It was on the sixth day of my pathetic moping that the school was called to have an assembly in the lecture hall. The lecture hall was intimidating in the first place—with a cathedral ceiling that swept up to meet at a skylight that filtered in sunlight, and row upon row of seats that held every single member of my massive school—and without a friend to secure a seat with, I was left in one of the aisles in the far left of the hall, paralyzed with indecision. Maeko was nowhere to be seen as well as Saul, but Saul and I weren’t speaking anyway so it would have been moot.

I felt like a giant asshole just standing there with people pushing past me because I was blocking traffic, so, embarrassed, I grabbed the nearest seat. It was next to a girl with braces and big mouth who was always facing away from me, talking loudly to her friends. I didn’t care. I was just happy to find a place to sit.

It wasn’t until the crowd was starting to settle and quiet down that I saw the tousled hair that I knew so well, and realized that Saul was sitting two rows in front of me, flocked by a group of girls who were tossing their hair and laughing in short intervals of unison.

“Shit,” I muttered and instinctively sank a little lower in my seat, covering my face a little. I was so relieved when the headmaster rose to the podium and introduced our speaker.

Headmaster Phiffle was a shortish man with big old glasses perched at the end of his pointed nose. He was good-humored, smiled often, and had a Southern twang when he spoke. It made his speech sound like someone was plucking guitar strings at the end of his words.

Saul and I used to count how many times Phiffle would say “um” in his speeches—in person he was very well-spoken, but something about a microphone and a stage made him less so. As he was introducing the speaker, I snuck a look at Saul—his head nodded slightly every time Phiffle paused with an “um,” and so I knew he was counting to himself.

When he finally concluded and the smattering of half-hearted applause subsided, our speaker ascended the stage. And in that moment, the side conversations stopped, sleeping students awoke with a jolt, and seats creaked as people leaned forward slightly.

She was a Fairy. There wasn’t many living in North America, and so it was probably the first time anyone in the room had seen one in the flesh. Her gossamer, pearly wings winked as the lights above kissed them, and her hands and arms were covered with intricate patterns. She was too far away for me to see the details, but I could tell that on the backs of her hands were bold circles with what looked like tree roots inked inside.

A girl behind me whispered, “What’s with the tattoos?”

I heard a slight creak of the seat as her friend leaned towards her to reply, “Fairies receive them when they’ve completed a quest. It’s a really big honor—she must’ve done something really important.”

And I didn’t doubt for a second that she had done something momentous—she was beautiful but strong in the way she carried herself and the way she spoke. The way the lights hit her bronze skin, she seemed to almost glow. I couldn’t tell you what she said because I was too busy being in awe of her. During part of her speech, I thought I saw her look directly at Saul in a familiar kind of way, but the flicker of recognition I might have seen was swept off her face in a matter of seconds.

The lecture lasted for an hour, but for the first time in almost a week, time moved quickly. And when it was finished, I was stuck in the slow-moving crush of bodies trying the exit the hall and somehow ended up next to Uncle Mortimer.

“Ah! What excellent luck—I’ve been meaning to see you today,” he said, green eyes flickering with their usual and unnecessary amount of energy, “I’ve been thinking Pandora, and I know you’ve been rather blue because of your unfortunate confrontation with Saul, so I was thinking that tonight we go out to dinner somewhere. Anywhere, really—it’s your choice.”

I was moved by my uncle’s gesture to cheer me up—it was more than anyone else had been doing. While it was true that I had talked to my mom over the phone about it, as supportive as she was, Uncle Mortimer’s offer was greatly appreciated because he was here in the flesh to nod his head knowingly with his round, green eyes which really makes all the difference sometimes.

Which is why, when I sat down in a seat across from my uncle at a Thai restaurant, I was feeling pretty good for the second time that day. I thought to myself that I might be close to getting out of my pathetic funk. I was even a little optimistic that Saul and I would make up soon. Maybe I would even suck it up and apologize anyway—who knew? Then we would be back to sending each other pix messages of the muffin-tops of passersby, and integrating odd words like “mollycoddle” and “agroof” into our everyday vocabulary. (Why do you think Saul refers to Uncle Mortimer as a “cockalorum”? He found the word shortly after meeting him and laughed so hard he pulled a muscle in his stomach.)

