by Amira Rain
Jen dropped her gaze to her plate again, and I asked her what about other family members.
“Didn’t you say last night that there are sixty or seventy extended family members who live on this farm or something?”
She had, and I’d been quite surprised to hear it, thinking that the MacGregors were one hell of a big family.
Keeping her gaze on her plate, Jen nodded. “Yeah. There are a ton of people on this farm, and we all consider ourselves one big family, in a way…but I’m actually only blood related to people who live inside of this house, and that’s just my dad, Mel, me, Trevor, Sam, and Hayden.
Except that a couple of the people who live in other houses on the farm, like Dr. Nora, are MacGregor third cousins to me or something, but everyone else isn’t even related at all, except to their own husbands or wives or other people who live in their own houses. We’re all still part of the Watcher ‘family,’ though, and everyone in Sweetwater always calls us, like, ‘that big MacGregor family’ or whatever.
They don’t call us the Watchers or anything like that, because they don’t know about all that junk. They just think we’re like, just one big family, or a bunch of families or something, that pretty much just keep to ourselves most of the time, and like farming a lot. Kind of like some of the Amish and Mennonite people who live around Sweetwater.
In fact, a lot of the people in Sweetwater are always so surprised that my dad’s a lawyer, and that he even has his own lawyer place in Sweetwater. They’re always like, ‘Oh, we’ve never even heard of a Mennonite lawyer before!’ And my dad’s always just like, ‘We’re not Mennonites. We’re just a bunch of people who share common interests and junk, and we just all choose to live together in a family community.’ He’s not lying, either. That’s basically the definition of a Watcher community anyway.”
I was kind of desperate to ask Jen what, exactly, Watchers were, and what, specifically, they did. However, before I could ask these questions, she lifted her gaze from her plate to my face, and continued speaking with her eyes becoming a bit shiny again.
“See, I’m surrounded by all these people in a big family community, but other than my dad and dog, and now you, I just don’t feel like anyone’s ever really happy that I’m here. Most people our age just think I’m some dumb, weird, lame baby, and some kind of a complete total freak, too; and as for the grownups, some of them smile and seem like they’re happy to see me sometimes, but I think it’s just because they feel sorry for me, because I’m just a weird little freak, they probably think.
Like, Mel always says for me to act different, and not act like such a weird spaz and stuff, and not say so many weird things, but all that stuff is me. I act just like how I feel inside, and I say what I want to say, and I do what I think is cool. Am I supposed to change who I am or something? Am I supposed to start acting like a complete phony?”
Two fat tears suddenly slid down Jen’s porcelain white cheeks. Looking thoroughly irritated, she wiped them away hastily before continuing.
“See, my mom used to smile at me all the time. She always looked happy to see me. And even though I know I stressed her out sometimes, I don’t think she ever wanted me to change. I miss her.”
Feeling my own eyes becoming a little misty, I asked Jen what had happened to her mom, and she blew her nose on a paper napkin before speaking again.
“The Warrens killed her. It happened about two years ago, when…just, all this different junk was happening in the community. It was just all this different junk with the Warrens, my parents, Hayden, Hayden’s dad, who was my Uncle Declan, and even all these other different people.”
Desperate to find out more about all the “different junk” that had happened in the community, especially when it came to Hayden’s role in it, I opened my mouth to ask Jen a few questions.
However, before I could, a golden dog with the fancy name of Wanted Dearly Beloved MacGregor trotted into the room and immediately jumped up on the bed, which made the heavily laden breakfast tray threaten to topple from the pillows that Jen and I had on our laps. In the ensuing chaos of catching sliding cups and dishes while Wanted wriggled all around the bed, barking, Jen’s tears dried completely. In fact, soon she was even laughing, tossing Wanted little bites of sausage that made him whine with joy.
However, surveying her tray to find another sausage link buried beneath all the other food, she suddenly gasped, expression turning serious. “Oh, gosh. I forgot to make us some oatmeal. Do you want me to go back downstairs and make some, or are you okay with everything that’s already on your plate?”
For the second time that morning, I fought the urge to laugh with pure amusement, and instead just smiled. “I’m more than okay with everything that’s already on my plate.”
Jen exhaled heavily, as if extremely relieved. “Good, because just trust me on this…the kitchen is already more than trashed.”
I smiled, sensing that she was probably done talking about serious subjects like her mom, the Watcher community, and whatever had happened two years earlier, which was okay with me for the time being. I figured I could get more information later, when I got answers about other subjects from Hayden or Mel sometime.
Besides, at present, I was feeling content to just laugh and enjoy breakfast with Jen. It wasn’t lost on me that despite being dissimilar personality-wise, we actually both had a lot in common. For one thing, we’d both lost our moms, and for another thing, we both felt somehow “set apart” from other people, maybe in large part because we’d both lost our moms. At any rate, even though I’d only known her for two days, I was beginning to feel closer to Jen than I’d ever felt to Kayley at any point in our entire friendship.
With Wanted salivating by our feet, watching every single bite we put into our mouths, Jen and I continued eating our breakfast.
