Maria slams the door shut as she taps the end call button and tosses her phone onto her bed. After all she's seen and learnt in the last few weeks, it's ridiculous that her mum can still affect her like this.
She's been planning this lunch with her dad since the start of term, but apparently Chrissy Jackson decided today is the perfect time for a visit.
Maria loves her mum, but she'd been hoping for a relaxed catch up with her dad, not a front row seat to the Arguing Divorced Parents With A Side of Frosty Silences Show. She loves both of her parents, but she's trying to be more realistic about her expectations for them and accept the fact that there's just no way to have a relaxed outing with both parents at once.
After her mum walked out on them, Maria had to rebuild her life and expectations from the ground up. She's spent months relearning how to relate to her dad with their new dynamic, and every time she thinks she's got a handle on it, Hurricane Chrissy comes through and upsets her shaky foundations.
It's like she doesn't even care, Maria thinks as she lies face down on her bed. Her mum never thinks about the consequences for Maria and Alan before just inviting herself back into their life whenever she feels like it. Sometimes she even brings Ivan, the man she left them for. Her apparent callousness doesn't exactly endear her to Alan, which means every time she comes to visit, Alan gets shitty too.
Maria loves her dad, but she can't help but resent him a little as well. He pretends that her mum's visits don't bother him even when they clearly do and he refuses to admit it, even to Maria.
It's frustrating, to say the least. Maria had hoped being away at boarding school might help, but not if both her parents are going to insist on visiting her at the same time.
Disrupting her downward spiral of emotions, the door to the secret room slides open and Sarah Jane walks through in a flurry of motion, Luke following close behind.
"Maria!" Sarah Jane exclaims. "I thought you'd be out- aren't you meeting your dad for lunch… now?" She shoots a confused look at her watch, apparently wondering if it's deceiving her.
Maria tries to smile. "Yeah, I guess so. Mum's back though, and she wants to come."
Sarah Jane pauses and properly looks at Maria for the first time. She turns to Luke.
"Luke, could you go ahead? I'll meet you in the car."
The fact that he goes almost immediately is a testament to how far he's come in understanding delicate social situations. As the door swings shut behind him, Sarah Jane puts her bag down and sits down next to Maria, putting an arm around her. Maria has explained her parents to Sarah Jane. They sit together for a minute, Maria drawing comfort from Sarah Jane's quiet compassion.
"I just don't get why she thinks she can just swan back into our lives like nothing ever happened."
Sarah Jane is quiet for a moment. Maria recognises it as the 'letting Maria talk if she needs to' silence. But Maria doesn't want to keep complaining about her parents, and too much sympathy makes her squirm a little, so they just sit in companionable silence for a bit.
After a couple of minutes, Sarah Jane pulls back a bit and looks at her.
"I don't know if it helps, but Luke and I are off to the Lavender Lawns Retirement Home. We were there earlier investigating some ghost sightings, and one of the residents gave him some sort of alien artefact that I'd like to know more about. Mr Smith is scanning it, but I want to know what Mrs Nelson-Stanley knows."
At that, Maria straightens up, surreptitiously wiping at her eyes. A new alien mystery sounds like a great way to get her mind off her parents. Besides, her not showing up to their stupid lunch would certainly make a point, wouldn't it?
"Investigating sounds great. In fact,"
She grabs her phone and switches it off, tucking it into her pocket as an afterthought.
"Let's go now."
"What about lunch with your parents-"
But Maria is already standing to leave. "Let's go!"
Sarah Jane can never resist a story for long, and she lets Maria drag her to the car.
On the ride over, Sarah Jane explains the reasons for the trip.
"Apparently there's been four accounts now of Lavender Lawns retirement home residents seeing a nun haunting them. Luke and I went to investigate and-"
"I thought you didn't believe in ghosts?"
"Of course ghosts aren't real. But I've seen a few situations where aliens were pretending to be creatures from Earth mythology. Like the Loch Ness monster."
Maria blinks. "The... Loch Ness monster?"