We ordered our drinks, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, everything seemed rather off. I felt agitated, like the room was too small and the air too thick and my chair uncomfortable. Uncle Mortimer still babbled as usual, but the light was reflecting off his slender-framed glasses in such a way that I couldn’t see his eyes.

The waitress came over and I was so distracted that I barely remembered what it was I wanted to order. There was a festering itch underneath my skin. I suddenly felt cranky like a toddler ready to throw a temper-tantrum. Good God why was I so fidgety?

“Um,” I said, flipping the pages of my menu with a little too much roughness, “I’ll have the um, flat noodles with the coconut-curry sauce.”

“And I will have the shrimp with the green curry please,” my uncle said politely, and then turned to me, “Pandora, what is the matter? You haven’t even touched your soda—perhaps you ought to take a sip.”

“No, that’s okay, I’m not really thirsty,” I replied, having suddenly caught sight of a cat that seemed to be staring at me from the sidewalk outside the window. I squinted at it—there seemed to be something familiar about it. It was the eyes—I was almost completely certain that cat’s eyes didn’t come in deep brown. Or did they? I was getting more and more uneasy because the cat was just looking at me with a weird sort of intelligence.

“Pandora,” Uncle Mortimer said, although his voice seemed to be rather far away, “Are you feeling quite all right? I really think you should drink something—perhaps you are dehydrated.”

“No,” I said, still looking at the strange cat, “No, I’m not dehydrated. I’m fine.”

He looked at me with disbelief clearly written on his face, and I stared back in almost a trance-like manner. There was something wrong with him, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Jesus above, why was the room so small and stuffy? I looked at the cat from the corner of my eye and it was still looking at me.

I sat in silence until our food arrived. Despite my advanced state of complete agitation, the food’s smell was irresistible. I readied my chopsticks, and as I was digging in to take my first ravenous mouthful, I happened to glance down and notice a sauce stain on the front of my shirt. My nice, white, school uniform shirt.

“Oh crap!” I exclaimed, immediately dropping my chopsticks, and dabbing it with a napkin, which only made the stain spread and smear. I was almost ready to cry—I was hot, bothered, claustrophobic, there was a freakish cat watching me and now there was brown sauce all over my shirt.

“What is it?”

I huffed, “I just got sauce all over this—hold on, I’ll just go to the bathroom and see if I can get it out with some water or something.”

I entered the Ladies’ Room, still dabbing at the stain. I knew water probably would not help at all but I was really desperate to save my poor shirt. I reached to turn on the faucet, when suddenly, someone said, “Pandora!”

I whipped around in surprise, and who should be emerging from the far left stall, but Professor Siegel himself.

“What? What are you—This is the women’s room!” I said, hardly able to reason what could possibly account for the fact that my teacher was ambushing me in a public restroom. The day just could not get any weirder.

“I know, I know just hold on a second,” he said, turning and locking the dead bolt on the door.

“What are you doing?” I asked in panic, wondering if the teacher I trusted so well was going to assault and/or rape me. Stuff like this happened in Lifetime original movies all the time.

“Listen,” he said approaching me cautiously, “You’re in serious danger.”

I knew he was sincere, because lines of worry were clearly etched into his young and usually relaxed face. He looked so worried that his skin had an almost gray tinge to it like oatmeal that’s been left out for a good couple of days. It occurred to me that the stupid cat probably had something to do with all this.

“What do you mean?”

“Your uncle,” he replied, “he put a drug in your drink. He was going to try and kidnap you. He’s been gaining your trust this past month so he could get close to you and hold you captive.”

Oh. My. God.

“Wait,” I said, stunned. My jaw moved up and down several times before I managed to choke out, “You mean that I was almost roofied by my uncle?”

He nodded.

Oh my god. I was almost drugged by my own flesh and blood. I was one sip away from being kidnapped. Thank the lord I was entirely too irritated and cranky to drink anything. It was at this point in time that I vowed to myself that if by some horrible twist of fate I was on a hidden-camera show, I was going to immediately strangle everyone in sight.

“But… why? Why would he try to kidnap me? What the fuck?”

“He wanted to hold you captive until your birthday, so when you received your father’s amulet, he would be able to steal it,” Siegel explained in a composed manner that completely contrasted mine. I looked like a goldfish out of water, “With inherited objects, they will not part with their owner once they have identified them. If he was there when you received the amulet, and if he snatched it quickly enough, it might be confused and identify him as the owner instead.”

