He took another bite of the fruit, staring at me. “I know. Cadence says you’re supposed to peel these things, but I’ve always found Humans to be awfully wasteful. Haven’t you?”
This wasn’t happening. I had to be in the middle of a strange nightmare. Feeling weak and groggy, I closed my eyes again, willing myself to wake up from the awful dream. When I opened my eyes, the boy stood over my bed, still chewing, but the orange was gone. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re not dreaming.”
My legs were free so, I kicked him in the stomach, which barely moved him. He bent over, trying to take hold of my legs, and I did the only thing I could think to do—leaned over and bit him on his shoulder. Groaning, he held both my legs with one hand and pressed me down on the bed with the other. The scent of the orange lingered on his breath. “I don’t want to do this, but you have to calm down.” There was the familiar prick in my neck, and I was out again.
When I awoke, I had no way of knowing how much time had passed. The room was windowless, so I couldn’t tell if it was day or night. What was my family thinking? Were they even looking for me? Of course they weren’t. They had let the boy take me in the first place. They were probably happy to get rid of me, the thing that doesn’t belong.
I decided to be calm. Fighting was useless. I needed to get some answers, and that wouldn’t happen if the boy kept putting me to sleep. It took me a moment to realize he was standing on one side of my bed and on the other was this . . . thing. I flinched but willed myself not to react. Whatever it was, it was hideous.
The thing leaned over me, and I had the overwhelming urge to punch it for getting so close. “What is it?” the thing asked. “I mean; it doesn’t have horns or wings or anything.”
It?
The boy with the wings shrugged. “Some kind of mix. My father will know.”
Hideous Thing backed off. “Whatever it is, it’s ugly. It smells funny too.”
“What do you expect? It’s been living with Humans.”
It took me a few seconds to realize the “it” was me. Hideous Thing had a lot of nerve to be talking. It had the body form of a Human, but its skin was gray, with red veins stretching in all directions. Black stringy hair dangled just past its shoulders. Pointy gray ears and whiskers shot out of its head. The worst part was the sharp teeth that protruded so far out of its mouth that closing it was impossible.
Hideous Thing appeared to smirk. “Is it ugly because it’s been living with Humans?”
I gritted my teeth. “That’s the last time you get to call me ugly, Thing.”
The winged boy chuckled. “Don’t take it personally. He also thinks I’m ugly, and we both know that’s preposterous.”
Winged Boy wasn’t my type, but he was far from ugly. Short ebony hair, large dark eyes, and perfectly chiseled facial features made sure of that. His boyish face was a striking contrast to his manly body. If I weren’t so scared and confused, I might have taken more time to bask in his perfection.
Hideous Thing shook its head. “It’s ugly, and it has a bad attitude.”
I gripped the bedsheets with my fists. “I’m not an it. And what do you mean, what am I? What are you?”
“A Vetala.”
That meant absolutely nothing to me, so I looked away from Hideous Thing and brought my attention back to the boy. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because you’re one of us, and we have a lot of catching up to do. I’m Hollis, by the way.” He smiled as if waiting for me to be impressed.
“Hollis,” I repeated. “Well, Hollis. What are you? Some sort of twisted angel?”
Hollis and Hideous Thing laughed. “No. I’m the opposite. I’m an Aswang.”
“An ass what?”
“An Aswang. Don’t worry. We’ll give you some research material, and you’ll learn all about us. Kind of like homework.”
“Why does it smell that way?” the Vetala asked again with a look of absolute disgust. I must have smelled really bad for him to keep harping on it. Bringing my head down, I sniffed myself. I still smelled like the peach body wash I had showered with.
“It’s not her fault. She’s been eating their food.”
Hollis leaned over and released my straps, untying me from the bed. “Stay calm this time, or they go back on.”
Sitting up was a task. Dizziness overpowered me, but I needed to get out of this place.
Something beeped. Hollis pulled a phone from his jeans pocket and glanced at the screen. “We have to go. I’ll bring you something to eat in a little bit. Also, Father examined you while you were sleeping, and he’s going to be able to tell us what you are.”
I shivered at the thought of some strange man I had never even seen examining me as I slept. “What do you mean, what I am? I know what I am.”
“What are you then?” asked Hideous Thing.
“Well . . . a girl.”
Hollis gave me a lopsided grin. “No, you’re not. You think you’re Human, but you’re not. Someone should have told you a long time ago.”
“What do you mean I’m not Human?”
Hideous Thing came closer to me. “You should be glad. Being a Human is so mundane. My name’s Wes, by the way.”
“Wes?” I laughed, although I hadn’t meant to.
He frowned. “Something funny about my name?”
“No, it’s just that I was expecting a more exotic name from someone who looks so . . .”
“So what?” Wes demanded.
“We’ll tell you more later,” Hollis said as he pulled the creature away from the bed and toward the door. “I’ll bring you some food.”
“Wait. I—don’t leave me by myself.” I didn’t want to give off any hints that I was afraid, but I was.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be back.”
Then they were gone, leaving me alone and confused.