"Yep. Turns out Nessie was an alien built by body snatching aliens called Zygons."
"... Isn't that a Scooby Doo episode?"
"Oh, is Scooby Doo still around? I remember watching that in the 60's."
Sarah Jane says it so casually that Maria almost misses it. Almost. Sometimes she forgets that Sarah Jane hasn't always lived in the 21st Century. They're almost the same age, but they've lived such different lives. Sarah Jane, apparently sensing Maria's eyes on her, turns her gaze from the road long enough to give Maria an understanding smile.
For the rest of the trip they speculate idly about what could possibly be going on at this retirement home. Maria throws herself into the conversation, trying to distract herself from her stupid parent drama.
"But why can't they look after themselves? They're all adults, aren't they?" Luke's face is a study in confusion. It's times like this Maria remembers that, in spite of his formidable intelligence he's really very young. Far younger even than he looks.
Sarah Jane doesn't respond immediately. When Maria looks, her hands are gripping the steering wheel tightly and her lips are pressed together. Her gaze is focused on the road ahead, and her eyes have a small sheen to them. Clearly Luke hit a nerve with his innocent question.
Maria jumps in when it's clear Sarah Jane isn't going to.
"Sometimes as people get older they have trouble doing things for themselves. Sometimes they get sick, or they have an injury, or they start to get a bit confused and forget things easily."
"Oh," Luke is clearly connecting the dots. "Like Mrs Nelson Stanley? She didn't understand when I said who I was."
"She has dementia, Luke. It's a kind of illness of the mind, where your mind slowly stops working- its common in older people, and they lose their old memories and eventually have trouble functioning. She gets confused easily and probably doesn't know where she is or who you are. She might have thought you were someone else."
Sarah Jane speaks in a monotone, and Maria notices that her expression is still carefully blank. Luckily, her explanation seems to have satisfied Luke's curiosity for now, but Maria resolves to bring it up later. There was definitely some personal grief behind that clinical explanation.
She focuses on Sarah Jane for the rest of the drive, running interference every time Luke asks a question. It's not until much later that she realises she didn't think about her parents once for the entire drive over.
Bea is a nice old woman. At first her conversation just seems like rambling, but Maria's been around Sarah Jane long enough to recognise the name Sontaran when she hears it.
But keeping Bea on one topic, even if that topic is aliens, is next to impossible. She says something about a Gorgon, which Maria vaguely remembers as some sort of Greek myth. Finally Bea has a moment of clarity-
"You mustn't let them have it."
The girls exchange frustrated looks. They're trying to piece together the puzzle, but Bea is too confused to give them all the pieces.
Sarah Jane sits down next to the old woman, putting a hand out for her to focus on. She speaks so softly that Maria can hardly hear what she's saying. "Let who have them, Bea?"
Bea seems to focus after a moment, and her expression as she looks up at them makes Maria's blood run cold.
"The nuns."
They don't stay much longer after that ominous declaration. Even Luke is silent as they pile back into the car. Bea hadn't been able to give them much more information, but Sarah Jane knew the nearest Abbey- St Agnes Abbey.
The woman who answers the door at the Abbey is brusque and standoffish. Aren't nuns supposed to be nice? Her arms are crossed and she sneers as she examines the (impressively well made) fake school ID cards MAria and Sarah Jane present to her.
"I suppose you also want to write about the ghost story. You're not the first person we've had here, but you're probably the youngest so far."
Sarah Jane laughs lightly, brushing off the clear snub. "No, I don't believe in ghosts. I'm learning to be a journalist; I just want to tell a good story. I have a blog where I put my finished stories; sort of like a portfolio of my writing. My friend Rose here-" She pats Maria's shoulder "Wants to be a writer too. And this is my little brother John. Our parents asked me to bring him because he's really interested in history." This last said in a conspiratorial, grown ups talking kind of voice, with just the right amount of teenage annoyance at being followed by her kid brother.
The nun doesn't seem impressed, but she nods brusquely and lets them in anyway. Maria quickly loses track of where they are in the maze of hallways.
