“One, two, three –” we simultaneously clapped our hands twice and the sky immediately broke out in barbarous deluge and backbiting lightning and thunder.
CHAPTER 13.
Told and Cautioned
I slept with my mouth wide open, beaten and dribbling on my pillows. It was morning and the sky was a bright, completely earthy blue. My upper lip flinched and I snored as the door flung open. I suddenly heard the loud knocking of stilettos; mum came in, very engaged in putting on her earrings whilst starting to nudge me. She shook me several times but with one shake, I stirred and merely turned on my side. She gave up on me and tried to wake Liam, Jaden and Robbie up, but they never moved a muscle. Mum was curious and exceedingly inquisitive as to the cause of our tiredness.
She strutted out of the room, partly infuriated at our unmoving bodies that refused to wake up. But as she did, something caught her attention. She saw a bright red klaxon on the computer desk that said “BEOWULF, be there!” Mum stared harder at the klaxon, eyes squinted, as she tried to pinpoint whether this thing was actually there, mocking her and slapping her in the face as we had managed to sneak out without her knowledge and insult her authority, or whether she was simply imagining what she thought was an abomination. At that instance, when she knew she wasn’t hallucinating, she finally blinked her long-lashed eyes. She went into the girls’ room without making a single sound. She took the chair from their computer desk slowly and slammed it on the ground as hard as she could. She sat on it, facing the backrest whilst resting her head on her arms. The trio immediately sprang up like and sat upright.
“When and what time?” mum asked.
“What?” Jade and Tammy asked, dazed; Jojo took a long yawn.
“Don’t play dumb. What time?”
“Well –” mum thought hard and suddenly found what she was looking for in their heads.
“One O’clock? Are you all insane? You have school today!” she said, her eyes somehow shaping themselves to almonds. The girls were suddenly wide awake.
“Wait a second, who gave you money?”
“Well, it was more of –”
“Tantrus, wasn’t it? Lucky he’s gone to work,” muttered mum under her breath.
“Well, hurry up! Go take your showers and get dressed!” she snapped. Mum hastily walked back into the room and clapped her hands twice reverberatingly.
“WAKE UP!” she yelled loud enough for us to obey. We languidly lifted our heads that had been embedded to our pillows and shifted our bodies that had been cocooned to the duvets, attached to them. Our faces were engraved in creases and we couldn’t help but squint at the blinding light that pierced our retinas.
“IS THERE ANOTHER WORLD WAR?!”Robbie suddenly sat up, paranoid, as he suddenly awoke.
“Yes, yes there is. A war where mothers kill the children in their household if they don’t get dressed for school! It’s not a request it’s a demand. We only have less than twenty minutes to get prepared and get you guys going to Cressile.” That unpleasant phrase was able to grab our attention no doubt. Anne rushed upstairs with the uniforms and placed them on our beds, doing the same for the girls.
She too was rushing up and down sorting out her earrings and shoes. They both looked as if they were getting ready to go out – but of course, going to work was just another excuse for mum and Anne to dress up extravagantly. I stood up, stretched my elastic body to the point where I felt overly relaxed and let out a lengthy sigh. I bent down and looked at the uniforms whilst Jaden went into the bathroom with his black towel, shower gel, deodorant and uniform. I looked closely at the uniform, disbelieving that the weekend was already over and that it was already November the seventeenth. We were unimaginably close to December and I didn’t want to die. Looking at the way time flew by, who knew how soon the time to confront the Barons would come?
Moments later, Jaden walked out with his wet hair sagging just above his shoulders and his eyes a feline yellow until he shook his head maddeningly. His eyes returned to normal but his hair retained its natural craziness. He looked smart and very well-mannered in his uniform. For a strange and incomprehensible reason, it made Jaden look taller and more like a senior. Soon, Liam went to occupy the bathroom. He came out moments later permitting Robbie to do the same, and finally – as usual – me.
