A man in a red Hawaiian shirt leaned on a dune-top deck, looking down on the ocean. His hair was receding on the sides, and he had a clefted chin.
“Before we go talk to him, I must warn you that the professor is true Galvantry.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t think you know what that means.” Greer stopped talking and weighed his words out carefully before saying them. “He has a vendetta against the Merrics, so let me do most of the talking.”
“I shouldn’t come then.”
“You’ll be fine.”
The professor didn’t acknowledge us until we were practically at his stairs.
“Professor.”
“Hello there.” The professor stood up straight, his thin hair picking up in the breeze off the ocean. “What brings you to the beach today, Mr.—?”
“Let’s avoid names for the moment,” Greer interrupted and jerked his head in my direction.
“Whatever you’d like. Greer it is,” he said.
It was only the three of us in earshot, and Greer had signaled toward me. I had always assumed Greer was his last name. Now I wasn’t entirely sure if Greer was his name at all. The professor knew his name; it was me who was in the dark. Greer didn’t want me to know his name, and my heart deflated into mush. Perhaps it was Andrew or Christopher? Elsa called him Greer, but she said, ‘My Greer’. So he didn’t trust me with something as common as a name.
As crushed as I was, I had to recover fast. I needed to stay on task and find out what I could about the necklace, the words, and the fortune teller.
The professor stared at me and said in a stern, precise voice, “So we are clear, I recognize your guest.”
“I knew you would,” Greer said. “I was wondering if we could speak.”
“I doubt I can say no. My fiancé will be home soon, and she does not know about my proclivity towards usurpation, so we’ll need to be quick.”
“We’re in a hurry too,” I said.
“You better be.” The professor signaled us to follow him.
The professor led us up three flights of outdoor steps. I assumed he was taking us to his bedroom or study, so I was surprised to see the living room and kitchen upstairs in this house.
“Having a Merric in my house,” the man said in disgust.
“I’m not a Merric.” This guy already hated me because of a fake family I hated too.
He took a better look at my eyes. “The truth is plain for anyone who wishes to see it, and those contacts aren’t covering much.”
I should have let it go, but this guy was making assumptions about me based on the Merrics. I was sure the Merrics had wronged him, but people shouldn’t make assumptions about others based on family or wealth or looks. Besides, I had just arrived on the scene and I had no intentions of ever going back to the Merrics.
“My name is Waverly Wilson, not Merric. My parents are teachers, not royals. My grandmother is sick. We live in a small farmhouse in a different world. The Merric’s gave nothing to us except a little money to help with Grandma’s care.”
“I’m sure the fine citizens of America would like to know they are paying for the witch Helena’s medical care.”
“Witch? That’s my grandma! You don’t know her or me, and yet you stand here already hating me and not giving me a chance.”
“Spoken like a spoiled teenager who has no comprehension of the consequences of action. The Merrics steal everything they have from anyone they see fit. I don’t know why you brought the enemy to my house, young Greer, but I can tell you she is not welcome.”
We were getting nowhere with this guy, and with as much as he hated the Merrics I doubted he would tell me anything. “Fine, I’ll wait out on the beach.” As I walked towards the door, I saw three orbed shadows at the man’s feet.
Greer placed his hand on my shoulder. “Please, Waverly, we need him.”
The professor spit out the words. “Help a Merric? Are you mad? I’d rather a bullet right here in the heart. It’s dead anyway.”
“I know how you feel about the Merrics,” Greer said.
“Same as you, I thought.”
“But Waverly is different. She has something to offer you that you’ve always wanted.”
“She can bring back the dead, can she? Well, let me start with my daughter.”
His hatred of me was making more sense. The shadows circled faster and faster, looping up the walls, onto picture frames and paintings and then back to his feet.
“We’re wasting time.” Greer pulled the ring and necklace from his pocket and forced them into the professor’s hand. “Here.”
“What is this?”
“Helena’s ring and Lothaire’s necklace.”
“If you are trying to buy me off, I don’t care for jewels.”
“The night that Helena’s anchor died, a fortune teller visited Helena and foretold of Waverly’s arrival in this world. She told Helena that Waverly would find a cure to the Tennabris.”
“A woman foretold?” The professor sat down in shock. “Pythia? She’s alive?”
Greer nodded. “She’s more than alive, and she’s trying to get the next prophecies to Waverly. Now can we make peace and discuss this?”
We sat down and started a condensed version of a long story of my mission to find the necklace and the cure for Grandma.
Chapter 34
Find the Necklace
“So Helena took the ring to her world and Lothaire kept the necklace.”
Greer nodded. “For whatever reason, yes.”
“Pythia hid many prophecies, and historians believed they found them all but no. That woman who spoke with your grandmother, she was no mere fortune teller but Pythia. The prophet.” The professor unfolded a pair of glasses from his pocket.
Greer sat on the couch across from the professor. “It’s rumored that she predicted the end of the world.”
“June 12th 15,082 will be a boiling day indeed,” the professor added.
I rolled my eyes. I’d heard about the end of the world multiple times before. “Yeah, right! Psychics have predicted the end of our world in 1999, 2012, 2020 and guess what,
