450: Secret Meetings

on July 7, 2010 in Book 16

In Which Mackenzie Doesn’t See Gladys Through A Peephole

I had a weird and restless night, which led to a weird and unrested morning.

The question of exactly what to tell Amaranth and how to tell her began to weigh on me as soon as I closed the compact… I couldn’t lie to her, but I didn’t want to put her in an awkward spot in dealing with Lee. The easiest way to do it would be to tell her that he had thought of someone else who might know and could be convinced to come forward. That was the truth… or at least it was true, which was almost the same thing… and it might not be all that different from how I would have explained it if he hadn’t impressed the need for secrecy onto me.

But he had, and that meant that anything short of the whole truth… both what I knew and what I suspected… would feel like a lie. I’d lived my life by such “technical truths” before. It had been part of my initial strategy for dealing with life at MU, and it had been Amaranth who had first made me question whether it was any better than lying.

That Amaranth didn’t come to bed with me didn’t so much take away the pressure as much as it left me to suffer under it all night. I didn’t have any unwelcome visitors in my dreams that night, but that may have been a side effect of never falling into a deep enough sleep long enough to have any proper dreams. Every time I woke up I found myself treading over the same ground in my head.

Deciding to speak up and tell the truth should have made everything simpler, but things were only getting more complicated… I was back to half-truths and keeping things from people I cared about.

Of course, we’d made things complicated by trying to have the best of both worlds by sharing our information but keeping out of the investigation. I didn’t think I could be blamed for that… I’d already been more entangled in it than I should have been because of what I was. I couldn’t be blamed and it couldn’t be helped. Not unless I wanted to take a gamble on a straight-up anonymous tip.

By the time morning came around, I’d more or less made peace with the decision. This didn’t mean I was feeling great about what I’d have to tell Amaranth… or about the likelihood that I’d run into Feejee sometime before the hammer came down, knowing what I’d put into motion while she was none the wiser… but I’d accepted that it was likely to be the best of several bad choices.

I could avoid the bathroom for a while. I’d miss baths, but a couple days without showering wouldn’t kill me.

I was already awake when Two began preparing for her meditation session, though I begged off accompanying her… I needed more rest to make up for my lack of actual sleep. When I did decide I’d had enough of lying there in the semi-darkness, it was earlier than I needed to be up for breakfast or anything else… Two wasn’t even back yet. I had a moment of regretting that I hadn’t gone with her… what was the point of regretting? Learn from it and move on, I thought, and felt kind of better for it.

I’d spent the night beating myself up over things that were perhaps at least worth wrestling with a bit, but how to spend an hour of the morning wasn’t it.

I decided to go out and take a shower. It was cold in the dorm room and hot water sounded nice… if I ran into Feejee, well, that was going to happen eventually. I wouldn’t be lingering right near her in the other bathtub or anything, I’d just breeze past. Chances were good she’d be still be asleep, anyway.

I got my things together and headed for the door, but froze at the sound of voices on the other side of it. It was a little bit early for conversation in the hall. I was used to stray sounds coming in through the front of the room, as people headed towards the lounge or the stairs, but people didn’t really hang out in the hallway that much, and they especially didn’t do it early in the morning.

Very carefully, I leaned my head in close to the door and then put my ear against it. I wasn’t interested in eavesdropping… I just wanted to see if I could recognize the voices. I was interested in knowing who I might end up having to walk through to get to where I was going.

“…not going to… for you,” was the first thing that I heard. I couldn’t make out the whole thing, and I didn’t recognize the voice.

“Nobody’s asking you to spy,” said another voice, that I did recognize: Trina. “Just help Gladys here get into position where she can find something out.”

It probably said something that I assumed they were talking about spying on me, but they did seem to be pretty close to my door. On the other hand it wasn’t smart to discuss their plan so close to the intended target, but if one person was getting cold feet then Trina and Gladys might not have any choice.

The next thing I heard was a kind of buzzing hiss. I couldn’t tell if somebody was whispering and it was carrying weirdly, or if it was something else entirely.

I put my eye to the peephole… I could see Trina, Mariel, who was gesticulating urgently with all four arms and saying something to the speaker whose voice I hadn’t quite recognized: Twyla. Gladys wasn’t in sight, but the group was clustered just at the edge of the peephole’s distorted field of vision.

