It’s time to change the subject.
I tell her about the ‘spider’ phase I went through during my transformation. I climbed up the walls and looked down on Daniel from the roof of our room. I shot actual spider webs from my shoulders and refused to come down. I was convinced that I lived there now. Poor Daniel couldn’t get me to come down, no matter what he tried.
I was so happy up there, waiting for a meal to wander into my web.
What meal this would be, I have no idea. My mind was gone a bit strange at the time.
Angelica laughs after my story, now putting on her own shoes.
She went through a spider phase too. It’s quite common in our species. The Greek Goddess our species spawned from was a goddess of spiders after all. A lot of our powers are related them, in one way or another.
Most Arachnes also happen to adore spiders.
I feel really hungry. I just ate food so I don’t know why.
Angelica senses this. She tells me that I’ll need to ‘eat’ properly soon. This will be easy at the dance, she says. There will be humans; they will be carrying around all their delicious fears with them.
I’ll be able to see what these fears are, specific to each particular human.
I will have to draw this fear out of them, make them think of it.
All I need do is make a casual reference to the thing that frightens them, or better yet just make it appear.
Their ‘fear’ will appear in the air. My skin will absorb it. I will be satisfied, full.
I gasp, “Wait. Did you just say I’d be able to make their worst fears appear, from nowhere?”
She brushes off her dress, “Well, really talented Arachnes who practice a lot can. It will probably take a newly changed person like yourself a while to get it. I’ll show you how tomorrow if you want.”
I don’t answer. Now I know why Daniel gave her that look in English class. She made the wasps and the spiders appear.
I suddenly don’t want to go to this dance anymore. Being around humans could bring out the creature in me. I don’t want to feed on any human’s fear. Not now, not ever.
For the first time I feel truly sorry that I’ve been changed.
I ask Angelica about what happens if we don’t feed.
We die, she tells me.
There is no way of getting out of it, then. I sigh.
Angelica sits down beside me and tells me to cheer up. I’ll get used to it, she promises. It’s only hard at first.
A knock comes on the door.
I jump up, “Daniel!”
He promised that he’d come back to collect me.
Angelica has a very amused look on her face now.
I make a note not to seem so joyous next time. She could tell him.
I open the door, sure enough it’s him.
He is wearing a suit now, and hands me a bouquet of roses. There are white and red ones in it.
“Aw, thank you!” I stammer, once again wishing I could think of something better to say.
He tells me that I look very pretty tonight.
All the effort was completely worth it then.
Suddenly I feel a lot better about going to the dance.
“You’re not looking so bad yourself,” I smile at him.
Once again I forget everything else when I look into his eyes.
“Alright, Romeo and Juliet,” Angelica interrupts the moment when she comes to the door. “You can continue this sap-fest later . . . or when I’m away, preferably in a different country altogether . . . Right now it’s time to get our sorry selves to the dance!”
She seems really in the party mood all of a sudden.
Daniel laughs and three of us leave together.
I have a feeling that this will be a night to remember.
Chapter Five
There is no doubt about it. People have noticed the change in my appearance.
A lot of people are asking Daniel who his date is. They don’t even recognise me as myself.
They’ve all been very surprised when he’s told them.
Greg recognises me when we meet by the punchbowl.
He does a double take upon seeing my new appearance, “Katy?”
I greet him.
“You . . . you look . . .” He seems quite overwhelmed as he tries to find the right words, “Different. . . . I mean your eyes, they’re a different colour!”
I lie and tell him that I’m using contacts for the effect.
I also tell him that I’ve dyed my hair.
He looks like he approves, “So you played at being sick today so that you could spend the time getting ready? Little Katy Darkwood breaking rules . . . I’m so proud of you!”
I almost laugh. I wouldn’t say I was playing at being sick. Going through the change isn’t exactly a time that anyone would say they were ‘well’.
Still, I can’t tell Greg about this.
He tears his eyes away from me before glancing around. Then he produces a small bottle of alcohol from his pocket.
I realise what he’s going to do, “Greg Harshaw do not spike that punch! You could get yourself expelled!”
He smiles knowingly, “There’s my old Katy back. Tell you what, you don’t tell on me and I won’t tell on you.”
He pours a great deal of alcohol into the punch before slipping the bottle back into his pocket.
I shake my head at him.
He offers me some punch, the same old mischief in his eyes.
Then my new senses begin to kick in, just as a girl named Charlotte Mordore walks by us.
She is afraid of guns, motorcars and really enclosed spaces.
The information comes to me like a shot. It is the first time that this has happened. It completely freaks me out.
I look back at Greg.
He is severely afraid of being abandoned completely.
He has a fear of needles. There is also a guy named ‘Jack’ who features in his fears.
Cut hair, just lying on the floor, freaks him out. This fear has something to do with his Mom.
Getting his hair cut is a huge ordeal for him.
