Young Writers Society

Wednesday, 14:55, off-route

Martin doubles over as he steps onto the bus. Everything smells acrid and brown, like the P.E. locker rooms but a thousand times worse. A duo of police officers block up the aisle, each one with a hand raised to pinch his nose.

“Holy,” Divinity breathes. She is right behind Martin, trying to look past him despite his enormity, and she is too close for comfort. “This place looks and smells like a natural disaster. Do you think Willow ripped up these seats?”

“At least try to act professional, Divinity,” Martin hisses. Then he smiles, not bothering to hide his teeth, and closes in on the officers. He isn’t too much taller than them, but his presence is large enough that the police turn to him shortly. They wear identical frowns of annoyance, but hints of discomfort tame them into silence.

“Um,” says the officer on the left, “you two aren’t supposed to be here. I know you’re Stevenson’s boy and all, but that doesn’t exactly give you access to crime scenes.”

“I know,” says Martin. He is solemn and hoping to high heaven that the officers do not see Divinity smirking at his attempts at passive intimidation. He knows he’s tall, and he has his mouth slightly open for a reason. “We forgot to take our friend’s bag with us when we evacuated and were hoping to get it back. She’s the one with the broken wrist and dislocated arm.”

Divinity pops out on Martin’s side, and the officers step back, surprised. “Her name is Willow Lin,” Divinity offers, “in case you need to know for the reports or whatever.”

“Oh my god, Divinity,” Martin groans. He tries to wave her away, preferably off the bus, so he can get things done, but she ducks under his arm and prances across the field of felled seats. After spending a second glaring at her, he looks back to the officers and gives an apologetic shrug. “Sorry about her. We’re honestly just here for Willow’s things.”

The officers look dubious. Both cross their arms and look to each other for silent confirmation of their suspicions, and they nod.

“We’ll bring your friend’s things off the bus for you,” says the man on the right, “so you two can leave.”

Martin is about to nod when he notices Divinity creeping further away. She is hunched in that cheesy snooping villain pose, fingers wiggling, itching to snatch up something interesting. If only she could be happy with pictures on a smartphone like everyone else. Then, as if she can sense him watching, she lifts a finger to her lips and grins.

“But sirs,” Martin finds himself saying, “her backpack is right there. I can see it.” He points to a pastel teal sliver poking out between the seats on the right and assumes that’s the right bag. The police turn to look, and without threat of them noticing her, Divinity races to the pile of dismembered seats in the back of the bus. Martin feels a flutter of guilt in his stomach.

The rightmost officer huffs and drags the backpack into the aisle. “You’re sure this is the one?” he asks.

It’s definitely Willow’s. Only she would have a bag drowning in zippers. Nodding, Martin steps forward, a hand outstretched.

“It’s pretty heavy,” the officer says. “Be careful when you-

“Hey!”

Martin starts, and Willow’s backpack thuds on the floor. It is much too close to the puddle of other things Willow left behind after her fight, and Martin hopes Divinity will bring the backpack out, because he never wants to smell that bag again.

Actually, Divinity probably won’t be allowed to touch anything else on this bus, backpack included. She is crouching near the torn up seats, tugging on something and muttering about people sticking their noses where they shouldn’t. The police crowd around her, shouting and jostling each other.

“Miss, you are tampering with evidence-

“We will have to ask you to leave-

“Stevenson’s boy has your friend’s backpack, so-

As if neither officer is there, Divinity pulls out whatever she was picking at and licks her lips. Her prize is two slips of paper with sticky pink residue dirtying the corners.

Martin hangs his head and wishes he’d never met this girl.

“Honestly, sirs,” Divinity says, “it’s just some paper under someone’s gum. I was like, wow, don’t people usually use the paper to hide their gum and not the other way around? So I thought, I bet it’s some nasty school gossip. Maybe I should take a look, in case it’s about someone I know.”

The officers award her with twin withering stares for her detective skills.

“I mean, I could see the writing on the paper already. It wasn’t like I was just hoping for something.”

Martin glances outside and prays for Drake to come and save him, but the only people headed for the bus are two more police officers.

Dodging a swipe, Divinity holds up the papers and fits them together. A dastardly smile lifts her cheeks, and she scans the paper for a name she knows.

She finds something in the first line; the paper is a note addressed to old Mr. Talisman.

“My friend, Monsieur Talisman,” Divinity reads. She pauses and ducks under the reaching arms of the officers. “I wonder why they wrote ‘Monsieur?’”

“Maybe you should just give the officers the papers,” Martin retorts.

“Enclosed is the list of ingredients I require, plus a fee to compensate for my time and knowledge. One: three small peaches. Two: three golden delicious apples”—here Divinity twirls around Martin, holding the papers up to his nose to keep them from the police—“I think number three is a pound of butter, can you check that, Marty?”

Martin shoves her away and pinches his nose. “I am taking Willow’s bag and getting out,” he grumbles, stretching a hand toward Willow’s backpack.