I hadn’t had nearly as much contact with Twyla, good or bad, as I had with some of the other girls on our floor. It was easy enough to forget that she was there. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that the other girls were trying to bully her into doing their dirty work for them.

I realized that whether or not they were talking about me, I could break up their little meeting and at least temporarily end Twyla’s predicament just by opening the door at that moment. Having realized that, I felt something cold and hard twisting its way around through the lower regions of my torso. I’d come a long way from feeling like I was going to throw up whenever people looked at me, but that didn’t mean I was comfortable just jumping into the spotlight.

Being led around on a stage by Amaranth was one thing… she was my owner, I was fulfilling my function as her toy… but race aside, Trina and Mariel were every bit the kind of girls whose attention I’d tried and failed to avoid in high school.

That thought was still crossing my mind when my hand went for the doorknob. The fact that it stuck a little meant there was no chance of dramatically throwing the door open and catching them off-guard, but Trina and Twyla were still standing there when I got it open. Mariel and Gladys were nowhere to be seen. Mariel moved very quickly and seemed to perceive time at a very different rate from the rest of us, and evidently Gladys had a similarly incredible reaction time and speed.

I thought about throwing out a chipper “Good morning” or something, but I wasn’t sure I could manage more than an awkward “hi”. I wasn’t even sure I could handle that. I managed to stop myself from feeling guilty at having busted them… they were the guilty ones, and the look on Trina’s face dispelled any doubt from my mind that I was the target of the planned espionage. She didn’t say anything, though, she just turned and walked off.

“You… um… might not want to stand there with your door open,” Twyla said, before heading down the hall towards the stairs or the bathroom.

“Um, thanks?” I said, then stepped back and closed the door.

What had that been about? Good advice for somebody with nosy neighbors, but what the hell could anybody see by looking in through my open door? Trina and company’s sudden interest in the goings-on they imagined to be… going on… in my room was no doubt related to Leda’s death, which meant that they suspected I had something to do with it. But since I didn’t, there was no evidence in my room, much less anything that you could see just by walking past when the door happened to be open. Still, I didn’t necessarily want gawkers hanging around outside of it… and I really didn’t want people trying to eavesdrop on what was happening inside it.

It hit me that what they’d probably been asking Twyla for was access to her room. It was right next to mine. I wondered why they’d be going to her and not her roommates, but I didn’t exactly keep up with the dorm politics of people who didn’t like me.

Since I couldn’t manage a shell of silence like the one Lee had used through my mirror, I’d have to ask Steff if she had a spare sound-damping blanket I could hang over that wall… that would put a serious crimp in their plan.

I waited until Two got back before I went to take my shower. Mercifully, Twyla wasn’t in there, and even more mercifully, neither was Feejee. The bathroom was empty except for us, and nobody else came in until we passed Celia on the way out. It was an eerie reminder that with Sooni and her entourage and Dee gone, there were at least three dorm rooms standing empty because of Leda’s death.

That could be another reason Trina had been leaning on Twyla instead of going to the Leightons, I realized. Maybe they weren’t around to let her friend into their room.

Amaranth looked to be in a very good mood when she came upstairs to walk to breakfast with us. Once we were outside, she pulled on my arm to get me to walk a bit behind Two. That suited me, since I had things I needed to talk to her about, too.

“You know what you were saying yesterday,” she said, “about how they wouldn’t necessarily take my word at face value because I’m just a nymph?”

“I’m not sure that’s exactly how I put it,” I said.

“Oh, baby, I’m not saying I took it personally,” she said. “But you were right. It’s not that I have any special legal standing, it’s just my mother’s protection. So I was thinking about how to make my idea work, and I think I’ve come up with something.”

“Amaranth… we already contacted Lee,” I said.

“Yes, but I figured it would be at least today before he got back to you, and in the mean time I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she said. “And once I did, the answer seemed so obvious, so simple. I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of it when we were first talking about this.”

“Well, the thing is… Lee did get back to me last night,” I said. “And, uh, he also had a kind of simple solution. Simple-ish. It doesn’t need anything from us, it keeps me out of it completely.”