Once finished with about half her plate, which was maybe the equivalent of two normal-sized meals, or more, Jen set her fork down and reclined back against the headboard, hands behind her head, with a satisfied sigh. “Did you know we got a lake out back? It’s maybe about a mile out back, past all the farmland and junk, but it’s still on our family property, so it’s ours.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. It’s a pretty sick lake. Full of water…deep as hell. Some people even say there’s different sea creatures in it and junk, but…I don’t even really know. When I’m a vampire and unable to accidentally drown myself to death, I’m going to dive to the bottom of the lake and find out for sure what’s really down there.”
Cutting a waffle, I glanced over at her. “When do you think you might become a vampire?”
“I don’t know. Probably not anytime really soon. See, my dad won’t let me become one yet. Says I’m too immature. Not that I really even care about not being a vampire yet. Not that I really even care even a little bit, even though just about everyone else around here is.”
Sensing that Jen possibly felt a little insecure about not being a vampire, if such creatures actually existed, I tried to think of something kind to say. “Well…I’m sure that in time, maybe….”
“You want to know who’s the real immature one, though?”
“Who?”
“My dad. He has all these dumb, immature little rules for me, even though I’m a legal adult now, because I turned eighteen. And you want to know who else is immature?”
“Who?”
“Mel is. She’s actually the most immature person I’ve ever met. I usually don’t even tell people that we’re twins, because…well, she’s just embarrassing sometimes. Once you really get to know her, you’ll get what I mean.”
Not too sure about that, I worked hard to suppress a smile. “Oh. Okay.”
“So…anyway. Do you like lakes?”
I actually had to think about the question. “I like lakes.”
“Well, good. Me, too. Especially since our lake is such an awesome one. People can swim in it, and party in it, and even go skinny dipping in it if they really want to be rebe
llious against their twin sister and their dad. You ever gone skinny dipping?”
I shook my head. “No. Have you?”
“Nope. Unless you count the time that a fire hydrant blew my pants off.” With her gaze going from me to the doorway, Jen suddenly frowned. “Oh, great. Here comes Mel. Get ready to be bored out of your mind, starting now. She never allows for anything fun to happen when she’s around.”
Dressed in a tank top, pajama pants, and fuzzy black slippers, Mel had entered the room well before Jen had finished speaking; however, Jen had made no attempt to lower her voice or cut herself off, almost as if she wanted Mel to hear what she was saying.
Ignoring Jen, other than to give her a split-second glare, Mel came to a stop beside my side of the bed, arms folded loosely across her chest. “Has Jen been bothering you?”
I answered honestly. “No…not at all. In fact, she surprised me with breakfast, and we’ve actually been having a pretty interesting talk. She’s been telling me about the lake.”
Mel winced. “Sorry. And I probably don’t even need to make this clear to you, but there are no ‘sea creatures’ in the lake. They’re just a figment of Jen’s delusional thinking. See, often with twins, one is born smaller than the other, and that’s what happened with me and Jen. She was born extremely small, and she was also deprived of oxygen at birth.”
Jen banged a fist on her side of the bed. “You wish! You wish that’s what happened!”
“So, the doctors say that might have given her some brain damage. And that’s probably why she acts the way she—”
“Nope.” Scowling, Jen shook her head. “Nope. Sydney, let me tell you the real reason I was all messed up at birth. See, Mel, here, tried to strangle me when we were in our mom’s stomach.”
Mel shook her head. “That’s actually not true.”
“She did that because she’d decided that she wanted to be our parents’ only child. She just couldn’t stand the thought of having to share the limelight with anyone else. She even launched her plan in motion even months before we were born, by stealing all the nutrients in our mom’s stomach and hogging them all for herself. That’s why she was born at a roly-poly six pounds exactly, and I was born weighing only two pounds and an ounce.”
Mel moved her head in a small nod of agreement. “Well, that part is true. She was born extremely small, and was, in fact, barely clinging to life.”
“Because you stole my food, and then tried to strangle me.”
Mel shook her head. “No.”
“Yes. Just admit it one of these days, Mel, and then maybe I’ll forgive you. But I can’t forgive someone who doesn’t even own up to what they did.”
Mel’s only response was a deep sigh and a roll of her eyes, and the two of them fell silent. But just briefly. That was when Mel’s eagle-eyed gaze seemed to fall upon the book of matches Jen had used, all the way across the room on the writing desk. When she’d been present at the cake party the night before, she hadn’t seemed to see them.
Wearing a very small yet somehow triumphant-looking sort of smile, Mel shifted her gaze from the writing desk to Jen. “You lit the candles last night, didn’t you? I’m telling dad that you used matches without him being present.”
Still scowling, Jen snorted. “Or, you could decide to be a nice sister for once and not tell him. He was already asleep when I did it anyway, so his rules on me didn’t even apply.”
Now Mel snorted. “That’s not how rules work. They don’t just vaporize when the person who made them is asleep.”
“Yeah, well, how about the rule of not having a fight with a pregnant girl right smack in the middle of it? Isn’t that some kind of a rule for all normal, good people or something?”
Mel glared at Jen, but then shifted her gaze to me with a normal expression, reddening slightly. “Sorry about all of this. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t bugging you. I’m going to go do some reading and painting in my room, and then take a shower. I’m just two rooms down toward the end of the hallway, on your left. Please come get me if you need anything, or if Jen starts to annoy you.”
