The Third Key (The Alaesha Legacy Book 1)

by Samantha Warren

  The

  Third Key

  By

  Samantha Warren

  Copyright 2013, 2015 Samantha Warren

  The following story is a work of fiction and all names and characters are strictly the creation of the author.

  All rights reserved.

  This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any manner without expressed written consent from Samantha Warren.

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  Chapter 1

  Edith Myers had just about had enough. Her new shirt was spotted with blood and her favorite pair of jeans had a jagged rip in one knee. A fresh bruise was spreading across her chin and her lip felt hot and swollen. She played her tongue across the bump as she cursed her bad luck and blinked tears from her hazelnut eyes. The first day of classes at yet another new school and she already had an enemy: Dana Blake, cheer captain and resident school bully, or so the school nurse told Edith. The nurse was nice and understanding as she cleaned up Edith's cuts and wrote out the incident report.

  "So what was the cause of Dana's dislike this time?" the woman asked as she peeked behind the curtain to check on her patient.

  Edith shrugged and looked up from her book. "There was this guy, real cute, dark hair, a few freckles, great smile..." The nurse cleared her throat to pull Edith from her trance. "Uh, sorry. Um, he was in the quad this morning by a bench on his hands and knees like he was searching for something. I asked him if he needed help. He looked terrified at first, then he smiled at me. That smile... Anyway, Dana came up at that point. Apparently, he was her boyfriend. How was I to know? So now she hates me and says she's going to do everything in her power to make my time here a living hell. At least I won't be here too long."

  "Ah, yes. Graduation is only a few months away.” The nurse sat on the edge of the cot. “Do you move around a lot?"

  Edith frowned and set her book down. "Yeah. My mom is a bit psychotic. She keeps looking for her 'place in the world'." Edith's use of air quotes and her facial expression made the nurse laugh.

  "So you get dragged from town to town every time she wants a change of scenery?"

  Edith nodded. "Pretty much. When I was younger, she used to let me stay with my grandma, but once Gran died, I had no place else to go. So I'm stuck with her."

  The nurse patted Edith's arm and stuck a thermometer in her mouth. "I'm sure she's just doing the best she can. Is your dad anywhere in the picture?"

  Edith shook her head, a stray clump of dark hair falling across her smooth forehead. She pushed at it, tucking it behind her ear. "Nope. Never met the guy."

  "Is he dead?"

  "No, just not around."

  "Maybe that should be one of your goals. To discover who your father is and try to build a relationship. You never know where it might lead."

  Edith shrugged. "Maybe. Or he could turn out to be a jerk, meaning I wasted my time and am worse off."

  The nurse smiled. "That pessimistic attitude is going to cause you problems, my dear. Never give up hope until hope has given up on you." She leaned in conspiratorially. "The secret is that hope never gives up.” The woman straightened and checked Edith's pulse. "Your temperature is slightly elevated. I think it would probably be best if you stayed here the rest of the day. I'll let your teachers know so they don't think you make it a habit of skipping class."

  She gave Edith a wink and went back into her office, leaving the girl alone with her book. When the bell marking the end of the school day buzzed loudly over Edith's head, she picked up her book bag, waved goodbye to the nurse and headed toward the front door as fast as her short legs would carry her. She kept her head low and avoided eye contact with anyone who came near her. By the time she saw the strappy sandals blocking her path, it was too late to alter her course. She ran headlong into the one person she had been hoping desperately to avoid. A decade of jumping around must have made Dana pretty solid because she didn't even waver as Edith bounced off and landed on her backside. The tall, thin, too-tan cheerleader towered over her fallen victim. Immaculately manicured red nails balanced themselves on exposed hips.

  "Still here, Poindexter?"

  Edith failed to contain a laugh. "Poindexter? Really? Who calls people that anymore? Were you born in the eighties?"

  Dana's painted lips pulled into a snarl and she leaned over, putting her face uncomfortably close to Edith's. "Listen to me, you little nerd. You keep yourself out of my way and away from my friends. If I find you near any of them, especially my boyfriend, I'll make you wish you'd never set foot in this school."

  Edith snorted. "I already wish I never set foot in this school, but you go ahead and do what you have to do." She jumped to her feet. The cheerleader was forced to step back quickly or risk Edith's hard heading coming into contact with her perfect nose.

  "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have homework to do." Edith picked her book bag up off the ground and shouldered the heavy burden as she stuck her own nose in the air and turned her back on her new nemesis. She felt pretty good about herself until she heard the vicious giggles behind her. She brushed her hand across her backside. A piece of fresh, sticky gum was plastered to her jeans. Raising her head higher, she kept going until she rounded a corner, then plucked the offending trash off her rear. Her face burned and her shoulders sank as she trudged down the street.

  The walk to her new home wasn't far. Her mother had found a small two-bedroom apartment about four blocks from the school behind one of the big empty warehouses in the area. It wasn't the type of place Edith would have picked to live in, not even close. Graffiti covered the walls both inside and out, the lock on the main door was broken and there were holes in the chain-link fence that surrounded the yard, if it could be called a yard. It was little more than a patch of dirt and a tuft of brown grass. Edith pushed open the rusted gate and winced at the high-pitched squeal that echoed off the brick facade.