“Oh,” Amaranth said. It sounded like there was some disappointment in her voice.

“Of course, I’d still like to hear what you came up with… it might be useful, if we ever… um… if this situation… it might be interesting,” I said.

I couldn’t even pretend I thought that we’d ever have a use for Amaranth’s plan.

If the same situation ever came up again, I was going to quit and move to another, less absurd plane of existence.

“Well… the thing is… I thought it was such a simple and obvious solution… elegant really,” she said, “that I couldn’t see any reason to wait…”

“Amaranth, you didn’t,” I said. I felt like the ground beneath my feet and the bottom of my stomach were both in a race to get to the bottom of a deep pit.

“Baby, you don’t even know what I did,” she said. “I promise you, it’s a really great idea, or else I wouldn’t have…”

“Well, what is it, then?” I asked.

“Like I told you: you made me realize that the problem is that the protection I have doesn’t belong to me, but my mother,” Amaranth said. “She is the one that the Imperium respects enough to back off of, not me. So…”

“So you asked her to get involved?” I said. Somehow I felt relieved… I didn’t know Mother Khaele, but somehow I couldn’t imagine she’d casually get involved in mortal legal affairs, and I had to believe she was used to being petitioned by Amaranth that she’d be inclined not to take her requests seriously. When she appeared on TV, she made the point about how often people died, right before a giant monster wave made the point for her.

“Not directly,” Amaranth said, which sounded even better.

“Indirectly involved?”

“I asked her sort of indirectly,” Amaranth said. “I mean, I thought if I just up and asked her she’d probably shut me down out of hand… she’s sort of getting in the habit of not really listening to me, sometimes. Also, she wasn’t available when I tried to commune. So I… well, it’s basically the equivalent of leaving a reflection. She’ll get the message when she gets back from… the thing she didn’t tell me that she was going to be doing this week.”

“She’s gone all week?” I asked, not even bothering to try to parse how a goddess could be “gone” or where she’d go to.

“That’s what it seems like,” Amaranth said, her lower lip wobbling. I gathered that this was a new experience for her.

“Well, then you just have to leave a new message for her,” I said. “Because Lee’s already taking care of it. Um… since you’re the one who left the echo, you could always just say that you handled it yourself.”

“I guess,” she said. I couldn’t tell what she was more bothered by: that her elegant and simple idea wouldn’t be used, or that Mother Khaele had apparently stepped out.

Actually, as soon as I thought that, it seemed obvious… and I felt a little unworthy of her for even thinking it. Of course she was bothered by the thought that her brilliant plan wouldn’t fix everything. She was Amaranth. But it was even more obvious that she wasn’t bothered half as much by that as she was by the fact that her mother, her goddess… the only constant in her life now that she’d left her home and lost her closest companion… had gone away without telling her.

Personally, I didn’t think that a goddess actually needed to update all of her followers with her travel itinerary, and Mother Khaele had evidently used some means of letting her daughters know that she was away and when she’d be back. Pointing that out to Amaranth didn’t seem terribly helpful, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I just hugged her.

That turned out to be the right thing to do.

“Thank you, baby,” she said when we were done. There were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks, but she was already done crying. “So… what did Lee say?”

“His thoughts were actually pretty close to yours,” I said, figuring this out as I said it. “Get someone, you know, powerful and credible to give the information. He had someone in mind but, you know, since the whole point is that we have nothing to do with it, we’re not supposed to know. Or talk about it.”

“That makes sense,” Amaranth said.

“So, basically… we can sit back and things should sort themselves out,” I said. “As much as they can be.”

“I need clarification!” Two yelled, from maybe thirty feet up the path. Two had a habit of shouting… and whispering… like a very small child, or someone who was accustomed to talking at one set volume. She understood the theory behind modulating what came out of her mouth, but the finer points of variation escaped her.

“We’re still going to breakfast with you, hon,” Amaranth called. “You can go ahead or wait for us to catch up.”

“Are you going to be doing anything before catching up?”

“We’ll be right there,” I said.

“Then I’ll wait,” Two said.

We didn’t keep her waiting long.


Tales of MU is now on Patreon! Help keep the story going!

Or if you particularly enjoyed this chapter, leave a tip!


