Monday morning Pogue, Reid and Tyler all met up with Caleb in biology class. He had skipped the swim meet, complaining of a bad cold, and had grudgingly shown up to school, simply to catch up with whatever he had missed. He was looking run down and in a particularly foul mood when class started.

"'Morning." Maddie said as she slid by the foursome into her usual seat, seconds before the teacher entered and class started. Tyler looked back at her while the teacher was blabbering and grinned. She looked at him curiously and smiled back eventually.

"Mr Sims, care to repeat what I just said?" The teacher snapped. Tyler once again faced the teacher, and flushed as he fumbled with his words.

"Um, you were just saying how… um…"

"We have a new student joining us today." HE finished. "thank you for so kindly voulenteering to show her around for the duration of the day."

Tyler groaned and leaned back into his seat. Reid snickered and Pogue gave him a cocky I-knew-it grin.

"What?" Tyler hissed.

"You liiiike her." Reid said with a cocky grin.

"I-what?"

"Maddie. You liiike her, you wanna huuug her, you wanna kiiiiss her, you wanna loooove her, you wanna f-"

"Garwin!"

"Sorry sir."

He settled back into his seat, still smirking the awful smirk at Tyler. Tyler glared at him.

"I do not." He said.

It was a childish thing to do really. He and Reid and Pogue and probably Caleb, if he stopped sulking for a moment, all knew that he liked Maddie a lot. And he was just publicly denying that fact just like all the ten year olds at elementary schools did.

The teacher droned on for an hour about the properties of the human brain cell and when the bell rang announcing all the students groaned in relief as they started to pack up their things and rush out the door.

Tyler, intent on catching a certain someone at the exit, moved faster than usual, consequently becoming more clumsy and almost as soon as he stood and took a few steps he crashed into someone. Books fell to the floor with a thump as Tyler mentally groaned (not again!) and Reid snickered.

"I am so sorry." He said as he kneeled down and started picking up the books.

"Its ok, really. I was in a hurry, I wasn't watching where I was going." A sweet sing-song voice said. A wisp of long brown hair brushed in front of Tyler's face and he sniffed a scent of fruity perfume. A delicate, slender girl's hand brushed against his as they reached for the same book and the two hands paused for a second upon contact. Then the girl he had bumped into nervously giggled and stood.

Once Tyler had stood he could see that the girl was very beautiful. She had long straight light brown hair that fell a bit past her shoulders and large honey-coloured eyes framed by dark lashes and green eye makeup. Her skin was tanned lightly and blush coloured her cheeks.

"Again, sorry." He said, in a daze. The girl looked up at him sheepishly.

"It wasn't your fault, I was just being careless. Thanks for helping me pick up my books."

"Youre welcome, its my pleasure. I'm Tyler Sims, I don't think I've ever seen you around here before…"

"You haven't." The girl smiled sweetly and shook his hand. "My name is Clea, I just transferred in. I'm the new student the teacher was talking about."

"The one I have to show around?" he was mildly shocked, but pleased nonetheless.

"You don't have to. I'll manage by myself." Clea smiled.

"No, I'd feel really bad if I didn't. What class do you have next, I'll walk you there."

"English, and you really don't have to."

"Don't worry, it would be my pleasure to."

Clea Nischols was her name, and she had just transferred from an obscurely small school in the north of England. She was turning eighteen in a month, her favorite subject was English Creative Writing, she loved James Bond, Hercule Poirot and took her coffee black with sugar, shaken, not stirred.

Tyler found all of this out because after the Calculus class they had together they both had a free period and he asked her out for coffee and the occasion to show her around some more. She happily agreed, and the two had hit it off chatting in the small coffee show by the campus, where merely a week before Tyler had met Fae Renfield and he and the Covenant had risked total exposure.

"Youre kidding!"

"I swear on my mother's grave I'm not!"

"He actually threw up on Aaron?"

Tyler was describing to her the various people she could meet at Spencer. And to prove his point about how awful Aaron Abbott was he recalled the occasion when one of his companions threw up on him.

"He did."

"Oh my God!" Clea laughed.

He liked her laugh; it was light and musical, like a wind chime.

He grinned and took a sip of his coffee. She did the same, still laughing lightly at the tale of Aaron's most embarrassing moment.

"Anyone else I should know about?"

"Well, I've told you of Caleb, Pogue, Reid, Sarah, Kate, Aaron, Kira, Chase (he had mentioned Chase to avoid suspicion if she found out from anyone else,) Anastasia, Kieran, Maria, Jack… oh, I know. Madeline Sparrow, alias Maddie."

"What's she like?"

"Mostly a wallflower, although once you get to know her she's really nice. She has blonde hair, light grey eyes… she's one of the only girls in school that doesn't purposely shorten her skirt-"

Suddenly he felt and heard a buzzing sound coming from his coat pocket. He took out his cellphone and looked at the flashing number on the screen.

