Monday has been statistically proven to be the most stressful day of the week. More people die on Mondays, the heart attack rate sky rockets, and teenagers find themselves contemplating skipping school more on Mondays than any other day of the week. Crystal managed to drag herself through first period without falling asleep, but somewhere during Geometry, she lost her resolve and collapsed at a window seat. It was raining outside, and that patter of rain made it impossible to listen to her teacher ramble on about the Pythagorean theorem like it was an orgasmic experience.

She dreamed again. By now Crystal had come to accept the dreams as snippets from her past memory, because she never had a sexual dream, or one with cute guys, or dancing hippos anymore. Maybe she needed to eat more peanut butter before bedtime. In this particular dream, she was a very young version of herself, and she was sitting in someone’s lap. Her mother’s.

Her mother read to her from a scroll:

“Power can be consolidated into an object. To go about doing this, one must focus all of their energy onto a single point and form the picture of an object in their minds,”

“Mommy?” Baby Crystal asked.

“Yes?” She said, inclining her gracious and sweet-smelling head to better hear her daughter’s words.

“Is that how you got the Moon Stick?”

Her mother laughed, “It is not a moon stick, it is the Power Staff, my symbol. Why do you call it a moon stick?”

“It’s the color of the moon, and it’s a stick…Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“I had a dream,”

“Did you? What did you dream?”

“Dark clouds, a storm…lighting lit up the sky…and this big sword fell from the hole where the lightning was…it was the color of your Staff but it screamed, Mommy…a woman picked it up.” Crystal stopped, because she sensed that there was something wrong. Her mother had gone completely still and she seemed very intense.

“What did the woman look like?” her mother asked in an odd, strangled voice.

“Like…like…you… but she wore all black, and she seemed very mean…Mommy, who was she, and why did she have a sword that could scream?”

For a time, Crystal’s mother didn’t answer. Then, very slowly, as if it caused her great pain, she said, “The woman is your Aunt. Her name is Astrea. The sword was her symbol…The Crystal Sword…it contains the Souls of the Damned…”

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“Was I named after the sword?”

“NO!” Her mother shouted, slamming the scroll on the desk with enough force to make baby Crystal cry in fright. Crystal’s mother soothed her and then said, “No, no, baby…shh, Sweetness, hush...I’m not angry with you…I just…Never speak of Astrea. Never say her name to me, understand? Your aunt was a dangerous person… Never mention the Crystal Sword to anybody; it is a bad, evil thing. Shh… Now, let’s continue with your lesson…”

Thunder crashed, and the class bell rang, jerking Crystal out of her nap. Her heart beat very wildly in her chest. Astrea…the Crystal Sword... There was an important connection there. She had to speak to Kaine.

When Crystal walked into Biology, she knew that it was going to be a slow day. Ms. Hoffmann was complaining that one of her cats was sick and she’d left her brief case at home. Half of the class hadn’t arrived yet, because the special school was being chewed out about mustard on the ceiling in one of the classrooms. Which meant Kaine would be late (Why was he special? He may be a priest, but she was a princess.) So basically, it was a blow-off day.

Crystal sat next to Daniel, and was immediately cheered by his antics. Then Troy and Austin walked in, trailing Sam behind them.

“I still say it was JP; we all know he’s nuts.” Austin was saying

“Oh, who cares? We all have to pay five bucks,” Troy growled.

“Not if my mom has anything to say about it. I think this is bullshit,” Austin said.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, but Troy and Austin completely ignored him. They had decided that if they shunned Sam enough that he would get the message. Never mind that they were hurting his feelings; Crystal almost felt sorry for him, but her first impression of him was a conceited asshole, so she really didn’t pity him. Hey, some people don’t know what a DOS screen looks like!

“Hey, where’s Amanda?” Crystal asked.

“She went to the clinic, but she’ll be here soon,” Austin said sitting down next to Crystal.

“The clinic? Why?”

“You’ll see,” Troy said.

Sure enough, Amanda came through the door five minutes later, looking like a walking corpse. Her skin was a little green with illness, and she had very bad, painful-sounding cough.

“How do you feel?” Austin asked.

“Tewibble,” she sniffed; her nose was clogged, too.

“Why don’t you go home?” Troy recommended.

“Can’t,” Amanda said, putting her head in her arms on the desk. Her voice came out muffled, “Pawents are wowking, bwother’s out of town, and I need to go to pwactice. There’s a game on Thuwsday.”

“You shouldn’t play, if you’re sick,” Sam said, voice uncharacteristically tender.

“They need me, or we’w woose. We have the minimum amount of pwayers as it is, and if one gets sick, we fowfeit,” Amanda mumbled, half-asleep.

“I’m glad I don’t play sports,” Daniel said.

“We’re glad, too,” Sam said, trying to joke, but no one paid attention to him.

Kaine came in then, surreptitiously tucking a yellow covered straw behind his back. But before Crystal had a chance to wave him over, Ms. Hoffmann announced that she was sick and tired of their jabbering, so everybody had to put their heads on the desk and not talk. Just as well, because Amanda was already out cold and Crystal had forgotten what it was that she needed to say to Kaine. Damn that teenage attention span.