Characters: , , , , , ,





66 Responses to “450: Secret Meetings”

  1. Sleet says:

    Hmm… Callahan’s gonna be absent all week, and so is Mother Khaele, and we just recently read a story about a sort of meeting of the gods. Coincidences? Probably!
    But then again..

    Current score: 4
  2. Zergonapal says:

    So the conclave takes a whole week to resolve? Seems odd that divine powers would be constrained by relativity and they would have to actually talk to each other in such a mundane manner as demonstrated in the short OT: On a Hill, rather than by some other means which would allow them to resolve points of order and discuss topics in the space between seconds.

    Current score: 0
    • athsryk6l says:

      Maybe they prefer it this way? It seems like Owain certainly enjoys it.

      Current score: 5
    • Kanta says:

      They’re gods. It’s a ceremony. It’s all about the form of the thing.

      Current score: 2
  3. Angel-del-Demonio says:

    It has been suggested that the gods of MU universe are indeed constrained by certain rules, and are not omnipotent.

    Current score: 0
    • Lysaea says:

      I understand why you used the phrasing you did, but for further clarification – merely the word “gods” implies that no one god is omnipotent – you cannot be all powerful if someone else is too, because then their “omnipotence” rivals yours.

      Current score: 0
      • Smiles says:

        Unless one god is omnipotent but allows other, lesser beings to claim godhood.

        Also, two beings capable of doing anything they want except bring harm to one another would still be considered omnipotent by me (and many others). Omnipotence is inherently nebulous, hence the omnipotence paradox.

        Current score: 3
  4. Shparkly says:

    So Gladys is invisible and is now listening in in their room…

    Current score: 4
  5. Silver says:

    If we are allowing that the divine powers in question take the form of specific beings that one would see and interact with in person, instead of the amorphous, omnipresent spirits more common in many modern religions, then this sort of conclave makes a lot of sense. We have already seen that Mother Khaele is corporeal enough for a TV interview, and the other stories involving gods and god-like entities do not imply any differently. If a bunch of specific people (who happen to have phenomenal cosmic powers) from different backgrounds need to chat for a while, why not meet up for lunch somewhere?

    Also, it still cracks me up that Callahan is (presumably) in attendance at the Gods’ tea party, and none of her students really seem to know that she’s anything more than a PE teacher with an attitude.

    Current score: 2
    • Zergonapal says:

      That seems odd, I rather suspect that Callahan is at the conclave of fell powers and perhaps the reason why Mother Khaele is away isn’t because the divine conclave goes on for a week, but rather because she is attending both conclaves, after all good or bad any contest between powers is essentially happening on her turf regardless of anyones claim over certain areas of religious significance

      Current score: 3
      • athsryk6l says:

        Yeah this seems pretty likely.

        Current score: 0
        • erratio says:

          I would *love* to see a paid bonus story about Callahan’s attendance at the fell conclave (assuming that is actually where she is )

          Current score: 0
          • BMeph says:

            I would’ve loved to see a paid bonus story about Calla(k)han’s attendance at either conference, brushing up on her deicidal skills… >;)

            Current score: 2
  6. Seeker in Nostril says:

    I think Gladys is naturally invisible (and uses glamours to give the appearance of being opaque) and the plan was for her to sneak into Mack’s room, which might explain Twyla telling Mack not to stand there with her door open.

    There’s lots of hints in Chapter 392 (subtitle: “In Which Gladys Appears”), and from 418: “Come on, Gladys,” [Trina] said half over her shoulder, apparently not even realizing that her friend had fallen behind her at some point and wasn‘t even in sight.”

    Current score: 5
    • Wysteria says:

      My theory is that Trina’s third eye can see Gladys, which is how they became friends so quickly.

      Current score: 2
      • erratio says:

        Mine is that Trina can detect her using subtle arts, which she’s minoring in.

        Current score: 1
        • Steph says:

          I have a theory that we readers theorize entirely too much for our mental health. 🙂

          I have a second theory that states good writing pretty much demands such practice.

          Current score: 4
    • Les says:

      Yeah.. but….

      Mack can See the invisible. (Plot-Hole?)