These fears formed ages ago, when he was young.
I can’t see the details.
It all seems so horrible.
“Katy, are you okay?” He asks, looking concerned.
“Em, yeah,” I can hardly speak.
Seeing his fears gave me an awful feeling about his past. I can tell it was hard.
Angelica and Daniel arrive beside us at this point.
Angelica’s worst and only fear is Rejon.
Daniel’s only fear is being buried alive. He regularly has nightmares about it.
Even the mere mention of the word ‘coffin’ would make him want to run away.
I am completely freaking out internally. There is a major information overload going on in my head.
I feel like I’m invading people’s privacy and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I don’t want to know these things about people. Fears are so personal, so dark.
“Hi guys,” Angelica says brightly.
She invites Greg to come and dance with her. Tanya told her that he’s a good dancer and she wants to see for herself.
It is very clear to me that what she wants is Greg.
I don’t say anything.
Before they leave she suggests, seemingly innocently, that he should get a haircut.
He stiffens slightly at this.
She did it on purpose.
I can almost see his fear in the air.
I don’t want to absorb it but it’s just so tempting, like having a lovely meal put in front of you.
In the end I give in, but only when Greg is already gone with Angelica.
My first Arachne meal tastes great. I really wish it didn’t.
“I feel like a terrible person,” I say solemnly to Daniel.
He laughs, “It’s Angelica who should feel horrible, you were just a bystander. Your new powers are kicking in I see
. . . It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it? You should do something to take your mind off of it.”
“Like what?” I sincerely hope he has a good answer.
He grins and holds out his hand, “Come dance with me.”
That is a good one.
I grin as I take his hand.
I may just be able to get through all this with him by my side.
He leads me out to the dance floor.
I focus on him. This helps to keep all the various human’s fears from invading my brain.
We slow dance to the vaguely romantic song that is currently being played.
I love how close he is holding me.
He looks like sin. A perfect kind of sin.
It is quite difficult to think, never mind to say anything.
“You’re awfully quiet,” he comments in that lovely voice of his.
I look down at the ground for a second and smile, “Oh, I’m just thinking. . .”
“About what?” He asks, trying to catching my eyes.
“Perfection,” I meet his eyes as I answer.
He wants to kiss me.
I know because there is a sudden fear in his mind that I’ll slap him if he does.
“You should never be afraid to take a chance on something,” I say, giving him a pretty big hint.
“I don’t know,” he answers. “This one time . . .”
He launches into some story.
I interrupt, “Daniel, shut up and kiss me!”
He looks amused. His voice goes incredibly low and sexy once again, “You are a rather special girl, aren’t you?”
He finally leans in and kisses me.
I instantly know that this is more than an ordinary kiss.
It is unlike any other I’ve experienced.
It ignites something in me that I’ve never felt before. The feeling that I want as much of him as possible, as much as he can give, if not more.
This sudden feeling is so strong, and new, that it takes me completely by surprise.
I get the feeling that Daniel Knight has awoken me somehow.
He is mine now. I am his.
We both know it.
*
I wake up the next morning. Everything is good.
I have a boyfriend.
It is a Saturday so there are no official classes.
There is just a pile of homework waiting to be done. That can wait until later.
I turn over.
Angelica suddenly shakes me violently, “Katy, get up! It’s time for breakfast!”
“We don’t have to get up today,” I moan, unmoving.
We were up until four last night. I have no idea how she is so full of energy.
She explains. We are getting up now because Nate just messaged her.
A few people are down at breakfast already, planning a trip for the day. They want us to come.
I wonder why we can’t go at a later time.
Angelica threatens to throw cold water on me if I don’t move.
She isn’t bluffing; this is Angelica we’re talking about.
I move slowly to minimise the pain and discomfort that is ‘getting up’ today.
It takes me a long time to get ready.
Angelica throws more darts at Rejon’s name as she waits for me.
I think about Daniel. He doesn’t seem half as angry at Rejon as she does. It’s no wonder she suspects her brother when you think about it.
I don’t suspect Daniel, not for a minute. I think his lack of anger comes down to the fact that he’s just a more forgiving person. Angelica would be a lot happier if she looked on the whole situation a little more like he does.
Eventually I am ready. The two of us are about to leave when I remember something important.
Mom left me a message to ring her yesterday and I never did. Between my change and the dance I was completely distracted.
I tell Angelica that I have to make a call. She doesn’t seem to mind.
She begins writing on a notepad. The title of her piece is ‘Plan for Revenge on Rejon’.
I find my phone, which had dropped down the side of my bed, and dial my Mom’s number.
It rings for longer than usual.
I am taken aback when a male voice answers, “Hi. This is Susan Orwin’s phone. Can I help you?”
I recognise the voice. It’s my Uncle Riley.
My Mom is giggling in the background. He obviously took the phone from her, joking around.
I don’t like the sound of this.
