Chapter 8
The New Client
"Hey, did you hear? They say that the Lady Sapphire is actually the ghost of a school matron from long ago that haunts the school grounds at night looking for troublemaking students to punish."
"I hear she's actually a famous thief who leaves a calling card for every steal she makes."
"No, no, no! She's a superhero who shoots blue lasers out of her hands. That's why she's called Sapphire!"
Around an outdoor lunch table, a group of friends were trading stories they heard about the mysterious hero who got back all the stuff that the blue parrot had stolen.
At the next table over, that very Lady Sapphire had her face planted on the table while each new tall-tale further added to her pain.
It has been several days since news of the mysterious Lady Sapphire broke out, and with it came a slew of exaggerated rumors with no signs of stopping. All that attention her alter ego had gained was just pure torture to poor Lily. But the one to blame for her suffering, the actual inventor of her alter ego, just casually sipped on a Caramel Frappuccino as if he had done nothing wrong.
Lily glowered at Oliver and then asked him, "Why? Just why did you do that?"
The teen upperclassman took a longer sip of his cold coffee drink, a really long sip until his straw made bubbly noises before asking innocently, "Do what?"
"Turn me into a comic book superhero, of course!" Lily snapped.
"I wasn't really aiming for superhero," Oliver said. "I was aiming more for mysterious gentlelady vibes."
"Not sure I get you, but not any better," Lily said. "And you still haven't answered my question."
"It's simple," Oliver said. "We are a group."
He used his hands to draw a circle around the table, including Eddie and Viv.
Lily crossed her arms and said, "Okay."
"There'll probably be a lot more cases like the Parrot Incident," said Oliver. "If we keep it up, eventually people will start noticing what we've been up to. By leaving that calling card, it gives the illusion that just one person is acting alone. If the school thinks only one person's behind everything, there's less chance they'll find out it's us."
"Makes sense," said Eddie.
Lily, however, continued to glower at Oliver and said, "And the real reason?"
"I always wanted to leave a calling card like that and couldn't help myself. Sorry."
"And you couldn't have made it something like MISTER Sapphire or LORD Sapphire? Why LADY Sapphire?" Lily asked.
"Well, as you probably already know, judging by how mad you are, I was thinking of you when I made up the name," Oliver said. "It may have been a team effort, but you were the main star of the show. I just wanted to give you the credit you deserved."
In a sarcastic tone, Lily said, "Gee, thanks."
Oliver replied back, "You're welcome," as if the sarcasm was lost to him. "Anyway, speaking of Lady Sapphire, there's actually a case for her."
Lily, Viv and Eddie sat up.
"Really?" went Lily. "Already?"
Oliver nodded. "Yeah. Well, I call it a case for Lady Sapphire, but it's technically my case."
"That was fast," said Eddie. "It hasn't even been a week yet."
"Well," said Oliver, "as they say, there's no rest for the wicked."
"Is it that parrot again?" asked Viv.
Oliver shook his head and and said, "No. It's not the parrot. It's actually something different this time."
"Really? What is it, then?" asked Eddie.
"I think it's better if I just showed you," said Oliver.
Oliver pulled out his phone and held it out. Lily and the others bent closer to take a look and then reeled back in shock, crying out, "Gah!"
On the phone's screen was a picture of a girl with long, brown hair and a literally blank face. Where her eyes, nose and mouth should be, there was just pale, smooth skin.
**********
The faceless girl's name was Melody Meadows, Oliver explained, a classmate of his and a library helper. She was the one who sent that picture to him herself along with a message asking for his help.
"I'm not sure if this is a legit magical problem, so I'd like to have a talk with her face to face, or face to faceless," he said. "But there's a problem with that. She's holed up in her room, and I can't exactly waltz into the girls dorm building."
That was where Lily and Viv came in. As girls, they would have no trouble visiting Melody at her dorm room and get the full story from her. They made their way straight over after getting the room number from Oliver.
Up the elevator, they went until reaching the fifth floor. Melody's room was the last one at right-side hallway. Lily was admittedly nervous walking down the hall of a floor reserved for older students. But she tried not to let it show while she and Viv passed by some of those same older students.
