by Abigail Owen
BLUE VIOLET
BOOK # 1 OF THE SVATURA SERIES
BY ABIGAIL OWEN
Copyright © 2012 by Abigail Owen
Alrights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 978-0-9882272-0-0
Abigail Owen Self-Publishing
[email protected]
To everyone who has ever supported my writing - from the time I was eight years old to now. You are the reason I have the confidence to follow my dream.
And to my husband, Robbie. You are my te’sorthene.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Excerpt from Hyacinth - Book #2 of the Svatura Series
All flowers have a meaning. In the Victorian era, people used flowers as symbols to express their feelings.
blue violet: watchfulness, faithfulness, I’ll always be true
Chapter 1
The first day was always the worst. Ellie Aubrey stood in the administrative office, as she had many times before, and shifted from foot to foot. She waited with growing boredom for one of the counselors to give her the usual “new student” spiel. Ellie would tolerate it. Just one last time she would tolerate it for what she had to do. Even though she risked her life just being there.
So far, her experience at this school was pretty much the same as all the other times before… Same generic brick buildings, very institutional looking and obviously not updated in fifty-some-odd years. Same teenagers hanging out in random patches around the school waiting for the starting bell to ring. Same secretary wearing a heavily decorated sweater, this one winter -themed in keeping with the season. It was mid-January and Ellie was the new girl. Again.
Ellie glanced out the window. A least the locale seemed a little different than her previous residences. Estes Park nestled into a valley in Colorado, just outside the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. In the distance you could see the beaver-shaped notches of Long’s Peak. At this time of year, Estes Park appeared to be a typical sleepy little mountain town, blanketed in white snow. Although Ellie had the impression that, come summer, it would fill with tourists out to enjoy the many entertainments the beautiful surroundings could offer.
“Ellinore?” a voice asked from the doorway behind her.
“Ellie,” she corrected the counselor automatically, as she turned and offered a polite smile. Her full name could be considered very old-fashioned having not been popular in decades, if not centuries. Ellie held in a sigh as the counselor, Miss Langston, introduced herself. She epitomized the usual counselor-type who wanted to connect with the students and thought she was up on the latest fashions and fads, but probably mentally used words like hip.
As she followed Miss Langston through the hallways to the counselor’s office, Ellie made sure to make eye contact with each person she passed, always with a pleasant expression. She’d discovered the best way to handle the first week or so in a new school was to look confident and generically nice, not cocky. It also helped to try to blend in as much as possible. A fine line to walk, especially for someone like her.
The students in this school appeared to be no different than those in all her other schools. The girls sported long, straight hair. And most of the boys had shaggy hair, although Ellie happily noticed the clean cut look had started to infiltrate this particular high school. She hadn’t really enjoyed those styles the first time around.
“So I understand that you’ve just moved here from Texas,” Miss Langston said, consulting her files after they had seated themselves in her tiny office. She looked up over her black-rimmed glasses at Ellie.
Ellie nodded. She knew exactly what that folder contained. School records were still notoriously easy to alter.
“Estes Park High School is quite a bit smaller than your previous school,” Miss Langston continued.
Ellie kept herself from shifting in her seat and proceeded to nod at appropriate intervals as Miss Langston droned on and on. A full half hour later, armed with school rules, a map, and her schedule, Ellie finally made her way to her first class.
She resisted the urge to cringe as she felt the gazes of the other students follow her. In smaller schools like this, the students recognized when a new face appeared among them. They already knew everyone else there and had known them since kindergarten in many cases.
She wondered briefly what exactly they saw when they looked at her. She guessed they’d see a petite, almost pixie-like girl with gleaming, long, black hair that hung in waves down her back, and blue eyes so deep in color they appeared to be almost violet. Not beautiful exactly, more girl-next-door with a slightly exotic coloring. She actually had tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose that almost made her cute.
Ellie had deliberately dressed down a bit, sticking to her tried and true rule of blending in. She wore the uniform skinny jeans, flats, and a fairly plain blue top that was flattering, but nothing special. Today she’d pulled her long hair into a straight ponytail hanging down to the middle of her back. She couldn’t do much to downplay her striking eyes but hadn’t bothered to highlight them either. Experience had taught her if she wanted to make any girlfriends on the first day, the best way was to avoid being seen as competition.
Ellie didn’t necessarily have a problem with being the center of attention. She just didn’t love the “new girl” attention -- a combination of curious and strangely hostile.
With another inward sigh, Ellie reminded herself that she had an extremely good reason for doing this. She took a deep breath and entered her first period classroom, senior-level English—one of her favorite subjects. She walked up to the teacher’s desk and handed over a slip of paper to be signed.
“Hi, I’m Ellie.”
The lovely, blonde woman nodded. “I am Mrs. Cavender and this is AP English. Were you in the advanced class in your previous school?”
