The Secret of Zormna Clendar by Julie Steimle (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

it made sense. …And yet it was so familiar.

She scratched her scalp, trying to figure it out. All of it just hurt. The images from her dream dragged up shards of memories that cut her consciousness, leaving nothing but pain. Something about an apple. Something called Snow White. Zormna’s head throbbed against the sides of her skull now, making it impossible to think. Peculiar. Everything else was a blur.

Overwhelmed by the pain in her skull, Zormna gazed up at the tiny window where she could just barely see the moon. It was just a crack among the speckle of stars. The stars were bright.

Zormna wished she was out there.

Eventually her eye lids closed, too heavy, too tired, too worn to think. She nodded again into turbulent sleep, the weight of her exhaustion taking her through to the morning.

*

Jennifer got out of bed earlier than usual. The sun was not even up. Her anxiety did not allow her to sleep in, especially with that surge of guilt for not taking over the guard at the door as Todd had done. Besides, she had a lot of questions to ask Zormna.

Her parents had turned in at around ten pm. Though before they went into their room, their father had gazed down on Todd with a frown and said with an unhappy grunt, “We’re not going to attack her, if that’s what you think.” But Todd had watched their door for an extra two hours just to make certain they were not waiting for him to leave—especially given that Zormna had not gotten out of bed at all since she had been found.

When Jennifer opened the attic room door that morning, she discovered Zormna lying in the same position she had fallen asleep in, still dressed in her filthy clothes as if she had died the moment she and Kevin had set her down. Only Zormna’s slow breathing was proof she was alive.

Standing over the blonde, Jennifer said with exasperation, “Zormna, you have to get up. I can’t leave you at home, and I have school.”

Zormna rolled over, moaning.

“You’re not planning on staying here, alone, are you?”

Zormna’s eyes opened. She moaned again, clutching her head as she sat up with the same difficulty she had the day before. “I would stay home, but your parents would kill me. My head hurts.”

Huffing, Jennifer reached out her hand to help Zormna to her feet.

Zormna took her arm. She braced herself then staggered. Yet she let go of Jennifer and wobbled across the room to the chest of drawers, pulling out a set of clothes. That’s when Jennifer realized that almost everything had been put back. It took her a moment to add up who did it. Again Todd had thought of something she hadn’t.

“Zormna, I need you to be straight with me,” Jennifer finally mustered. “My parents said some things about you that I don’t quite…” She shook her head. “I need to know the truth.”

Zormna halted with her bathrobe in her hands. She looked up. Her green eyes remained full of distress. Yet the blonde nodded and stumbled back to the bed as if she did not want to put any pressure on her feet. “I suppose it is fair. They want you not to be angry with them. And I don’t want to die. Admittedly, I am curious about their point of view of things. It might even answer why they want me dead.”

Jennifer raised her eyebrows. “They don’t want you dead. At least as far as I know. They’re not like that.”

“I am sorry,” Zormna bowed her head in apology, still groggy. “I meant they as in the ominous They—the High Class. The class your parents are from.”

“Class?” Jennifer leaned back. “What do you mean class?”

Zormna blinked at her. “Our society is a caste system, Jennifer. They didn’t explain it?”

Jennifer weakly shook her head.

Sighing with unhidden disgust, Zormna stared at the ceiling. “What exactly did they tell you?”

Looking at the blonde, Jennifer decided to spill it all out as plainly as possible. “That you—Tarrns—are dangerous because of some kind of prophecy about the end of the world. They said that the last of your family is supposed to bring about the apocalypse. Do you know anything about that?”

But Zormna stared as if she had been slapped with a wet fish, still bleary-eyed. “Uh…. No. I… They really believe that?”

Jennifer nodded.

Clenching her forehead, Zormna groaned.

“They said they left Home,” Jennifer explained with air quotes, “to avoid that apocalypse—like before Todd was born. Though it was supposed to happen fifteen years ago. Or so they say.”

“Fifteen years ago?” Zormna looked incredulous, groggily doing the math in her head. “Before I was born?”

Jennifer shrugged. Their story was sounding more and more dubious. Maybe they had believed it, but they were wrong.

Zormna scratched her head again as she thought on it. She shook her head wearily. “Well, I’ve never heard of it.”

Jennifer frowned, slumping her shoulders. It probably had been another lie. Yet she peered at Zormna and asked, “Then why do you think they hate you?”

Shrugging, Zormna replied, trying to keep her eyes open, “I don’t know. I don’t know what stories go among the High Class. They aren’t my caste, and I never really associated with them.”

A thought came to Jennifer. “You think you’re above them?”

Zormna blinked at her, waking. “No. Quite the reverse. They believe they are above the rest of us.”

And Jennifer stared.

“I told you, ours is a caste system,” Zormna explained with a gentle yawn. “And your parents are members of the highest cast—called the High Class. Basically, they are aristocrats.”

Jennifer stared even more, her eyes widening. “No way.”

Zormna nodded matter-of-factly. “Descendants of ancient lords and ladies, ten thousand years back.”

“Several millennia of uninterrupted peace…” Jennifer murmured, repeating her mother’s words.

“What’s that?” Zormna cocked her head to the side, swaying.

Jennifer shrugged. “What my mom said. ‘Several millennia of uninterrupted peace.’”

But Zormna laughed. It was not a happy laugh, but a mocking, tired laugh. “That’s what she said?”

Jennifer nodded, nonplussed.

Shaking her head, Zormna exhaled heavily. “Of course. That is how they would see it.”

“What do you mean?” Jennifer almost growled.