The older girls, however, paid the younger pair no mind and just chatted with one another about some upcoming school event.
"Okay, we're here," said Lily, looking up at the small bronze plaque on the door. "Room 521. You want to do the honors?"
"No thanks," said Viv. "You can do it. You're the one with the magic bracelet, after all."
Lily gave Viv a frown, but then shrugged away her misgivings and raised her knuckles to the door.
Knock knock knock!
From behind the door, a girl's muffled voice called out, "Who is it?"
Lily replied back, "I'm Lily! I'm with my roommate, Viv. We're here because Oliver wanted us to talk to you. He said something about a . . . special problem?"
There was silence. And then a second voice softly mumbled, "How much do you know?"
Lily could barely hear her, but answered in a lower voice, "Oliver showed us the picture."
A short couple of seconds later, there was a loud snap from a lock bolt and the door cracked open just enough for a single brown eye to peek out. The eye rolled up and down, clearly sizing up Room 521's two visitors.
"You two are Oliver's sidekicks?" asked the owner of that eye.
Lily and Viv exchanged looks. "His . . . sidekicks?"
"Yeah," said the owner of the eye peeking out the door. "Oliver said he got himself some sidekicks, kinda like how Sherlock Holmes got those street kids to help him out now and then. The Baker Street Something or Other."
"Since when are we his sidekicks?" Viv hissed into Lily's ears.
Starting to get suspicious, the owner of the eye demanded to know, "Are you here to help Melody or not?"
Lily quickly answered, "We are, we are!"
"Then get in here!"
The owner of the eye threw open the door and snatched Lily and Viv by their wrists. Before they could react, the pair were yanked inside and they stumbled to the middle of the room, coming face-to-face with the faceless girl who sat on the right side bed.
Although Lily had already seen the girl's picture with her lack of face before coming, it was still shocking to see in person and she couldn't help but stare. She was snapped out of her stupor by the sound of the door being bolt-locked behind her.
Hesitant, Lily asked the faceless girl, "A-are you . . . Melody?"
The faceless girl nodded. "Yes, I am."
Astonished, Viv cried out, "You can talk!? How?"
Melody shrugged. "Don't ask me. I can see, talk, smell, and even eat just fine. I don't know how that works when my eyes, nose and mouth are gone."
"About that," said Lily, "how did that happen? We heard a little bit of the story from Oliver, but would it be okay if you gave us all the details yourself? As much as you can remember is fine."
Melody fell silent and shuddered. She turned her faceless face to the girl standing at the door, as if to ask for permission. The girl at the door, Melody's roommate by Lily's guess, nodded back.
After a sharp breath in, Melody said, "Alright. Here's how it went."
And then she began to recount her story.
**********
FROM THE CASE FILES OF GREAT DETECTIVE OLIVER:
EYEWITNESS REPORT, BY LILY WONG
WITNESS/VICTIM: MELODY MEADOWS
It happened just the day before yesterday, in the late afternoon after the library was closed. It was just me and the other library helpers doing final clean-up and shelf-sorting. The librarians had already gone to a meeting and trusted us to lock up everything when we were done. I was assigned to put returned books back on their shelves at the non-fiction section.
The library's a very big place and there are so few of us, so us library helpers were usually spread pretty far apart. I was pretty much alone, pushing a steel wagon full of books around a maze of bookshelves.
As you'd expect, it was pretty quiet, except for the squeaking sounds the wagon's wheels made. My footsteps were completely muffled by the old, charcoal-colored carpeting. And although the library still got plenty of sunlight through the windows, I was deep at the center and got nothing but cold ceiling lighting which can be unpleasant sometimes.
Still, I took my time like always, putting books back where they belong by order of the Dewey Decimal System. As I was crossing from one section to another (I believe I was between the plants section and the animals section), I noticed a book lying on the ground.