“Yes.” The counselor had already asked her that.
“What books had you made it through when you’d left?”
“We’d finished Canterbury Tales and Hamlet.”
Mrs. Cavender nodded again as she got up from her desk. Pulling a book off the shelves behind her, she said, “We’re in the middle of To Kill a Mockingbird, so you’ll have some catching up to do.”
Ellie nodded. She’d already read it more than once. In fact, she’d read it when it had been first published in 1960. But of course she couldn’t tell the teacher that.
Mrs. Cavender pointed. “You can sit behind Jill over there.”
“Thanks,” Ellie muttered and made her way to her seat, resisting
the urge to see if one of her targets happened to be in this class. She plopped down at the small desk, dropped her backpack on the floor, and gave a shy smile to the girl seated in front of her. She received a sweet, curiosity-filled one in return.
English went about how Ellie expected. They had a vocabulary quiz. She aced it. They discussed a few chapters of the book. She pretended to listen as if she hadn’t already read it. They wrote a timed essay comparing and contrasting two different marriage proposals from pieces of literature that Ellie already knew well. Good times.
So far so good, Ellie thought. No one put themselves out to be particularly nice, but at the same time no one had been remotely nasty, either. If she could get through lunch--the worst part of the first day--she could make it through anything. And then start all over tomorrow.
“Lather. Rinse. Repeat,” she muttered under her breath.
The bell rang signaling the end of class and the start of the early lunch period. Ellie held back, trying to time her entry into the lunchroom to be after the bulk of the students were settled, but not so late that her appearance in the room was too obvious, a trick she’d learned at previous schools - give most of the students a chance to sit down so that Ellie didn’t make the mistake of sitting at an already claimed table.
Ellie sat alone at a table in the far back corner of the cafeteria. She desperately wanted to lift her head and look around for the three students she had come here to find. But she couldn’t do that without risking attracting their attention. Pretty quickly the curiosity surrounding her arrival in the school would fade. And then she could finally focus on the true reason she’d moved here. A moment that had been such a long time in coming, Ellie could barely contain herself.
Chapter 2
“Hi.” The soft voice caused Ellie to jump a bit in her seat.
Glancing up, she almost jumped again—this time in shock. She immediately recognized the girl standing next to her as Adelaide Jenner, one of the three students she’d just been thinking about…The reason why she’d decided to risk her life to come here.
“Um, hi.” Ellie took in the girl’s appearance. Adelaide had pretty green eyes and honey blonde hair worn in a short, chin-length cap. Despite the fact that she’d approached Ellie, she seemed shy and soft spoken. She dressed casually like the other students, but on the girl’s superb figure, she looked more like a high fashion model than a high school kid.
“You’re new here, right?” the girl asked softly. At Ellie’s nod she continued, “I’m Adelaide Jenner.”
“Ellie Aubrey,” she responded
Adelaide gave Ellie a strangely intent look.
Uh-oh, Ellie thought, her heart pounding a little harder. She knows.
At that exact moment, another voice echoed in her mind. “Do you need me to say I told you so?”
“Griffin?” she thought back.
“Now who else would be in your head, Sis’?” the voice teased.
“But I thought you weren’t going to get involved?”
“I’m not,” came the emphatic response. “I’ll see you when you get home.”
“Ookkaayyy.”
“Oh, and Elle?”
“Yeah?”
“She doesn’t know anything. Not yet at least. And don’t even think about using my mind reading on them.”
Holding on to her brother’s last comment, Ellie hid her thoughts and raised her eyebrows. “Do I have something in my teeth?” she asked, covering her mouth and feigning embarrassment. She knew she didn’t have anything in her teeth.
She breathed a sigh of relief when Adelaide seemed to shake herself out of her reverie. “No, you’re fine…. Um, would you like somebody to sit with? The first day at a new school can be pretty brutal.”
Ellie had no idea what to think, but decided that if Adelaide wanted to be friendly that was better than the alternatives.
“That would be nice, thanks.” She scooted her lunch things closer to make more room.
“Great! Umm…” Adelaide hesitated, her hand resting on the back of a chair, “Do you mind if my sister and my boyfriend join us?”
Ellie blinked. There were three people she was here for, and on her first day she was already going to have lunch with them. Tricky situation. She’d only planned on observing from afar.
“No problem!” she responded brightly, hoping her thoughts remained well-hidden. She didn’t know yet what they were capable of.
Adelaide turned and waved the other two over. The girl who walked up to the table looked exactly like Adelaide except that her hair hung to the middle of her back, and she seemed more confident and more serious. The boy was unusually tall and lanky with sandy brown hair. His dark eyes flashed an engaging twinkle.
“This is my sister, Lila. That’s short for Lilianna. We’re--”
“Sisters?” Ellie guessed. “Yeah, I kinda figured that one out.” She grinned at Lila. She kept her hands deliberately under the table, rather than offering to shake. “I’m Ellie.”