Shrugging, Zormna replied, “That’s their point of view of the events. The view from the top of the heap. Not unlike a Nazi watching Germany embrace its murderous rhetoric.”

“Are you calling my mother a Nazi?” Jennifer advanced, her fingers curling into a fist.

But Zormna immediately raised her hands in surrender. “No! No. Bad analogy. Sorry. I meant to say the regime that rules my…people is like a Nazi regime—at least what I understand about the Nazis. The government is totalitarian. There is no social mobility due to the caste system. And, unfortunately, your parents were part of the ruling class. No one else can afford to immigrate to this place without their ample wealth.”

“What about your great aunt?” Jennifer defensively snapped.

Zormna shrugged weakly. “I believe she saved up her entire life to move here.”

Still unsatisfied, Jennifer retorted, “What about Alex and Jeff?”

Rolling her eyes, Zormna replied wearily, “They circumvented the system and stole ships.”

Jennifer blinked at her. “They what?”

“My job in the Patrol was to apprehend such fugitives and prevent illegal emigration.”

Jennifer stared more.

“That’s how I broke Jafarr’s nose,” Zormna said.

Finally. The absolute truth.

Except, Jennifer still was angry that Zormna had compared her parents to Nazis. “So what are you? An SS soldier?”

Zormna blinked—then comprehension came to her. “Oh…the analogy. No. I’m more like the Waffen SS, actually. Trapped and tricked into the military without much of a choice. The people see us as traitors.”

Jennifer stared. She got chills. “Then what are Alex and Jeff?”

Chuckling with a sigh, Zormna said, “Rebels.”

She then grabbed her bathrobe on her way out the door. Jennifer watched the blonde painfully limp her way to the bathroom, stumbling with one hand on the wall to keep her up. Zormna’s right leg stepped lighter than the other. Jennifer followed.

Todd stood in the bathroom doorway already dressed, rubbing his head with a towel. His eyes widened in a stare when Zormna attempted to squeeze past him.

“Hey! Hey! Are you all right? Where were you? Where did you go?”

Zormna met his gaze, then glanced back to Jennifer who shook her head ever-so-slightly to indicate that Todd did not know a thing about where her family had come from and she did not want him to.

“I hope you do not mind,” Zormna gave an apologetic and rather humble-for-her peek at both Jennifer and Todd before closing the door. “But I might be a little slow today.”

Todd grimaced, listening to the lock click into place. Then he turned to Jennifer. “Did she say what happened to her yet?”

Jennifer shook her head, realizing that she had not even asked. Her mind was still on the whole Tarrn family bringing about the apocalypse and her parents possibly being alien Nazis.

“No. All she does is complain of a headache.”

Her brother cringed. “A headache, huh? I think that’s the same thing the crazy woman claimed a few days before she died.”

Nasty shivers ran through Jennifer. But it confirmed what she had feared. Zormna had been picked up by the FBI.

“We have to guard her,” Todd murmured. “Because right now she looks barely human.”

And he went back to his room.

“Hah…” Jennifer weakly laughed. The irony.

Jennifer stood at the side of the bathroom door feeling wretched. There was no way she could tell Todd the truth about what was going on. He would not believe it, even if he deserved to know.

As for Zormna, their conversation was not over. Zormna had purposely escaped to the bathroom to avoid all the questions Jennifer had about the Streigle brothers.

“Jennifer.”

Jennifer jumped, startled from her thoughts.

Zormna had peeked her sopping head out of the bathroom. “Could you get the first aid kit? I need a couple of bandages.”

Bandages? Jennifer tried to see what for, but Zormna had concealed herself behind the door.

“Please?” Zormna begged.

Finally nodding, Jennifer immediately ran down the stairs to the kitchen. Her mother was down fixing breakfast for her father. But Jennifer just ignored them as she opened the cupboard under the kitchen sink to get the kit. She grabbed it from behind the bottles of bleach and dishwashing detergent. Jennifer dashed back up the stairs to hand it through the bathroom door.

“Thanks,” Zormna said and slipped back inside.

Jennifer stared at the closed door once again, this time wondering what Zormna needed the first aid kit for. And when that thought settled into her brain, shame washed over her. Setting a hand to her head, Jennifer felt surprised at herself. She had the gall to interrogate a girl who had probably gone through hell for three days.

After several minutes, the door opened just wide enough for Zormna to come out. She had wrapped her bathrobe tightly around her body and stepped back into the hall as one instinctively sneaking to somewhere safe. The girl carefully placed her feet on the carpet in a way that would not disturb anyone in the house. Both feet were wrapped in bandages. And Zormna’s right leg also had a large bandage taped to it. The day before, she had attributed Zormna’s inability to hold herself up to just being exhausted. Possibly even stoned. But this girl had real war wounds. What had the FBI done to her?

Quickly, Jennifer peered into the bathroom. The neat freak had left it orderly as always, but a large, discarded, bloody bandage lay in the wastebasket along with balled up and bloody toilet paper wads.

Jennifer about fainted against the sink. So much blood. No wonder Zormna was weak. Jennifer peered back out into the hall. Zormna had already reached her room. The door was closed.

Immediately Jennifer hurried to the attic, bursting in to see what really happened.

Zormna staggered from the door, struggling with her pants.

“Don’t do that!” Zormna cried out, catching her breath. She pulled her jeans carefully up so she would not disturb the bandage on her leg, fastening the button.

“What happened to you? Why are you bleeding?’ Jennifer pointed at Zormna’s leg.

Zormna sat down on the