Chapter Nine: Not Just Some Freak Prank
"It's funny when something you love goes missing. You don't necessarily realize that it's missing until you need it." -Anonymous
The Anubis kids were all together at dinner and there was a certain calm among all of them that hadn't been around in quite a while. Nina felt very relaxed as she talked with Fabian. Laughter filled the air and the students were truly enjoying themselves. KT was talking with Alfie, Eddie and Jerome and Joy and Patricia were talking while Willow was sitting next to Alfie listening to his conversation and Nina and Fabian were in their own little world. Dinner was soon over and Nina pulled Eddie aside as Willow, Joy, and Patricia went upstairs.
"Eddie," Nina started slowly since she didn't want to offend Eddie, "do you think that Patricia's right?"
Eddie scratched his head and started, "Well," he sighed, "I think that, with everything that's happened, we can't ever be too safe. I mean, I think it's best to be on our toes even if it turns out not to be true."
Nina laughed, "Eddie, that didn't really answer my question."
"I think that after everything, it's hard to believe that Victor would do anything too drastic, but you never know." He smiled at Nina and turned to leave.
"I'm surprised, Eddie," Nina said as Eddie turned around to question why she was surprised. "I thought that, with all of this, you wouldn't let Patricia out of your sight."
He laughed and said, "Everyone needs space." Nina went up to go to her room to get a jacket because she and Fabian were going for a walk and Eddie followed behind her. They were talking about little things: this and that, etc. Nina grabbed her jacket and Eddie stood next to the door talking. She shut her cabinet door and she walked out of the room.
Nina poked her head into Joy and Willow's room to tell them goodbye. She opened the door and looked inside. Joy and Willow were both slumped over into an awkward position and seemed to be sleeping. Patricia was not in the room even though she had gone up with Joy and Willow. Nina walked over to Joy and Eddie to Willow. They shook the girls until they woke up.
They looked around with really confused expressions on their face and Eddie asked, "What happened to you guys?"
"Well," Joy started, "we were all up here talking and we had opened the window because it was really stuffy up here. We were talking about some homework and it was like this mist just spread over us. We shut the window, but the mist just grew thicker and thicker. All I remember is sitting on the floor because we were getting really sleepy and then you guys waking us up just now."
Nina asked, "If we were the first ones in this room and we woke you up, then where's Patricia?"
Willow and Joy both stood up and looked around; they shrugged. "I know that she was in here when it happened," Willow said.
"Maybe she woke up before us and was disoriented," Joy said. "She could have walked off somewhere.
"Let's go look for her," Eddie said directing the comment to Nina.
"We're helping too," Joy said while pointing to herself and Willow. "She's our friend too." Eddie went downstairs to grab his jacket and Joy, Willow and Nina were soon downstairs. Eddie recruited Alfie and KT to help them look and Nina got Fabian while Jerome followed Joy. The whole Anubis gang was out looking for Patricia.
Nina and Fabian checked the house as Eddie and Joy checked inside the school. Willow and Jerome checked around the grounds and Alfie and KT went to all of the secret Sibuna places.
"I hope everything's okay," Fabian said. They were silent for a moment when Fabian finally said what he'd been thinking for a while, "This is Sibuna related, right?" It had come out a question, but it really wasn't. Nina nodded anyway.
"So it was like this random fog?" KT asked Alfie as they looked in the crypt.
"That's what Willow told me," Alfie responded. Normally, he'd be afraid of the crypt but the need to find his friend was bigger than his fear for the crypt.
"I don't get how goth girl could just wonder off and suddenly the whole house gets involved," Jerome said. "She's probably just hiding from Eddie." Willow rolled her eyes, but didn't respond. He didn't know about the whole situation, but if he did, he'd probably be more worried than he appeared to be.
"Don't worry, Eddie. We'll find her," Joy said. "She probably doesn't even realize what happened. She couldn't have gotten far."
Eddie hoped that joy was right, but there was a part deep inside of him that knew that this was bigger than anything Joy thought it was. This wasn't some freak prank that got out of hand, this was a Sibuna thing.
It was almost ten o'clock when all of the students returned back to Anubis House. No one had found Patricia. The fact of the matter was that the Knowledgeable One, the only person in the world who knew everything, was missing.