The book was clearly someone's personal journal because there was no title on the jungle-green leather binding and cover, and there were no labels that showed it belonged to the library. It was around eight by eleven inches in size, and a brighter green ribbon attached sticking out of the pages. Oh! And speaking of the pages, I noticed the edges were pretty yellow, so I'd say the book was at least a couple of years old, maybe even more than ten years old.
Now, finding lost stuff in the library was nothing new to me. So it was hardly weird for me to find a random journal lying on the floor. I figured someone must have accidentally dropped it without knowing it, and went over to pick it up.
After giving the book a look over to see if there was a name anywhere, I flipped open the cover and then - BAM! The blasted thing flew at me and latched onto my face like some alien parasite.
Needless to say, I screamed bloody murder. The others heard me freaking out and ran over to see what was wrong. I think at first, they thought I was playing around. But as I struggled to pull the book off my face, I ran into a bookshelf, made the book wagon tip over when I bumped into it, and then banged my face and the book against the floor. And I did it over, and over, and over, and over, and -
What's that? You get the picture already and you want me to just move on already? Okay.
Well, the other library helpers soon realized that something really was wrong and tried to help pull the book off. While some of them held onto me, the others pulled on the book.
It hurt, a lot, having others play Tug-of-War with my head. I was afraid it'd get torn off my neck. Thankfully, it never came to that. But, after one final pull that finally got the book off, me and the others went tumbling down to the floor. And then, when we all sat up, George and Alejandro, two boys a year older than me and my fellow library helpers, got a look at me and screamed.
I didn't know what got them so freaked out, but it had me worried. Others also saw my face and screamed.
"What is it?" I shouted. "What's wrong?"
The others pointed at me and babbled, "Your face! Your face!"
"My face? What about my face?" I asked.
Alejandro answered, "It's just . . . gone!"
"Gone? What do you mean gone?" I didn't understand what they were going on about and thought they had gone crazy.
But then, Erin, another library helper, pulled out her phone, put the camera on Selfie mode and showed me - well, you've already seen for yourself.
"My face!" I cried out. "What happened to my face? IT'S GONE!"
I thought it was some kind of sick joke, a trick feature of the camera's. I wanted it to be some kind of joke. But when I touched the area where my nose and mouth would be, all I felt was smooth skin. My face really was gone.
When I realized that, I freaked out.
"Where did it go? Where did my face go?" I screamed.
I reached out, grabbed the shoulders of whoever was close by and shook them around, demanding to know where my face was. Everyone got scared and ran away from me.
But then one boy, I think Alejandro again, cried out, "The book! It must be the book!"
We all realized that the book must be to blame and quickly looked around in search of it. Hassan, the last of us library helpers, found it first.
"Over there!" he shouted, pointing to the floor near the technology section.
I turned around and saw the book lying open. And on one of the exposed pages was -
"My face!"
My eyes, (the one on the book) flew open and my face (again, the one on the book) let out a bloodcurdling scream. It was like something straight out of a horror movie.
We all screamed and jumped back as the book floated up to the ceiling like a balloon. And then the book swooped over our heads like a vampire bat, went into the autobiography section and disappeared.
We ran after it, of course. But it was too late. The book was nowhere to be found.
**********
"We searched the library top to bottom, over and over again," said Melody. "But we could not find it again. Finally, around five minutes before lockdown, we gave up. Erin called Naomi -" She nodded to her roommate. "- and together, they snuck me back into the girl's dorms. I've been stuck here ever since."
Lily listened to the faceless girl's story intently, jotting down every little detail she could in a notebook she had brought with her. When Melody was done, Lily closed the notebook shut and looked up.
That's when Melody clasped her hands together and asked, "Say, Oliver'll find that book, won't he? And get back my face? I'm not going to be stuck like this for the rest of my life, will I?"
Although she no longer had a face, Melody was clearly scared and desperate for reassurance. She sounded like she was almost going to cry, and appeared smaller and more vulnerable even though she was a couple of years older than Lily.
Lily could barely stand it and blurted out, "We'll find it! Don't worry. We'll get your face back."
And silently, she added, I promise in the name of Lady Sapphire!
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