“Oh, don’t be like—stop that!” Like a mother admonishing her children, Divinity clucks her tongue and shakes a finger at the officers. “This is a recipe, not some perpetrator’s admission of guilt. No need to be so strict.”

“You’re tampering with evidence,” the officers say, though not at the same time.

“I’m digging up embarrassing and harmless dirt on a local celebrity, which I highly doubt is crucial to your investigation,” Divinity counters. “Apparently he can’t cook for himself, if this is any indication. Let’s see what else is on here. Flour, sugar, cinnamon, buckthorn, vampire blo-wait, for real? Vampire blood?”

Martin drops Willow’s backpack, and this time it lands in the puddle of nastiness, and something wet splashes onto Martin’s shoe. He is going to be smelling bile for days. The officers gawp, frozen in uncomfortable, awkward swiping poses.

“Okay…” Divinity says. “So there’s the vampire blood, and then mercury sulfide, some kind of mushroom I’m pretty sure is a hallucinogen, and hey! An item from a dragon’s hoard.”

All eyes turn to the dented red sports car in the parking lot outside. It is surrounded by police cars still, but the driver is being manhandled into a set of handcuffs, and the curious crowd from the bus is beginning to disperse.

“Wow, convenient,” Divinity muses.

“No duh,” Martin says. “I can’t believe you just accidentally solved this whole thing because you wanted to dig up gossip you weren’t even sure would be useful.”

Divinity and the officers switch targets and stare at Martin instead, all of them confused.

“What do you mean I solved this whole thing?” Divinity asks. “I thought we’d already solved most of it. We knew from that phone call he that he wanted Drake’s chessboard.”

“Yeah, but this is what we were missing,” Martin argues. He jabs a finger towards the papers, and his mouth almost curls into a smile. “We needed to know what Mr. Talisman would need that chessboard for, and you have it right there. He was trying a recipe for immortality.”

Crossing her arms, Divinity purses her lips. “That was obvious the moment I saw ‘mercury sulfide’ on the list, but we still need to know why Mr. Talisman would want immortality. And before you say anything, Martin, I don’t think fear of death or aging is the answer we’re looking for.”

“The answer has been in the news all week, Divinity! He sold his estate, and all the powerful creatures came back. Remember? We even checked city records in the library, and the purchase of the Talisman estate coincided with the last spirit sighting for nearly a century.” Martin’s hands turn to fists at his sides, and his voice grows with the excitement of solving a mystery. “Mr. Talisman wanted immortality so he could keep the estate in the family forever, so he could continue keeping Franklin City safe from the more dangerous powerful folk and creatures. Forever.”

The officers are still gawping. Maybe they feel like they’ve had their jobs stolen, or maybe they are wondering where Mr. Stevenson’s son got his brains.

Divinity just rolls her eyes, and the officers’ jaws drop even further.

“If that was all there was, why’d he give up?” she asks. “Did he wake up one day and suddenly realize there were more cons to staying wrinkly for a hundred more years than there were pros?”

“He gave up because the elixir was meant for Marcy Talisman, and she died.”

Silence crashes in after Martin’s statement. The police do not want to break into the mystery chit chat, and Martin thinks he has won, but Divinity is still finding holes.

She licks her lips and holds up her index finger. “So let me get this straight. Mr. Talisman hired the blondie with the leopard coat to steal Drake’s chessboard, which she did successfully. However, when the intended recipient of the fruit pie of immortality died, Mr. Talisman no longer needed the chessboard, resulting in the rude call we overheard when Mr. Talisman lost his phone.”

Martin nods and inches away from Willow’s backpack and the other thing.

“At the same time, Drake’s angry grandpa sent a supervillain with invisibility to retrieve the chessboard.” Divinity looks to the police and lifts her eyebrows. “The guy in the car was a supervillain, right? I’m not wrong about this part?”

The officers nod with slow caution, and Divinity takes their confirmation as a cue to continue.

“This results in a bunch of other blondes getting run over by an invisible car until eventually, the target blonde is hit. By this point, the villain is so overcome by his own powers that he forgets to stop running over blonde girls, and we caught him just before he attempted to kill Marie.”

The mention of that event makes Martin’s bruises smart, and he shudders. “In addition to all this, Mr. Talisman sold his estate, effectively ending the confinement of all those powerful creatures his family had sought to contain. I think that sums everything up.”

“Um,” one of the officers stammers. His voice is a squeaky tenor, though the squeak may be a temporary thing. “What happened to the dragon’s chessboard in the end?

Flicking a lock of hair over her shoulder, Divinity shrugs. “The thief sold it to someone else, if I remember correctly. You’d have to ask her ghost.” She extends a hand towards the police, offering them the papers as if it were an afterthought. “By the way, do you guys want these now? I guess they are kind of important.”

Martin scowls in exasperation. “No, duh.”