      Current score: 0
      • bramble says:

        When has Mack ever shown that ability? And (because it’s certainly possible that it’s just slipped my mind), is it something she does automatically, or something she has to invoke? As far as I can tell, “Gladys is invisible” hasn’t even occurred to Mack, so if she has to intentionally try to see invisible things, she probably hasn’t tried.

        Also, its entirely possible that Gladys’s invisibility comes from an unusual source which defies ordinary “see invisible” effects.

        Current score: 0
        • athsryk6l says:

          When she was in the coach with Dee. Dee made herself invisible to avoid the paparazi and it turned out that Mack could still see her, as could Two. The others however, could not.

          Current score: 0
          • bramble says:

            I vaguely remember that. Do you think you’d be able to find the link to that chapter? I’ve been looking and I can’t find it.

            Current score: 0
          • Don says:

            Perhaps it’s a different flavor of invisible. Dee might use psychic means to make people not realize they see her where Gladys might actually bend light. Who knows? Its magic! 🙂

            Current score: 2
            • Bramble says:

              Well, if the issue is that Mack and Two can see her when she’s supposed to be invisible, remember that neither of them ever seem to have any trouble noticing the burrow gnomes, when everyone else is overlooking them. Dee’s invisibility may be more along the lines of unnoticability.

              Current score: 1
            • BMeph says:

              That isn’t quite true; Two does “have trouble” seeing “her friend Hazel” at times.

              Current score: 1
          • Alico says:

            Actually, Mack could see Dee while she was invisible due to Dee using divine powers to turn invisible. Had she been using an arcane version, Mack would not have seen her.

            Current score: 1
    • CL says:

      That sounds likely. I was leaning toward Mariel darting into the room myself, but considering Mackenzie hasn’t “seen” Gladys in her natural form, I guess that could be right.

      Current score: 0
  7. Holliday says:

    I know this is a bit of a stretch but could Mother Khaeles absence have anything to do with coach Callahans?

    Current score: 1
  8. ayla says:

    You know, I kind of hope that Trina & co. do end up spending a ton of time and energy spying on Mackenzie… only to realize that she’s not up to anything. The worst thing they’re likely to overhear would be sex noises, and that would kind of serve them right.

    Current score: 2
    • Khavren says:

      Actually, if they spy on her talking to Lee, that is probably a legal offense

      Current score: 3
  9. Kevin says:

    so the theories thus far are that Gladys is invisible, that Khaele and Callahan are at the same summit (which is a little more likely than Gladys being invisible considering that Callahan did kill a god once) and that Trina and Gladys are friends because Trina can see Invisible…. but didn’t they want into Twyla’s room for their spy plan? Why would one need to do that if they were invisible?

    Current score: 0
    • Wysteria says:

      Mackenzie assumes they wanted to get into Twyla’s room, but it’s far more likely that they wanted her to distract Mackenzie so that Gladys could sneak by into Mackenzie’s room, thus Twyla’s warning about leaving the door open.

      Current score: 3
  10. Zathras IX says:

    There’s no guarantee
    Of another, less absurd
    Plane of existence

    Current score: 1
  11. Rin says:

    I’m not sure if this is the correct place for it, but the comments on the site for “More Tales of MU” seems to be disabled so I thought I’d posit my question here; are there ever going to be new updates of MToMU, or has that project officially been abandoned after 7 months of inactivity?

    Current score: 0
    • I’ve been working on it today, actually. The site should get an update tomorrow… probably a site update that will include comments plus a story, but if I can’t get the site overhaul up I’ll still put the new story segment up.

      Current score: 1
  12. Brenda says:

    It would be amusing if they are actually spying on someone else…

    Current score: 0
  13. Altima says:

    The problem with the Gladys being invisible theory is that Mackenzie can *also* see invisible creatures as somewhat insubstantial. Two can, as well.

    Go read the chapter where Dee had to sneak past reporters back into Harlowe from the carriage. She cast an invisibility spell and both Two and Mackenzie were able to see her.

    Current score: 0
    • erratio says:

      Did they see her casting it? Quite possibly invisibility spells don’t work if someone already knows she’s there. It just seems way too useful to have natural resistance to invisibility spells.

      Also, natural invisibility may not be the same as spelled invisibility. If Gladys is only visible under UV light (or some equivalent) it wouldn’t be the same as a spell with the property/intention of not being seen.