Hollis came back about an hour later as he’d promised, bearing a bowl of something that looked like chicken soup and a humongous book with a tattered cover. He handed me the bowl, and I immediately scooped the soup into my mouth against my better judgment. The food could have been drugged for all I knew, but I was famished. I couldn’t tell what kind of meat was in the soup, but it wasn’t anything I had ever tasted. It was probably best I didn’t know.
“Are you ready to hear the truth?” Hollis asked.
Oh, I was way past ready. I nodded.
“Most people think this earth is only inhabited by Humans and animals, but the truth is, we have been here a long time before Humans were. Well, not us specifically, but our kind. Givers and Takers. We’re Takers.”
I had downed half the bowl by then and was already wondering if there was more. “What do you mean Givers and Takers?”
“Givers give life and Takers take life. It might sound bad, what we do, but it keeps the balance. Don’t let anybody make you think that we’re monsters or villains. We just do what we were born to do. We stick with our kind and the Givers stick to theirs. We don’t bother each other as long as things stay under control. Arden, you’re a Taker. For some reason you were taken from your real parents. They’re the ones who are supposed to be teaching you what you are and the ways of Takers. That’s why you’re so lost.”
I placed the empty bowl on the table beside me. I had spent so much time thinking about how Mom and Dad weren’t really my parents that I hadn’t given much thought to who my real parents were and where they might be.
“Anyway,” Hollis continued. “That’s why I had to come and get you. I took your sister by mistake. I think your smell had rubbed off on her, but still I should have known better. I’m still learning. Anyway, Father wasn’t happy. I’m old enough to have this position, so I can’t make these types of mistakes. Anyway, he says you’re a mix between a Banshee and a Wendigo. I think we’ll call you a Bandigo. It has a ring to it. I’m going to give you this book, and I want you to look these things up and learn about them. Everything in this book is a fact. It’s not like when you goggle things and they
may be wrong or right.”
“Google,” I corrected.
“Whatever. Don’t bother with it. Forget everything you’ve ever learned about any sort of mythical creature and learn from that book.”
The book was the size of all my textbooks put together. How on earth was I supposed to read all that?
Hollis placed the book on my lap, and my legs hurt immediately from the weight of it.
“I know this is a lot, but you have to accept this and learn really quick. I mean, all of us are learning about ourselves and how to use whatever powers we have, but you’re farther behind than the rest of us.”
“Behind?”
“Yeah. Think about how Human children know about tigers, penguins, cows. They know what they look like. What they eat. Where they live. That’s how all these creatures need to be to you. This is basic stuff that we’ve been learning since birth, so yeah, you’re behind.”
I ran my fingers over the golden cover, feeling completely hopeless. “Hollis, I feel like there’s something else you’re not telling me.”
Hollis stared at the wall for a moment and then leaned in close to me. “You’re in trouble. That means we’re in trouble. There’s another Wendigo, or something pretending to be a Wendigo, out there killing people. It’s not you. Father said it can’t be you because you don’t yet have the strength to kill like that, but you will as you get closer to your eighteenth birthday. That’s only a year away.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do,” Hollis said firmly. “Your taste for flesh, meat. How you scratch at the floors. How you act when you’re sleeping at night. You’ve always known there was something different about you. Every day you live, you’re getting closer and closer to becoming a monster. Eventually you might have to go where the rest of them go.”
“Where’s that?”
Hollis stood. “That’s enough info for now.”
“Wait! No, what does that mean ‘go where the rest of them go’?”
“Read up. I’ll be back soon.” He left me alone again, and I stared at the tattered book cover for a long time. I opened it up to the first page. The word TAKERS was etched across the paper in fancy script. I turned to the next page and read softly to myself.
“Takers are beings that take life from the world. They live primarily underground. They never kill unnecessarily, only to eat or to protect themselves. Young Takers begin to exhibit behaviors on or around their thirteenth birthdays, with their strengths and powers being full formed by the time they turn eighteen. Takers used to live thousands of years, but as their powers have diminished, their life spans have dwindled down to nearly that of a Human. Rarely do they live past the age of one hundred.”
The book was divided into three sections: Takers, Givers, and a small section labeled Legends. I flipped through the pages and found that the creatures were listed in alphabetical order, so I went to the Banshee first. I grabbed a stray pencil and notebook from a table in the room. Writing things down helped me remember them better. There was one page, front and back, about the Banshee. I jotted down the important things that stood out to me.
-Female messenger spirit and an omen of death
-Woman of the fairy world
-Generally dressed in white or gray robes
-They announce death
A flood of thoughts rushed through my mind. I was always thinking about death and the ways people could die at any given moment. I had seen that purple color around Ms. Melcher before she disappeared. Was that a sign? Did that mean she was dead? These things meant I wasn’t crazy after all. I was a Banshee.
There was a paragraph on how to kill a Banshee. Why did the book have to include that? To kill a Banshee for good, you had to grind her bones into powder, or else she would keep coming back to life.
If I read the book from cover to cover, I would have been reading for a year. I flipped to the Ws at the back of the book to find Wendigos. The illustration showed a horrid creature. Tall and lean with protruding ribs and gray, furry skin. Was that what I was going to turn into?
