by Laury Falter
LAURY FALTER
RESIDUE
Text copyright ©2012 by Laury Falter
All rights reserved. Except as permitted by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher.
First Edition: April 2012
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Falter, Laury, 1972-
Fallen: a novel / by Laury Falter – 1st ed.
Summary: When sixteen-year-old Jocelyn Weatherford is whisked away from a preparatory academy in upstate New York to live with her extended family in New Orleans, she is unprepared to encounter the dangers awaiting her. Yet even as she is thrust into an unfamiliar world of witches and voodoo magic, the greatest threat of all may be the boy she has fallen for. While handsome and charming, he is also a Caldwell...a member of the family the Weatherford's have been feuding with for centuries. As their forbidden love grows it becomes the volatile spark that forever changes their world and everyone in it.
ISBN-10: 0985511001
ISBN-13: 978-0-9855110-0-5
For my mom.
Thank you for teaching me when innocence fails strength sets in.
CONTENTS
1 SCAR
2 FATE
3 REVEALED
4 BIRTHDAY
5 ENEMY REVEALED
6 THE PLEA
7 RETALIATION
8 THE HEALING
9 ACCEPTANCE
10 SECRET RENDEVOUS
11 THE VILLAGE
12 RESIDUE
13 VIRES
14 DATE
15 DIVISION
16 BREAKUP
17 LA TERREUR
18 MISLED
19 MISSING
20 FEUD
21 THE TRUTH
22 THE PLAN
1 SCAR
It was on the eve of my sixteenth birthday when I learned that I came from a long bloodline of distinguished witches and that my particular lineage just happened to be cursed. This life-altering realization began abruptly, painfully, and while I was surrounded by other students in my English Literature class.
Only a few minutes remained before the end of the lackluster hour on 18 century novelists as I sat impatiently waiting for Professor Clements to dismiss us. Then I felt it…a slight pinch at the base of my right wrist.
At first I’d thought a spider had scrambled unacknowledged across my desk to leave me a small memento with its tiny fangs. But the feeling didn’t remain at my wrist. Slowly, progressively, it moved up the length of my limb toward the elbow. By the time it reached midway, I’d twisted the soft underside of my arm toward me.
My breath caught then, after realizing it wasn’t a spider bite. The thing causing my discomfort, which resembled what I imagined a third-degree burn might feel like, was actually something far worse.
There, on the fleshy part of my arm, which only seconds ago I knew to be smooth and flawless, was the distinct, taut undulation of a scar.
This was no normal scar, however. There was something unmistakably odd about the mark, something I had never seen or read of before. A moment ago, I didn’t have a single scar on my body. And one this large would have been caused by significant injury of which I’d never encountered.
It remained in motion, growing slowly, steadily searing its path, and only ending when it reached the fold of my elbow.
Despite its blistering heat I remained stationary, amazed at what I was witnessing, trying to make sense of it. Then, by instinct alone, I glanced at my other arm expecting to see another injury growing there too. Covering that limb was a stretch of milky-white skin and a white metal bracelet wrapped around my wrist, a gift my mother had given me which, by her instructions, I have never removed. The clear white, crystal quartz stone embedded in it caught my attention for only a moment and then I returned to the far more serious issue on my right arm.
Even as my mouth hung open, I couldn’t seem to control my breathing. My lungs were stuck in place, immovable. In fact, the only things moving were my heart, which was beating much harder now, and my fingers, curling in to a clenched fist that looked ready to hit something. Then, the scar stopped but the pain remained.
I felt as if it were almost screaming at me to notice it.
Sandra Kitrick, who’d been ignoring Professor Clements in favor of feverishly writing a note to her friend for most of class and one prone toward dramatics, looked up and gasped, jarring me from my focus.
She’d now seen it, too.
“Are you…” she began, never getting the chance to finish.
Chairs were now scrapping across the tiled floor, gasps were being emitted from those closest to me, and heads were suddenly bent over me for a closer look at my arm.
Great, not only was I in pain, I was now a spectacle. I wanted to turn and give Sandra a sarcastic thanks but realized this may not be the best time for it.
Professor Clements weaved her way between the students to reach my desk, her curt tone a sign of irritation at the class’s disruption. “Jocelyn Weatherford, what are you up to now? If I have…”
I looked up to find her ashen, her mouth ajar, her eyes wide and locked on my arm - the scar on my arm to be precise.
Professor Clements’ eyebrows furrowed then. “Is that…Have you had that all along?” she asked in a way that confirmed she already knew the answer.
“No,” I said, proud to find my voice steady.
The scar was now a long, purplish disfigurement, an inch wide and reaching from my wrist to my elbow. It would have been hard to miss today or any day since I’d arrived at this school.
My answer spurred her to action, her commonly cynical expression transforming to one of panic. “Move,” she commanded the class, making a path through to the door. “Move! Back to your seats and finish Chapter Three. Move!”
