Jade Moon (Celestial War Book 1) Read Free

was literally the worst liar in the world and it was written plain as day across her face that she was lying. She didn’t believe we were safe here at all. Maybe not anywhere.
    It scared me, partly because she was saying something terrifying, partly because I wondered if she really was totally bonkers. She didn’t look crazy. No manic glint of delusion in her eye. Was that how genuinely crazy people seemed? If they believed what they were saying, did they look perfectly rational and calm?
    “So, we fled the evil monsters and hid in Belize for ten years, now you yank me back here for a year and a half of torturous high school to hide some more? Couldn’t we have hidden in Belize just a little longer?”
    “That’s not how it works. I really am sorry we had to come, but I did mean it when I said you’d know the ropes in no time. You’ll see.” She patted my knee and went back to unpacking. She turned back, “I know your dad is proud of you, Harper.” She always said things like that, as if dad were still alive.
     

Mr. Silver’s Library
     
    I managed to avoid the mean girl, whose name turned out to be Olivia, which I’m fairly sure means bitch in some ancient language. I got a few, “Hey, how’s it going stairs-girl?” calls in the hallway, but nothing too bad.
    On the second week, I discovered the library. The glorious, cool, quiet library, where I could eat my lunch as long as I was sneaky. Where I could spend my free period between World History and Biology. Where the only adult was Mr. Silver, a slightly frumpy but generally friendly man. Every day he sat absentmindedly twisting a clunky gold ring around on his pudgy finger, wearing a baggy cardigan with leather patched elbows and a bow tie. Mr. Silver’s head looked vaguely as though it had been smushed, long and a little lumpy. Every day when I entered he said, “Good day, Miss Dae,” with a formal head bow.
    The ritual was pleasing, made me feel welcome and safe.
    On my fourth week, the library doors swooshed open and I glanced past the don’t-steal-a-book sensors to see Mr. Silver and get my greeting. Instead, Mrs. Louie, she of terrible cafeteria monitoring, sat behind the reference desk.
    “Oh, is Mr. Silver sick?” I asked.
    She pursed her lips and looked down her nose. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
    I cringed at her tone and moved off to the spot I already thought of as my corner. Designed in the heyday of labyrinthine architecture with no windows, the library spread out from a central room where four hard-plastic sofas sat in a wide square around a low table. Magazines and newspapers lined the first shelves, with books and a few dvds in rows radiating out from there. The actual shape of the library was impossible to determine. I was convinced it must look like a giant octopus from the sky, a bunch of strange little halls curved off to poorly-lit dead ends.
    My corner was at the end of one such hall where a single, faded orange chair stood proud and lonely. Begging to be sat in, the poor thing screamed seventies shag carpets and disco balls. Plopping down on squeaking vinyl, I pulled out my sandwich and quietly dug in with Murakami’s ‘The Elephant Vanishes’ in my lap. I was working my way through Murakami’s early work, loving the totally foreign Japanese stuff with some good old fashioned magical realism. 
    The book was really absorbing, which is why I didn’t hear the crying at first. Like a niggle in the back of my brain, it slowly seeped into my consciousness that there was a person making very upset sounds somewhere not far from me.
    I put down my sandwich and book, straining to hear what it was that drew me out of Murakami’s bizarre world. At first there was nothing, just a gentle whir whir from somewhere, an ac unit maybe. But there it was, a faint whimper. So soft I wasn’t sure it really happened. I froze.
    Was this how auditory hallucinations began? Maybe I was following in my mom’s footsteps and loosing my mind. But