      Current score: 1
      • Les says:

        Steff was there to, and couldn’t see any hint or trace of Dee once the invisibility spell was cast.

        Current score: 1
    • Wysteria says:

      I assumed Mackenzie could see Dee because Dee’s spell was divine in origin. If Gladys’ invisibility was arcane in nature, then there’s no reason Mackenzie should be able to see through it. Whether or not Two can see Gladys – well, I don’t know if that’s been established for yay or for nay.

      Current score: 1
      • Brenda says:

        Note also that both Two and Mackenzie can see fairly well in the dark.

        Current score: 1
        • Kalamorda says:

          In that chapter, it is mentioned that the spell Dee used was divine and powered by the godess of Darkness, and Gladys Halloween costume was just bodypaint….and Mack could see the back of the paint thru the eye holes. I think Gladys is a human who got stuck in Harlow due to a accident, and is stuck invisible……..and a horrid gossip.

          Current score: 0
      • bramble says:

        There’s also the possibility that there are multiple ways to “engineer” an invisibility effect. Dee’s could have been a spell that, for some reason, is more effective against elves and half-elves – designed by elves, for elves, as it were – while Gladys’s invisibility is caused by something that effects all sentient races equally. Dee could be invoking a stronger version of whatever causes people to overlook the burrow gnomes – an effect that both Mack and Two have been shown to be resistant to – while Gladys has true invisibility. It may simply be the difference between an active effect (Mack can, after all, detect spells in use when she half-tries) and a passive effect (Gladys’s invisibility isn’t a spell, so there’s nothing for Mack to detect).

        It could be that Mack could see Gladys if she knew to look for her, but it hasn’t occurred to her to look, yet.

        Current score: 1
      • Rethic says:

        This is kind of a general reply to the subject. I don’t think it’s a divine/arcaic thing because I don’t think her ability to ‘see’ comes from her dad. Everything we know about her mom shows she has a special gift to be able to sense people and make them do things. But specifically she just senses people without having to try. I think Mack has this trait possibly changed slightly to make her visibly see people and magic.

        Current score: 1
    • Taleshunter says:

      If I remember it correct, Dee cloaked herself in darkness, and Mack and Two could see her, because they can see in the dark.

      Current score: 0
  14. Kevin says:

    Everyone’s still stuck on Gladys the Invisible student… I find it much more likely that she’s a vampire (I have never seen her by daylight after all). Anyway I see talk of updates for MoarMU which I hope pulls through cause that stories been on a horrible cliff hangar for way to long.

    Current score: 0
  15. l0stZ says:

    Does anybody think Mack made a mistake to remain anonymous?
    Sure there are downsides (the entire mermaid race out to get her) but aren’t there benefits for her as well?

    And Amaranth having the same general idea as Lee caught my attention; Amaranth is smart but simply doesn’t have the experience or “street smarts” of how to apply it (like what powerful entity she could contact to reveal info on her behalf)

    Current score: 1
    • drudge says:

      An entire race of maneaters out to get you is pretty big deal when one of your ratial traits is subliminally broadcasting that you taste delicious.

      Current score: 2
  16. Brenda says:

    This is about the site, not the story: This chapter is not behind a link as usual, but can be read in full on the main page without clicking on the chapter title. Is this intentional or an oversight? Just a heads-up, if it was the latter.

    Current score: 0
  17. Jbluphin says:

    Oh Amaranth… my reaction was much like Mack’s when she revealed she had already taken action. Why WHY WHY would you do that???? Hopefully, Mother Khaele will ignore her, and we can pretend it never ever happened.

    On another note, I love the spying bit. Looks like Sooni is not the only one who wants to play detective. I went back and checked out previous references to Twyla after reading this chapter – honestly, it seems Mack has probably made a more positive impression on her then she (Mack) realizes… most of their interactions, Mack has been pretty considerate. I really DO enjoy the attention to detail in the background characters here.