The class shuffled quickly back where they’d been moments ago and I was following Professor Clements, having enough sense to sling my book bag over my shoulder. It was clumsy, not wanting to move my uninjured arm too much, but looking like a fool was the least of my worries at that point.
I was ushered, or more precisely yanked, out of the classroom and into the hallway, where our walk to the nurse’s office was quick and silent.
I’d lived at Wentworth Preparatory Academy in upstate New York my entire life, having been deposited here by my mother when I turned old enough to be admitted at the ripe age of five. I didn’t remember much prior to that date, but my memories were vivid from that point on. I had celebrated my birthdays, my first straight-A report card, my first crush (on Dylan from the boy’s academy down the road). This was my home and yet, for the first time, I realized I’d never been to the nurse’s office.
I was healthy, never having come down with a single cold or suffered an injury greater than a paper cut. Unlike everyone else I knew, my skin had never seen a single blemish, my knees had never been scraped. I had no freckles, birthmarks, not even a pimple. As of only a few minutes ago, I didn’t have a scar anywhere on my body.
In fact, as I passed the darkened glass wall lining the dining room’s entrance, my instinct was to perform a quick inspection to see if anything else had transpired. Maybe my hair had fallen out or my ear had ballooned up. What I saw instead was a briskly moving girl just as tall and lanky as she’d been when I saw her in the mirror this morning. My hair was still there, straight and black as a starless night sky with its permanent curls at the ends bouncing as they always did off the middle of my back. My hazel eyes were their average size, my nose and overly plump l
ips were unchanged. Everything appeared to be normal, to my relief. Everything except the scar on my right arm.
Professor Clements guided me through the hallways and down a flight of stairs to the academy’s first floor, shoving open a door at the second turn on the left. A single word was etched in the frosted glass, NURSE. Inside, it was bright, white, and quiet, like a sanctuary, or a morgue depending on your perspective.
Professor Clements was a rather robust woman with powerful lungs so that when she barked “Nurse Carol!” I jumped and temporarily forgot the searing pain the scar was causing.
She shouted it twice more before a calm voice came from the next room.
The words reached me just as she emerged from around the corner. “Well, well…At long last.”
It was an odd response given the urgency Professor Clements had shown, I noted. In fact, the woman seemed more curious than hurried. Dressed in a standard white nurse’s uniform with the same padded-soled shoes a nurse would wear, she smiled warmly while crossing the room toward me.
I had seen Nurse Carol before but we’d never spoken until now. On the grounds of an all-girls school that required students to wear a white button down shirt and plaid skirt with matching blazer at all times, a nurse’s stark white uniform stood out. While she never approached me, I couldn’t help noticing when she’d scan the dining room or the hallways until her eyes landed on me, as if she were checking in to confirm I was all right.
Professor Clements snorted in annoyance at the delay before launching into a tense discourse. “I have a student here needing immediate medical-”
Nurse Carol didn’t allow her to finish. “That will be all, Professor.”
Professor Clement’s head snapped back. “Well, I…” She released an exasperated sigh. “I wasn’t done speaking.”
“I’m sure Jocelyn thanks you for your assistance. I can handle it from here.”
While that response didn’t seem to sit well with my teacher, she must have figured there was no sense in delaying the inevitable. She would need to return to her classroom eventually and let Nurse Carol do her job. She gave me a curt nod and Nurse Carol a glare before leaving the room.
The door closed before either of us spoke.
“I understand you have an injury,” she said, her voice free from nerves.
This was good because mine were in chaos.
Without waiting for me to respond, or even to tell her what had happened, she assessed me. Finding me favoring my arm, she took it and turned it for a closer inspection.
Her gaze was unperturbed as she took only a second to perform a cursory evaluation of it.
Then she did something that truly set my nerves on edge.
She released me, marched toward the phone, dialed, and after a brief pause, she announced, “It’s me. And it’s begun.”
Begun, I thought. What’s begun?
Remaining silent and listening for clues, I was disappointed when she didn’t speak again until after she set the receiver back in its cradle. Then she looked at me, her easygoing demeanor gone. “You’re going to need to pack your bags. You leave for New Orleans in fifteen minutes.” She gave me these instructions offhandedly, as if it were a foregone conclusion, as if I had some hand in making them.
“What?” I demanded the searing pain down my arm forgotten. “You have no right to make that decision. Who do you think you are?”
I was hoping my words would instill some sense of apprehension in her but she easily ignored them. Then she countered by delivering the news that would change my life forever.
“Jocelyn,” she said her tone steady and calculated. “You are in danger.”
2 FATE
“Danger?” I repeated, staring at Nurse Carol in astonishment.
The only danger I was in was the possibility of losing my lunch after all that had transpired within the last few minutes.
She answered vaguely with more of a prompt than an explanation. “Yes, you’ll need to pack and you don’t have much time.”
