The Other Side of Envy: The Ghost Bird Series: #8 (The Academy) by C. L. Stone

hair toward the windows. “They listen out for this.”
    “Smart,” Gabriel said. “We should do that to your house.”
    Luke nodded and then stepped up, creaking and all, to the front door.
    He rang the doorbell in multiple ways: fast, slow, stopping, once, fast. It wasn’t the same pattern as before. Random.
    There was an echo of voices on the other side, at least three, but there could have been more. All male.
    Gabriel and Luke stood together at the door. I slid behind them, ducking behind their shoulders. This wild day was just getting crazier by the moment. My courage was draining fast. I thought up excuses as to why I might want to wait in the car.
    Looking at them together, it was the first time I realized Gabriel was taller than Luke. Didn’t he used to be shorter? He must have grown.
    There was metal scraping against metal as locks were undone. The door opened, creaking almost as much as the stairs.
    I had a hand on both Luke and Gabriel, my palms to their backs, ready to run.
    At the door was a middle-aged man, maybe late thirties, thin, with a scar from his chin all the way to his lip. He had dark eyes and dark hair. He studied us carefully before opening the door more. He was taller than Silas, wearing jeans and a dark sweater.
    “We don’t need our lawn mowed,” the man said in a low rumbly voice with the equivalence of get-off-my-property venom in his tone. “We do it ourselves. And we like our leaves where they are, thank you.”
    There was a silence. I swallowed the thickness in my throat, ready to apologize and leave. Gabriel tensed under my palm, and backed up a step. He must have felt the same way.
    “We’re from the Academy,” Luke said, tense but steady.
    The man’s eye twitched. “You say...” His voice drifted off.
    Silence filled the space. Was he not from the Academy? Did we have the wrong house?
    “What are you three doing?” A female voice rang out from inside the home. “Who’s at the door?”
    The man in the doorway cringed, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He backed up and opened the door wider.
    A woman finished walking down the steps to stand near two other men. She had blond curly hair cut to her shoulders. She was taller than me, with a shapely body and a couple of faded scars along her arms. She wore black pants and a bulky sweater that clung to her shape and hung off her shoulders.
    Beautiful.
    There was something else about her, too. Her eyes. Her face. Something wasn’t right about it. I couldn’t pinpoint it. Sadness?
    Haunted. Like a doll, only spookier. Kota once said my face was haunted. It didn’t look like that. Hers was far more delicate.
    She smiled faintly at seeing us clustered on the porch. The men that stood beside her stepped out of the way as she came forward. “Are you the new neighbor children?” she asked.
    “They say they’re from the Academy,” the man who answered the door replied.
    Her eyes widened and she waved a hand at him. “Then let them in, William,” she said to him. She looked over to one of the other men, the one with black hair slicked back on his head. “Henry, fetch the lemonade and that tin of cookies we got in the mail the other day.”
    “Are we having tea?” the third man asked. He had strawberry-blond hair, bright blue eyes, and fair skin with freckles on his face and arms. He frowned, like he didn’t like this scenario. He was an inch or two shorter than the woman, but he stood tall, and wore thick-heeled boots, so he was even shorter than he appeared. He was bulky, though, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. He studied us with caution.
    The other men were just as tense. They moved stiffly, but did what she asked. William, the man with the scarred face, waved us inside.
    My arms stiffened at my sides. My eyes were wide. My hand crept up to the dip at my neck. I’d go back in a heartbeat and talk to Mr. Blackbourne about anything after this experience. We should have asked him first.
    Luke