    Current score: 0
  18. bubble says:

    I can’t remember if anyone else has talked about seeing Gladys in the past stories, but it occurred to me that maybe it’s just Mack that can’t see her. The girls outside Macks room all seemed to know what was going on, whether they could see her or just knew she was around wasn’t clear. It would also explain why none of the other characters more friendly to Mack have ever talked about the invisible girl down the hall (because to them she isn’t invisible). It could be another fey gift, like Puddys ‘she is as strong as any enemy’ and her cousin having ‘divine laughter’. It could be ‘your enemies can’t see you’ or ‘you are hidden from predators’ or somthin like that. Maybe not, I just thought it odd that nobody else would mention not/seeing her, besides our sometimes frustrating main character.

    Current score: 1
    • Jbluphin says:

      Ian couldn’t see her eye’s on Halloween when she was covered in body paint. And Gladys dreams of being on stage and having thousands of peoples eyes on her…but I like the fey gift idea in general.

      Current score: 1
      • bubble says:

        Hmm, so always invisible eh, wonder how Mack will finally notice her. Maybe she will lock Gladys in her bedroom accidentaly while she’s spyin, n then hear/smell her.
        As for why she is invisible, its iether a racial trait e.g. fey, or somethin comical like her mum rubbed invisibility potions on her belly while she was preggers to seem thinner.

        Current score: 2
        • Kevin says:

          Invisibility Potion on the belly has officially put Gladys the invisible student back into play for me… Darn I was so rooting for a vampire student.

          Current score: 3
          • Arakano says:

            Was there ever any evidence for her being a vampire aside of her not being seen by day?

            Current score: 0
    • Bramble says:

      Unless everyone else already knows and assumes that Mack knows as well. After all, they rarely refer to anyone else by their unusual characteristics. Gladys doesn’t really have any social ties to Mack and her friends – this is the first time we’ve “seen” her actively helping Trina, and she doesn’t seem to have any classes or interests in common with Mack & co. Why would anyone mention her to Mack? Even Trina rarely comes up in their casual conversation, and when she does, it’s certainly not as “the triclops.” I would assume that if they had reason to discuss Gladys, it would end up being by name and not as “the invisible chick.” And if Mack never mentions that she can’t figure out why people always talk to Gladys when she obviously isn’t there, her friends may never realize that Mack doesn’t know about the whole invisibility thing.

      Current score: 0
      • tjhairball says:

        Doesn’t SEEM to? We’ve seen just how oblivious Mack is with respect to VISIBLE students sometimes. I could easily believe that Gladys is, in fact, in several of the same lectures.

        Current score: 1
    • Anthony says:

      Where does it say that Puddy has such a gift?

      Current score: 0
  19. readaholic says:

    My thought was that Gladys is Trina’s Imaginary Friend, somehow given existence by Trina, for amusement value, if nothing else. The other one is that Gladys has cursed. Maybe something about she cannot be seen? Or.. she could be some sort of weak astral projection or something.

    Current score: 0
  20. koo says:

    Whose room is on the other side of Trina’s?

    Current score: 0
  21. Gladys totally slipped into Mack’s room while the door was open.

    Current score: 1
  22. bubble says:

    Hey, sort of an unrelated question to this chapter, but is it ever said in the stories what kind of horns Twyla has. Are we talkin small pointers on the forehead, or full blown antlers?

    Current score: 0
    • erratio says:

      Devil-style horns I think, otherwise Mack wouldn’t be so concerned that people would think Twyla was the half-demon

      Current score: 3
    • Jechtael says:

      I always pictured a more upright version of Qunari/Draenei. Certainly not antlers.

      Current score: 0
      • Jechtael says:

        https://www.talesofmu.com/book01/5 “Short, upward-curving horns”. As far as I know, it doesn’t get any more specific. Maybe they’re small minotaur horns; maybe they’re small Hellboy horns; maybe they stick straight up from the top of her head in a slight wave. *shrug* I’m going to stick with the upright Draenei-Qunari-goat image unless otherwise mentioned.

        Current score: 1
  23. Brenda says:

    Go back to the chapter in Book 1 where all the girls on Mack’s floor are introduced. It’s one of the very first chapters.

    Current score: 0
  24. Khalex says:

    I could be way off base here, but Mack’s half-demon eyes can see darkness in ways others can’t. I always assumed she’d been able to see Dee because as a dark elf priestess, she’d been cloaked in darkness to become invisible in a way. I don’t think Mack can see through all invisibility.

    Current score: 2