ever since then he couldn’t seem to bring himself to look at her. Delia had been so scared of herself that at first she didn’t want to even know what that was. But soon her curiosity got the better of her and she started practicing the force fields when she was alone. Now she could summon the barriers anytime she wanted to, and use them to make shapes and suspend objects in the air, like she just did for Darren.

“That. Is. So. Cool!” Darren said, open-mouthed.

She smiled. She concentrated again, and the sphere disappeared, causing the pencil to clatter to the floor. She picked it up and put it back on her nightstand. She turned back to Darren and said, “Look, you cannot tell anyone about this, okay? I’m serious, no one, not even Ben.”

Ben was Darren’s boyfriend who went to SF State, and they had been secretly dating for two months before Darren had come out of the closet. For those two months Darren had been sneaking out in all hours of the night, and Delia had had to cover for him several times. Now that he was out, Darren and Ben were constantly together. Delia liked Ben well enough, he was tall, had shaggy blond hair and brown eyes. He was a bit of a hippie, so it made sense that he lived in the Haight-Ashbury. He always wore beaded bracelets and smelled like patchouli. He was studying folklore and mythology at SF State, and what had won Delia over in the first place was his ability to tell great stories from different Mythologies. Ben was a really sweet guy, and Delia could tell he was good for Darren.

“Of course I won’t tell Ben.” Darren rolled his eyes. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I’m just making sure,” Delia, said, “Of course I trust you.”

“Speak of the devil,” Darren said when his phone vibrated. He reached into his cargo shorts and pulled out his phone. His eyes moved back and forth as he scanned the screen. “Ben’s here.”

“You know what to do.” Delia said, pointing at the balcony. Darren opened the window and hopped out onto the balcony, closely followed by Delia. He peered over the edge of the white terraced wall. “Ben? You down there?”

“Yeah.” a voice whisper-yelled back.

“Where are you?” Darren asked squinting in the darkness

“Over here.” Ben’s loping figure suddenly came into view. “Sorry, it was harder than usual getting past the neighbor’s dog.” He broke into a smile “But he loved the beef jerky I gave him.”

Darren hefted himself over the side of the balcony and dropped stealthily onto the grass like a cat, narrowly missing the patch of daffodils on his left.

“Have fun you guys.” Delia said, smiling good-naturedly. “But Darren, try to be home by 2, I don’t want to have get up at 4 a.m. again.”

“Don’t worry gorgeous,” Ben called up “I’ll make sure our boy gets home at a good hour. We’re just going to hang at that new club that opened up south of Market.” He turned to Darren and said, “C’mon Darren, let’s let your sis get her beauty sleep.” He winked at Delia.

She laughed and waved them goodbye as they walked over to Ben’s rusty green Volkswagen that was idling in the street. They got in and drove off, spewing gas all the way.

Delia sighed and rested her elbows on the balcony wall. She looked up at the stars and realized she could barely see them because of all the light pollution. She missed the stars sometimes. Before they had moved to San Francisco, her family had owned and lived in a cabin out in Inverness. Her dad had this huge telescope, and on clear nights he would bring it out onto the porch, and he taught her the constellations. She used to love those nights. They made her feel small, but not in a bad way. It made her feel like there was something else out there, that she wasn’t alone.

            She went back inside her room. She glanced at her clock. It was already almost eleven, so she decided to get ready for bed. After she had crawled under the covers and pulled them up to her neck, she realized she had forgotten all about the necklace. She sat up, alert, and looked at her desk. There, in the darkness, she could make out the necklace because it was glowing softly. Something about it unnerved her so much she got up and grabbed it, staring at it for a moment. She shook her head and shoved into her desk drawer, telling herself she’d give it back to Colin on Monday. She climbed back into bed, trying to think nice thoughts to calm herself down. For some reason she felt anxious, and she eventually fell into a troubled sleep.

            She dreamed that she was standing on a beach, but not a tropical beach like in Hawaii, where the water looks too blue, but one that was very windy and the water was a brackish gray. Each wave slapped the sand angrily, and foamed as it retreated back into the ocean. Delia knew she should feel cold, but instead felt pleasantly warm and serene. She did wonder absentmindedly if that meant she was freezing to death, but serenely decided not to worry about it. She sat down on the damp sand, waiting for the next wave to greet her. She closed her eyes and was engulfed by the briny seawater.

She let herself be pulled by the current out to sea, occasionally popping above water for a breath of fresh air. She bobbed in the middle of the dark ocean, a speck in the vast blue-black. Suddenly, she felt something tug on her ankle. She frowned and looked down, irritated at whatever had interrupted her trance. She felt another tug, then another. They were pulling her down. For the first time she felt scared and wanted to scream, but a pair of hands reached up and squeezed her throat. She struggled to stay above the surface, thrashing against the water. But she slowly sank as they pulled her under. She opened her eyes, feeling the sting of salt burn them. Instead of the water being dark and black, it was almost a glowing green, so she could see everything in front her. There were a million faces staring at her, and several of them had a hand grasped on her legs and arms. She whirled around as the people closed in on her. They were sad, sickly shells of human beings, with long skinny limbs that looked like they had been stretched out on a taffy puller. Their mouths were missing, as if someone had taken a pencil and simply erased them.  But she could still hear their voices ringing in her mind, speaking all at once.

“Help us Delia. Stop this from happening. Help us.” They chanted over and over again, moving in closer, each one wanting to touch her. They all grabbed onto her and clung to her as if she was their life support, keeping them from sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

She wanted to answer them desperately, to ask them what had happened to them, but one of them still had his arms around her neck, squeezing the life out of her. She looked at him, trying to figure out why he was trying to kill her. He was the only one with a mouth, and he grinned wildly each time she tried to free herself.

“Why are you doing this?” She mouthed. The other people in the water weren’t aware that there was an imposter in their midst. They just continued to stare and plead with Delia.

“I’m doing this,” He answered clearly, “Because you are the only one who can help them.”

Delia tried to scream again, and everything faded to black.

She woke up in bed gasping for air as if she really had been choking. She reached up and felt wetness on her cheeks. Delia realized she’d been crying in her sleep. She breathed slowly in and out, trying to get her heart rate down. “It was just a dream,” She repeated to herself. “It doesn’t mean anything, it was just a dream.” But no matter how often she repeated it, she couldn't make herself believe it. It had felt too real to be a figment of her imagination. And she could still taste the salt from the ocean on the tip of her tongue.