"I've started a blog so it can be a kind of portfolio of my writing for when I apply for jobs as an investigative reporter," Sarah Jane keeps up a steady stream of one sided chatter the whole way through the convent. "It's really the only way to get a foot in the publishing door nowadays without one, and-"
Maria's confidence in her friends' ability to talk her way into or out of any situation wanes slightly as the lock turns behind the nun who led them into the library.
"Well." She says brightly. "That went well."
Sarah Jane crinkles her nose in agreement. "So much for fake ID."
The three make eye contact and laugh. After exploring the room and finding no easy exits, they sit and talk quietly.
"So the blog thing isn't just a cover?"
Sarah Jane puts down the book she's flicking through and eyes Maria incredulously. "Maria, I've always wanted to be a journalist. Dealing with aliens was never my first career choice."
She picks the book back up and gives Maria the side-eye. "Having said that, it's insane how many unexplained things are actually just aliens."
Sarah Jane seems better now than she was in the car. As always, she's in her element when in pursuit of a story- but Maria isn't super convinced by her 'everything's fine' facade. Her smile is a little too bright. It reminds Maria of when her grandma was in the hospital. She had been young enough to notice that her parents were unusually bright and bubbly during their hospital visit, but it still wasn't quite enough to hide the strain. Not even from her, Maria, who was eight years old at the time.
Since their trip to the nursing home and conversation with Bea, Sarah Jane's been quieter than usual. She's been maintaining a calm front of single-minded dedication to their meeting, but there's still something off about her mannerisms. She seems to be just a little on edge.
After what seems like a couple of hours, Sister Helena comes back. She wheels a statue into the room; it should look silly, a nun wheeling a random statue on a little cart, but something about the statue sends a chill up Maria's spine. She looks at the statue and remembers the Gorgon myth- Medusa turned people to stone with one look.
Sister Helena smiles at the look on Maria's face. Clearly the nuns are done playing around. Sister Helena sits down with them, all but ignoring the statue she'd brought in. Her complete disregard for what had clearly been a person until recently makes Maria's skin crawl.
Sarah Jane and Sister Helena do most of the talking as Maria and Luke sit back and watch. Maria's met a few aliens by now, some of them even sympathetic to humans. But she's not convinced by the sob story about the last Gorgon, and she's not sure Sarah Jane is either. Still- Sister Helena wants the amulet, and it's obvious she's not going to take no for an answer. What's more, they're not really in any position to say no; maybe if they play along they'll have an advantage. Or at least, that's what she assumes Sarah Jane is aiming for.
"We'll keep Luke here as insurance. No harm will come to him, as long as you do as we've asked."
The hearse with the Gorgon leaves first so that Sarah Jane and Maria don't have time to set up any traps at the school before they arrive.
Maria isn't happy about leaving Luke on his own, and she can tell Sarah Jane isn't either, but she's reasonably sure Sister Helena will keep her word. Their best chance of getting Luke back is to go along with them for now.
Even so, Sarah Jane's knuckles on the steering wheel are white and her lips are pressed firmly together for the drive back to the school. Neither girl initiates conversation for the drive back, and you could cut the tension with a knife. Maria's mind is racing with ideas of how to save Luke, but she's not thinking clearly enough. She just hopes that Sarah Jane has more of a plan.
The nuns pull up first, parking just inside the gate. Maria is so focused on the Gorgon she almost doesn't see her dad standing next to reception, waiting for her. In a flash she remembers the happy family lunch she's missing. Why didn't he call- Oh. Right. Maria pulls her phone out of her pocket to be greeted by a blank screen. In hindsight, leaving it turned off was a bad idea.
"Maria-" But he's interrupted by the Gorgon, striking as fast as the snakes she's known for. The Gorgon hisses and lights shine, and Alan Jackson turns into a statue.
"Dad!"
Author note-
Sorry this chapter is so late! 2020 is uhh not the best year, you guys may have noticed. Hope you like this chapter :). I'm hoping to have something of an update schedule reestablished soonish.