“Nate,” the tall boy said, as he pulled out a chair across from her.
“So where’re you from?” Lila asked. She sat down and pulled out a sandwich and an apple from her lunch bag.
“Texas,” Ellie said, watching for a reaction. She found it interesting what preconceptions people had about places.
“Oh? Which part?” Adelaide appeared interested.
“Austin, so right in the middle of the state,” Ellie said.
“Austin’s known for the music scene, right?” Nate asked around his bit of pizza.
“Yeah, there’s lots of live music there. I’ll miss that. But it’s beautiful here,” she commented, gesturing to the scenery outside.
“And cold,” Lila said wryly.
“Why’d you move here?” Nate asked.
Ellie cleared her throat. “Um… family stuff.” She gave a casual shrug. She’d gotten good at being vague over the years. Family stuff covered a whole host of possibilities without being too specific.
“What year are you?” Lila asked as she finished her sandwich and picked up her apple.
“I’m a senior. What about you guys?” Ellie leaned back in her chair. Her nerves made eating lunch impossible at this point.
“Lila’s a junior. Delia and I are seniors,” Nate answered.
“Oh! Maybe we have some classes together. What do you have in the afternoon?”
“Cool, we have French together,” Adelaide said when they compared schedules. “Lila too.”
“You’re in third-level French?” Ellie remarked with surprise, until she reminded herself that these three were like her. Special. That would take some getting used to. She didn’t meet many people like her any more. If anything, she avoided them.
“We tested out of first-level French last year,” Lila explained. “We took a trip to France in junior high, so our parents made us learn it first…talk about sucking the fun out of a vacation!” She sighed and Adelaide scrunched her nose. Ellie had to laugh at their identical, disgruntled expressions.
Ellie happily observed that they seemed to be such nice people. And she would love to be friends with them, but that fell in the category of not a good idea. Apart from its complicating her situation, it also could put their lives in danger… the last thing Ellie wanted. As they talked and laughed, Ellie thought about the situation and realized that, given her reasons for being here, there was no way they could ever be friends. She’d have to keep a polite distance. Of course, it would be much easier if Griffin would help.
Ellie stifled a large sigh.
After lunch Adelaide, Lila, and Nate walked to Ellie’s calculus class with her.
“See ya, baby.” Nate gave Adelaide a quick peck on her cheek before he and Ellie headed into the room.
Fortunately the calculus teacher, Mr. Kramer, seated her across the room from Nate. The less interaction the better.
As soon as the bell rang, Ellie made her way to the front office, dropped off her signed class slip, and headed for the parkin
g lot. At least the first day of school was over. Tomorrow she’d be less of a novelty.
Ellie was walking out of the main building when she was ambushed by her new friends.
“Hey, Ellie!” Adelaide called out.
“Hi!” She waved and tried to keep walking, but the others caught up with her easily.
“How was your first day?” Adelaide asked, skipping up beside her.
“Typical first day in a new school,” Ellie grinned.
“So Nate, Lila, and I study together a lot. You probably already guessed that. Since you share some classes with us, I thought you might like to join us some time,” Adelaide continued.
Ellie didn’t want to encourage a friendship, as tempting as that seemed. At the same time, she didn’t want to drive Adelaide away.
“Sure! That sounds great.” She’d just have to make sure her schedule was booked any of the times they asked. They’d stop asking eventually.
“Okay. So how does Wednesday night sound to you?”
Nuts. She hadn’t realized that Adelaide would immediately make plans. And being new to town, her original excuse of busy would stand out as an obvious excuse.
“I think that will be alright, but let me check. Okay?”
“Sure,” Adelaide agreed.
Suddenly, Lila let out a squeal of delight. “Alex!” She shot across the front courtyard.
Beside Ellie, Adelaide limited herself to a milder reaction, just smiling widely. Ellie couldn’t quite see the person Lila had greeted with such enthusiasm until she launched herself into his arms, and Ellie had a direct view of him.
Suddenly Ellie’s world tilted at a slightly crazy angle. One moment she was walking along, trying to think of an excuse to miss out on studying. The next moment she could hardly breathe. Feeling slightly dizzy, Ellie wondered fleetingly if what she was feeling was some kind of effect from the boy’s powers.
The boy’s good looks could be considered almost in-your-face handsome… tall, broad shouldered, and with similar coloring to her own - black hair cropped short, slightly longer on the top, and blue eyes. Even from where she stood, she could see that his eyes were a paler blue than hers, almost silver. Drop dead hot was an understatement. Ellie had seen her fair share of handsome guys over her lifetime, but none had ever piqued her interest. And despite a rather optimistic personality, she did not believe in love at first sight. But something about this guy was getting to her after just one glance.