  An old woman sat on the decaying stoop. She raised her head to stare at Edith as she entered. The woman's face was battered by years of hardship and toil under a hot sun. Edith wondered what had caused such pain as the woman's pale, murky eyes turned back to examine the gravel below her feet. That same woman had been sitting on the step every time Edith was around, staring at the ground, moving very little except to glance up when Edith walked through the gate or left the building. Edith's apartment was right above the door to the front yard, so she could look down at the steps below, and the woman never looked up unless the person passing through the gate was Edith. It unnerved her and gave her a queasy feeling in her stomach.

  She continued up the steps, past the woman, and shoved open the heavy door. The stench inside was horrific. Someone had vomited in a corner and it had yet to be cleaned. Judging by the condition of the rug, that was normal for this building. Edith trudged up three flights of stairs and found her way to apartment number thirty-eight. She had to jiggle the key in the lock for a minute in order to make it work, but it finally gave way and she stepped into the darkened interior. The television blared from the living room off the hall and she made a beeline for it. Her mother sat on the small couch, hunched forward with her eyes locked on the screen in front of her. Her dirty blond hair was pulled back into a messy bun and her clothes were wrinkled from a long day at work.

  "Why did you pick this hell hole again?" Edith fumed as she let her heavy backpack thud to the floor.

  "It's close to your school." Her mother's attention never left the newscaster.

  "But this p
lace is a dump. Couldn't you find someplace better?"

  The woman ignored her question and waved a hand at Edith. "Would you look at this? I just can't believe it."

  Edith tossed a glare at the woman who gave birth to her. For a moment, she wondered why her mother even bothered to have a child in the first place. Her lips curled into a snarl as she looked at the words scrolling along the bottom of the screen: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip fall mysteriously ill after an outing in London.

  "So? Why do you even care about England anyway?"

  Silence. Edith raised her hands at her mother and gave her a questioning glance, but the woman had ceased to acknowledge her. Half-growling, Edith picked up her backpack again, grabbed a handful of cookies from the package on the kitchen counter and headed into her bedroom to do homework. She slammed the door behind her, threw her bag on her bed and slumped against the thin fake wood that was the only barrier between her and the annoying woman she was forced to live with. She slid to the ground and pressed her forehead to her knees.

  Edith closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, forcing images into her mind of a calm stream, gently swaying wheat and sun shining through the branches of the tree she used to lay beneath. Since her grandmother's death, she hadn't seen that tree and she missed it dearly. Her favorite book, a stolen copy of Tolkien's The Two Towers, was still hidden in a hole in the base of the tree, safe within an old cookie tin. Edith had since found another copy of that book, but it just wasn't the same. She would never go back there. The house had been sold and they drew further away from the only home she had ever cared about with each move.

  Cursing her mother for yet again ruining what little happiness she once had, Edith pushed herself to her feet and walked the step and a half to her desk. The room was too small to have a bed, dresser and desk, so the desk, made of milk crates and a piece of old plywood, was relegated to the tiny closet. Lucky for Edith, she didn't have many clothes, so most of them fit in the cheap three-drawer dresser her mother had bought at a local big-box store. The young girl pulled a folding chair from the corner by her bed and opened it up, setting it in front of the make-shift desk and settling onto it. She could easily reach her bag from where she sat and unloaded its treasures and toils onto the rough surface.

  She had only received textbooks in three classes: global history, math and biology. Her English class was in the middle of reading Wuthering Heights, a story she was intimately familiar with, but the teacher had insisted on her taking yet another copy.

  "We're already on page 200," the old woman had said, staring down her pointed nose at Edith. "I hope you can read quickly."

  "I'll do my best," she had replied, barely managing to hold back snide smile from her lips.

  "You better. Now take your seat."

  Edith laughed as she remembered the exchange. That wasn't the first teacher to treat her like she was a stupid delinquent before they even got to know her. When they learned of how many past schools she had been to in the past few years, most assumed it was Edith's fault, that she was unruly or incapable of handling the work or some such thing. Few took the time to learn the real reasons and to discover that she was actually an incredibly bright young lady. She was a complex book whose cover might be rumpled but held some intriguing information and insights in her yellowed pages.

  Edith's lip quirked at the thought of comparing herself to a book as she instinctively grabbed for the copy of Wuthering Heights. 200 pages. Almost two thirds of the way through. Not a problem, she thought as she tossed it onto her bed. Her own copy was buried somewhere in the boxes that lined the living room, tattered and torn from over-use. Groaning, she reached for the biology book. It fell open to the pages where she had stuffed the handouts the rumpled old teacher had given her. He was weird and smelled of sulfur, but she liked him nonetheless. He had an amiable smile and an easy-going demeanor. He probably wouldn't care if she didn't get the homework done, but that made her want to do it all the more despite the fact that science was one of her least favorite subjects, right behind U.S. history and current events.