I released a sigh that had become lodged in my throat. “What kind of danger exactly?” As an afterthought, I added, “And I’m not going anywhere.” I was starting to wonder if Nurse Carol needed a little help herself, by way of a psychologist.
She stopped shuffling through the numerous jars she had stored in a cabinet and turned to me. Then she reached out and took hold of my arm to lift it into my view.
“You are in this kind of danger, one that you cannot prevent and will not be able to foresee.” She released my arm before delivering the bluntest part of her message. “This, Jocelyn, is just the beginning.”
“Of what?” I said, startling myself at my ferocity. “I don’t understand.”
“I will leave that for your family to explain.”
Her head was tucked back in the cabinet again so her voice was slightly muffled.
“What family?” I asked, bewildered.
My family consisted of my mother and she had never visited unless it was a school-sanctioned holiday. When she did, it was only for that allotted amount of time in which she would have airline tickets ready for travel to various locales. Those were the happiest, most memorable days of my life, and if I were really forced to pack for a move to New Orleans the only real possessions of value I’d bring were the photographs taken during our trips together. I’d never been introduced to any other member of my family, my free time having been carefully constructed by my mother to avoid such interactions.
“Your aunt will be meeting you at the airport. She’s flying in as we speak.”
Only then did I get a sense of just how serious this scar had become. Since it materialized, I was going to leave the only home I’d ever known to live with relatives I’d never met.
“How do you know my mother will approve of this?” I inquired, still defiant.
Nurse Carol swung around toward a row of file cabinets, withdrew a piece of paper and handed it to me before returning to the medicine cabinet. In far fewer words than those written on the piece of paper by my mother Nurse Carol explained, “Under very detailed instructions, at the first sign of an unexplainable ailment, you are to be released and sent to live with your family in New Orleans.”
Stunned, I stood there, holding the evidence of her proclamation and yet I couldn’t seem to speak, to affirm that I believed her. It made no sense. My mother had gracefully evaded any attempts I’d ever made to ask questions about them, much less meet them.
Then the paper was gone from my fingers and the jar Nurse Carol had been searching for was placed in my palm.
“Use this every hour covering every part of the scar until it diminishes.” Her head dipped then, peering at me from beneath her lashes. She must have noticed my surreal state because she urged, “Do you understand?”
I nodded, my expression still frozen in disagreement.
“Good, I’ve secured the campus for you. Now go. You have less than ten minutes to pack. Meet me at the front entrance. I’ll drive you.”
While I didn’t understand what she meant by “secured the campus,” or bother to leave her office as quickly as I knew she’d like, I wasn’t concerned with either of those realizations. My feet gradually carried me through the few students trickling toward their next class. I knew each of them by name, but I didn’t know them well enough to say goodbye. Even if I did, I’m not sure I could have conjured the words. The rest of the students were already seated, including my best friends, so when I reached my dormitory room it was expectedly empty.
In the five minutes I had left, I wrote a note to reassure them I’d call, grabbed my cherished photo album from beneath my pillow, and then stopped at the door for one final look around.
I did a scan of Alisa’s science posters and Elizabeth’s beloved row of plants on the windowsill. Then, still bewildered as to why I needed to leave this life I’d created here so quickly, I mindlessly took a keepsake from my bedpost-a black top hat worn during one of the academy’s pageants in which we’d taken fir
st place.
Then I was out the door and buckled in next to Nurse Carol as she sped down the tree-lined road and through the academy’s main gate. In the rearview mirror, I watched the massive red and white brick building shrink until we turned onto the main roadway, my heart sinking as quickly as the distance between us grew.
I knew that most of the faculty and some of the students would be overjoyed at my departure. I’d caused enough havoc within those walls to stir up controversy regularly. If it hadn’t been for my family’s money, I’d have been sent to public school years ago. But I’d stayed in place and it had become my home…and I would miss it.
Nurse Carol’s simple two-door sedan expertly carved its way through the traffic, or maybe she just knew how to drive it, so that we reached the airport in record time.
She’d dodged every question I asked so that when I stepped out of her car, I had given up. At some point, you begin to feel foolish pestering someone for information when they have repeatedly refused to offer any. She did, however, guide me to the ticket counter where I thought she’d leave me on my own. I was wrong.
Instead, she stopped in front of a petite woman with frizzy red hair, a wide smile, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“Lizzy,” said Nurse Carol wrapping her arms around the woman’s shoulders as one does with a very old friend.
Then the name triggered my memory. Lizzy was my mother’s sister-which made her my aunt. I took a closer look at her and could see the resemblance. My mother was taller, the same gene I’d been given, but the two shared the same upturned nose and bright eyes.
Nurse Carol and Lizzy were still hugging when something occurred to me. How could a nurse at my school know my aunt before I did?
The recognition of it caused me to suck in a quick breath, drawing their attention.