He gulped a lungful of air, and looked at me as if he was afraid I wouldn’t believe him. I almost didn’t. What he was telling me was the craziest thing I ever heard. I actually kind of wanted to laugh. Or cry. Maybe both at the same time. It would be kind of interesting to see how exactly that would work.

“But I don’t understand,” I said, “Why would he want it? The amulet, I mean. It’s just a regular old necklace.”

Or at least, I had always thought it was just an ordinary piece of jewelry that my dad happened to be very attached to. What did I know? No one had told me anything different and so I naturally assumed its insignificance. I wondered if my mother knew anything about this. I would say yes, but everything I had assumed as fact was clearly taking a turn for the unexpected. I mean I had always just assumed that my uncle loved me, his only niece, unconditionally and would in no way try to cause me any kind of harm, let alone use me for his own ambitious endeavors. Oh, how naïve I was.

Siegel shook his head, his curls sweeping across his forehead, “No, it’s a very powerful Object—one of very few left in the world. It grants an enormous amount of Abilities to its owner, and your father left it to you in his death so it is yours to protect.”

“Uh,” I said intelligently. Because really, what can you possibly say in response to the biggest plot twist of your life?

“Listen,” Professor Siegel said, taking me by the shoulders, “I understand that this is a lot to take in right now, but you need to get out of here immediately.”

“But,” I said feebly, my mind trying to grasp onto anything that made sense but failing. So I chose to simply say: “My shirt…”

“It’s not really stained,” he said, “I cast an Illusion to get you away from him and into the bathroom.”

I looked down and lo and behold, my shirt was actually still crisp and white after all. A relief, but it was tragically lost on the grave situation I was in.

“Pandora,” he said, taking me by the shoulders, “I need you to take a right out of this bathroom, go through the kitchen, and out the back door. Do not stop for anything—I can cast an Illusion on you to make you invisible, but it will only last a minute.”

“Okay,” I replied, suddenly wanting to vomit everywhere. My skin probably looked grayer than his right now.

“Saul will be waiting for you in a black car, and he’ll take you away from here, okay?”

And I thought things couldn’t become more confusing. Guess what? They just did.

I started. “Saul? But what does he have to do with anything?”

Professor Siegel shook his head, “No time to explain. Just go.”

“But can’t you come with me?” I asked in panic.

“No,” he said, “I can’t leave my son or tip off your uncle that I had anything to do with your escape. We’re going into hiding soon, but it won’t be where you are. If someone suspected my hand in this and followed us, we can’t have them finding you.”

He unlocked the deadbolt, and pointed to me, a long strand of bluish, wispy Magic emerging from his index finger and wrapping itself about me rather like a fog. He then opened the door, “Now go,” he said giving me a little push, “And good luck.”

“Thank you so much,” I said, suddenly sad. But I didn’t linger—I bolted out of the bathroom, hidden by a shroud of invisibility. Half of me was terrified that my uncle knew what was going on, that he was tipped off, that I was running and that he would be waiting for me but there was no time for me to choke on worry as I sprinted my way through the busy kitchen with steaming pots, loud chefs and the clanging of pans.

I practically kicked open the door to the alleyway and wanted to cry with hysterical joy when I saw the black car parked with Saul behind the wheel. When he saw me, the relief was clearly written on his face. I launched myself into the passenger seat and he peeled away before my door was even completely shut.

“You have no idea how fucking relieved I am to see you,” he said, his wide, dark eyes blinking fast, so as to hold back what looked suspiciously like tears.

“Are you…are you crying?” I said in disbelief.

This is something I was not familiar with at all. Usually it was I who was acting like a complete headcase and crying over Sylvan Learning Center commercials on TV.

“No!” he immediately protested as he gunned it through a yellow light, “They’re just, you know, a little sweaty. And can you blame me? I was scared shitless that our interception would go wrong and you’d be drugged and dragged away.”

I squinted at him again, and suddenly it clicked. “You,” I said, pointing an accusatory finger at him, “You were that freaky cat!”

“Yes,” Saul replied, his entire body sort of deflating as he let the air out his lungs with a big sigh, “Yes I was.”

“Can you excuse me?” I said, “I think I am going to throw up now.”

And so, to punctuate my narrow escape from kidnapping, I barfed out the window of Saul’s nice car and onto a good two blocks of the city streets.