  Two hours and quite a few crumpled sheets of paper later, Edith emerged from her den of torture with a headache and a grumbling stomach. The apartment was silent. She peered into the living room, expecting to see her mother, but all that greeted her were stacks of boxes, an old couch and a black television.

  "Great. Now where has she gone?"

  Edith found a note on the itty bitty counter top countertop of a kitchen that could barely contain the fridge, sink and stove.

  Out. Buy pizza. Mom. A twenty dollar bill was folded underneath the note.

  "A woman of many words," Edith muttered as she went in search of her cell phone. Though they had very little, her mother insisted on cell phones. They were cheap, prepaid, and not all that pretty, but they got the job done at least. They rarely talked and her mother almost never checked up on her, but on occasion the woman would have a brief spurt of conscience and call Edith randomly, putting on her best responsible adult voice and question her daughter on her whereabouts. On these occasions, Edith was usually in her room or at school, but she gave her mother props for trying. Small props, like tiniest-violin-in-the-world props, but still, props.

  The cell phone was in her backpack, right where she'd left it. She checked the screen, hoping against all hope to see something other than the time. No such luck. She had made one friend at her last school. Exactly one. He was an outcast like she was who wore dirty jeans and carried around an old beat-up guitar. He didn't have a cell phone. Heck, he didn't even have a regular phone at his house. She had his address, but he told her not to send mail because he wouldn't get it.

  Pouting momentarily, Edith started to dial, then realized she had no idea what the number to the pizza place was. Edith paused briefly. Calling the information line would use double her minutes, but when did she ever come close to using all her minutes anyway? She couldn't think of a single time she had used even half. Shrugging, she dialed 4-1-1 and spoke to the operator.

  "I need pizza," she declared when the woman on the other end asked how she could help her.

  "Excuse me?"

  Edith blushed. She was not the most suave on the phone, though she had no problem whatsoever standing up to someone who annoyed her. Kicking herself mentally, she tried again. "Sorry. I mean, I need the number for a local pizza place, please."

  Just a few minutes later, she redialed, this time calling Paul's Pizzeria and Pasta Palace. After stumbling through an order for a large pepperoni with light sauce, she hung up and tossed her cell phone on the bed.

  "Stupid thing," she mumbled, displacing her embarrassment onto the inanimate object as she walked to the window. Even though it was getting dark, she could still see the old woman down there on the stoop, staring out at the street. "So weird."

  The woman looked up, turning her head to stare in Edith's direction. Edith gasped and backed away, knocking against the bed and falling onto it. There was no way the woman had heard her. She'd barely whispered, hadn't she? She wondered if the building had a back door so she wouldn't have to walk past the odd lady again. The whole situation was starting to freak her out. Determined not to let the stranger get to her, Edith stood up and headed into the living room to watch television. It was still tuned to the news.

  "Tell us, Dan, is there any update on Queen Elizabeth?"

  "Unfortunately, no, Bonnie. Both she and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, are unresponsive after a brief outing in London yesterday. Reports indicate that they returned to their private suites, ate a simple meal and retired at the normal hour. But neither would wake this morning. Both are suffering from alternating fever and chills that have doctors baffled. The police are looking into possible poisoning or other foul play. I will let you know as soon as we have further information."

  "Thank you, Dan. Let's head over to Bill for the weather."

  Edith switched channels, wondering how newscasters could do the same so easily. The mo
ved from one story to the next without even batting an eye. The doorbell rang before she found anything interesting on TV and she hopped up to get it, leaving the station where it was. The door didn't have a peephole so she flung it open, abandoning all caution, certain that if anyone wanted to harm her they wouldn't be holding a machete out where she could see it anyway.

  On the other side was her pizza, being held by one of the most gorgeous men she had ever seen. And as fate would have it, this particular man was the same one who had caused her so much trouble earlier in the day. As she stumbled over her bumbling tongue, he smiled.

  "Hi, Edith."

  "Uh, hi." She managed to say two words without making a complete fool of herself, assuming you could count "uh" as an actual word. She was on a roll.

  "I brought your pizza." His grin grew and he raised the box up a little, making sure she understood why he was there, as if the hideous orange shirt and hat weren't dead giveaways.

  "Cool, thanks. Um, come in?" She stepped to one side, wondering at the same time why she was inviting the pizza boy into the apartment. That wasn't the norm, even if he was drop-dead gorgeous and her enemy's boyfriend.

  He brushed past her, setting her skin on fire where his arm touched hers, and quickly found the kitchen. He picked up the note and twenty with one hand as she set the pizza down with the other.

  "Your mom sure is one for words, isn't she?" His teasing smile melted the massive barrier of fear she had thrown up upon seeing him.

  "She's, uh, different, I guess." Edith ran a hand through her hair and offered a weak smile.

  He laughed and waved the twenty. "Pizza's only eleven ninety-nine. Let me get you change." He started to dig through the dirty money belt he wore.

  Edith waved him off. "No, don't worry about it. Keep the change."

  He raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"

  "Yeah, it's fine. Not like it's my money anyway."