As Perceived by Crystellen 13

I didn’t know what was wrong with Emerys, but unlike Cat, I didn’t rule out Broken Tail Syndrome.  Not that I thought Emerys had had sex with Losten; I knew my sister too well for that.  But, maybe she had fallen so deeply for the guy that the mer-gene had released the chemical into her body that starts Broken Tail Syndrome.  Given the sadness she was now experiencing, if the chemical had been released into her body previously, then perhaps the heartache she was now suffering was causing the chemical to attack the mer-gene and was slowly destroying it.  In a few weeks, would my sister start to age like a normal person?

 

Then again, sometimes I thought that nothing about our biology made any sense.

However, I needed to get to the bottom of my sister’s dismay.  Not that it was my fault, but still, I felt that I had probably contributed to their disagreement.  At the very least, I hadn’t helped. 

Thus, I made up my mind, once I had finished speaking to Cat, that Losten needed to make amends with Emerys.  For whatever he’d done.  Emerys still didn’t seem to be getting any better, so this might be a matter of life and death. 

However, after everything that had happened, there was no way Losten would come willingly.  After all, I had poisoned him once; he had no reason to trust me.  Plus, even though he wasn’t Manicotti, I still didn’t know what kind of man he was.  Could he be trusted with my sister’s heart? 

I was going to find out.

That evening I walked into my grandmother’s room.  “Grammy,” I said, “do you still have the shnarkite powder you told me about years ago.”

Grammy smiled and walked over to a box on her dresser.  She retrieved a bag of pale blue powder and handed it to me.

“Don’t use too much,” she said.  “This stuff’s potent.  You don’t want to kill whoever the boy is.”

I smiled.  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill anyone.  I just need to use it to persuade someone to come with me.”

That evening I took a small portion of the schnarkite powder and placed it on the end of my lipstick.  Then, I replaced the cap and put my lipstick in my purse.

The next day I drove to David L. Mays Community College.  Emerys had talked enough times about her tutoring sessions that I knew where she met Losten on campus.  And, if he was as clueless as I suspected he might be, he most likely would still be there.  I’d heard Emerys tell Mom the other day that he had called her cell phone and left a message like nothing had happened.

I parked my car and walked up to the library.  I didn’t know exactly where in the library they met, but I figured it couldn’t be too difficult to find.  I walked through the main door and looked around.  In front of me sat the librarian at the front desk.  At a table a little ways to the left sat Emerys’ brown-haired beau.

I walked over to where he sat at a table and stood beside him.

He didn’t take his eyes off his notebook.

Good grief, I thought.  Losten’s so into what he’s reading, he doesn’t even see me here.  How’d he and my sister ever meet, given how clueless he is to the world around him?  At this rate, I’d be surprised if he even knew that he was the cause of my sister’s vexation.

I pulled the chair back from the table.