I said thanks, but that I didn’t think she would. “And even if she ever does, she’s my friend, so I’ll just tell her myself that I need some space.”
On my right, Jen brought her hands together with a loud clap. “Ha! Sydney’s my friend. My friend.”
Huffing and rolling her eyes, Mel left the room.
A short while later, seeming to be in some sort of a food coma, Jen fell asleep watching cartoons in my bed. Having been fed numerous bites of scrambled eggs and sausage, Wanted was curled up right next to her, fast asleep himself.
I’d already transferred the breakfast tray to the writing desk so that he couldn’t help himself to the piles and piles of leftovers still on the plates, and I now decided to take the tray downstairs, cover all the food, and put it in the fridge so that Jen and I could eat the rest for lunch or dinner, or both. There was still so much food left that I figured we could probably even make it stretch to breakfast again the next day.
Before grabbing the tray, I slipped on a pair of tennis shoes and also pulled out a zip-up hoodie from my dresser, deciding that maybe I’d go for a little walk outside the house after putting all the food away. After all, being that I’d been apparently unconscious when I’d been taken into the house after my fainting spell, I didn’t even know what the outside of the house looked like, or the farm, or anything.
Also, part of me was kind of eager to see Hayden for some reason, and I figured that if I didn’t run into him downstairs, maybe he’d be outside, possibly doing some kind of early morning farm chores or something.
Little did I know that in just a short while, I would be running into Hayden. However, I’d also soon be running away from him, terrified.
CHAPTER TEN
It turned out that the MacGregor family house was actually more like the MacGregor family mansion. The night before, Jen had told me that the house was “huge,” and when I’d gone out in the hallway to talk to Hayden, I’d seen for myself that the second floor was indeed vast; however, I’d had no idea just how vast the whole thing actually was.
Walking down the second-floor hallway with the tray, I began counting bedrooms, backtracked to the end of the hallway, and then counted seven bedrooms in total before reaching the stairway. Judging by the spacing between each bedroom door, these were all large bedrooms, too, probably even as large as mine, which was saying something.
I guessed that some of these bedrooms had in-room bathrooms like mine did as well, even though there was also a spacious regular bathroom by the stairway, as I saw when I poked my head in through the open door.
The stairs, like the hallway flooring and flooring in my bedroom, were hardwood, and near the end of them, they made a quarter-turn to a rug-covered landing, which was followed by three more stairs. These stairs led directly into a large dining room with a granite fireplace, and a long rectangular table that could seat ten. A door adjacent to the dining room was flanked by two wide windows, and a peek out one of them revealed what I guessed was a wraparound porch, or at least a porch on that side of the house anyway, with a little grass and then dense forestland beyond.
Liking the house already, I imagined myself having breakfast out on the porch, maybe even lunch and dinner, too, sometimes. Probably accompanied by Jen, of course, but maybe Hayden, I thought. Just maybe once we could straighten out all the crazy vampire and magical pregnancy business, if we ever could.
The dining room was part of one huge, open room that also included a living room. Not wanting to appear like I was snooping in case anyone was around, I investigated the living room just briefly, liking the overstuffed sand-colored couches, little assortment of antique glass bottles on the bookshelves, and the half-dozen or so jade-green plants on wooden stands. Thinking that the house kind of had a “country chic” sort of vibe, I began to like it more and more.
A short hallway led to a spacious kitchen, which was well-li
t, modern, and decorated with lots of antique pop and candy memorabilia, which contrasted with the modern granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances in a way I found interesting but not jarring.
It was as if in the kitchen, the past was perfectly content to reside side-by-side with the present. Highlighting this, a framed poster of a cola ad from probably seventy years earlier hung adjacent to a backsplash made from tiny, stainless steel tiles, yet neither the old or the new looked out of place at all. I was starting to get a feel for whoever had decorated the kitchen, although something told me that it hadn’t been Mel or Jen. Their mom maybe, I thought.
In the center of the kitchen was a granite-topped island, and on top of the island sat a note, which I read once I saw my name near the top.
Good morning Sydney,
Writing this just in case you wake up before the other girls. Mel only sleeps an hour or two a night, so she should be up before you, but just in case.
Please make yourself at home, and fix whatever you’d like for breakfast. We keep a lot of food in the house for Jen, and you’re more than welcome to help yourself to anything.
Hayden, Trevor, Sam, and I need to go deal with an issue, but we’ll all be back later.
Hope you’re feeling all right. Have a good day. -Mark
I thought it was nice that he’d thought to write me a note, but I wondered if he could have possibly been more cryptic about where he, Hayden, Trevor, and Sam were, what they were doing, and when they’d be back.
After setting the note back on the island, I went about putting all the dirty pans Jen had left on the stove in a sink full of warm, soapy water to soak for a while, and then I put all the leftovers on our breakfast tray away in the fridge. After that, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Sunlight streaming in through the curtained kitchen windows told me that it was a beautiful spring morning, and I began having thoughts about taking a walk to see the farm and the house like I’d been wanting to.