Whilst in the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. My wet blue hair was going to cause a problem for me, so I focused hard enough to change my eyes to their fiery red colour, causing my hair to follow. My hair heated up and dried itself from the water. For the sake of it, just to play around, I ignited my hands a few times and put them underwater, listening to the loud sizzle that sounded as the flames were extinguished painlessly. I looked to the side of the sink and saw a black hair band which I took to tie my hair with, leaving a couple of strands to dangle over my right eye just like Dorian.
My eyes still stayed red, however. I walked out of the bathroom, releasing steam from inside it as the girls rushed into the room, followed by Anne and mum.
“Mum, where’s dad?” asked Jojo
“Oh, he’s already at the Supremacy.”
“Wait, I thought Tantrus was still our maths teacher?” asked Jaden.
“Sure, he still is. But he’s also a Senkon, remember,” she replied.
“What’s a Senkon?” I quickly asked. As mum was busily tying her long smooth coils of golden blonde hair, she gave Anne a suspicious look and they avoided my question altogether.
“All right, off you go! Liam will drive you,” mum said. Robbie looked down to his forearm and saw his Revelion clearly showing. He pulled down his blazer’s sleeve to cover his precious, yet lifelong, gift. Liam did the same with the two black metal wrist cuffs he had on which he never seemed to remove. Mum clapped her hands, again grabbing our attention. The girls led the way and went downstairs. I grabbed my mother’s hand tightly as she attempted to leave. I looked at her, leaving my eyes anchored to hers so strangely that she passed through my mind without even noticing.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” my voice said. She subconsciously nodded and I softened my gaze towards her. She looked at Jaden who left with the other boys and then back at me. The majestic doors glided shut with a loud hollow sound as soon as Jaden had disappeared through them.
“What is it?” she asked
“I was going to ask if there was any reason why we didn’t get to grow up here.” Mum turned around as if she were feeling incredibly disgraced and ran her cold hands through her thick flaxen hair.
“Listen…Jordan –” Mum scoffed but sounded as if she were choking. “Aden, I love you, your sister and your brother very much. But when your father died it – things became complicated. I did not want you to go through all the pain and – and torture that you would have to face. Rest assured you might have not known about your powers. But I would have rather kept my three children safe than to let them die out of my choice of keeping them here.”
“Wait, what pain, mum? And what death? What are you talking about?” I asked. She sighed but seemed very unwilling to answer. I guess she was trying to hide something because she immediately lost eye contact with me. Her sharp blue eyes stared at the ground, fixed on it as if she was searching for something that wasn’t there.
“Mum?” I asked again.
Her eyes were swimming in an ocean of fog and mystery. They weren’t tears, but she was hiding something from me. It actually almost made my skin crawl and then suddenly –
The car’s honk sounded.
“Go. I don’t want you to be late for school,” she said, hurrying me to leave and painting a fake smile onto her face.
“What about the Adherings on my teeth?” I asked.
“They’ll be covered up once you cross to Earth,” mum once again pointed out.
I walked out of the door, left in utter suspense as to what mum could possibly have been hiding. That look in her eyes…that gaze…that stare…that fog – it wasn’t like normal. She was burying something of
great importance and something told me she wasn’t going to tell me anytime soon. But why would she hesitate to tell me? I was able to take the news about the Barons well enough – despite being haunted by what I think is a Samhain ghost, attacked at my previous home and then at school. I stood at the top of the steps in front of the house and remained motionless for some time. Another loud and sudden honk from Liam’s beloved car struck me back to reality and ended my brief contemplation of what information I was being deprived of.
“At the rate he’s going the Barons will be out in no time –” Liam bantered underneath his breath “– OY! HURRY UP!” Jojo yelled, stretching over to the driver’s seat and sadistically pressing down on the horn like a hysteric sheep.
“All right, all right. I’m coming,” I responded. I ran outside, through the sun-pierced shade of the aisle of oak trees, and slid into the car, slamming it shut. Liam drove around whilst Anne opened a glowing green and white triangular portal.
