Not As it Seems

Chapter 12: The Mask Crumbles

"Am I the only one who just saw that...?" Glen questioned.
"No, I think we all saw it," Felix answered.
"So all of this mean nonsense was just an act?!" Levi said.
"I don't know if that makes things better or worse..." Laura sighed.
"Maybe she's only mean to us..." Anna theorized.
"We should follow her!" Astrid suggested, and everyone agreed. The group looked around the corner and saw Elizabeth and Lucas heading towards the market stalls. Laura and the others pursued them from a distance, occasionally trying to blend into the crowd when they got too close to the duo. Elizabeth and Lucas stopped at a market stall selling various wood carvings. Anna had probably had a field day there, because they all looked adorable.
"Lucas!" a woman, probably his mother, exclaimed, "there you are! I was worried sick..." she turned to Elizabeth. "Thank you for returning him to me."
"Anyone would have done the same, and I'm sure your other son will soon be returned to you too."
"Please, take one of our wares, as a token of gratitude," the mother offered. Elizabeth took a small wooden horse and a wooden music note. She put money on the stall to pay.
"Oh, you really don't have to pay..."
"No, I insist. You need the money more than I do," Elizabeth smiled.
"Thank you so much, you're a very kind soul. You have a bright future ahead of you, I'm sure of it."
"Bye, miss Lizzie!" Lucas shouted when Elizabeth left. She waved at the duo before heading back to the carriages. Laura and her friends got out of their hiding spots, but they did so a little too soon. Elizabeth turned around and immediately noticed them. Her face became pale and she immediately ran away.

Everyone wanted to discuss what had just happened really badly, but they agreed that it had been a long and exhausting day, and so they went back to Royale High without bringing up Elizabeth or her sudden capability for human decency. When they gathered again the next morning (it was a Saturday, so there would be no school), their plans were immediately turned upside down when Astrid entered the dorm in a state of panic.
"You won't believe what I discovered!" she panted. Apparently she had to run to the dorm.
"Astrid, please, sit down and breathe first," Laura answered. Astrid sat down between Laura and Anna and took a moment to collect herself. She placed two prayer books on the table.
"Well, what did you discover?" Felix inquired.
"I was going to do my morning prayers, like every other morning... but when I walked into the chapel, I saw that one of the stained-glass windows had been smashed into pieces, using that," Astrid pointed to a gold prayer book, different from her white one, "the strange thing is, that prayer book is only possessed by members of the Divinian Church, but none of those visit the school chapel. The only member who could have is Edith, but her prayer book has a special inscription my sister and I added."
"W-Who could it belong to?" Anna wondered.
"Astrid, do you know which people regularly visit the chapel?" Levi asked.
Astrid nodded, "I went there yesterday after we returned, and everything was fine then. That was late in the evening, so all the students would have done their prayers already. I know professor Abigail has a brown prayer book like anyone else not from the royal family or the church. The missing teachers all went, but none of the current staff do... except for Mary."
"So Mary is a member of the church?" Laura clarified.
"A former member, apparently," Astrid answered, "neither my mother nor I knew that, so she must have covered it up really well."
Anna opened the book and flipped the pages, "look! Some pages are missing!"
"They look like they were torn out," Glen theorized.
"That's odd... most people would have gotten a new prayer book if that were to happen," Astrid said.
"But not someone who dislikes the church," Felix realized, "Mary must have left the church for some unknown reason out of anger, which would be a decent motive for working with someone to kidnap students!"
"That's another piece to the puzzle..." Laura concluded, "but what about Elizabeth?" After she ran away, she had stayed away until way after Laura and the others had fallen asleep, and hadn't left her room since.
"It's clear now that she's just acting like a mean girl, but why?" Glen wondered.
"Maybe her father really is involved somehow..." Levi said.
"We should let professor Abigail know!" Anna suggested, and everyone agreed. Sadly, the professor was apparently away when the group went looking for her. Nobody knew where she went, but since Mary didn't claim that she was sick and hadn't replaced her, Laura and the others had no reason to believe she had gone missing like the other teachers. They just had to wait until the geography teacher returned. Laura took advantage of the moment and went to Earth with the excuse of seeing if there was a letter from her parents. The truth was pretty close to that.

Laura entered the embassy in Earth and was informed that the Falmar ambassador was thankfully available. She entered his office and sat down.
"What can I do for you, Your Highness?"
"I wanted to inquire about the urgent letter I entrusted you with not too long ago, the one for my parents."
"Ah, yes. I gave that letter to my page, and he left for the Falmar capital immediately. I'm afraid, however, that he probably got caught in a thunderstorm near the border a few days ago. He probably had to stay at our border fortress for the night, in which case the letter would probably arrive either today or tomorrow. Of course, he might have not gotten caught up in the storm at all."
"Thank you," Laura said, and she left the office again. She was starting to worry about the letter. What if the page had lost it? What if he had been ambushed and killed? What if Laura was about to get kidnapped and her parents would get the letter too late to still intervene? Whatever the case, Laura wouldn't have her parents to depend on for help anymore. She just hoped professor Abigail would have something to share.

When Laura came back to school, Astrid was already waiting at the entrance. She told her their teacher had returned and wanted to speak immediately, so the two girls walked to the geography classroom, where everyone had already sat down.
"Laura, Astrid, welcome. Please, sit down," professor Abigail greeted them, "I'm afraid I have bad news to share."
"So do we," Laura responded.
"Then you may go first."
"We were able to find out that Elizabeth's mean personality is merely a façade she puts on for us. She was very kind to a stranger from Earth yesterday," Felix explained.
"We also discovered that Mary is a former member of the Divinian Church," Glen added.
"It's quite obvious from the prayer book we found..." Levi put the book on the desk. "...as well as the chapel window she shattered with it, that she loathes the church."
"That about aligns with what I discovered," professor Abigail said, "I did some research by sending a few letters through a private messenger to nobles in Theros I could trust because they do not directly support King Richard, and they confessed to me that he donated a large sum of money to Mary. He tried to cover it as a patronage, but in that case, it would have been given to the previous principal, as it was sent out before Mary even became principal. Coupled with this new revelation about her hatred of the church and Elizabeth's façade, that leads me to believe that Mary is indeed working with King Richard of Theros!"