Just what is he doing in my house at eight o’ clock in the morning?
“Hi Riley. This is Katy,” I say.
There is silence at the end of the phone now. Then he answers, quite speedily, “I’ll hand you to your Mom.”
He sounds far too guilty.
I have to sit down.
They are together.
She never told me.
“Hi, Katy honey,” she says, sounding a bit more serious now.
I don’t know why but I feel betrayed.
I can’t say anything.
She talks but I don’t really hear anything. She tells me everything, just a little too late.
“Goodbye Mom. I’ll call again soon,” It is the last and first thing I say.
I am not really thinking straight. It’s like I’m in my own little vortex of shock.
I always knew that she’d probably move on from my Dad eventually. I just didn’t think it would be with his brother.
I leave for breakfast with Angelica.
She tells me of her awesome plan for revenge on Rejon.
It is a ten step plan.
Step ten of the plan is ‘kill him’.
I have to say, Angelica is a great person to have around when you need to be distracted from a problem.
*
A group of us are going to the zoo for the day.
Nate came up with the idea because he would ‘rather die’ than spend his day off ‘in this dump’. He has died his curly black hair purple. He has quite an odd appearance now, in truth. Still I respect him for what he has done for Daniel.
Daniel is gone all shy and nervous around me. I don’t think he’s used to having a girlfriend. Every time our eyes meet he looks away bashfully.
It’s kind of cute really.
Tanya is not pleased that we are together. She is sitting at a different table, a little away, and keeps giving me awful looks.
I try to ignore them as I eat my egg and toast. The chef here is rather good. She is obviously part of the school’s striving for ‘excellence’. I don’t know how she and her team manage to feed us all every day.
There are so many of us.
The mess hall itself is very large. It has a platform on which our Principal can speak to us, if he feels the need to. The wooden tables are all new, and varnished to the point of being shiny. Various school sayings have been painted on the wall in pink.
These include ‘Don’t look down on anyone. Just improve yourself.’ and my personal favourite ‘Being brilliant is a choice, not a destiny. Work for it.’
A newspaper is being handed around the table as I read these sayings.
Daniel is the first one who actually stops to read today’s news.
His fear spikes suddenly. It completely goes from zero to a hundred in a second.
I look to him as I sense this sudden spiral of fear, so does Angelica.
He is almost shaking as he hands the paper to Angelica, “I am so sorry I saw that. Take it away.”
Now I am interested.
On the front page there is a story about a recent murder.
The man was buried alive in a coffin and left to die.
I remember this is one of Daniel’s fears. That explains his reaction to the piece.
The fear hasn’t left him yet. A few of the Arachnes are feeding on it now. I am hungry but I don’t join in. I will never feed on Daniel’s fear.
The police still haven’t found the murderer in this case. They are a
ppealing for the public’s help in a case where a man was given ‘a completely terrifying death.’
I think about it. Daniel’s fear isn’t a ridiculous one.
I can’t imagine being left to die like that, confined. The police are right. The man must have been terrified.
I hope they catch whoever did this.
Angelica gets Nate’s attention when she announces that she thinks an Arachne did it. The amount of fear the perpetrator would have absorbed from the man would’ve kept one of our kind full for months.
“Don’t be silly,” Nate says. “We don’t do things like that.”
Angelica sits back, her words challenge him, “The Cezers do.”
A few of the group look uncomfortable at this.
Nate asks Angelica to have a private chat with him outside. It is obvious that she is going to get rebuked for bringing up these ‘Cezers’.
When she is gone I ask Daniel, quietly, who they are.
He tells me that they are a group, led by Rejon, who believe in killing people in order to extract their fear. Putting someone in mortal danger is, after all, a great way of terrifying them. The Cezers live by the philosophy that ‘all is fair’ when it comes to meals and look on humans as a ‘weak’ species that don’t matter.
They are the complete opposite to Nate’s group, in other words.
I can’t believe Rejon and his followers could be so heartless.
“That’s awful,” I say.
I am beginning to think that Angelica’s views on Rejon are not all that irrational.
I am so glad that I am part of this group.
Daniel notices my interest in the Cezers and tells me more.
They have their own plantation where they live. A commune that Rejon protects with his magic so that humans can’t find it.
They worship Rejon there. If humans knew about it they’d describe it as a ‘cult’.
Daniel once met a guy who’d escaped from there, after being held prisoner. He said that the Cezers are cannibals. The sick and the weak among them are the ones who are eaten. The one who eats their flesh will usually absorb their powers.
Crimes are dealt with harshly in the plantation.
Rejon has promised the Cezers that he will bring them back to Elysium. Elysium being the ‘Paradise’ we ancient creatures come from of course. He has convinced them that they are ‘chosen’ and ‘special’.
The Cezers believe Rejon when he says that he can bring them back to Elysium.
Elysium's Love Triangle Page 5