After we had crossed, I was just left to ponder on what my mum was keeping from me and what death she could have possibly been speaking of. We planned to wait it out but if we weren’t ready before Christmas, how were we supposed to close the doors? Besides, I didn’t understand why they didn’t side with me. The quicker we closed the Cavern doors, the greater chance we’d be kept safe from the Barons – what about this was complicated to understand? It was simple, God-given logic which I thought super smart aliens would have.
I shut my eyes. I just didn’t want to think about what she could’ve possibly been keeping trapped in her head. But simultaneously, the information was calling me, more tempting than anything I’d ever wanted. But I knew I couldn’t get it; mum’s head was practically Pandora’s Box. Nothing could get in because of her telepathy but should everything get out, I doubt I would survive any of the secrets she had buried. I’d go insane and would want everything to return to normal, no matter how ridiculously impossible it would be. With my eyes closed, I tried to let my worries drift away, but that’s not what happened. I felt myself slowly elevate, my troubles shooting out of me like my soul was being pulled out of my body to be projected overhead to millions of people. That’s exactly what happened. All the troubles that squirmed and writhed inside my head, leaving me unsteady, were vacuumed out of me and shot into the sky. No one saw. In fact, they noticed nothing. There was nothing to notice – but I felt it. I knew that it was exactly what had happened because the moment my lashes slowly untwined, allowing my eyes to flicker open, the heavens were sheeted with a mass of dark grey clouds, each layer darker than the previous. The entire neighbourhood was thrown into obscurity as we watched the light run away from us whilst the clouds continued to build up in the sky. My eyes had been disguised to hazel due to my being on Earth, but they quickly flickered to my magnificent blue shade as I looked up above. The clouds suddenly let out their eruption of rain, blistering against the windscreen at such ferocious velocity and speed that I was bracing myself for the second where the windows and windscreen would shatter.
We drove underneath the arch of trees in our former neighbourhood outside of our previous house in Richmond, still abandoned and still in ruins. The pitter-patter of the raindrops created the perfect atmosphere to think. But no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t shake that suspense mum had left on me. What about this planet could have so horribly killed me or put me in danger? And better still, why? Since I was so eager to know, I resolved to the only thing left for me to do: ask.
“Robbie, you were alive about six hundred years ago, right?” I asked.
“Two thousand, six hundred and twenty-eight, approximately – why –?”
“And when did my mum and the Wittles find you?” I quickly pounced on him with more questions. Robbie’s face was somehow horror-stricken. Tammy shot him a look telling him to be cautious.
“About three hundred years ago.”
“Wouldn’t you have been kids by then?” Jade asked, befuddled.
“It’s much more complicated than that. You might not understand,” Robbie said, shaking his head and looking away.
“Actually, it was much less than that; around a hundred years,” Tammy quickly corrected, still staring at her brother.
“I remember it as two hundred actually,” Liam spoke up, his hands firmly gripping the steering wheel.
“Wait, you were all alive then?” Jaden asked, shocked.
“Of course. They are siblings,” Jojo immediately answered.
“Anyway, Aden, what was your point?” Robbie quickly summarised.
“Well,” I began, slightly itching to get my answer; I thought if Robbie was alive at the time, then he must have had an answer to this, “was my father already dead when you guys were found?” I asked, surprisingly not upset but just so curious that I was unaware of what was coming out of my mouth.
Tammy’s eyes instantly shot to Robbie and quickly shone to pink. He was about to speak when she instantly answered “no. Your father died only a while back,” she added.
“BRILLIANT!” I lit up. So he’d be able to answer my questions. “Well you see –”
“Aden!” Jade exclaimed disappointedly. What did I do wrong? It took me a while to acknowledge that the enthusiasm with which I had reacted was a bit inappropriate for the particular topic of the conversation – dad.
“No, no, no – you understood me wrong. I meant brilliant as in,” I turned to Robbie and continued the rest of my statement towards him “you know what happened at the time. Mum said she didn’t want us to grow up here because she was keeping us ‘safe’– whatever that means. But safe from what?” At that instance, Robbie’s warm chocolate tone froze to lifeless, pale brown. I think he had found me my answer. Finally, I could be rid of this burden of suspense. But he was keeping silent. Why was he keeping silent? Oh, not him too.