"Well speak of the devil." He said. "Sorry, this'll only take a second."

He flipped open his phone.

"Hey."

"Caleb has organized an emergency meeting of some sort after school. Were meeting in my dorm to avoid suspicion."

"Whatsit about?"

"No idea, Caleb's been in a terrible mood, he hasn't told anyone anything all day except that to me. I'm in charge of passing it around."

"Who does he think he is, some of us have lives you know."

"I know, I know. Don't shoot the messenger. Anyways, I'll see you around." And she hung up.

"What was that about?" Clea asked when Tyler had put his cellphone away.

"Long story, and it isn't anything important anyways. I'll explain sometime in the near future. Where were we?"

"A girl, Maddie… Starling?"

"Oh yeah, Maddie. And its Maddie Sparrow, different bird." He said. "Yeah, a really nice girl, if you're ever looking for a girl friend I could introduce you."

"Her name sounds familiar." Clea took a sip of her coffee while looking thoughtful. "Maddie Sparrow. Maddie Sparrow. Maddie…." Then her eyes widened in sudden recollection. "Maddie Sparrow! We were in elementary school together!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, back in MeadowBrooke… Wow that was a long time ago!" She reminisced in bliss for a few moments before a frown broke her lovely face. "I'll pass on the introduction, thanks."

"What? Why?"

"Because Madeline was a really weird kid when I knew her. And I don't want to deal with that kind of weirdness now."

"Aw come on." Tyler said playfully. "People change, don't they?"

"Maybe." Clea said nervously. "But I really hope that she changed for the best, because I have awful memories of her as a child."

Tyler leaned in closer, in a I'm-here-to-listen-and-help kind of way.

"Well, she was always sortof odd but the scary stuff started after her mum died." She looked up to make sure Tyler knew her mother had died. "She talked about the incident, cause you know, she was there, describing it in perfect detail during class time. For show and tell she brought some of her mom's ashes and put them in her hand and blew in it so they flew all across the room, and she cackled this really evil little laugh. She started drawing our classmates in weird poses with blood and death and stuff all about, and she would scream and shout and accuse people of being murderers and rapists and stuff…"

"Wow." Tyler said.

"Yeah, but the worst part is that she would lie constantly. About everything. She had this amazing imagination that she wasted telling stories of our classmates dying and everything… the story of her mom's death changed at least a dozen times, when we would discuss what we did during the weekend she would make up this elaborate lie that everyone would believe but then would be proven wrong later. She is devilishly smart, that girl, and she uses for wrong things. She can manipulate anyone into doing what she wants, and she has this innocent look that makes it even easier for her to lie and cheat and steal from everyone. Even ten years later I still don't want to get close to her because I know she will cheat and steal and hurt me without caring."

She took a final drought of coffee to regain composture and gave Tyler a sad little smile.

"Sorry for getting all emotional, but she really hurt me and my friends back in elementary school. And she's probably been playing all of you guys for suckers too."

Tyler frowned. The possibility that Maddie had been lying all along had never occurred to him.

"Not very likely." He said quietly.

"Well it could be. I'll tell you one thing she used to do in grade school, after drawing all the pictures of my dead friends. When they would scoff and blow her off she said something like 'this is going to happen wether you want it or not you know, because I was chosen to have the second sight and see beyond life into death and I know that this is the way you will all perish!' and then she would cackle."

"Second sight?"

"Yeah." Clea Nodded. "And then one day this girl Lauren said that it was a load of lies and she started describing her death in every possible detail. And Lauren started crying. Soon after that she attacked a teacher and then she started to go see that shrink and she stopped talking all together."

"Hm."

Tyler began to wonder if Maddie wasn't just pulling their leg about the second sight. She predicted Fae's death afterwards claiming she knew it beforehand, and she claimed not to see the sons of Ipswich deaths. To avoid awkward questions perhaps? And she didn't seem too fazed at the fact she saw death everywhere, and if she had been constructing this lie since her childhood then it must be very detailed and imprinted into her memory.

He remembered how amazed she was at his display of power. Maybe she wanted to harness it for herself, and wrap him and the others around her finger to manipulate by playing the nice girl.

And now it made total sense.

"Right?

"Huh?"

"I said that that doesn't really matter, does it? She probably grew out of it."

"Oh, yeah, people don't stay like they were when they were kids. She's a great girl now, and I'm sure if you talk to her she would apologize for all the harm she did back then."

Clea smiled sadly.

"Yeah, maybe she would, but I would still rather not."

The topic moved on, and they chatted for a few more minutes before they remembered they had class afterwards. They packed up their things and head back to Spencer, the thought of Maddie being a fake bothering Tyler the whole time.