Young Writers Society

Tuesday, 15:00, route 40 eastbound

Mr. Stevenson’s absence from the three o’clock bus disturbs everyone onboard. Martin pushes his face further into his book, Mellie sulks in the very back of the bus, and Rick spends the first half of his drive with his teeth clenched and his knuckles white. The only person unaffected is a hooded stranger who sits across from Martin, licking his lips every few minutes.

As Rick pulls off the highway and rolls onto a street lined with dumpy, dusty trailers, Martin snaps his book shut and lifts his head.

“Miss Mellie!” he shouts.

He earns a grunt of acknowledgement that sounds like a cross between ‘yes’ and ‘hmm.’

“Where’s my dad?”

Slowly, Mellie’s head rises from above the seat backs, her hair shooting up first like a candle flame. Where she inherited that brand of strawberry blonde, no one knows. She sends a cautious glance at the hooded person before cupping a hand to her mouth.

“He’s working overtime,” she shouts. “There was another hit-and-run this afternoon, so the police are sending out extra patrols just in case.”

Martin raises his eyebrows. “Another already?”

“Yeah, and it’s another platinum blonde. About the same kind of figure as Miss Talisman’s too, though I think most people look the same with their winter coats on. Someone must have a vendetta against good-looking blondes.”

“This isn’t an appropriate subject for humor,” Martin says. Staring past Mellie’s fiery hair, he runs his index finger along the spine of his book, savoring the embossing. And though he doesn’t speak further, he ponders the truth in Mellie’s jest. Hit-and-runs are some of the rarer auto accidents; a single incident will make headlines for a week as investigations reveal new evidence. To have two accidents on two consecutive days, with two victims, very similar in appearance, is no coincidence.

The biggest question for Martin is why the perpetrator has such a vendetta against blondes.

A minute later, a slight change in scenery outside the bus draws Martin’s attention away from his thoughts. Though the small, single-story houses that make up his neighborhood don’t look much bigger than the trailers, they are far neater. Tidy lawns, clean paint, and floral curtains peaking through the windows send out an air of quiet coziness.

Rick pays little attention to the houses, hardly thinking about anything at all as he pulls to the curb at Martin’s stop. This route so ingrained for Rick that he drums his fingers on the steering wheel and hums a jazz tune, only just remembering to look up at his mirror and watch the Stevenson boy step off the bus. When the gangly kid is off, it takes Rick a second to remember that Mr. Stevenson is not on, and in the moment that Rick pauses, he sees the hooded person stand. Rick is so thrown off he flinches; for years, the only people who ever used this stop were the Stevensons.

Mellie watches the scene as well, straightening in her seat, interest piqued. As the hooded figure strolls of the bus, she notes that they follow Martin’s steps up an intersecting road so lifeless that the normally bright houses are gray.

“Odd,” Mellie mutters. “I seem to remember making fun of Martin because his neighbors are always sitting on their porches to greet him.” But before she can devote much thought to the matter, the bus doors squeak to a close, and the engine putters to life. In a few seconds, the darkened street is blocks away, and Martin and the stranger drift out of Mellie’s head.

Eventually, the dainty houses of the Stevensons’ neighborhood are replaced by a long block of shops with their unlit neon signs hoisted up over each doorway. Most of the lots host dimly lit antique stores or ethnic restaurants, but on the very end, hanging over the blackened cement walls of an old accounting firm, is a giant, white poster advertising the grand opening of Talisman Consulting.

Mellie squints, leaning over in her seat and pressing her face to the window to watch backwards for as long as possible. She can’t have read that name right. Mr. Talisman’s only surviving descendant has just died, and he opens a consulting office?

“No,” Mellie whispers. “You’re looking into this too much. It was probably in the works for a while already. With a name like Talisman, anyone would open a consulting office.” She looks to the bus’s front mirror to see if Rick has noticed as well, but like any good bus driver, his eyes are trained on the road, face flat from focus.

Having no one with whom she can discuss Mr. Talisman, Mellie turns to her phone. She whips it out of her pockets and searches for a headline or website, forehead still digging into the window, even though Talisman Consulting is far beyond view.

Her first result is the office’s official website, so Mellie taps the link without bothering to read the subhead. She is taken to a page crafted from clean strokes of white, black, and tan with the hours and a phone number listed on a side column. The title is bold and professional, but it is a line under the company name that catches Mellie’s eye and makes her curl her lips in a snarl.

“Our mission is to help everyone resolve encounters with unruly powerful folk,” the line reads, somehow sounding excited despite the absence of punctuation and sensible, serif font.

A burst of rage sends literal smoke whooshing out of Mellie’s ears, and flames consume her already fiery hair. The urge to crush the phone in her hands shoots up her arms, just barely stopping at the wrist. Rick shouts a question Mellie’s way, but she ignores it.

“How dare he,” she hisses. “Does Mr. Talisman even know what he’s doing? There aren’t unruly powerful folk any more. We can’t escape the law any better than a regular person, so there’s no point in causing trouble. What an old-school ba—

Mellie chokes, a familiar hooded figure stealing her attention. Rick is just turning into the East-Side station, which lies a good five-minute drive from the Stevensons’ stop, yet somehow the stranger from the bus has arrived on foot in the same amount of time.  And heightened speed isn't exactly a common ability.

A tiny hint of relief taints Mellie’s fear when she realizes her phone is in tact, because she needs to call Mr. Stevenson right away.