“Well?” I hassled.
“The Hybrid Roundup,” he answered.
“The what?” Jaden, Jade and I instantly exclaimed.
“The Hybrid Roundup – they captured all hybrids because the much older monarchy thought they were a danger to Vernaesce. I don’t think Mychaela’s father was king at the time. A fair few fled to Earth to carry on their lives, trying to forget about Vernaesce.”
“And…what happened to those that stayed?” Jaden asked cautiously, treading on eggshells. Robbie gulped.
“They were put to death.”
I suddenly wished I wasn’t so inquisitive.
After a few minutes of severe pondering, Cressile stood in front of us more grand than it ever was before underneath the rain that crashed against it. My heart began to pound. I didn’t know why, but it suddenly began to thump – it wasn’t an ache, but they were strong heartbeats of fright, almost as if something about me were to be revealed or as though I were in danger. I couldn’t describe it word for word as I felt it – but I knew something was coming.
Several cars pulled in. In the school grounds, gliding to the doors in the grey deluge, marched the students uniformly, underneath green, black and white umbrellas. This reminded me of a prison – how the school was so orderly and kept in line. Robbie leaned backwards and pulled out seven umbrellas that were the same as the ones the other students were carrying. Liam parked the car with a halt. We stepped out of the vehicle, lifting the umbrellas directly above our heads. We walked through the main school building hall, which felt a little plainer than usual. Or maybe it was just me.
At that instance, I seemed to have become scared and frightened of something – but I didn’t know what. I looked around suspiciously with a deep feeling of paranoia that had rooted itself into my heart as I seemed to be constantly on my guard. But nothing was there. This feeling of constant dread and anxiety was starting to settle into more than just my subconscious now. I knew it wasn’t just a hunch anymore. Something was going to happen but there was no possible way of knowing what.
“A.J., are you okay?” Jaden asked me, obviously referring to my suspicious and paranoid observance of my su
rroundings. My eyes were opened wide and maddeningly, my hand now gripping my rucksack’s handle and my brown ponytailed hair brushing over my shoulders as I looked around every so often.
“I just feel so…vulnerable. I don’t feel well at all,” I responded. The others looked at each other uncertainly. The bell rang again, signalling our separation. Liam and Jade sighed deeply.
“Look, Aden, we have to go. But if something happens – we’re down the hall,” Liam gestured. In my dizziness, the others pulled me along with them into the class.
We marched to our usual spot – the table still by the window. Our view of the tree remained undisturbed as it swayed in the cold rain. We slid our bags onto the backs of our seats and sat down. A bevy of girls swayed into the class screaming about unnecessary things. I put my head down on the table and tried so hard to separate these rushing feelings, these warnings.
A blank seat stood opposite me and I stared at it whilst the others were busily talking. Suddenly, a boy walked into the class and looked around, trying to detect our presence. When he noticed us, he trudged over to our table, looking ragged, as he plonked himself on the seat, leaving his bag on the floor – Nicholas.
“Urgh, you cannot believe the mess I had to put up with yesterday night – hey guys,” Nicholas instantly began.
“Hey, Nicholas,” the others hummed in a low-key chorus.
He caught sight of me and was instantly shot into confusion.
“A.J., mate, what’s wrong?” I groaned underneath my hands wrapped over my head. Besides the strange and unprecedented feeling I felt moments ago, I began to feel extremely hot; my hair became drenched in sweat. Plus, a feeling of queasiness began to develop in my stomach – like I’d throw up if I even moved a limb.
My Aerokinesis suddenly picked up the knocking of Miss Strottman’s heels against the ground. Promptly, whilst I wallowed in my heat, nausea and confusing mental feelings, she entered. Of course, as if she were picking on me, she instantly barked to me first as she strode on over to her desk fiercely and seated herself like the delicate flower she falsely believed she was.
Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) Page 31