Wendigos
-Always hungry
-Crave Human flesh
-Exhibits traits of both a Human and a monster
-Never satisfied after consuming one person. They are always on the hunt for more.
I gulped. I was going to become one of those? Was Hollis right? As I got older, was I going to eat people? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
When I’d had enough of reading about Wendigos, I looked up Vetalas and Aswangs. According to the book, Vetalas were hostile creatures who could bring back the dead. They were capable of causing madness and lived between the realms of life and death. I wasn’t sure what that meant. They could see the present, past, and future. I couldn’t imagine being able to do all that.
Aswangs didn’t sound any better. They were shapeshifters with leathery wings. They robbed graves and ate dead bodies. They fed on small children and lived among Humans. I shuddered. They were monsters. We were all monsters. They had tried to dress it up and make it seem like we weren’t so bad, but we were.
If I’d known all those things about Wes and Hollis before, I would have been much more terrified.
One thing I noticed about all the Takers I read about—we thrived on death.
Hours later, a girl came in carrying a tray—at least I thought she was a girl. She had a Human girl’s body but the head of a bird. Her face was covered in white feathers, and where her nose should have been sat a yellow beak. Her hair was short, white-blond, and slicked back, while her eyes were large, brown, and birdlike. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
I looked away. I had been staring, but who wouldn’t?
She wore a tank top with gold sequins that formed the shape of lips. She placed the tray on the nightstand beside the bed and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “So you’re it, huh?”
I had no idea what she meant by that, so I said nothing. She stood over me, looking me up and down. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”
People where making a big deal about me?
“What are you?” I asked finally.
“A Harpie.”
Harpie. I hadn’t come across that in my reading. “What horrible things do you do?”
She smirked. “Been doing a little reading, huh? Sweetie, you don’t get to judge us.” Without warning, she ripped the covers from over my body. “I think we’ll go with the thigh.”
Before I could react, she had pulled a small blade from her pocket, pulled my dress up, and cut into my thigh. Her motions were quick and fluid as if she did that every day. I screamed and attempted to push her away as she inserted something that looked like a dull dime.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted as pain throbbed through the injured area. Feeling lightheaded, I stared at the bloody opening in my leg.
“Relax and stop being such a baby.” She pressed her index finger against the spot, and it healed immediately. I saw no scar, but there was still a tiny sting. “It’s a tracking device so we can find you whenever we need to. We all have one. Name’s Cadence. Welcome home.”
“This isn’t my home. I’m not living here.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you say so.” Then she wiped the blood from her blade and stalked out of the room. I didn’t like Cadence.
A few minutes later, Hollis came in carrying another bowl. Jumping up from the bed, I grabbed the empty tray Cadence had left behind on the nightstand. I hurled it at him. “You stay away from me. I mean it.”
He frowned, watching the tray clatter on the ground inches away from him. “What are you doing?”
I backed up against the wall, remembering how strong he was. If he attacked me, I couldn’t do anything about it. “I read about you. You eat children. I can’t think of anything worse than that.”
Hollis placed the bowl on a metal cart, and his shoulders slumped. Swirls of steam rose from the bowl. “That is one characteristic of an Aswang, ye
s, but that doesn’t mean we all do it. I’ve been trained since birth to control things like that. I’ve never once eaten a child, and I never would.”
I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t even know him. How would I know if he were lying to me? “What about dead bodies? The book says you eat those too.”
His face fell. “Sometimes when I’m on a hunting mission looking for someone and I’m away from home for a while . . .”
“Oh my God!” I almost gagged at the thought.
Hollis shrugged. “What? It’s not like I’m killing anyone. They’re already dead, and I have to eat. We only take what we have to.”
I could picture him digging freshly buried bodies from their graves and feasting on them or maybe snatching bodies from funeral homes. I didn’t want to know how he acquired dead people. “Get out of here and stay away from me.”
He stepped toward me again. “Stop looking at me like that. Have you ever eaten anyone? What if I assumed you’ve eaten people just because of what I read in a book? How would you like that? Besides, did I hurt your sister? I didn’t eat or harm her, and when I found out she was the wrong one, I put her back in one piece. We were very nice to her when she was here. She’s not one of us. We didn’t have to be.”
Paige had said they were nice to her. She didn’t even seem like she had been afraid. “Hollis, I’m sorry, but this is all new to me.”
He nodded, took the bowl from the cart, and handed it to me. “I understand. Eat.”
I took the bowl from him, and we both sat on the edge of the bed. The food tasted better than it had the first time.
Hollis watched me eat. “How much did you read?”
I had read so much my eyes had begun to cross, but I hadn’t even put a dent in what I needed to cover. “Some,” I replied. “I’m sorry, Hollis, but you can’t sugarcoat the fact that we’re monsters. We do horrible things, myself included. How can you be okay with that?”
“We don’t do horrible things. We are what we are. We do what we’re supposed to. We don’t hurt anyone unless we absolutely have to, and we definitely don’t hurt each other, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
A Girl Called Dust Page 15